LU 2 | Additional Resources

Resource 1

(McLeod, 2015) Scientific study of the mind as an information processor is called as cognitive psychology. Cognitive models of the information processing in people’s minds such as perception, attention, language, memory, thinking and consciousness were built by cognitive psychologist. In the mid 1950s, this field became of great importance. The first reason that made cognitive psychology a great importance was because there were dissatisfaction with the behaviorist approach in its simple emphasis on external behavior rather than internal processes. Secondly, the development of better experimental method and comparison between human and computer processing of information.

The idea of studying the mind was rejected by behaviorist because internal mental processes cannot be observed and objectively measured. The mediational processes of the organisms are important to be understand instead of the simple stimulus-response links proposed by behaviorism.

Human are information processor. Information processing in humans are similar that in computers, and is based on transforming information, storing information and retrieving information from memory.

The information processing approach is based on a number of assumptions, including information made available from the environment is processed by a series of processing systems for instances, attention, perception and short-term memory. These processing systems alter the information in systematic ways. The aim of research is to identify the processes and structures that underlie cognitive performance.

In mediational processes, behaviorist believe that internal behavior cannot be studied because we cannot see what happens in a person’s mind. As compared, the cognitive approach believes experiments can be scientifically used to study the internal mental behavior. Behaviorist Model which only study observable or external behavior involves stimulus which are in the environment, black box which cannot be studied and response. Meanwhile, Cognitive Model which can scientifically study internal behavior involves input which is in the environment, mediational process(mental event) and the output(behavior). The mediational(mental) event could be memory, perception, attention or problem solving. These are known as mediational processes because they mediate between the stimulus and the response. They come after the stimulus and before the response.

McLeod, S. A. (2015). Cognitive psychology. Retrieved from

https://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive.html

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Resource 2

Cognition is a terms that describes processes and complexes of knowledge itself. Cognitive psychology is the study of mind that involves perception, attention, memory and procedures that are involved when we receive, collect and retrieve information.

Cognitive psychologist in the early are the opposing parties to behaviorists who believe that nothing intervened betweek stimuli and response in terms of mental processes. They abided in two basic principles that favoured them in regards to their opposers. They believe that mental processes can and should be studied scientifically. This was because their study would provide the opportunity to formulate theories that later on can be tested using scientific methods.

Making models about the unobserveable allowed scientist to reach conclusions and subjects that behaviors never could. And in addition, the use of Cognitive Science socio-cultural and biologic levels of analysis provided the use of triangulation in certain studies that let scientists reach a whole new level of depth.

One model that was created with the help of cognitive psychologists proposed information processing approach to memory is the multi-store model or MSM. It is composed of three primary stores of memory which is the sensory, then short-tern stores and finally long-term stores. These three vary in duration capacity coding and advanced through varying methods. First, our senses will pick up on stimuli. Visual information can be referred to as iconic memory. Attention is responsible for memory travelling from sensory to short-term stores which unlike sensory and long-term has a quite small capacity. Through rehearsal, information will then go to the long-term and can later be retrieved brining it back to the short-term store again.

There are several studies made to research memory phenomenon. A well known one which is found by Glanzer and Cunitz in 1966. This study was taken by showing subjects a list of 15 words with instruction to memorize them. Half of them recalled the words immediately while the other had 30 seconds delay where they were told to count backwards from a three-digit number in order to avoid rehearsal. As expected with subjects that recalls immediately, researchers received results with primacy and recency effects. These being when one recalled the first and the last words that you read. With subjects that recalls after a delay, recency effect were no longer visible. Given that short-term memory was lost after the 30 seconds but primacy effect still affected the recall. This went along with the MSM seeing as primacy effect showed how the first word are commonly the first rehearsed. Showing to be the most recalls in both trials while the recency effect went on to prove that we recall best the things that remain in short-term memory even though they remain there for a short time period. This therefore shows that mental processes can and should be studied scientifically.

Fischman. F. (2015). Cognitive Psychology Simply Explained. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pw_lir3oc8