REVIEWER IN COG PSY
MODULE 1

PSYCHOLOGY - This refers to the scientific circles and diversity of phenomena of the way in which the brain
processes the information.
 COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY is the branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of the mind.
 COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY is currently a thriving area, dealing with a bewildering diversity of phenomena, including
topics like attention, perception, learning, memory, language, emotion, concept formation, and thinking.
 COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY is that it is the study of the way in which the brain processes information. It concerns the
way we take in information from the outside world, how we make sense of that information, and what use we make
of it.
 COGNITION is thus a rather broad umbrella term which includes many component processes, which partly explains
why psychologists have found it difficult to come up with a simple and unified definition of cognitive psychology.
 COGNITION involves various kinds of information processing which occur at different stages.
 As you think about those cognitive accomplishments, you are engaging in another cognitive task called
METACOGNITION, or thinking about your thought processes.
 COGNITION describes the acquisition, storage, transformation, and use of knowledge.
 Psychology as a discipline did not emerge until the late 1800s.
 1956 - The new cognitive approach was “born”
ARISTOTLE (384–322 BC)
- The first cognitive psychologist.
- He emphasized the importance of empirical evidence, or scientific evidence obtained by careful observation and
experimentation. His emphasis on empirical evidence and many of the topics he studied are consistent with
twenty-first-century cognitive psychology.
- He examined topics such as perception, memory, and mental imagery.
WILHELM WUNDT
- A central researcher in the history of psychology.
- He lived in Leipzig, Germany between 1832 and 1920.
- Historians often give credit to Wundt for creating the new discipline of psychology—a discipline that was
separate from philosophy and physiology. Within several years, students journeyed from around the world to
study with Wundt, who taught about 28,000 students during the course of his lifetime
- He proposed that psychology should study mental processes, using a technique called INTROSPECTION.
- INTROSPECTION, in this case, meant that carefully trained observers would systematically analyze their own
sensations and report them as objectively as possible
HERMAN EBBINGHAUS (1850–1909)
- He constructed more than 2,000 nonsense syllables (for instance, DAK) and tested his own ability to learn these
stimuli.
- He examined a variety of factors that might influence performance, such as the amount of time between list
presentations.
MARY WHITON CALKINS (1863–1930)
- She reported a memory phenomenon called the recency effect.
- She was the first woman to be president of the American Psychological Association. In connection with that role,
she developed guidelines for teaching college courses in introductory psychology
 RECENCY EFFECT refers to the observation that our recall is especially accurate for the final items in a series of
stimuli.
WILLIAM JAMES (1842–1910)
- He was not impressed with Wundt’s introspection technique or Ebbinghaus’s research with nonsense syllables.
- He preferred to theorize about our everyday psychological experiences
 PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY provides detailed descriptions about people’s everyday experience. It also emphasizes
that the human mind is active and inquiring.
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
BEHAVIORISM - During the first half of the twentieth century, behaviorism was the most prominent theoretical
perspective in the United States.
 The most prominent early behaviorist was the U.S. psychologist JOHN B. WATSON (1913), who lived from 1878–
1958.
 GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY emphasizes that we humans have basic tendencies to actively organize what we see;
furthermore, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts
 Gestalt psychologists constructed a number of laws that explain why certain components of a pattern seem to
belong together.
 Gestalt psychologists also emphasized the importance of insight in problem solving.
FREDERIC C. BARTLETT (1886–1969)
- A British psychologist
- He used meaningful materials, such as lengthy stories.
- He discovered that people made systematic errors when trying to recall these stories. Bartlett proposed that
human memory is an active, constructive process, in which we interpret and transform the information we
encounter. We search for meaning, trying to integrate this new information so that it is more consistent with
our own personal experiences.
RICHARD ATKINSON AND RICHARD SHIFFRIN (1968)
- They developed a model that became tremendously popular within the emerging field of cognitive psychology.
- MODAL MODEL - the Atkinson-Shiffrin theory quickly became the standard model.
- THE ATKINSON-SHIFFRIN MODEL proposed that memory can be understood as a sequence of discrete steps, in
which information is transferred from one storage area to another.
 SENSORY MEMORY is a storage system that records information from each of the senses with reasonable accuracy.
 EXTERNAL STIMULI from the environment
 SHORT-TERM MEMORY (now called working memory) contains only the small amount of information that we are
actively using. Memories in short-term memory are fragile—though not as fragile as those in sensory memory
 LONG-TERM MEMORY has an enormous capacity because it contains memories that are decades old, in addition to
memories that arrived several minutes ago.
APPROACHES TO HUMAN COGNITION
- EXPERIMENTAL COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY: this approach involves trying to understand human cognition by
using behavioral evidence. Since behavioral data are of great importance within cognitive neuroscience and
cognitive neuro psychology, the influence of cognitive psychology is enormous.
- COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE: this approach involves using evidence from behavior and from the brain to
understand human cognition.
- COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY: this approach involves studying brain-damaged patients as a way of
understanding normal human cognition. It was originally closely linked to cognitive psychology but has recently
also become linked to cognitive neuroscience.
- COMPUTATIONAL COGNITIVE SCIENCE: this approach involves developing computational models to further our
understanding of human cognition; such models increasingly take account of our knowledge of behavior and the
brain.
REVIEWER IN COG PSY
MODULE 2

The nature of electrical signals in the brain and the pathways over which they traveled were just beginning to be
discovered in the 19th century.
RAMON Y CAJAL
- A Spanish physiologist who was interested in investigating the nature of the nerve net.
- He cleverly used two techniques to achieve his goal:
1. First, he used the Golgi stain, which stained only some of the cells in a slice of brain tissue.
2. Second, he decided to study tissue from the brains of newborn animals, because the density of cells in
the newborn brain is small compared to the density in the adult brain.
- Cajal’s discovery that individual units called neurons where the basic building blocks of the brain was the
centerpiece of neuron doctrine—the idea that individual cells transmit signals in the nervous system, and that
these cells are not continuous with other cells as proposed by nerve net theory.
BRAIN
- is an amazing three-pound organ that controls all functions of the body, interprets information from the outside
world, and embodies the essence of the mind and soul.
- Intelligence, creativity, emotion, and memory are a few of the many things governed by the brain.
- Protected within the skull, the brain is composed of the cerebrum, cerebellum, and brainstem.
a. CEREBRUM: is the largest part of the brain and is composed of right and left hemispheres. It performs
higher functions like interpreting touch, vision and hearing, as well as speech, reasoning, emotions, learning,
and fine control of movement.
b. CEREBELLUM: is located under the cerebrum. Its function is to coordinate muscle movements, maintain
posture, and balance.
c. BRAINSTEM: acts as a relay center connecting the cerebrum and cerebellum to the spinal cord. It performs
many automatic functions such as breathing, heart rate, body temperature, wake and sleep cycles,
digestion, sneezing, coughing, vomiting, and swallowing.
 CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM (CNS) is composed of the brain and spinal cord.
 PERIPHERAL NERVOUS SYSTEM (PNS) is composed of spinal nerves that branch from the spinal cord and cranial
nerves that branch from the brain.
 CORPUS CALLOSUM - a bundle of fibers
FUNCTIONS of LEFT HEMISPHERE (dominant in hand use and language in about 92% of people)
- Speech
- Comprehension
- Arithmetic
- Writing.
FUNCTIONS of RIGHT HEMISPHERE
- Creativity
- Spatial Ability
- Artistic
- Musical Skills.
LOBES of the BRAIN
- FRONTAL LOBE
a) Personality, behavior, emotions
b) Judgment, planning, problem solving
c) Speech: speaking and writing (Broca’s area)
d) Body movement (motor strip)
e) Intelligence, concentration, self-awareness
- PARIETAL LOBE
a) Interprets language, words
b) Sense of touch, pain, temperature (sensory strip)
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c) Interprets signals from vision, hearing, motor, sensory and memory
d) Spatial and visual perception
- OCCIPITAL LOBE
a) Interprets vision (color, light, movement)
- TEMPORAL LOBE
b) Understanding language (Wernicke’s area)
c) Memory
d) Hearing
e) Sequencing and organization
PROSOPAGNOSIA
- An inability to recognize faces.
- People with prosopagnosia can tell that a face is a face, but can’t recognize whose face it is, even for people they
know well such as friends and family members.
- people with prosopagnosia look into a mirror and, seeing their own image, wonder who the stranger is looking
back at them
 STROKE - sometimes called a brain attack, occurs when something blocks blood supply to part of the brain or when
a blood vessel in the brain bursts. In either case, parts of the brain become damaged or die. A stroke can cause
lasting brain damage, long-term disability, or even death.
5 WARNING SIGNS OF STROKE
1. Sudden numbness or weakness in the face, arm or leg (especially on one side of the body).
2. Sudden confusion or trouble speaking or understanding speech.
3. Sudden vision problems in one or both eyes.
4. Sudden difficulty walking or dizziness, loss of balance or problems with coordination.
 APHASIA - is a disturbance of language affecting speech production, comprehension, reading or writing, due to brain
injury, most commonly from stroke or trauma.
The type of aphasia depends on the brain area damaged:
1. BROCA’S AREA: lies in the left frontal lobe. If this area is damaged, one may have difficulty moving the tongue or
facial muscles to produce the sounds of speech. The person can still read and understand spoken language but
has difficulty in speaking and writing.
2. WERNICKE'S AREA: lies in the left temporal lobe. Damage to this area causes Wernicke's aphasia. The individual
may speak in long sentences that have no meaning, add unnecessary words, and even create new words. They
can make speech sounds, however they have difficulty understanding speech and are therefore unaware of their
mistakes.
POSITRON EMISSION TOMOGRAPHY (PET)
- was introduced in the 1970s
- PET takes advantage of the fact that blood flow increases in areas of the brain that are activated by a cognitive
task.
- To measure blood flow, a low dose of a radioactive tracer is injected into a person’s bloodstream.
REVIEWER IN COG PSY
MODULE 3
 PROPRIOCEPTION - a set of senses involving the ability to detect changes in body positions and movements.
TYPES of PERCEPTION
- Vision
- Touch
- Sound
- Taste
- Smell
 SOCIAL PERCEPTION - the ability to identify and use social cues about people and relationships, is another important
type of perception.
STEPS IN THE PERCEPTUAL PROCESS
1. THE ENVIRONMENTAL STIMULUS: The world is full of stimuli that can attract attention through various senses.
The environmental stimulus is everything in the environment that has the potential to be perceived.
2. THE ATTENDED STIMULUS: The attended stimulus is the specific object in the environment on which attention is
focused.
3. THE IMAGE ON THE RETINA: This involves light actually passing through the cornea and pupil and onto the lens
of the eye. The cornea helps focus the light as it enters the eye, and the iris of the eye controls the size of the
pupils in order to determine how much light to let in. The cornea and lens act together to project an inverted
image onto the retina.
4. TRANSDUCTION: The image on the retina is then transformed into electrical signals in a process known as
transduction. This allows the visual messages to be transmitted to the brain to be interpreted.
5. NEURAL PROCESSING: The electrical signals then undergo neural processing. The path followed by a particular
signal depends on what type of signal it is
6. PERCEPTION: In this step of the process, you perceive the stimulus object in the environment. It is at this point
that you become consciously aware of the stimulus.
7. RECOGNITION: Perception doesn't just involve becoming consciously aware of the stimuli. It is also necessary for
the brain to categorize and interpret what you are sensing. The ability to interpret and give meaning to the
object is the next step, known as recognition.
8. ACTION: The action phase of perception involves some type of motor activity that occurs in response to the
perceived and recognized stimulus. This might involve a major action, like running toward a person in distress, or
something as subtle as blinking your eyes in response to a puff of dust blowing through the air.
 PERCEPTION uses previous knowledge to gather and interpret the stimuli registered by the senses.
 OBJECT RECOGNITION, we identify a complex arrangement of sensory stimuli
THE VISUAL SYSTEM
Two terms to refer to perceptual stimuli:
- DISTAL STIMULUS is the actual object that is “out there” in the environment
- PROXIMAL STIMULUS is the information registered on your sensory receptors
 VISUAL INFORMATION that is registered on the retina (the proximal stimulus) must make its way through the visual
pathway, a set of neurons between the retina and the primary visual cortex.
PRIMARY VISUAL CORTEX
- Is located in the occipital lobe of the brain; it is the portion of your cerebral cortex that is concerned with basic
processing of visual stimuli.
- Primary Visual Cortex is only the first stop within the cortex. For instance, researchers have identified at least
thirty additional areas of the cortex that play a role in visual perception
 One important principle in Gestalt Psychology is that humans have basic tendencies to organize what they see;
without any effort, we see patterns, rather than random arrangements
ILLUSORY CONTOURS
- also called subjective contours
- we see edges even though they are not physically present in the stimulus
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Two factors help to explain how we perceive these illusory contours:
1. During the early stages of visual processing, some cells in the visual system respond to these illusory contours
2. During the later stages, the visual system tries to make sense of this disorderly jumble.
 According to the TEMPLATE-MATCHING THEORY, you compare a stimulus with a set of templates, or specific
patterns that you have stored in memory.
 One problem with the template-matching theory is that it is extremely inflexible.
 FEATURE-ANALYSIS THEORY is supported by research showing that people require more time to make decisions
about letters of the alphabet when those letters share many critical features. This theory is also supported by
neuroscience research using the single-cell recording technique.
REVIEWER IN COG PSY
MODULE 4

MEMORY is the processes involved in retaining, retrieving, and using information about stimuli, images, events,
ideas, and skills after the original information is no longer present.
ANTEROGRADE AMNESIA
- is a condition in which a person is unable to create new memories after an amnesia-inducing event.
- Anterograde amnesia may involve either partial or total inability to remember events that have happened. At
the same time, a person with this type of amnesia has intact long-term memories from before the incident.
RETROGRADE AMNESIA
- is a loss of memory-access to events that occurred or information that was learned in the past.
- It is caused by an injury or the onset of a disease.
DECLARATIVE OR EXPLICIT MEMORY
- is devoted to processing of names, dates, places, facts, events, and so forth.
- These are entities that are thought of as being encoded symbolically and that thus can be described with
language.
- In terms of function, declarative memory is specialized for fast processing and learning.
Atkinson and Shiffrin’s modal model of memory consists of three structural features:
1. SENSORY MEMORY is an initial stage that holds all incoming information for seconds or fractions of a second.
2. SHORT-TERM MEMORY (STM) holds 5–7 items for about 15–30 seconds.
3. LONG-TERM MEMORY (LTM) can hold a large amount of information for years or even decades.
DEMONSTRATION: Remembering Three Letters
1. You will need another person to serve as a participant in this experiment. Read the following instructions to the
person:
2. I will say some letters and then a number.
3. Your task will be to remember the letters.
4. When you hear the number, repeat it and begin counting backwards by 3s from that number.
WHAT IS THE CAPACITY OF SHORT-TERM MEMORY?
- Not only is information lost rapidly from STM, but there is a limit to how much information can be held there. As
we will see, estimates for how many items can be held in STM range from four to nine.
DEMONSTRATION: Digit Span
1. Using an index card or piece of paper, cover all of the numbers below.
2. Move the card down to uncover the first string of numbers.
3. Read the numbers, cover them up, and then write them down in the correct order. Then move the card to the
next string, and repeat this procedure until you begin making errors.
4. The longest string you are able to reproduce without error is your digit span.
 According to measurements of digit span, the average capacity of STM is about 5 to 9 items—about the length of a
phone number.
 CHUNKING - Miller (1956) introduced the concept of chunking to describe the fact that small units (like words) can
be combined into larger meaningful units, like phrases, or even larger units, like sentences, paragraphs, or stories.
DEMONSTRATION: Remembering Letters
1. Read the string of letters below at a rate of about 1 letter every 2 seconds,
2. And then cover the letters and write down as many as you can, in the correct order.
 CODING refers to the way information is represented.
Auditory Coding
- Involves representing items in STM based on their sound.
- One of the early experiments that investigated coding in STM was done by R. Conrad in 1964.
 VISUAL CODING involves representing items visually, as would occur when remembering the details of a floor plan
or the layout of streets on a map.
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DEMONSTRATION: Recalling Visual Patterns
1. Look at the pattern for 3 seconds
2. Then turn the page and indicate which of the square sneed to be filled in to duplicate the pattern.
 SEMANTIC CODING is representing items in terms of their meaning.
Working memory accomplishes the manipulation of information through the action of three components:
- The PHONOLOGICAL LOOP consists of two components:
1. PHONOLOGICAL STORE, which has a limited capacity and holds information for only a few seconds; and the
articulatory rehearsal process, which is responsible for rehearsal that can keep items in the phonological
store from decaying.
2. PHONOLOGICAL LOOP holds verbal and auditory information. Thus, when you are trying to remember a
telephone number or a person’s name, or to understand what your cognitive psychology professor is talking
about, you are using your phonological loop.
- VISUOSPATIAL SKETCH PAD holds visual and spatial information.
- CENTRAL EXECUTIVE is where the major work of working memory occurs.
 PHONOLOGICAL SIMILARITY EFFECT is the confusion of letters or words that sound similar.
 WORD LENGTH EFFECT occurs when memory for lists of words is better for short words than for long words.
 The CENTRAL EXECUTIVE coordinates how information is used by the phonological loop and visuospatial sketch pad,
and can therefore be thought of as an attention controller. Patients with frontal lobe damage have trouble
controlling their attention, as illustrated by the phenomenon of perseveration.
 The WORKING MEMORY MODEL has been updated to include an additional component called the episodic buffer,
which helps connect working memory with LTM and which has a greater capacity and can hold information longer
than the phonological loop or visuospatial sketch pad.