Cognitive Psychology Definition Paper
Kimberly Vincent
U of P
August 23, 2009
Introduction Cognitive psychology came out of behavioral psychology. Behavioral psychology stated that only those actions that could be observed were worth experimenting with and researching. The consciousness and thoughts were too abstract for research and experimentation.
Cognitive Psychology Cognitive psychology is the discipline within psychology that investigates the internal mental processes of thought such as visual processing, memory, problem solving, or language (Wikipedia , January 2009). Cognitivism is the school of thought that comes from this approach. This school of though is interested in how people mentally represent information processing. Wilhelm Wundt, the Gestalt psychology of Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler and Kurt Koffka, and of course Jean Piaget was the foundations in this work. They provided the theory or stages that describe children’s cognitive development (Wikipedia, January 2009). There are two approaches that cognitive psychologist use to understand, diagnose, and solve problems. These two approaches are psychophysical and experimental approaches. These approaches help them concerning themselves with the mental processes which happen to mediate between stimulus and response. Cognitive theory contends two things. One is that solutions to problems take the form of algorithms; this is rules that are not necessarily understood but do promise a solution. The other is the heuristics or that rules can be understood but may not always generate a solution.
Milestones in the Development of Cognitive Psychology The four main milestones in the development of Cognitive Psychology are as follows. Dr. Adler, the founder of individual psychology helped with the foundation to cognitive psychology. Alderian psychology was pretty far when Adler was invited by Freud to help create the
References: Wikipedia. (January 2009). Wikipedia . Retrieved August 23, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_psychology