ABSTRACT
Cognitive psychology is all about how internal (mental) processes affect our behaviours and experiences. It focuses on things like memory, perception, language and attention. Behaviours that we may feel are simple do involve complex mental processes. Just finding your way from A to B requires the skills of memory, paying attention and using your perceptual system to understand the world around you! What's in this unit?
The specification lists the following things that you will need to be able to do for the examination:
Describe the processes of encoding (input), storage and retrieval (output)
Describe the multistore, reconstructive and levels of processing explanations of memory
Describe and evaluate studies to investigate explanations of memory
Describe explanations and studies of forgetting, including interference, context and brain damage (retrograde and anterograde amnesia)
Describe and evaluate studies of eyewitness testimony, including Loftus and Palmer (1974) and Bruce and Young (1998)
Outline practical applications of memory, e.g. memory aids
