Cognitive Psychology

The field of cognitive neuroscience concerns the scientific study of the neural
mechanisms underlying cognition and is a branch of neuroscience.

Cognitive neuroscience overlaps with cognitive psychology, and focuses on the neural
substrates of mental processes and their behavioral manifestations.

The boundaries between psychology, psychiatry and neuroscience have become

Cognitive neuroscientists tend to have a background in experimental psychology,

Methods employed in cognitive neuroscience include psychophysical experiments,

Clinical studies in psychopathology in patients with cognitive deficits constitute an

The main theoretical approaches are computational neuroscience and the more
traditional, descriptive cognitive psychology theories such as psychometrics.

“Cognitive Psychology is the study of thinking and the processes underlying mental events.”

Let us look at Knut again to give you some more examples and make the things clearer. He
needs to focus on reading his paper. So all his attention is directed at the words and sentences
which he perceives through his visual pathways. Other stimuli and information that enter his
cognitive apparatus - maybe some street noise or the fly crawling along a window - are not
that relevant in this moment and are therefore attended much less. Many higher cognitive
abilities are also subject to investigation. Knut’s situation could be explained as a classical
example of problem solving: He needs to get from his present state – an unfinished
assignment – to a goal state - a completed assignment - and has certain operators to achieve
that goal. Both Knut’s short and long term memory are active. He needs his short term
memory to integrate what he is reading with the information from earlier passages of the
paper. His long term memory helps him remember what he learned in the lectures he took
and what he read in other books. And of course Knut’s ability to comprehend language
enables him to make sense of the letters printed on the paper and to relate the sentences in a
proper way.

This situation can be considered to reflect mental events like perception, comprehension and
memory storage. Some scientists think that our emotions cannot be considered separate from
cognition, so that hate, love, fear or joy are also sometimes looked at as part of our individual
minds. Cognitive psychologists study questions like: How do we receive information about
the outside world? How do we store it and process it? How do we solve problems? How is
language represented?
Cognitive Psychology is a field of psychology that learns and researches about mental
processes, including perception, thinking, memory, and judgment. The mainstay of cognitive
psychology is the idea where sensation and perception are both different issues.

Cognitive Neuroscience:-

Cognitive Neuropsychology

Of course it would be very convenient if we could understand the nature of cognition without
the nature of the brain itself. But unfortunately it is very difficult if not impossible to build
and prove theories about our thinking in absence of neurobiological constraints. Neuroscience
comprises the study of neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, brain functions and related
psychological and computer based models. For years, investigations on a neuronal level were
completely separated from those on a cognitive or psychological level. The thinking process
is so vast and complex that there are too many conceivable solutions to the problem of how
cognitive operation could be accomplished.

Neurobiological data provide physical evidence for a theoretical approach to the investigation
of cognition. Therefore it narrows the research area and makes it much more exact. The
correlation between brain pathology and behaviour supports scientists in their research. It has
been known for a long time that different types of brain damage, traumas, lesions, and
tumours affect behaviour and cause changes in some mental functions. The rise of new
technologies allows us to see and investigate brain structures and processes never seen
before. This provides us with a lot of information and material to build simulation models
which help us to understand processes in our mind. As neuroscience is not always able to
explain all the observations made in laboratories, neurobiologists turn towards Cognitive
Psychology in order to find models of brain and behaviour on an interdisciplinary level –
Cognitive Neuropsychology. This “inter-science” as a bridge connects and integrates the two
most important domains and their methods of research of the human mind. Research at one
level provides constraints, correlations and inspirations for research at another level.

The basic building blocks of the brain are a special sort of cells called neurons. There are
approximately 100 billion neurons involved in information processing in the brain. When we look at
the brain superficially, we can't see these neurons, but rather look at two halves called the
hemispheres. The hemispheres themselves may differ in size and function, as we will see later in the
book, but principally each of them can be subdivided into four parts called the lobes: the temporal,
parietal, occipital and frontal lobe. This division of modern neuroscience is supported by the up- and
down-bulging structure of the brain's surface. The bulges are called gyri (singular gyrus), the creases
sulci (singular sulcus). They are also involved in information processing. The different tasks
performed by different subdivisions of the brain as attention, memory and language cannot be
viewed as separated from each other, nevertheless some parts play a key role in a specific task. For
example the parietal lobe has been shown to be responsible for orientation in space and the relation
you have to it, the occipital lobe is mainly responsible for visual perception and imagination etc.
Summed up, brain anatomy poses some basic constraints to what is possible for us and a better
understanding will help us to find better therapies for cognitive deficits as well as guide research for
cognitive psychologists. It is one goal of our book to present the complex interactions between the
different levels on which the brain that can be described, and their implications for Cognitive
Neuropsychology.

Newer methods, like EEG and fMRI etc. allow researchers to correlate the behaviour of a participant
in an experiment with the brain activity which is measured simultaneously. It is possible to record
neurophysiological responses to certain stimuli or to find out which brain areas are involved in the
execution of certain mental tasks. EEG measures the electric potentials along the skull through
electrodes that are attached to a cap. While its spatial resolution is not very precise, the temporal
resolution lies within the range of milliseconds. The use of fMRI benefits from the fact the increased
brain activity goes along with increased blood flow in the active region. The haemoglobin in the
blood has magnetic properties that are registered by the fMRI scanner. The spatial resolution of
fMRI is very precise in comparison to EEG. On the other hand, the temporal resolution is in the range
of just 1–2 seconds.

Remember the scenario described at the beginning of the chapter. Knut was asking himself “What is
happening here?” It should have become clear that this question cannot be simply answered with
one or two sentences. We have seen that the field of Cognitive Psychology comprises a lot of
processes and phenomena of which every single one is subject to extensive research to understand
how cognitive abilities are produced by our brain. In the following chapters of this WikiBook you will
see how the different areas of research in Cognitive Psychology are trying to solve the initial
question raised by Knut.

Cognitive science is the scientific study of the mind and mental processes and incorporates
different fields like philosophy, psychology, technology, neuroscience, and anthropology.

Cognitive psychology is more focused on information processing and behavior.

Cognitive neuroscience studies the underlying biology of information processing and

I think of it like this circle:

I think there are two key differences that separate cognitive science and cognitive

I think there are two key differences that separate cognitive science and cognitive psychology.

The first being the study of cognitive science in technology/AI, essentially machine cognition.

The second being anthropology which serves to understand origins of modern day cognition.
 UNIT 2

Cognitive Information Processing Model (CIP) of Learning:-

The model articulates the limited capacity of “working memory.” Working memory is tasked
with the burden of processing incoming information, transferring information to long-term memory
and retrieval of information from long-term memory. The concept of “cognitive load” — the amount
of work imposed on working memory by a learning task — is based on observations of the functions
of working memory.
Processing involves encoding (gathering and representing information); storage (holding
information); and retrieval (getting the information when needed).

The entire system is guided by a control process that determines how and when information will
flow through the system. Some theorists suggest that the operation of the brain resembles a large
number of computers all operating at the same time (in parallel).