The Cognitive Perspective In Psychology

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The Cognitive Perspective is considered to be a relatively new or modern approach in the field of psychology in regards to the study human behavior that started gaining attention around the late 1950s leading to what is also known as the “Cognitive Revolution” during which the definition of psychology started to deviate from the inclination to be classified as a study of behaviour given that pre-1950s, psychology was deemed as the study of behaviour by experimental psychologists who were influenced by the work of psychologists going along the lines of Pavlov’s work which emphasized on behaviorism arguing that the most objectively observable evidence is that which can be seen externally i.e., behavioral (Miller, 2003)

The cognitive perspective allowed researches to come up with conclusions regarding the characteristics of cognitive processes through the observation of certain behaviours in terms of consistency in behaviour, measurable by the rate of forgetting and reaction. The major emphasis of the cognitive perspective leans towards the study of cognitive function as the name suggests or in other words, the study of mental processes inclusive of but not limited to; attention, memory, language, perception and thinking. (McLeod, S. A. 2008)
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Considering that the cognitive perspective is the study of mental processes, the application is inexplicably large and vast, yet, among the various instances of the utilization of the cognitive perspective includes education and learning whereby mental constructs such as beliefs, traits, memories, emotions and motivation

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