Cognitive psychology encompasses the study of human cognition entailing mental abilities such as perception, thinking, remembering, reasoning, understanding, language, and memory ("COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY," n.d.). Notably, mental capabilities have evolved to become essential in psychological studies. The purpose of cognitive psychology is to understand information management and processing by the brain that may be in the form of collection, storing, and dissemination. To understand a person, psychologists have to study the consequences of what happened and trace back all actions that were taken by the patient. Cognitive psychology enables an understanding of the human thought process through various approaches, sub-domains, and assumptions, in spite of certain drawbacks.
The Approaches to Cognitive Psychology
To better understand cognitive psychology, there are various techniques used in its study. The three main approaches are; experimental cognitive psychology, computational cognitive psychology, and neural cognitive psychology. Experimental cognitive psychology involves the use of experiments as it views cognitive psychology from the perspective of natural sciences. For this variation of measurements in response time, eye tracking and psychological responses are collected and analyzed. In computational cognitive psychological, the development of mathematical and computational models is involved. These models are based on the human cognition that is the symbolic and dynamic system of the human brain. The neural cognitive psychology uses brain imaging such as PET, Optical Imaging and neurobiological techniques. Neural cognitive psychology endeavors to understand the primary neural basis of the human mind (McLeod, 2015). Eventually, the three approaches are all related as they try to understand the human mind and act as complements to each other.
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Sub-Domains of Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive psychology exists with various sub-domains. The various sub-domains are perception, attention, learning, memory, and concept formation. In perception, the psychologist seeks to understand how the human mind can compose subjective conclusions based on the environment and various underlying factors (Careers in Psychology, 2018). Attention, on the other hand, tries to understand the problem of information overload in the mind and how one selects which information to process first. In learning, the psychologist tries to study how to improve a person’s response to their environment. Memory, moreover, entails trying to understand and solve the issue of the scope of memory storage and its volatility. Finally, concept formation tries to establish how the human mind can organize and classify perception based on experiences.
The Assumptions in Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive psychology contains various assumptions. First, cognitive psychology is a natural science depended upon laboratory experiments. However, this assumption is non-factual as cognitive psychology is based upon more than laboratory experiments results. Second, human behavior is based on how the mind operates, an assumption that is based solely on information processing techniques. Third, the human mind and the computer operate on the same principles, that is; they both collect, store and disseminate information. Lastly, the process of mediation is between the stimuli and response, an assumption that is equally less factual.
The Areas of Application
The areas of application of cognitive psychology offer a wide scope since cognitive psychology can be applied to many scenarios. The areas are forgetting, memory, therapy, education, moral development, learning styles, depression, perception, attention, eyewitness testimonies, judgment and decision, problem-solving, language processing, and reasoning (McLeod, 2015). Most of these areas of application offer sub-domains for cognitive psychology inevitably enabling the study and further progression of the field of cognitive psychology.
The Strengths of Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive psychology possesses numerous strengths that make it famous among those studying psychology. First, cognitive psychology employs the best approach which enables immensely controlled and precise techniques of study that makes researches infer cognitive development at work. Researchers get non-biased and first-hand information. Second, the use of a cognitive approach in itself is an added advantage since cognition is a widely used approach by many psychiatrists who have also applied it to numerous practical and theoretical works. Third, cognitive techniques work well in conjunction with other methods of approach. Consequently, cognitive psychology has been used in conjunction with many other approaches (McLeod, 2015). For example, cognitive psychology with behaviorism lead to the conception of social learning theory.
Drawbacks of Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive psychology nonetheless, has some drawbacks. Firstly, cognitive psychology is narrow in the sense that it focuses on the mental process. For example, the comparison of the human mind to a computer information processing is narrow-minded since it focuses on the logical aspect of the human cognition, ignoring the emotional, social and creative aspects of the human mind. Second, machine reductionism involves using the analogy of machines to explain how human cognition works. Thus, it involves the comparison between human and machines as being similar, which in itself is a shallow explanation of the human mind as it does not consider all aspects of the human mind and body as a whole.
Conclusion
In conclusion, cognitive psychology enables the understanding of the human mind. The understanding of the human mind also has its advantages and limitations. Through understanding the human mind, however, reasons as to why people make the decisions they make can be established. Insights into the human cognition, therefore, continues to be of interest to researchers.
References
Careers in Psychology. (2018). How to Become a Cognitive Psychologist | Education | Salary | Information | CareersinPsychology.org. Retrieved from https://careersinpsychology.org/becoming-a-cognitive-psychologist/
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.indiana.edu/~p1013447/dictionary/cogpsy.htm
McLeod, S. (2015, February 5). Cognitive Approach | Simply Psychology. Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive.html
