COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Cognitive Psychology Definition and Origin

Definition: focuses on how we process information

APA Definition (2020): Studies mental processes like perceiving, attention, thinking, language, and memory through inferences from behavior.

Renaissance period (between 1400 and 1700)

  • Began scientific study of the brain.

  • Scholars studied nature and the human body's mechanics.

  • René Descartes proposed:

    • Dualism (mind and body as separate)

    • Monism (mind and body as coexisting)

Development of Cognitive Psychology:

  • A reaction to Behaviorism's focus on overt (observable) behavior and its "black box" view of brain functions.

  • George Miller

    • pioneered memory studies with an experimental method in 1956.

Information Processing (1970s):

  • Approach to understanding mental processes.

  • Helped to formulate models to represent such as attention, perception, and memory.

  • Cognitive information processing models

    • Based on scores from controlled tasks testing the same cognitive aspect under consistent conditions.

  • Normative score: group’s average performance

Cognitive Tasks: Offer an objective way to explore mental processes, challenging Behaviorism's "black box" view.

Mental imagery:

  • considered to be a series of pictures in the mind’s eye without input from the outside world.

  • involves internal visual representations, studied by Stephen Kosslyn (1979).

Limitations of Cognitive Psychology:

  • Relies on lab research, often using university students.

  • Findings may involve subjective interpretation.

  • Mental processes are complex and interdependent.

  • Cognitive neuroscience helps address these issues.

Cognitive Neuroscience

Cognitive Neuroscience:

  • Studies physical brain mechanisms in cognitive processing.

  • Enabled by advances like fMRI, which map brain function and show interconnectedness with specific functions.

Scanning Techniques in Cognitive Neuroscience:

  1. Single Unit Recording

    • Measures activity of a single neuron using a micro-electrode, highly sensitive to individual cell activity.

  2. Event-Related Potentials (ERPs)

    • Electrodes on the scalp record averaged brain activity as a continuous waveform, often derived from EEG data.

    • Useful for reaction time studies but limited to simple cognitive tasks.

  3. Positron Emission Tomography (PET)

    • Uses radioactive substances to create spatial images of neural activity.

    • Detects brain regions active during cognitive tasks but lacks precision in quantifying activity levels.

  4. Functional MRI (fMRI)

    • Measures blood oxygenation changes to detect active brain regions with high clarity.

    • Useful for studying memory, emotion, and cognitive task processing.

  5. Enhanced fMRI (efMRI)

    • Measures blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signals and oxygen extraction fraction (OEF) for detailed analysis of brain activation during tasks.

  6. Magnetoencephalography (MEG)

    • Detects magnetic fields generated by neural activity using magnetometers to produce structural and functional images.

  7. Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS):

    • Non-invasive magnetic pulses stimulate specific brain areas, aiding in brain function research.

Applications and Limitations:

  • Techniques like PET and fMRI provide insights into brain activity during cognitive tasks and have been used to study aggression, memory, and emotional processing (e.g., Raine et al., 1994).

    • PET scans highlight processing deficits in the prefrontal cortex linked to aggression.

    • fMRI shows reduced amygdala activity in psychopaths for negative emotional stimuli.

  • ERPs and EEG are useful for reaction time studies but are limited by noise and simple task constraints.

Cognitive Neuropsychology

Cognitive neuropsychology: developed the concept of modularity

Modularity: ‘the orchestrated activity of multiple cognitive processors (modules)’ (Ellis and Young,1988).

Modules: Each processes specific stimuli within its domain but communicates with closely linked modules.

Domain specificity: how the modules function; they respond only to particular types of stimuli.

Jerry Fodor

  • Introduced the concept of cognitive modules to explain how the mind relates to language.

  • Suggested the mind consists of related but independent "organs" working together to produce behavior (The Modularity of Mind).

  • Argued cognition is a multi-tiered system, similar to the digestive system.

Cognitive Modularity in Neuropsychology:

  • Central to studying brain damage and cognitive deficits.

  • Assumes deficits in one task don't affect others.

Limitations:

  • Tracing deficits to specific brain areas may be oversimplified.

  • Performance differences could be due to task difficulty, not module dysfunction.

  • Double Dissociation: Compares performance across individuals with different brain damage to identify task-specific deficits.

Computational Cognitive Science

Computational Cognitive Science:

  • Uses computational models based on theoretical assumptions.

  • Models can be categorized as:

    • Computational models:

      • use algorithms

      • Generate theories about human cognitive performance.

      • Provide cognitive architectures: computer programs designed to understand cognition.

      • Domain-generic computational cognitive models: capture key cognitive structures, mechanisms, and processes.

      • Domain-generic processing: enables cross-module analysis across various/many cognitive domains.

    • Mathematical models:

      • use equations

      • predicts behavior but lacks reliable explanations.

      • Based on limited input data and involves "number-crunching" without deep insights.

    • Verbal-conceptual models: describe relations and processes using informal language.

Production systems

  • a cognitive processing model made up of a set of rules, known as production rules.

  • consist of a series of ‘if’ and ‘then’ statements.

  • Information in working memory is compared to the "if" condition of a rule, and when matched, the "then" action is executed.

Areas of Cognitive Psychology

Areas according to British Psychological Society (BPS):

  • 4 core-areas: perception, memory, thinking, and language

  • sub-areas: attention, learning, problem-solving, and communication

The Beginnings of Cognitive Psychology

  • Cognitive Psychology by Ulric Neisser (1967)

    • marks the start of the 'cognitive revolution.'

  • George Miller and Jerome Bruner

    • credited with initiating cognitive research.

    • founded the Centre for Cognitive Studies at Harvard in 1960.

Attention and Perception

  • Attention to stimuli enables us to process and understand sensory information.

  • Attention and perception are interdependent, helping us make sense of our environment and reduce potential chaos.

Learning

  • occurs through interaction with the environment, with attention and perception playing key roles.

Memory

  • essential for storing and retrieving information when needed.

Thinking: Decision-Making and Problem-Solving:

  • Reasoning is essential for hypothesis testing.

  • Problem-solving strategies like means-ends analysis, progress monitoring, and planning can be effective when applied correctly.

Language and Communication:

  • Reading, writing, and speech are integral components of language.