Introduction to Cognitive Psychology
January 31, 2008 – 10:05 pmThrough this paper project we would like to show our gratitude for having the possibility of studding the human being from the cognitive psychology point of view.
Thought the questions raised by cognitive psychology typically have ancient roots, the answers provided by the discipline are recent and undergoing continual refinement. Here we want to expose that we have come to learn how far we have come in one of the science’s grandest quest: the mind seeking to understand itself.
We want to show the complexity of the human being, the limited and the unlimited features of the man, to encourage raising our personals standards, to explore our cognitive features in order to know ourselves and to know the world. To know how to improve our relationship with other people and with ourselves.
We will see that cognitive psychology is a discipline, which concern itself with the science of mental life, as defined by contemporary research methods, theories, and findings.
Chapter I
Definitions, historical developmental
and basic concepts in cognitive psychology
This discipline, which we will present in this paper project, concerns itself with the science of mental life, as defined by contemporary research methods, theories, and findings.
Cognitive Psychology is concerned with mental processes and their effects on human behaviour. It focuses on phenomenon such as: perception, motor control, attention, sensation, memory learning, language, reasoning problem solving and decision making. The cognitive psychology studies the interlocking neurological and psychological processes, which comprise human thinking, reasoning, and problem solving.
Another definition of the cognitive psychology could be this: in cognitive psychology are analysing the brain processes that intervened between stimulus, behaviour, and the internal representation of the information around us. Shortly, the cognitive psychology is the study of human mental processes and their role in thinking, feeling and behaving (Kellogg, 1995).
In this quest of the cognitive psychology in studding the human mental life we have some more cognitive science having the same field of study. Cognitive science may be defined as the study of the relationships among and integration of cognitive psychology, biology, anthropology, computer science, linguistics, and philosophy. It represents an interdisciplinary effort to address basically the same issues that confront cognitive psychology. How is knowledge represented? How does an individual acquire new knowledge? How dose the visual system organise sensory experience into meaningful objects and events? How does memory work?
Cognitive science is not a coherent discipline in and of itself but is a perspective on several discipline and their associated questions (Kellogg, 1995).
The information processing model of cognition
With the rise of sophisticated methods of brain imaging and neurological study, along with the developments in computer science and artificial intelligence, a new model of human cognition is emerging whose best description is “the information processing model of cognition”. So, what is mean by an “information processing model of mind”?
By “information processing model of cognition is meant the existence of mental representations and processes that modifies these representations in a series of stages. A physical system, which has these two proprieties (representation and manipulation of representation on the base of some exact rules) is called a cognitive system. (Kellogg, 1995).
The information-processing model can be decomposed into smaller systems, such as sensory memory, short-term memory and long-term memory.
Perception of environmental input involves recognising the pattern of information held briefly in sensory memory. The recognised patterns transfer to short-term memory where they are held for many seconds. If rehearsal properly, then the newly learned information is transferred to long-term memory for permanent storage. Responses to the environment occur following decision made on the basis of information currently held in the short-term store (Kellogg, Ronald, 1995).
The discipline portrays the human mind as, first, a processor of information; it computes answers to problems in a manner analogous to a computer. But the human mind doses more than process information.
Meaning, not information in the mathematical sense, provides the focus of human mental life (Bruner, 1990). The mind lives and breathes through meaning. Our use of symbols to refer to objects, events and other experiences, our efforts to understand why experiences occur as they do, and ultimately our longing to comprehend the significance of our own existence all reflect human longing for meaning.
The human being in his cognitive abilities perceive and organise incoming sensory data, remember and learn, evaluate information for its value and meaning to himself. We learn and remember the information, which are meaningful to us, to our personal cognitive schema.
Historical development
The laboratory investigation of the human mind began in 1879. Structuralism, functionalism, Gestalt psychology, and psychoanalysis all relied on various forms of introspection to reveal properties of conscious and unconscious mental activities and contents. Behaviourism rejected introspection in an effort to establish an objective psychology. The development of information processing systems led to a “cognitive revolution” against behaviourism.
Structuralism
Wilheim Wundt founded the first psychological laboratory in 1879 in Leipzig, Germany. Edward Bradford Titchener brought the wundtian approach to psychology to America in 1892. Titchener established the school of structural psychology, which concerned what the mind is as opposed to what the mind is for. Structuralism aimed to describe the elemental components of consciousness, specifically, sensations, images and feelings. The introspection was used as the method of choice for scientific psychology. The introspection or the self-observation consisted of a carefully controlled technique of looking inward and reporting mental experiences.
The structuralism encountered several difficulties. One concerned the reliability of introspection as the only valid scientific method. Different observers too often gave different introspective reports in the experimental conditions arranged by Wundt, Titchener and their followers (Kellog, 1995).
Functionalism
Functionalism addressed what the mind is for rather than what it is. Functional psychologists, such as James Angell, studied mental processes that mediated between the environment and organism. Angell investigated the nature of mental operations rather the mental elements, and aimed to understand from a biological point of view, the utilities of consciousness in adapting to the demands of the environment.
James’s Principles of Psychology, first published in 1890, provided the backdrop for the functionalist school. James followed a Darwinian line of thinking to question what purpose consciousness served. Angell focused attention on mental operations as opposed to mental structures.
Gestalt psychology
Gestalt psychologists emphasised the meaning and organisation of objects and events. Gestalt means form or shape and was used to emphasise that experience enters the mind as structured forms. Gestalt psychology provided another approach to the study of mind that strongly influenced psychology in Europe beginning with Max Wertheimer’s 1912 publication on movement perception. Gestalt approach opened the door to the study of higher mental processes in their extensive work on problem solving. They emphasised the holistic phenomena of gaining insight into the solution of a problem.
Psychoanalysis
Sigmund Freud, a medical doctor from Vienna, created a unique theory of the human mind. Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900 in which he first describe the Oedipus complex and provide a guide to the symbolic processes of the mind that emerge in dreams. Each dream held a symbolic meaning; the latent content that revealed unconscious desires and conflicts. The Interpretation of Dreams proved so popular that it was reprinted eight times in Freud’s lifetime. Freud’s theory had a great influence on the early twentieth-century Western culture, but his theories attract little interest today.
Behaviourism
John B. Watson launched behaviourism in 1913 with his paper “Psychology as the Behaviourism Views it” in an effort to establish a purely objective psychology. He envisioned an objective science of psychology based on a description of observable, repeatable behaviour.
Watson pursued a science of behaviour, not a science of mental life. He tried to translate the mental contents and processes of the structuralism and functionalist into behavioural terms. Watson believed that the response of an organism to any given stimulus could be accurately predicted. Stimulus-response psychology thus began.
The most influential behaviourist was B.F. Skinner. From The Behaviour of Organisms (1938) to Verbal Behaviour (1957) to Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971), Skinner articulated the principles of operand conditioning and their applications to societal problems.
By the mid-1950s the split from behaviourism was well under way and information processing psychology came into its own (Kellogg, 1995).
This became known as the cognitive revolution against the tyranny of behaviourism. George Miller and Jerome Bruner at Harvard founded the Centre for Cognitive Studies and revitalised interest in thinking and memory. In England, Donald Broadbent pioneered the study of attention and memory from the perspective of information processing. From this point till in our days the cognitive psychology was greatly developed being now a modern scientific discipline studding the human mental life.
In conclusion, my understanding on cognitive psychology is the discipline that studies the human cognitive systems and its components (memory, understanding, language and perception). Cognitive psychology studies the processing of information between sensorial input and behavioural output.
Chapter II
Sensing, Perceiving, and Attending to the Data Incoming
In this chapter we’ll explore how stimuli are transformed from sensations to perceptions in the cycle of perception. We’ll further explore theories that have developed about attention and concentration to the data incoming.
We come to know our world through sensing and perceiving the environment. As we have seen in the first chapter, input from the environment first enters sensory memory, where it is held briefly. Sensory registration, or sensation, refers to the transaction of physical energy, such as sounds waves or electromagnetic radiation, into a preliminary neural code that can be further processed and transformed over time. It is not possible to draw a line where sensation ends and perception begins (Kellogg, 1995).
All that we see, hear, taste, smell, and feel are internal neural representations- images of the mind- of external stimuli. Sensory registration is the beginning point of numerous processes that transforms and stores the initial internal representation of stimulus input.
Pattern recognition refers to the processes responsible for identifying the stimulus. The initial mental representation has been transformed into a more elaborated representation that involves such attributes as colour, location, size, brightness, and name. The short-term store provides a record of mental representations that you have recognised as familiar patterns and attended to consciously. Perception refers to these multifaceted processes of pattern recognition and attention that result in conscious awareness of an environmental input. Our sensation interprets the external stimulus in meaningful ways.
To consciously perceive the stimulus, pattern recognition processes must match the incoming stimulus with schemas or knowledge representations stored in long-term memory (Kellogg, 1995).
Shortly, the physical energy of a stimulus is transducer into a neural representation of what is out there, then processing these into higher-level mental representations that can be compared to previous representations, the cognitive schema, and used to alter behaviour or to modify previous schemas.
Sensation and perception dominated the early history of psychology. It allowed the experimenter to manipulate the physical proprieties of the stimulus in careful laboratory settings and then measure the psychological results.
The cycle of perception
Perceiving stimuli in the environment involves extensive interaction with the environment in what is called the cycle of perception.
“The perceiver must interact extensively and continuously with the environment to construct and maintain an accurate internal model of external objects and events. This interaction is called the cycle of perception” (Kellogg, p. 48, 1995).
Schemas generate expectations about the objects and events that will be encounter. (Schema refers to a mental representation of knowledge about the world). This expectation direct exploration of the environment in the form of eye movements and other bodily movements that pick up the available information. This sample information either confirms or modifies the original expectations, which in turn leads to renewed exploration (Kellogg, 1995). In all cases, the information from the environment modifies what the perceiver needs to look for next. If all expectations are met, then eye fixations can be directed elsewhere. If expectations are violated, particularly in the case of surprising information, then clearly more sampling of the environment is in order.
In conclusion, “the cycle of perception” which points to the interaction of the three main components: Schema, Exploration, and the Environment? Kellogg states that the schema, developed mental representation of our world and how we perceive it as we interact with it, provide us with expectations of what we may encounter in our environment and allow us to explore it to determine if we need to make adjustments that may further support the patterns or may in many instances, provide us with information that may alter or change the pattern schemas there we have developed.
Top-Down and Bottom -Up Processes
Top-down or conceptually driven pattern recognition refers to the use of expectations to ease the process of finding a match between incoming stimuli and schemas that store our knowledge about the world in long-term memory.
Top-down processes reduce the need to sample all the information available in the environment by providing the perceiver with a hypothesis. Simultaneously, bottom-up processes are analysing the edges, lines, areas of light and dark, colours, sounds, and others physical features available briefly in sensory memory. These processes pick up the features needed to verify the hypothesis or, in case that violate expectations, to reject the hypothesis and activate alternative schemas with alternative hypothesis (Kellogg, 1995).
Briefly, bottom-up or data driven pattern recognition refers to the use of the features picked up from the environment. Both the data and the expectations play a critical role in rapid, accurate, and hence adaptive perception.
In conclusion, in order to have a correct schema about ourselves and external world we should put top-down processes against bottom-up processes, helping us to refresh all the time our perception on reality?
Attention
Without attention, the world would overwhelm us with sensory information. Attention refers to the process of selecting only certain stimuli and concentrating cognitive processes on them.
Perception without attention would be a swirl of confusion as the mind tried to comprehend everything stimulating the sense at once.
With other words, attention refers to the selection of certain stimuli for processing to the exclusion of others. It also refers to the concentration of mental resources on a particular process. Two broad classes of theories have developed to explain attention. Filter theories address the selective nature of attention, whereas capacity theories address the allocation of resources to specific mental processes.
Filter theories postulated a bottleneck in the flow of information from initial sensory processing to registration in conscious awareness. Capacity theories recognise that one or more bottleneck exit, but added the assumption that mental processes complete for limited resources as well.
We will study in detail the nature of attention just present some of its features and theories.
Filters theories evolved to explain the selective nature of attention. Experiments designed to test these theories showed the validity of assuming structural bottlenecks in the flow of information processing. Capacity theories build upon idea of bottlenecks while recognising that the location of the bottleneck from early to late stage in perception and cognition can vary (Kellogg, 1995). The most important, capacity theories recognised the mental effort aspect of attention as well as the selective aspect.
Automatic and Controlled Processes
Treisman and her colleagues have proposed features integration theory of vision that entails both automatic and preventive processes dovetailed with controlled or focused attention process. (Kellogg,1995). As Kellogg said, automatic processes require little if any mental effort. Moreover, they occur without intentional control; even when an individual attempts to stop an automatic process from operation, it unfolds anyway. Finally, automatic processes operate outside the scope of conscious awareness. Processes develop automatically either through genetic programming or as the result of extensive practice.
Controlled processes contrast with automatic processes on each point. They demand extensive mental effort, they require intentional control to operate, and they enter conscious awareness.
We believe from our daily experience that attention is a controlled process but we can improve through extensive practice.
The neruroanatomical basis for visual attention systems is only beginning to be understood. The facts to date suggest that the pulniar nucleus in the thalamus servers the function of filtering irrelevant stimuli. It dose so by controlling how sharply tuned a neurone in the neocortex is to a specific stimulus features and by altering the size of a neurone’s receptive field from the receptor cells in the eye (Kellogg, 1995).
In conclusion to this chapter, we have learned and seen how important our personal perception on the outer world is in order to have a correct personal cognitive schema about us and about our environment. We have seen also how important is the attention in our mental life, which can be improved through extensive practice. The cycle of perception helps us to have a correct cognitive schema about reality through top-down and bottom-up processes helping us to perceive the features of the environment with remarkable quickness and accuracy.
Chapter III
Memory and Learning
In this chapter we’ll try to understand what memory is. How is memory formed? How are separate incidents recalled later in their specificity and as the basis of “general concepts” of schema? Which is the connection between memory, attention, learning and forgetting?
In this chapter we will explore the currently strong “multi-store” model of memory and present basic neural mechanism of memory, including our current best understanding of various types of memory. Finally, we will see the three core cognitive processes of memory: learning, remembering, and forgetting.
“The life of an individual has meaning only because of memory” (Kellogg, pag.99, 1995).
Our past defines who we are, what we believe, what we can do, and what we feel. What life would be like if we would lose our memory? No recollection of where you were born, where you grew up, what you did at school, and where you work, whom you live with and even what you thought or did just moments ago.
We will start with the consideration of the classic distinction between short-term and working memory and long-term memory.
Short-Term versus Long-Term Memory
Introspection along these lines has suggested a distinction between short-term and long-term memory from the time of James’s Principles of Psychology in 1890. He referred to immediate memory of events currently attended to as primary memory and all other memory as secondary. Waugh and Norman (1965) formalised the distinction in their model of separate primary and secondary memory. Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) added a sensory store and provided us with the modern labels of short and long-term stores. The multistage model became the most influential theory in the field of cognitive psychology (Kellogg, 1995).
Shortly we will present some difference between short and long-term memory.
Difference in memory stores.
The multistage model contends that sensory memory briefly stores a large number of incoming sensations. Short-term memory holds only about seven recognisable items, but can do so for 20 to 30 seconds without rehearsal. Long-term memory appears to be virtually unlimited in capacity, capable of storing the experiences, factual knowledge, and skills of an entire lifetime.
The span of short-term memory for digits is limited to about seven items. But, Miller (1956) recognised that a cultural process can overcome this limitation. He called the process “chunking”. Meaningful patterns of information, often those grounded in the cultural tool of language, allow a person to remember far more than seven individual items. By grouping meaningful information together, we form a coherent chunk of information. But, the essential point is that short-term memory capacity is severely limited.
Forgetting, certainly occurs, but is unlikely to be necessary as a way of making room for new information, and this is the case with short-term memory.
Duration
In short-term memory we can retrain items for about 20 seconds depending on the specific task and materials used to assess the duration, estimates range from as brief as 10 seconds to as long as 30 seconds (Kellogg, 1995).
The duration of long-term memory must be measured in terms of years, not seconds. Once material is stored in long-term memory, it may well persist for a lifetime.
Retrieval
The retrieval of information from short and long-term memory differs.
Retrieval from short-term memory involves a serial exhaustive search. A serial search means that the items in memory are somehow ordered and are examined on at a time, starting with the first item and proceeding to the next. An exhaustive search refers to one that continues to examine all items in memory even after the target item has been found. So, in a serial exhaustive search would look at all items one at a time.
Retrieval from long-term memory is assumed to be a parallel, self-terminating process. A parallel search means that all items in memory are examined simultaneously, which result in much more efficient retrieval of information. A self-terminating search refers to one that stops as soon as the item being sought is found (Mircea Miclea, 1994).
Forgetting
We have also some differences across the three stores. Masking or replacing all the contents of sensory memory with new information is a unique mode of forgetting.
In the case of the short-term memory, new information displaces a portion of the old information, nudging out one item but leaving others intact. Interference is another common means of forgetting in short-term memory. Finally, brain lesions and other organic problems can cause short-term forgetting.
Displacement can hardly be taken seriously in the case of long-term memory, because its capacity is so large. Decay from long-term memory is certainly possible. If an event, which has occurred at age 7 and it, was rarely or never retrieved over the course of lifetime, the passage of time should result in loosing of that information. The implication of decay theory is that forgotten information is no longer available in memory. But several researches showed that the unavailable events might only be inaccessible to retrieval. The point here is that seemingly forgotten information can be made accessible under the right conditions.Contemporary theory stresses the cue dependent nature of forgetting form long-term memory. Recognising or recalling a past event depends on reactivating the contextual cues associated with the event at the time of encoding (Tulvin, 1983 in Kellogg, 1995).
In conclusion, the multistage model of memory distinguishes among sensory, short-term, and long-term stores. This highly influential model sought to identify unique characteristics with each store. The efforts proved relatively successful with regard to capacity, duration, and retrieval but less so with coding and forgetting. Personally we agree with the multistage model of memory.
Learning, Remembering and forgetting
In the final part of this chapter we will see the three core cognitive processes of memory: learning, remembering and forgetting.
Learning, involves encoding and storing events in long-term memory. Encoding begins with perceptual operations that lead to the entry of information into short-term memory and ends with deeper or higher order processes that store the information in long-term memory.
Encoding
Encoding and storage of episodic information in long-term memory depends on attention and effort. Unattended, automatic encoding fails to support explicit memory. However, merely attending is insufficient as well for good recall and recognition.
Without attention at encoding, little if anything persists beyond the short term. Individuals suffering from depression frequently report difficulties in remembering.
Rehearsal
Rehearsal refers to practising, whether it involves a motor skill such as gymnastics or declarative learning of facts or events. Elaborate rehearsals in which links are establish between new information and information already stored is important. Simply recycling information through attention and short-term storage, what is called maintenance rehearsal, is far less effective.
Organisation
Category cues. Tulvin and Pearlstone (1966) showed the power of organisation in their comparison of free and cued recall. The organisation of encoded information shows the powerful effect as an aid to retrieval. Also, the events may be available in memory but not accessible to recollection without the right retrieval cues. Organisation that is, encoding the relations among events and prior knowledge, benefits both learning and remembering.
Retrieval process
Encoding processes are important, but they cannot be considered apart from retrieval process. The encoding specificity principle asserts that events are recognised or recalled only when retrieval cues at the time of the test match the encoding cues present at the time of learning.
Retrieval can be an active process of remaining the perceptions, feelings, and possibly thoughts about the event and its context (Kellogg, 1995). From this perspective, forgetting represents a failure to access an episode because the retrieval cues are inadequate.
There are some states, which can affect the retrieval process: tip of the tongue states, which is presented by Kellogg (p. 145), as a nearly universal experience, when people often experience a feeling of knowing or familiarity in which some name, or word, date, or other information can not be retrieved despite a certainty that it is available in memory. TOT states suggest that information may be available, but inaccessible, in memory. The forgetting seems to be clearly caused by failure to find the right retrieval cue.
Psychological states. The emotional states of the individual also may serve as an effective retrieval cue. Bower (1981) (in Kellogg, 1995) found that the best learning occurs when the material being learned fits with the induced mood.
Schema and Memory
Schema shapes both what is stored and what is retrieved. They establish expectations those results in selection of the features of events that are encoded in the first place. Because of this schemas sometimes constructively distort memory during encoding in multiple ways. Schemas constructively guide the encoding of events through processes of selection, interpretation and integration. Finally, schemas reconstructively guide the retrieval process, enabling us to fabricate how events must have originally happened.
Because of this influence of schemas in encoding and retrieval we can have two people how witnesses to one experience and still to have two different testimonies are
We totally agree with this information about the cognitive processes of memory, learning, remembering and forgetting. We understood that memory is the essence of learning and that that is true to say that memory is learning. Finally we agree that with the importance of cognitive schemas, which influences the encoding, and retrieval of information. Also, we have seen that there are several causes who can have negative effects on encoding and retrieve information, like psychological, physical and external causes.
Chapter IV
Using Knowledge and Skills: Schema, Code, and Expertise
We have seen that memory and learning are important to our personal life, helping us to know ourselves, to learn to navigate in the real world, doing things and interacting with others. In this chapter we will see theses processes by which we represent knowledge in our minds. We will see how schemas are formed and modified and how their information is coded in propositions and images that the mind can then manipulate. Then we’ll look at how experts in a given domain manipulate schemas and codes to retrieve information.
Schemas
Knowledge representations are variously described in the literature as schemas, mental models, categories, classes, concepts, scripts, and frames. We will first give the definition for the terms. Schema is a dynamic mental representation of what one knows about objects, events and ideas.
Knowledge of mathematical ideas, philosophical beliefs and psychological states illustrate schemas of a non-physical nature. A schema summarises or represents numerous objects, events, or ideas that differ in one or more ways.
The types of schemas include frames, scripts, and equivalence classes or concepts. Frames represent the physical environment, such as a room. Scripts represent routine situations, often social in nature and typically involving a sequence of events.
Formal concepts specify a fixed membership boundary based on a set of defining features and a logical rule relating these features. Ad hoc or functional concepts are generated in responses to the needs of the moment. However, this gradient can shift and adapt to the specific conceptual requirements at hand, illustrating especially well the dynamic and fluid nature of schemas. Schemas change to adapt to current needs, including fashioning a new, momentary schema in an ad hoc manner.
Schema modification
New schemas are learned and modified through exploration of the environment and accommodation of pre-existing schemas. Tuning refers to fine adjustments in schemas that are made on temporary basis to meet a transient problem. The schemas metaphorically shape themselves for a moment to accommodate to the novel situation. Tuning continually alters schemas to meet the new demands of the environment.
Accretion refers to slow cumulative modifications in the structures of schemas. Over long periods of time gradually and permanently modifies a schema as new information is added through repeated exploration of the environments. Slowly, but surely, the shape and complexity of the schema modify themselves to the requirements of the environment.
Restructuring refers to sudden major modification in schemas. Rumelhart and Norman labelled this seismic process restructuring and sustain that such major changes in the representations of knowledge may come after enough exposure to discrepant experiences, through conscious reflection on one’s experience (Kellogg, 1995). But, at this point we would like to label this sudden major modification, from a Christian point of view, repentance, change of direction as an effect of a divine intervention through God’s word and through the Holly Spirit. In the last case we have formal education in which teachers try to impose schemas.
Expertise
As a person learns more and becomes more skilful within a particular domain of knowledge, the structure and process of memory are altered and refined.
Kellogg presents in chapter 7 several principles that should characterise an expertise: Principle of Mnemonic Encoding, the Principle of Retrieval Structure, and the Speed up Principle, the Principle of Flow, the Principle of Deliberate Practice and the Principle of Metagonitive Control. For a person to became expert in a domain should know how to accumulate, store and organised information into meaningful chunks. The superior performance of experts in a domain is no doubt linked to their ability to perceive and think in terms of meaningful chunks (Kellogg, 1995). It is important that the novice should analyse the accumulated information in order to use it in a particular real problem. The second principle linked by the first one is the Principle of Retrieval structure, refers to the highly specialised means used by experts to gain access to what they know. The development of retrieval structures also allows experts to anticipate what they need to remember and to encode the relevant information in a format that ensure later retrieval (Chase & Ericsson, 1982, in Kellogg, 1995). As we saw earlier, the memory depends not only on how well relevant information is encoded but also on how well it is retrieved. The intensive study and practice should increase the performance and retrieval for the young psychologist. As a consequent of practice, an expert carries out a task more rapidly than novice, a finding known as the speed up principle does.
The speed up principle claim that the speed of performance increase with practice. The decrease in task time follows an orderly relation described by a powerful function (Kellogg, 1995). Without any practice the generation task demanded controlled, effortfull processes. But still a negative element may occur here: as the individual gained expertise with practice, automatic processes took over the task. Still, there is an enjoyable emotion after a long time of practice, the flow of state. The Principle of Flow states that when experts are fully challenged by a task and this state is characterised by a total absorption of attention, a sense of effortlessness, and a feeling of enjoyment. The states occur only if there is an optimal match between the demands of the task and the skills of the performance.
The next principle, the Principle of Deliberate practice encourages me because it says that the talent comes from persistent, deliberate practice in the field (Kellogg, 1995). Becoming an experts require enormous amounts of learning and practice. It has been estimated that attaining the status of experts requires a minimum of 10 years of preparation. The experts should be highly motivated to spend time, working hard; he should receive immediate feedback or knowledge on the results of his effort (Bower & Hilgard, 1981, in Kellogg, 1995).
The last important principle is the Principle of Metacoginitive Control, which is important for the novice to be known. Through cognitive development, individuals grow in their ability to monitor their thought process and to select strategies that are effective for the task at hand.
The novice should learn not to despair in difficult moment when the demands of the task seems to be too hard but to think through problems carefully and consciously before taking any steps toward solving the task.
In conclusion to this chapter we have understood the big role of the cognitive schemas in the human development, which affect the encoding, and retrieval of information, affecting the way in which a person view the world and himself. The good news is that the schemas develop and can be changed improving the person’s life, and through hard work and practising a person may became an expertise in a certain field of study.
Chapter V
Language Skills: Speaking and Listening, Writing and Reading
In this chapter we will shortly describe the features of language and its skills, speaking, listening writing and reading and will give special attention to the “slips of the tongue” phenomena.
Language is a system of symbols that are used to communicate ideas among two or more individuals. Some characteristics of the language: semantically, means that the sounds or symbols used in language refers to objects, events, beliefs, desires, feelings, and intentions. They carry meaning (Kellogg, 1995). Arbitrariness refers to the lack of any obvious connection between the symbol and the meaning it carries. Duality concerns the use of a small set of sounds to yield multiple meanings through combination.
Further we’ll take a look at the “slip of the tongue” as phenomena, which are caused by errors in the articulator program, and not as a result of the “unconscious mind” which, as Freud pretended, that has its own motivations and needs.
Articulation, the actual production of speech sounds, is a physical reaction sparked by the mind as signals rush through the muscular system igniting the vocal chords, producing air patterns in the lungs, manoeuvring the tongue, lips and mouth in such a manner as to procure sounds that the mental processes have determined represent the thought processes necessary to enact meaningful speech.
The components of “speaking involves many cognitive and motor processes” (Kellogg, 1995) and a person must “first plan what needs to be said and how it needs to be said to affect listeners in the desire manner” (Kellogg, p.265, 1995).
In regard to the error in articulation referred to as a “slip of the tongue”, Kellogg argues that many cognitive theories consider this error to be the results of a failure in the execution of the articulator program (p.271) and he use Norman (1981) as a basis for this thought as stated, “they are no different than other everyday errors that people make and they reveal much about the workings of mental schemas, not about unconscious conflicts”.
Sigmund Freud on the other hand saw these slips of the tongue as an avenue for the unconscious mind to express itself without interruption from the cognitive constraints of the conscious mind. Freud looked to the psychological conflicts in the unconscious for the source of dreams (Kellogg, p.435, 1995) and he suggested that the unconscious mind has a so called “mind of its own” which possessed its own motivations and needs. In reference to slip of tongue, Freud may have simply argued that the unconscious mind had found an open route to the conscious world and travelled there via the same physical signals initiated by the conscious mind. In modern cognitive psychology, the concept of mental schemas and their and their direct link to the articulation and to the manner in which we conceive and understand those utterances may offer a strong argument for disproving the concept of the personal unconscious mind.
As we have seen in the early chapters, the concept of the dynamic mental structure called a schema evolved from the work of Piaget and Bartlett and these structures allow one to develop models of the physical world. As these mental pictures of foundations are developed, they are stored in long-term memory and are constantly built upon, as we grow older. As a consequent of our environments, schemas provide us with expectations about our environment and continually undergo modification through maturation and learning (Kellogg, p.20, 1995).
I submit that as our language models mature and as memory processes mature, we begin to get more lax in our attention to our mental recall techniques. This lack of attention is especially evident when we are involved in social interactions, which call for us to maintain both attentive listening patterns for cognitive processing and interpretation and for us to simultaneously search long-term memory for related data and information that can then be reprocessed and organised to allow us to articulate the information in a meaningful manner. During the process, a series of technical difficulties can transpire as this dual processing takes place. Such events as a slip of the tongue would then seem more like and early processing release of information.
A “spoonerism is a particular type of cognitive error in which two phonetic segments are reversed and an error may occur at different levels of the language structure. “Reversals” may occur at different levels of the phonetic segment and can allow for words or syllables to be switched without reason and for them to utter without conscious effort (Kellogg, 1995).
Additionally, the function of language in our social intercourse must be explode and the relationship that schemas play as we carry on a conversation with others. Kellogg calls this use of language “pragmatics” and defines it as “the study of the social functions of language” (p.239). According to Kellogg, “pragmatics addresses the various ways that speakers communicate their intentions depending on the social context” (p.239). If one were to consider the word “intention” in this text context, it may infer that considerable thought processes must take place to first define the intention or response prior to delivering it in the proper context within the conversation. With that in mind, the individual who experiences the slip of the tongue might well be said to be experiencing difficulties with their retrieval, encoding, and recall cues associated with the gathered information that they are “intent” on delivering.
In conclusion, we believe that our mental schemas, personal scripts, are almost 99 percent responsible for the slip of the tongue that lead into therapeutic issues because of the way we encode, and retrieve. Studding memory, language, organic functioning and schemas provided a very plausible explanation for the slip of the tongue.
Chapter VI
Thinking and Deciding: Solving Problems and Reasoning
In this chapter we will try to present the process of thinking and deciding. The term thinking traditionally has covered problem solving. Reasoning and decision making.
People think by manipulating mental representations of the world. Thorough the use of such representations, we can plan courses of action and simulate their effects prior to taking action. The study of problem solving has shed a light on how we go about this. Often in solving a problem, one builds a model of the environment with a clear, well-defined goal in mind. One then tries to find a path that leads straight to the goal with little diversion. Such problem solving illustrates directed thinking (Kellogg, 1995). Directed thinking, is goal oriented and rational. The cost of each path is certainly taken into account.
Undirected thinking refers to dreaming, daydreaming, and other forms of thought that meander without concern for attaining a goal. Undirected thinking is neither rational nor goal oriented. So, we have two types of thinking: directed and undirected thinking.
Both directed and undirected thinking have a role in solving specific types of problems, so we have well defined problems and ill defined problems (Kellogg, 1995).
A well-defined problem is characterised by an initial state, a goal state, and a set of operators. An operator defines each legal move from the initial state, to intermediate states, to the Goal State. All the states and operators taken together define the problem space. To solve a well-defined problem, one must select a sequence of operators, or perhaps all three.
An ill-defined problem often calls for insights and creativity, what the Gestalt psychologists called productive thinking. Yet, even some well-defined problems demand creative insights for solution (Kellogg, 1995).
A general model of problem solving entails first representing the problem and then searching the problem space for a path to the goal. Finding a good representation of the problem space is critical and often demands as much insight as the search process itself.
Gestalt psychologists recognised that both perception and problem solving require the proper organisation of elements. They identified two common obstacles to successful problem solving. Set, refers to the tendency to set the mind into a routine approach to problem solving. Thinkers who adopt an automatic or mindless approach to problem space that is ideal. And functional fixedness, which refers to the tendency to see objects as having only a single, typical, uses (Kellogg, 1995).
Generally, thinkers prematurely categorise the elements of a problem in accordance with their typical. Still, in problems solving we can talk also about the role of the creativity. The stage of creativity begins with preparation, studding, working the problem for an extended period of time. Incubation, putting with the problem aside, is the next stage and the third stage is illumination, coming up with a crucial insight that leads to the solution of the problem. The fourth stage is verification, when the insight is implemented and tested.
We believe that most of the people have difficulties in the very first stage, when they became discouraged, tired when have no results of theirs work and they end by giving up in searching for the solution.
In conclusion, we agree with the direct thinking in solving a problem, when one builds a model of the environment with a clear, well-defined goal in mind trying to well-define the space of the problem. Also, we see the importance of knowing the fourth stages of the cognitive processes that are creative in order to complete and succeed to find the solution for the problem.
Chapter VII
Thinking and Intelligence
In this chapter we will try to understand what intelligence from several theories is. Intelligence has historically been approached from two opposing positions. Sir Francis Galton (1892) pioneered the biological view of general intelligence. Individual differences is neural functioning were assumed to affect many cognitive abilities, including perception, attention, memory, problem solving and reasoning. Heredity was assumed to underline these individual differences. Sperman later named this “g” for general intelligence. Binet pioneered the opposing psychometric approach to intelligence, which held that cognitive abilities varied independently of one another. Alfred Binet (1903) assumed that environmental variations caused differences in cognitive abilities.
The triarchic theory of intelligence
The triarchic theory of intelligence assumes, first, that a small number of information processing components account for performance in cognitive task. These include metacomponents, performance components and knowledge acquisition components. Second, the triarchic theory addresses the ability of people to cope creatively with novel tasks and, at the same time, to respond automatically to routine tasks. Third, it addresses the relation of mental processes to the environment that underlines successful adaptation. Selecting and altering the environment to meet human needs is the third aspect of intelligence (Kellogg, 1995).
The frame of mind
The frame of mind approach identifies seven independent modules of intelligence. Linguistic, logical-mathematical, and spatial intelligence has been assessed in various ways on traditional tests of intelligence. Musical, body-kinaesthetic, interpersonal, and interpersonal intelligence have traditionally not been viewed as properly included in discussions of intellectual abilities. The frame view holds the human intelligence is much broader than traditionalist contends. It furthers claims that the seven modules develop independently, thus denying the existence of general intelligence.
Also, from the contextual intelligence subtheory I understood that an individual might not score high on intelligence tests IQ yet, the person might be “street smart”, knowing how to adapt to variations in the environment (Kellogg, p.401, 1995).
Having so many definitions of the intelligence we conclude that the IQ test has its limitation and a person’s intelligence should be evaluated form different perspectives.
The approach to intelligence theory that appears to make most sense to me is the seven-frame theory of intelligence by Gardner. As is written in Kellogg (1995) chapter 13, the frames of mind approach identifies seven independent modules of intelligence and it seems to me that this approach present the human intelligence much broader than traditionalist contend. Again, what we see in the IQ test is that the traditional approach is looking just at the verbal and mathematical aspects of human intelligence, while the seven frame theory “calls for an assessment of the full range of human performances that reflect intelligence” (Kellogg, p.402).
Also, we believe that these modules of intelligence, which are not too developed, could be developed through learning, encoding new information, practice problem solving, “one can continue to acquire new cognitive procedures as well as new knowledge through adulthood higher education (Kellogg, p.409). We believe that it’s good news that we can learn more and be more intelligent than yesterday, to study all thinks and to keep the good ones.
As Kellogg states in regard to evaluation research: “No matter the age at which one starts, it should be possible to learn new thinking strategies that are generally useful. Intelligence is hardly a fixed quantity” (Kellogg, p.410, 1995).
Chapter VIII
Feeling: Affect and Emotion
In this chapter we will try to understand what are the emotions, which are the functions of the emotion and which is the modern approach on emotions.
First and foremost, what are emotions? Does emotion exist as a biological component in the right cerebral hemisphere as British neurologist John Hughlings Jackson suggested or a hereditary genetic component passed on via the successful survival instincts learned and
passed on through the generations as Charles Darwin may have argued. Perhaps Michael Franz Basch suggestions that “we reserve the word “emotion” for the specific situation in which we link an affect triggered in any moment to our memory of previous experiences of that affect” (Nathanson, 1999) offer a definition of emotion that would lead us to believe that it does research our memories and thus maintains the potential to “adapt” to our changing environmental needs for survival.
In the behavioural online conversation with Donald Nathanson, he points to the Tomkin’s Affect Theory and states that, “we are born with a distinct group of normal emotional mechanisms, that …are essential to normal life, and that the ways we learn to handle affect is central to the formation of a personality” (Nathanson, 1999).
In all of this, it is difficult to pinpoint a definition of “emotion”; however, it is easier perhaps to find some agreement on the fact that these difficult to define characteristics do play a significant role in our lives and that they do “adapt” to the environments with which they interact. In his work, The Emotional Brain, Joseph LeDoux (1996) offers that “emotional systems evolved as ways of matching bodily responses with the demands being made by the environment.” It would appear quite obvious that we, as human beings, do possess some form of “emotional self” that does affect the manner in which we perceive and thus, interact, with our environment. Nathanson (1999) refers to this as a “Stimulus-Affect-Response (SAR) triplet” that holds that no stimulus can cause a response unless the stimulus first triggers and “affect” which we evaluate and respond too accordingly. This “script theory” states that the human mind analyses and compares the stimulus to existing “patterns” as they relate to the “stimulus-affect-response scene” (p. 7). Similar in ideology to the formation of schema and the constant revaluation process that reviews inputs and then makes adjustments to the schema format, the S-A-R theory suggests that as we recognise the similar sequences in various “scenes,” we group them into “families” which in turn triggers an affective response.
According to Nathanson (1999, p. 7), the affect mechanism “magnifies” the scene into a group of bundled scenes which is called a “script.” As we continue to interact with our environment, these scenes and scripts continue to develop and grow into new patterns; our emotions evolve along with them.
Joseph LeDoux (1996) says, “emotional systems evolved as ways of matching bodily responses with the demands being made by the environment.”
So, finally we can say that we as human beings react emotionally on unconscious level when we are in a threaded situation, when our life is in danger, in order to protect ourselves. Because of the affect we are able to react to defend ourselves and we do not to consciously process the fact that we are in danger. Than means that emotion helps us to adapt ourselves in different situations and therefor enhances our survival chances.
In conclusion we can say that different people react emotionally different in a given situation, a thing that involve learning, personal mental schema and not in the last place the “emotional memory”(Le Doux, 1996). In short the emotion are quick ways to sort out what incoming information really matters showing us that emotions must be adaptive to allow the organism to learn, evaluate, research, investigate, and thus create patterns for which to survive in their environment.
Chapter IX
Consciousness
In this last chapter we will examine and understand a typology of consciousness and try to understand what consciousness is.
Multiple systems of memory may be associated with different varieties of consciousness. Anoetic or nonknowing consciousness refers to the ability to sense and react to stimuli from the external and internal environments, and is associated with procedural memory.
Noetic or knowing consciousness is associated with semantic memory and takes as its object knowledge of the world. It enables one to be introspectively aware of external and internal stimuli. Autonoetic or self-knowing consciousness enables one to be aware of his or her own identity. Associated with episodic memory, it is consciousness of the personal events of the past, present and future.
Normal consciousness is both personal and sensibly continuos. It is not disconnected from the individual’s sense of identity, nor is it split or disconnected from moment to moment. However, dissociate states of consciousness also exist that are characterised by their impersonal disorders such as amnesia, fugue, and multiple personalities. Dissociated states may also be observed in highly hypnotisable individuals using a method called the hidden observer.
Under hypnosis, some people experience profound analgesia, reporting verbally little if any pain to stimuli that cause excruciating pain under waking conditions.
Waking consciousness is characterised by a running narration or interpretation of our external and internal environment, our perceptions, and our thoughts. and our beliefs (Kellogg, 1995). Both directed and undirected thinking exhibits this property of self-narratization. Its purpose is to interpret the meaning of our perception, thoughts, and emotions.
Two traditional explanations of the relationship between mind and body are dualism and materialism. Dualism views the two as separate entities. Each state of the brain is associated with a state of mind; the two sets of states are correlated with each other. Materialism or reductionism argues that the mind is not separate from the brain at all. Rather. The mind is nothing but the working of the brain and other neural structures and possesses no independent existence. But, interactions it regards the mind as an emergent property of brain functioning. The mind can not be reduced to the brain in this view, because it is an emergent property with a separate existence.
I believe that that being conscious is a part of our being, is a part of our self. We manifest our self in conscious or unconscious states in different situation. To understand why a person is behaving in unconscious states we need to have a complete picture of the person including altered states to understand the self of that person.
Conclusion
Cognitive psychology is a scientific discipline that succeeds to give some extraordinary answers to some questions about the mental life of the human being.
Cognitive psychology is the discipline that studies the human cognitive systems and its components, memory, understanding, language, and perception.
Cognitive psychology studies the processing of information between sensorial input and behavioural output. It represents one of the noblest of all human endeavours: The application of the best of our scientific desire to understand the world to our selves. One glory of the human family is that we are willing to try to understand our very own processes of knowing and feeling.
The results of the cognitive psychology are encouraging showing that the human being is a complex being that can develop raising the living standards. A human being should be proud of its features. But, also there is some domain in the human mental life, which still needs further studies, such as the unconsciousness and the intelligence.
REFERENCES
Kellogg, R.T. (1995). Cognitive Psychology. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publication
LeDoux, J., (1996) The emotional brain: the mysterious underpinnings of emotional life. New York: Simon & Shuster
Miclea, M. (1994). Psihologie Cognitiva. Cluj-Napoca. Gloria. Romania.
Nathanson, D. (1999) A conversation with Donald Nathonson, Behavior OnLine, [Online], Available from http://www.behavior.net/column/nathanson/
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