What is Cognitive Psychology? and How it helps us in 2022.
Have you ever wondered why you remember some tragic events that occurred in your childhood, but you can’t remember an activity of the previous week or any day? Or when you meet your school friends suddenly, you don’t understand why you remember only a few names of school friends and forget other ones.
Well, it all deals with our cognitive Psychology then What is Cognitive Psychology exactly. it is a branch of psychology that deals with our observation or memories of the things that we do and why we did it. Cognitive psychology also helps us more deeply understand ourselves and increase the quality of our life.
What is Cognitive Psychology?
Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning of our mind. Cognitive psychology provides a base for changing behaviors.
In this current Covid pandemic, we can see how thoughts influence our actions. When people became fearful that there might not be a supply of food and basic things to sustain them during the period of lockdown, they began to take action through panic-buying.
This resulted in a shortage of supplies in the market. Our thoughts create our reality. They affect every aspect of your life. For example, if you believe that in a pandemic you may come across situations that trigger your panic and can spread this panic to others.
The focus of cognitive psychology involves using the right information to form new thoughts which can lead to better actions and quality results.
How Cognitive Psychology helps us today?
Cognitive psychology does not only help in dealing with negative thoughts but also helps to think in positive ways.
Many cognitive psychologists focus on treating and working directly with people who are having psychological illness and behavioral disorders. Cognitive psychology helps in the treatment of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
It helps to improve memory strategies like reading and reflecting on the things you learn or observe around us.
Cognitive psychology helps to solve the problems like anxiety or depression which helps the person to develop positive thoughts and behavior. It helps us become more aware of our own thought patterns and observing ourselves and others with a clear view.
A team of researchers from the University of Miami conducted a survey that showed the results of how cognitive behavioral therapy impacts the person. It showed the improved immune system functioning and positive changes in the behavior.
Humans are called Information Processors in Cognitive Psychology. Information processing in the human brain is similar to computers which are based on transforming information, storing information, and retrieving information from memory with a clear sequence or a flow.
The idea of information processing was shown by cognitive psychologists as a model of how human thought works. The process flow includes as follows:
- Series of processing systems is activated in our brain like attention, perception, short-term memory.
- These processing systems alter the information in systematic ways
- The aim of research is to specify the processes.
- Information processing in human brain is same as computers.
Cognitive psychology assumes that a process occurs between stimulus input and response output of our mind. Cognitive psychology is pure science, based mainly on laboratory experiments.
Cognitive psychology is integrated with many areas like cognitive neuropsychology and artificial intelligence (AI).
What are the approaches of Cognitive Psychology?
A number of different approaches have been proposed in order to better understand the field of cognitive psychology. These approaches are Experimental Cognitive Psychology, Computational Cognitive Science, Cognitive Neuropsychology, and Cognitive Neuroscience.
Experimental Cognitive Psychology
This approach involves conducting tightly controlled experiments under laboratory conditions of individuals. The findings obtained result into theories.
The results obtained through such experimental methods can thus lead to the formulation of some theories, which can be tested in the future.
Computational Cognitive Science
This approach basically involves creating computer-based models of human cognitive functions and artificial intelligence.
Cognitive Neuropsychology
This approach investigates the various cognitive processes by studying the people who had brain damage and to find out whether a particular brain area has cause any specific cognitive changes.
If a person has suffered damage to several brain areas, then the interpretation of the results we got goes difficult to study.
Cognitive Neuroscience
This approach is one of the popular approaches in the past. It involves brain-imaging devices to study cognitive functions.
It studies where the process is occurring in the brain. This approach involves using brain imaging to study live cognitive functioning in individuals.
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Conclusion
Cognitive psychology studies internal mental states including desire, belief, motivation. It changes from over child development like how the brain transforms sensory inputs into perceptions.
This has helped us gain a deeper and richer understanding of our mental states, our daily existence or struggle, and overall our well-being. We hope you found the answer to What is Cognitive Psychology.
