Cognitive Psychology — AI Study Guide

Mastering Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes — how people perceive, attend to, remember, think, and communicate. The information processing model treats the mind as a system that encodes, stores, and retrieves information, analogous to a computer. Sensation (detecting stimuli) and perception (interpreting stimuli) are the entry points; attention determines which sensory information reaches conscious processing.

Memory is organized into multiple systems. Sensory memory briefly holds raw sensory information (iconic memory for vision, echoic memory for sound). Working memory holds and manipulates information currently in consciousness — capacity limited to approximately 4 chunks. Long-term memory is divided into explicit (episodic: personal events; semantic: facts) and implicit (procedural: skills; priming; conditioning) systems. The distinction between these systems is supported by neuropsychological dissociations.

Attention determines which stimuli receive detailed processing from limited cognitive resources. Selective attention (filtering out irrelevant information) is demonstrated by the dichotic listening paradigm and the cocktail party effect. Divided attention (performing two tasks simultaneously) suffers when tasks require the same cognitive resources. Sustained attention (vigilance) declines over time. Understanding attention limits has practical implications for multitasking, learning, and safety.

Language is a uniquely human cognitive capacity. Linguistics studies language structure at multiple levels: phonology (sounds), morphology (word structure), syntax (sentence structure), and semantics (meaning). Psycholinguistics examines how people produce and comprehend language — including the remarkable rapidity of normal speech processing and the systematic errors that reveal underlying mechanisms. Chomsky's universal grammar hypothesis proposes an innate, species-specific language acquisition device.

Frequently Asked Questions: Cognitive Psychology

What is working memory?

Working memory is a cognitive system that temporarily holds and manipulates a limited amount of information for use in ongoing cognitive tasks. Baddeley's model includes: the phonological loop (verbal/auditory information), the visuospatial sketchpad (visual and spatial information), the central executive (controls attention and coordinates the slave systems), and the episodic buffer (integrates information from multiple sources). Working memory capacity (approximately 4 chunks) predicts performance on many cognitive tasks and academic achievement.

What is the difference between episodic and semantic memory?

Both are forms of explicit (declarative) long-term memory — consciously accessible and verbal. Episodic memory contains personally experienced events with spatiotemporal context ('I remember my first day of school'). Semantic memory contains general world knowledge, facts, and concepts independent of personal experience ('Paris is the capital of France'). Patient HM and other amnesics typically show greater episodic than semantic memory impairment, supporting the distinction.

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