Perception and Memory in Cognitive Psychology: How Our Minds Work

Posted on Nov 11, 2024 in Psychology and Sociology

Psychology: Perception and Memory

1. How the Mind Works?

Thinkers throughout history have studied knowledge. In the 1960s, Cognitive Psychology emerged, focusing on the analysis of cognitive processes such as perception, memory, learning, and reasoning.

In the human mind, information gathered by the senses flows through a cognitive system with these components:

  • Attention
  • Perception
  • Memory

Humans are conceived as information processors:

  1. First, stimuli are received.
  2. These stimuli are transformed into nerve messages sent to the brain (sensation).
  3. The brain organizes these messages (perception).
  4. We store information in memory.

SENSORY REGISTRATION -> ATTENTION -> PERCEPTION -> MEMORY

2. How Does the Outside World Enter Our Minds?

Our first contact with the environment is through sensations. A sensation occurs when one of our senses is stimulated by physical energy. The body picks up this energy and transmits it along nerves to the brain, which receives and processes the information.

Stimulus: Any form of energy to which we respond (light waves, sound, etc.).

Sense: Physiological pathway by which we respond to a specific type of energy.

Sensation: A feeling that we experience in response to information received through the senses.

Stimuli are capable of producing sensations.

Absolute Minimum or Threshold: The smallest intensity of a stimulus that can be detected by the senses.

Maximum Threshold: The largest amount of stimuli that the senses can withstand.

Difference Threshold: Variable and depends on the intensity of the original stimulus.

We don’t always respond to all stimuli in our environment. We are highly sensitive to some stimuli and insensitive to others. The sensory system allows us to obtain the information necessary to function and survive.

How Many Senses Do We Have?

It’s commonly said that we have five senses, but there are many more.

The classical five senses are called exteroceptors and are responsible for capturing information from the external world.

Other senses are called interoceptors, which receive internal stimulation from the body, such as from the digestive system (hunger, thirst, etc.).

Proprioceptors: Located in muscles, joints, and tendons, they are responsible for muscle responses.

Nociceptors: Report on pain.

3. How Does the Brain Process Sensory Information? What is Perception?

We perceive objects through the senses, but the information is subsequently processed to give it meaning. This mental process is called perception.

Perception: “The process by which we obtain data from the outside world and meaningfully organize it within ourselves to become aware of the world around us.”

3.1. Features of Perception

  1. Perception is an external-internal dual process. It depends on both external stimuli and personal characteristics (motivation, expectations, etc.).
  2. Perception is a process of selection. We select stimuli, and this selection is called attention.

Attention is a kind of information filter and a warning mechanism for data.

Factors influencing attention:

  • External: Intensity, size, color, etc.
  • Internal/Biological: Needs and social interests.

Other phenomena that influence attention:

  • Increased attention to pleasant stimuli.
  • Diminished attention to unpleasant stimuli.
  • We stop paying attention to familiar or repetitive experiences; this is called habituation.

Attention can be of two types:

  • Sustained
  • Selective

3. Perception is subjective. We perceive what interests us; this is called perceptual bias.

Let’s break it down:

  • In the interpretation of data: What we expect influences what we perceive. We judge before knowing.
  • The content: Desires, memories, and emotions affect perception.

4. The social context influences perception. Education and culture influence perception. There are perceptual variations among individuals from different cultures. We learn from others to perceive the environment.

3.2. How Do We Perceive? Theories

3.2.1. Association Theory

Considers perception as a patchwork of sensations. Sensations are perceived first in isolation, and then the brain associates these sensations to build the overall perception of the object. “The subject adopts a passive role.”

3.2.2. Cognitive Theory

Studies perception by drawing analogies between the functioning of the mind and computers. It’s a constructive process by the subject. “The subject is active.”

3.2.3. Gestalt Theory

We don’t perceive isolated stimuli but rather organized wholes. When humans receive a set of sensations, they organize them into a gestalt (form). For this school of thought, the perceptual field itself is organized according to certain principles:

a) Configuration: We perceive objects as distinct from their environment (figure-ground).

b) Grouping of stimuli: The figure itself is imposed according to these laws:

  • Proximity: We tend to perceive stimuli that are close together as grouped.
  • Similarity: We perceive similar figures as grouped.
  • Continuity: We perceive visual components that make up lines as connected.
  • Closure: If a figure has holes, we tend to close them to create a whole object.

c) Perceptual Constancy: We perceive objects as stable and constant, even when their sensory information changes. This construction is called perceptual constancy, which is vital for adaptation to the environment.

3.3. Can the Perceptual Process Suffer Alterations?

The most important alterations are:

Illusions: Sometimes the sensory data are misleading. Many optical illusions depend on how we look at things. Typically, there is always a real object as a reference point, which is perceived as distorted.

Hallucinations: When the subject perceives something that is not actually present. These can be:

  • Simple, like flashes of light.
  • Complex, like voices.

4. What is Human Memory?

What is Memory?

It’s a mental ability that allows us to store, retain, and retrieve information about past events.

Bansford suggests that when people read stories, they construct meaning, and it is these constructions that are remembered.

Memory involves processes that construct and reconstruct information. We memorize new things based on what we already know.

Our memories are influenced by different processes; we don’t remember exactly what happened but rather what we believe happened.

Memory is related to the entire process of thought. Memory consists of a series of interconnected complex systems that behave differently. We don’t have one memory but many.

4.1. How Does Memory Work? Theories

Associations

For the associative perspective, memory is a copy of reality, and events are associated if they occur together. The greater the frequency with which two elements appear together, the stronger the association between them.

The longer we spend learning new information, the more we retain.

Rationalist Psychology – Cognitive

For the rationalist perspective, humans construct their memories. Bartlett argued that studying nonsense syllables only reveals the mechanisms of repetition but ignores the most important aspect: meaning.

They argue that memory is not merely reproducing what we perceive but constructing our own memories. New information alters what we already knew, and there is a reorganization to integrate the new information.

Remembering an event requires three steps: encoding, storage, and retrieval. This is often compared to a computer’s memory.

Memory has three components:

  • Sensory Register
  • Short-Term Storage
  • Long-Term Storage
4.1.1. Characteristics of Memory Systems
Sensory Memory

Gathers information we obtain from the external environment and keeps it for a short period before transmitting it to Short-Term Memory or it disappears. There may be a separate sensory memory for each sense.

Short-Term Memory

Part of sensory memory goes to short-term memory, which is a set of temporary storage systems.

It has two main characteristics:

  • Limited storage capacity
  • Brevity of retention

If a learning task involves too much information, short-term memory is overloaded, and information is lost. However, information can be grouped into chunks (meaningful units of information) that the subject constructs to store more information.

Long-Term Memory

Refers to information stored for a long time. Sometimes we can’t remember something, but that doesn’t mean it has been erased.

E. Tulving distinguishes two types of long-term memory:

  • Episodic: Remembering specific events or experiences.
  • Semantic: General knowledge about the world, containing abstract content and organized by language.

5. How are Memories Retrieved?

Prior knowledge affects memory. If we want to remember something easily, we should store the memory in an organized way.

Factors that influence recall:

  • We remember best what appears first and last (primacy and recency effects).
  • We remember unusual or distinctive things better.
  • We remember events associated with intense emotions better.

In short, the organization of information, prior knowledge, and emotional factors favor recall.

5.1. What is Forgetting?

We learn because we forget.

Laws of forgetting:

  • Disuse: The less we use information, the more we tend to forget it.
  • Interference: New learning can interfere with and distort our previous learning.
  • Retrieval Failure: Nothing is truly forgotten; sometimes we simply cannot retrieve the information.
  • Motivation: We tend to forget unpleasant events and remember positive things better.

5.2. Can We Improve Memory?

Yes.

  • The amount of information retained depends on the depth with which information is processed during learning.
  • Organizing information improves memory (e.g., using concept maps, diagrams).
  • Using mnemonics (rhymes, acronyms) based on association can help us remember dates and names better.