What is Cognitive Psychology?

Cognitive Psychology is the study of mental processes. There are three processes perceiving remembering and reasoning. For example, how Donald Trump perceived that Corona is a Chinese virus, he reasons that it originated from China, and now we all remember it as a past event that took millions of lives.

The cognitive psychology can be defined as relating or involving one’s conscious to an intellectual activity (Perceiving, Reasoning and Remembering). The mental function of processing starts from the five senses (visual, hearing, touch, smell and taste) which immediately transforms physical stimuli into electrochemical signals. And then sensory information is constantly changed by the processes of the brain in both bottom-up and top-down processing.

Learning is ever-changing as it involves ever-changing knowledge, beliefs and attitudes towards something to us. But even though learning is always changing, it still has a rather lasting impact on how a learner thinks or acts. Whatever a student learns, he tends to gradually forget it over time. Because as soon as a piece of knowledge is encoded in our brain, we also immediately start to forget as well.

Human memory is not like a library or a computer chip, it is rather reconstructive. Every time we retrieve a memory, we reconstruct it, activate it and may alter it.

What is the Minimum Information Principle?

The minimum information principle is another interesting thing. It states that simpler questions are formulated for active recalling in the process of learning, and they bring much better outcomes compared to complex questions. Although one complex question can become equivalent to 2 or simpler questions.

The Difference between Cognition and Learning

Cognition and Learning are often considered the same thing, but they are not. Learning is just one branch of cognition, out of many others.

• Learning is a process of attaining information and everyone perceives it differently or in a new way as everyone has different experiences and diverse behaviour.
• For the process of learning, one needs to perceive, attain and process the newly available information, for this we require cognition.
• Cognition is a mental process of processing and understanding all types of information.

One may absorb information, then process it and then apply it in daily life as demanded. Every time we gain or learn anything from the sensory organs, we go through cognitive processes, the outcome of which is learning. It is the result of all cognitive processes. Thus we call it two-way communication.

The Cognitive Process

Since the cognitive process is a series of electrical and chemical signals that take place in our brains, there are multiple types of cognitive learning processes. The most common types are:

1. Attention
   Keeping the focus on your surrounding is a constant conscious effort.
   Example: To keep focused on different human interactions in a park.

2. Memory
   After attaining a piece of information, we instantly place it in our short-term memory, but much of it still becomes a long-term memory. The process of forming, storing and recalling memories displays a human’s level of intelligence and is also considered a vital part of cognition.
   Example: remembering birthdays without pondering.

3. Storage
   When a piece of information is encoded, it goes to one of the three storage units:

   • Sensory memory
   • Short-term memory
   • Long-term memory

   The brain decides where the information is stored.

Because of continuous effort, today’s educators and teachers are much more aware than the previous ones, and available scientific evidence is enough to differentiate between realities and myths. However, of course, there’s a long way before teachers are experts in scientific findings and can bring them to practice in classrooms without any hesitation.

Some strategies that a teacher can use to make sure that students remember their learnings:

• Retrieval Practice
  Teachers can teach students by pulling answers and information from them instead of cramming ideas.

• Feedback Sessions
  Can be:

  • Open class
  • Group-wise
  • One-to-one
  • Or a combination

  These improve students’ metacognition.

• Spaced Practice
  Helps with spreading lessons and revising over time instead of cramming.

• Interleaving
  Helps students understand similarities and differences between topics, improving long-term retention.

Main Learning Strategies for Teachers to Practice

Cognitive psychologist has presented six main strategies that can encourage learning and boost long-term retention:

1. Spaced Practice
   Students should follow a schedule for short study sessions daily or a few times a week.

2. Retrieval Practice
   Bringing knowledge from memory through quizzes or recall exercises.

3. Elaboration
   Asking “why” and “how” to deepen understanding.

4. Interleaving
   Mixing related topics to improve comparison and understanding.

5. Concrete Examples
   Easier to remember than abstract concepts.

6. Dual Coding
   Combining:

   • Verbal explanation
   • Visual aids (images, videos)

Ways to Improve Memory

Several methods can help improve memory:

• Don’t learn things you do not understand
• Use reference
• Keep question simples
• Learn the mnemonic technique
• Personalize and provide examples
• Cloze detention is fast and has a great mnemonic power
• Start from the basics before going into complexities
• Learn before you memorize
• Use redundancy (Similar items asking a similar question from different references)
• Pictures assist memory

Cognitive Learning Strategies that Teachers can Practice in Class

Cognitive teaching strategies focus on meaningful learning outcomes rather than memorization:

• Asking students to reflect on their experience
• Helping students find new solutions
• Encouraging discussions
• Helping students understand connections between ideas
• Asking students to justify their thinking
• Using visualizations to improve understanding

Every educator aims to:

• Motivate students
• Improve study strategies
• Apply research-based teaching methods
• Reduce negative views of testing

With the help of the information shared in this article, teachers and educators can significantly improve their teaching methodologies.

In the Skill Exchange Program, Ms. Qammar Un Nisa delivered a session on this topic. Excerpts from that session can be seen here:

Register here if you would like to request a one-on-one session with an experienced teacher.