Cognitive psychology studies mental processes such as thinking, memory, and problem-solving, focusing on how people acquire, process, and store information. This field emerged in the mid-20th century, marking a shift from behaviorism and emphasizing the internal processes involved in behavior. Key applications include education, therapy, and understanding cognitive development, employing methodologies like lab experiments and information processing models.

1. Cognitive Psychology
by
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2. Cognitive Psychology
 Cognitive psychology is a relatively young branch of psychology, yet it has
quickly grown to become one of the most popular subfields.
 Few Practical Application of Cognitive Psychology(Science)
 Thinking,
 decision-making/increasing decision making accuracy,
 problem-solving,
 learning /structuring educational curricula to enhance learning ,
 attention,
 Memory/Improving memory,
 forgetting, and
 language acquisition
 But what exactly is cognitive psychology?
 What do cognitive psychologists do?

3. A Closer Look at Cognitive
Psychology
 Cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology that studies mental
processes including how people think, perceive, remember, and learn.
 As part of the larger field of cognitive science, this branch of psychology is
related to other disciplines including
 neuroscience,
 philosophy, and
 linguistics.
 The core focus of cognitive psychology is on how people
 acquire,
 process and
 store information.
 Cognitive Psychology revolves around the notion that if we want to know
what makes people tick then we need to understand the internal
processes of their mind.
 Cognition literally means “knowing”.
 In other words, cognitive psychology refers to the study of human mental
processes and their role in thinking, feeling, and behaving

4. A Brief History of Cognitive
Psychology
 Until the 1950s, Behaviorism was the dominant school of thought in
psychology.
 Between 1950 and 1970, the tide began to shift against behavioral
psychology to focus on topics such as attention, memory and problem-
solving. Often referred to as the cognitive revolution,
 this period generated considerable research on topics including processing
models, cognitive research methods and the first use of the term "cognitive
psychology."
 Norbert Wiener (1948) published Cybernetics: or Control and
Communication in the Animal and the Machine, introducing terms such as
input and output.
 * Tolman (1948) work on cognitive maps – training rats in mazes, showed
that animals had internal representation of behavior.
 * Birth of Cognitive Psychology often dated back to George Miller’s (1956)
“The Magical Number 7 Plus or Minus 2.”
 * Newell and Simon’s (1972) development of the General Problem Solver.
 * In 1960, Miller founded the Center for Cognitive Studies at Harvard with

5. A Brief History of Cognitive
Psychology
 * Ulric Neisser (1967) publishes "Cognitive Psychology", which marks the
official beginning of the cognitive approach.
 According to Neisser, cognition involves "all processes by which the
sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered,
and used It is concerned with these processes even when they operate
in the absence of relevant stimulation, as in images and
hallucinations...Given such a sweeping definition, it is apparent that
cognition is involved in everything a human being might possibly do;
that every psychological phenomenon is a cognitive phenomenon.”
 * Process models of memory Atkinson & Shiffrin’s (1968) Multi Store Model.
 * Cognitive approach highly influential in all areas of psychology (e.g.
biological, social, behaviorism, development etc.).

6.  The information processing approach is based on a number of
assumptions, including:
 Information made available from the environment is processed by a series of
processing systems (e.g. attention, perception, short-term memory);
 These processing systems transform, or alter the information in systematic
ways;
 The aim of research is to specify the processes and structures that underlie
cognitive performance;
 Information processing in humans resembles that in computers.

7. Mediational Processes
 The behaviorists approach only studies external
observable (stimulus and response) behaviour which can
be objectively measured. They believe that internal
behaviour cannot be studied because we cannot see
what happens in a person’s mind (and therefore
cannot objectively measure it).
 In comparison, the cognitive approach believes that
internal mental behaviour can be scientifically studied
using experiments.
 Cognitive psychology assumes that a mediational
process occurs between stimulus/input and
response/output.

8. The mediational (i.e. mental) event could
be memory, perception, attention or problem solving etc. These are known
as mediational processes because they mediate (i.e. go-between) between the
stimulus and the response. They come after the stimulus and before the
response.
Therefore, cognitive psychologists’ say if you want to understand behaviour,
you have to understand these mediational processes.

11. Cognitive approach Summary
Key features methodology
Mediational Process Lab Experiments
Information Processing Introspection(Wundt)
Computer analogy Memory
Psychology(Kohelberg,Piaget)
Nomothetic (Studies in group) Interviews(KF,HM)
Schema Case Studies(Piaget)
Machine Reductionism Computer Modeling

12. Cognitive approach Summary
Basic Assumptions Areas of Application
 Cognitive psychology is a pure
science, based mainly on
laboratory experiments.
 Behavior can be largely explained
in terms of how the mind operates,
i.e. the information processing
approach.
 The mind works in a way similar to
a computer: inputting, storing and
retrieving data.
 Mediational processes occur
between stimulus and response.
 Moral Development
(Kohlberg, Piaget)
 Eyewitness Testimony
 Memory
 Forgetting
 Selective Attention
 Perception
 Child Development (Piaget)
 Language Acquisition
 Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
 Learning Styles (Kolb)
 Information Processing
 Cognitive Interview
 Education
(Vygotsky, Bruner, Piaget)
 Abnormal
Behavior (e.g. Depression

13. Cognitive approach Summary
Strengths Limitations
 Scientific
 Highly applicable (e.g.
therapy, EWT)
 Combines easily with
approaches:
• behaviorism + Cog = Social
Learning
• Biology + Cog = Evolutionary
Psy
 Many empirical studies to
support theories
 Ignores biology (e.g.
testosterone)
 Experiments - low ecological
validity
 Humanism - rejects scientific
method
 Behaviorism - can’t
objectively study unobservable
behavior
 Introspection is subjective
 Machine reductionism

14. Important People in the History of Cognitive
Psychology
 Gustav Fechner
 Wilhelm Wundt
 Edward B. Titchener
 Hermann Ebbinghaus
 William James
 Wolfgang Kohler
 Edward Tolman
 Jean Piaget
 Noam Chomsky
 David Rumelhart
 James McClelland

15. Major Topics in Cognitive Psychology
 Perception
 Language
 Attention
 Memory
 Problem-Solving
 Decision-Making and Judgment
 Intelligence

16. Major Topics in Cognitive Psychology
 Studying what’s happening in a person thoughts is not always the easiest
thing to do.
 Very early in psychology’s history, Wilhelm Wundt attempted to use a
process known as introspection to study what was happening in a
person’s mind.
 This involved training people focus on their internal states and then
write down what they were feeling, thinking, or experiencing.
 This approach being subjective, did not last long as a cognitive research
tool.
 To study the human mind, cognitive psychologists have developed different
models to represent how the thinking works.
 One of the most popular of these is the information-processing model.
 In this approach, the mind is thought of much like a computer.
 Thoughts and memories are broken down into smaller units of knowledge.
 As information enter the mind through the senses, it is then
manipulated by the brain that must then determine what do to with
the information.

17. Units of Knowledge
 Cognitive psychologists often break down these units of knowledge into three
different types: concepts, prototypes, and schemas.
 A concept is essentially a larger category of knowledge.
 Similar items are grouped together in the mind under this broad category.
 You have concepts for things that are concrete such as a horse or a dog,
as well as concepts for abstract ideas such as love, beauty, and gravity.
 A prototype is the most prominent and recognizable example of a particular
concept.
 For example, what comes to mind when you think of a bed.
 If a large, four-poster bed immediately springs to mind, that is your
prototype for the concept of a bed.
 If a futon, crib, or platform bed pops into your mind, then that would be
your prototype for that concept.
 A schema is a mental framework that you use to understand and interpret
the world around you.
 Concepts serve as the building blocks that help build schemas, which are
mental models for how you expect from the world around you.

18. Units of Knowledge
 A schema is a mental framework …… you expect from the world around
you.
 You have schemas for a wide variety of objects, ideas, people, and
situations.
 In some cases, however, you will encounter information that does not quite fit
into your existing schemas or dramatically challenges the ideas you already
hold.
 When this happens, you can either assimilate or accommodate the
information.
 Assimilating the information involves broadening your current schema
or even creating a new one.
 Accommodation the information by changing your previously held ideas
altogether.
 This process allows you to learn new things and develop new and
more complex schemas for the world around you.

19. How is Cognitive Psychology Different?
 How is Cognitive Psychology Different?
 Unlike behaviorism, which focuses only on observable behaviors, cognitive
psychology is concerned with internal mental states.
 Unlike psychoanalysis, which relies heavily on subjective perceptions,
cognitive psychology uses scientific research methods to study mental
processes.
 Who Should Study Cognitive Psychology?
 Because cognitive psychology touches on many other disciplines, this branch
of psychology is frequently studied by people in some different fields. The
following are just a few of those who may benefit from studying cognitive
psychology.
 Students who are interested in behavioral neuroscience,
linguistics, industrial-organizational psychology, artificial intelligence, and
other related areas.
 Teachers, educators, and curriculum designers can benefit from learning
more about how people process, learn, and remember information.
 Engineers, scientists, artists, architects, and designers can all benefit from

20. References
 Neisser, U. (1967). Cognitive Psychology. Meredith Publishing Company.
 Sternberg, R. (2003). Cognitive Psychology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.