Introduction to Cognitive Psychology and Information

Processing

PERTEMUAN 1

1.1 Cognitive processes

A definition of cognitive psychology

• the psychology of understanding and knowing

• study of mental processes

The main sequential stages of cognitive processing

The three main methods of studying cognitive psychology

1.2 Experimental psychology

The first cognitive psychologists• Wilhelm Wundt (1879), the first psychology laboratory

was set up by at Leipzig. Wundt’s research: perception, visual illusions.

• Hermann Ebbinghaus (1885), published the first experimental research on memory

• William James (1890), published Principles of Psychology which proposed a number of theories; a theory distinguishing between short-term working memory and long-term storage memory.

Gestalt and schema theories

• Gestalt group (Gestalt is German for ‘shape’ or ‘form’), suggested that the perception of a whole object is more than just the sum of its component parts (Wertheimer, 1912, Kohler, 1925).

• Bartlett (1932), The schema theory proposes that all new perceptual input is analysed by comparing it with items which are already in our memory store, such as shapes and sounds which are familiar from past experience.

A shape recognised by most observers

The generation of schemas for comparison with new input

1.3 Computer models of information processing

• The computer analogy

• Computer modelling of brain function– Selfridge and Neisser (1960)

• feature detectors

• The limited-capacity processor model

The limited-capacity processor model

• Broadbent (1958) carried out experiments on divided attention, which showed that people have difficulty in attending to two separate inputs at the same time.

Sensory filter theory (Broadbent)

Stimulus

Sensory Register

Sensory FILTER

STM limited capacity LTM

Response

Basic Information Processing

Stimulus

Sensory Register

STM (working Memory)

LTM

Response

1.4 Cognitive Neuropsychology

• The structure and function of the brain

• Neuropsychology is concerned with the relationship between brain function and cognition.

1.5 Minds, brains and computers

• The brain as an information processing device

• Top-down and bottom-up processing

Top-down and bottom-up processing