Cognitive Psychology

1. Cognitive Psychology Todd Farchione, Ph.D. Tommy Chou, M.A.

2. Questions in Cognitive Psychology • How do people manage the flow of information? • How do people “decode” and store sensations and perceptions? • What’s in the “black box”?

3. Gestalt Psychology • Gestalt – German word for “whole” or “configuration” • Emphasizes the study of unified patterns or wholes • Perception and insight • Natural organizations

4. Jean Piaget • Sensorimotor Stage (up to 18 months) • Preoperational Thinking (18 months – 6 years) • Concrete Operations (6 years – 11 years) • Formal Operations (11 years and older)

5. Sensation and Perception • Perception – organizing and interpreting sensory information (more cognitive) • Sensation – unorganized, raw sensory information (more biological) • Bottom Up vs. Top Down Processing • Bottom Up – starts from the stimulus • Top Down – starts with memory and prior experience

7. Memory • Recall vs. Recognition • Three primary stages of memory • Sensory memory • Short-term memory • Long-term memory • Explicit vs. implicit memory

9. California Verbal Learning Test-II (Example) Apple Orange Cat Owl Monkey Sparrow Water Peach Dog Banana Milk Pigeon Hawk Soda Juice Squirrel

10. Thought and Language • Thinking • Analytical thinking • Synthetic thinking • Convergent vs. Divergent thinking

11. Problem Solving • Solve the anagram: HUSCOGYPLO • Algorithms vs. Cognitive Heuristics

12. Language • Provides an infinite number of meanings and messages • Phonemes • Morphemes • Syntax • Acquisition of language

13. Critiques of Cognitive Psych. • Lacks coherence • Mechanistic reductionism of the computer model • External validity issues