cognitive psychology

Cognitive psychology

The scientific study of mental processes involved in acquiring, processing, storing, and using information.

Mental processes studied in cognitive psychology

Perception, attention, memory, language, thinking, problem-solving, reasoning, and decision-making.

Introspection

The process of observing and reporting one's own conscious thoughts and experiences.

Problems with introspection as a scientific method

Mental experiences are subjective and difficult to objectively measure or verify.

Behaviorism

An approach to psychology that focuses primarily on observable behavior and how it is influenced by the environment.

Cognitive revolution

A major shift in psychology toward studying internal mental processes and information processing.

Prominent period of the cognitive revolution

Primarily during the 1950s and 1960s.

Approach challenged by the cognitive revolution

Behaviorism, particularly its limited attention to internal mental processes.

Information-processing approach

An approach that views cognition as processes through which information is received, transformed, stored, and retrieved.

Basic information-processing sequence

Input → processing → storage → retrieval/output.

Studying mental processes that cannot be directly observed

By measuring observable behavior and performance that provide evidence about underlying mental processes.

Usefulness of reaction time in cognitive psychology

Differences in reaction time can provide evidence about how much or what kind of mental processing is occurring.

Ulric Neisser

A major figure in cognitive psychology who helped establish the field as a distinct area of study.

Important book by Ulric Neisser published in 1967

Cognitive Psychology.

Major areas of cognitive psychology

Perception, attention, memory, language, thinking, problem-solving, reasoning, and decision-making.