Cognitive psychology From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Cognitive psychology studies cognition, the mental processes that underlie behavior. It is one of the disciplines of cognitive science. This area of research covers several areas, examining questions about memory, attention, perception, knowledge representation, reasoning, creativity and problem solving. You can define cognition as the ability to store, transform and apply knowledge, and a wide range of mental processes [1]. Throughout history, philosophers, mathematicians, biologists and other researchers were interested in mental abilities that humans possess, constituting several theories as to why they exist and how they work. Plato and Aristotle, for example, has theorized about the thought and memory, starting from its empirical basis [2]. Thus, the problem of human knowledge has always been closely related to the topics studied by cognitive psychologists. Cognitive psychology is one of the most recent branches of research in psychology, having been developed as a separate area from the late 1950s and early 1960s. It can be said, however, it has been since the second half of the nineteenth century that human mental functions left the land of philosophy and began to become a legitimate object of scientific research [2]. The term began to be used with the publication of the book Cognitive Psychology by Ulrich Neisser in 1967. However, the cognitive approach was announced by Donald Broadbent's book Perception and Communication in 1958. Since then, the dominant paradigm in the area has been the information processing model advocated by Broadbent. In this context thought, it is considered that mental processes are comparable to software running on a computer in this case is the brain. Theories of information processing are based on notions such as input, representation, computation or processing and outputs. The study of mental processes had already been discussed in general psychology, especially the pioneers Wilhelm Wundt, Gustav Fechner Teodor, Ernst Heinrich Weber and Francis Galton. We find cognitive theories within social psychology, personality, psychopathology and developmental psychology. Applications of cognitive theories in comparative psychology has led to very recent studies on animal cognition. In the twentieth century, cognitive psychology received a major boost through studies on artificial intelligence, which allows you to relate and compare to some extent, processing and feed the information to electronic processes, such as the computer. As a theory of human behavior, cognitive psychology emerged as an alternative. The physiology did not reach the higher levels of behavior, behaviorism did not put in the focus of his analysis of cognitive processes, since these were only one behavior among many.

Large areas of research in cognitive psychology:

1) Perception Perception refers to functions that allow you to capture the environmental stimuli for further processing of information. The sense organs are responsible for the capture of information from the environment, which may be of a visual, olfactory, tactile, gustatory, auditory and kinesthetic (body movement and balance). The brain processing relies heavily on information provided by sensory structures, which are the basis of our understanding of the world. There is a lot of research on perceptual processes in cognitive psychology that are used to understand the behavior. An example is the study of illusions, especially optical illusions. Attention is also topic of study related to the cognitive process, although several authors consider the derivative function of consciousness. Through attention is that the mind can select the stimuli received, giving priority to some while others are minimized or even excluded from processing. Examples of studies include some controversial attention, such as subliminal stimuli. Therefore, although attention can be studied on the topic of perception, it would be considered an initial level of processing of stimuli. Likewise, pattern recognition depends on a basic level of information processing. The various sensory stimuli received from the environment are organized in an active manner by various perceptual systems of the brain, so as to form a "pattern that makes sense." So often what we call perception is not what the sensory organs initially identified, but it is an organization, an arrangement that will make a sense to the brain. For example, in the diagram below: ...

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identified "two sets of three points" distributed horizontally. But if the arrangement of dots to be modified ...

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would say they are "two sets of three points." Even if the sensory stimulus is the same (six points), the distance between them ends up creating a different perceptual organization, and this gives new meaning to what is being perceived. More than studying the way we capture the visual, cognitive psychology is interested in knowing how the brain organizes information captured by the vision and allows us to recognize the environment. There are several models that explain this process. David Marr [3] puts three stages in the process of interpretation of visual stimuli [4]: 1. Outline School: the first is the level of visual perceptual organization. Here are organized stimuli like light and shadow, identifying data such as texture and edges of the figure, which are the elements that give the basic characteristics of the perceived object. The outline contains primary, according to this model, only two-dimensional information. 2. Sketch 2 D (bi-and middle-dimensional) second level of organization. Here is "mounted" an image that contains data regarding the depth of the object or scene, and more complex data, such as concavities and protrusions, by combining data from primary sketch. 3. Model in 3D (three dimensional) is to construct a stable model, which allows "mental rotation" of the figure. In these rotations, the object information not perceived will vary with the observer moving because it is built the mental image of the object perceived, that can be manipulated mentally. As an example, the perception of a cube could be given as follows: first, are captured and organized information about the direction of light and shadow the cube designs, as well as the texture of its surface (primary sketch). The following are noted as edges, corners and other elements are positioned to the shape of the figure (2 D outline). Finally, for the preparation of the representation of the hub, which can be rotated and viewed mentally (3D model).

Memory Memory is the ability to record, store and recall information received and processed by the body. She is probably one of the mental functions most studied by cognitive psychology, along with language and intelligence. Perhaps this is due to the fact that it is relatively simple request memorization and recall of information through experience. However, there is a large number of memory models, categorizing them in various ways. Briefly, the memory can be divided into three cases [5]: Encryption: The process of entry and initial registration of information. Encoding refers to the capacity that the apparatus has cognitive capture information and keep it active long enough to prevent the storage process, the second memory step.

 Storage: ability to keep information long enough so that, later, it can be recovered and used. Evocation or reproduction: the ability to retrieve information recorded and stored for later use by other cognitive processes (thinking, language, affection, etc..). Below are some of the possibilities of classification of memory: Short-term memory and long-term memory; Autobiographical memory; Episodic memory; Memory sensory. The loss or difficulty of storing and / or retrieve information is called amnesia. It is a relatively common clinical situation in cases of brain injury, either by diseases or injuries of various kinds. Knowledge representation; Mental Image; Coding prepositional; Mental Models.

Language The language refers to the ability to receive, interpret and deliver information to the environment. Among the topics studied by cognitive psychology, language is one of the most researched, along with memory and intelligence, because it's area of interest from various sciences such as anthropology, sociology, philosophy and communication. Among the skills that characterize the human species, language has been the one most often mentioned by most authors. Through language, we can manipulate the symbols in the abstract language, thereby allowing the exchange of information between people. The language reflects, in large measure, the capacity of thought and abstraction, although a separate mental function of thought: one person can have language disorders (eg, an aphasia) and maintain the function of thought preserved, but if you have a thought disorder (as may occur, for example in schizophrenia), the language is more or less impaired. The language skills are developed in an integrated manner with cognitive processes. As will develop mental functions and become more complex, increasing its features will language. Grammar and Linguistics; Phonetics and phonology; Language acquisition.

Thought Thinking is the ability to understand, train and organize concepts, representing them in mind. It concerns the ability to mentally manipulate concepts, establishing relationships between them by calling them and confronting them with elements from other mental functions (perception, memory, language, affection, attention, etc.). And creating other representations (new thoughts). Contrary to what many people believe, the mind is not solely a cognitive ability of the human species. It can be said that the animals, as a whole (except those that do not have nervous system such as sponges and perhaps cnidarians) have some type of structure thought (understood in the broadest sense, ie the ability to process information through an organized nervous system), but obviously without the level of complexity reached by human beings. The thinking is usually associated with problem solving, decision making and judgments [6]. Logic and formal reasoning or natural; Concept Formation; Troubleshooting; Judgment and decision making.

Cognitive Therapy Based on the concepts of cognitive psychology, cognitive therapy is a fundamental principle that the way individuals perceive and process reality influences how they feel and behave. A major goal of cognitive therapy is to organize an active change of thoughts that modify the suffering, seeking to produce a more realistic perception of the environment and generating behavior patterns that are better adapted. It is very common to use techniques derived from other areas of knowledge such as the dialectic, the downward arrow technique, record of dysfunctional thoughts and other psychological techniques specifically developed for this purpose.