Cognitive Level of Analysis: Cognitive Processes

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Cognitive Level of AnalysisCognitive Processes

• Part I

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Cognitive Level of Analysis

• Cognitive psychology concerns itself with the
  structure and functions of the mind.
• Cognitive psychologists are concerned with
  finding put how the mind comes to know things
  about the world and how it uses this knowledge.
• Cognitive neuroscience combines knowledge about
  the brain with the knowledge about cognitive
  processes.

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Cognitive Level of Analysis

• Cognition refers to processes such as perception,
  thinking, problem solving, memory, language, and
  attention.
• Cognition is based on ones mental
  representations of the world, such as images,
  words, and concepts. People have different
  experiences and there for they have different
  mental representations. Example what is right or
  wrong is different for everyone.

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Principles that Define the Cognitive Level of
Analysis

• Principle 1
• Human beings are information processors and
  mental processes guide behavior.
• Discover the possible principles underlying
  cognitive processes. Mind is seen as a complex
  machine rather like an intelligent,
  information-processing machine using hardware
  (the brain) and software (mental images or
  representations. )

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Principles that Define the Cognitive Level of
Analysis

• Principle 1 Continued
• According to this like of thinking, information
  input to the mind comes via bottom-up processing
  that is from the sensory system. The
  information is processes on the mind by top-down
  processing via pre-stored information in the
  memory.
• Cognition is important in understanding, there is
  a subtle relationship between how people think
  about themselves and how they behave for
  example how they deal with challenges.
• Stereotyping - people who have fixed ideas about
  other people. These people are more prone to
  discriminate.

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Principles that Define the Cognitive Level of
Analysis

• Principle 1 Continued
• Peoples memory are not as infallible as they
  think, this is because of the reconstructive
  nature of memory. Researchers have discovered
  that people do not store exact copies of their
  experiences, but rather an outline which is
  filled out with information when it is recalled.
• People often have false memories, because they
  cannot distinguish between what they have
  experienced and what they have heard after the
  event. The brain is able to fabricate illusions
  so realistic, we think they are real.

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Principles that Define the Cognitive Level of
Analysis

• Principle 2
• The mind can be studied scientifically by
  developing theories and using a number of
  scientific methods.
• Theories and models of cognition are discussed
  and continuously tested.
• New finding result in new amendments to original
  models, or a model or theory is rejected because
  evidence no longer supports it.
• Cognition is studied in the laboratory as well as
  in a daily context.

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Principles that Define the Cognitive Level of
Analysis

• Principle 3
• Cognitive processes are influenced by social and
  cultural factors
• Frederic Bartlett, coined the term schema, which
  is a mental representation of knowledge.
• Bartlett was interested in how cultural schemas
  influence remembering.
• He found that people have trouble remembering a
  story from another culture, and that they
  constructed the story to fit into their own
  culture schema.

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Principles that Define the Cognitive Level of
Analysis

• Principle 3 Continued
• Bartletts research showed memory is not like a
  tape recorder. People remember in terms of
  meaning and what makes sense to them.
• This is why memory is subject to distortion
  (mistake), Bartlett showed this principle could
  be tested scientifically.