C1: Cognitive Processes

Cognitive Psychology

  • Studies mental processes like thinking, perception, memory, and learning.

  • It is part of cognitive science and connects with neuroscience, philosophy, and linguistics.

  • Examines how people acquire, process, and store information.

  • Understanding internal mental processes is key to understanding human behavior.

  • “Cognition” is knowing.

  • Explores how mental processes influence thinking, feeling, and behavior.

Evolution of Cognitive Psychology

  • Prior to the 1950s, behaviorism reigned as the leading psychological paradigm.

  • Through the 1950s to the 1970s, cognitive revolution began—which sparked extensive investigations into processing frameworks, innovative cognitive research techniques, and marked the inaugural use of the term “cognitive psychology.”

  • In 1948, Norbert Wiener introduced foundational concepts → input and output.

  • in 1948, Edward Tolman’s experiments with rats → internal cognitive maps, mental representations.

  • Formal birth of cognitive psychology s frequently linked to George Miller’s 1956 paper, “The Magical Number is Seven, Plus or Minus Two.”

  • Atkinson and Shiffron’s 1968

  • The cognitive approach influences many psychology fields, including: biological, social, behaviorism, and development.

Mediational Processes

  • Behaviorists study only external, observable behaviors (stimulus and response) that can be objectively measured.

  • The cognitive approach asserts that internal mental processes can be scientifically studied through experiments.

  • The mental event or process in the midst of input and output.

  • Includes memory, perception, attention, and problem-solving.

  • These processes act as intermediaries between stimulus and response; they occur after the stimulus and before the response.

Three Basic Parts of Cognitive Psychology

  • Human experimental psychology → memory, attention, problem-solving, language.

  • Computer analogies / Information Processing Approach → artificial intelligence & computer simulation.

  • Cognitive neuroscience → brain damage and effect on cognition.

Key Figures in Cognitive Psychology

  • Gustav Fechner → founded psychophysics, linking physical stimuli to perception.

  • Wilhelm Wundt →

  • Edward B. Titchener →

  • Hermann Ebbinghaus →

  • William James →

  • Wolfgang Kohler →

  • Edward Tolman →

  • Jean Piaget →

  • Noam Chomsky →

  • David Rumelhart → advanced neural network models of cognition.

  • James McClelland → developed parallel distributed processing model with Rumelhart.