Cognitivism (psychology)
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psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
, cognitivism is a theoretical framework for understanding the mind that gained credence in the 1950s. The movement was a response to
behaviorism Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understanding the behavior of humans and animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex evoked by the pairing of certain antecedent (behavioral psychology), antecedent stimuli in the environment, o ...
, which cognitivists said neglected to explain
cognition Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
.
Cognitive psychology Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning. Cognitive psychology originated in the 1960s in a break from behaviorism, which ...
derived its name from the Latin ''cognoscere'', referring to knowing and information, thus cognitive psychology is an information-processing psychology derived in part from earlier traditions of the investigation of thought and problem solving. Behaviorists acknowledged the existence of thinking but identified it as a behavior. Cognitivists argued that the way people think impacts their behavior and therefore cannot be a behavior in and of itself. Cognitivists later argued that thinking is so essential to psychology that the study of thinking should become its own field. However, cognitivists typically presuppose a specific form of mental activity, of the kind advanced by
computationalism In philosophy of mind, the computational theory of mind (CTM), also known as computationalism, is a family of views that hold that the human mind is an information processing system and that cognition and consciousness together are a form of c ...
. Cognitivism has more recently been challenged by
postcognitivism Movements in cognitive science are considered to be post-cognitivist if they are opposed to or move beyond the cognitivist theories posited by Noam Chomsky, Jerry Fodor, David Marr, and others. Postcognitivists challenge tenets within cognitivi ...
.


Cognitive development

The process of assimilating and expanding our intellectual horizon is termed as
cognitive Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
development. We have a complex
physiological Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...
structure that absorbs a variety of
stimuli A stimulus is something that causes a physiological response. It may refer to: * Stimulation ** Stimulus (physiology), something external that influences an activity ** Stimulus (psychology), a concept in behaviorism and perception * Stimulus (eco ...
from the
environment Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally * Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...
, stimuli being the interactions that are able to produce
knowledge Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...
and skills. Parents process knowledge informally in the home while teachers process knowledge formally in school.
Knowledge Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...
should be pursued with zest and zeal; if not, then learning becomes a burden.


Attention

Attention Attention is the behavioral and cognitive process of selectively concentrating on a discrete aspect of information, whether considered subjective or objective, while ignoring other perceivable information. William James (1890) wrote that "Atte ...
is the first part of cognitive development. It pertains to a person's ability to focus and sustain concentration. Attention can also be how focus minded an individual is and having their full concentration on one thing. It is differentiated from other temperamental characteristics like persistence and distractibility in the sense that the latter modulates an individual's daily interaction with the environment. Attention, on the other hand, involves his behavior when performing specific tasks. Learning, for instance, takes place when the student gives attention towards the teacher. Interest and effort closely relate to attention. Attention is an active process which involves numerous outside stimuli. The attention of an organism at any point in time involves three concentric circles; beyond awareness, margin, and focus. It is important to note that individuals have a mental capacity; there are only so many things someone can focus on at one time. A theory of cognitive development called information processing holds that memory and attention are the foundation of cognition. It is suggested that children's attention is initially selective and is based on situations that are important to their goals. This capacity increases as the child grows older since they are more able to absorb stimuli from tasks. Another conceptualization classified attention into mental attention and perceptual attention. The former is described as the executive-driven attentional "brain energy" that activates task-relevant processes in the brain while the latter are immediate or spontaneous attention driven by novel perceptual experiences.


Process of learning

Cognitive Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
theory mainly stresses the acquisition of
knowledge Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...
and growth of the mental structure.
Cognitive Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
theory tends to focus on conceptualizing the student's
learning Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, value (personal and cultural), values, attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, and some machine learning, machines ...
process: how information is received; how information is processed and organized into existing schema; how information is retrieved upon recall. In other words, cognitive theory seeks to explain the process of
knowledge Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...
acquisition and the subsequent effects on the mental structures within the mind. Learning is not about the mechanics of what a learner does, but rather a process depending on what the learner already knows (existing information) and their method of acquiring new
knowledge Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...
(how they integrate new information into their existing schemas). Knowledge acquisition is an activity consisting of internal codification of mental structures within the student's mind. Inherent to the theory, the student must be an active participant in their own learning process. Cognitive approaches mainly focus on the mental activities of the learner like mental planning, goal setting, and organizational strategies. In
cognitive Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
theories not only the environmental factors and instructional components play an important role in learning. There are additional key elements like learning to code, transform, rehearse, and store and retrieve the information. The learning process includes learner's thoughts, beliefs, and attitude values.


Role of memory

Memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...
plays a vital role in the
learning Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, value (personal and cultural), values, attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, and some machine learning, machines ...
process. Information is stored within memory in an organised, meaningful manner. Here, teacher and designers play different roles in the
learning Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, value (personal and cultural), values, attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, and some machine learning, machines ...
process. Teachers supposedly facilitate learning and the organization of information in an optimal way. Whereas designers supposedly use advanced techniques (such as analogies and hierarchical relationships) to help learners acquire new information to add to their prior
knowledge Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...
. Forgetting is described as an inability to retrieve information from memory.
Memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...
loss may be a mechanism used to discard situationally irrelevant information by assessing the relevance of newly acquired information.


Process of transfer

According to
cognitive Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
theory, if a learner knows how to implement
knowledge Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...
in different contexts and conditions then we can say that transfer has occurred.Schunk, 1991 Understanding is composed of knowledge - in the form of rules, concepts and discrimination. Knowledge stored in
memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...
is important, but the use of such knowledge is also important. Prior knowledge will be used for identifying similarities and differences between itself and novel
information Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random ...
.


Types of learning explained in detail by this position

Cognitive theory mostly explains complex forms of learning in terms of reasoning, problem solving and information processing. Emphasis must be placed on the fact that the goal of all aforementioned viewpoints is considered to be the same - the transfer of knowledge to the student in the most efficient and effective manner possible. Simplification and standardization are two techniques used to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of knowledge transfer. Knowledge can be analysed, decomposed and simplified into basic building blocks. There is a correlation with the behaviorist model of the knowledge transfer environment. Cognitivists stress the importance of efficient processing strategies.


Basic principles of the cognitive theory and relevance to instructional design

A behaviorist uses feedback (reinforcement) to change the behavior in the desired direction, while the cognitivist uses the feedback for guiding and supporting the accurate mental connections.Thompson, A., Simonson, M., & Hargrave, C. (1992). Educational technology: A review of the research. Washington, DC: Association for Educational Communications and Technology. For different reasons learners' task analyzers are critical to both cognitivists and behaviorists. Cognitivists look at the learner's predisposition to learning (How does the learner activate, maintain, and direct his/her learning?). Additionally, cognitivists examine the learner's 'how to design' instruction that it can be assimilated. (i.e., what about the learners existing mental structures?) In contrast, the behaviorists look at learners how to determine where the lesson should begin (i.e., at what level the learners are performing successfully?) and what are the most effective reinforcements (i.e., What are the consequences that are most desired by the learner?). There are some specific assumptions or principles that direct the instructional design: active involvement of the learner in the learning process, learner control, metacognitive training (e.g., self-planning, monitoring, and revising techniques), the use of hierarchical analyses to identify and illustrate prerequisite relationships (cognitive task analysis procedure), facilitating optimal processing of structuring, organizing and sequencing information (use of cognitive strategies such as outlining, summaries, synthesizers, advance organizers etc.), encouraging the students to make connections with previously learned material, and creating
learning Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, value (personal and cultural), values, attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals, and some machine learning, machines ...
environments (recall of prerequisite skills; use of relevant examples, analogies).


Structuring instruction

Cognitive Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
theories emphasize mainly on making
knowledge Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...
meaningful and helping learners to organizing relate new
information Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random ...
to existing
knowledge Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...
in
memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...
. Instruction should be based on students existing schema or mental structures, to be effective. The organisation of information is connected in such a manner that it should relate to the existing knowledge in some meaningful way. The examples of
cognitive Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
strategy are Analogies metaphors. The other cognitive strategies includes the use of framing, outlining the mnemonics, concept mapping, advance organizers and so forth. The cognitive theory mainly emphasizes the major tasks of the teacher / designer and includes analyzing that various learning experiences to the learning situation which can impact learning outcomes of different individuals. Organizing and structuring the new information to connect the learners previously acquired knowledge abilities and experiences. The new information is effectively and efficiently assimilated/accommodated within the learners cognitive structure.


Theoretical approach

Cognitivism has two major components, one methodological, the other theoretical. Methodologically, cognitivism has a positivist approach and says that psychology can be (in principle) fully explained by the use of the
scientific method The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientific m ...
, there is speculation on whether or not this is true. This is also largely a reductionist goal, with the belief that individual components of mental function (the 'cognitive architecture') can be identified and meaningfully understood. The second says that
cognition Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
contains discrete and internal mental states (
representations ''Representations'' is an interdisciplinary journal in the humanities published quarterly by the University of California Press. The journal was established in 1983 and is the founding publication of the New Historicism movement of the 1980s. It ...
or
symbols A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different conc ...
) that can be changed using rules or
algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specificat ...
s. Cognitivism became the dominant force in
psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
in the late-20th century, replacing
behaviorism Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understanding the behavior of humans and animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex evoked by the pairing of certain antecedent (behavioral psychology), antecedent stimuli in the environment, o ...
as the most popular paradigm for understanding mental function.
Cognitive psychology Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning. Cognitive psychology originated in the 1960s in a break from behaviorism, which ...
is not a wholesale refutation of behaviorism, but rather an expansion that accepts that mental states exist. This was due to the increasing criticism towards the end of the 1950s of simplistic learning models. One of the most notable criticisms was
Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...
's argument that language could not be acquired purely through conditioning, and must be at least partly explained by the existence of internal mental states. The main issues that interest cognitive psychologists are the inner mechanisms of human thought and the processes of knowing. Cognitive psychologists have attempted to shed some light on the alleged mental structures that stand in a causal relationship to our physical actions.


Criticisms of psychological cognitivism

In the 1990s, various new theories emerged and challenged cognitivism and the idea that thought was best described as computation. Some of these new approaches, often influenced by phenomenological and
postmodern philosophy Brian Duignan writes on the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' that Postmodern philosophy is a philosophical movement that arose in the second half of the 20th century as a critical response to assumptions allegedly present in modernist philosophical i ...
, include
situated cognition Situated cognition is a theory that posits that knowing is inseparable from doing by arguing that all knowledge is situated in activity bound to social, cultural and physical contexts. Under this assumption, which requires an epistemological shift ...
,
distributed cognition Distributed cognition is an approach to cognitive science research that was developed by cognitive anthropologist Edwin Hutchins during the 1990s. From cognitive ethnography, Hutchins argues that mental representations, which classical cognitive s ...
,
dynamicism Dynamicism, also termed the ''dynamic hypothesis'' or the ''dynamic hypothesis in cognitive science'' or ''dynamic cognition'', is a approach in cognitive science polpularized by the work of philosopher Tim van Gelder Tim van Gelder is the co-f ...
and
embodied cognition Embodied cognition is the theory that many features of cognition, whether human or otherwise, are shaped by aspects of an organism's entire body. Sensory and motor systems are seen as fundamentally integrated with cognitive processing. The cognit ...
. Some thinkers working in the field of
artificial life Artificial life (often abbreviated ALife or A-Life) is a field of study wherein researchers examine systems related to natural life, its processes, and its evolution, through the use of simulations with computer models, robotics, and biochemistry ...
(for example
Rodney Brooks Rodney Allen Brooks (born 30 December 1954) is an Australian roboticist, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, author, and robotics entrepreneur, most known for popularizing the actionist approach to robotics. He was a Panasonic Profes ...
) have also produced non-cognitivist models of cognition. On the other hand, much of early cognitive psychology, and the work of many currently active cognitive psychologists does not treat cognitive processes as computational. The idea that mental functions can be described as information processing models has been criticised by
philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
John Searle John Rogers Searle (; born July 31, 1932) is an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy. He began teaching at UC Berkeley in 1959, and was Willis S. and Mario ...
and
mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...
Roger Penrose Sir Roger Penrose (born 8 August 1931) is an English mathematician, mathematical physicist, philosopher of science and Nobel Laureate in Physics. He is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics in the University of Oxford, an emeritus fello ...
who both argue that computation has some inherent shortcomings which cannot capture the fundamentals of mental processes. * Penrose uses Gödel's incompleteness theorem (which states that there are mathematical truths which can never be proven in a sufficiently strong mathematical system; any sufficiently strong system of axioms will also be incomplete) and Turing's
halting problem In computability theory, the halting problem is the problem of determining, from a description of an arbitrary computer program and an input, whether the program will finish running, or continue to run forever. Alan Turing proved in 1936 that a g ...
(which states that there are some things which are inherently non-computable) as evidence for his position. * Searle has developed two arguments, the first (well known through his
Chinese room The Chinese room argument holds that a digital computer executing a program cannot have a " mind," "understanding" or "consciousness," regardless of how intelligently or human-like the program may make the computer behave. The argument was pres ...
thought experiment A thought experiment is a hypothetical situation in which a hypothesis, theory, or principle is laid out for the purpose of thinking through its consequences. History The ancient Greek ''deiknymi'' (), or thought experiment, "was the most anci ...
) is the '
syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...
is not
semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy Philosophy (f ...
' argument—that a program is just syntax, while understanding requires semantics; therefore programs (hence cognitivism) cannot explain understanding. Such an argument presupposes the controversial notion of a private language. The second, which Searle now prefers but is less well known, is his 'syntax is not physics' argument—nothing in the world is intrinsically a computer program except as applied, described, or interpreted by an observer, so either everything can be described as a computer and trivially a brain can but then this does not explain any specific mental processes, or there is nothing intrinsic in a brain that makes it a computer (program). Many oppose these views and have criticized his arguments, which have created significant disagreement. Both points, Searle claims, refute cognitivism. Another argument against cognitivism is the problems of Ryle's Regress or the homunculus fallacy. Cognitivists have offered a number of arguments attempting to refute these attacks.


See also

* * * * * * * * * * * * *


References


Further reading

* Costall, A. and Still, A. (eds) (1987) ''Cognitive Psychology in Question''. Brighton: Harvester Press Ltd. * Searle, J. R
''Is the brain a digital computer''
APA Presidential Address * Wallace, B ., Ross, A., Davies, J.B., and Anderson T., (eds) (2007) ''The Mind, the Body and the World: Psychology after Cognitivism''. London: Imprint Academic. {{DEFAULTSORT:Cognitivism (Psychology) Psychological theories Psychological schools Cognitive psychology Cognitive science Philosophy of psychology Psychological concepts