Cognitive Psychology

Matthew Coxon

• Publisher: Learning Matters
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780857255235
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Cognitive Psychology & Cognition
• Index: Psychology

"Clear explanations and illustrations clearly define concepts. The text also contains a range of useful tasks to support student engagement and recognition of possible application. The critical thinking activities are also well organised to support students to develop analytical approaches."
- Julie Prentice, Department of Childhood Studies, Canterbury Christ Church University

This accessible text addresses the core knowledge domain of cognitive psychology, with focused coverage of the central concepts, research and debates in this key area. The engaging text provides detailed information on thinking and reasoning, learning and memory, language, perception, attention, and consciousness. A final chapter examines cognitive neuropsychology. There is an emphasis on the way the properties of cognition relate to our everyday lives.

Learning features including case studies, research summaries, short review questions and assignment topics, are provided throughout to aid students' understanding and promote a critical approach. In addition extended critical thinking and skill builder activities develop the reader's higher level skills.

Chapter 1 Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this chapter you should:

• - be able to describe the key features of cognitive psychology;
• - be able to discuss different methods used to study cognition;
• - be able to analyse whether a claim is scientific;
• - be able to reflect upon your own assumptions about science, and use information technology to learn about new cognitive research.

Introduction

There were two main aims in writing this book. The first was to inform you about the many exciting research findings and theories that have developed within the broad field of study known as ‘cognitive psychology’ – a world that, in my opinion, is currently as incredibly diverse, stimulating and exciting now as it was at its first inception (if not more so). The second aim was to help you develop your critical thinking skills. These are vital not only when you are studying but also for both your work life and your life in general. Who wants to be a passive observer of the world that believes everything that they are told? Definitely not me, and hopefully not you. By spending time developing critical thinking skills, the world should begin to take on a whole new light. Throughout the chapters there are therefore tasks, assignments and general food for thought. These aren't here just to fill the pages, so please make time for them because learning and developing as a person involves more than just reading.

So this book will introduce you to a fascinating area of science and will help you develop into a critical thinker – an ambitious task but not one that is beyond us. Let's begin with a question that may be at the front of your mind (wherever that is): What is cognitive psychology?

What is Cognitive Psychology?

Let's start with a simple definition and build up from there: cognitive psychology is the scientific study of the mind. More specifically, it is the scientific study of the mind as an information processor. This is an important definition because it guides several things: the types of theories that are developed; the topics that are investigated; the research questions that are asked; the methods that are used; and the conclusions that are reached (so just about everything). As a definition it is not without controversy, and different psychologists might subscribe to it in different ways or to different extents. When you are first learning about the discipline it is a useful definition to help you understand the many varied theories and ideas that belong to cognitive psychology and what ties them together. For the rest of this section we will explore what this means in terms of three aspects:

• areas of interest;
• research and methods;
• philosophy and assumptions.

Areas of Interest

So cognitive psychology is the scientific study of the mind. This means that cognitive psychologists may be interested in anything that involves the mind. It really doesn't take long to work out this is quite a lot of things to study. In reality, then, there are some topics that have received relatively little attention while a significant number of other topics have resulted in substantial amounts of excellent research. We'll focus upon the six key areas that the British Psychological Society (BPS) considers important when studying this subject at undergraduate level. These demonstrate the broadness and possibilities of cognitive psychology and are an excellent starting point. For our purposes, then, cognitive psychology will involve the studying of:

• thinking and reasoning;
• learning and memory;
• language;
• perception;
• attention;
• consciousness.

Throughout this book we will look at the psychology of making decisions; solving problems; remembering; forgetting; speaking; reading; writing; perceiving; recognising; focusing attention; and dividing attention – to name but a few.

As you learn more about cognitive psychology you will find it has wide links with many other research areas. The term ‘cognitive’ is often attached to many areas of psychology, and science more widely, to reflect the integration of the philosophy and methods of cognitive psychology within different disciplines. For example, you may hear of cognitive neuroscience, cognitive science, cognitive therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy, developmental cognitive neuroscience, animal cognition, and social cognition. These are all diverse disciplines and are therefore beyond the reach of this book. However, in the last chapter of this book I will introduce you to cognitive neuropsychology, a branch of cognitive psychology that investigates the effects of brain injury and other brain damage, and looks to see what we can learn from these about the processes of the mind.

Research and Methods

The types of research questions people ask, and the methods used to answer them, are as diverse as the areas studied. There are some key principles that underpin much of this research work, and a few key methods that have been used lots across the years. These specific methods will be introduced in more detail later in this chapter; at this point, it is important to know that cognitive psychologists rely heavily on the scientific method.

The scientific method requires that ideas and theories are developed on the basis of evidence that has been directly observed, and can be measured. This involves generating ideas or explanations for things (hypotheses), devising tests for these hypotheses, gathering directly observable and measurable evidence, and then deciding if the evidence supports the hypothesis (whether the hypothesis passed its test). These hypotheses let people develop or make judgements about statements or sets of statements that we know as theories. New and changed theories can then be used to make new hypotheses. This process of theory development through the generation of hypotheses, and collection of evidence, is central to understanding how cognitive psychology develops and supports its ideas. If it isn't clear in your head then you may want to re-read this paragraph before going any further. This process of hypothesis generation and testing underpins almost everything a cognitive psychologist does.

Philosophy and Assumptions

To study something within any branch of science, or social science, it is important to have an idea about the philosophy and assumptions of that area. Researchers and theorists will have certain beliefs about the world and how it works that have large implications for the questions they ask, the things that they do, and the conclusions they come to. In any area these beliefs may be incredibly diverse, and they may not always be obvious, or completely shared by people who work in that field. Nevertheless, it is still possible to identify particular beliefs that in general define a particular area. For cognitive psychology, the main philosophy is that the human mind can be understood as an information processor, and this is something that we can make discoveries about through careful study and experimentation in line with the general scientific method. The main assumptions of cognitive psychology are therefore grounded in how the mind works, and how it can be studied. This comes full circle to our original definition: cognitive psychology is the scientific study of the mind as an information processor.

Task

In your own words, summarise what defines cognitive psychology. Compare these to your own beliefs. Do you believe that the assumptions and philosophy are correct? Do you believe the methods are appropriate? Do you feel strongly about this at the moment? Your thoughts and views on what defines cognitive psychology will hopefully change as you work through this book, so this is a task that is worth repeating a number of times: what you believe may change; or what you understand by cognitive psychology may change.

You have begun to learn about cognitive psychology at a surface level: the types of topics that are investigated; the ideas behind the method; and the beliefs behind studying the mind in this way. These ideas are presented here as generally agreed upon but it hasn't always been that way. To understand them a bit better it is useful to know how they have developed. At points in this book we will look at the history of an idea so you can learn about it more effectively. What better way to start, then, than with the origins of cognitive psychology.

Origins of Cognitive Psychology

The study of the mind has a long history going back to (at least) the ancient world, yet the scientific study of the mind has a much shorter history. It is difficult to pick an exact year in which a change began, yet many people agree that the founding of the first psychological laboratory in Germany in 1879 was a very important point in time. Founded by Wilhelm Wundt, the laboratory was concerned with moving away from philosophy, and moving towards measuring more objective and empirical observations under the banner of psychology?

Cognitive Revolution

While the establishment of the first psychological laboratory is clearly important, perhaps the most significant period of time was the mid-to-late 1950s and early 1960s. The events from that period, and how they have shaped modern-day psychology, are often called the cognitive revolution.

During this time period prominent theories began to emerge that had a common basis: they addressed questions about the mind through scientific observation; and the theories that were constructed considered the mind a complex information processor. We can use the more specific topic of memory as an example. In 1956 a key paper was published by George Miller titled The magic number seven, plus or minus two’ in which Miller suggested that the limits of short-term memory could be extended by processing information in larger groups (known as chunking); Peterson and Peterson, in 1959, used observations on forgetting nonsense syllables to propose separate information-processing stages in short-term memory; while in 1960, Sperling demonstrated the existence of a very transitory memory that held information for a short period of time, and theorised a set of processing stages associated with this. All of these research articles are now regarded as classics in this field, and all came from a specific period in time when these types of theory were first being talked about and written about. You will learn about how these early theories have influenced current thinking in later chapters.

Part of the development of cognitive psychology as a complete field (not just one about memory) was due to similar achievements being made at roughly the same time by many other researchers and scientists addressing other aspects of cognition, including linguists and computer scientists.

It is commonly accepted that World War II also encouraged the growth of the discipline in at least two ways. First, research usually requires money to make it happen. Military interest in a variety of topics such as vigilance, creativity, attention and perception meant that cognitive psychologists were able to obtain military funding to advance their research. Furthermore, the more unfortunate consequence of war was that casualties suffering from brain injuries offered opportunities to study the relationship between the mind and the brain in ways that were not possible before.

The development of cognitive psychology as an area of study was also helped by the publication of the book Cognitive Psychology (Neisser, 1967, which solidified not only the name but the topic of study, and the importance of information-processing models for it. This was followed by journals dedicated to publishing original research in this field such as Cognitive Psychology, Cognition and Memory & Cognition, as well as national and international conferences, dedicated research laboratories, and research teams across the world. It was an exciting time for cognitive psychology and an important point in the discipline's history.

Cognition and Behaviourism

In telling the story of the origins of cognitive psychology, attention is often given to the differences between the types of theories cognitive psychologists wanted to develop and the types of theories that other psychologists, particularly behaviourists, wanted to develop. Behaviourism, in very simple terms, is the idea that psychology can be studied by looking at relationships between behaviours without needing to theorise about things such as a mind. Now, like the definition of cognitive psychology, there would be some debate about this exact definition. For our purposes, this ‘strong’ form of behaviourism is interesting because it highlights an important aspect of cognitive psychology. Where behaviourists avoid theories about the internal structures of our minds, cognitive psychologists rely upon them when presenting their ideas and theories. This challenges us (and people past) to question what the best approach is: one in which we look at behaviours only; or one in which we believe we can make claims about internal mental processes and the structure of the mind. In terms of popularity, cognitive psychologists ‘won’. They have been a meaningful part of mainstream psychology for the past 50 years.

Task

In your own words, describe the difference between cognitive psychology and the strong form of behaviourism as presented here. Which of the two versions do you consider to be the best? Why?

Cognitive Psychology Today

Cognitive psychology remains an integral part of modern psychology. The number of journals that publish original research continues to grow as researchers begin to turn their attention to how cognitive psychology can inform other disciplines. Teachers and researchers of cognitive psychology continue to be supported by dedicated research laboratories, national and international societies, and national and international conferences as well as constantly advancing technologies and the development of new and interesting methods. Students of psychology across the world are exposed to the ideas, theories and methods of cognitive psychology as central parts of their curriculum, with many of them becoming the new generation of rese...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Series Editor's Introduction
• Chapter 1 Introduction to Cognitive Psychology
• Chapter 2 Thinking and Reasoning
• Chapter 3 Learning and Memory
• Chapter 4 Language
• Chapter 5 Perception
• Chapter 6 Attention
• Chapter 7 Consciousness
• Chapter 8 Cognitive Neuropsychology
• Glossary
• References
• Index