Cognitive Psychology Overview

Cognitive Psychology Characteristics

• Knowing and thinking emphasized over mere responding.
• Focuses on mental structure, organization, and interaction with the environment.
• Views individuals as active, constructive, and creative, contrasting with behaviorism.
• Meaning emerges as a property of the interaction between organism and environment.

Gestalt Psychology

• Concept: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts; facilitates perception beyond immediate stimuli.
• Example: Figure-ground vases highlight how shapes and patterns are grouped.

Birth of Modern-Day Cognitive Psychology

• Date: September 11, 1956, during an MIT symposium.
• Influential areas:
  • Language, which shaped understanding of communication.
  • Problem-solving, enhancing cognitive strategy development.
  • Computer science, providing models for cognitive processes.

Behaviorism

• Definition: Focuses exclusively on stimulus-response relationships; dismisses internal mental processes.
• Extremist views result from:
  • Advocacy for scientific study only of observable behavior.
  • Influence of key figures: John B. Watson, Pavlov, and Wilhelm Wundt.
• Impact on cognitive psychology:
  • Highlighted the need for a systematic study of behavior, leading to further examination of cognitive processes.

Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down Processing

• Bottom-Up: Data-driven; involves sensory input leading to perception.
• Top-Down: Conceptually driven; relies on context and prior knowledge to interpret information.
• Example of top-down: Reading a slightly jumbled paragraph with correct word structure facilitates understanding.

Information Processing Model Stages

• Sensory store: Initial storage of stimuli.
• Filter: Selective attention applied to incoming information.
• Pattern recognition: Identification of meaningful patterns.
• Selection: Choosing relevant information for further processing.
• Short-term memory: Temporary storage for active processing.
• Long-term memory: Long-term storage for learned information.

Parallel vs. Serial Processing

• Parallel Processing: Simultaneous processing of several information streams.
• Serial Processing: Sequential processing of information, one at a time.

Iconic vs. Echoic Sensory Stores

• Iconic store:
  • Purpose: Visual information processing.
  • Capacity: Stores up to 9 letters.
  • Duration: 250-500 milliseconds; usually processed in parallel.
• Echoic store:
  • Purpose: Auditory information processing.
  • Capacity: Can hold 3-4 auditory chunks.
  • Duration: 3-5 seconds; processed in parallel.

Importance of Sperling in Cognitive Psychology

• Developed whole and partial report techniques, proving the existence of sensory and iconic stores.
• First to provide evidence on information processing stages and their interrelations.
• Showed that short-term memory uses auditory encoding.

Template Theory of Pattern Recognition

• Concept: Holistic recognition; matches visual cues to exact mental templates.
• Problems:
  • Requires distinct templates for each instance; lacks flexibility.
  • Fails to accommodate varying pattern interpretations.
  • Does not explain recognition performance in animals.

Research Evidence Supporting Feature Theories

• Rats' shadow experiments demonstrating feature recognition capabilities.
• Children's ability to learn different letters when emphasizing distinct features.
• Caricature studies highlighting that feature emphasis improves recognition efficiency.

Feature vs. Structural Theories of Pattern Recognition

• Feature theory centers on individual components; structural theory accounts for feature relationships.
• Research evidence: 'b' and 'p' identification graph showcasing reliance on structural context for recognition.

Automatic vs. Controlled Attentional Processes

• Automatic Processes:
  • Occur without intention and are subconsciously managed.
  • Example: Effortlessly recognizing a familiar face.
• Controlled Processes:
  • Deliberately enacted and result in conscious awareness.
  • Example: Actively focusing on reading a text.