Introduction to Cognitive Psychology Theory, Examples, Images, Pdf
Today’s article is titled introduction to cognitive psychology, Introduction to Cognitive Psychology Theory, Examples, Images, Pdf, We’ll talk about what cognitive psychology is actually about but before we get deeply involved in the topics in cognitive psychology and what these basic cognitive processes are let us ask a more basic question the basic question is what is psychology? now if you take this question around and you take this question to your colleagues your family members and people around you you’ll actually get a variety of responses.
For example – where some of them could tell you that psychology is about knowing and predicting people’s behaviors in this comic strip here you might see that both the rat and the lab experimenters are having a sense of controlling each other’s behavior they seem to know that they’re doing something which will actually predict this next person’s behavior that is one way
Yes, I am a student of psychology but that does not mean that I can read your mind.
another response a lot of people would come and tell you that psychology is about reading people’s minds but at some point or the other people would actually go out and say that yes I am a student of psychology but that does not mean that I can read your mind, psychology is not really about reading people’s minds though it might help you in other ways.
one of the last answers about what is Psychology you could get is their psychology could shape people’s behavior in social situations you might see this example ( image given above ) here which says there is a placard that says that – please throw your litter on the ground or on the grass but it actually gets the exact opposite effect
so this is also one of the examples in which psychology or one of the applications that psychology has So, is psychology just about behavior modification? I would say no, it actually offers you much more we will see what.
What is the subject matter of psychology? and basic definition of psychology?
Then let us begin with the basic definition, psychology is a science that studies mental processes experiences, and behaviors in different contexts.
What are experiences?
experiences are subjective feelings, what you are feeling at any point in time what is your awareness let us say for example I am in this particular room I see people around me or I see the screen or I am seeing and talking to Someone Guys Also, psychology could actually help you understand experiences whether somebody is experiencing a normal state or an altered state and may be under the influence of a particular drug or something.
for example, very simply put somebody’s feeling rather energetic or active or some others might be feeling rather passive or sad, all of these come under the purview of psychology.
What are behaviors?
Behaviors most simply put our responses or reactions to the events and actions in the world.
We are surrounded by agents, we are surrounded by people in situations and how we actually come out acting is basically what is a behavior it’s a rather simple definition which I am taking here also behavior includes sometimes a spontaneous activity in order to achieve various goals or motives.
You might have a goal of becoming somebody or bigger you might have a goal of becoming a cricketer you will continue and you will have some behaviors which will lead to you becoming a cricketer all of that also forms part of what is called behavior.
Two ways of behavior
Behaviors can be looked at in two ways one of the ways is either simple or complex behavior.
What is a simple behavior?
Simple behavior is the one in which the response is the direct result or impact of the cause.
for example – If I ask you to touch the tip of a needle you will probably try and touch it but you will take your hand very quickly, it is in response to you being pricked, on the other hand, I could actually give you a more complex behavior that being I could ask you to go and make a cup of coffee for me that is basically a complex behavior that will actually involve a chain of very simple behaviors.
Overt Behavior, Covert Behavior
Another way in which you can actually look at behavior is whether the behavior is overt or covert.
Overt behavior simply is the behavior that can be observed by others the actions that you do, the things which you say.
For example – The states that you experience and which you show people is overt behavior, covert behavior on the other hand is something that is typically going on in your mind things that you’re experiencing feelings of attraction feelings of anger disgust shame all of that or say for example simply processing the world around you all of that processing is happening inside your head that is an example of covert behavior.
Commonly asked question
This is a rather commonly asked question that psychology is a science or it’s just about the common sense we get asked this question a lot of times now if psychology were to be common sense it would be fraught with a few problems say –
For example – confirmation biases now one of the ways in which you can describe a confirmation bias is that it is your internal yes man.
For example – Develop a particular opinion or a theory about something in the world some person which you will actually look for and collect evidence that agrees with your perspective or that agrees with your point of view that basically is a confirmation bias.
Stereotypes
Another problem with common sense is basically stereotypes.
For example – people have particular opinions and actually look at the world through those opinions.
For example – a most common stereotype that you might have heard or come across a few times.
For example – the fact that females are bad drivers is one of the most common stereotypes that you will hear so for example if somebody comes and tells you that there has been an accident near your house and there was a woman involved automatically some of you will make the conclusion that the woman must be at fault in this accident however close examination and scientific observation might tell you that this might not be the case, so psychology in that sense is slightly different from the common sense I would say much different from common sense actually.
How psychology is actually structured as a discipline?
As a discipline basically psychology seeks to understand and explain how the mind works and how the different mental processes lead to different behaviors and psychology tries also in that sense to minimize biases in the explanation of behavior and experience in a variety of ways, However psychology also recognizes the importance of subjectivity in some cases though always trying to develop a scientific understanding of those phenomena, so psychology basically draws from two streams of knowledge
- One which makes use of methods in physical and biological sciences and the other uses methods of social and cultural sciences while studying a variety of psychosocial phenomena
- In the first case, psychology focuses largely on biological principles to explain human behavior things like how is the brain function what is the response to various neurotransmitters in the brain, and stuff like that
- On the other hand, psychology focuses on how behavioral phenomena can be explained in terms of the interaction that takes place between the person and the social context how is the person behaving when he is alone or compared to how does the person behave when he is confronted with a group of people when he is part of a larger group those kinds of phenomena. As science psychology applies what is called a scientific method it emphasizes objectivity m-file emphasizes that your opinions should be based on facts your opinion should be based on measurements basically which is called empiricism.
Hypothetical Deductive
In its go psychology uses a particular method or it basically functions around a particular model which has been called the hypothetical deductive so let us have a look at this model for a while.
This is what this model looks like So it basically begins with some kind of literature view, What are the questions people have asked what are the papers people have published what are the topics that people have been interested in studying, and to what extent they have actually studied them what are the questions relevant to those topics and how people have approached those questions then basically you move on to formulating your own research question on the basis of whatever literature you actually studied you move on to design an empirical study it could be an observational study or it could be a basic experiment we’ll talk about these things later as we go on into the Comple Course and then when you can once you conduct an experiment you get some data you get some measurements you analyze those data you analyze that data and basically that helps you reach particular conclusions.
Once you reach a particular conclusion now you also have to say something about that particular topic this then gets added to this body of research literature which people coming after you might again, review to conduct their own research questions that are what psychology broadly uses as a method when we move on will actually talk about these kinds of methods in more detail.
How is psychology attained and what does psychology attempt to understand?
So psychology basically attempts to understand two things mind and behavior and basically the questions in psychology are asked around this dichotomy.
- What is the mind?
- What is behavior?
So, let’s take a bit of a pause and ask these questions what is the mind or what are the functions of the mind, or how to study this concept called mind, this probably or these three questions basically form the core of the topics in cognitive psychology that we will be focusing in this course.
What is cognitive psychology?
Cognitive psychology basically has been basically defined as the branch of psychology which is devoted to the scientific study of the mind.
What is the mind?
The mind creates and controls mental functions such as perception attention memory emotions language deciding thinking and reasoning. now all of these terms basically are different mental functions which we will talk about more in detail in the coming Articles ( Table of Content Given Below ) also, you can look at the mind as a system that creates representations of the world so that we can act within it to achieve our particular goals so the mind is also a motivator of sorts.
Examples –
“He was able to call to mind what he was doing on the day of the accident”
In this sentence, you see that people the person is referring to the mind as a memory, the person is actually trying to bring to mind or recall what is involved in that particular accident.
“If you put your mind to it I am sure you can solve that maths problem”
In this case, you see that the person is actually taking mind as a problem-solver so the mind must be able to help you solve particular problems the mind must be able to help you take particular decisions have a particular algorithm take particular steps, and then reach a final goal.
“I have not made up my mind yet for say for example I am of two minds about this”
this is basically again an instance in which the mind is being used to make decisions or consider or evaluate probable possibilities, so this is again one of the functions of the mind
“He is of sound mind and body or when he talks about his encounter with aliens it seems like he is out of his mind”
Here you can see that the sense is that a healthy mind is associated with normal functioning and a non-functioning mind is been associated with abnormal functioning.
Although these are two distinct topics that we will undoubtedly touch on in this course, let me clarify that by “mind,” I mean something that is capable of making wise judgments or, to put it another way, something that keeps you grounded in reality.
What are mental functions?
mental process. any cognitive activity, including reasoning, sensing, and thinking. Look up a dictionary.
Examples of Mental Functions –
As Raphael is walking across campus, talking to Susan on his cell phone about meeting at the student union later this afternoon, he remembers that he left the book she had lent him at home. “I can’t believe it,” he thinks, “I can see it sitting there on my desk, where I left it. I should have put it in my backpack last night when I was thinking about it.” As he finishes his call with Susan and makes a mental note to be on time for their appointment, his thoughts shift to how he is going to survive after Wednesday when his car is scheduled to go into the shop. Renting a car offers the most mobility, but is expensive. Bumming rides from his roommate are cheap but limiting. “Perhaps I’ll pick up a bus schedule at the student union,” he thinks, as he puts his cell phone in his pocket. Entering his anthropology class, he remembers that an exam is coming up soon. Unfortunately, he still has a lot of reading to do, so he decides that he won’t be able to take Susan to the movies tonight, as they had planned because he needs time to study. As the lecture begins, Raphael is anticipating, with some anxiety, his meeting with Susan and how he is going to tell her about this decision.
Now you see this is a description lot of small little things which are happening at one particular moment in somebody’s mind you can actually put yourself in the situation at any point in time or throughout the day you can pick up yourself and just examine one such instance you will realize that at one particular point in time a lot of different things are going on through your mind So let us try and see what all is happening here what all mental functions are taking place.
Let’s Understand the Image or Figure
This is a figure of what different things Raphael is doing as he is walking across the campus so you’ll see that he is an understanding conversation because he is on the phone he is visualizing his book on the desk which is left he is thinking that he has to be on time for the appointment maybe because that will lead to complications he is also remembering Susan’s book, by the way, he is walking in the campus so he is actually perceiving the campus scenes as well as to avoid bumping into people and falling off, also you saw that he was thinking about his car problems he was doing a variety of things he is basically engaged in something called complex behavior at this point in time.
So what all is Raphael doing actually Let’s Understand, he is perceiving his environment he is basically seeing people on campus walking he is also listening to Susan talking on the phone, he is paying attention to one thing after the other the person approaching his left what Susan is saying and how much time is left for the class, so he is actually paying attention to these different facts at the same time while he is involved in this conversation on the phone, also Raphael is remembering he is remembering things from the past that he is told Susan that he was going to return her book today, he is thinking how he will get the book back or say for example how he has left the book on his table those kinds of things he is actually going through in his memory.
He is also doing something interesting his distinguishing different items in a category when he thinks about different possible forms of transportation so he actually comparing these possibilities whether he should take a rental car, Whether he should take help get a ride with his roommate, or say for example he should go with the bus so he is actually also evaluating possibilities in here, also he is visualizing he is basically thinking of where he had left the book on his desk he can actually see, I left the book there I just forgot to keep it in my backpack while I slept in the last night he is understanding and producing a language something very complex is actually thinking to himself understanding what Susan is saying and also answering her back so he is doing these three things at the same point in time he is understanding whatever Susan is saying whatever he is thinking and also he is actually producing language by talking back to Susan. also, you saw that Raphael is working to solve a problem as he thinks about how to get to places while his car is in the shop, actually has a problem at hand and while the conversation is definitely going on he also needs to evaluate these different possibilities.
Finally, he actually comes to a decision so decision-making is also involved here he decides to postpone he is going to the movies with Susan tonight because he has to prepare for the exam that is going to come afterward so you’ll see in a particular moment in time we are involved in a variety of mental functions we are involved in a variety of these different decisions we have to take we are also doing a lot of things at the same point in time.
While you’re reading this article on your laptop or computer you’re actually doing the same thing as probably Rafael is doing, in this particular example you are remembering something, you are reading this article while reading this article, and you opened so many tabs on your browser and Search Perfect Answers. lots of work pending inside and outside of your mind and try to do multiple works at the same time and trying to understand what I am saying also thinking to yourself
You’re also making decisions on whether say for example to continue whether you like the Free Complete course or whether you don’t like it those different kinds of things you’re doing at the same moment this basically is what is the crux of cognitive psychology this is basically what we are going to study in the coming Article lectures
let’s talk about whether and what cognitive psychology actually does?
So, let us take into account the earlier definition of what cognitive psychology is the definition of what the mind is, and the definition of mental functions and we can conclude that cognitive psychology is the study of mental functions
For example –
- It is a study of attention
- It is a study of learning
- It is a study of memory
- It is a study of visualization or mental imagery
- It is a study of language
- It is a study of problem-solving when you have a problem at hand and it is also the study of decision-making
So in cognitive psychology, these are the different topics these are basically the names of the different chapters we will actually be studying in more detail, each of these is specific cognitive functions and we will actually look into how we study these different cognitive functions and what are the different ways of understanding these cognitive functions and so on, so with this in mind we will actually go on to the Next Article which is basically going to be about the history of Cognitive psychology we will talk about what is the history of the thought which basically governs cognitive psychology will actually look into a bit of a history of psychology how psychology developed from philosophy will also look into how cognitive psychology or this cognitivist perspective of psychology emerged from the earlier schools of psychology that is all we will see you in the Next Article ( Link is Given Below ).
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