Cognitive Psychology: Theory, Process, and Methodology
by Dawn M. McBride and J. Cooper Cutting
Instructor Resources
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Chapter 1. Introduction to Cognitive Psychology
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Overview of cognition: knowing, remembering, understanding, communicating, and learning. Discusses the advantages and pitfalls of human cognition.
How advancement in technology gave way to rethinking behaviorism, hence the advent of studying psychology via cognitive science, linguistics, computer science & A.I., and Neuroscience.
An explanation of Grounded Cognition: How cognition can be influenced by the states of your body and the environment.
This video describes some of the ways in which we apply the scientific method to psychological research.
Audio Clips
In this Radiolab episode, listen to the story of Mr. S., a man with seemingly limitless memory, and visit the World Memory Championships to meet expert brain stuffers.
An discussion of how and why our brain can occasionally be unsuccessful when remembering long lists of information, adding large numbers in our heads, or making long-term decisions.
Chapter 2. Cognitive Neuroscience
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Video Clips
One of the first clinical cases to contribute knowledge about brain function was that of
Phineas GageScientific American Frontiers with Alan Alda.
Phineas GageScientific American Frontiers with Alan Alda.
Talk by Erin Schuman at TEDxCaltech about the functionality of neurons. How neural networks create memories, and their inherent instability.
Explores the neurobiological basis of higher brain function. Looks at how groups of neurons work together. Breaking down the localities of the brain to understand how the brain functions.
Michael Posner discusses of a wide range of methods that have been used in cognitive neuroscience: Basic behavioral data like error rates and reaction times, to modern brain imaging techniques and reversible lesions methods.
An overview of the functions of mirror neurons, how they allow us to learn complex social behaviors, and their involvement in the evolution of our society.
A lesson on how to record amygdala activity with magnetoencephalography (MEG). Designing a trace conditioning paradigm using backward masking to manipulate awareness; Recording brain activity during the task using MEG; Using source imaging to recover signal from subcortical structures.
Audio Clips
BBC Radio 4's Mind Changers presents a series on the case of Phineas Gage, which taught researchers which section of the brain is important for reasoning abilities and control of emotion.
Neurologist V.S. Ramachandran describes how visual experiments have changed his patients' lives.
Episode 9: All or Nothing, from Dr. Geoff Bunn's 10-part History of the Brain series on BBC Radio 4, describes the invention of the electroencephalograph.
How magnetic stimulation can be applied to a person’s brain to alter their moral perceptions. How that can inform on how the brain makes moral judgements and the underlying mechanics.
An analysis of the inner workings of the brain concerning decision-making, when we make mistakes, and when intoxicated. fMRI paradigms are discussed.
An examination of the book “Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience.” The extent to which brain scans can inform on human behavior and the interworking of the mind contrary to popular thought.
Chapter 3. Perception
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Video Clips
In this video from the National Geographic Society, experimental neuroscientist Beau Lotto explores the world of optical illusions.
A discussion of perception and the brain, our lived experience of the world, and how it relates to being human.
A review of our ability to break down an image into its components (feature detection).
Dr. Irving Biederman, Harold W. Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Southern California, discusses the neural basis of object recognition.
A TED talk on how to relate illusions to happiness. How your visual expectations can be violated by perceptual illusions.
What is perception? What is the difference between sensing and perceiving? All this and more from Crash Course Psychology.
Neuroscientist and artist Beau Lotto demonstrates the secrets of the brain's visual system with his color games.
From Michael Britt's Psych Files, an examination of the principles of proximity, closure, similarith and more.
Prof. Michael Turvey at the Center for the Ecological Study of Perception and Action, University of Connecticut, discusses nonrepresentational perception and action.
Harry Heft, Professor of Psychology at Denison University, discusses the ecological approach to perception and action.
Researchers at Stanford University compare motion perception from a fly's and a human's perspective.
What a magician’s tricks can tell you about how the perception works. How the brain controls what we focus on and what we don’t.
How magicians channel research on deception to trick audiences into falling for illusions, and brain researchers’ parallel interest in how magicians manipulate people’s mind.
Audio Clips
A report on research that whether or not we are fooled by visual illusions may depend on our visual cortex size.
A report on research suggesting that curveballs are an optical illusion.
Chapter 4. Attention
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Video Clips
The three major theories of selective attention: Early selection theory, late selection theory, and attenuation theory
An overview of the study of attention from the turn of the last century until today and Posner’s model of three main attention networks that constitute the basis for consciousness.
The relationship between attention and visual perception: Visual perception, attention, and fMRI methods to study the perception-attention relation.
The "invisible gorilla" experiment: how we often miss major details when we're concentrating on something else.
Audio Clips
How memory can be deceiving and is strongly influenced by attention. A discussion on what it is that captures our focus.
From BBC Radio 4's Mind Changers, this program examines Donald Broadbent, whose model demonstrated that our attention is limited by the amount of information we can focus on at a particular time.
Debunking the myth that people can multitask effectively.
Dr. Gustav Kuhn of Goldsmiths, University of London discusses his article, published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, on what magic - one of the oldest art forms around - can teach us about human perception.
How our brain can trick us into thinking we know and see way more than we actually do. Intuition factors into how we make decisions (sometimes for worse), and how evolution can inform on why this might be.
Chapter 5. Memory Structures and Processes
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Video Clips
In this video from Big Think, neuroscientist Antonio Damasio describes how the brain records events.
Talk about the reconstructive nature of memory. Instead of recording every event in your life, the brain records conjunctions of the occurrence of certain events. Out of the conjunction, it can then replay and reconstruct.
The story of Clive Wearing, who is unable to make new memories due to viral encephalitis.
A discussion of what it must feel like to be a severely amnestic person living a life with no new declarative memories.
How our brain takes in and makes sense of information in our environment. An overview of the information processing model in terms of sensory, working, and long term memory.
A description of the evolving approaches to understanding memory over the course of the 20th century, and how the multi-component approach to working memory as a theoretical framework was developed. How the model links to long-term memory, perception, and action, and how they interact.
An examination of whether the brain's two major memory systems, implicit and explicit, have any common features. How implicit and explicit memory both have a short-term and long-term components.
Audio Clips
In this episode of Radiolab, find out why memory is a “concrete thing made of matter.”
Scientific American presents research on mind wandering and working memory capacity.
Stories about memory from PRI’s To the Best of Our Knowledge.
Chapter 6. Long-Term Memory: Influences on Retrieval
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Video Clips
Daniel Kilov explains why and how he became a memory athlete, and how being present to information around us can help each and every one of us improve our memory and recall.
A description of the “memory palace” technique and its most remarkable feature: anyone can learn how to use it.
The brain is designed to forget--and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Learn the basics of how we remember and forget, why memory is fallible, and why that can be dangerous.
A discussion of the adaptive nature of the organization of human long-term memory. Topics such as theory of disuse, storage strength, and retrieval strength are covered in relation to the brain’s functional architecture.
Covers Superior Autobiographical Memory and the handful of individuals who have this gift.
Audio Clips
Ways to make memory better through elevated focus. A discussion of the factors that play into enhancement as well as impairment of memory.
A discussion of childhood amnesia: when it starts, memories that might survive it, and how stories are a powerful tool in remembering.
For BBC Radio 4, Dr Mark Lythgoe investigates the science of memory erasing.
Chapter 7. Memory Errors
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Video Clips
Demonstrations of the malleability of memory: how false memories can be implanted in one’s memory.
A discussion of the accuracy of "flash-bulb memories.” How people remember in terms of gists
A talk on false memories: when people either remember things that didn't happen or remember them differently from the way they really were.
Dr. Larry Squire on what it feels like to be a severely amnestic person.
Audio Clips
BBC Radio 4’s Mind Changers looks deeper into The War of the Ghosts and a radical approach to the study of memory.
BBC Radio 4’s Mind Changers discusses Elizabeth Loftus’s world-renowned experiments on eyewitness testimony.
BBC Radio 4’s Mind Changers investigates H.M, “the man who couldn’t remember.”
In this episode of BBC Radio 4’s The Life Scientific, learn about neuropharmacology and its implications for society.
7-year-olds have clear memories of experiences from when they were 3 or younger, but childhood amnesia descends gradually.
Chapter 8. Imagery
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Chapter 9. Language
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Video Clips
Raney, G. E., Campbell, S. J., Bovee, J. C. Using Eye Movements to Evaluate the Cognitive Processes Involved in Text Comprehension. J. Vis. Exp. (83), e50780, doi:10.3791/50780 (2014). (JOVE-video journal)
Describes how to use eye tracking to study the cognitive processes involved in text comprehension. Descriptions of eye tracking equipment, how to develop experimental stimuli, and procedural recommendations are included.
An over view of the nativist, learning, and interactionist theories of human language development
The main perspectives of the relationship between thoughts and language: Universalism, Piaget, Vygotsky, Linguistic Determinism, Whorfian Hypothesis
An introduction to linguistics, the evolution of spoken language, and the debate over the existence of an innate universal grammar; why language is such a fundamental part of social relationships, human biology, and human evolution; applications for linguistics, from improving how we teach reading and writing to how we interpret law, politics, and literature.
Audio Clips
How the tip-of-tongue phenomenon relates to metacognition, and the complexity of the memory retrieval process.
Describing how MEG can be a powerful tool in studying how infants practice speech.
People tend to think in a given language. Thinking in terms of language can be influential in educating learners of a second language.
An examination of what happens in the brain when you read: The underlying structures that made it possible, especially considering that reading is a evolutionarily recent invention.
An exploration of animal cognition through the story of Alex, the African gray parrot.
Chapter 10: Concepts and Knowledge
Chapter 10. Concepts and Knowledge
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Chapter 11. Problem Solving
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Chapter 12. Reasoning and Decision Making
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Video Clips
A discussion of how choices are made and how we feel about the choices we make. The talk covers trivial and profound choices and their implications.
How we're not as rational as we think when we make decisions. Insight on this idea is provided by visual illusions and other research findings
How freedom of choice makes us freer but can lead to paralyzing choices. Our choices may make us happier but more dissatisfied.
What in our brains makes us different from other people? How neurobiology tries to link social sciences and biological sciences through the use of computational models
An explanation of what a heuristic is. How heuristics can influence our decisions in an uncertain world.
When to use which heuristics. Genetics, individual learning, and social learning are sources of what heuristics to use and when.
How one makes good decisions. Simple heuristic rules can influence good decisions under uncertainty.
An explanation of how the self can be influenced by experience and memory. Implications for economics, public policy, and self-awareness are discussed.
Audio Clips
How people engage in metacognition and how it influences one’s confidence in making decisions.
The extent to which rationality and emotion play into making decisions, and how to get better at making decisions.