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As I cross the busy road, a sea of information of varying degrees of importance confronts me. Maintaining focus on the oncoming traffic is paramount, yet I am barely aware of the seagulls flying overhead. These noisy birds only receive attention when I am safely walking up the other side of the road, their cries reminding me of childhood seaside vacations. Cognitive psychology focuses on the internal mental processes needed to make sense of the environment and decide on the next appropriate action (Eysenck & Keane, 2015). This article explores the cognitive psychology approach, its origins, and several theories and models involved in cognition. Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free. These science-based exercises explore fundamental aspects of positive psychology, including strengths, values, and self-compassion, and will give you the tools to enhance the wellbeing of your clients, students, or employees. What Is the Cognitive Psychology Approach?The upsurge of research into the mysteries of the human brain and mind has been considerable in recent decades, with recognition of the importance of cognitive process in clinical psychology and social psychology (Eysenck & Keane, 2015). As a result, cognitive psychology has profoundly affected the field of psychology and our understanding of what it is to be human. Perhaps more surprisingly, it has had such an effect without clear boundaries, an integrated set of assumptions and concepts, or a recognizable spokesperson (Gross, 2020). So, what exactly is the cognitive psychology approach? Cognitive psychology attempts to understand human cognition by focusing on what appear to be cognitive tasks that require little effort (Goldstein, 2011). Let’s return to our example of walking down the road. Imagine now that we are also taking a call. We’re now combining several concurrent cognitive tasks:
While cognitive psychologists initially focused firmly on an analogy comparing the mind to a computer, their understanding has moved on. There are currently four approaches, often overlapping and frequently combined, that science uses to understand human cognition (Eysenck & Keane, 2015):
Cognitive psychology plays a massive and essential role in understanding human cognition and is stronger because of its close relationships and interdependencies with other academic disciplines (Eysenck & Keane, 2015). A Brief History of Cognitive PsychologyIn the 1800s, the scientific community widely believed that it was not possible for the ‘mind to understand the mind.’In 1868, a Dutch physiologist, Franciscus Donders, began to measure reaction time – something we would now see as an experiment in cognitive psychology (Goldstein, 2011). Donders recognized that mental responses could not be measured directly but could be inferred from behavior. Not long after, Hermann Ebbinghaus began examining the nature and inner workings of human memory using nonsense syllables (Goldstein, 2011). By the late 1800s, Wilhelm Wundt had set up the first laboratory dedicated to studying the mind scientifically. His approach became known as structuralism. His bold aim was to build a periodic table of the mind, containing all the sensations involved in creating any experience (Goldstein, 2011). However, the use of analytical introspection to uncover hidden mental processes was gradually dropped when John Watson proposed a new psychological approach that became known as behaviorism (Goldstein, 2011). Watson rejected the introspective approach and instead focused on observable behavior. His idea of classical conditioning – the connection of a new stimulus with a previously neutral one – was later surpassed by B. F. Skinner’s idea of operant conditioning, which focused on positive reinforcement (Goldstein, 2011). Both theories sought to understand the relationship between stimulus and response rather than the mind’s inner workings (Goldstein, 2011). Prompted by a scathing attack by linguist and cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky, by the 1950s behaviorism as the dominant psychological discipline was in decline. The introduction of the digital computer led to the information-processing approach, inspiring psychologists to think of the mind in terms of a sequence of processing stages (Goldstein, 2011). In 1967, Ulrich Neisser published a textbook called Cognitive Psychology emphasizing an information-processing approach, and a new term had been born. Indeed as we shall see, cognitive psychology has ultimately become the preferred approach in psychology for research and theorizing about human cognition (Goldstein, 2011). Cognitive Psychology vs BehaviorismMoore (1996) recognized the tensions of the paradigm shift from behaviorism to cognitive psychology. While research into cognitive psychology, cognitive neuropsychology, cognitive neuroscience, and computational cognitive science is now widely accepted as the driving force behind understanding mental processes (such as memory, perception, problem-solving, and attention), this was not always the case (Gross, 2020). Moore (1996) highlighted the relationship between behaviorism and the relatively new field of cognitive psychology, and the sometimes mistaken assumptions regarding the nature of the former approach:
Since then, modern cognitive psychology has incorporated findings from many other disciplines, including evolutionary psychology, computer science, artificial intelligence, and neuroscience (Eysenck & Keane, 2015).
Particular ongoing advances in cognitive psychology include perception, language comprehension and production, and problem-solving (Eysenck & Keane, 2015).
At the time, cognitive psychologists also argued that it was wrong of behaviorists to interpret mental states in terms of brain states. Neuroscience advances, such as new imaging techniques like functional MRI, continue to offer fresh insights into the relationship between the brain and mental states (Eysenck & Keane, 2015). Clearly, the relationship between behaviorism and the developing field of cognitive psychology has been complex. However, cognitive psychology has grown into a school of thought that has led to significant advances in understanding cognition, especially when teamed up with other developments in computing and neuroscience. This may not have been possible without the shift in the dominant schools of thought in psychology (Gross, 2020; Goldstein, 2011; Eysenck & Keane, 2015). 12 Key Theories, Concepts, and ModelsCognitive psychology has turned its attention to all aspects of human cognition.And while it is beyond the scope of this article to cover the full breadth or depth of the areas of research, we list several of the most important and fascinating specialties and theories below. AttentionIt is hardly possible to imagine a world in which attention doesn’t play an essential role in how we interact with the environment, and yet, we rarely give it a thought. According to cognitive psychology, attention is most active when driven by an individual’s expectations or goals, known as top-down processing. On the other hand, it is more passive when controlled by external stimuli, such as a loud noise, referred to as bottom-up processing (Eysenck & Keane, 2015). A further distinction exists between focused attention (selective) and divided attention. Research into the former explores how we are able to focus on one item (noise, image, etc.) when there are several. In contrast, the latter looks at how we can maintain attention on two or more stimuli simultaneously. Donald Broadbent proposed the bottleneck model to explain how we can attend to just one message when several are presented, for example, in dichotic listening experiments, where different auditory stimuli are presented to each ear. Broadbent’s model suggests multiple processing stages, each one progressively restricting the information flow (Goldstein, 2011). PerceptionAs with all other areas of cognition, perception is far more complicated than we might first imagine. Take, for example, vision. While a great deal of research has “involved presenting a visual stimulus and assessing aspects of its processing,” there is also the time aspect to consider (Eysenck & Keane, 2015, p. 121). We need to not only perceive objects, but also make sense of their movement and detect changes in the visual environment over time (Eysenck & Keane, 2015). Research suggests perception, like attention, combines bottom-up and top-down processing. Bottom-up processing involves neurons that fire in response to specific elements of an image – perhaps aspects of a face, nose, eyebrows, jawline, etc. Top-down processing considers how the knowledge someone brings with them affects their perception. Bottom-down processing helps explain why two people, presented with the same stimuli, experience different perceptions as a result of their expectations and prior knowledge (Goldstein, 2011). Combining bottom-up and top-down processing also enables the individual to make sense of both static and moving images when limited information is available; we can track a person walking through a crowd or a plane disappearing in and out of clouds (Eysenck & Keane, 2015). The mirror neuron system is incredibly fascinating and is proving valuable in our attempts to understand biological motion. Observing actions activates similar areas of the brain as performing them. The model appears to explain how we can imitate the actions of another person – crucial to learning (Eysenck & Keane, 2015). Language comprehensionWhether written or spoken, understanding language involves a high degree of multi-level processing (Eysenck & Keane, 2015). Comprehension begins with an initial analysis of sentence structure (larger language units require additional processing). Beyond processing syntax (the rules for building and analyzing sentences), analysis of sentence meaning (semantics) is necessary to understand if the interpretation should be literal or involve irony, metaphor, or sarcasm (Eysenck & Keane, 2015). Pragmatics examines intended meaning. For example, shouting, “That’s the doorbell!” is not likely to be a simple observation, but rather a request to answer the door (Eysenck & Keane, 2015). Several models have been proposed to understand the analysis and comprehension of sentences, known as parsing, including (Eysenck & Keane, 2015):
The research and theories above hint at the vast complexity of human cognition and explain why so many models and concepts attempt to answer what happens when it works and, equally important, when it doesn’t. Fascinating Research ExperimentsThere are many research experiments in cognitive psychology that highlight the successes and failings of human cognition. Each of the following three offers insight into the mental processes behind our thinking and behavior. Cocktail party phenomenonSelective attention – or in this case, selective listening – is often exemplified by what has become known as the cocktail party phenomenon (Eysenck & Keane, 2015). Even in a busy room and possibly mid-conversation, we can often hear if someone else mentions our name. It seems we can filter out surrounding noise by combining bottom-up and top-down processing to create a “winner takes it all” situation where the processing of one high-value auditory input suppresses the brain activity of all others (Goldstein, 2011). MagicWhile people may believe that the speed of hand movement allows magicians to trick us, research suggests the main factor is misdirection (Eysenck & Keane, 2015). A 2010 study of a trick involving the disappearance of a lighter identified that when the lighter was dropped (to hide it from a later hand-opening finale), it was masked by directing attention from the fixation point – known as covert attention – with surprising effectiveness. However, subjects were able to identify the drop when their attention was directed to the fixation point – known as overt attention (Kuhn & Findlay, 2010). Free willIn a thought-provoking study exploring freewill, participants were asked to consciously decide whether to move their finger left or right while a functional MRI scanner monitored their prefrontal cortex and parietal cortex (Soon, Brass, Heinze, & Haynes, 2008). Brain activity predicted the direction of movement a full seven seconds before they consciously became aware of their decision. While follow-up research has challenged some of the findings, it appears that brain activity may come before conscious thinking (Eysenck & Keane, 2015). A Look at Positive Cognitive PsychologyWhile there is limited academic literature available, there are signs of a new trend impacting therapy and research, known as positive cognitive psychology.Associations have been found between positive emotions, creative thinking, and overall wellbeing, suggesting environmental changes that may benefit staff productivity and innovation in the workplace (Yuan, 2015). Factors explored include creating climates geared toward creativity, boosting challenge, trust, freedom, risk taking, low conflict, and even the beneficial effects of humor. Undoubtedly, further innovation will be seen from marrying the two powerful and compelling new fields of positive psychology and cognitive psychology. Interesting Resources From PositivePsychology.comWe have many tools, worksheets, and exercises to explore and improve attention, problem-solving, and the ability to regulate emotions. Why not download our free emotional intelligence pack and try out the powerful tools contained within?
Other free resources include:
More extensive versions of the following tools are available with a subscription to the Positive Psychology Toolkit©, but here is a brief overview:
Learning to focus can help. Step one – Identify everyday activities that bring you pleasure. At the end of the week, take some time to record your reflections on creating savoring rituals.
In this exercise, we examine an existing issue in a client’s life: Step one – Describe a current problem. Step two – Identify the problematic context or life domain. Step three – Identify the problematic behavior in yourself. Step four – Recognize your underlying strength. Step five – Identify what you can do to remedy the problem. |