COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

• What is Cognitive Psychology?• What does cognition mean?

A big problem

• Psychologists study mental processes, but mental processes cannot be directly observed

There is a mind in here but we can’t open the box to look at it...

...however, we can do things to the whole box that will give us clues about what it’s like

Cognitive psychology

• Cognition = thinking• Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of

thinking processes like:– Perception– Attention– Memory– Problem solving– Language

What is a metaphor?

• Describing one thing in terms of another– Metaphors give psychologists ways of describing

the (unobservable) mind– In cognitive psychology, the mind is compared to a

computer• How is the mind like a computer?

The computer metaphor

Input processes

Information manipulation

processes

Output processes

Information storage

What’s this?

Now do you know what it is?

If you’d only ever lived in a country where alcohol was forbidden, would you know

what it was?

Scorpions: Scary pest? Or lunch?

Ikea: a furniture store? Or somewhere to have a quick snooze?

1. Takes in a shape.

2. Counts the vertices.

3. Adds one to this number.

4. Outputs a shape with the new

number of vertices.

What does this information processor do?

What does this information processor do?

What will the output be?

Police: Friendly upholders of the law? Or someone to run from?

Write this down

Happy Birthday

Write this down

Joyeaux Anniversaire

Write this down

• Cognitive psychologists investigate thinking by manipulating what people take into their minds (information) and observing what comes out (behaviour)– We can develop theories about how people’s

minds work by comparing input and output– Good theories will allow us to predict the output

from the input

But remember...

Whilst the mind is in some ways like a computer, the mind is not in fact a computer.

How are the two things different?

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Homework

• Think up three questions about people’s thinking processes. – Choose one of those questions and suggest how

you could get an answer for it. – Remember that cognitive psychologists

manipulate inputs and compare them with outputs.

Reflection

• Thinking about this lesson, note down:– The most interesting thing you have learned;– The most difficult thing you have done.

• What made these things interesting/difficult?