BRIEF HISTORY OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
Birth of Cognitive Psychology often dated back to George Miller’s (1956) “The Magical Number 7 Plus or Minus 2. In 1960, Miller founded the Center for Cognitive Studies at Harvard with famous cognitive developmentalist, Jerome Burner. Ulric Neisser (1967) publishes “Cognitive Psychology“, which marks the official beginning of the cognitive approach. Process models of memory Atkinson and Shriffin’s (1968) Multi Store Model. Cognitive approach highly influential in all areas of psychology (e.g. biological, social, behaviorism, development etc.).
WHAT IS COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY?
Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of the mind as an information processor. Cognitive psychologists try to build up cognitive models of the information processing that goes on inside people’s minds, including attention, perception, language, memory, thinking and consciousness.
HUMAN INTELLIGENCE
Human intelligence, mental quality that consists of the abilities to learn from experience, adapt to new situations, understand and handle abstract concepts, and use knowledge to manipulate one’s environment.
In the 20th century, the tradition established by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget. His theory was concerned with the mechanisms by which intellectual development takes place and the periods through which children develop. Piaget believed that the child explores the world and observes regularities and makes generalizations—much as a scientist does.The child already has a cognitive structure, or what Piaget called a “schema,” for percentage problems and can incorporate the new knowledge into the existing structure.
As second part of his theory, Piaget postulated four major periods in individual intellectual development.
- Sensorimotor
- Preoperational
- Concrete-Operational
- Formal-Operational
There are no possible tests to measure human intelligence however, the IQ( Intelligent Quotient) is one of the tests used to measure intelligence of children below sixteen years of age. This test ensures their ground of interest and minimal intelligence through multiple choice questions according to their age.
Other Factors influencing a child’s intelligence are Environmental and Genetics. However, intelligence, in the view of many authorities, is not a foregone conclusion the day a person is born. A main trend for psychologists in the intelligence field has been to combine testing and training functions to help people make the most of their intelligence.
Thinking
Thinking involves manipulating information mentally by forming concepts, solving problems, making decisions, and reflecting in a critical or creative manner (Holyoak & Morrison, 2012). Thinking also includes problem solving
techniques like finding and framing problems, sub-goaling, reasoning,decision making, mindfulness etc.
Advance theories also includes, inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning, divergent thinking, convergent thinking, risk taking and many more.
Metacognition is one of the very popular theories of William James. It refers to ” thinking about your own thoughts”.
MEMORY
Psychologists define memory as the retention of information or experience over time. Memory occurs through three important processes: encoding, storage, and retrieval. Memory requires taking in information (encoding the sights and sounds of that night), storing it or representing it (retaining it in some mental storehouse), and then retrieving it for a later purpose. 
There are three types of memory:
- Sensory memory ( lasts for less than a second/friction of second)
- Short-term memory also called working memory ( lasts up to 30 seconds)
- Long-term memory ( lasts for longer than 30 seconds and even for years)
Moreover, there are different ways of encoding and storing memory for long term for example, imagery and elaboration with existing information. It is considered that thee information stored visually and auditory are more easier to learn and quickly retrieved. The sub division of long-term memory involves episodic, semantic, procedural, priming, primacy, recency, schema and classical conditioning. All of these function of encoding, storing and retrieving takes place inside the mind excluding body activities.
LANGUAGE, PERCEPTION AND ATTENTION
These also requires cognitive functioning just like memory, intelligence and thinking. Neural impulses circulates information and hence helping us speak, focus, think, feel and memorize the senses around us.
Impacts on Science and Society
Practical Benefits of COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
- Research on mental process helps cure diseases rooted in them for example, psychopathology OCD.
- Can manipulate memory to delete traumatic events.
- Enrich and improve memory for precise retrieval.
- Allow us to understand mental processes which are not directly observable.
- To explore treatment options for brain trauma
- If you are experiencing perceptual or sensory issues
- As part of therapy for a speech or language disorder
- If you are experiencing Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, or memory loss
- To explore different interventions for learning disabilities
Drawbacks of COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
- Tends to ignore biological and genetic influences and also ignores individual differences.
- Provides a mechanistic view of behavior.
- Concepts are too abstract.