...Brain Functions and Psychology Abstract Different specialties within the field of psychology are interested in various divisions of the human brain due to its elaborate and multifaceted relationship between behavior and the brain. The brain or encephalon can be divided in to a varying number of divisions that are explored by different specialty groups within the field of psychology including biological psychologists, cognitive neuroscientist, cognitive psychologists, neuropsychologists, and general research psychologists. Research performed by different psychology professionals on the brain offers a venue for gaining further understanding of certain conditions such as multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer's. This paper concludes by discussing personal reasons for wanting to research memory and the opposing factor of forgetfulness. Part 1: Psychological Interest in the Human Brain Different specialties within the field of psychology are interested in various divisions of the human brain due to its elaborate and multifaceted relationship between behavior and the brain. The first part of this paper will be looking at the divisions of the brain which appeal to research and cognitive psychologists. The second part of the paper will be looking at the division of the brain which this counselor is interested in researching further and the thought process for choosing said particular division. Scientific Interest in the Brain The brain...
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...Cognitive Psychology Definition Paper Gregory Finch PSY/360 Axia College/University of Phoenix Cognitive Psychology Definition Paper Because of a prominent contrast, behaviorism and cognitive psychology are often compared. Cognitive psychology focuses on determining understandable explanations of the human mental processes, whereas behaviorism does not address the concerns of mental processes. The main objective of cognitive psychology is to explain the human transformation of thoughts into manifistations by a cognitive process. As behaviorism was being questioned and at the end of popular opinion, cognitive psychology, with the assistance of the application of abstract concepts, neuroscience, and new technology sprung into existence. With a scientific approach of the psyche, cognitive psychology has allowed new applications in the treatment of human dysfunction and disease. It is the intension of this paper to discuss the importance of behavioral observation in cognitive psychology while identifying a minimum of four prominent milestones in the development of the discipline of cognitive psychology. Cognitive Psychology Defined According to Merriam-Webster, by definition, cognitive psychology is “a branch of psychology concerned with mental processes (as...
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...Defining Cognitive Psychology: Merriam Webmaster dictionary defines Cognitive Psychology as “a branch of psychology concerned with mental processes (as perception, thinking, learning, and memory) especially with respect to the internal events occurring between sensory stimulation and the overt expression of behaviour.” Simply put, cognitive psychology is the scientific study of the mind and it revolves around the notion that if we want to know what makes people tick then we need to understand the internal processes of their mind. The need to study cognitive psychology: Cognitive psychology assumes that behaviour is the result of information processing. By describing thinking as information processing, cognitive psychologists are making a comparison between minds and computers (i.e. they are adopting a computer metaphor for the mind). This is useful because minds and computers have some attractive similarities: both have inputs, outputs, memory stores and a limited capacity for how much information they can process at any one time. Just as a computer’s behaviour is determined by what information it is given and how it has been programmed, so a person’s behaviour is determined by (1) the information available in their environment; (2) the ways they have learned to manipulate (process) information; and (3) the capacities for information processing inherent in the types of brain people have. In short, it is important to study cognitive psychology to gain an understanding...
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...Cognitive psychology is defined as the study of mental processes. Mental processes can be classified as problem solving, thinking, remembering, speaking, perceiving, learning, and even reasoning. Cognitive psychology is mainly based on studying how a person obtains and stores information from the world that they live in. It also studies the way that people use this information as a beneficial factor or how they understand things. Cognitive psychology was said to get its original rise as a response from other approaches that had been proved to have flaws. There was also a link between the studies of the mind that eventually lead to the study of behavior. Since behaviorism had some minor flaws, the development of cognitive psychology occurred because of the disagreements of behaviorism. There are many different key milestones in the development of our own cognitive psychology. Neuroscience, information processing, criticisms of behaviorism, and connectionism are 4 of these milestones. All four are associated with different aspects of the mind. The milestone neuroscience, is said to examine how the nervous system and the brain work together to determine behaviors. People who specialize in this field are referred to as neuroscientists. They are able to account for various behaviors such as intelligent behavior through the tactics of hypothetical representations, abstract constructs, and processes. Neuroscientists are able to use techniques of localization in identifying brain areas...
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...Nature of Psychology Name: Course: Institution: Date: The Diverse Nature of Psychology Psychology in simple terms is the studies the minds of human beings and their behaviors. It is difficult to capture about psychology in a brief definition, but topics such as personality development, emotions, motivations and social behavior represents briefly, what psychology explains. It widely entails other scientific discipline and provides appropriate knowledge to solve problems (Pastorino, & Doyle-Portillo, 2011). For example, applications of psychology include mental health treatment, performance enhancement, ergonomics and many other areas affecting daily life of an individual. The different concepts that help to explain psychology include motivation, behaviorism and cognition. How psychological motivation influences Human life. Psychology studies what motivation means to human beings. It explains how secondary motivation to human life and how it influences their behaviors. This intends that human behavior change in different ways and at different circumstances. Motivation is considered an important factor on how people respond to different cases (Elliot, 2008). For example, in an organization where individuals have learned the organization culture and has worked for many years, it is through motivation that they will perform much better than before. It is motivation that encourages a person’s behavior towards their actions. Therefore, psychology major focuses on human behavior...
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...Evolution of Cognitive Psychology as a Discipline PSYCH560/Cognitive Psychology December 3rd 2011 Evolution of Cognitive Psychology as a Discipline Cognition Cognition is typically referred to as the procedure of obtaining, retaining, using and applying information or knowledge. It can sometimes be defined as the science of knowing. Cognition “refers to all processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used” (Neisser, 1967). When defined broadly, cognition includes the processing of emotions; however, if defined narrowly, it excludes emotion processing. Cognition includes all the mental processes. For example, attaining knowledge and understanding, thinking, remembering, assuming, perceiving, judging and even analytical problem-solving are all part of cognition. Given such a comprehensive definition, it is evident that cognition is concerned in everything a human being might probably do; every psychological experience is a cognitive experience. However, although cognitive psychology is related to all human activity rather than a few segments of it, the apprehension is that it is from a specific point of view yet other viewpoints are evenly justifiable and essential. The Interdisciplinary Perspective & Emergence of Cognitive Psychology As well as being part of psychology as a whole, cognitive psychology is also part of the more general interdisciplinary subject of cognitive...
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...Cognitive Psychology Defined Desiree T. Lobato Psy/360 March 26, 2012 Deborah Showers-Kelly According to Cherry (2012), Cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology that studies mental processes including how people think, perceive, remember and learn. As part of the larger field of cognitive science, this branch of psychology is related to other disciplines including neuroscience, philosophy and linguistics. Cognitive psychology began to emerge during the 1950s, partly as a response to behaviorism (Mcleod, 2011). Critics of behaviorism noted that it failed to account for how internal processes impacted behavior. This period of time is sometimes referred to as the "cognitive revolution" as a wealth of research on topics such as information processing, language, memory and perception began to emerge. The core focus of cognitive psychology is on how people acquire, process and store information. There are numerous practical applications for cognitive research, such as improving memory, increasing decision-making accuracy and structuring educational curricula to enhance learning. Until the 1950s, behaviorism was the dominant school of thought in psychology. Between 1950 and 1970, the tide began to shift against behavioral psychology to focus on topics such as attention, memory and problem-solving. Cognitive psychology is different than behaviorism. Unlike behaviorism, which focuses only on observable behaviors, cognitive psychology is concerned with internal mental...
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...Cognitive Psychology Psych 560 May 20, 2013 Prof. Pitt Cognitive Psychology The brain is one of the major faculties that provide sense to human life. The numerous and various abilities of the human brain are truly amazing. However, although it is a common thought that man may think extraordinarily, human emotions have great influence to how human beings think, and use his brains. It is the reason why any activity facilitated or performed by the brain is called a mental processes or cognition. Cognition refers to the process that involves mental or cognitive ability such as in learning, comprehension, judging, thinking, problem-solving, remembering and recalling (Kendra, 2011). Neisser (2009) defined cognition as the “act of knowing, and cognitive psychology is the study of all human activities related to knowledge”. (Page 1) Cognitive psychology is a part of the larger field of cognitive science and is related to various disciplines in psychology such as neuroscience, linguistics, and philosophy. The main thrust of cognitive psychology is how the people acquire, store and process information. Compared with other dominant approaches in psychology for example, the behaviorism approach which is concerned with the observable behaviors, the cognitive approach focuses on internal mental states. Unlike psychoanalysis which is focused on subjective perceptions, the cognitive psychology approach...
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... | | |PSY/300 Version 5 | | |General Psychology | | |Group MU13BSP04 | | |8/6/13-9/3/13 | | |Louis Battistone M.A., LMFT, RAS | | |909-239-2496 | Copyright © 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2006 by University of Phoenix. All rights reserved. Course Description General Psychology is a survey course which introduces the student to the major topics in scientific psychology as applied to human behavior. Applications of these principles will be made to the human experience. Policies Faculty and students/learners will be held responsible for understanding and adhering to all policies contained within the following two documents: • University policies: You must be logged into the student website to view...
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...Cognitive Psychology Tonya Hill PSY/360 June 17, 2013 Eric Tomlinson The Definition of Cognitive Psychology Cognitive Psychology is a psychological perspective that addresses mental processes such as thinking, problem solving, remembering, believing, and speaking, and seeks to identify behavior by characteristics other than its obvious properties (Defining Cognitive Psychology 2011). It includes mental representation and the use of abstract constructs to find relationships between brain structure and their functions (Willingham, 2007).This area of psychology is important in order to acquire knowledge and gain an understanding on how a person’s mental process works. Four Key Milestones in Cognitive Psychology There are at least four key milestones in the development of cognitive psychology as a discipline and they are as follows: the failure of behaviorism, the computer metaphor and information processing, abstract constructs of artificial intelligence and neuroscience. Behaviorism was similar to cognitive psychology but it failed to identify mental processes. Freud’s psychoanalysis required that mental processes be identified in the study of cognitive psychology but behaviorism failed to meet this need. All aspects of the human psyche needed to be accommodated especially in the area of language and memory. This lead psychologists to really rethink behaviorism and gave support for the development of another area of science that would focus attention on...
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...There are many different theories of human memory, cognition, and thinking the most researched and articulated theory is the Information Processing explanations (Ashcraft & Radvansky, 2010; Bruning, Schraw & Norby, 2011; Sternberg & Sternberg, 2012) This essay will introduce Information Processing Theories and briefly explain the key concepts and explore the importance of these theories in relation to teaching in the classroom. The significance of these theories in relation to understanding childrens learning and development will be discussed and we will touch on how these theories can be beneficial in developing an educational pedagogy. The strengths and limitations will be identified and reviewed and the key concepts will be critically reflected apon. We as humans process information with remarkable proficiency and we accomplish problematic tasks such and critical thinking, faster and more accurately than some very sophisticated machines. (Halpern, 2003; Kuhn, 1999) Theorists have developed a systematic model of memory, according to Woolfolk & Margetts (p.250) the most common and universally recognised by research is information processing theory, this is a well-documented analysis for examining learning and memory. The information processing theory as defined as ‘The human mind’s activity of taking in, storing, and using information’. (Woolfolk A &Margetts K p.205) Information processing theory is a proposed system of how we: perceive, encode, store and retrieve data. ...
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...The Influence of working memory on reading and creative writing processes in a second language. Educational Psychology,23, 209–222. Ackerman, P. L., Beier, M. E., y Boyle, M. D. (2002). Individual differences in working memory within a nomological network of cognitive and perceptual speed abilities. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 131(4), 567-589. Ackerman, P., Beier, M.E., & Boyle, M.O. (2005). Working memory and intelligence: the same or different constructs? Psychological Bulletin, 131(1),30-60. Alameda & Cuetos, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2001 Alameda, J. R. y Cuetos, F. (1995). Diccionario de frecuencia de las unidades lingüísticas del castellano. Oviedo: Servicio de publicaciones de la Universidad de Oviedo. Alameda, J. R. & Cuetos, F. (1996). Índices de frecuencia y vecindad ortográfica para un corpus de palabras de cuatro letras. Revista Electrónica de Metodología Aplicada, 1, 10-29. En http://www.uniovi.es/~Psi/REMA/ (junio de 2001). Alameda, J. R. (1997). Base de datos de no-palabras de cuatro letras para su uso en tareas experimentales de decisión léxica. Revista Electrónica de Metodología Aplicada, 2, 1-49. En http://www.uniovi.es/~Psi/REMA/ (junio de 2001). Alameda, J. R. & Cuetos, F. (2001). Índices de frecuencia y vecindad para palabras de cinco letras. Revista Electrónica de Metodología Aplicada, 6 (2). En http://www.uniovi.es/~Psi/REMA. Alloway, 2006 Alloway TP (2006).How does working memory work in the classroom? Educational...
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...Cognitive Psychology Definition Cognitive Psychology Definition (Scholarpedia, 2007) states “Cognitive psychology is the scientific investigation of human cognition, that is, all our mental abilities – perceiving, learning, remembering, thinking, reasoning, and understanding. It is closely related to the highly interdisciplinary cognitive science and influenced by artificial intelligence, computer science, philosophy, anthropology, linguistics, biology, physics, and neuroscience” (Dosher, Lin-Lu, 2007, p. 2769). Cognitive psychology uses experiments and the scientific method to establish how humans transform sensory input into one’s own thoughts, which in turn becomes the individual’s actions through the intricate series of one’s cognition (Willingham, 2007). In the beginnings of the 20th Century cognitive psychology declined, because of the rise in behaviorism. In the mid- 1950’s the cognitive revolution developed because of the lack of behaviorism ideas and understanding “between memory and performance, and complex learning” (Dosher, Lin-Lu, 2007, p. 2769). Cognitive psychology began to come into play with the support of brand new technology, concepts that were abstract, and neuroscience (Willingham, 2007). Milestones in the Development of Cognitive Psychology As mentioned earlier behaviorism begin to accumulate problems around the mid- 1950s. One of the considerable problems was...
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...September 30th, 2014 PS200: Introduction to Cognitive Psychology Cognitive Processes Cognitive psychology has evolved over the years. Researchers are constantly trying to find new ways to understand and define the human brain. Our memory is quite important in how we function on a day-to-day basis. Our memories help us to remember important functions such as combing our hair, brushing our teeth or getting dressed in the morning. Memories also help us to learn more information. Cognitive psychology refers to the study of human mental processes and their role of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Cognitive psychology studies how people perceive, learn, remember, and think. Cognition is the area within psychology that examines how we acquire, store, transform, and use knowledge to help further our knowledge (Matlin, 2013). If cognition functions every time a person gains, stores, transforms, and uses information then, cognition requires mental processes. Cognitive processes are vital to human behavior. There are three cognitive processes, perception, attention, and memory. The first cognitive process is perception. Perception uses previous knowledge to gather and interpret stimuli registered by the senses (Matlin, 2013). Perception is our experience of the world and the environment around us. It’s the set of front-end processing that allows an individual to organize and interpret incoming information. We gain information about properties of our environment and use it in our everyday...
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...Foundations of Psychology When people hear the word psychology they may not always perceive it as a science. The science of psychology is based on the mental processes and behavior of human beings, and in some cases, animals. The foundations of psychology rely heavily upon four individual schools of thought. This includes the following perspectives: psychodynamic, behaviorist, cognitive, and evolutionary (Kowalski & Westen, 2009). Although the biopsychological approach is not considered as one of the four major schools of thought within psychology, it plays an important role in the foundations of psychology. These perspectives focus on a unique viewpoint or approach toward the field of psychology and each brings new ideas and theories to the table. The Psychodynamic Perspective It can be said that Sigmund Freud was the father of the psychodynamic perspective of psychology. Freud developed this perspective based upon the idea that the unconscious self is responsible for certain “underlying wishes, fears, and patterns of thought from an individual’s conscious, verbalized thought, and behavior” (Kowalski & Westen, 2009, p. 13). Essentially, the psychodynamic perspective suggests that people’s actions and thoughts are influenced by unconscious factors that they may not be aware of. The goal of psychodynamic psychologists was to discover how these unconscious factors influence the behavior and mental processes of human beings. Due to the nature of this perspective psychologists...
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