Cognitive psychology is how we think and process information to get a mental output.
1950’s is when cognitive psychology arises, following the end of the second world war, more studies of understanding human performance e.g best train soldiers to use technology. Led to study of attention – concepts of human performance & research.
Key features:
Cognitive psychology is the study of cog processes in the human brain. Including mental processes of perception, memory, attention, language and problem solving. Believed brains process information in a linear fashion flowing through the brain logically.
The basic idea is that information is taken in through the senses and then as we remember it is encoded in the brain, which means it is translated into a manageable form. The information is than sorted and can be retrieved as necessary.
Cognitive psychologists investigate mental process by studying cognitive impairments, called Cognitive neuropsychology and considers how the damage impacts on ability. They use experiments and brain imagining techniques to gather information.
A development of the cog psychology is the computer providing an understanding of the human brain and terminology to explain cog easily. The computer analogy described the brain like a storage system that receives info from the environment, process it and provides an output. The output for humans could be thoughts, language or behaviour. A human brain can make a mistake due to interference from the environment.
| Application in society, use of cog interviews used by police when interviewing eye witnesses aimed at improving the accuracy of their testimony – can help improve justice system not to reply on single witness testimony
High R – experiments usually conducted in labs, under strict control of EV – allowing a cause and effect relation & form of standardised procedure making more creditable. High r – to understand cognition we asses brain directly rather than experimental tasks. Overcome by the use of brain scanning techniques which are used in cog – rapid growth in cog neuroscience & assessment of brain.
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Low eco V – lab research, artificial environment & tasked used. Testing memory for word lists which may not reflect everyday life – low mundane realism.
Low V – obtain measures of the speed & accuracy of task performance. Provides an indirect measure of internal processes involved in cog. May be unable to determine whether these processes occurred at once (serial process) or some overlap (cascade processing) or all at same time (parallel processing). Low g – use of case studies, some brain damaged patients have unique and unusual cog systems prior to brain damage. This makes interpreting the findings more difficult. Patients with broadly similar brain damage have still been shown to have large differences in their abilities & impairments. Low v – uses computational modelling techniques and can involve viewing the brain using computer analogy. This does not resemble human brain and the resemblances are superficial. Computers would state the same input would give the same output ignoring motivational & emotional influences on processes. |