Key Takeaways
- Cognitive psychology is the study of how we think, including perception, memory, and problem-solving.
- It became popular after the 1950s due to interest in understanding internal mental processes over just behavior.
- Cognitive psychology has led to new treatments for mental disorders through cognitive and behavioral therapies.
Cognitive psychology is the study of internal mental processes—all of the workings inside your brain, including perception, thinking, memory, attention, language, problem-solving, and learning. Learning about how people think and process information helps researchers and psychologists understand the human brain and assist people with psychological difficulties.
This article discusses what cognitive psychology is—its history, current trends, practical applications, and career paths.
Recap
Findings from cognitive psychology help us understand how people think, including how they acquire and store memories. By knowing more about how these processes work, psychologists can develop new ways of helping people with cognitive problems.
Topics in Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive psychologists explore a wide variety of topics related to thinking processes. Some of these include:
- Attention–our ability to process information in the environment while tuning out irrelevant details
- Choice-based behavior–actions driven by a choice among other possibilities
- Decision-making
- Forgetting
- Information processing
- Language acquisition–how we learn to read, write, and express ourselves
- Memory
- Problem-solving
- Speech perception-how we process what others are saying
- Visual perception–how we see the physical world around us
History of Cognitive Psychology
Although it is a relatively young branch of psychology, it has quickly grown to become one of the most popular subfields. Cognitive psychology grew into prominence between the 1950s and 1970s.
Prior to this time, behaviorism was the dominant perspective in psychology. This theory holds that we learn all our behaviors from interacting with our environment. It focuses strictly on observable behavior, not thought and emotion. Then, researchers became more interested in the internal processes that affect behavior instead of just the behavior itself.
This shift is often referred to as the cognitive revolution in psychology. During this time, a great deal of research on topics including memory, attention, and language acquisition began to emerge.
In 1967, the psychologist Ulric Neisser introduced the term cognitive psychology, which he defined as the study of the processes behind the perception, transformation, storage, and recovery of information.
Recap
Cognitive psychology became more prominent after the 1950s as a result of the cognitive revolution.
Current Research in Cognitive Psychology
The field of cognitive psychology is both broad and diverse. It touches on many aspects of daily life. There are numerous practical applications for this research, such as providing help coping with memory disorders, making better decisions, recovering from brain injury, treating learning disorders, and structuring educational curricula to enhance learning.
Current research on cognitive psychology helps play a role in how professionals approach the treatment of mental illness, traumatic brain injury, and degenerative brain diseases.
Thanks to the work of cognitive psychologists, we can better pinpoint ways to measure human intellectual abilities, develop new strategies to combat memory problems, and decode the workings of the human brain—all of which ultimately have a powerful impact on how we treat cognitive disorders.
The field of cognitive psychology is a rapidly growing area that continues to add to our understanding of the many influences that mental processes have on our health and daily lives.
Recap
From understanding how cognitive processes change as a child develops to looking at how the brain transforms sensory inputs into perceptions, cognitive psychology has helped us gain a deeper and richer understanding of the many mental events that contribute to our daily existence and overall well-being.
The Cognitive Approach in Practice
In addition to adding to our understanding of how the human mind works, the field of cognitive psychology has also had an impact on approaches to mental health. Before the 1970s, many mental health treatments were focused more on psychoanalytic, behavioral, and humanistic approaches.
The so-called “cognitive revolution” put a greater emphasis on understanding the way people process information and how thinking patterns might contribute to psychological distress. Thanks to research in this area, new approaches to treatment were developed to help treat depression, anxiety, phobias, and other psychological disorders.
Cognitive behavioral therapy and rational emotive behavior therapy are two methods in which clients and therapists focus on the underlying cognitions, or thoughts, that contribute to psychological distress.
What Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an approach that helps clients identify irrational beliefs and other cognitive distortions that are in conflict with reality and then aid them in replacing such thoughts with more realistic, healthy beliefs.
If you are experiencing symptoms of a psychological disorder that would benefit from the use of cognitive approaches, you might see a psychologist who has specific training in these cognitive treatment methods.
These professionals frequently go by titles other than cognitive psychologists, such as psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, or counseling psychologists, but many of the strategies they use are rooted in the cognitive tradition.
Careers in Cognitive Psychology
Many cognitive psychologists specialize in research with universities or government agencies. Others take a clinical focus and work directly with people who are experiencing challenges related to mental processes. They work in hospitals, mental health clinics, and private practices.
Research psychologists in this area often concentrate on a particular topic, such as memory. Others work directly on health concerns related to cognition, such as degenerative brain disorders and brain injuries.
Treatments rooted in cognitive research focus on helping people replace negative thought patterns with more positive, realistic ones. With the help of cognitive psychologists, people are often able to find ways to cope and even overcome such difficulties.
Reasons to Consult a Cognitive Psychologist
- Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, or memory loss
- Brain trauma treatment
- Cognitive therapy for a mental health condition
- Interventions for learning disabilities
- Perceptual or sensory issues
- Therapy for a speech or language disorder
How Cognitive Psychology Differs From Other Branches of Psychology
Whereas behavioral and some other realms of psychology focus on actions–which are external and observable–cognitive psychology is instead concerned with the thought processes behind the behavior. Cognitive psychologists see the mind as if it were a computer, taking in and processing information, and seek to understand the various factors involved.
Frequently Asked Questions
-
Who founded cognitive psychology?
Ulric Neisser is considered the founder of cognitive psychology. He was the first to introduce the term and to define the field of cognitive psychology. His primary interests were in the areas of perception and memory, but he suggested that all aspects of human thought and behavior were relevant to the study of cognition.
-
What is a cognitive map in psychology?
A cognitive map refers to a mental representation of an environment. Such maps can be formed through observation as well as through trial and error. These cognitive maps allow people to orient themselves in their environment.
-
How does cognitive neuroscience differ from cognitive psychology?
While they share some similarities, there are some important differences between cognitive neuroscience and cognitive psychology. While cognitive psychology focuses on thinking processes, cognitive neuroscience is focused on finding connections between thinking and specific brain activity. Cognitive neuroscience also looks at the underlying biology that influences how information is processed.
-
How are cognitive and experimental psychology related?
Cognitive psychology is a form of experimental psychology. Cognitive psychologists use experimental methods to study the internal mental processes that play a role in behavior.
Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
-
Sternberg RJ, Sternberg K. Cognitive Psychology. Wadsworth/Cengage Learning.
-
Krapfl JE. Behaviorism and society. Behav Anal. 2016;39(1):123-9. doi:10.1007/s40614-016-0063-8
-
Cutting JE. Ulric Neisser (1928-2012). Am Psychol. 2012;67(6):492. doi:10.1037/a0029351
-
Ruggiero GM, Spada MM, Caselli G, Sassaroli S. A historical and theoretical review of cognitive behavioral therapies: from structural self-knowledge to functional processes. J Ration Emot Cogn Behav Ther. 2018;36(4):378-403. doi:10.1007/s10942-018-0292-8
-
Parvin P. Ulric Neisser, cognitive psychology pioneer, dies. Emory News Center.
-
APA Dictionary of Psychology. Cognitive map. American Psychological Association.
-
Forstmann BU, Wagenmakers EJ, Eichele T, Brown S, Serences JT. Reciprocal relations between cognitive neuroscience and formal cognitive models: opposites attract?. Trends Cogn Sci. 2011;15(6):272-279. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2011.04.002
Thanks for your feedback!
What is your feedback?
Helpful
Report an Error
Other
