Category: Cognitive Psychology

As a group, we had decided on the topic ‘Cognitive Psychology’ which explores the mental processes related to perceiving, attending, thinking, language, and memory. Throughout the powerpoint we had mainly focused on the four main approaches of cognitive Psychology; cognitive neuroscience, cognitive neuropsychology, computational cognitive psychology and experimental psychology on the other hand I had decided to reflect on the history of cognitive psychology which I found most interesting. The cognitive approach developed in the 1900s, in my research findings I found out its split into four periods: philosophical, early experimental, the cognitive revolution, and modern cognitive psychology. This had surprised me because all four periods had the same argument in their findings which was that the relationship with the stimulus and response were complex rather than simple or direct.

As a group we had decided the most important thing was to keep in touch with each-other online due to the current pandemic situation. Each of us had been obtaining useful information on cognitive psychology therefore before completing our slides we shared our findings to extend our knowledge through the presentation. Not being able to communicate in person, through the sharing of research, ideas and different findings it helped me us all self improve our own sections of the powerpoint. Working as a group had encouraged us to be open minded and listen to others points on cognitive psychology.

When working on a group tasks individuals take on board different parts of the work and develop their ideas at home or individually elsewhere. Throughout the process of my group work on ‘Cognitive Psychology’ we all worked from our own homes, this wasn’t a problem as there were many digital technology platforms we communicated over. Facebook messenger group chat was our mist common form of communication as when someone needed help or had another idea, we would all receive it. This was a great way to give each other tips and research findings that others might not have found although when it came to the making of the powerpoint we group called. Group calling was a great way to voice our opinions on the final product, no one was left out of the making and everyone felt included.

When working in a group there may be some members quite quieter than others which could lead to them not contributing as much within the the group. The main aim of group work is to get their task done therefore everyone would need to cooperate in their part for it to happen, in higher education groups people can have different opinions in when things should happen. Instead of working around everyone and coming up with a plan it creates a democracy within the group possibly causing tension making it difficult to work with people. In my experience of working within a team environment, we had brainstormed our topic ‘cognitive psychology’ as a group and also independently did our own research findings and discussed them all as a group. This encouraged the group to continue to work together and not focus on individuals.

Within a group environment I plan to further develop my skills, I want to be regularly have open conversations within whomever I’m working with. Sharing thoughts and ideas can build trust within the group, this is a must for a successful ending piece. When working on a task their could be a lot of unspoken ideas and feelings, I want to make sure when I’m working in a group my peers are willing to communicate with each other crating a snowball of ideas emerging. I would do this by trying to asking different questions clarifying peoples thoughts on our task, making myself and others feel included.

Every group work is assessed differently although in higher education the best way to asses the group work is the final product and everything that goes into it. Who ever is assessing the group work needs to take in the performance of each individual and in higher education its important their grade isn’t based off someones else, this creates fairness and equity to all the members of the group.

Before submitting a final product of the group work it’s important for the members to peer asses it, this enables each individual to give others constructive feedback that could boost their grade. Peer assessment motivates people to engage more within their task as they wouldn’t want to disappoint or harm their peers shot of getting a good grade. When peer assessing, it empowers the individual to take on that responsibility and manage their own or others work.

When completing a degree it’s important that group work is used throughout all stages. It’s important to know the members in your group, such as their preferred ways of working, this helps an individual throughout their degree as they have recognised that everyone has different opinions and methods of learning. It teaches fairness as everyone should be involved in any discussion within the degree, it important to make others within the environment feel included. People who are engaged within group work, or cooperative learning, show increased individual achievement this is in comparison to people who choose to be working alone. In my experience throughout my degree working in groups it has gained me a voice, my communication skills have majorly increased.

Throughout this current assignment on ‘Cognitive Psychology’ I think I worked over all quite well individually and as a group. I feel that my group had worked really well with supporting everyones opinions and thoughts on our powerpoint presentation, having a variety of topics we could have chosen to talk about I personally feel we had chosen a good one. Having to talk about the History of Cognitive psychology I found it very interesting reading my peers research of their findings, I found out I am able to peer asses my group very constructively as I believe this important for the presentation to succeed.

During the first two decades of the twentieth century, psychology was a discipline seeking respect. (Karlins and Andrews 1972) Literally meaning ‘the study of the psyche (soul),’ it was largely a subjective discipline without a focus since science has yet to acknowledge the existence of a psyche. (Rank 1930) The one possible candidate, discovered by Harold Saxton Burr and his colleagues in the 1930s (Burr 1944, 1952, 1972; Burr and Lane 1935; Burr and Northrop 1935, 1939) has not been accepted or acknowledged. (Becker and Selden 1985) Freud and Jung gave new life to psychology with the advent of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytical theory predominated in psychology until the late 1940s and early 1950s when developing new theories took hold, particularly theories of behavioral and cognitive psychology.

One of the giants in the developing theories that took hold between the 1950s and 1970s was Jerome Seymour Bruner. Born in 1915, he began his college education at Duke and went on to become a prominent theorist and proponent of cognitive psychology. Many of his ideas dealt with issues related to education. Some credit him with reviving issues of the mind in psychology.

Bruner was born during the heyday of Freud, Jung and psychoanalytical theory. He was influenced by individuals like Jean Piaget, L. S. Vygotsky, Benjamin Bloom and B. F. Skinner. Bruner may have leaned towards the behaviorist view at one point, but as his career progressed, he began to embrace the cognitive view more and more. (Malm, 1993) Bruner disagreed with Skinner’s ideas of operant conditioning, concepts that helped bring about the dichotomy between behavioral and cognitive psychology but he didn’t feel that the Pavlov’s ideas could explain behavior adequately (1927) and he disagreed with Gardiner’s idea of multiple intelligences (Lyle 2000) which proposed that people display different levels of different intelligences resulting in unique “cognitive profiles.” (Gardner, 1983)

By the 1940s, he had begun work on perception in children (Bruner and Goodman, 1947). In his studies, Bruner found that the economic environment of children (and students) affected their perception. Yet, cognitive changes occur as a function of age as well. The thought processes change as children grow. Therefore, he eventually came to the opinion that behavioral concepts and cognitive concepts overlap. There was data to support both views.

Differences between Behavioral and Cognitive Psychology and the Limits of the Scientific Paradigm with respect to Cognitive Psychology

Behaviorists do not acknowledge that belief, desire and similar internal mental states exist. Behavioral psychologists like J. B. Watson (1913) believe that all actions, whether mental or physical, constitute behaviors. Behavioral psychology is founded on ideas from Pavlov’s studies of classical conditioning and conditioned reflexes. (Pavlov, 1927) Watson rejected any ideas of a role for introspection in behavior and determined to limit psychology to the experimental approach such as Pavlov’s classical conditioning and Skinner’s operant conditioning. Strict behaviorists believe that psychology can be studied and understood without reference to internal states or mentality. More radical views of behavior like those of B. F. Skinner (1945) accept some internal states and states of mind and accept that they can be treated in a scientific manner without resorting to dualism, the idea that the mind and the brain are separate but interacting ‘things’. No matter which view was correct, these views had significant bearing of education and learning.

Bruner struggled with the ideas of behavioral psychology even when they began to predominate in psychology. He believed that some human behaviors could be explained beyond Pavlov’s ideas of conditioned reflexes. (1927) This belief led to the eventual divergence between behavioral and cognitive psychology and revived the age old mind-brain debate.

Cognitive psychology looks at the internal mental processes. Cognitive psychologists accept the scientific method, reject introspection and acknowledge that internal mental states exist. Some feel that accepting the empirical method and the existence of internal mental states is a contradiction because of the difficulty in objectively measuring the internal mental states. Cognitive psychologists feel that people solve situations through insight, awareness and heuristic rules and acknowledge that internal mental states exist. Behaviorists dismiss such states. Cognitive psychologists believe that problem solving involves algorithms that lead to solutions even though the solutions may not be guaranteed. Jean Piaget was one of the leading proponents of cognitive psychology and a positive influence on Bruner’s ideas. Although he may have leaned towards the behaviorist view at one time and struggled with it for a while, he saw flaws in the cognitive approach as well. Bruner eventually came to the opinion that approaching cognitive psychology using the natural scientific paradigm has limitations. He more or less presented a challenge to cognitive psychology and admitted that there are limits to the scientific paradigm made it impossible for that cognitive psychology to address some aspects of human life. He ultimately came to believe that the ideas of behavioral and cognitive psychology were not mutually exclusive, i.e., that there were situations and data to support both the behaviorist and cognitive views. (Bruner 1966) Cognitive and behavioral factors interact even though psychologists seem to prefer championing one view or the other. As we will see, these ideas have bearing on education and how we learn.

Mind

A fundamental issue distinguishing behavioral and cognitive psychology is the fundamental issue of psychology and the neurosciences: Does the mind exist separate from the brain? Although the generally accepted view of neurosciences and psychology is, ‘No’, the actual resolution of this issue remains in question. The available data actually suggests strongly that the mind and the brain are separate but interacting ‘things’, but psychologists and scientists in general find that view distasteful and don’t acknowledge it even though the evidence to support it is large and growing. (Burr 1944, 1952, 1972; Burr and Lane 1935; Burr and Northrop 1935, 1939; Becker and Selden 1985) That evidence (some cited here but not reviewed) will not be reviewed here because it would diverge from the focus of this report. We are only interested in how the issue impinges upon cognitive psychology and widens the gulf between cognitive and behavioral psychology.

Bruner realized that there may be an interaction between perception (physical processes of the body) and the mental processes (abstract processes of the mind) and felt that the scientific problem was to determine how mental functions and perception interacted. (Bruner, 1947) Perception or “perceptual dynamics” were in the realm of behavioral psychology while the mental processes were in the realm of cognitive psychology. Bruner felt that perceptual phenomena could be measured. (Bruner and Goodman, 1947) He also believed that when students recognize their cognitive and intellectual mastery of skills, they will receive an intrinsic reward. Their resultant advancement will increase their confidence. (Bruner 1966) His belief that perceptual processes could be measured was not the real issue that divides behavioral and cognitive psychologists. The problem was and remains measuring mental processes without subjectivity. The work of Burr et al. (Burr 1944, 1952, 1972; Burr and Lane 1935; Burr and Northrop 1935, 1939) cited at the end of this report dealt directly with that issue and resolved it, but fell out of favor largely because results of some of their studies lead directly to the conclusion that the mind and the brain are separate but interacting things. Researchers did not and do not like that idea. Burr and his colleagues managed to measure psychological states directly without subjectivity and to determine psychiatric states objectively without subjective conclusions. That work, though still pursued in some circles, is largely ignored today despite its significance.

Bruner’s Impact on Education

Bruner’s studies and concepts dealt with education, had significance in education and had educational value. He felt that although psychologists influence the goals of education, they should not determine those goals (Bruner 1966) and he believed that education should self-evaluate to determine if it is meeting its needs and goals. If not, then the needed change should be introduced immediately whenever necessary, but only change for the better.

Gardner, another researcher, introduced the idea of multiple intelligences. Gardner concluded that schools should move away from uniform educational programs and move towards programs that center on the individual. In other words, education should be tailored to meet the needs of each student. Bruner did not agree with this idea. Furthermore, Gardner’s concepts were not based on empirical data. While there may be some evidence to support Gardner’s view that individuals have a wider capacity to learn than the behaviorist view (that intelligence is inherited and set at birth) acknowledges, that does not necessarily argue in support of the view that individuals would learn more if our educational systems were tailored to meet the needs of each student. Just the impracticality of such an approach would be an impediment.

Bruner came to develop a philosophy that learning developed in three stages or modes. This idea is referred to as “Discovery Learning” or “The Discovery Learning Model.” The stages are referred to as 1) an enactive stage followed by 2) an iconic stage followed by 3 a symbolic stage. During the initial stage, children manipulate their environment to learn. In the next stage, vision and visualization play a greater role. Individuals learn to use images. In the final stage, individuals use language and concepts. By this model, the teacher serves as a model for students during the process of discovery. In situations of discovery learning, prior knowledge and experience are used to learn. Bruner views it as a means to acquire information and solve problems by discovering information. (Bruner 1961) Ultimately, the discovery learning process will be of more value in learning than the knowledge learned.

Discovery Learning has critics too. Kaufman (1961) feels that discovery learning is inadequate for students with special needs and Fuchs et al (2008) found that direct instruction should anticipate that students won’t understand everything and thus, it should be followed up with further instruction

Summary and Conclusion

In conclusion, it is clear that Bruner made significant contributions to psychology and can be viewed as a leading figure in the field of cognitive psychology. Although he may have briefly leaned towards concepts of behavioral psychology, he struggled with those ideas and became mostly a proponent of the cognitive approach to psychology. Even so, he concluded that there are flaws in both views and that there is data to support both views. Much of his work has bearing on learning and education. He proposed the idea of “Discovery Learning” and applied his views to methods to improve education. Bruner felt that education curricula should undergo an ongoing self evaluation and that any needed changes should be implemented immediately upon being uncovered, but only changes that were clearly for the better should be implemented.

References

1. Becker, Robert O. and Gary Selden (1985). The Body Electric. Electromagnetism and The Foundation of Life. New York, NY: Quill, William Morrow.
2. Bruner, J. S. (1961). “The act of discovery”. Harvard Educational Review, 31(1), 21–32.
3. Bruner, J. S. (1966). Toward a theory of instruction. Cambridge Massachusetts: Belknap Press.
4. Bruner, J. S. and Goodman, C. C. (1947). Value and need as organizing factors in perception. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 42, 33-44. Accessed 7 October, 2008 .
5. Burr, H. S. (1944). The Meaning of Bio-Electric Potentials. Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, 16, 353-360.
6. Burr, H. S. (1952). Electrometrics of Atypical Growth. Yale J. Biol. Med., 25, 67-75.
7. Burr, H. S., and C. T. Lane (1935). Electrical Characteristics of Living Systems. Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, 8, 31-35.
8. Burr, H. S., and F. S. C. Northrop (1939). Evidence for the Existence of an Electrodynamic Field in Living Organisms. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, U.S.A., 25, 284-288.
9. Burr, H. S., and F.S. C. Northrop (1935). The Electro-Dynamic Theory of Life. Quarterly Review of Biology, 10, 322-333.
10. Burr, Harold S. (1972). Blueprint for Immortality. London, UK: Spearman.
11. Fuchs, L. S., Fuchs, D., Powell, S. R., Seethaler, P. M., Cirino, P. T., and Fletcher, J. M. (2008). “Intensive intervention for students with mathematics disabilities: Seven principles of effective practice”. Learning Disability Quarterly, 31(2), 79-92.
12. Gardner, Howard G. (1983). Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York, NY: Basic Books.
13. Karlins, Marvin, and Lewis M. Andrews (1972). Biofeedback. Turning on the Power of Your Mind. New York, NY: J. B. Lippincott Company.
14. Kauffman, J. M. (2002). Education Reform. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
15. Lyle, S. (January 2000). Narrative understanding: developing a theoretical context for understanding how children make meaning in classroom settings. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 32(1), 45-63.
16. Malm, L. (1993). The eclipse of meaning in cognitive psychology: Implications for humanistic psychology. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 33(1), 67-87.
17. Pavlov, I. P. (1927). Conditioned Reflexes: An Investigation of the Physiological Activity of the Cerebral Cortex. Translated and Edited by G. V. Anrep. London: Oxford University Press. (Online access referenced below.)
18. Pavlov, Ivan P. (1927). Conditioned Reflexes: An Investigation of the Physiological Activity of the Cerebral Cortex. Translated by G. V. Anrep (1927). Retrieved online from “Classics in the History of Psychology”, by Christopher D. Green, 5 February 1996< http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Pavlov/>accessed 08 October 2008.
19. Rank, Otto (1930). Seelenglaube und Psychologie (Psychology and the Soul), pp. 1-2, by, translated by William D. Turner, 1950, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
20. Skinner, B. F. (1945). The operational analysis of psychological terms. Psychological Review, 52, 270-277, 290-294.
21. Watson, J. B. (1913). Psychology as the behaviorist views it. Psychological Review, 20, 158-177.

Sigmund Freud was a physiologist born in 1856. Freud is renowned world-wide as one of the founding fathers of psychology. By his own estimation he was one of the premier names in Western science, up there with Darwin and Copernicus (Glassman & Marilyn, 2004). Freud attended medical school at the University of Vienna and graduated with his physiology degree in 1881. Following this he was awarded the opportunity of a fellowship under a leading French doctor in the field of neurology named Jean Charcot. It was through Charcot’s tutelage that Freud was drove towards his future in psychology. The psychodynamic school of thought was created by Freud in response to his findings in the field of psychoanalysis.

The primary concepts and theories regarding this school of thought are metaphorical in nature and therefore can be difficult for individuals studying to grasp. One of the principal ways of understanding how the psychodynamic school views the way human consciousness works is known as the ‘iceberg metaphor’. Freud promotes the idea that in the same way that an iceberg holds most of its mass under the surface so too does the human mind. Freud separates human consciousness into three component parts: the conscious mind, the pre-conscious mind & the unconscious mind (Wilderdom, 2003). On the conscious level of the brain is the individual’s interpretation of their surroundings, also on this level are all the emotions and thoughts that the individual is actively aware off. The preconscious level is the accumulated understanding of the world by the individual garnered over the course of their life, everything on this level is under the surface but is recallable. The unconscious mind is totally inaccessible to the individual and forms the largest part of the mind. According to Freud it contains mostly the negative aspects of a person such as their immoral urges and fears.

Freud also theorized that during childhood humans go through a process called the Psychosexual stages of development. There are 5 clear phases an individual goes through ranging from birth to puberty. These stages are known as the Oral (0-12 Months), Anal (1-3 Years), Phallic (3-5 Years), Latency (5-Puberty) and the Genital stages (Puberty onwards). These processes primarily describe where in the body the libido seeks pleasure from. If either overindulgence or neglect of an individual’s needs occurs in one of these stages and a person does not progress onto the subsequent period. Freud argues that this results in a fixation. Freud says that for a person to become a fully well-rounded individual they must not develop a fixation as this can cause negative personality traits to develop.

Freuds research produced many real-world applications. Free association is a process in which a therapist asks a patient to share all thoughts that cross their mind. This process was created by Sigmund Freud, as an alternative to hypnosis, to help patients of his suffering from neurological symptoms. It was Freuds idea that by using this stream of consciousness that the patient could divulge information regarding the origin of certain psychological issues they are facing. Using this new-found information, the therapist could then devise a sort of care plan for the best way to treat their patient.

Building upon Freuds work Hermann Rorschach devised a method of psychological testing similar in fashion to free association. What Rorschach developed became known as the Rorschach Inkblot Test. The test works as such, a patient is shown one of ten ink blot pictures; these pictures vary in colour, but they are all ambiguous by nature. The patient is then asked to describe what they see depicted within the image, the psychologist will further question the subject to gain more insight into their impression of the image. They will then mark the patients answer and then proceed onto the next ink blot until all 10 have been shown. The trained psychologist then marks the individual based upon numerous factors, such as how much attention they paid to the image, and then produces the results of the test. Using the information provided from the results the psychologist can then go on to use this context to help in a diagnosis of any mental health issues the patient may be facing.

The psychodynamic school of thought offers one of the most confusing perspectives on psychology. This does not mean it is without its merits however. Freuds methods of free association are still used today, albeit in a slightly modified form. The same can be said for the Rorschach Ink Blot Test as in 1995 a study showed that occasional use of these tests are still in practice by 82% of psychologists (Cherry, What Is the Rorscahc Inkblot Test?, 2018). There is even an argument that Freudian techniques are better at dealing with mental health issues such as depression than the commonly used alternative CBT (Burkeman, 2016). Another positive aspect that Freud and his school pass on is their legacy. Whilst it all may seem slightly outdated Freud and his concepts have set down the foundations upon which the whole discipline of psychology has been built upon.

However, there is some glaring issues that need to be addressed when looking into Freud and his works. The foremost of which being that Freuds methods being reasonably unscientific. This is due to the theoretical nature of the material that Freud deals with being vague causing scientific reproduction of his results extremely difficult. Freud can also be said to generalise massively in his work. Freud gathered most of his data through the utilisation of individual case studies. Whilst this provides great qualitative data for one individual case it is very difficult and usually quite inaccurate to generalise those examples onto the wider population.

As an alternate to Freuds theoretical approach, the Behaviourist school cropped up arguing for study to focus upon observable phenomena. The founding father of the Behaviourist school is one Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov was a Russian physiologist studying the digestive system in dogs. It was through this study that he discovered an interesting phenomenon. Whenever Pavlov entered the room where the dogs were kept a little bell would go off. The dogs began to associate the bell with Pavlov supplying them with food and therefore whenever the bell would go off the dogs would begin to salivate even if no food was present. This psychological phenomenon is an example of classical conditioning. It wasn’t until American psychologist John B. Watson began applying this theorem to humans that the Behaviourist school began to form.

Classical Conditioning states that an unconditioned stimulus(US) creates an unconditioned response(UR). In the case of Pavlov’s Dogs, food being the US and the dog salivating being the UR. Introduction of a neutral stimulus(NS) that produces no response, in this case the bell, alongside the US will still produce the UR. Through this eventually the subject will begin to associate the NS with the UR, this results in the NS alone bringing about the UR. This changes the NS into a conditioned stimulus and the UR into a conditioned response. Watson and Rayner achieved this exact result in their 1920 case study. They used a young toddler, dubbed ‘Little Albert’, and conditioned him to produce a fear response when exposed to many mundane things. A prime example being a white rat. They induced the fear in Little Albert by frightening him whenever he was in the presence of the white rat, this was done typically by banging steel rods to produce a loud sound. Eventually Albert began to associate the rat with the fear he felt, and a CR was produced (Watson & Rayner, 1920). This led psychologists to the conclusion that fear, and phobias can be a learned behaviour. They had intended to reverse the process and disassociate the fear with the stimuli, but Albert was pulled from the study before this could happen.

Following up on Watson & Rayner’s work Mary Cover Jones successfully managed to reverse condition fear in a child. In her case study, focusing upon a young child dubbed ‘Little Peter’. Little Peter had an inherent fear of rabbits and many other small animals (Jones, 1924). Over the course of 40 days Jones introduced the rabbit to Peter in varying degrees of closeness whilst also providing him with his favourite snacks. By the end of the study Peter could eat his snacks whilst being near the rabbit, even going so far as to touch it. It was noted that Peter even started to develop a fondness for the rabbit. This deconditioning of fear is one of the earliest studies that showed the effectiveness of what would later become known as Systematic Desensitisation.

Behaviourism itself is praised worldwide for its usefulness. It was shown that via the implementation of systematic desensitisation that 75% of participants in a study had their phobias successfully treated (McGrath, 1990). Behaviourists realise that, from an entirely practical standpoint, the environment a person finds themselves in actively affects their behaviour. Using highly scientific methods behaviourists have managed to accurately provide easily reproducible results of high importance. The shortcomings of the school come primarily from its scope, behaviourists can be accused of putting too much weight in the influence of outside factors on people. They don’t consider the effect that the wide spectrum of human consciousness can have on complex issues such as fear. Another disadvantage worth considering is the ethical responsibilities placed upon researchers. By modern standards the tests that Watson performed on Little Albert would be considered unethical. This can be argued as an advantage in so far as it ushered in the era of ethical approval in psychology.

The biological approach to psychology is a purely scientific one. Its primary focus is how biological factors affect our behaviour. Biological psychologists will attempt to do this by looking at the human nervous system, genetics and the brain to get a better grasp on the role these systems take. The biological school can be split down into two perspectives; evolutionary psychology and neuropsychology. Evolutionary psychology is massively influenced by Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Darwin theorised that genetic mutations passed down from a species’ ancestors through natural selection gives subsequent generations a survival advantage. In this modern era of technology, we have developed machines capable of mapping the entire human brain whilst highlighting what parts of it are getting used at what times. These MRI and CT scanners have allowed biological psychologists a whole new insight into how the human body affects individual behaviour.

The human body transmits electrical signals through cells called neurons (Cherry, Neurons and Their Role in the Nervous System, 2018). Whenever a neuron forms a connection with another neuron it is possible for these electrical signals to be passed on down the line into other parts of the body. These junctions where neurons form connections are known as synapses. These electrical signals typically originate from the brain and are carried throughout the body by the nervous system. The signals themselves are used to carry information and instructions to different limbs and organs. The nervous system itself can be divided into distinct sub-divisions; the central nervous system (comprised of the brain and the spinal cord) and the peripheral nervous system (MedlinePlus, 2017). Furthermore, the peripheral nervous system can be sub-divided yet again into the autonomic nervous system (wherein communications with internal organs and glands take place) and the somatic nervous system (responsible for muscle and sense organ communication). These can be even further sub-divided and separately categorised highlighting the high complexity of the human nervous system.

The human brain contains roughly 86 billion neurons, as a comparison a chimpanzee’s brain contains just 7 billion neurons. The human brain can be split up into a multitude of sections, with each section responsible for a different process going on in the body. The first way we have of categorising the brain is by splitting it in half into two hemispheres. The two sides of the brain are responsible for different aspects of human cognition, for example creativity primarily comes from the right hemisphere whilst language and logistical skills primarily come from the left hemisphere (Why Study Brains?, 2018). These two hemispheres are connected by something called the corpus callosum, this allows the two hemispheres to communicate with one another. The term used to describe how the two hemispheres operate differently is referred to as brain lateralisation. An example of this is how the left side of the brain is responsible for the operation of the left side of the body and vice versa. Through this understanding of how the brain works we have managed to observe the effects that damage has on the brain. For instance, if a person has a stroke and loses function on the left side of their body then we know that damage has occurred on the right-hand side of the brain.

Lots of practical applications have come about because of research into biological psychology studies, such as medication devised to help treat mental health issues. The most infamous example of a medical treatment devised from this school being electroconvulsive therapy(ECT). ECT is a procedure wherein the patient is placed under general anaesthetic and has electrical currents passed through the brain with the purpose to induce a minor seizure (What is ECT?, 2016). The procedure was created in the 1930s with the intention of helping patients however due to the treatment not being done under anaesthetic at the time it was used as threat and even a punishment to patients during the 1950s (Sadowsky, 2017). Whilst it certainly has a barbaric start ECT has recently been shown to be highly beneficial. In a study done by the universities of Dundee and Aberdeen it was found that in cases of severe depression ECT had been successful in reducing brain activity in a section of the brain linked to depression (Perrin, et al., 2012).

The inherent scientific nature of the biological school has garnered lots of praise for its reliability. Almost everything the school covers is quantifiable and therefore extremely reliable. Conversely this is also one of the school’s biggest criticisms; it is reductionist. By explaining everything with biology and only biology it wipes out discussion regarding social factors or cognitive issues that may affect an individual.

The cognitive approach can be traced back as far as 1879 when Wilhem Wundt launched the Institute for Experimental Psychology at the University of Leipzig. This was the first ever academic facility solely dedicated to the study of psychology (McLeod, Wilhelm Wundt, 2008). Whilst behaviourists focus on stimulus and response, cognitive psychologists focus on the process the mind goes through between these two steps. Cognitive psychology developed alongside the behaviourist approach. It provides criticism of the staunch view held by the behaviourists, whilst providing insight into the affects that an individual’s thought processes have on their behaviour.

Psychologists studying under the cognitive school attempt to explain these views through the implementation of scientific testing. One way in which cognitive psychologists try to explain why humans react to certain situations the way they do is through the implementation of schemas. Schemas are almost like a set of rules that humans create within their minds regarding external occurrences (Fournier, 2018). Schemas can change or expand through two methods; assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is when information is taken in and made to fit a schema the individual currently possesses. Whilst accommodation is when information is taken in and the schema is altered to accommodate the fresh data. Another key concept of the cognitive approach is one of irrational beliefs. An irrational belief is “Unfounded attitudes, opinions, and values we hold to that are out of synchrony with the way the world really is.” (Messina, 1992). Irrational beliefs can generally be categorised into three divisions: overgeneralisation, personalisation and selective abstraction. Overgeneralisation is the case where an irrational belief stems from one unrelated incident. An example of this would be getting bit by a spider and then fearing all insects will bite you. If you were to see someone across the room laughing and then glancing at you, it is possible for you to believe that they were laughing at you when in fact they were laughing at something their friend said. This incorrect assumption is known as a personalisation as you are directly relating the irrational belief to yourself. Finally, a selective abstraction is losing a sense of perspective on an issue and focusing on just a minor negative aspect rather than the overwhelming positives. This can be found in people that pass their driving test but are greatly disappointed because they picked up two minor infractions.

Cognitive psychologists have provided many great benefits to society as a direct result of their research. The foremost example of this being Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). CBT is a talking therapy focused on helping the individual deal with problems they are facing in the present rather than fixating on difficulties from their past. CBT is highly effective at dealing with a wide multitude of psychological conditions ranging from depression to addiction (Overview: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), 2016).

Cognitive psychologists are praised for the highly scientific approaches they use when gathering their information. The repeatable nature of their experiments provides a lot of validity to their research. This has led to the cognitive approach becoming arguably the most popular psychological approach (McLeod, Cognitive Psychology, 2015). Its affects are felt far and wide amongst the medical communities as it has brought about revolutionary new techniques such as CBT. Criticisms levelled at the cognitive school are valid. It is argued that due the highly controlled laboratory experiments, in which cognitive psychologists rely upon heavily, their data is not ecological. This is because conditions in a laboratory are in no way like the conditions of those in wider society. Another criticism cognitive psychology faces comes from the biological psychologists. What cognitive psychology fails to consider is the role that genetics plays in the inheritance of psychological conditions. It is shown that the chance of having schizophrenia can be 79% attributed to genetic factors (Bugno, 2017).

Aim

The phantom hand experiment was conducted to determine if a participant could be led to conclude that they possessed a false hand irrespective of what they could physically see.

Method

The participant sat in front of a table with a rubber hand on one side of a divider and a blank space on the other side. They then placed one of their hands out of sight whilst they focused on the false hand. Whilst the participant paid attention to the false hand, the experimenter stroked both their out of sight hand and the false hand a total of five times for three minutes each. Once the three minutes of stroking the participant’s hand has finished, they were next asked to point under the table to where to where they thought their real hand was.

Written Findings

The brain would usually work through the integration of the senses. This has not occurred in this test. The experiment with the phantom hand was unable to produce meaningful results. The reaction to the test by the participant indicated that the illusion had not succeeded. This may have been triggered by external variables. The venue was a possible extraneous variable because it was crowded with many people moving around , making it very convenient for the sound to interrupt the participant. Consequently, the participant may not have been able to completely focus their attention on the false hand, and therefore may have experienced less than the three minutes required by focusing on what was happening in the room. Another variable that may have affected the experiment was that the participant was asked to place their right hand under the table, out of sight, which meant that their hand was resting on their leg. This may have affected their ability to accept the fake hand as their own due to still being able to feel their real hand through the nerves in their leg.

Developmental Psychology: Developmental psychology as an approach aims to explain growth, change and regularity though the lifespan (Slater & Bremner , 2017). The definition of formative years did not exist not exist in the mediaeval ages .Children who were past reliance joined adult civilization. Religious philosophy played a prominent role in society seeing childhood as a distinctly different period (Butterworth & Harris, 2014). As the dominant belief in Europe and Britain, Christianity denounced children’s ill-treatment. Christian doctrine illustrated that a child is holy but can be a medium for immoral behaviour without strong supervision from proactive parenting. Families inspired by religious ideology started to see their children no more as financial possessions, but as souls in need of help to keep themselves on the right path to Salvation. As a discipline developmental psychology did not exist until there was a need for a skilled workforce after the industrial revolution (Butterworth & Harris, 2014). Charles Darwin’s research, known for his evolution through natural selection theory, contributed significantly to developmental psychology. Charles Darwin stated that evolution occurred in the past through positive adaptations (Penney , 2011). Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century, developmental psychology came into prominence with contributions from many prominent psychologists such as Jean Piaget’s stages of cognitive development , Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development and lastly ,Erik Erikson stages of psychosocial development (Butterworth & Harris, 2014). These scholars helped to generate interest and sustain the theory on human development through the lifespan.

Cognitive psychology: Cognitive psychology’s central focus is to research the impact of cognitive functions on the human body (Eysenck & Keane, 2015). Plato proposed that the mind was key to mental processes taking place. When modern psychologists rejected the behavioural paradigm as the standard of psychology, cognitive psychology emerged as behaviourism failed to explain internal behavioural effects (Braisby & Gellatly, 2012). Moreover, the cognitive revolution affected the growth of the discipline greatly (Coxon, 2012). For example, computer innovation in the 1950s led the brain to be associated with the computer whose function was to obtain data, encrypt, store and retrieve information (Crisp, 2015). Cognitive Psychology did not begin at any one moment, many influences led to its evolution and its continued existence today.

Social Psychology: Gordon Allport defined Social psychology as the scientific study of the way in which people’s thoughts, feelings and behaviours are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people (Hewstone, Stroebe, & Jonas, 2015). Social psychology emerged during the 19th century because of the enduring pursuit to understand the nature of human behaviour. Early research by Triplett and Flingelmann established an enduring topic in social psychology, how the presence of others affects an individual, performance. The first social psychology textbooks in 1908 and 1929 began to give the emerging field of social psychology its shape. Social psychology began to flourish because the world needed an explanation for the violence of war and solutions to it. Scholars aimed to understand how Adolf Hitler created such intense obedience from supporters during the Second World War. Experiments conducted by Muzafir Sherif and Solomon Asch illustrated the power of social control and how authoritative figures could enforce obedience (Hewstone, Stroebe, & Jonas, 2015). The 1940s and 1900s saw a burst of activity in social psychology that firmly established it as a major social science.

Biopsychology: Biopsychology analyses how behaviour is affected though biological means such as genetics and neurotransmitters reactions (Higgs, Cooper, Harris, Lee, & Shapiro, 2015). The field’s origins date back to philosophers thousands of years ago. Philosophers discussed what was known as the question of the mind body. Hippocrates indicated the brain’s position suggested that the brain was the source of all thought and action (Freberg, 2009). Biological psychology is historically rooted in the study of physiology. Physiologists conducted tests on living beings, a method that was criticised in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Charles Bell’s contribution to the field convinced the scientific world that reliable data could be collected from living subjects. Multiple scholars have contributed to the development of biopsychology. William James Principles of psychology argued that research into behaviour should be conducted from a biological basis.

Differential Psychology: Differential psychology examines why people are unique in their conduct and the underlying mechanisms. philosophers have tried to define exactly what makes us distinctive. Alfred Adler, a general practitioner, founded individual psychology because he disagreed with most of Freud’s theory of personality. Adler’s individual psychology has had a broad impact on the development of other differential psychology approaches.

Domain Evaluation: Whilst cognitive psychology has been very useful in developing new theories and finding out more about how the mind influences behaviour, there are some limitations to this approach. A major strength of this approach is the use of lab experiments as they are highly controlled, which enables researchers to determine causality. Loftus and Palmer, were able to control variables such as the participants age this allowed the to determine causality. However, because so many cognitive studies are produced in laboratory settings, ecological legitimacy may be lacking. In artificial environments, when cognitive processes such as memory are explored, it may be hard to generalize the findings to everyday life. Its reliance on computer analogy is a weakness of cognitive psychology. The approach ignores factors such as social influence. On the other hand an advantage of taking a reductionist approach is that it can be possible to understand human behaviour by breaking down a phenomenon into basic components. In conclusion cognitive psychology provides key strengths in the use of methodology however it also has a collection of weaknesses. the scientific aspect of its method is worth further consideration in order to determine whether or not it is of great benefit to psychology as a whole

Psychology Domain References

1. Butterworth, G., & Harris, M. (2014). Principles of developmental psychology. London: Routledge.
2. Upton, P. (2011). Developmental psychology (Critical thinking in psychology). Exeter: Learning Matters.
3. Slater, A., & Bremner, J. G. (2017). An introduction to developmental psychology (3rd ed.). Hoboken, New Jersy: The British Psychological Society and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
4. Eysenck, M. W., & Keane, M. T. (2015). Cognitive psychology: a student’s handbook (7th ed.). London: Psychology Press.
5. Crisp, R. J. (2015). Social psychology: a very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University.
6. Coxon, M. & Upton, D. (2012). Critical Thinking in Psychology Series: Cognitive psychology 55 City Road, London: SAGE Publications, Inc.
7. Braisby, N., & Gellatly, A. (2012). Cognitive psychology (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford university press.
8. Hewstone, M., Stroebe, W., & Jonas, K. (2015). An introduction to social psychology (Sixth ed., Bps textbooks in psychology). Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
9. Higgs, S., Cooper, A., Harris, M., Lee, J., & Shapiro, K. (2015). Biological psychology (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
10. Freberg, L. (2009). Discovering biological psychology (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

In the engaging and well put together book, Jerome Groopman, the author of How Doctors Think (2008), explores the mind behind of the physician’s mind. The explicit purpose of How doctors think is to give laypeople an understanding of the medical mind so that they can participate more actively in clinical conversations and improve the care that they receive. In a style familiar to readers of his New Yorker articles, Groopman uses detailed case studies of physicians to make clear, logical, and compelling arguments. Although intended for the general public, the book offers clinicians an irresistible promise of self-understanding, and in many ways succeeds. Some of the psychological concepts that is discussed in the novel is the Idea of Cognitive psychology and how personality plays a role.

In the first few sections, Groopman explores how, when, and why diagnoses are missed by some physicians and captured by others. The book begins with a brief description of a woman with abdominal pains. Originally, she was diagnosed for years with a series of functional and mental disorders, including bulimia (Groopman, 2008). Further on a physician, beginning with careful elicitation of the patient’s story, was able to set aside those prior diagnoses to discover that she in fact had celiac disease. Later, he describes a patient given a grave prognosis only to recover, revealing the faulty and limited logic of the physicians providing care (Groopman, 2008). Cognitive psychology is used in this because cognitive psychologists are most concerned with studying how we think, perceive, remember, forget, solve problems, focus, and learn. But unlike the behaviorist school of thought that focuses only on observable behaviors, cognitive psychology studies internal mental states and processes (Cacioppo, 2016). The constant examples of certain case studies from patient and physicians explains that Groopman is using cognitive psychology to show how doctors think through their patients and everything they do to perceive

Any professional who must assimilate and synthesize complex, ambiguous information must develop efficient means for processing data. Medical students are taught to gather a complete set of data then make an exhaustive list of possible diagnoses that are eliminated one by one until the correct one is reached. This approach is hardly practical for busy clinicians and, in fact, often can lead experts astray. More efficient approaches use pattern recognition, heuristics, and illness scripts, which provide coherent links between knowledge and experience. These cognitive shortcuts are highly personal, we each have our own internal library of facts, experiences, and procedures that help us locate a patient’s expression of distress within a diagnostic framework quickly and accurately. This personal library helps build a physician’s personality which plays a major role on how doctors think through the process of helping their patients.

Groopman eloquently elaborates the dark side of these same approaches, especially when they become automatic, mindless, and as the physician persists with a single formulation in the face of disconfirming data, sees only part of a whole picture, or assumes that the most accessible data are the most important. Further on, he describes how pharmaceutical advertising exploits these cognitive tendencies. Physicians like to solve problems, and pharmaceutical companies graciously oblige by both creating problems and offering solutions. This is yet another prime example on how the physician’s personality plays a major role in the novel so we can understand how a doctor think.

Going back to the idea of the cognitive psychology, Groopman truly dives into the minds of how doctors think by takes the readers on a tour of a wide range of medical fields while jumping swiftly back-and-forth between the physician and the patient’s perspective. Most chapters open with the story of an individual patient and his doctor, whose interactions introduce us to an aspect of problem-solving in medicine. The author then further expands upon the subject in an essay form by weaving into the storytelling opinions from experts of cognitive thinking in medicine as well as evidence from recent research work on the topic (Xia, 2008). The stories, although slightly melodramatic at times with their predictable climax followed by a happily-ever-after resolution, do provide an accurate and helpful glimpse of the complex infrastructures of health care to those unfamiliar with the field. This really is a prime example of how cognitive psychology tries to build up cognitive models of the information processing that goes on inside people’s minds, including perception, attention, language, memory, thinking, and consciousness (Xia, 2008). This is just another prime example how Groopman used cognitive psychology to dive into the minds of doctors because the interviews allowed the readers to understand the mind of doctors and be able to see the perspective form the point of view of the physicians.

Dr. Groopman possesses a quite impressive ability for stripping medical facts of their jargon and rendering them accessible to laymen. Each story directs his lens onto particular “cognitive errors” in the practice of medicine, a term he uses to describe flaws in the thinking of physicians that result in misdiagnosis and/or mismanagement of illnesses. Then, deftly alternating the focus between the analysis and the story, he intertwines theory and practice to demonstrate how these mental traps can be averted. Groopman is on the right track. All clinicians should read this book. All of us can learn something. It is an easy read, engaging, and can be shared with family and friends. Hopefully it will reinforce all physicians’ efforts to understand themselves better, for the benefit of their patients and perhaps also for their own well-being.

Lying is something that everybody has done, regardless of whether individuals might want to let it out or not. Irrespective of this ideally regretful occurrence, individuals regularly don’t comprehend why somebody would lie. This research begins to speak about the lawful field where victims and offenders lie to get around talking about the severe cases that have occurred. These people may at first lie about the event, but as a rule, these same individuals accept their lies and speak the truth at the end. Until the end, it is vague whether such lying influences later testimonies about one’s memory for the experience.

There are a few forensically applicable settings where lying about what one recalls may happen. For instance, victims of sexual abuse regularly delay talking about crime through methodologies. For example, denying the severe event, which has put false acts at the edge of discussions about sexual mistreatment charges. Another memory-related case that routinely happens in analytical settings is when someone has verified that he or she has no memory of that experience. Not even partially or entirely, which can conclude to be feigning or partial amnesia. It could be the aftereffect of neurological and later on is a created variation of what happened. If results come as false amnesia, it can have significant repercussions, including where they can prompt inquiries encompassing criminal action or the ability to take a stand. People who remember might also be propelled to create explicit insights concerning an encounter that may demonstrate inspiration. There are a few procedures that a liar can use in analytical settings when solicited to give a record of crime. There has been a more prominent valuation for setting or untruth type with regards to contemplating lies, the procedures in question, and the different results. An fMRI research example was given in which it has discovered that there might be distinct neural pathways related to various kinds of lies. Comparably, there is motivation to accept that multiple sorts of lies request differing degrees of cognitive resources. The cognitive resources engaged with the various techniques planned for retention reality, including pretending amnesia, erroneously denying, or manufacturing. This seems to shift to such an extent that progressively psychological assets are likely utilized when a whole record of an event is created versus just asserting memory misfortune or dishonestly denying a fact has occurred. It may not be so effectively prompted because complicated systems are regularly utilized links, but one may guarantee amnesia or dishonestly prevent a fundamental part from securing the experience while additionally giving an honest or created example for the remainder of the skills. Given the discoveries and hypothetical records talked about over, an image is developing for the circumstances underlying prompts, oversights, or commissions, and what structural systems might be answerable for these memory results.

An optional segment of the current MAD system shown was how delicate events change convictions. There is plenty of research demonstrating that when members are approached to envision an ideal minority time, this builds the opinion that the game was experienced without anyone else’s input and fundamental research on creation, which has discovered that it can prompt increments in the conviction that the false incident occurred. Once more, this thought is steady with the source monitoring system, but on the other hand, it is connected with another line of research demonstrating that having faith in the event of an occasion is the initial phase in recalling that the time happened. Although this MAD model gives a general thought of how lying influences memory for past encounters, it is a beginning stage for future research tries and needs refinement as the comprehension of the connection between lying, and consciousness creates; like one poorly investigated issue is explaining the mechanism behind denial induced forgetting.

The present exchange started with the problem of the impacts of lying on memory. After collecting the current condition of learning in this space, the most constrain ling answer seems, by all accounts, to be that it relies upon the lying and what number of cognitive resources are included. All the more explicitly, subtleties developed using lie can turn into a false memory, yet this appears to possibly be the situation in those circumstances when recalls utilizing an appealing strategy that includes numerous psychological assets, for example, creating a story. At the point when a sort of lying is used, that does not include countless cognitive resources, the review of the writing indicates that it is bound to prompt errors. The surveys presented in the research are the first comprehensive summary of the impacts of lying on memory. Without a doubt, a significant part of the reviewed studies has been directed from an unadulterated applied lawful intrigue. These examinations propose that other than seeing outside variables, such as suggestive talking strategies that may hamper explanations of victims, exploited people, and guilty parties, it is likewise imperative to research in the case of lying may have assumed a job in their announcements. Creating the current information and shortening the existing knowledge of the results of one’s lies on memory for their previous occurrences, upcoming investigation focusing spaces in observed data of this association with being inspired.

Cognitive Psychology focuses on the study of human cognition, as well as how the brain stores and processes information (Tiitinen, 2001), however, during the 1930’s the field of psychology mainly focused on sensation and behaviourism (Gardner, 2017). Jerome Seymour Bruner was a cognitive psychologist during this time that did work in both sensation and behaviourism, but initiated the focus on perception (Greenfield, 2016). Bruner was a psychologist whose theories and research was important aspects of the cognitive psychology revolution regarding new information on how the brain works regarding perception.

John Broadus Watson was the founder of behaviourism, which was the study of behaviour without the focus of mental state affecting it (Chapman & Routledge, 2009). It focuses on the idea that behaviour is not something that comes from an internal mental state (Stout, 2006). In contradiction to behaviourism Bruner’s work and deductions were influenced heavily on anthropology, the ideas that anthropology imposed inspired him to delve into the work that he did (Lutkehaus, 2008). Bruner initiated the focus of the different workings of the mind, how an individual’s perception is a bottom-up process as well as a top-down process (Greenfield, 2016). Perception therefore involves mental processing and is not only a stimulus-dependant response (Greenfield, 2016). This was the work that pioneered Burner into the psychology field, however he delved into many other aspects of cognitive psychology which earned him the Balzan Prize in 1987 “for lifelong contribution to human psychology” (Meyer, 2018). Bruner along with his colleague George A. Miller founded the Centre of Cognitive Studies at Harvard (Meyer, 2018). This facility focused on studies that showed how individual’s brains worked, subjects such as; philosophy, anthropology, linguistics and computer science was given at the centre (Gardner, 2017) Bruner’s work started out focusing on perception and cognition and later started focusing on narrative thinking and how it created norms in human culture and norms (Tomasello 2016). Bruner conducted many experiments and research, mostly at Harvard, in order to have come to the conclusion that was reached about certain mental factors influencing visual perception (Greenfield, 2016). Along with conducting experiments and research Bruner also wrote books about his findings.

Alongside Jacqueline Goodnow and George Austin, Bruner published a book called A Study of Thinking in 1956 that was a crucial aspect to the cognitive revolution (Greenfield, 2016). The book details how experiments were conducted in order to establish; how individuals solve problems, showing how individuals hypothesise and consider solutions to problems (Gardner, 2017). It investigates how humans achieve, retain and process information using stimulus-response learning (Bruner, 2017). Bruner then started focusing on education and wrote two books, The Process of Education and Toward a Theory of Instruction, that became famous references when studying childhood education (Tomasello 2016). Toward a Theory of Instruction focused on how the hypothesis of there being consequences to actions came from previous ideas, helping teachers understand where children’s deductions came from (Walker, 2014). The Process of Education in 1960 that was yet another crucial aspect to the cognitive revolution (Greenfield, 2016). The book was published when Bruner delved into the education of young individuals (Gardner, 2017). The book states that according to a child’s age; certain ideas and concepts should be presented through use of action, icons as well as symbols (Greenfield, 2016). Bruner stated that children can be taught anything at any stage of development if it is taught properly and in an intellectual manner (Gardner, 2017). Bruner’s work on education was an important aspect of the cognitive psychology revolution as the books delved into work that teachers needed to know in order to help a child learn, it taught teachers to intervene with a child’s learning capacity (Walker, 2014). Along with focusing on how children learn, Bruner also focused on other aspects of child development. Along with Michael Scaife, Bruner observed and named the occurrence known as joint visual attention (Greenfield, 2016). This concept was established when Scaife and Bruner observed infants and how the infant will follow the adult’s gaze when the adult looked at something (Greenfield, 2016). Joint visual attention is now known as an essential concept to help infants in language acquisition when the infants have to link words to objects (Greenfield, 2016) and is an ability that the infant should have due to joint visual attention being a basic process that occurs (Scaife & Bruner, 1975). Bruner wrote three other books called; Actual Minds, Possible Worlds as well as Acts of Meaning all detailing how individuals are capable of communication, both verbally and writing it down (Gardner, 2017). Bruner believed that the key to understanding the human mind was to understand the surrounding environment that the individual is placed in, the culture and history changed the way that individuals spoke to each other (Gardner, 2017). Bruner, alongside with Anthony Amsterdam, published the book Minding the Law that spoke about how the processes of cognition, linguistics and culture affected the making of laws and legal procedures (Gardner, 2017). The book is a collection of theories and logical opinions on how certain laws should be implemented to work effectively (Bodie, 2002). All of these books had an influence on the cognitive psychology revolution as it changed the ideas that were already present at the time and helped other individuals understand the concepts of cognitive psychology better.

In conclusion, Jerome Seymour Bruner was a cognitive psychologist that focused on; perception, cognition and how narrative thinking influenced. Bruner was important in the cognitive psychology revolution due to the experiment, research and books that proved the concepts Bruner believed in. Bruner won the Balzan prize for his contribution to the study of psychology for his efforts in the field. Bruner wrote the books; A Study of Thinking, The Process of Education, Toward a Theory of Instruction, Actual Minds, Possible Worlds, Acts of Meaning and Minding the Law as well as delved into the workings of Joint Visual Attention.

Cognitive psychology is a young branch of psychology which involves the study of mental processes: every other process that goes inside brain including attention, perception, language, memory, problem solving, decision making, creative thinking and thought processes. It looks at how one acquire information one received and how treatment of this information lead to one’s responses, that is in simple word perception, acquisition and retention of information. Historically the study of Cognitive psychology is rooted in the philosophical approaches towards understanding the functioning of the brain using introspection, while in Biology they studied the working of the brain and nervous system using observational methods. Cognitive psychology became of great importance in the mid-1950s. Its birth is often dated back to discovery of George Miller’s (1956) “The magical number 7 plus or minus 2.” Study of cognitive psychology includes human experimental psychology, computer analogies information processing approach and cognitive neuroscience.

While talking about the recent time, cognitive psychology as a branch has grown rapidly in terms of research and contextual study and is one of the most popular subfields of psychology. Apart, it has a wide spread influence on other branches of psychology. Researches in this field has given various practical applications like ways to cope with mental illnesses and brain injuries, enhancing one’s learning skills, accurate ways of decision making processes and so on. Findings in cognitive psychology have also improved our understanding of how people gain, store, and recall memories. Also, therapy treatments rooted in cognitive research focus on helping people change their negative thought patterns and replace such thoughts with more positive and realistic ones.

With the advances of cognitive approach in experimental psychology and the stress on consciousness within humanistic psychology and post-Freudian psychoanalysis, consciousness has made a considerable comeback. As a school of thought, cognitive psychology has influenced several followers and gained great achievements. And accordingly by 2010, there were more than 40 journals issued, dealing with different features of cognitive psychology.

Cognitive psychologists tried to extend and merge the work of several major disciplines in a combined study of how the mind attains knowledge. Despite criticism, the multidisciplinary approach has grown rapidly. By that time, the cognitive approach to the study of mental phenomenon and mental processes has come to govern psychology. A recent extension of cognitive psychology called embedded cognition recognizes that there are physical aspects of cognition in brain activity and in sensation and perception. It specifies that perceptual and motor response systems affect and often determine the cognitive processes that occur in the mind. Another important topic in cognitive psychology is cognitive overload, which deals with the familiar activity known as multitasking.

Like any other revolutions, cognitive psychology has never lacked critics. For example, most behaviorists opposed the cognitive movement. There are few concepts that the most cognitive psychologists agreed upon, and there are confusion still regarding jargon and definitions. Another criticism is directed towards the overemphasis on thought processes at the cost of other’s guidance on thought and behavior, such as motivation and emotion. Some suggest that this result is a narrow and a pure approach to the field. There are many theories that shows the impact of cognition as a subject in the field of psychology. Some recent researches in the field of cognitive psychology which depicts the practical application of cognitive psychology are mentioned below.

A study conducted by Jin Jung and Jai-Woo oh (2019), was to provide an empirical basic data on the measures to improve the quality of life and satisfaction of the elderly by analyzing the effect of transfer income on cognitive impairment among the elderly’s income which include both public and private transfer incomes. Public income transfer includes an average monthly allowance received from all acquaintances, including children, relatives, etc. And private income included both pension savings and pension insurance depending on whether there were income deductions or not. A long survey was conducted by them and result showed majority elderly who took survey were from the age group 75-79 and had a family living with them. Also majority were middle school pass outs and 62.3% were mentally fit, 29.5% of elderly had cognitive impairment while 8.2% had severe cognitive impairment. Cognitive impairment showed a statistically significant proportional relation correlation with educational attainment.

Also, Cognitive impairment was significantly associated with age at the time of enrollment, national pension, property income and personal pension had statistically significant proportional correlations. There was a statistically significant inverse proportional correlation between basic livelihood security recipients. Therefore, the results of this study show that the effect of the cognitive impairment of elderly people’s transfer income is sufficiently confirmed. This research states how quality of life can affect an individual’s cognitive functions.

Another, research on “Role of Cognitive Retraining in improving Attention in Children with Learning Disabilities” by Abraham Bose and Masroor Jahan (2018), was to study the improvement in attention of children with learning disabilities using pre-post treatment design. 10 participants included in the study of 8 to 13 years (with IQ ranging from 92-102) with specific developmental learning disorders as per ICD 10 DCR criteria. Group and individual sessions of 30-40 minutes were taken for three weeks as pre-post treatment. The result showed that there was statistically significant difference in pre-post treatment condition suggesting that attention improved after the cognitive training programme. There was a significant improvement in alternating and sustained visual attention, focused attention, cognitive flexibility of the children. The above results suggest that there was an improvement in attention span of children because the present study used several cancellation tests and its alterations in terms of reducing and increasing size and spacing of letters and numbers as a part of cognitive retaining task. Sustained attention helps children with learning disabilities to be more alert and also helps to attend a task for a significant period of time even with distracters which may help them to perform better in their academic tasks. This present study suggests that cognitive retraining can improve attentional abilities of children with learning disabilities. This practice can be widely used in schools for students with learning disabilities and also with children who lack attention in studies.

Another research conducted by Dr. Rekha Rani (2017), was to study the relationship between cognitive styles and problem solving abilities of senior secondary school students of Chandigarh. They included 150 class XI students of arts and science stream. The result shows that 40.66% of students use split cognitive styles of problem solving technique which indicates they do not possess integrated behavioral responses, 46.66% uses undifferentiated cognitive style that is they rely on outside sources for problem solving process. Whereas, 8% students use intuitive problem solving style, where they are unpredictable of the analytical steps used while problem solving. There were only 4.66% of students who used systematic style for problem solving, where they could define step by step process while solving problem. And no students used integrated cognitive style for problem solving. Which again gave the result that only 6% of students had very high problem solving abilities, majority students were in the average category and very few had very low problem solving ability. It is observed that more than 30% of the students of class XI are not able to solve the problem accurately. It is revealed that the relationship between cognitive styles and problem solving abilities of 150 students of class XI studying in Government Model Senior Secondary Schools students of Chandigarh is low as coefficient of correlation was found to be significant. Therefore, it was proved that there is an impact of cognitive style on problem solving ability. This theory can again be applied in practical life, as one can be taught the way one should think and approach a problem and find solution to it, during early development period.

Therefore, these theories prove that researches in cognitive psychology is not just limited to articles and lab but also researches related attention, problem solving, perception etc. are applicable in practical life. To conclude, cognitive psychology as a recent branch of psychology has received a great acceptance in terms of research and theoretical contexts and their wide range of practical applications. Cognitive psychology has also paved ways for researches in artificial intelligence, cognitive neuropsychology, social learning theories, in therapies and so on.

References

1. Bose Abraham, Jahan Masroor. (2018, March). Role of cognitive retraining in improving attention in children with learning disabilities: Indian journal of clinical psychology. Vol: 45, (Pg.) 25-28.
2. Current Status of Cognitive Psychology Essay. (2012, July 14). Retrieved from https://www.antiessays.com/free-essays/Current-Status-Of-Cognitive-Psychology
3. Introduction to cognitive psychology: current status of cognitive psychology. (2013). Retrieved from https://oscareducation.blogspot.com/2013/03/current-status-of-cognitive-psychology.html
4. Jin Jung, Jai-Woo oh. (2019, July). Impact of transfer income on cognitive impairment in the elderly (Series Ed.). Medico-legal update. Vol: 19, (pp.:411-416).doi:10.5958/0974-1283
5. Rani Rekha. (2017). Relationship between cognitive styles and problem solving abilities of senior secondary school students. Asian journal of research in social sciences and humanities. Vol: 7, (pg.) 115-120.doi: 10.5958/2249-7315.

I. Introduction

Smart Home is a technology based smart objects of use cases that purpose humans for changing their behaviours which is related with the patterns of consumption, improving for care the health each people, decrease consumption of energy. It has to create the concept with prototype which is connected the device for smart health. The device can be made an electrocardiogram (ECG) with smartphone, tablets, etc. ECG is a graphical testing of the rhythms of hearts which the heart needs some medicine or not. EGC can investigate the symptoms like breathlessness, chest pain, abnormal rhythms of the heart, abnormal size of heart and heart attack. It needs to suppose for taking ECG with sensors which is on another device, tablets, smart watch, etc. that can connect with smartphone with Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. ECG can be able to recorded and shown or accessed which are recorded in past. When the smart objects are interacted, the interaction needs at least two modes like natural user interfaces, gestures, voice, etc. There are three types of recorders for ECG which are Event recorders, Continuous full disclosure recorders and Implantable devices recorders. It has to identify and prototype the interactions which are suitable for using that device. (McQuillan, 2006)

The result of the records can be read as follows. The heart beat between 50 and 100 BPM of the uniform pattern is called Sinus Rhythm of the heart’s beat. The heart beat between 50 and 120 BPM of the irregular pattern is called Atrial Fibrillation that is the form of serious arrhythmia that is also known as irregular rhythms of the heart’s beat. The heart beat under 50 BPM is called Bradycardia which can caused by certain heart medications. If it is too low heart’s rhythm, it can make difficult in the flowing of blood to brain that can be made humans to feel weak, fainting spells, Cardiac arrest, difficult to breath, Dizziness and etc. And it needs to go to the doctor and do the right medical checkup. The heart rhythm which is over 120 BPM is called Tachycardia. It may be caused due to stress, alcohol, exercises and etc. Tachycardia is very important and it must be go to the doctor to make medications, surgery, in very important case it need to be make electrical defibrillation. (Anonymous, 2016) (Anonymous, 2016)

II. Cognitive Psychology and Users

Cognitive Psychology is the processes of mental that is from internal study. The things like memory, thinking, problem solving, attention, learning, making decision, perception and language which goes inside brain are all of the study of young branch of cognitive psychology. Cognitive Psychology can make to understand other humans or people and processes of their thoughts. So, it can make changes to the positive behaviours. It can also help in the analyzing of the thoughts before it takes action when it understands own cognitive processes. Experimental Cognition and Reflective Cognition are the two types of the procedures of cognitive. (Hosking, 2017) (Cherry, 2019)

Experimental Cognition means that the work done which is applied with the methods of experimentally to the study of psychology. Attention, thinking, remembering and etc. which is like activities are contained in the experimental cognition. Reflective Cognition can be lead to the new and fresh ideas and creativity. Making Decision, Thinking, Comparing and etc. that are processes are included in the Reflective Cognition.

To get efficient system and increase experience of user in the designing of interactive application, cognitive Psychology is needed importantly. In the developing of the prototype of Electrocardiogram(ECG), above cognitive processes are needed to be applied. During the developing of the prototype of Electrocardiogram(ECG), among several cognitive frameworks that is for understanding, explaining and predicting the interactive design of human beings, some of these cognitive frameworks are needed to be considered.

• Important of Cognitive Psychology

In a single activity, there must be contained several processes of cognitive psychology which is dependent on each other. In the designing of prototype of Electrocardiogram(ECG) for smartphone, it is also important to include cognitive psychology processes. In the websites, after it finds some information, it needs to enter key works, perceive, read, think and try to remember it. So, some of the processes are contained by cognition. Although there are equal functions in the two websites, end user must be wanted better look designs.

• Frameworks of Cognitive Psychology in the designing of prototype

There are many frameworks in the designing of prototypes. In the relation of the Interaction Designs, five main cognitive frameworks have been come out. Among of those five cognitive frameworks, two of those are disused below.

i. Theory of Action

In this theory of action, “gulf of execution” and “gulf of evaluation” are related which is the framework that gives goal driven. Each user has their own goal which can be decided to attain and perform. Actions can be performed when responds have been received from interface. The material which is received and evaluated can construct as long as the original goal meet information that is received. Suitable records of ECG which is also the past records are shown is the main goals of the Electrocardiogram(ECG) web application.

ii. Mental Model

How the system works and uses are the main conceptual ideas of the Mental Models. Mental Model needs for getting better position for carrying out the tasks efficiently. And also it is needed for knowing what is needed to do when the system starts up.

Pragmatics refers to the study of signs, sentence structure, and symbols. It focuses on the meaning of utterances. It is what people say in terms of spoken speech or by the use of signs and symbols. It is a fundamental component in human speech because it establishes meaning and intention hence establishing a better understanding. It also helps in establishing what to say, the people we pass the information to as well as how to say or out it. It helps to ensure that information reaches the right people and in the right manner.

People feel better in a conversation if they are in a position to understand each other well. Pragmatics makes it possible to understand the meaning of information and this helps build and maintain relationships among people. Pragmatics is, therefore, very essential in our daily interactions for healthy and long-lasting relationships. Pragmatics is used in schools, especially in group discussions. Normally group discussions are popular in schools. In group discussions, the student shares their different ideas and opinions. Pragmatics helps the students to understand each other by making it possible for them to understand sentence structure, and signs, and also in understanding the meanings of different ideas shared by students.

In pragmatics, words used can have different meanings depending on the context. For example, when someone says ‘I am okay,’ normally, okay expresses agreement meaning someone or something is fine. In pragmatics, okay can be used to bring out different meanings depending on the context. When someone says that they are okay but we know that they are going through a difficult situation, it simply means the opposite. Another example of pragmatics is ballooning. Ballooning means flying a balloon but, in this context, it brings the message that someone is growing fat. This explains how people interpret language and the meaning of utterances, signals, and symbols depending on the manner, place, and time it is used.

Pros and cons of different ideas about the origin of language.

Language is said to be the only distinguishing feature that highly differentiates human beings from other species. Animals and plants interact and pass information to each other in different ways (Ulbaek1998). They breathe and excrete the same way humans do but the difference comes in the way of communication. Only humans have a distinct and most developed way of communication and that is language. The ideas about the origin of language have established insights into understanding the origin of language. Another advantage of the ideas is that they have demonstrated the efforts of different researchers in the pursuit of establishing where the language originated. The problem with the ideas about the origin of language is that most of them lack proper research and are based on personal understanding rather than real facts.

The 4 stages of creativity

Creativity means the use of ideas to come up with something to invent or innovate something (Zhang et al, 2020). Creativity is one of the best ways of maintaining a mentally healthy body with its benefits having a great positive impact on a person’s health. It has been shown that creativity promotes happiness in an individual as well as triggers the production of dopamine. The feel-good chemical in our bodies. The human brain goes through various stages for it to execute a creative idea. The stages include the following:

Preparation stage. People’s brain does not create ideas from a vacuum. It uses the information it is fed with to create ideas. When people think about creative thought in their minds, they form a basis for a creative idea, for instance, when one tries to come up with ideas on how to transform his or her tires into planters. The brain then starts using reasoning and planning for the formation of a creative idea. The next stage is the incubation stage. In the incubation stage, the person with the creative idea discovers that they are not maybe going to succeed and so they dismiss the creative thought. So, at this point, it is evident that nothing comes up in terms of identifying the right paint to use on someone’s tires, and how to lay them off to bring an appealing appearance for my garden. Researchers have discovered that when creative thought is dismissed from thinking about it, it is during this time that people’s minds become most creative. So, the brain subconsciously gets into the process of figuring out the whole creative project idea.

The third stage is the illumination stage. Creative thoughts and ideas collide unconsciously then proceed to consciousness. At this stage, the creative ideas have reached to people’s conscience. For example, one can consciously see the tires having been painted in the right color paints. However, creativity is not done at this stage so the process proceeds to the final stage which is the verification stage. Kaufman states that at this stage, critical thinking skills are employed to help think about the target audience as well as figure out how to craft the message. At this point, everything about the whole creative ideas such as, how to lay them, and the pattern of planting am going to use among other relevant ideas. At this stage, one’s creative idea of transforming tires into beautiful planters is ready to be put into action.

Confirmation bias is a type of bias that involves information processing and interpretation of information in such a way that it is in line with what someone believes (Rossmo et al, 2019). It is simply interpreting information in a biased manner. In our daily lives, confirmation bias is demonstrated in various ways. For instance, a woman who does not love her husband due to prolonged misunderstandings would easily trust false and mean-spirited rumors about her husband to suit what she already has in mind about him. In confirmation bias, people make a biased interpretation of information to suit their own beliefs of self-interest. The wife would believe the false rumors without even doing her research to establish the truth in the rumor.

Confirmation bias can be used in society to create harm and destroy relationships or sometimes it can help establish and improve behavior. There exist people in life who are quite reserved and have a limited sense of humor. Most people end up thinking that this kind of person is not good-hearted. The judgment is mostly arrived at without even having interacted with the person to establish the kind person the kind of person she is. People end up making conclusions based on what they believe is right.

Another case of confirmation is where a doctor assumes or misdiagnoses a certain illness based on the symptoms given by the patient. The doctor would prescribe medication based on what they know about the symptoms of a certain disease. The doctor may not even run lab tests to establish whether there could be a possibility of another illness. Preconceived knowledge based on personal beliefs can adversely lead to great damage on part of the recipient of the confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias is not only used to harm society but also good at some point. For example, if a student gets expelled from school due to irresponsible behavior, when he gets admitted to a new school looking all good and calm then teachers compliment him, this creates a positive impression of themselves and will end up changing their behavior to suit people’s expectation. Therefore, confirmation bias should be used in society to promote behavior rather than causing harm to people and ruining relationships.