The Cognitive Psychology course helps students develop an understanding of underlying cognitions processes that govern human behavior. This course examines the cognitive processes that allow us to perceive and attend to the world around us, store information for later retrieval, interact with others, and make decisions before performing actions. Understanding processes involving human mental functions would naturally include discussion topics such as attention, sensation and perception, memory, language, reasoning, and decision making. Students will learn to apply theories and findings to real-world situations and their own cognitive processes. The first module introduces the learners to the fundamental definition of cognition, cognitive psychology and what are the major areas that this field taps into. Understanding how the brain began to be studied within Psychology, to understanding the importance of cognition within the larger domain of Psychology will be covered. Furthermore, historical roots of the field – ranging from introspection as a practice to the entire cognitive revolution in the field would be taught to the learners.

Psychology research specially the research in Cognitive Psychology relies on systematic methods to study behavior and mental processes. Observation involves watching and recording behavior in natural or controlled settings to identify patterns without interfering. Experimental methods involve manipulating one variable (independent) to observe its effect on another (dependent), allowing researchers to draw conclusions about causality under controlled conditions. Psychobiological research provides concrete evidence about behaviour whereas self-report measures provide recollection of own cognition. In this module you will also explore case-study methods, and research ethics involving human participants.

The present module with engage in developing a theoretical and applicative understanding of visual perception, ranging from topics like bottom-up and top-down processing and majorly exploring gestalt principles in detail. The process of how sensation works in association to perception will also be discussed in the module.

Continuing on what was built up in the previous module, the present module will further explore visual perception, taking in consideration constructivist and Gibsonian approaches, and parallel distributed processing approach in relation to visual understanding of the world.

This module will cover the concept of attention, or the process by the virtue of which individuals select a few stimuli to focus on, out of multiple ones available in their environment. Theories of attention (Broadbent, Triesman, etc.) will be explored, along with controlled and automatic attentional processes. Application of these principles in real life will also be navigated in discussions.

A very crucial element of cognition is Memory and how people store and retrieve information. This module will allow learners to understand the most prominent model of Memory – Atkinson and Shiffrin’s Stage model of memory. Furthermore, concepts like working memory and various control processes will also be touched upon.

This module takes a deeper dive into the concept of Long-Term Memory and explores the various forms of it – episodic, semantic and procedural memories. It also talks about how memory storage is dependent on encoding specificity, retrieval cues, etc.

This module, in continuation to previous one, elaborates upon the nature and reasons of forgetting – both psychological (trace, decay and interference theories) and physiological (i.e., amnesia).

This module allows learners to enter into the space of ‘language’ from a cognitive lens and understand the smallest units of language (morpheme and phoneme). It also dives into how language is comprehended, produced and understood. Moreover, the module will also open up conversation on theories of language (Chomsky, Sapir–Whorf, connectionist models) and see how culture also shapes language.

This module opens up topics like reasoning, problem solving and cognitive biases. Being very applicative in nature, the module asks learners to constantly reflect upon their own lives and see how in everyday behavior, they tend to use these cognitive principles and biases. Lastly, concept of creative thinking will also be looked into.

This module looks into the relationship between emotion and cognition. It dwells into discussions around emotional influence on earlier studied concepts like attention, memory and decision-making. Giving due importance to emotions while understanding cognitive processes becomes crucial, when dealing with social situations.

The last module, being highly applicative, will look into the present trends in the field of cognitive psychology, especially those pertaining to internet and digital media. The impact of internet and A.I. on cognition and cognitive load will be studied, while navigating how multi-tasking has become a norm, thanks to fast-paced internets. Lastly, the relation of social media and self-concept will be evaluated.