Cognitive psychology
Perception
Visual perception Object recognition Face recognition Pattern recognition
Attention
Memory
Aging and memory Emotional memory Learning Long-term memory
Metacognition
Language
Metalanguage
Thinking
Cognition Concept Reasoning Decision making Problem solving

The main focus of cognitive psychologists is on the mental processes that affect behavior. Those processes include, but are not limited to, the following three stages of memory:

• Sensory memory storage: holds sensory information.
• Short-term memory storage: holds information temporarily for analysis and retrieves information from the long-term memory.
• Long-term memory: holds information over an extended period of time which receives information from the short-term memory.

Attention

The psychological definition of attention is “a state of focused awareness on a subset of the available sensation perception information.” A key function of attention is to identify irrelevant data and filter it out, enabling significant data to be distributed to the other mental processes. For example, the human brain may simultaneously receive auditory, visual, olfactory, taste, and tactile information. The brain is able to consciously handle only a small subset of this information, and this is accomplished through the attentional processes.

Attention can be divided into two major attentional systems: exogenous control and endogenous control. Exogenous control works in a bottom-up manner and is responsible for orienting reflex, and pop-out effects. Endogenous control works top-down and is the more deliberate attentional system, responsible for divided attention and conscious processing.

One major focal point relating to attention within the field of cognitive psychology is the concept of divided attention. A number of early studies dealt with the ability of a person wearing headphones to discern meaningful conversation when presented with different messages into each ear; this is known as the dichotic listening task. Key findings involved an increased understanding of the mind’s ability to both focus on one message, while still being somewhat aware of information being taken in from the ear not being consciously attended to. For example, participants (wearing earphones) may be told that they will be hearing separate messages in each ear and that they are expected to attend only to information related to basketball. When the experiment starts, the message about basketball will be presented to the left ear and non-relevant information will be presented to the right ear. At some point, the message related to basketball will switch to the right ear and the non-relevant information to the left ear. When this happens, the listener is usually able to repeat the entire message at the end, having attended to the left or right ear only when it was appropriate. The ability to attend to one conversation in the face of many is known as the cocktail party effect.

Other major findings include that participants cannot comprehend both passages when shadowing one passage, they cannot report the content of the unattended message, while they can shadow a message better if the pitches in each ear are different. However, while deep processing does not occur, early sensory processing does. Subjects did notice if the pitch of the unattended message changed or if it ceased altogether, and some even oriented to the unattended message if their name was mentioned.

Memory

The two main types of memory are short-term memory and long-term memory; however, short-term memory has become better understood to be working memory. Cognitive psychologists often study memory in terms of working memory.

Working Memory

Though working memory is often thought of as just short-term memory, it is more clearly defined as the ability to process and maintain temporary information in a wide range of everyday activities in the face of distraction. The famously known capacity of memory of 7 plus or minus 2 is a combination of both memories in working memory and long-term memory.

One of the classic experiments is by Ebbinghaus, who found the serial position effect where information from the beginning and end of the list of random words were better recalled than those in the center. This primacy and recency effect varies in intensity based on list length. Its typical U-shaped curve can be disrupted by an attention-grabbing word; this is known as the Von Restorff effect.

The Working Memory Model (Baddeley and Hitch, 1974, updated 2000)

Many models of working memory have been made. One of the most regarded is the Baddeley and Hitch model of working memory. It takes into account both visual and auditory stimuli, long-term memory to use as a reference, and a central processor to combine and understand it all.

A large part of memory is forgetting, and there is a large debate among psychologists of decay theory versus interference theory.

Long-term Memory

Modern conceptions of memory are usually about long-term memory and break it down into three main sub-classes. These three classes are somewhat hierarchical in nature, in terms of the level of conscious thought related to their use.

• Procedural memory is memory for the performance of particular types of action. It is often activated on a subconscious level, or at most requires a minimal amount of conscious effort. Procedural memory includes stimulus-response-type information, which is activated through association with particular tasks, routines, etc. A person is using procedural knowledge when they seemingly “automatically” respond in a particular manner to a particular situation or process. An example is driving a car.
• Semantic memory is the encyclopedic knowledge that a person possesses. Knowledge like what the Eiffel Tower looks like, or the name of a friend from sixth grade, represent semantic memory. Access of semantic memory ranges from slightly to extremely effortful, depending on a number of variables including but not limited to recency of encoding of the information, number of associations it has to other information, frequency of access, and levels of meaning (how deeply it was processed when it was encoded).
• Episodic memory is the memory of autobiographical events that can be explicitly stated. It contains all memories that are temporal in nature, such as when one last brushed one’s teeth or where one was when one heard about a major news event. Episodic memory typically requires the deepest level of conscious thought, as it often pulls together semantic memory and temporal information to formulate the entire memory.

Perception

Perception involves both the physical senses (sight, smell, hearing, taste, touch, and proprioception) as well as the cognitive processes involved in interpreting those senses. Essentially, it is how people come to understand the world around them through the interpretation of stimuli. Early psychologists like Edward B. Titchener began to work with perception in their structuralist approach to psychology. Structuralism dealt heavily with trying to reduce human thought (or “consciousness,” as Titchener would have called it) into its most basic elements by gaining an understanding of how an individual perceives particular stimuli.

Current perspectives on perception within cognitive psychology tend to focus on particular ways in which the human mind interprets stimuli from the senses and how these interpretations affect behavior. An example of the way in which modern psychologists approach the study of perception is the research being done at the Center for Ecological Study of Perception and Action at the University of Connecticut (CESPA). One study at CESPA concerns ways in which individuals perceive their physical environment and how that influences their navigation through that environment.

Language

Psychologists have had an interest in the cognitive processes involved with language that dates back to the 1870s when Carl Wernicke proposed a model for the mental processing of language. Current work on language within the field of cognitive psychology varies widely. Cognitive psychologists may study language acquisition, individual components of language formation (like phonemes), how language use is involved in mood, or numerous other related areas.

Significant work has focused on understanding the timing of language acquisition and how it can be used to determine if a child has, or is at risk of, developing a learning disability. A study from 2012 showed that, while this can be an effective strategy, it is important that those making evaluations include all relevant information when making their assessments. Factors such as individual variability, socioeconomic status, short-term and long-term memory capacity, and others must be included in order to make valid assessments.

Metacognition

Metacognition, in a broad sense, is the thoughts that a person has about their own thoughts. More specifically, metacognition includes things like:

• How effective a person is at monitoring their own performance on a given task (self-regulation).
• A person’s understanding of their capabilities on particular mental tasks.
• The ability to apply cognitive strategies.

Much of the current study regarding metacognition within the field of cognitive psychology deals with its application within the area of education. Being able to increase a student’s metacognitive abilities has been shown to have a significant impact on their learning and study habits. One key aspect of this concept is the improvement of students’ ability to set goals and self-regulate effectively to meet those goals. As a part of this process, it is also important to ensure that students are realistically evaluating their personal degree of knowledge and setting realistic goals (another metacognitive task).

Common phenomena related to metacognition include:

• Déjà Vu: feeling of a repeated experience.
• Cryptomnesia: generating thought believing it is unique but it is actually a memory of a past experience; also known as unconscious plagiarism.
• False Fame Effect: non-famous names can be made to be famous.
• Validity effect: statements seem more valid upon repeated exposure.
• Imagination inflation: imagining an event that did not occur and having increased confidence that it did occur.