The founder of experimental and cognitive psychology. Cognitive psychology and cognitive psychotherapy

Under the concept cognitive psychology The section of psychology involved in the study of cognitive processes occurring in human consciousness. This science was born as a kind of protest behaviorism, fully excluded from the field of studies such mental functions, such as attention.

Arriving in a peak to one psychological flow, today cognitive psychology developed into a powerful science, which includes cognitive linguistics, neuropsychology and many other sections, even cognitive ethology engaged in the study of animal intelligence.

Theory of cognitive psychology

The essence of cognitive psychology It is to consider a person as a scientist building a hypothesis and scheme, and then inspecting their justification in practice. A person acts as a kind of computer that perceives external signals in the form of light, sound, temperature and other stimuli through receptors, and then processing this information that analyzes it and creating templates on this basis to solve certain problems and tasks on this basis. Based on cognitive psychology lies research Memory, attention, sensations, consciousness, imagination and other mental processes. All of them are divided into cognitive and executive, each of them consists of a variety of structural components (blocks).

Of particular importance in this science is given to such a practical sphere as cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy. The fundamental concept of this branch of cognitive psychology is the so-called construct. It includes the peculiarities of speech, thinking, memory and perception and represents the measure, the classifier of perception by man himself and other people. The system consists of the system. If this template turns out to be ineffective, then a person with a healthy psyche transforms it, or refuses it completely, looking for among those who are ready or creating a new one.

Who can help cognitive psychology?

Cognitive psychotherapists proceed from the assumption that the cause of all psyche disorders (depression, phobias, etc.) are incorrect, that is dysfunctional constructs (settings, opinions). In such a way, the main method of cognitive psychology in this regard becomes a replacement in the process of treatment of non-working circuits by creating new ones. This is done under control and with the help of a psychotherapist, but the doctor only initializes (stimulates) the process, and then adjusts its current. As in many other areas of psychology and psychiatry, a lot depends here on the patient himself.

Thanks to the cognitive therapy, the following tasks are solved: treatment of mental disorders or a decrease in their manifestations; reducing the risk of recurrence; strengthening the effectiveness of medication therapy; elimination of psychosocial causes or consequences of disorder; Correction of erroneous constructs.

Cognitive psychology

Cognitive psychology- this is a scientific study of the thinking mind; It concerns the following questions:

How do we pay attention to information about the world and collect it?

How does the brain save and processes this information?

How do we solve problems, think and formulate your thoughts using the language?

Cognitive psychology covers the entire range mental processes - from the sensation to perception, neuroscience, pattern recognition, attention, consciousness, learning, memory, the formation of concepts, thinking, imagination, memorization, language, intelligence, emotions and development processes; It concerns all sorts of behavior.

Fig. one . The main directions of research in cognitive psychology

History

Cognitive psychology originated in the late 50s - early 60s of the XX century. On September 11, 1956, a special group of the Institute of Electric and Electronic Engineering, which engaged in information theory was gathered at the Massachusetta Technological Institute. It is believed that this meeting marked the beginning of the cognitive revolution in psychology. The cognitive destination in psychology does not have a "founder's father", such as psychoanalysis. However, we can name the names of scientists who laid the foundation of cognitive psychology with their works. George Miller, Jerome Brunner, Ulric Nisser, George Kelly, Herbert Simon, Allen Newell, Noam Homski, David Green, John Svitts. George Miller and Jerome Brunner in 1960 organized the center of cognitive studies, where we developed a wide range of problems: language, memory, perceptual processes and processes of concepts, thinking and knowledge. On August 22, 1966, the book of Jerome Bruner "Studying Cognitive Development" was published (English "Studies in Cognitive Growth"). In 1967, Ulric Nisser published a book "Cognitive Psychology", in which he tried to constitute a new direction in psychology. 1976 U. Nizser "Cognition and Reality".

The main prerequisites for its occurrence: - the inability of behaviorism and psychoanalysis to explain the behavior of a person without circulation to the elements of consciousness; - development of communication and cybernetics; - Development of modern linguistics.

In the late 70s - early 80s, in the framework of cognitive psychology, a movement for a "new look" appeared in psychology, that is, the adoption of a computer metaphor (or considering a person's psyche by analogy with the functioning of a computer), the absolutization of the role of knowledge in human behavior.

The awareness of its subject and the method of cognitive psychology is obliged to Niisser and his book " Cognitive psychology"(1967). As a Piaget, argued the decisive role of the cognitive component in the structure of the psyche, in the activities of people. Nisser has identified knowledge as a process with which incoming sensory data is subjected to various types of transformation for the convenience of their accumulation, playback and further use. He suggested that the cognitive processes are best studied by simulating an information flow passing through different stages of transformation. To explain the essence of the occurring processes, the terms were proposed: "Iconic memory", "echoic memory", "pretension processes", "figurative synthesis", and developed methods for studying them - visual search and selective observation. Initially, he also studied the "artificial intelligence", but later criticized (for the narrow) - the abundance of information incentives that the person receives is underestimated.

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) is a bright representative of the cognitive directions and children's psychology as a whole, which united biology with science on the origin of knowledge (epistemology). J. Piaget, a student P. Jean, at the beginning of the 20th century worked together with A. Bina and T. Simon in their Paris Laboratory for Test Development. Then he headed the Institute Jean Jacques Rousseau in Geneva and the International Center for Genetic Epistemology. It was drawn not standards, but the patterns of erroneous answers, and he applied a clinical conversation method or a probe interview to identify that was hidden for incorrect response, and in the analysis used logical models.

The development of intelligence J. Piaget examines as an adaptation form to the medium by balancing assimilation and accommodation, assimilation of information and improving schemes, methods of its processing. This allows a person to survive as biological species. At the same time, emphasizing the role of the child's own effort, J. Piaget clearly underestimated the influence of adults, social medium.

The development of intelligence, according to J. Piaget, passes four stages.

I. Sensor intelligence (from 0 to 2 years) is manifested in actions: the viewing schemes, grabbing, circular reactions, when the baby repeats the action, expecting it to repeat and its effect (throws the toy and waits for the sound).

P. Dobyorative Stage (2-7 years). Children assimilate speech, but the word is combined and essential and external signs of objects. Therefore, their analogies and judgments seem unexpected and illogical: the wind blows because the trees are swinging; The boat floats because the little and light, and the ship swims because big and strong.

III. Stage of specific operations (7-11 years). Children begin to argue logically, can classify concepts and give definitions, but all this on specific concepts and visual examples.

IV. Stage of formal operations (from 12 years). Children operate with abstract concepts, categories "And what will happen if ...", understand the metaphors, can take into account the thoughts of other people, their roles and ideals. This is an adult intelligence.

To illustrate the cognitive theory of development, J. Piaget proposed the famous experiment to understand the phenomenon of preservation. Understanding the substance conservation (volume, quantity) when changing the shape, location, appearance is a separation of the essential properties of the subject from insignificant. Children showed two glasses with tinted water and asked whether the amount of water in two glasses was equal. After the child agreed, the water from one glass was overflowing to higher and narrow. Again asked the same question. Children under 6-7 years old said that in a high glass of water more. Even if the transfusion was repeated several times - they still said that in a narrow glass larger. Only 7-8-year-olds noticed the same volume. And it was repeated in different countries and cultures.

The theory of the structural balance of the Heider Far.The main position of this theory is reading: people tend to develop an ordered and connected view of the world; In this process, they build some "naive psychology", seeking to understand the motives and setting another personality. Naive psychology is committed to the internal balance of objects perceived by a person, internal consistency. The imbalance causes tension and strength that lead to restoration of the balance. Balance according to Heider, this is not a state that characterizes the real relationship between objects, but only the perception of the person of these relations. The main scheme of the Haidera Theory: P - O - X, where p - perceiving the subject, O - another (perceiving the subject), x - object, perceived and P and O. The interaction of these three elements is some cognitive field, and the task of a psychologist is to To identify what type of relationship between these three elements is a stable, balanced, and which type of relationship causes a sense of discomfort at the subject (P) and its desire to change the situation.

Theory of Communicative Acts of Theodore Newcomadistributes theoretical positions of Hydera to the area interpersonal relationship. Newcom said that the tendency to the balance characterizes not only intrapersonal, but also the interpersonal system of relations. The main position of this theory is as follows: if two people perceive each other positively, and build any relationship to the third (face or object), they have a tendency to develop similar orientations regarding this third. The development of these similar orientations can be strengthened by the development of interpersonal relations. Connce (balanced, consistent) system status arises, as in the previous case, when all three relationships are positive, or one attitude is positive and two negative; The dissonance arises where two relationship is positive and one negative.

Theory of Cognitive dissonance Leon Festingerit is perhaps the most famous wide circle of people with cognitive theory. In it, the author develops the ideas of Hydera, relating to the relationship of the balance and imbalance between the elements of the cognitive map of the subject of the subject. The main position of this theory is the following: people strive for some internal consistency as the desired inner state. In the event of a contradiction between the fact that a person knows, or meaning that he knows and what he does, a person has a state of cognitive dissonance, subjectively experienced as discomfort. This state of discomfort causes behavior aimed at its change - a person seeks to re-reach internal non-contradiction.

The dissonance may arise:

from a logical inconsistency (all people are mortals, but will live forever.);

from the inconsistency of cognitive elements by cultural samples (the parent screams on the child, knowing that it is not good.);

from the inconsistency of this cognitive element, some broader representation system (the communist in the presidential election votes for Putin (or Zhirinovsky);

from the inconsistency of this cognitive element in the past experience (always violated the rules of the road - and nothing; and now fined!).

The output from the state of cognitive dissonance is possible as follows:

through the change in behavioral elements of the cognitive structure (a person breaks the product, which, in his opinion, is too expensive (poor-quality, uniform, etc.);

through the change in the cognitive elements relating to the environment (a person continues to buy some product, convincing others that this is what it is necessary.);

through the expansion of the cognitive structure in such a way that the previously excluded elements are included in it (assesses the facts indicating that the same product is bought in, s and d - and everything is fine!).

The theory of congruence C. Osguda and P. Tannenbaumadescribes the additional possibilities of exiting a cognitive dissonance situation. According to this theory, other options are possible from the state of the dissonance, for example, through the simultaneous change in the attitude of the subject and to another subject, and to the perceived object. An attempt is made to predict changes in relationships (attitudes), which will occur at the subject under the influence of the desire to restore the Connce inside the cognitive structure.

The main provisions of the theory: a) the imbalance in the cognitive structure of the subject depends not only on the general sign of the relationship, but also on their intensity; b) The restoration of the condance can be achieved not only by changing the sign of the attitude of the subject to one of the elements of the triad "p, o, x", but also by simultaneously changing and the intensity and sign of these relations, and at the same time to both members of the Triad.

The main provisions of cognitive psychology.

Modern cognitivism is difficult to determine as a single school. A wide range of concepts attributable to this orientation combines the well-known commonality of theoretical sources and unity of the conceptual apparatus, by means of which a fairly clearly defined circle of phenomena is described.

The main purpose of these concepts - Explain the behavior with the help of the description of predominantly cognitive processes characteristic of a person. The main focus of research is made on the processes of knowledge (Cognition - knowledge), "internal" characteristics of human behavior. The main directions of research:

a) the study of perception processes, including social;

b) study of attribute processes;

c) study of memory processes;

d) studying the construction of a cognitive picture of the world;

e) study of unconscious knowledge and perception;

(e) Study of knowledge in animals, etc.

The main method For this scientific direction is a laboratory experiment. The main methodological settings of the researchers are as follows:

1. Data source - mental education;

2. Cognition determines the behavior;

3. Behavior as a molar (holistic) phenomenon;

Main parcel: The impressions of the Individual about the world are organized into some connected interpretations, as a result of which certain connected ideas, beliefs, expectations, hypotheses that regulate the behavior, including socially, are formed. Thus, this behavior is completely in the context of mental formations.

The main concepts of the direction: Cognitive organization - the process of organizing a cognitive structure, under the influence of an external incentive (or perceived external incentive); Frame of Reference - "Connection Frame", the scale of comparison (consideration) of perceived objects; The concept of an image (whole), the concept of isomorphism (structural similarity between material and mental processes), the idea of \u200b\u200bthe domination of "good" figures (simple, balanced, symmetrical, etc.), the idea of \u200b\u200bthe field - the interaction of the body and the environment.

The main idea of \u200b\u200bthe direction: The cognitive structure of a person cannot be in an unbalanced, disharmonious state, and if it still takes place, a person immediately arises a desire to change this condition. A person behaves in such a way as to maximize the internal correspondence of its cognitive structure. This idea is associated with the concepts of a "logical man", "rational person" or "economic person."

Today is the concept " cognitive science"It's not limited to the study of knowledge in the classical sense. New directions appear, for example, among psychological sciences. These are the cognitive psychology of emotions, which studies the relationship between knowledge and emotions; Social cognitive science, which examines all aspects of the knowledge of the Individual in the community. There are cognitive psychophysiology and cognitive neuroscience. At the junction of science and practice, the direction of neuroeconomics and neuromarketing appeared - the study of the reaction of consumers to those or other features of the product, which is carried out using the methods of registration of brain activity, eye and behavior movements. It can be argued that today cognitivism has become not just one of New fashion directions, but an independent area of \u200b\u200btheoretical knowledge and practices, which began the beginning of new original ideas and approaches.

Cognitive community

The community of cognivist scientists is expanding every day. The largest association is Cognitive Science Society, Magnitive Science and Topics In Cognitive Science. It holds an annual international conference (in 2012 it will be held in Japan), and also oversees the European Conference on Cognitive Sciences, which takes place every two years (in 2011 it took place in Bulgaria).

In Russia, cognitive science is represented by the Interregional Association of Cognitive Research (Maks), which also holds an international conference on cognitive science also every two years (the next will be held in June 2012 by Kaliningrad), as well as a number of scientific centers and laboratories. In Moscow, the Moscow seminar on cognitive science is regularly operating, the organizers of which is the Virtual Laboratory of Cognitive Science VirtualCoglab (next meeting - October 27), a seminar NUG on cognitive studies of HSE, a seminar "Neurobiology, Neuroinformatics and Cognitive Studies" in Niyu Mafi. In St. Petersburg, one of the largest centers of cognitive research is the scientific group of V.M. Allahverdova.

Application of cognitive theory in practice

What is the cognitive, intellectual-oriented personality theory can be applied to the fact that it directly affects the life of a person? Kelly believed that his theory could be useful for understanding emotional states, mental health and mental disorders, as well as in therapeutic practice.

Emotional states

Kelly retained some traditional psychological concepts of emotions, but presented them in a new way, in accordance with their theory of personal constructs.

Anxiety. Kelly determined anxiety as "awareness that the events faced by a person lie outside the range of applicability of its construct system." So, a vague sense of uncertainty and helplessness, usually defined as "anxiety", on Kelly, there is a result of the realization that the constructs we possess are not applicable to predict the events that we face. Kelly emphasized: not at all the fact that our structural system does not function perfectly, provokes anxiety; We are not disturbing simply because our expectations are not accurate. Anxiety is formed only when we are aware that we do not have adequate constructs, with which you can interpret the events of our life. Under such circumstances, a person cannot predict, therefore, cannot fully perceive what is happening, or cannot solve the problem. Consider, for example, two people in the ripping of the marriage process. Suddenly, an event occurs in front of them, absolutely not similar to the fact that they ever experienced before. In part, the difficulty of passing through the marriage process (or something else experienced for the first time) is explained by the absence of constructs that would help understand and predict its consequences and their meaning.

This understanding of anxiety is not a threat of a breakthrough of sexual and aggressive impulses into consciousness, but the fact that it is experiencing events that can neither understand nor predict. From this point of view, the task of psychotherapy is to help the client or acquire new constructs that will allow him to better predict disturbing events, or make existing constructs more permeable to bring new experience in their range of applicability.

Wines. The conclusion about the Commonwealth of Kelly suggests that we all have a rod system of constructs. Certain aspects of this core structure, which he called the rod roles, are important determinants of our personality perception. Examples of such rod roles are our professional roles, roles of the parent and child, a close friend, student, etc. Since the rod roles are very important in our lives, their inadequate execution may have unpleasant consequences. On Kelly, if another person interprets our execution of a core role as an unsuccessful, a sense of guilt appears: "The fault occurs when the individual is aware that it retreats from roles with which it retains the most important relationship with other people." A guilty person is aware that he did not do in accordance with his own way. For example, a college student who considers himself a scientist will feel guilty if he holds too much time at the local university bar with his friends, thus neglected the most important aspect of his soda role of the scientist, namely studying. Probably a student who considers himself a hunch, would not have experienced such guilt. From the point of view of Kelly, we experience the blame whenever our behavior contradicts our perception of themselves.

A threat. Another familiar emotional state is a threat - the Kelly is considered as aware of the fact that our construct system can be significantly changed due to some events. The feeling of threat appears when inevitably large shakes of our personal constructs. For example, we can feel a threat if it turns out that our faith in the honesty and incompetence of the political and business leaders of high rank is no longer confirmed in practice. Kelly believed that the threat to a person is psychological violence. Thoughts about their own death, perhaps the most terrible view of the threat, unless we interpret it as a necessary condition that gives the meaning of our life.

Hostility. By definition of Kelly, hostility is "permanent attempts to obtain facts speaking in favor of this type of social forecast, which has already proven its inconsistency." Traditionally addressed as a tendency to behave venously towards another or the desire to cause them damage, hostility in Kelly's theory - just an attempt to adhere to an unsuitable construct when confronted with conflicting (defective) fact. A hostile man instead of confessing that his expectations relative to other people are not realistic and therefore need to be revised, trying to make others behave in such a way as to satisfy their biased opinion. For example, what could be a father's reaction, which found that his daughter-student lives the life of "sexually free" woman? Not paying attention to the indisputable facts, the hostile father insists on his belief that she is "his little girl." It is difficult to change our constructs, scary and sometimes it is impossible. How much it would be if we could change the world so that it corresponds to our prejudices, and not our own views on him! Hostility just represents such an attempt.

Mental Health and Disorder

Every day, clinical psychologists deal with the problem of mental health and disorder. How should these concepts understand in the context of the theory of personal constructs?

Health, from the point of view of Kelly's theory, these are four characteristics that determine the normal functioning of a person:

healthy people want to evaluate their constructs and check the correctness of their sensations towards other people. In other words, such people assess the prognostic efficiency of their personal constructs on the basis of social experience;

healthy people can discard their constructs and reorient the rod role systems as soon as it turns out that they do not work. In Kelly Terminology, the constructs of a healthy person permeable. Under this implies not only what he is able to recognize his wrong, but also that he can reconsider them when it requires life experience;

the characteristic of mental health is the desire to expand the range, the volume and coverage of the construct system. From the point of view of Kelly, healthy people remain open to new features of personal growth and development;

the characteristic of mental health is a well-developed repertoire of roles. Kelly suggests that the person is healthy, if it can effectively perform a variety of social roles and understand other people involved in the process of social interactions.

Kelly treated mental disorders in particular, interpreting them in terms of the orientation of a personal construct. For him, mental disorder is "any personal construct, which is usually repeated, despite the consistent inferiority." Mental disorders are an obvious unusability of the system of personal constructs to achieve the goal. Or, more precisely, mental disorders enclose the alarm and persistent attempts of a person again to feel that it has the ability to predict events. Once being unable to predict, a person with a mental disorder is frantically looking for new ways to interpret events in their own world. Or, on the contrary, it can strictly adhere to old forecasts, thereby keeping its imperfect system of personal constructs with a probability of re-failure. In any case, a poorly adapted person cannot predict events with great accuracy and, therefore, fails in the knowledge of the world or camp with him. Dissatisfaction that accompanies such an ineffective forecast of events is exactly what makes a person look for therapeutic care.

Kelly interpreted psychological problems in accordance with their own unique set of diagnostic constructs. The extension serves as a good example of one of these constructs to consider psychological disorders. In the theory of psychopathology developed by Kelly, the expansion occurs when a person does not have subordinating constructs that allow you to structure the area of \u200b\u200bawareness of life experience. Possessing outdated or lost constructions, a person is trying to expand and reorganize personal constructs on the most unusual and comprehensive level. What happens? Kelly suggested that the resulting disorders traditionally called "mania" and "depression" appear.

Historically, mania was considered as a state when human thinking is super-shown (a person cannot retain conceptual boundaries, and therefore thinking becomes less accurate, less definite and excessively generalized). Affect often turns out to be very euphoric. Manicale people begin to frantically develop many projects that they are most likely will never finish, feverishly discuss their plans in the pompous manner. They jump from the topic to the topic and make extensive generalizations in which there are few real ideas. Kelly suggested that the research of maniacal people simply exceed the ability of the structural system to function effectively. As a result, a person loses relationship with reality and turns out in the space of "free buildings". Expressible excitement is a frantic attempt to cope with a rapidly expanding field of perception.

Another pathological response to the imperfect constructing system is depression. Kelly believed that depression tends to appear in people who reduced their perceptual field to a minimum (as they narrowed interests). A person with depression has significant difficulties in making even the smallest everyday decisions. A man with severe depression often thinks about suicide - the last act of narrowing the field of perception. In short, depression is a mental disorder in which people are trying to interpret their experience from the opposite pole of the expansion construct - narrowing.

Thus, when people try to interpret important events that lie outside the range of applicability of their personal constructs come to confusion, disorient and disturbed, we treat them as sick people, i.e. People suffer from psychological problems due to flaws in their construct systems.

Fixed therapy

Many of the therapeutic methods described by Kelly are similar to the methods used by other psychotherapists, but its approach has two features: the first is its concept that there should be a goal of psychotherapy, and the second is the development of fixed role therapy.

Lecture 29. Cognitive psychology.

Lecture questions:

Background of the emergence of cognitive psychology.Starting from the late 40s. In Western psychology, first of all, in American, there is an increase in interest in the problem of consciousness. This is expressed in changing the nature of publications, in increasing numbers research work in this area and the associated growth of concepts; as well as in the popularity of this topic among students of psychological faculties.

At the same time, inside the psychological science there are prerequisites for the emergence of a new direction focused on the study of cognitive processes. Inside Bheviorism, E. Tolman contributed to the abandonment of the rigid scheme S - R and introduces into the psychology the concept of knowledge as important determinants of behavior. Gestalt psychology also contributes significant changes to the methodological and conceptual aspects of psychological science. Modern cognitive theories are closely connected with gestalt-theories and in the terminological, and in the methodological plan. Finally, the works of J. Piaget contributed to the growth of research interest in the problems of intelligence and knowledge.

The cognitive destination in psychology does not have a "founder's father", such as psychoanalysis. However, we can name the names of scientists who laid the foundation of cognitive psychology with their works. George Miller and Jerome Brunner in 1960 organized the center of cognitive studies, where we developed a wide range of problems: language, memory, perceptual processes and processes of concepts, thinking and knowledge. Ulric Nisser in 1967 published a book "Cognitive Psychology", in which he tried to constitute a new direction in psychology.

The main provisions of cognitive psychology.Modern cognitivism is difficult to determine as a single school. A wide range of concepts attributable to this orientation combines the well-known commonality of theoretical sources and unity of the conceptual apparatus, by means of which a fairly clearly defined circle of phenomena is described.

The main purpose of these concepts is to explain the behavior using the description of predominantly cognitive processes characteristic of a person. The main focus of research is made on the processes of knowledge (Cognition - knowledge), "internal" characteristics of human behavior. The main directions of research:

d) studying the construction of a cognitive picture of the world;

The main method for this scientific direction is the laboratory experiment. The main methodological settings of the researchers are as follows:

1. Data source - mental education;

2. Cognition determines the behavior;

3. Behavior as a molar (holistic) phenomenon;

Main parcel: The impressions of the individual about the world are organized into some connected interpretations, as a result of which certain connected ideas, beliefs, expectations, hypotheses that regulate behavior, including socially, are formed. Thus, this behavior is completely in the context of mental formations.

The main concepts of the direction: a cognitive organization - the process of organizing a cognitive structure, carried out under the influence of an external incentive (or perceived external incentive); Frame of Reference - "Connection Frame", the scale of comparison (consideration) of perceived objects; The concept of an image (whole), the concept of isomorphism (structural similarity between material and mental processes), the idea of \u200b\u200bthe domination of "good" figures (simple, balanced, symmetrical, etc.), the idea of \u200b\u200bthe field - the interaction of the body and the environment.

The main idea of \u200b\u200bthe direction: the cognitive structure of a person cannot be in an unbalanced, disharmonious state, and if it still takes place, a person immediately arises to change this condition. A person behaves in such a way as to maximize the internal correspondence of its cognitive structure. This idea is associated with the concepts of a "logical man", "rational person" or "economic person."

The main scientific theories of cognitive psychology.The theory of the structural balance of the Heider Far.The main position of this theory is reading: people tend to develop an ordered and connected view of the world; In this process, they build some "naive psychology", seeking to understand the motives and setting another personality. Naive psychology is committed to the internal balance of objects perceived by a person, internal consistency. The imbalance causes tension and strength that lead to restoration of the balance. Balance according to Heider, this is not a state that characterizes the real relationship between objects, but only the perception of the person of these relations. The main scheme of the Haidera Theory: P - O - X, where p - perceiving the subject, O - another (perceiving the subject), x - object, perceived and P and O. The interaction of these three elements is some cognitive field, and the task of a psychologist is to To identify what type of relationship between these three elements is a stable, balanced, and which type of relationship causes a sense of discomfort at the subject (P) and its desire to change the situation.

Theory of Communicative Acts of Theodore Newcomadisseminates the theoretical positions of Hydera to the interpersonal relationship area. Newcom said that the tendency to the balance characterizes not only intrapersonal, but also the interpersonal system of relations. The main position of this theory is as follows: if two people perceive each other positively, and build any relationship to the third (face or object), they have a tendency to develop similar orientations regarding this third. The development of these similar orientations can be strengthened by the development of interpersonal relations. Connce (balanced, consistent) system status arises, as in the previous case, when all three relationships are positive, or one attitude is positive and two negative; The dissonance arises where two relationship is positive and one negative.

Theory of Cognitive dissonance Leon Festingerit is perhaps the most famous wide circle of people with cognitive theory. In it, the author develops the ideas of Hydera, relating to the relationship of the balance and imbalance between the elements of the cognitive map of the subject of the subject. The main position of this theory is the following: people strive for some internal consistency as the desired inner state. In the event of a contradiction between the fact that a person knows, or meaning that he knows and what he does, a person has a state of cognitive dissonance, subjectively experienced as discomfort. This state of discomfort causes behavior aimed at its change - a person seeks to re-reach internal non-contradiction.

The dissonance may arise:

1. From the logical inconsistency (all people are mortals, but will live forever.);

2. From the inconsistency of cognitive elements by cultural samples (the parent shouts into a child, knowing that it is not good.);

3. From the inconsistency of this cognitive element, some broader representation system (the communist in the presidential election votes for Putin (or Zhirinovsky);

4. From the inconsistency of this cognitive element in the past experience (always violated the rules of the road - and nothing; and now fined!).

The output from the state of cognitive dissonance is possible as follows:

1. Through the change in the behavioral elements of the cognitive structure (a person breaks to buy a product, which, in his opinion, is too expensive (poor-quality, uniform, etc.);

2. Through the change in the cognitive elements relating to the environment (a person continues to buy some product, convincing others that this is what it is necessary.);

3. Through the expansion of the cognitive structure in such a way that there are previously exclusive elements to be included in it (assesses the facts that testify that in, C and D buy the same product - and everything is fine!).

The theory of congruence C. Osguda and P. Tannenbaumadescribes the additional possibilities of exiting a cognitive dissonance situation. According to this theory, other options are possible from the state of the dissonance, for example, through the simultaneous change in the attitude of the subject and to another subject, and to the perceived object. An attempt is made to predict changes in relationships (attitudes), which will occur at the subject under the influence of the desire to restore the Connce inside the cognitive structure.

Cognitive psychology studies and works with cognitive processes of human psyche. Most often, psychologists work with memory, attention, features of thinking, making decisions and many others.

History of origin

Cognitive psychology originated at one moment. This section first appeared in the 60s in response to the popular biheviorism movement. The prisoner of behavioral psychology is considered Ulric Niser. His monograph "Cognitive Psychology" has become the beginning of the development and promotion of this section of science.

A huge breakthrough in the field of studying cognitive processes was the development of a holographic model not just a human brain, but the functioning of the psyche. The authors were the neurophysiologist Karl Pribram and the physiologist Karl Spencer Leshley. It is the material evidence that the memory of the individual is maintained even after resection of individual sections of the brain. With this invention, scientists have received confirmation that the memory and other cognitive processes are not "enshrined" for a separate area.

Currently, cognitive psychology is quite successfully practiced by a clinical psychologist Yakov Kochetkov. He organized a huge psychological center, which uses cognitive therapy methods for the treatment of many disorders. He is the author of many articles on the theme of rational treatment of panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive disorders, depression and many other problems.

Cognitive psychology B. modern science Tightly related to neurobiology. Many cognitive processes are not possible to study without understanding the thinnest matter of neurophysiology. Such a connection gave rise to experimental science - cognitive neurobiology.

Main goals

Cognitive psychology considers a person as an object whose activities are aimed at finding and processing new information. All cognitive processes (perception, memory, rational thinking, decision-making) are involved at different stages of information processing. Scientists conduct an analogy between the work of the brain and work computer process. Psychologists even borrowed the term "processing of information" from programmers and successfully apply it in their scientific works.

For practical application Often use the information processing model. With its help, the memorization process directly unfolds into several separate components. Thus, it can be studied the whole process: from obtaining information before issuing a reaction defined on it.

Practicing specialists with the help of techniques of cognitive psychology are trying to prove that knowledge primarily affects the behavior and reaction of the individual to the surrounding stimuli. There is also a difference in the perception of verbal and non-verbal stimuli, the duration and effect of the effect of one or another image.

This is based on cognitive therapy. She is on the opinion that the causes of all violations of mental processes, as well as a number of diseases nervous systemlies in erroneous processes of thinking and perception.

Cognitive psychotherapy

Cognitive therapy is often used as a complex treatment of many mental illness. It is customary to distinguish between several goals:

Fighting symptoms of the disease (elimination or decrease in manifestations);
Prevention of recurrence;
Improving the effect of prescribed drug treatment;
Help the patient adapt in society;
Changes in deadaptive psychological patterns and incorrect "anchors."

In the process of treatment, the doctor tries to explain the patient with the effect of the influence of his own thoughts and judgments for acts and behavior. In cognitive therapy, the ability to distinguish automatic thoughts play a major role, that is, those that appear quickly and are not fixed by the subconscious. They are not reflected in the inner dialogue, but can strongly affect the reaction and actions. Most often, a certain automatism acquires those thoughts that are often repeated with close people or the patient. Very strong affirmations, which invested in childhood by their parents or close people.

The patient must learn not only to identify such negative images, but also learn to analyze them. Some may be useful, especially if they are considered and evaluated on the other side. This further helps replace erroneous judgments with correct and structural.

Cognitive psychology allocates two types of "schemes" or thoughts: adaptive, that is, those that lead to constructive behavior, and non-adaptive. The latter only interfere with living and lead to the occurrence of cognitive disorders.

Relationship Patient-doctor

Cognitive therapy and its methods are effective only in cases where the correct relationship between the attending physician and its patient is established. They together should decide on that problem that they want to solve. The psychotherapist should be able to not only build a conversation correctly, but also possess a certain proportion of empathy.

One of the most common exercises to search for issues is the so-called "reduratory dialogue". The doctor sets the patient a number of questions in order to figure out the problem and help the patient identify emotions and sensations. The psychotherapist thus determines the method of thinking of the patient and trying to pick up the most effective tactics of further conversations.

Methods

There are a number of basic techniques that brought and structured Aaron Beck.

Recording thoughts. Regular recording helps the patient structuring their feelings and allocate the main one. Also, with their help, it is possible to retrospectively follow the order of thoughts and the corresponding actions;
Diary maintenance. With it, you can identify those events or situations to which the patient reacts quite sharply;
"DIY". With this technique, the patient can look at his thoughts from the side and try to give them an objective assessment. It becomes easier to separate the productive thoughts and gust from Naadaptive, that is, those that cause fear, anxiety and other negative emotions;
Revaluation. The doctor asks the patient to find alternative options for the development of one or another situation;
Targeted repetition. The patient is asked to lose the situation many times in a row, looking for new options for its development. Such an exercise allows you to strengthen new affirmations in the patient's consciousness.

Cognitive-behavior psychotherapy

This type of therapy arose based on cognitive psychology and some behavishing theses of biheviorism. Cognitive behavioral therapy or cognitive-behavioral is based on the opinion that the reaction to a certain situation (sensation and choice of behavior) depends entirely and completely from the perception of this situation. That is, it matters just how an individual reacts to the problem, and not the problem itself. Cognitive behavioral therapy sets a certain task: adjust the thoughts and perception of the patient and send them to the right direction. Doctors try to identify negative thoughts and reactions. It is important what an assessment of these thoughts is ready to give the patient himself and how objective and realistic, he believes.

In addition, it is necessary to simulate the rhythm of the patient's life and try to get rid of negative factors. First of all, the normalization of nutrition is important, the refusal of negative habits (even with their external attractiveness) and excessive loads. Often, chronic fatigue syndrome leads patients to incorrect perception of surrounding reality.

Cognitive behavioral therapy is constructed in such a way that quite most of the work has to be performed by the patient himself. The psychologist gives him "homework". Good results brings detailed records and subsequently analyze them on a psychotherapeutic session.

Cognitive psychology is one of the most popular scientific directions of foreign psychology. The term "cognitive" translated into Russian means cognitive. This direction of research was mainly formed in the 1960s, and the results of the first stage of its development were summed up in the monograph of W. Nisser "Cognitive Psychology", which was published in 1967. She gave the name to a new direction of psychological thought. R. Solso in published later the book with the same name writes that cognitive psychology studies how people receive information about the world as this information seems to be a person how it is stored in memory and is transformed into knowledge and how these knowledge affect our attention and behavior. Thus, almost all cognitive processes are covered - from sensations to perception, recognition of images, memory, the formation of concepts, thinking, imagination. The main directions of cognitive psychology, which received wide distribution in many countries in many countries, is also usually studies on the problems of the psychology of the development of cognitive structures, on psychology of the language and speech, to develop cognitive theories of human and artificial intelligence.

The emergence of cognitive psychology is sometimes called a kind of revolution in foreign (primarily American) psychological science. Indeed, starting from the 1920s. The study of ideas, attention, thinking, perceptions sharply slowed down, and in American psychology these processes were actually ignored generally. D. Watson, the founder of biheviorism, referring to the methodological difficulties, even offered not to use these "mystical" terms. In behaviorism, dominant in the American psychology of the first half of the XX century, such a look was due to the interpretation of the subject of psychology itself. Of so few little informative processes were interested in representatives of psychoanalysis, where there are completely different concepts of the central steel: the need, motivation, instinct, etc. That is why the emergence of cognitive psychology was met by many psychologists with great enthusiasm, the number of research has increased rapidly, and by now its successes are indisputable and impressive.

So, cognitive psychology is based on a person's submission as a system engaged in the search for information about objects and events of the surrounding world, as well as processing and storing incoming information. At the same time, individual cognitive processes ensure the implementation of different stages of information processing. One of the main reasons for the emergence of this approach, many consider the creation of computers, so they often talk about the use of "computer metaphor" with cognitive vistas. Even the term "processing of information" itself was borrowed from computer specialists. Hence the hidden or explicit position on the similarity between computer operations and cognitive processes inherent to person. Computer metaphor largely determines and postulates taken by most cognitive psychologists.

It is assumed that the information is processed in stages, and at each stage, the processing stage it is a certain time and represented by B. various form. It is handled using different regulatory processes (recognition of images, attention, repetition of information, etc.). It is also considered that it is important to establish what is the limits of a person's ability to process information at each stage in each block. "Block" representation of the information provided by the cognivists of information processing models is quite common. Visual images of blocks in the form of rectangles with inside them are usually connected by arrows, which show the direction of "flow" information. This kind of flowcharts were originally very simple and even primitive, and now, under the influence of all new results of experiments, they often become so complex and cumbersome that they force the authors of the models to abandon the presentation of the process of processing information in the form of "linear chains" from rigidly connected Blocks with each other. Clarification and improvement of the proposed models is a process that is in cognitive psychology almost continuously, since the results of research, "not fitting" in previous models constantly appear. Such is probably the fate of all "hypothetical structures".

As criticism to the study of cognitive processes, it should be noted its following features. Cognivists, speaking of knowledge, are usually abstracts from emotions, intentions, needs, i.e. From the sake of which a person knows and acts. In addition, in most models, the process of processing information is carried out "automatically". At the same time, the conscious activity of the subject is completely ignored, the conscious choice of techniques, funds, information processing strategies, as well as their dependence on the activities that cognitive processes are usually "serviced" (or which they themselves are sometimes).

Two more important comments can be found in the book of W. Nisser "Cognition and Reality". He notes that knowledge, as a rule, begins not with the receipt of some information on analyzers, but from its anticipation, forecasting, with active search Specific information, whereas in most models proposed by cognivists, this is completely not taken into account. W. Nisser also discusses in detail the problem of "environmental validity" of research results. It indicates that laboratory research situations in cognitive psychology are extremely artificial, they are almost never found in life, in everyday activity. It is necessary to take into account the experience, cognitive skills of people, and not limited to experiments, where inexperienced subjects have to perform new and meaningless tasks.

In conclusion, it should be noted that, despite a number of restrictions and disadvantages of cognitive psychology, its representatives received many important data making a more understandable process of knowledge in general, and a lot of patterns of individual cognitive processes were established. Very interesting, for example, the results of the study of the representation of knowledge in the memory of a person, mechanisms that ensure the selectivity of perception, etc. In addition, the relationship of various cognitive processes is convincingly shown, which was ignored by the framework of the "functional" approach. Finally, in cognitive psychology, a large number of witty, original techniques have been developed experimental research Cognitive processes.