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Essay / An Analysis of Hermann Ebbinghaus's Introduction to Cognitive Psychology
Psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus was the pioneer of cognitive psychology, which has a long past with a very short history. The part of human thought has always been a fundamental focus of interest. Even a very ancient philosopher like Aristotle wanted to understand the working mechanisms of our mind. Psychology can be generally defined as the study of mental processing as well as behavior. Cognitive psychology is defined in the same way, but without the behavior. This is why behaviorism is a study in its own right, which can be compared and contrasted with cognitive psychology. Although cognitive psychology observes certain behaviors, it is only one way to understand the mental processing that takes place “under the hood.” These complex processes include attention, memorization, language comprehension, and even problem solving. Although these processes require complex thinking, we rarely stop to “think” about what we are actually thinking. Psychologist John B. Watson suggested we separate psychology from consciousness so we can focus solely on the behavioral perspective. Many experimental methods of searching for measurements, observations and repeatability, which cognitive psychology is incapable of using. These methods are among the most instrumental in developing research conclusions that have led to some of the most important advances in history. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Watson's approach was later called Behaviorism, it rejected the scientific aspects of psychology while emphasizing the study of observable stimuli with observable responses. This has led behaviorism to also be called SR psychology. In many cases, you cannot observe the same experimental methods and come to the same conclusions as with cognitive psychology, even though cognitive psychology observes few behaviors that explain why the brain processes the way it does. Behaviorists do not dismiss the need for consciousness, but they do reject the idea of it being studied in any meaningful way. For both psychologists, the intention is to fully understand the mind and everything it inhabits. The cognitive psychologist simply believes that it is by studying the actual processing of the mind that one can arrive at the answer. Behaviorist believes that human behavior is the key to understanding how our brain works. However, they both agree that without awareness and behaviors, they would find themselves “at a standstill” in their research. Most of our research on attention is characterized by the terms preattentive and postattentive processing. Preattentive processing is generally characterized as occurring relatively quickly, primarily before attention is focused on the stimuli. You could say it's about arriving at the conclusion before you start thinking. Thoughts that occur pre-attentively are also considered synesthetic experiences. Pre-attentive and post-attentive processes contrast in how we think about objects. With postattentive processing, we can actually count objects if there are more than a small amount of them, or focus on something for longer than if we were thinking about it preattentively. In the example of pre-attentive counting of sheep, if you see two, chances are you haven't counted in your head, one and two. You automatically see the)