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1: History of Cognitive Psychology

  • Page ID
    54066
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    Imagine all of your thoughts as if they were physical entities, swirling rapidly inside your mind. How is it possible that the brain is able to move from one thought to the next in an organized, orderly fashion? The brain is endlessly perceiving, processing, planning, organizing, and remembering—it is always active. Yet, you don’t notice most of your brain’s activity as you move throughout your daily routine. This is only one facet of the complex processes involved in cognition. Simply put, cognition is thinking, and it encompasses the processes associated with perception, knowledge, problem solving, judgment, language, and memory. Scientists who study cognition are searching for ways to understand how we integrate, organize, and utilize our conscious cognitive experiences without being aware of all of the unconscious work that our brains are doing (for example, Kahneman, 2011).

    • 1.1: Definition of Cognitive Psychology
      Cognitive psychology explores human thinking by examining interactions among thought processes, emotion, creativity, language, and problem solving. It seeks to understand why we think the way we do, how we prioritize tasks, and the unconscious aspects of cognition. Cognitive psychologists investigate intelligence, problem-solving skills, and the impact of emotional intelligence on workplace success, as well as how we organize thoughts and information into categories.
    • 1.2: Historical Roots- History of Cognition
      The page outlines the concept of cognition, which encompasses mental abilities and processes like memory, judgment, and problem-solving. Key historical figures in cognition include Aristotle, who emphasized empirical evidence, Descartes, known for "I think, therefore I am," and Wundt, who is considered a founding figure of psychology. Cognition is studied across various disciplines such as psychology, neuroscience, and computer science.
    • 1.3: Mnemonic Devices
      The human mind organizes thoughts by processing sensory information and drawing from emotions and memories, using concepts and prototypes to categorize and relate experiences. Concepts are organized groupings of ideas built from semantic memory, which can be complex, abstract, or concrete. Prototypes represent ideal examples within a concept. Concepts divide into natural and artificial types, based on experience or defined characteristics.
    • 1.4: Early Psychology - Structuralism and Functionalism
      The page explores the early development of psychology, focusing on key figures Wilhelm Wundt and William James. Wundt, associated with structuralism, aimed to identify the basic elements of consciousness through introspection, while James, a proponent of functionalism, emphasized understanding mental processes as adaptive functions.
    • 1.5: Contributions to Cognitive Psychology “Birth”
      The cognitive revolution marked a shift from behaviorism's emphasis on external behavior to a renewed focus on the mind, driven by fields like linguistics, neuroscience, and computer science. Noam Chomsky played a vital role, challenging behaviorism's limitations and introducing the concept of an innate language acquisition device, although this notion remains debated.
    • 1.6: Gestalt Psychology
      This section focuses on Gestalt psychology, emphasizing that perception is more than the sum of sensory inputs. Key principles like figure-ground relationship, proximity, similarity, good continuation, and closure explain how sensory data is organized. These principles demonstrate that perceptions, influenced by personal characteristics and biases, are not flawless.

    Thumbnail: William James, shown here in a self-portrait, was the first American psychologist.


    This page titled 1: History of Cognitive Psychology is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Mehgan Andrade and Neil Walker.

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