Cognitive psychology is one of the branches of psychology that is relatively young. It is worth noting that cognitive psychology has tremendously grown within a short period and become among the famous subfield in psychology. There are various research that have been undertaking in the field of cognitive psychology. The practical application of cognitive psychology tends to assert more meaning to the field. Some of the topics include memory, learning styles, language acquisition, as well as forgetting. Cognitive psychology refers to the division of psychology that studies the mental process, which include how individuals remember, perceive, learn and think. These brand of psychology is related to various disciplines such as linguistics, philosophy, and neuroscience. Since the beginning of experimental research, cognitive psychology has gained roots. The work of cognitive psychology has been integrated with various modern disciplines such as social psychology, economics, developmental psychology, education psychology, abnormal psychology, and personality psychology. Studying cognitive psychology is very beneficial. These are based on the fact that cognitive psychology relates to several other fields. In the general perspective, cognitive psychology is one of the major field of study since it focuses on mental process.
The central focus of cognitive psychology is on how people store, acquires and process information. The practical application of cognitive psychology continues to increase the importance of this field. The field of cognitive psychology has been improved by various philosophers. Some of the philosophers recognized in the cognitive psychology are James Mill, David Hume, John Stuart Mill, Hermann Ebbinghaus, Wilhelm Wundt, Allen Newell, and George Miller. These are a clear indication that the cognitive psychology has undergone various steps to what it is today. Notably, cognitive psychology began to revolutionize the field of psychology in 1950s (Weingarten & Penat, 2009). The interest in the mental process and the dissatisfaction on the behaviorist approach enhanced research in cognitive psychology.
The various research carried out in cognitive psychology employ the use of the scientific method. Though the collection of data, it is possible to draw conclusion on various mental processes among individuals. There are many researches that have been carried out on the topic. Most of the research focus on rationality, reasoning, intelligence, cognitive science, creativity, animal cognition, attention, and other mental related activities (Goldstein, 2007).
One of the research that has been carried out is the relationship between cognitive psychology and behaviorism. These are based on cognitive psychology standpoint. Behaviorism that incorporate mental engagement overlap with publically behavioral and observable things. These means that the mental things should be focused in different dimension (Moore, 2013). The behaviorism creates errors when it tries to emphasize on mental things as part of behavioral issues. Based on the sustention, cognitive psychologists assert that behaviorism is inadequate. Through this research in the field of cognitive psychology, it is evident that cognitive psychology is a revolutionary replacement for the behaviorism.
The way the brain and kind operate is another research in the field of cognitive psychology. Through research in cognitive psychology, it is evident that the human mind is a computational system and process. Human mind is an organization and function of switches that multi-disciplinary various issues of cognition. These aspects of cognition include memory, attention, reasoning, thinking, and perception. The research also reveals that the mind operates efferent and afferent representational units, which relate to motor and sensory molds of the brain (Varvatsoulias, 2014). The focus of brain operating in a computational process is based on various techniques, which include production systems, semantic networks, and connectionist networks. The understanding of the mind as a computer system is based on computationalism. Through research, cognitive psychology asserts that the human mind has manipulated cognitive interactions, symbols, representations, and structures. In the brain, there is an aspect of connectionism and computationalism that mimics the cognitive, informational processes.
The issue of memory is one of the aspects that has been researched in cognitive psychology. The aspect of recording and decoding in memory is crucial in the field of cognitive psychology. Working memory among children and adults is limited. The adults in this case have a way of overcoming this problem. The process overcome limited working memory through recording. These happen when representations of items are grouped together into higher order presentation and labeled. The label is then decoded to retrieve the items from the long-term memory of individuals. The children can only recall items using verbal label (Kibbe & Feigenson, 2014). Children tend to overcome the working memory limits by recording information and recalling it through verbal label. These are one of the critical research on cognitive psychology that focus on developmental origins of decoding and recording of memory.
Cognitive neuroscience is also an important aspect of cognitive psychology. The main focus in cognitive neuroscience is the aspect of neural substrates that are essential in the mental processes. The research elaborates on how cognitive functions are always produced by the brains neutral circuits. Clinical studies tend to assert that individuals with cognitive defects are important in the cognitive neuroscience (Kellogg, 2011). The methods that are employed in cognitive neuroscience include functional neuroimaging, electrophysiological and physiological experiments. The standard information processing and analysis of cognition can be enlightened by comprehending how the cognition is instigated in the brain.
The principles of cognitive psychology tend to give a unique feature to the field. It is worth noting that cognitive psychology embrace the use of scientific methods and reject introspection as valid investigation methods. In fact, it acknowledges the existence of motivation, belief and desire, which has been proven through scientific research. The behaviorist psychology does not acknowledge internal mental states. The theories of cognitive psychology tend to provide a solution to various insights.
Information processing is one of the research that has been carried out in cognitive psychology. It is worth noting that cognitive psychologists agreed that information processing paradigm is among the best techniques to study human cognition. In the research, the agreement was based on the fact that the human being are intentional and autonomous beings who interact with the external world (Keane & Eysenck, 2000). It is theming that interact with the external world, which is achieved through symbol processing that is a general purpose in nature. The cognitive processes in the brain take and predictions about the reaction time. The processing of information is also facilitated by language. Cognitive psychology tends to research on language acquisition and origin. Language must be learned by the children, which is a part of the cognitive process. The morpheme makes up the mental lexicon in the human brain. It is through this minimal units of speech that tend to develop language (Kellogg, 2011).
Visual perceptions are part of research in cognitive psychology. The reconstructivist perspective of perception brings out a range of elucidations in cognitive psychology. It is through such research that top-down and bottom-up processing are elaborated. The bottom-up processing entails the one that proceeds from the lower point of analysis to a higher level. On the other hand, the top-down process tends to feed down a system using the knowledge at higher level to facilitate all the processes in the lower level (Parkin, 2014). The interpretations of these processing bring out a clear view of various cognitive operations related to visual perceptions.
People in societybthink in different ways. It is through cognitive psychology that the variation can be established. It is evident that without the experts, the world could be in big problems. Research carried out on the way experts and novice think when they face a problem. In this case, it is clear that the novice get stuck thinking on the basics of the problems while the experts think based on the underlying principles of the problem (Kellogg, 2011). The experts approach the problem in an abstract and deeper way. Such type of thinking makes other people think successfully and quicker. Thinking is a crucial topic in cognitive psychology that tend to elaborate on how human brain operates.
In the general perspective, cognitive psychology has become famous in the modern society. The fact that it is interconnected to other disciplines tend to increase its relevance in society. The critical areas of research in cognitive psychology are memory, knowledge representation, perception, intelligence, thinking learning, language, and consciousness. Each of these areas elaborates on the cognitive process that take place in the brain. It is worth noting that not all cognitive process in the brain is accompanied by consciousness. Cognitive psychology refers to a branch of psychology that studies the mental process, which include how individuals remember, perceive, learn and think. These mental processes tend to define most of the activities and actions carried out by people.
References
Goldstein, E. (2007). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience. London: Wiley
Keane, M. & Eysenck, M. (2000). Cognitive Psychology: A Student’s Handbook. Philadelphia: Taylor & Francis Inc.
Kellogg, R. T. (2011). Fundamentals of cognitive psychology. London: SAGE.
Kibbe, M. M., & Feigenson, L. (2014). Developmental origins of recoding and decoding in memory. Cognitive Psychology, 7555-79. doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2014.08.001
Moore, J. (2013). TUTORIAL: COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY AS A RADICAL BEHAVIORIST VIEWS IT. Psychological Record, 63(3), 667-679. doi:10.11133/j.tpr.2013.63.3.019
Parkin, A. (2014). Essential Cognitive Psychology. New York: Taylor & Francis Inc.
Varvatsoulias, G. (2014). Discussion on the Claim That the Human Mind is a Computational Process Device. Psychological Thought, 7(2), 127-133. doi:10.5964/psyct.v7i2.109
Weingarten, S. P., & Penat, H. O. (2009). Cognitive psychology research developments. New York: Nova Science Publishers.
