Cognitive psychology is the systematic investigation of any mental operation or process. The words cognitive and cognition come from the Latin cognitio meaning a getting to know. Cognitive psychology studies the way humans perceive, learn, remember and think about information. The types of mental processes under scrutiny include attention, perception, learning and memory. More specific examples of the subject matter of cognitive psychology include: selective attention where individuals focus their attention on certain stimuli in the environment and seemingly ignore other stimuli; divided attention in which individuals divide cognitive resources across two or more tasks, e.g., talking while driving; pattern recognition where patterns may be any visual, auditory, spatial, or temporal object or event such as a face, text, spoken word, music, or environmental sound; short- and long-term memory for verbal and non-verbal material including discrimination, classification, and identification; visual, auditory and motor imagery; explicit and implicit learning and memory; reasoning; decision making; problem solving; creativity; verbal and non-verbal communication; speech perception and language acquisition. Important variables that are considered in cognitive psychology include the role of affect and emotion, aging, expertise, and embodied cognition.

Experimental cognitive psychology applies the scientific method to investigation of mental processes. It uses rigorously controlled factorial experiments. Mental operations are inferred from overt behaviour that is measurable and quantifiable. Measures or dependent variables include reaction time, search time, and accuracy. Cognitive neuropsychology investigates cognition in people with brain damage claiming that such studies can provide insights into normal cognitive functioning.

Paradigms and theories of cognitive psychology have been applied to different areas of study, e.g., social psychology and developmental psychology, and to applied contexts such as sport, education, and human-machine interface design.

Reference Book

Eysenck, M. W. (Ed.). (1994). The Blackwell Dictionary of Cognitive Psychology. Oxford: Blackwell.

Recommended Text Book

Anderson, J. R (2005). Cognitive psychology and its implications (6th Ed.). New York: Worth.

Summary written by

Kate Stevens
MARCS Auditory Laboratories
University of Western Sydney
March 2006