Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive psychologists try to understand how we think - cognitions. Understanding cognitions is critical to the study of such topics as memory, concepts, language, decision making, problem solving, attention, and perception. For several decades, cognitive psychology has played a major role in virtually all areas of psychology. For example, memory is related to questions and issues relevant to clinical psychologists (the development of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), developmental psychology (how does memory change as we grow older), social psychology (how stereotypes are stored in memory), and neuroscience (how memory is encoded in the brain). Cognitive psychology is also related to many other fields, such as advertising, human – computer interactions, human development, education, and political science. At NIU we offer classes that provide an overview of the field, ways to apply cognitive psychology to improve critical thinking skills, as well as classes on specialized topics associated with field.