Cognitive Processes in Psychology

Mental Phenomena

• Mental phenomena include mental processes, states, and properties
• Mental processes are formed through an individual's interaction with the environment

Cognitive Processes

• There are eight types of cognitive processes in psychology
• Sensation: the cognitive function that allows us to reflect on objects and phenomena through the senses
• Perception: the cognitive function that allows us to make out the meaning of information
• Attention: the cognitive function that allows us to selectively focus on a particular stimulus
• Memory: the cognitive function that allows us to code, store, and recover information from the past
• Thinking: the cognitive function that involves ideas, images, mental representations, or other hypothetical elements of thought
• Speech: the cognitive function, as a system of human sounds, written signs, and symbols used to represent, process, store and transmit verbal information
• Imagination: the cognitive function that allows us to form images, ideas, and sensations in the mind based on past perception

Emotions

• Emotions reflect the surrounding world
• Paul Ekman proposed seven basic emotions: sad, joy, anger, surprise, fear, disgust, contempt
• Emotion typically involves feeling and differs from having an overt or implicit engagement with the world
• Emotion (unconscious) is a short-term mental phenomena, feeling (conscious) is a long-term mental phenomena

Will (Volition)

• Will is a conscious management of behavior and activities
• It is expressed by the ability to make decisions and overcome internal and external difficulties on the way to achieving the aim
• Any voluntary action has its own motive (cause) that motivates (directs) and gives motivation (energy) to be active on the way to achieving the aim

Mental States

• Mental states are the condition or status of an entity or system at a particular time
• Emotional states include anxiety, frustration, stress, affect, etc.

Mental Properties

• Mental properties are typical characteristics of a person's peculiarities
• Examples of mental properties include character, temperament, ability, and skill