Chapter 1

Glossary

Automatic processing Processing that does not demand attention. It is not capacity limited or resource limited, and is not available for conscious inspection (contrasts with controlled processing).

Behaviourism An approach to psychology which constrains psychologists to the investigation of externally observable behaviour, and rejects any consideration of inner mental processes.

Blindsight The ability of some functionally blind patients to detect visual stimuli at an unconscious level, despite having no conscious awareness of seeing them. Usually observed in patients with occipital lobe lesions.

Bottom-up (or stimulus-driven) processing Processing which is directed by information contained within the stimulus (contrasts with top-down processing).

Broca’s area A region of the brain normally located in the left frontal region, which controls motor speech production.

Cell assembly A group of cells which have become linked to one another to form a single functional network. Proposed by Hebb as a possible biological mechanism underlying the representation and storage of a memory trace.

Cognitive neuropsychology The study of the brain activities underlying cognitive processes, often by investigating cognitive impairment in brain-damaged patients.

Cognitive psychology The study of the way in which the brain processes information. It includes the mental processes involved in perception, learning and memory storage, thinking and language.

Cognitive neuroscience The investigation of human cognition by relating it to brain structure and function, normally obtained from brain-imaging techniques.

Computer modelling The simulation of human cognitive processes by computer. Often used as a method of testing the feasibility of an information-processing mechanism.

Controlled processing Processing that is under conscious control, and which is a relatively slow, voluntary process (contrasts with automatic processing).

Double dissociation A method of distinguishing between two functions whereby each can be separately affected or impaired by some external factor without the other function being affected, thus providing particularly convincing evidence for the independence of the two functions.

Experimental cognitive psychology The scientific testing of psychological processes in human and animal subjects.

Feature detectors Mechanisms in an information-processing device (such as a brain or a computer) which respond to specific features in a pattern of stimulation, such as lines or corners.

Gestalt psychology An approach to psychology which emphasised the way in which the components of perceptual input became grouped and integrated into patterns and whole figures.

Lesion Tissue damage, which in the brain is usually caused by a stroke, a tumour, an infection, a direct injury, or a progressive disease such as Alzheimer’s dementia.

Long-term potentiation (LTP) A lasting change in synaptic resistance following the application of electrical stimulation to living brain tissue. Possibly one of the biological mechanisms underlying the learning process.

Neurotransmitter A chemical substance which is secreted across the synapse between two neurons, enabling one neuron to stimulate another.

Schema A mental pattern, usually derived from past experience, which is used to assist with the interpretation of subsequent cognitions, for example by identifying familiar shapes and sounds in a new perceptual input.

Synapse The gap between the axon of one neuron and the dendrite of another neuron.

Top-down (or schema-driven) processing Processing which makes use of stored knowledge and schemas to interpret an incoming stimulus (contrasts with bottom-up processing).

Wernicke’s area A region of the brain normally located in the left temporal region, which is concerned with the perception and comprehension of speech.

Summary

Cognitive psychology is the study of how information is processed by the brain. It includes the study of perception, learning, memory, thinking, and language.
Historically there have been four main strands of research which have all contributed to our present understanding of cognitive psychology. They are experimental cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, cognitive neuropsychology, and computer modelling of cognitive processes.
Experimental cognitive psychology has provided theories to explain how the brain interprets incoming information, such as the schema theory which postulates that past experience is used to analyse new perceptual input.
Computer modelling has provided models of human cognition based on information-processing principles, and it has introduced important new concepts such as feature-detector systems and processors of limited channel capacity.
Cognitive neuropsychology provides knowledge about brain function, based on the study of people who have suffered cognitive impairment as a result of brain injury.
Cognitive neuroscience makes use of brain imaging techniques to investigate the relationship between brain function and cognition.
Scientific studies of cognitive psychology have generated new concepts and theories, such as the distinction between top-down and bottom-up processing, and the distinction between automatic and controlled processing.
The study of consciousness has yielded some interesting findings but at present we have no real understanding of what consciousness is, or how it arises from neural activity.