PART V

COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Cognitive psychology is about mental processes such as remembering, perceiving, understanding and producing language, solving problems, thinking and reasoning. It is an area of psychology which deals with abstract, invisible things which are not easy to pin down and define. Try asking yourself the question 'what is thought?'. Then when you have answered that go onto the next question, which is 'where is thought?'. The slipperiness of the notions that cognitive psychology deals with make it a particularly difficult area to study!

One of the central concerns of cognitive psychology is with the question of how information gets processed by the brain. It is not difficult to see why this is such an important question. The ability to act in ways which are recognisably human depends upon the ability to make sense of the world in which we live. Our contact with that world is via our senses; sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste. But the data that are picked up by our senses are raw, and most require processing and interpretation if they are to be useful to us. Our actions are at least partly based upon the processing and interpretation that goes on, so understanding these cog­nitive processes can help us understand what we do. The quantity and variety of work that explores these issues is huge and, like all sciences, this work ranges from the highly theoretical (see for example the follow­ing summaries of the papers by Craik & Lockhart, 1972, and Searle, 1980) to the directly applicable (see the summaries of Loftus & Palmer, 1974, and Baron-Cohen, Leslie & Frith, 1985).

Within cognitive psychology can be found all the standard dialogues and debates which are encountered in psychology as a whole. For exam­ple, should we study human cognition in highly controlled laboratory

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conditions (like Ebbinghaus, 1913) or would it be better to aim for a higher level of ecological validity at the expense of precision and replic­ability, as in Bartlett's work? The summary of Bartlett (1932) provides descriptions of these competing approaches. Should we always try and study cognitive phenomena by making direct observations of people's performance on tasks, or is it acceptable to rely on self-reports of cogni­tion? Young, Hay & Ellis (1985) took this latter, slightly unusual approach in their study of face recognition. And what about the nature-nurture controversy? How many of our cognitive skills do we learn through experience, and how many just unfold through matura­tion on the basis of inheritance? Gibson & Walk (1960) addressed this issue in the famous 'visual cliff' study. Finally, how much influence does culture have on our cognitive processes? Do all humans think and per­ceive in the same way, or are there differences across cultural divides? Deregowski's (1972) paper on picture perception tackles this important issue.

In this part, we have included some studies that look at the issues of perception, memory and mind. There are also a number of studies in other parts of this book that can be included under the broad heading of cognitive psychology. For example, the papers on social cognition in Chapter 2, and the papers on communication in Chapter 15. The cogni­tive approach is currently the most influential area of psychology, and though it starts from the core topics contained in this chapter it has far reaching theoretical and practical implications.

16 MEMORY

We take our memory for granted until it fails us. Then we experience all kinds of irritating phenomena, such as the feeling that the thing we want to recall is on the tip of our tongue but we can't quite remember it. On other occasions our memory will surprise us and we will recall unusual pieces of information or personal events for no obvious reason. Sometimes our memory plays tricks on us and we remember things that never happened. For example, do you have any memories of events where you can see yourself doing something? If, like many other people, you have 'memories' like this then it is obvious that they cannot be an accurate record of what you perceived at the time, because you could not have seen yourself. Your memory has made the event into a mental home movie and then sold it to you as a record of the event.

The study of memory is as old as the discipline of psychology, dating at least as far back as the work of Ebbinghaus in the 1880s (see Ebbing­haus, 1913). Indeed Ebbinghaus' investigations of his own memory are the starting point for our summary of one of Bartlett's influential studies (Bartlett, 1932). Bartlett is notable for trying to study the charac­teristics of everyday remembering, rather than the abstract properties of experimentally induced memories.

Loftus & Palmer's (1974) analysis of the accuracy of eyewitness testimony illustrates how cognitive psychology can be put to work in addressing important, real-life questions. People put a lot of faith in evidence supplied by eyewitnesses, both in the context of the court­room and in the context of everyday conversations about events. The faulty memories of some of Loftus and Palmer's subjects suggests that the testimony of eyewitnesses should perhaps be regarded more sceptically.

Craik & Lockhart's (1972) exposition of their levels of processing framework for memory research is an example of a paper which addresses a theoretical problem. and which is principally of interest to

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cognitive psychologists engaged in the study of memory. Their emphasis on the process of 'remembering', rather than on the structure of 'memory', resonates with Bartlett's earlier analyses.