Cognitive Theory Presentation

7/31/2019 Cognitive Theory Presentation

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Cognitive theory is a learning theory of

psychology that attempts to explain humanbehavior by understanding the thoughtprocesses.

Compiled By > Dr Shamim Ali

Class > Mphil First Semester


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distinguishes us so clearly from animals,that our species might be moreappropriately named homo loquens than

homo sapiens.

and that it is both a generic

accomplishment as well as geneticendowment with which the individual isborn.


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Language is characterized by its productivity,creativity and open-endedness.

Animal communication is restricted to fixedcircumstances and sign or gestures have fixed

references. For example: can communicate only about

nectar; , despite their intelligence andlarge number of clicks, whistles, and squawks,communicate about same things again and again;

and even the clever , claimed tohave thirty-six different vocal sounds, is obligedto repeat them over and over again.


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Conversely, the potential number ofutterances in any human language is infinite.Novel utterances are continually created andthere is very rare chance for the repetition of

same structures uttered by any individual.

In this context, the productivity of novelutterances, manipulation and occassional

repetition of linguistic resources advocateslanguage learning as a cognitive skill.


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It refers to the

These are higher-level functions of the brainand encompass language, imagination,perception, and planning.


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Language is central in our lives. In our global society, this is the case not only

of our mother tongue, but also of othersecond languages required to communicatewithin the international society in specializedcontexts

The is a

, thus languageis considered to be an essential humanfeature.


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Was the major pioneer of cognitive theory. How children think is much more important

than what they know.


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Was founder of the Gestalts theory. His studies with Apes led him to a view of

problem solving as an active process ofinsight and on determining the role that

mental processes play in determiningemotions and behavior.

is a sudden change in theway one organizes a problem. Situation

typically this is characterized by a change inbehavior from random responding to rule-based responding.


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Developed a concept of Purposivebehaviourism which emphasised thedistinctions between learning andperformance and viewed learning in terms of

the formation of hypothesis and cognitivemaps.

Helped to lay the foundations for thecognitive approach


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The method individuals use toorganize their perception of a

particular situation such as a problem.

A term used by Tolman used todescribe situations in which learningis distinct from the performance


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Is best known for his work in determiningChunking for the Short term memory

Chunk: The basic measure of Short term

memory capacity representing a meaningfulunit, such as random letters number orwords.

Developed techniques for the experimentalstudy of memory and forgetting.


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: Stores how toinformation such as how to play a piano.

: Involves generalknowledge of how the world, such asknowing the capital of Japan.

: Contains personalexperiences


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Cognitive theory is a Learning theory ofpsychology that attempts to explain humanbehavior by understanding the thoughtprocesses.

The assumption is that humans are logicalbeings that make the choices that make themost sense to them.

Informationprocessing is a commonly useddescription of the mental process, comparingthe human mind to a computer.


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Cognitive development is the construction ofthought processes, including remembering,problem solving, and decision-making, fromchildhood through adolescence to adulthood.

Cognitive development refers to how a personperceives, thinks, and gains understanding of hisor her world through the interaction of geneticand learned factors.

Among the areas of cognitive development areinformation processing,intelligence,reasoning,language development, and memory.


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Piaget's theory, first published in 1952, grewout of decades of extensive observation ofchildren, including his own, in their naturalenvironments as opposed to the laboratory

experiments of the behaviorists. Although Piaget was interested in how

children reacted to their environment, heproposed a more active role for them than

that suggested by learning theory. He envisioned a child's knowledge as

composed of schemas


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What is Learning?

Learning is a process of relating newinformation to previously learnedinformation.

Learning is most likely to occur when anindividual can associate new learning with

previous knowledge.


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Some learning processes may be unique to human beings.(Example, complex language.)

Individuals are actively involved in the learning process.They are not passive receivers of environmental conditions,they are active participants in that learning process. In fact,they can control their own learning.

Learning involves the formation of mental associations thatare not necessarily reflected in overt behavior changes. Thisis very contrary to the behaviorist position, where nolearning can happen without an external behavior change.This is contrasted with behavioral objectives.

Knowledge is organized. An individual's knowledge is self

organized through various mental associations and structure


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There is an old proverb which states:

Applied to the language teaching and learning

field, this proverb might be interpreted to meanthat if students are provided with answers, theimmediate problem is solved.

But if they are taught the strategies to work out

the answers for themselves, they are empoweredto manage their own learning.


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Second language learning pertains to the adultlearning as compared to the first/native languagelearning of a child.

Psychologists and psycholinguists viewed 2nd

language learning as the acquisition of complexcognitive skill which involve application of sub-skills: grammatical rules, choosing theappropriate vocabulary, following the pragmatic

conventions governing the use of a specificlanguage. These sub-skills become automaticwith practice.


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From the cognitivists point of view, languageacquisition is dependent in both content anddevelopmental sequencings on priorcognitive abilities.

Hence, requires cognitive learning strategiesand style and approach to learn and acquireboth L1 & L2


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are the twocomplementary processes of Adaptationdescribed by Piaget, through whichawareness of the outside world is internalised


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In , what is perceived in the outside worldis incorporated into the internal world (note that I amnot using Piagetian terminology), without changingthe structure of that internal world, but potentially atthe cost of "squeezing" the external perceptions to fit

hence pigeon-holing and stereotyping. If you are familiar with databases, you can think of it

this way: your mind has its database already built,with its fields and categories already defined. If itcomes across new information which fits into those

fields, it can it without any trouble


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In the internal world has to itselfto the evidence with which it is confronted and thus adapt to it,which can be a more difficult and painful process. In thedatabase analogy, it is like what happens when you try to put ininformation which does not fit the pre-existent fields andcategories. You have to develop new ones to accommodate thenew information.

In reality, both are going on at the same time, so thatjust as

the mower blade cuts the grass, the grass gradually blunts thebladealthough most of the time we are assimilating familiarmaterial in the world around us, nevertheless, our minds are alsohaving to adjust to accommodate it.


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Piaget was mainly concerned with children'sdeveloping understanding of the world, so forhim (and for children) accommodation is no moreproblematic than assimilation. That does notnecessarily hold as we grow older. We have ways

of understanding our world which work for us, asrelatively successful (i.e. surviving) adults. Thereis no problem in assimilating new informationand ideas which fit with this world-view, but wefind it increasingly difficult to accommodate tonew stuff. One cognitive problem of ageing hasbeen well labelled "hardening of the categories"!


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Constructivism EmphasisesKelly's Personal Construct Theory

Kolb's work on the Cycle of Adult Learning.

Pask distinguishes between Holist and SerialistLearning Strategies.

Hudson distinguishes between Convergent andDivergent Cognitive Styles,

Bateson disentangles various levels of LearningContextualised by the one above.

Festinger's theory of Cognitive Dissonance


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is defined as the factual information stored inmemory and known to be static in nature. Othernames, e.g. descriptive knowledge, propositionalknowledge, etc. are also given. It is the part ofknowledge which describes how things are.

Things/events/processes, their attributes, and therelations between these things/events/processes andtheir attributes define the domain of declarativeknowledge.Procedural knowledge is the knowledge of how to

perform, or how to operate. Names such as know-how are also given. It is said that one becomes moreskilled in problem solving when he relies more onprocedural knowledge than declarative knowledge.


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is factual knowledge. For example knowing that"A cathode ray tube is used to project a picture inmost televisions" is declarative knowledge.Propositional knowledge or declarative

knowledge is knowledge or the possession ofinformation that is either true or false.

Declarative knowledge is assertion-oriented. Itdescribes objects and events by specifying the

properties which characterize them; it does notpay attention to the actions needed to obtain aresult, but only on its properties.


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Is related to the procedure to carry an actionout. For example, a method to balance acheckbook would be considered procedural

knowledge. Knowledge about "how" to dosomething is procedural knowledge.Procedural knowledge is instruction-oriented.It focuses on how to obtain a result

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Cognitive Theory Presentation