cognitive research

history of cognitive psychology

popularised in 1960s → breaking away from behaviourism

elements could be linked to Greek philosophy

behaviourism vs cognitive psychology

behaviourism → focuses on observable behaviour, rejects use of introspection

cognitive psychology → interested in mental processes used in perceiving, comprehension, remembering, & thinking

4 approaches to human cognition

• cognitive psychology

• cognitive neuropsychology

• cognitive neuroscience

• computational cognitive science

(module focuses on cognitive psychology and cognitive neuropsychology - more info. in reading)

cognitive psychology assumptions

mental processes exist (opposes behaviourism)

mental processes can be studied scientifically

humans are active participants in the act of cognition

the cognitive science approach

systematically study people performing tasks under controlled lab. conditions (to try & establish a causal relationship & shut out extraneous variables)

how mental processes may be measured

response time (AKA latency)

accuracy

strengths of cognitive science approach

• foundational for understanding human mental processes

• informs theories in contemporary research(not just in cognitive research - cognitive psychology is foundational to other areas in psych.

weaknesses of cognitive science approach

• task impurity problem

• low ecological validity

• lab- based measures are reductionist, reducing cognitive processes to 2 simple tasks

• paradigm specificity

task impurity problem

multiple processes are occurring at once which could contaminate the central process

paradigm specificity

findings on one task can not be generalised to similar tasks

metatheory

overriding principles that guide how a study /piece of work is undertaken

bottom-up processing

AKA data-driven

processing is affected by stimulus input; it’s reactive

it’s exogenous/external, person does not initiate processing

serial processing

linear; occurs as a sequence; nothing happens simultaneously

example of bottom-up and serial processing

input (stimulus) → attention & perception (sensory, recognition) → thought & decision → response/action

weaknesses of bottom-up & serial processing

• reductionist

• over-simplistic

• compares humans to computers

• things may occur in a different order for different people

• ignores top-down & parallel processing

top-down (conceptually driven) processing

driven by a persons expectations, ideas, & schemas; goal driven

parallel processing

multiple cognitive processes taking place at once

7 themes of cognition

• bottom-up vs top-down processing

• attention

• representation

• implicit vs explicit memory

• metacognition

• embodiment

• the brain

attention

looking at (or hearing, or feeling) phenomena, sounds, etc. in the world → brain filters relevant from irrelevant information

representation

a hypothetical entity - reflecting a particular memory or thought ( visualisation)

implicit vs explicit memory

implicit → remember things without awareness (e.g. how to ride a bike)

explicit → memories of personal information (episodic) and facts (semantic)

metacognition

thinking about thinking

embodiment

thought processes that guide how we interact with others & the world

the brain

cognitive psychology focuses on how & where memories are stored in the brain