Psychology
Cognitive Psychology
This guide helps you get your bearings in Cognitive Psychology before you start exploring the interactive timeline, framework graph, and concept maps.
Before You Dive In
- Cognitive psychology emerged as a reaction against behaviorism in the 1950s–60s — it brought mental processes back as legitimate objects of study.
- The "cognitive revolution" was driven by information theory, linguistics (Chomsky), and early computer science — not just psychology.
- Start with the information processing framework (encoding → storage → retrieval) — it frames most experimental research in the field.
- More recent approaches (embodied cognition, ecological psychology) challenge the computer metaphor but haven't replaced it.
Key Terms to Know
Working memoryLimited-capacity system for temporarily holding and manipulating information.
SchemaMental framework for organizing and interpreting information based on prior experience.
Cognitive loadThe total amount of mental effort being used in working memory.
Dual-process theoryDistinguishes fast/automatic (System 1) from slow/deliberate (System 2) thinking.
PrimingExposure to one stimulus influences the response to a subsequent stimulus.
Common Confusions
Confusing cognitive psychology with neuroscience — cognitive psych studies mental processes at the functional level, not necessarily brain mechanisms.
Assuming "cognitive biases" are always irrational — many are adaptive heuristics that work well in typical environments.
Thinking the field is only about individual cognition — social cognition and situated cognition are major subfields.
Recommended Reading
Cognitive Psychology: A Student's Handbook— Michael W. Eysenck & Mark T. Keane
2020Thinking, Fast and Slow— Daniel Kahneman
2011Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience— E. Bruce Goldstein
2018How to Use the Interactive View
1
Explore the timeline
Open the interactive view and scan the framework timeline. Which frameworks came first? Which ones overlap? Where are the big transitions?
2
Read the articles
Click into individual frameworks to read what each one claims, where it came from, and how it relates to its neighbors.
3
Check the concept map
See how the key ideas within a framework connect. This is useful for figuring out what to learn first and what depends on what.
4
Test yourself
Take the quiz for any framework you've read about. It's a quick way to find out whether you actually understood the core ideas or just skimmed them.