Cognitive PsychologyTodd Farchione, Ph.D.

Tommy Chou, M.A.

Questions in Cognitive PsychologyHow do people manage the flow of

information?How do people “decode” and store sensations

and perceptions?What’s in the “black box”?

Gestalt PsychologyGestalt – German word for “whole” or

“configuration”Emphasizes the study of unified patterns or

wholesPerception and insightNatural organizations

Jean PiagetSensorimotor Stage (up to 18

months)Preoperational Thinking (18 months

– 6 years)Concrete Operations (6 years – 11

years)Formal Operations (11 years and

older)

Sensation and PerceptionPerception – organizing and interpreting

sensory information (more cognitive)Sensation – unorganized, raw sensory

information (more biological)Bottom Up vs. Top Down Processing

Bottom Up – starts from the stimulusTop Down – starts with memory and prior

experience

MemoryRecall vs. RecognitionThree primary stages of memory

Sensory memoryShort-term memoryLong-term memory

Explicit vs. implicit memory

California Verbal Learning Test-II (Example)AppleOrangeCatOwlMonkeySparrowWaterPeach

DogBananaMilkPigeonHawkSodaJuiceSquirrel

Thought and LanguageThinking

Analytical thinkingSynthetic thinkingConvergent vs. Divergent thinking

Problem SolvingSolve the anagram: HUSCOGYPLOAlgorithms vs. Cognitive Heuristics

LanguageProvides an infinite number of meanings and

messagesPhonemesMorphemesSyntax

Acquisition of language

Critiques of Cognitive Psych.Lacks coherenceMechanistic reductionism of the computer

modelExternal validity issues