Understanding Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive psychology has undergone several phases throughout history, emerging at times, fading into obscurity, and reappearing later due to opposing movements that challenged its foundational principles. The most influential of these movements was behaviorism, which rose to prominence during the peak of cognitive psychology and succeeded in temporarily obscuring its presence within the broader field of psychology. However, cognitive psychology reemerged following the cognitive revolution, which ultimately dismantled the core tenets of behaviorism and restored cognitive psychology to its central role.

Concept of Cognitive Psychology

Several definitions have been proposed to clarify the concept of cognitive psychology. One of the most concise definitions comes from a group of cognitive psychologists who described it as: a specialized scientific field that studies knowledge from psychological and sociological perspectives.

Psychologist Neisser defined cognitive psychology as the science focused on all processes involved in receiving sensory inputs from living organisms, transforming them, storing them, clarifying them, retrieving them, using them, and drawing conclusions from them. In other words, it explains how external sensory stimuli surrounding humans are transmitted through their senses to the nervous system, where the mind interprets, analyzes, archives, and later retrieves this information.

Solso defined cognitive psychology as the scientific study of how we acquire information about the world, how we transform it into knowledge and understanding, how we store and use it, and how we apply this information to direct attention and behavior. Solso dedicated over two hundred pages in his comprehensive introduction to the significance of cognitive psychology, emphasizing the essential role of knowledge in understanding human psychology in all its dimensions—including the behavioral aspect that underpinned behaviorism. He stressed that human behavior does not arise in isolation but requires underlying knowledge for full development and expression.

Foundations of Cognitive Psychology

Key foundations of cognitive psychology include the following:

• Functional analysis of mental processes (attention, memory, forgetting, perception) to better understand the mental activities individuals engage in.
• An individual’s behavior is based on real knowledge, authentic information, and genuine cognitive strategies—not hypothetical assumptions. This principle stems from the idea that behavior is shaped by knowledge.
• Emphasis on mental activity as the foundation for acquiring knowledge and truths.
• The organism is an active, dynamic agent that acts upon the environment; the environment responds to the organism’s actions.

References

1. ↑ Cognitive Psychology, www.uomustansiriyah.edu.iq, accessed on July 9, 2018. Modified.
2. ↑ Lectures on Cognitive Psychology Measurement, www.elearn.univ-ouargla.dz, accessed on July 9, 2018. Modified.
3. ↑ Lectures on Introduction to Psychology, www.dspace.univ-setif2.dz, accessed on July 9, 2018. Modified.
4. ↑ Description of Cognitive Psychology Course 367 Psych, www.education.ksu.edu.sa, accessed on July 9, 2018. Modified.
5. ↑ The Importance of Educational Psychology in Teaching, www.dspace.univ-ouargla.dz, accessed on July 9, 2018. Modified.