Introduction

The operations of the mind, which are the topic matter of Cognitive Psychology, are so ubiquitous that they are difficult to address and even notice. A common experience of students of Cognitive Psychology is that by questioning and reflecting upon simple everyday activities, much of your ordinary mental life begins to seem quite extra-ordinary. For instance, reading this sentence involves perception, attention, language comprehension, and, hopefully, some kind of critical reflection on its contents. You will soon be in a position to appreciate that the feats accomplished by your mind on a normal basis are both more marvelous and more mysterious than any current computer animation or the most sophisticated special effects in movies.

It is testament to your mind’s success that its surprisingly complex operations are typically unconscious and thus remain unnoticed. In order to query its mechanisms we will thus have to adopt a specific mode of investigative curiosity that combines intuitions, speculative hypotheses, and empirical evidence (gained by several methodological approaches) in order to develop, refine and test scientific theories.

This course examines research on human and some animal cognitive processes, including perception, attention, memory, comprehension, reasoning, decision-making, problem-solving, and the interaction of all these. The course will give you an overview over past and current research and theory in cognitive psychology, a basic understanding of the empirical methods used, and an understanding of the ways in which knowledge of these processes has been applied to real-world problems and to improve the quality of life.