COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Cognitive Psychology is a branch of psychology that deals with the mental processes that takes place in a person’s mind. It is mainly concerned with how people react, speak, think, solve problems and perceive things. The term cognitive psychology was coined by Ulric Neisser in 1967. It is also closely related to philosophy, linguistics and a few other disciplines. Research field has benefited from cognitive psychology in devising ways to perk up memory power, perception enhancement and many other processes. Up and until the 50s, psychology was mainly consisted upon behaviorism but after the late 70s, the focus shifted to subjects like memory, problem solving ability and concentration.

Unlike the behaviorism that concentrates only upon an individual’s observable behavior, cognitive psychology concentrates upon the mental state. Cognitive psychology has turned into a core discipline of psychology that is generating a lot of job opportunities. This study can be used to test the level of intelligence of a person. An IQ test can indicate the performance capacity of a person. A person’s level of intelligence does not necessarily depend upon the bookish knowledge, but also from environment factors such as a how a person is brought up, the brain development and also dependent upon the nutritive intake of food.

Certain theories based on the study of cognitive psychology shows that every person is born with a certain level of intelligence that is imparted to him genetically. The extent to which he is able to broaden his intelligence depends on all these external factors and the knowledge gained. It is possible to increase the IQ by broadening the knowledge boundary a person possesses.

A person is capable of storing certain incidents in their short term memory and certain other incidents in their long term memory. It is the mind that decides whether to store a particular episode in long term or short term memory. It is solely dependent upon the impact that incident creates in the mind. This discipline of psychology is more of research because of the number of experiments and studies trials involved. Professors, educators and curriculum designers can have clear knowledge based on this study and it makes their work easy. Cognitive psychologists are involved in areas like consulting, government service, industrial managers and many more designations.

Questions:

• How will my career prospect be if I complete a degree in cognitive psychology?
•  Do I need to go extensive training before taking up a career?