Unit 2 Cognitive Psychology - Lecture 2 notes PDF

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What is cognitive psychology...

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Introduction to Psychology in Education16/11/17 Lecture 2 – What is cognitive psychology?  

Response to behaviourism Shift from study of observable behaviours to study of mental processes

Cognitive Psychology involves the study of the mental processes which underlie behaviour such as:  sensation and perception  problem solving & learning  memory  understanding language  reading (Processes which occur in the mind when we store and manipulate information from the outside environment)

The Gestalt theory Gestalt means when parts identified individually have different characteristics to the whole e.g. describing a tree - it's parts are trunk, branches, leaves, but when you look at an entire tree, you are not conscious of the parts, you are aware of the overall object - the tree. Wertheimer (1912)  You create patterns from visual input  Perception is not just what we see, but how we process what we see  Is an automatic and unconscious process

e.g. we see this as a face, even though it’s just a circle and 2 lines

Previous experiences bring in ideas about how we perceive them. Principle of continuity – continuation of what you are previously perceiving.

Bartlet    

Schema theory Perceptual input is compared to existing knowledge or “schemas” We select the appropriate schema to use based on our existing knowledge. Perceptions will therefore differ across individuals depending on background knowledge  Perceptions can change with experience

Introduction to Psychology in Education16/11/17 Chomsky  Language acquisition could not be explained by behaviourism  Language is an innate ability but it develops in line with environmental influences i.e. the language environment

Miller  Magic number 6  STM has a capacity of 7 (±2)  These pieces of information could be single letters or digits or tones, or they could be chunks of information.  Chunking bigger pieces of information is a way of remembering better e.g.

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The mind is often compared to a computer: Input -> process -> output Or more specifically: Stimulus -> attention -> perception -> thought processes -> Decision -> response/action The brain is said to be the ‘hardware’ (measured through brain scans etc) And the mind the ‘software’ (more abstract concept that can’t be measured)

Input processing: Bottom-up processing -> influence of information from the external world Top-down processing -> influence of information from our existing knowledge

Considerations: Serial or parallel processing  Doing more than one thing at the time e.g. listening to a lecture, taking notes and reading PowerPoint slides Automatic or conscious processing  Are you aware of the processes you go through when you are reading? Expert vs novice  Linked to automatic or conscious processing  E.g. learning to drive vs an experienced driver...