1: Cognitive psychology: an introduction

Question 1

Definition of memory and cognition

Answer 1

Cognition is the collection of mental processes and activities used in perceiving, remembering, thinking, and understanding, as well as the act of using those processes.

Memory is the mental processes of acquiring and retaining information for later retrieval and the mental storage system that enables these processes. Memory refers to three different kinds of mental activities in this definition: initial acquistition of information (learning/encoding), subsequent retention of the information, and then retrieval of the information.

Question 2

Cognitive psychology

Answer 2

An empirical, scientific approach to human memory and throught. A branch of modern psychology usually called cognitive psychology. What drives the field is research, the results of experiments and the explanations of models and theories.

Question 3

Cognitive science

Answer 3

The scientific study of thought, language, the brain - in short, the scientific study of the mind.

Question 4

Cognitive science is a multidisciplinary field

Answer 4

This fusion of disciplines represents the conviction that researchers in linguistics, artificial intelligence, the neurosciences, and even anthropology can contribute important ideas to psychology and vice versa.