Cognitive Psychology

[MrMonkey]

Ok, I've looked on websites and stuff but didn't really understand what this is about. For my Forensic's course I have to find out about Cognitive Psychology, but all the websites are really vague. I was wondering if anyone's done psychology who could give me like a paragraph or two of what it entails and what it's about. I have a feeling it has something to do with saying that the person is wrong, for example "I heard voices last night." and your reply would be "No you didn't."

Any help would be muchly appreciated. Thanks folks :'(

[pinky]

a branch of psychology concerned with mental processes (as perception, thinking, learning, and memory) especially with respect to the internal events occurring between sensory stimulation and the overt expression of behavior

an approach to psychology that emphasizes internal mental processes

a bit vague :'("

[shaggy]

I did but it was about 10 years ago :'( First explanation was crap and only really touched on perception so try this, taken from this web site

cognitive psy

Cognitive psychology is the psychological science which studies cognition, the mental processes that are hypothesised to underlie behavior. This covers a broad range of research domains, examining questions about the workings of memory, attention, perception, knowledge representation, reasoning, creativity and problem solving. The term came into use with the publication of the book Cognitive Psychology by Ulric Neisser in 1967. There he gives a very broad definition of cognitive psychology, emphasising that it is a point of view which postulates the mind as having a certain conceptual structure, thus giving the discipline scope to study more than the higher-level concepts such as "reasoning" that modern books often enumerate in an attempt to give a definition. Neisser's definition of cognition illustrates this well:

...the term "cognition" refers to all processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used. It is concerned with these processes even when they operate in the absence of relevant stimulation, as in images and hallucinations... Given such a sweeping definition, it is apparent that cognition is involved in everything a human being might possibly do; that every psychological phenomenon is a cognitive phenomenon. But although cognitive psychology is concerned with all human activity rather than some fraction of it, the concern is from a particular point of view. Other viewpoints are equally legitimate and necessary. Dynamic psychology, which begins with motives rather than with sensory input, is a case in point. Instead of asking how a man's actions and experiences result from what he saw, remembered, or believed, the dynamic psychologist asks how they follow from the subject's goals, needs, or instincts.

Cognitive psychology is radically different from previous psychological approaches in two key ways.

It accepts the use of the scientific method, and generally rejects introspection as a valid method of investigation, unlike phenomenological methods such as Freudian psychology.

It posits the existence of internal mental states (such as beliefs, desires and motivations) unlike behaviourist psychology.

The school of thought arising from this approach is known as cognitivism.

Edited September 18, 2005 by shaggy

[MrMonkey]

Thanks alot both of you :'( It shall help muchas :D