This course will introduce you to cognitive psychology, or the study of the ways in which we come to know about the world around us and about one another. While you may understand “cognition” as “thinking” or “thoughts,” we will here use the term to refer to almost any process that takes place within the human mind.
This course will introduce you to cognitive psychology, or the study of the ways in which we come to know about the world around us and about one another. While you may understand “cognition” as “thinking” or “thoughts,” we will here use the term to refer to almost any process that takes place within the human mind. Though cognitive psychology as a formal branch of study has only been around since the late 1960s, it has been studied for decades as an area of interest in psychological inquiry and has its roots in philosophy. In the late 1880s, for example, Ebbinghaus conducted some of the very first scientifically based studies of cognition when he attempted to explain the mechanism of memory. Memory, along with attention, perception, language, and decision making, are amongst the most prominent issues within the broad and diverse field of cognitive psychology. While we could spend an entire semester exploring just one of these issues, this course will instead provide you with an overview of all of them and the related concepts which help explain these issues in greater depth. In addition to these subjects, we will examine the research on social cognition, motivation, and emotions. Although these topics were not historically under the auspices of cognitive psychology, these multidisciplinary areas of inquiry highlight the influence of cognitive neuroscience within the field of cognitive psychology. By examining the various theories and empirical research associated with these areas of inquiry, we will learn more about the prominent role experimentation has taken in cognitive psychology. We will also read examples of the more applied line of research, which helps to further our understanding of how these principles might apply to real-life situations. We will begin this course by taking at look at the history of cognitive psychology and then move to various areas of inquiry, which characterize the foundations of cognitive psychology. As we progress through the course, we will gather information about the methodologies, findings, and theories associated with cognitive psychology—a diverse and unique field of inquiry with a rich history and forward thinking approach to empirical research.
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
Identify underlying theoretical considerations in the field of cognitive psychology.
Describe the historical context in which cognitive psychology emerged as a field.
Define cognitive psychology as it was historically defined and is now defined.
Identify the main academic fields and other subdisciplines of psychology to which cognitive psychology is tied.
Describe the main findings in the primary areas of scientific research within cognitive psychology.
Compare and contrast the theories associated within the primary areas of scientific research in cognitive psychology (e.g., models of memory, attention, etc.).
