Cognitive Psychology Essay

Cognitive Psychology draws the comparison between the human mind and a computer, suggesting that we like the computer process the information we acquire from around us and then react accordingly. Hearnshaw, (1987), claims that Cognitive Psychology is both one of the oldest and also one of the newest parts of Psychology, cited in ?T. Malim?, (1994). Information is collected through our senses i.e. vision, touch, smell etc and then processed through our

The changes in how different psychological processes were identified and understood in the 1950s and 1960s is what many refer to as the “cognitive revolution.” The introduction of research in problems that have already been met - for instance, studying problems of memory and decision making - led to the new approach of theorizing. The cognitive revolution focused on just a couple of key concepts. One idea that stemmed during the cognitive revolution is that the science of psychology cannot direct study the mental world. Another idea that grew during the cognitive revolution was that in order to understand behavior, the science of psychology has to study the mental world (Cognition, pg. 8).

The five main areas of study in cognitive psychology are: perception, memory, attention, language and idiographic techniques. Cognitive psychology revolves around the idea that in order to analyse someone’s behaviour, you have to know exactly what’s going on in their minds. Behaviourists believe that the cognitive approach can’t be studied as we can’t see what’s happening in someone’s mind, therefore we can’t measure the internal behaviour. However, the cognitive approach argue that the internal behaviour can be studied using a range of experiments. The cognitive approach can be easily combined with other approaches to bring out positive results. For example, Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy is a successful form of treatment for many issues including sleep disorders and phobias.

The 20th century saw a response to Edward Titchener’s critique of Wundt’s experimentation. This contributed to the study of behaviorism by John Watson. Behaviorism was proposed to emphasizing the study of obvious behavior. In the final decades of the 20th century saw a rise of the cognitive science which is a interdisciplinary approach to studying the human mind. Cognitive science considers the mind as subject for investigation

Cognitive psychology is the study of mental processes surrounding learning, memory, perception, and thought. Though it is still a relatively new formal branch of psychology, its roots extend back to Descartes who sought a way to explain how the mind worked, proposing the analogy of a “hydraulic system of nerve function” (Willingham, 2007, p. 26) after he observed animated statues in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. It has been the restless pursuit of not only the idea of how the mind works but also what exactly constituted the mind that eventually led to the foundations of cognitive theory. As psychologists examined how

According to G. Miller of Princeton University, cognitive psychology is an approach to psychology that emphasizes internal mental processes. So, “since the beginning of experimental psychology in the nineteenth century, there had been interest in the study of higher mental processes. But something discontinuous happened in the late 1950s, something so dramatic that it is now referred to as the ‘cognitive revolution,’ and the view of mental processes that it spawned is called ‘cognitive psychology.’ What happened was that American psychologists rejected behaviorism and adopted a model of mind

Before cognitive psychology came to be, there were two practices that let to what is known as the cognitive revolution. These two practices are known as introspection and behaviorism. These two practices are very different in the theory behind them as well as the problems behind them.

They look into structural changes within the nerve cells and the nervous system as a whole. Another form is evolutional psychology. In this, scientists study how human survival throughout time has shaped our physical structure and behavior. These scientist believe human behavior today was shaped on our ancestors survival and reproduction. An example would be how humans can remember faces, particuarly ones that have wronged us in the past (Barclay & Lalumiere, 2006). This comes from centuries ago; if hunters were wronged out of their crops or hunts, it could lead to their family starving and even dying. If you could not remember the faces of who wronged you, your likeihood to survive was small. Cognitive psychology is the next form and it focuses on the thinking process and how we process information. Cognitive psychologist focus their studies on how we store and retrieve memories and how we can make the process more efficient. They ask why we recall information differently in certain situations like taking a test versus riding a bike. They also focus on why do we experience times where we cannot remember a certain word or phrase, but can only recall the first letter, otherwise known as

| This field of psychology analyzes the mental processes, which are responsible for behavior. It deals with the study of problem-solving, information processing, memory and emotional abilities of human beings.

Cognitive psychology is the scientific investigation of human cognition, that is, all our mental abilities – perceiving, learning, remembering, thinking, reasoning, and understanding. The term “cognition” stems from the Latin word “

Cognition is the mental actions of gaining knowledge, processing and understanding through perception, experience, and the senses. The notion of cognition is closely related to such intellectual concepts as mind, reasoning, perception, intelligence, and learning that outline numerous capabilities of human mind and expected properties of synthetic intelligence. Therefore, cognitive science has been brought out to examine what cognition is, what it does and how it works. According to Paul Thagard (2010), cognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of human mind and intelligence. The aim is to understand the phenomena of thinking and the relationship between brain and mind. In general, cognitive science can be classified into six major applied branches: linguistics, artificial intelligence, philosophy, cognitive psychology, cognitive anthropology and cognitive neuroscience (refer to Figure 1 in Appendix 1).

As the circuit board of a computer, data streams through the channels of the mind at lightning-fast speed. However, what happens when you lose this essential function? Once lost, a person could immediately understand the absolute need for it. The need to understand how information is stored and recalled was thought not so widely followed through until the concept of cognitive psychology came along. Cognitive Psychology is broadly known as the study to understand the deep complexity of processing and recalling information which can determine our behaviors and feelings. There are three main focuses which contribute to the study of cognitive psychology. The first is a memory which can be looked at as the storage of information, both immediately and stored throughout a given length of time. Of course, a well-working memory can help or hinder someone which causes it to be studied in cognitive psychology frequently. The second area focused on this particular system is perception. Perception plays a vital role in how we as individuals view and interpret the environment around us, and combine with the values and beliefs on why we are interpreting this information in a particular way. Learning is the last of the three areas and most exciting when an individual develops the idea or path to adapt to what is being presented change direction. (Careers In Psychology, n.d.)

The theory of Cognitive psychology looks at any individual as the source of processing the information just any computer which perceives the input in the form of information and then processing it with the help of already installed information related to it and then it is given out as an output by following the program. It is still possible to study the mental position of the mind through meditational processes involving attention, perception and memory. These are the stages in processing the information in a human mind. Objects, information, scenarios are always present here in our environment and we respond to them through several actions and reactions of our mind capability. Whenever a person looks at an object through his eyes, he will look at it only when he will pay attention to that object. (Hugenberg, 2010)

Cognitive and affective psychology is the empirical branch of psychology, which aims to answer all questions regarding human activities, related to knowledge and emotions, such as, how we think, learn, and remember. It is grounded on the theory that thoughts and emotions affect our behavior; furthermore, behavior can be changed through a modification of our thoughts or emotions. Cognitive psychologists examine how our minds obtain, apply, organize, and retrieve information. In addition, the topics of attention, decision-making, critical thinking, reasoning, creativity, memory, perception, problem solving, thinking, and the use of language, all reside under the branch of

Cognition Psychology is the scientific investigation of the human cognition. It deals with all our mental abilities. The major focus on the cognition psychology is on the way people acquire knowledge and apply it.