The Theories, Concepts and Models in Cognitive Psychology Is Visible in Our Everyday Lives

Psychology was recognized as a science in 1879 by Wilhelm Wundt, who found the first psychological laboratory. His initiative was soon followed by other European and American Universities. These early laboratories, through experiments, explored areas such as memory and sensory perception, both of which Wundt believed to be closely related to physiological processes in the brain. The whole movement had evolved from the early philosophers, such as Aristotle and Plato. Today this approach is known as cognitive psychology.

Cognitive Psychology revolves around the notion that if we want to know what makes people tick then the way to do it is to figure out what processes are actually going on in their minds. Cognitive Psychology is used frequently in everyday life. They can be found in the media or discussed with your friends or even strangers. Psychological research findings are regularly found on TV, radio, internet and in newspapers. We come across all sorts of different kinds of cognitive psychological information; such as origins of behavior, consciousness the brain, Problem solving, Judgment and decision, Language processing, Learning, Reasoning, Eyewitness memory, Forgetting, Perception, Face Recognition, emotions and etc. These are always under debate in many different countries. These public debates help us to make cognitive psychology a visible part of everyday life. Media coverage can confuse us when wanting to find out about cognitive psychology. Cognitive psychological knowledge can be presented in number of different ways. Then we discuss some theories, concepts and models in cognitive psychology is visible in our everyday lives.

First we discuss about perception. After an electrical and chemical signal has gone all the way from a sensory neuron to the brain, perception occurs. Perception is when our brain transforms sensory experiences into meaningful ideas that can be processed and understood.

For example, when something touches our skin, the process of sensation sends a signal to our brain, but perception is when we realize what just happened. What is it that touched we? Was it something gentle, like a feather? Was it something hot, burning us? What part of our body was touched? Another example of perception is with vision. On the sensation level, all that happens is that the rods and cones inside our eye process light and color. But on the perception level, our brain recognizes images, such as what our mother looks like compared to our cat or when we look inside our fridge to decide what to eat. Perception is when our mind decides what just happened to us, and what it means.

The sensation and perception processes occur so quickly and automatically that we don't need to consciously think about them or even realize that they're happening. When our mind does something so often that it occurs without our conscious thought process, it's called automaticity. We have automaticity for certain well-practiced motions, like how to walk or even how to drive after years of practice. We also have automaticity for sensation and perception. However, this automaticity can lead to certain interesting mistakes, as well.

There are many theories of cognitive psychology we can see in day to day life. In every incident happened in everyday we can see cognitive psychological theory or concept. Decision making and judgment is major concept in cognitive psychology. Any behavior, implicit or explicit, requires judgment and then a decision or choice. Some decision making can be difficult. In real life, most decision making takes place in the absence of complete information. Many times we try to understand why, and how to make better decisions, consider that the “Truth” of something is not affected by anything but its actual truth. Let’s get very simple example just to make the point: If we went to super market or shop we decide what we will buy and how much money we spend. Also we have to make decisions both large and small throughout every single day