Psychology
Cognition
Cognition refers to the mental processes involved in acquiring, processing, and using information. This includes perception, attention, memory, language, problem-solving, and decision-making. It encompasses the ways in which individuals understand and interact with the world around them, and is a central focus of study in psychology.
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7 Key excerpts on "Cognition"
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- Nancy Fenton, Jessica Flitter(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Research & Education Association(Publisher)
Chapter 9 CognitionPsychology involves the scientific study of the behavior and mental processes of humans and animals. The term Cognition refers to the mental processes portion of the study of psychology and can be translated simply to mean thinking. The term thinking alone, however, does not do justice to the complex and varied processes that comprise Cognition. Cognitive psychologists investigate the wide range of processes that make up thinking, including perception, memory, attention, reasoning, language, and problem solving. Cognitive neuroscientists take the study of thought even further to determine the neural processes and brain regions responsible for various types of Cognitions. This chapter on Cognition addresses four of the largest and most integrated areas of cognitive research: memory, language, thinking, and problem solving.MemoryMemory is the cognitive process that allows individuals to retain knowledge of information and events and is the result of three processes: encoding, storing, and retrieving. Cognitive psychologists investigating memory examine the process in terms of information processing , or how information travels through the nervous system, including perception, memory creation, reasoning, and formulating responses. Information-processing theorists have presented a variety of stage models to explain human Cognition, but the theory that has received the most attention is the Atkinson and Shiffrin information-processing model of memory.The three-stage information-processing model of memory , developed by Atkinson and Shiffrin, describes memory as a sequential process moving through three distinct stages: sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. A visual representation of this model is represented in Figure 9.1. Information flows from one stage to the next as it is encoded, stored, and retrieved. The original concept of short-term memory within this model has been expanded by Alan Baddeley and renamed working memory and consists of additional components. Within the working memory model there is a central executive that controls and directs attention through a visuospatial sketchpad (visual picture) and phonological loop (verbal rehearsal). In addition, the central executive also coordinates the information transfer between working memory and long-term memory through the episodic buffer
eBook - ePub- Jackie Andrade, Jon May(Authors)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- Taylor & Francis(Publisher)
Section A The nature of cognitive psychology
DOI: 10.4324/9780203488294-1A1 Cognition
Key notes
Cognition Cognition is the study of the mental processes underlying our ability to perceive the world, remember, talk about and learn from our experiences, and modify our behavior accordingly. It includes functions such as perception, memory, language and thought. Assumptions about Cognition The mind is a limited capacity information-processing system that behaves in a law-like fashion. Cognition is the product of top-down and bottom-up processes. Top-down processing refers to the influence of knowledge and expectations on functions such as language, perception and memory. Bottom-up processing is processing driven by an external stimulus. Cognitive functions are often assumed to be modular, that is to operate independently of each other. Philosophical basis Functionalism views mental events as causal or functional because they serve to transform incoming information into output (different information or behavior). Mind is the ‘software’ of the brain and can be studied independently of it. For materialists, the mind is the brain and is studied by investigating brain activity directly. Choosing an approach is partly a matter of choosing an appropriate level of explanation for the topic of interest. Related topics Methods of investigation (A2 ) Issues in consciousness research (K1 ) Cognition
In 1967, Ulric Neisser published a book with the title Cognitive Psychology
eBook - ePubAn Introduction to Cognitive Psychology
Processes and Disorders
- David Groome(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
chapter 1Introduction to cognitive psychology
David GroomeDOI: 10.4324/9781351020862-1Contents1.1 Cognitive processes 1.2 Experimental cognitive psychology 1.3 Computer models of information processing 1.4 Cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology 1.5 Automatic processing 1.6 Minds, brains, and computers Summary Further reading1.1 Cognitive processes
A definition of cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology has been defined as the psychology of mental processes, or more specifically the way in which the brain processes information. Cognition includes the way we take in information from the outside world, how we make sense of that information, and what use we make of it. Cognition thus involves various different kinds of information processing, which occur at different stages.Cognitive psychology The study of the way in which the brain processes information. It includes the mental processes involved in perception, learning and memory storage, thinking, and language.Stages of cognitive processing
The main stages of cognitive processing are shown in Figure 1.1 , arranged in the sequential order in which they would typically be applied to a new piece of incoming sensory input.Figure 1.1 The main stages of cognitive processing.Information taken in by the sense organs goes through an initial stage of perception , which involves an analysis of its content. Even at this early stage of processing the brain is already extracting meaning from the input, in an effort to make sense of the information it contains. The process of perception will often lead to the making of some kind of record of the input received, and this involves learning and memory storage . Once a memory has been created for some item of information, it can be stored for later use to assist the individual in some other setting or task. This will normally require the retrieval of the information. Retrieval is sometimes carried out for its own sake, merely to access some information stored in the past. On the other hand, we sometimes retrieve information to help us to perform further mental activities such as thinking
eBook - ePubThe Psychology of Thinking
Reasoning, Decision-Making and Problem-Solving
- John Paul Minda(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
1 The Psychology of Thinking Thinking is so central to the human experience that it has been described as the essence of being. We are all familiar with the phrase, “Je pense donc je suis” or “I think therefore I am”. This comes, of course, from Descartes’ Discourse on Method (1637) and underscores what is so crucial and compelling about the study of thinking. Humans, like other animals, behave, learn, respond, communicate, and remember. But humans also think. We can discover something new by thinking about it. We can solve problems in the mind, visualize solutions, and arrive at an important decision by thinking. We can be aware of our own thoughts and aware of the consequences of our actions and behaviours. This book is about the psychology of thinking. That might sound redundant, given that psychology is often defined as the study of the mind or of mental activity. In other words, if psychology is not about thinking, what else can it be about? Psychology is a very broad field, encompassing everything from the study of neurotransmitters and basic neuroanatomy to the study of learning and memory to the understanding of mental health and the study of group behaviour. This book is concerned with the study and understanding of the thought process. Thinking is usually studied within the broader field of Cognition. Cognitive psychology has traditionally been defined as the study of information processing and behaviour. This encompasses everything from basic attention and perception to memory, concepts, and thinking. As a topic within the study of cognitive psychology, the psychology of thinking is concerned with complex mental behaviours, such as problem-solving, reasoning, decision-making, and becoming an expert. A good understanding of basic Cognition is very useful in understanding the psychology of thinking, but it is not necessary
- Chris R. Brewin(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Psychology Press(Publisher)
1984 , p. 1), “virtually all those interested in perception, learning, memory, language, concept formation, problem solving, or thinking call themselves cognitive psychologists, despite the great diversity of experimental and theoretical approaches to be found in these various areas.” Experimental cognitive psychology is largely concerned with explaining how people perceive, attend to, classify, store, and remember information, and how they then use this information to make decisions. Typically the aim has been to develop general models of these processes, and little account has been taken of individual differences or motivational variables. Because the processes of interest are usually unavailable to introspection, inferences about their nature are often derived from computer simulations or from measures of human performance on experimental tasks. “Social Cognition” refers to the relatively recent extension of this approach to the study of how social stimuli, such as information about oneself and other people, are registered and processed.The idea that there are mental processes that intervene between stimulus and response is historically associated with the Gestalt school of psychology. Their theories were not only influential in explaining how objects in the physical world are perceived, but were soon extended to the perception of social objects and hence influenced the course of social psychology as well as the study of perception and thinking. Throughout the period when behaviourism was in the ascendant, social psychologists such as Lewin, Heider, and Festinger continued to emphasize the importance of conscious perceptions and evaluations in determining human behaviour. These theories invoked such mentalist concepts as expectancy, level of aspiration, balance, consistency, causal attribution, and cognitive dissonance, which did not correspond to directly observable behaviour but rather to hypothetical processes designed to account for behaviour. Unlike the theories stemming from experimental cognitive psychology, they were very much concerned with motivational processes, individual differences, and with the specific content of the information available to the person. Many current theories in clinical psychology, such as social learning theory (Bandura, 1977a ) and learned helplessness theory (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978 ; Seligman, 1975
eBook - ePub- Lourdes Ortega(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
5Cognition
Cognition refers to how information is processed and learned by the human mind (the term comes from the Latin verb cognoscere , ‘to get to know’). SLA researchers interested in Cognition study what it takes to ‘get to know’ an additional language well enough to use it fluently in comprehension and production. We are far from a satisfactory understanding of second language as a form of Cognition, however. This is because our capacities to investigate the relevant questions are shaped by the pace at which new theories and methods to inspect the workings of human minds and brains become available (typically in neighbouring disciplines) and the rate at which SLA researchers become conversant in them. In this chapter, more than in any other, I will make frequent reference to relevant L1 research and point at areas where future attention by SLA researchers will be needed.It is also important to realize that, in cognitive research, the relevant behavioural and neurobiological evidence falls in the order of a few hundred milliseconds to a few seconds, or it consists of larger-scope performance that nevertheless lasts a few minutes to a few hours at the most. This is in sharp contrast with many of the data on language learning SLA researchers normally consider, which involve stretches of discourse, multi-turn interactions with human interlocutors, extended texts, referential and social meaning, and even years of studying, using or living with an L2. Thus, the differences in grain size, temporal and ontological, of the various phenomena that are brought together into cognitive explorations of L2 learning are puzzling.In this chapter you will learn about cognitive SLA theories and constructs that have been developed to explain the nature of second language as a form of Cognition. The theories can be broadly classified into traditional information processing, which has dominated SLA theorizing and research since the mid-1980s, and emergentism, which is a development of the late 1990s that grew out from the former. A central preoccupation in SLA research on Cognition is with memory and attention in L2 learning.
eBook - ePub- J.R. Maze(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
Cognition is just another variety of spatiotemporal relation, and the possession of it by higher organisms is simply one of the material conditions that affect their functioning. It is just as much an efficient-cause process as the feedback loops of cybernetic systems, and does function as a feedback process, but one that employs a different medium from existing machine systems. These observations on tenable and untenable conceptions of the apparatus of knowing were prompted by the need to elaborate my assertion that an individual’s belief system stands as a complex set of state variables in part determining his reactions to environmental events or situations perceived by him. Since Cognitions are not mental entities but relations, they may be spoken of as relational properties constituting a causal state variable, just as being subject to a certain gravitational pull, for example, is a state variable that can affect a thing’s behaviour. But when it is a relationship peculiar to certain kinds of entity (higher organisms), one would expect to find also that those organisms had particular intrinsic properties in virtue of which they stood in the relations in question. Since cognitive relations (the beliefs an organism has) are so particularised and variable, then it seems reasonable to assume that any instance of such a relationship, i.e. a belief in a particular fact, would be subserved by an intrinsic state of the organism specific to that belief, and the obvious kind of intrinsic state to look for is a brain state. Having rejected the concept of mental states as subserving Cognition, we substitute brain states
