CHAPTER 2:Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive modeling is an area of computer science that deals with simulating

human problem-solving and mental processing in a computerized model.

Such a model can be used to simulate or predict human behavior or performance

on tasks similar to the ones modeled and improve human-computer

interaction.

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•Cognitive Psychology
–The study of how people
perceive, learn, remember, and
think.
Examples
•How people perceive
various shapes
•Why they remember some
facts and forget others
•How they learn language

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Cognitive Psychology It is the scientific study of how the mind
works

“...cognitive psychology deals with how people perceive, learn,

remember, and think about information.”
— Sternberg (1999)

“Cognitive psychology [is] the study of processes underlying mental

events”
— Solso (2005)

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Cognitive Psychology and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).

Usability refer to the proper way the users

can exploit the functionality of given system.
Learnability: how easily the person can
learn to use a system
Memorability : it is easy for the users to
remember the interaction with the system
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Error
The number of potential error must be minimal.
the user mistakes must be easily detected/corrected
Remember
The application that are easy to use are designed to
be familiar

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What do cognitive psychologists study?

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Cognitive Psychology
 Perception: The process of receiving and interpreting sensory
 Perception
 Attention information (e.g., seeing, hearing).

 Memory  Attention: The ability to focus on specific stimuli or tasks while

 Language ignoring others. It is essential for learning and memory.

 Problem-solving  Memory: The process of encoding, storing, and retrieving

 Human intelligence information. It includes sensory, short-term, and long-term

 Thinking memory.

 Language: The ability to understand, produce, and use words

and grammar to communicate ideas effectively.

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 Problem-solving: The mental process of finding solutions to difficult or complex issues. It involves logic,

reasoning, and creativity

 Thinking: A broad term for mental activities like analyzing, evaluating, imagining, and planning. Thinking is

essential for decision-making and innovation.

 Human Intelligence: The overall ability to learn from experience, adapt to new situations, understand

concepts, and apply knowledge in different contexts.

Key Points
Cognition refers to a range of mental processes relating to the acquisition, storage, manipulation, and retrieval

of information.

It underpins many daily activities, in health and disease, across the age span.

Cognition can be separated into multiple distinct functions, dependent on particular brain circuits and

neuromodulators. University of KIGALI

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 Computerized cognitive testing has been developed and validated as tapping into
particular brain regions with many advantages over older ‘pen/paper’ methods.
 The ability to test, measure and monitor cognitive performance across the lifespan opens
up the chance for patients to be identified earlier, access treatments faster, and stay
healthy for longer, improving quality of life and reducing costs.

The Basics
 Cognition is defined as ‘the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding
through, experience, and the senses.’
 At Cambridge Cognition we look at it as the mental processes relating to the input and storage of
information and how that information is then used to guide your behavior.
 It is in essence, the ability to perceive and react, process and understand, store and retrieve
information, make decisions and produce appropriate responses.
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 The modern word ‘cognition’ actually has its roots back to Latin, the word ‘Cognos Cere’ which is to ‘get to know’.

With that in mind, cognitive functioning is therefore critical for day-to-day life, governing our thoughts and

actions.

 We need cognition to help us understand information about the world around us and interact safely with our

environment, as the sensory information we receive is vast and complicated: cognition is needed to distill all this

information down to its essentials.

What Role Does Cognition Have?

 These studies help us better understand certain parts of our cognition, such as how we learn language, and

have also been the basis for many breakthroughs in treatments for common disorders of cognition such as

Alzheimer’s disease.

 Cognition fundamentally controls our thoughts and behaviors and these are regulated by discrete brain

circuits which are underpinned by a number of neurotransmitter systems.

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 Cognitive Frameworks

The processes, which contribute to cognition, include:

Understanding Attending

Remembering Being aware

Reasoning Acquiring skills

Creating new ideas

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Human Information Processing

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 Sensory Memory
 The five senses
 Sensory register: The sensory register is the part of the memory system that briefly
stores sensory information received from the environment through the senses

 Large capacity: is the first stage of memory in the human information-processing system.
 Short duration: meaning it holds sensory information for only a brief moment
 Contents: It stores the exact copy of what is sensed, without interpretation or
analysis.

 Roles of attention and perception:

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Sensory Memory

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 The sense of smell
An electrochemical nose, also called an e-nose, is an artificial olfaction device with an array
of chemical gas sensors, a sampling system, and a pattern-classification algorithm to
recognize, identify, and compare gases, vapors, or odors. In this way the e-nose mimics the
human olfactory system.
These devices have been successfully used in a wide variety of applications including
detection of food quality, wastewater management, measurement, and detection of air and
water pollution, in health care, and in warfare. One of their strengths is that the data gathered
can be interpreted without bias.

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Example Devices:
•Cyranose 320: A handheld
e-nose used in medical and
industrial applications.
•AirSense PEN3: Commonly
used for environmental
monitoring and food quality
testing.
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Cyranose 320 AirSense PEN3

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 The sense of taste
The electronic tongue (e-tongue) uses an array of liquid sensors that mimic the human sense of

taste, without the intrusion of other senses such as human vision and olfaction that often interfere

with our taste perception. Within a few years, researchers anticipate that a machine that

experiences flavor will determine the precise chemical structure of food and why people like it.

Digital “taste buds” also will help us to eat smarter and healthier.

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Examples of E-Tongue Applications:

1.Food and Beverage Industry:

1. Wine Quality Testing: Used to evaluate the taste and quality of wine by analyzing
its chemical components like tannins and acidity.
2. Tea and Coffee: To standardize flavor profiles and ensure consistent taste in
production.
3. Soft Drinks: Detecting sweetness, bitterness, and flavor balance.
2.Pharmaceutical Industry:
1. Drug Formulation: Evaluating the bitterness of active pharmaceutical ingredients
to develop palatable medicines.
2. Quality Control: Ensuring consistency in drug taste, especially in syrups.

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 Pharmaceutical Industry
Wine Quality Testing Testing

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The sense of hearing

 Hearing systems are increasingly being trained by “listening” to sounds, detecting

patterns and building models to decompose sounds. One of the most common

applications for sensors in this segment is in hearing aids.

 Digital advances have made today’s hearing aids smaller, smarter and fortunately,

easier to use.

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 The sense of Touch
 Want to give a robot the ability to feel? Done. Researchers have

developed a flexible sensor able to detect temperature, pressure

and humidity simultaneously and a big leap towards imitating

the sensing features of the human skin.

 While still in the early stages, future sensors could be embedded

into the "electronic skin" of prosthetics, allowing amputees

sense environmental changes.

 Another is BioTac, a fingertip that can sense force, temperature,

and vibration—in some cases better than a human finger. University of KIGALI
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 The sense of Sighting
There are security cameras to help us see our homes
when we are away and most of us have heard of
Google Glass but there are now eyeglasses being
prototyped by BMW’s Mini division. They are
combining the wearable with the connected car.
These glasses communicate with the car via WiFi and
offers a heads-up display like no other. While you can
still see the real world, the glasses offer an overlay of
speed, navigation, backup cameras and more.
You can also look at a street sign and have it come to
life with other overlays or additional info..This is
where IoT gets interesting where one is used to
compliment another. Also, Swiss engineers have
developed a camera based on the human retina.
Understanding the biology of the real thing, they've
made a more efficient camera. University of KIGALI
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 Short memory
Short memory typically refers to the capacity to retain information for a brief period before it is
forgotten or replaced by new information. It can apply in different contexts:

 Very fast input

 Limited capacity
 5 – 20 seconds duration
 Contains words, images, ideas, sentences
 Immediate retrieval
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 Long Term Memory
Long-term memory (LTM) refers to the part of the memory system responsible for
storing information over extended periods, ranging from hours and days to years or even
a lifetime. Unlike short-term memory, long-term memory has a vast capacity and retains
information that is important or has been reinforced through repetition or meaningful
connections.

 Relatively slow input

 Practically unlimited capacity
 Practically unlimited duration
 Contains networks, schemata
 Retrieval depends on connections

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 Distributed Cognition
Distributed cognition is a framework proposed by Hutchins (1991). Its basis is that to
explain human behavior you have to look beyond the individual human and the
individual task.
The functional system is a collection of actors, technology, setting and the
interrelations to one another

distributed cognition theory suggests that the cognitive process extends beyond one
individual.
Distributed cognition refers to a process in which cognitive resources are shared
socially in order to extend individual cognitive resources or to accomplish
something that an individual agent could not achieve alone

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Comparing Perspectives

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 Knowledge
 Knowledge is a familiarity, awareness or understanding of
someone or something, such as facts, information, descriptions, or
skills, which is acquired through experience or education by
perceiving, discovering, or learning.
 Knowledge can refer to a theoretical or practical understanding
of a subject.
 Knowledge is stored in Long Term Memory.

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 Examples of knowledge and
Knowledge Examples
General Reading, numbers
Domain specific Period table
Declarative: who, what, where? History dates
Number of presidents
Procedural: how? Riding a bike
Conditional: why? Which study strategic should I use?

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 Two fundamental types of
knowledge
Declarative knowledge

Procedural knowledge
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What is the difference between declarative
knowledge and procedural knowledge, with
examples?

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 Declarative knowledge

 Declarative knowledge is defined as the factual information stored in

memory and known to be static in nature. Other names, e.g. descriptive
knowledge, propositional knowledge, etc. are also given. It is the part
of knowledge, which describes how things are.

 Declarative knowledge involves knowing THAT something is the

case - that J is the letter of the alphabet, that Paris is the capital of
France. Declarative knowledge is conscious; it can often be
verbalized. Metalinguistic knowledge, or knowledge about a linguistic
form
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 Procedural knowledge

 Procedural knowledge is the knowledge of how to

perform, or how to operate. Names such as know-how are
also given. It is said that one becomes more skilled in
problem solving when he relies more on procedural
knowledge than declarative knowledge.

 Procedural knowledge involves knowing HOW to do

something - ride a bike for example.
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 Combination of Procedural and
Declarative
 It is obvious that some information is purely declarative,
like dates of historical events. Other skills are purely
procedural, such as riding a bike. But is there any
knowledge that is both declarative and procedural? YES
 Declarative information that comes in the form of steps
can be thought of as procedural as well.

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 Cooking is one activity that combines declarative and procedural knowledge. The
knowledge of each measurement and ingredient represents declarative
information while knowing the correct way to proceed through the steps is the
procedural aspect.

 Driving a Car:
Procedural Memory: Knowing how to physically operate the car (e.g., pressing
the pedals, steering, shifting gears).
Declarative Memory: Remembering traffic rules, road signs, or directions to a
specific location.

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 Answer

1. Using a Word Processor (e.g., Microsoft Word)

 Declarative: Knowing what each feature does (e.g., Bold, Save, Table).

 Procedural: Knowing how to format a document, insert a table, or apply styles.

2. Web Development

 Declarative: Knowing HTML tags and CSS properties.

 Procedural: Knowing how to structure a webpage, link CSS, and make it responsive.

3. Database Management (e.g., SQL)

 Declarative: Knowing SQL syntax (e.g., SELECT, FROM, WHERE).

 Procedural: Knowing how to write and run queries to retrieve and update data efficiently.

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 Conditional or structural knowledge

 This connects Declarative and Procedural knowledge. It

can be best described as knowing “when” and “why” to use
declarative and procedural knowledge and when not to use
those.
 It allows students to allocate their resources when using
strategies. This in turn allows the strategies to become more
effective.

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 Learning

 Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior or

performance as a result of instruction, experiences, study,
and/or practice.
 Learning is inferred from changes in performance.

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 Factors influencing learning

Readiness
 Physiological and psychological factors influencing an
individual’s ability and willingness to learn.
Motivation
 A condition within an individual that initiates activity directed
toward a goal. (Needs and drives are necessary

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Reinforcement
 Using events, actions, and behaviors to increase the likelihood of a certain response recurring. May be positive or
negative
Individual differences
 Backgrounds, abilities, intelligence, learning styles, and personalities of students

Cognitive models

• goal and task hierarchies

• linguistic
• physical and device
• architectural

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 Goal and task hierarchies
Goal and task hierarchies in cognition are conceptual frameworks that explain how
complex goals are broken down into smaller, manageable tasks and sub-tasks. These
hierarchies help organize and prioritize cognitive processes to achieve a desired
outcome effectively.

• Mental processing as divide-and-conquer

• Example: sales report
produce report
gather data

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 goals vs. tasks

• goals – intentions
what you would like to be true
• tasks – actions
how to achieve it

• GOMS – goals are internal

• HTA – actions external

– tasks are abstractions

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 Issues for goal hierarchies
• Granularity
– Where do we start? Techniques
– Where do we stop? • Goals, Operators,
• Routine learned Methods and Selection
behaviour, not (GOMS)
problem solving
– The unit task
• Cognitive Complexity
• Conflict
Theory (CCT)
– More than one way
to achieve a goal
• Error • Hierarchical Task
Analysis (HTA)

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GOMS Linguistic notations
Goals
– what the user wants to • Understanding the user's
achieve behaviour and cognitive
Operators difficulty based on analysis of
– basic actions user language between user and
performs system.
Methods • Similar in emphasis to dialogue
– decomposition of a models
goal into
subgoals/operators
Selection
• Backus–Naur Form (BNF)

– means of choosing
• Task–Action Grammar (TAG
between competing
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methods
 Backus-Naur Form (BNF)
Backus-Naur Form (BNF) is a formal notation used to describe the syntax or
grammar of programming languages, data structures, or formal languages. It is a way
to specify the rules for how symbols (such as words or tokens) can be combined to
form valid expressions or statements in a language. BNF is widely used in computer
science, particularly in the design and specification of programming languages,
compilers, and data formats.
• Very common notation from computer science
• A purely syntactic view of the dialogue
• Terminals
– lowest level of user behaviour
– e.g. CLICK-MOUSE, MOVE-MOUSE
• Nonterminals
– ordering of terminals
– higher level of abstraction
– e.g. select-menu, position-mouse University of KIGALI
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 Task Action Grammar (TAG)

Task Action Grammar (TAG) is a formal system used to describe the structure and
syntax of tasks in terms of actions and their associated goals or states.

• Making consistency more explicit

• Encoding user's world knowledge

• Parameterised grammar rules

• Nonterminals are modified to include additional

semantic features
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  Cognitive Psychology is closely related to
Other uses of TAG Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
because both fields share a common interest
• User’s existing in understanding how humans perceive,
process, and respond to information. The
knowledge goal of HCI is to design computer systems
and interfaces that are user-friendly,
• Congruence efficient, and intuitive, taking into account
how users think, learn, and behave.
between features
Cognitive psychology provides critical
and commands insights into human mental processes, which
can be applied to improve HCI design and
• These are modelled usability.
as derived rules

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Conclusion : Cognitive Psychology is closely related to
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) because both
fields share a common interest in understanding how
humans perceive, process, and respond to
information. The goal of HCI is to design computer
systems and interfaces that are user-friendly, efficient,
and intuitive, taking into account how users think, learn,
and behave. Cognitive psychology provides critical
insights into human mental processes, which can be
applied to improve HCI design and usability.
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