Ch8. Cognitive Psychology — How Memory, Attention, and Thinking Work

The Birth of Cognitive Psychology

The 1960s “cognitive revolution” marked a turning point: psychology moved beyond the stimulus-response focus of behaviorism and began scientifically studying internal mental processes — memory, thinking, language, and problem solving.

Core metaphor: the human mind = an information-processing system
Input → Processing → Output

Memory Architecture — The Atkinson-Shiffrin Model

Sensory Memory:
→ Duration: 0.5–3 seconds
→ Capacity: very large but rapidly lost
→ Visual: iconic memory / Auditory: echoic memory

Short-Term Memory:
→ Duration: 15–30 seconds (without rehearsal)
→ Capacity: 7 ± 2 chunks (Miller's Law)
→ Only attended information enters

Long-Term Memory:
→ Duration: essentially unlimited
→ Capacity: effectively unlimited
→ Divided into declarative memory + procedural memory

Working Memory — The Baddeley Model

A more sophisticated model of short-term memory:

Central Executive:
→ Controls attention, selects strategies, plans actions

Phonological Loop:
→ Processes verbal information
→ The "inner voice"

Visuospatial Sketchpad:
→ Handles visual and spatial information
→ Mental maps, image rotation

Episodic Buffer:
→ Links to long-term memory

→ Working memory capacity is closely related to intelligence and learning ability

Long-Term Memory Classification

Declarative Memory (Explicit):
  Semantic memory:  factual knowledge ("Paris is the capital of France")
  Episodic memory:  personal experiences ("my graduation day")

Procedural Memory (Implicit):
  Skills and habits:  riding a bike, touch typing
  Priming:           past experience unconsciously influences later responses

Why We Forget

Decay Theory: memory traces weaken from disuse

Interference Theory:
- Proactive interference: older learning disrupts new learning
  (knowing Spanish interferes with learning Italian)
- Retroactive interference: new learning disrupts older memories

Retrieval Failure: the memory exists but there is no cue to access it
→ The tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon

Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve:
20 minutes after learning → ~58% retained
1 hour later             → ~44% retained
1 day later              → ~33% retained
→ Spaced practice (distributed learning) is the most effective counter-measure

Attention — Selecting and Focusing

Selective attention:
Cocktail party effect — you can hear your own name spoken across a noisy room

Dual-Process Theory:
System 1: fast, automatic, intuitive (unconscious)
System 2: slow, deliberate, logical (effortful)
→ Most everyday judgments are handled by System 1

Inattentional Blindness:
The invisible gorilla experiment — we can fail to notice something
directly in front of us if our attention is directed elsewhere

Cognitive Biases and Decision-Making

Research by Kahneman and Tversky:

Availability Heuristic:
→ We judge events as more common if they come to mind easily
→ Plane crashes vs. car crashes — we fear flying more, but driving is far
  more dangerous

Representativeness Heuristic:
→ We estimate probability by how closely something resembles a prototype
→ We ignore base rates

Confirmation Bias:
→ We selectively seek information that confirms our existing beliefs
→ We discount or ignore disconfirming evidence

Loss Aversion:
→ The pain of losing $1,000 is about 2.5× more intense
  than the pleasure of gaining $1,000

Problem Solving and Creativity

Problem-solving strategies:
Algorithm:   systematic and certain (but time-consuming)
Heuristic:   fast but prone to error

Insight:
→ The sudden "aha!" experience
→ A restructuring of how the information is organized

The 4 Ps of Creativity:
Person  (the creative individual)
Process (the creative process)
Press   (the creative environment)
Product (the creative output)

Key Takeaways

Memory structure: sensory (seconds) → short-term (30 sec, 7±2) → long-term (unlimited) Working memory: central executive + phonological loop + visuospatial sketchpad Forgetting: decay, interference, retrieval failure — combat with spaced practice System 1 (fast, intuitive) vs. System 2 (slow, logical) — biases originate in System 1

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