Cognitive psychology Essay

Cognitive psychology had in its early days concerned itself with the study of attention and consciousness as the main focus of psychological inquiry. Attention had been defined as the means by which the human mind can process a specific amount of information from all the other information present in the immediate environment and from memory (Sternberg, 2006). The most common experience that an individual may have that demonstrates the function of attention is the cocktail party problem; this demonstrates the ability of the mind to actively process single information at a given time and be able to disregard others. This is referred to as selective attention, if we pay attention to every stimulus that is presented to us, and then we would have a stimulus overload and hence would affect our understanding and experience of particular stimuli. In the Stroop effect it was demonstrated that it is very difficult to attend to the color of the ink and the word color at the same time. However, through practice and sensory adaptation, the brain has the ability to adapt to the different stimuli and hence do not give attention to its sensory modalities, for example, a person who work in a coffee bar would likely not pay attention to the aroma of the coffee beans than the customers who frequents it. A closely related concept to attention is consciousness. A person’s consciousness is the degree to which one is aware of his/her feelings and experiences and the awareness that he/she is feeling or behaving in a particular way. Consciousness is important because it enables the mind to actively process information, without consciousness there is no attention (Sternberg, 2006). Although some behaviors may become automatic and does not need to be attended like swimming or eating, in other instances priming which is the ability of the mind to supply missing information based on previous experiences or memory is demonstrated in the ability of the mind to recognize incomplete pictures of familiar objects. Attention is one of the most basic human ability, which is the precursor to learning, to effective communication, to decision-making and even intelligence and self-awareness. Attention is one of those concepts that is not given much thought but undoubtedly is the framework from which so many behaviors are manifested (Sternberg, 2006). Paying attention is one of the biggest problem that modern man have, due to the advanced technology and scientific knowledge that enabled man to create tools that would attend to the usual information that we encounter on a daily basis, our ability to attend to something has become limited. For example, our cars now have GPS which can help us reach our destinations faster than if we relied on our own attending skills, hence we do not pay attention to the landmarks, to sign posts or even to pedestrians because we have the GPS tell us where to go to. Another example is how we have embedded our watches with pulse monitors, we do not pay attention now to how we feel when we jog, but instead rely on the monitor to tell us if we are going faster or slower than our target rate. Even diets have become prepackaged to certain caloric amounts that we don’t pay attention to the amount of food we consume and whether our brain is sending us signals that we are already full. In this fast paced and disposable culture, attention is the least of our concerns, even with the fact that our ability to focus and attend to something is limited and almost always inaccurate if it goes beyond what our brains can process. Attention is also linked to intelligence and learning, an acute sense of awareness and excellent attending skills enable the individual to notice the smallest detail which aids in the processing of information. Perception Perception collectively refers to the means by which we recognize, organize and make sense of the stimuli that we receive from the environment through our different senses. Psychological research into perception had been the focus of the Gestalt theorists and from which they were the first to develop theoretical assumptions and explanations of different perceptual processes (Sternberg, 2006). Gestalt psychology says that the whole is more than the total of the sum of its parts, which meant that although it is important to breakdown perception into its components and structure, the perception of the whole is more important than its parts. Just like attention, the human brain can adapt to the different sensual stimuli that we encounter on a daily basis. Perceptual constancy says that our perception of a certain object becomes stable even if we are removed from the origin of the stimulus; an example is when how we can remember that a certain candy is sweet and sour even if we just look at it. A number of perceptual illusions mostly on visual perception had demonstrated the limited capacity of the human brain to perceive visual stimulus (Sternberg, 2006). The figure and ground principle shows that our perception of an ambiguous object may vary depending on what is perceived and processed first, whether the figure or its background. A sensory accommodating principle, the law of Pragnanz shows that when we are presented disparate and random stimulus, we tend to organize the information to form a coherent whole. Our ability to perceive objects and other stimulus is influenced by a number of factors such as depth, context effects, light and color, directionality and source of stimulus. At present there are other perception theories that propose different approaches to the study of perception. The top-down theories approach says that perception starts from pre-existing and prior knowledge of perceptual cues and processes. The bottom-up theories argue that perception is dependent on the stimulus and data that is to be processed. Perception is in the realm of cognitive psychology and is further studied using the experimental methods. Researches on perception were popular in the early days of psychology but interest waned with the surge of behaviorism. In the last decade however, with the resurgence of experimental and cognitive psychology and with the technological advancements of computers that would measure perception, new interest on perception and perceptual processes have resurged. Moreover, the process by which the human mind perceive the sensory stimuli has been used to model artificial intelligence and the studies of which is geared towards the development of more intelligent robots and machines (Sternberg, 2006). Our ability to perceive the various information present in our environment determines how effectively and accurate our perception of and understanding of the world around us. If for example we lose our sense of sight, life would be very difficult and if not dark, if we become deaf then we would not be able to hear and appreciate our own laughter. Losing one of our senses changes our life and sometimes it would take a long time for us to adjust to the inability to feel, to become aware of where we are and what we are doing. In as much as how limited our perceptual abilities are, what a normal person is endowed with is already enough than missing one of it. Our perception is also influenced by our consciousness and the attention we give to those information (Groome & Grant, 2005), we may be able to sense and perceive various sensory stimuli but if we do not attend to it or if we are not conscious of it, then we cannot attach meaning to what we perceive. Memory Memory is a cognitive process that is necessary for everyday functioning and which is based on the stored information and previous experiences. Memory is composed of three stages, the encoding, storage and retrieval process; encoding refers to how our brain process new information, storage is the means by which we store information and experience, which can either be long-term or short-term memory, the last process is retrieval which refers to the process by which we withdraw stored information. Memory has three information processing model, sensory memory, working memory and long-term memory. Sensory memory is the initial encoding of sensory information and provides very brief storage, iconic memory for visual stimuli and echoic memory for auditory stimuli. Short-term memory or working memory refer to the memory storage where information is temporary held and needs to be used immediately, auditory codes are more easily stored than visual information, the amount of information stored in working memory is very small but can be increased through chunking. Long-term memory is where information is stored for long periods of time or even for a life time. The information stored is usually very important and are used frequently, at present long –term memory can store an infinite number of information. Semantic memory is another form of memory which refers to the general world knowledge which is made up of interconnected networks of information called a semantic network which we use to be able to process new information, however semantic memory also facilitates stereotypes and schemas which affects how we perceive new information. Damages to the brain can cause memory loss such as amnesia, Alzheimer’s disease, and other more specific inabilities to process information. Information can be committed to long term memory through rehearsal, which is to consistently practice and work with the information needed to be remembered such as studying for exams or mastery of skills. Even if the information is stored in long term memory it is still subject to decay especially with the passage of time, if information is not used or retrieved, it will ultimately decay and be forgotten. Memory is one of the major concentrations of psychology in terms of how the brain functions, aside from perceiving sensory stimuli. The study of memory at present is now likened to how computers work and process data, the processes in memory even borrow terms from computer science such as encoding and retrieval. In a way, the brain processes information in much the same way as computers, but how it is encoded has not been adequately understood. Some theorists says that neural networking and the firing of neurons are the means by which information is encoded which is why any damage to the brain would result to memory loss (Baddeley, 1999). There are also conditions wherein memory loss is very specific like the inability to recognize faces that had been previously encountered. Memory serves many functions and which enables us to remember basic functions that are not physiologically automatic, for example, the mastery of reading skills, number skills and even the ability to dress oneself and to tie shoe laces. Our memory is the our storehouse of information and skills, when we go to school, all the things we need to learn is committed to memory and our previous experiences and stored information will help us process new information through accommodation and assimilation. As we age, and as our brain deteriorate, we experience memory loss which makes it impossible for us to live alone (Bredart, Brennen, Delchambre, McNeill & Burton, 2005). Recent research said that memory can still be enhanced even as we get older by continuously engaging in activities that would make use of our brain. Thinking Thinking is a collective term that refers to the process, by which we actively integrate new and previous information, it is also the process by which problem solving, decision-making and creativity is done. Thinking is a cognitive process that engages the mind, memory, learning and stored knowledge in arriving at a decision or a solution to the problem and the creation of new ideas. Thinking is a mental exercise that every person engages in as a means of applying the information and skills gained from learning and knowledge acquisition. There are different forms of thinking; namely productive, convergent and divergent thinking. Productive thinking is the process by which the mind finds a way to be able to produce a new idea, object or project. Convergent thinking is when the mind narrows down its evaluation of related knowledge to come up with a single best answer. Divergent thinking occurs when the object of the mental exercise is to generate as many theories and options for a single problem which is similar to brainstorming. Thinking as a process involves the analysis of related information or the contexts at which a certain problem exists, in analysis, the problem or idea is broken down into its component parts and then scrutinized under some perspective or framework of analysis. There are many ways in which we arrive at solutions to a problem or to decision-making strategies, one of which is insightful thinking. Insight refers to the point wherein a solution is identified after studying the problem, this happens when the individual gains an understanding of the interrelatedness of the information needed to solve the problem. There is also what is called as the use of available heuristics, with heuristics, there is not systematic way of thinking, it may lead to the solution to the problem by chance or it may not. Thinking is a diversified cognitive process, and at times it is very difficult to define when one is thinking, most of us refer to specific situations like problem-solving, decision-making or creativity to refer to different ways of manipulating information and data. However, these all involve the use of previous knowledge, to better understand the present information and to be able to present a comprehensive output using the old and new information. The study of thought process had been probably influenced by the delineation of abstract and concrete thinking as proposed by Piaget, and to some extent the concept of having to concrete examples and being able to think abstractly are very human traits (Eysenck & Keane, 2005). Some theories even say that thinking is the only ability that humans can do and animals cannot. When we think, we take out information relevant to the material we are working on and then evaluate the new information based on what we already know. For example, we know from mathematical principles of whole numbers that 1+1 is 2, when we work with a problem that asks us to do 1+1 then we know it is two, not because we have memorized the information but because we know that a whole number is added another whole number it will become 2 whole numbers, likewise we would know that 1+-1 would not equal to 2 because it has a negative sign. Thinking is probably the only exercise that has tremendous possibilities for generating bright, innovative, creative and excellent ideas (Eysenck & Keane, 2005). When asked to write an essay, I would probably thin first what I would write in it before actually putting it into paper. This refers to the act of identifying relevant information and using our mental faculties to come up with novel and new ways of presenting information and experiences. Language Language is one of the topics that have baffled scientists for the last part of history; the study of language in cognitive psychology is related to how language is acquired and how it is produced. Language refers to the process of attaching meaning to symbols in order to communicate with others. Language as used by man is different from those used by animals; we need mental representations of words in order to identify what it is and to use language as a means of expressing those symbols. For example, a red juicy tomato describes the color, firmness and taste of a round fruit which is used as a vegetable and eaten raw in most dishes. To the cognitive psychologist, language is directly related to the brain since damage to the Broca’s region would affect the speech ability of the individual. Psycholinguistics is the specific study of language as it relates to the human mind. Language is a complex process wherein the mind identifies the object, event, or feeling, and translates it into the existing language repertoire of the individual and then activates the body to produce the sounds that would verbalize the message and the idea. Language can be in written form or verbal, but psychologists are more interested in how verbal language is developed. There are several theories that attempts to explain language acquisition, one of which says that there is an innate biological mechanism that enables us to acquire, process and use language (Plomin & Dale, 2000). This would mean that language is something that we naturally do as a course of development, we are bale to acquire language in much the same way that we can walk or run or crawl. Another theory is hypothesis testing, which says that children develop language through a series of hypothesis testing which is to tentatively prove what they believe to be word relationships language patterns. For example, a 3 year old child may use language in the third person and when adults respond to his words indicating the he should own what he say, then he would know that he need not use the third person. Semantics refer to the study of meaning in a language and is often the focus of experimental research especially when a new word is developed and how a person attaches meaning to a particular word. At present one that is stressed by educators is the concept of metacognition, which is the ability to thin about what we are reading and writing even before we comprehend its entirety. Language is one of those fascinating subjects in psychology, although it is highly technical when it is broken down into its specific parts, it is also a very informative aspect of human existence. Language development and acquisition is often the means by which culture is transmitted and wherein socialization is handed from one generation to the next. Language also mirrors the culture of the society it develops from and this has been the focus of indigenous psychology and cross-cultural studies on the universality of psychological concepts in different languages (Esgate & Groome, 2004). Language is the main vehicle by which we interact and relate to other people, we are able to communicate with each other because we all use language, the inability to express our ideas and thoughts and feelings may leave the person handicapped and isolated from the rest of society. Languages disabilities may also hinder the education of children as learning basically occur in the context of communication and exchange of words and ideas. Language is said to be enhanced when the person has a large vocabulary, which means that the person has a large number of learned words which are available to him to aid him when he communicates with other people. At present the issue of English as a second language is prevalent in the educational system as more and more non-native English speakers are becoming a part of our society (Esgate & Groome, 2004). This has opened another field of study which is how a second language is acquired especially if it is very different in structure and form from the native language.