Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive psychology explores the branch of mental science that deals with motivation, problem-solving, decision-making, thinking, learning, memory, and attention.
businessman leaving an office lobby
The Sunk Cost Fallacy: How It Affects Your Life Decisions
Woman using laptop computer at home and thinking
Does Everyone Have an Inner Monologue?
Memories box in book shelf
Different Types of Memories
A woman sitting at her desk in an office.
How We Use Abstract Thinking
Woman smiling
An Overview of Broaden and Build Theory
mandela event
Mandela Effect Examples, Origins, and Explanations
Boy struggling to remember
The Recency Effect in Psychology
A woman envisioning a galaxy and a man unable to envision anything
Aphantasia
Woman listening music bending on street
What Is Willpower?
Symptoms of confabulation
Confabulation: Why We Generate False Memories
Yellow red green stroop effect test
How the Stroop Effect Works
The Dunning-Kruger Effect
What Is the Dunning-Kruger Effect?
Repression vs. suppression
What Is Repression?
Smiling senior women walking in a sunny park
How to Prevent Brain Shrinkage With Age
Anterograde amnesia
What Is Anterograde Amnesia?
Brunette woman wearing swimsuit smiles and wades in the ocean at sunset
Sensory Memory Types and Experiments
Hispanic woman looking at restaurant menu
How the Status Quo Bias Affects Your Decisions
average iq chart
What's the Average IQ?
The conscious mind
The Unconcious Mind, Preconscious Mind and Conscious Mind
Learning disabilities often come with a higher IQ.
What Is a Genius IQ Score?
Happy female runner holding water bottle
Intrinsic Motivation: How Internal Rewards Drive Behavior
Training dog
Acquisition in Classical Conditioning
difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation
Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic Motivation: What's the Difference?
two elementary school girls using tablet in classroom
How Latent Learning Works According to Psychology
Male student with hands on his head in classroom
How Mental Sets Prohibit Seeing Solutions to Problems
illustration of woman in the middle of components of general intelligence
How General Intelligence (G Factor) Is Determined
Opponent process theory of color vision
The Opponent Process Theory of Color Vision
Close up of yellow flower petals
The Color Psychology of Yellow
Aerial view of Pacific Islander woman running in parking lot
What Is Cognitive Bias?
Explicit and Implicit Memory
Implicit Memory vs. Explicit Memory
cognitive dissonance
What Is Cognitive Dissonance?
Two female friends cheering
How the Overjustification Effect Reduces Motivation
two asian children playing chess at a table outside
Genetic and Environmental Influences on Intelligence
Woman brainstorming while looking at notes on office wall
How Long-Term Memory Retrieval Works
A brain maze representing a heuristic or mental shortcut
What Are Heuristics?
Students making notes at picnic table while adult woman looks on
Kolb's Cycle of Learning
Vases and figures optical illusion
Figure-Ground Perception in Psychology
closeup of an eye
Iconic Memory and Visual Stimuli
Woman looking through photo album
What Is Episodic Memory?
States of Consciousness
States of Consciousness
A high IQ child
Are High IQ People More Successful?
selective attention
How We Use Selective Attention to Filter Information and Focus
Kinesthesis during baseball
What Is Kinesthesis?
Attention focused on a smart phone
How Psychologists Define Attention
Multiple types of intelligence
What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?
Three multi-ethnic senior men sitting on bench talking
List of Common Cognitive Biases
Stress
5 Surprising Ways That Stress Affects Your Brain
The Negative Photo Illusion example
What Is the Negative Picture Illusion?
People passing colorful LED illuminated facade
Color Psychology: Does It Affect How You Feel?
Are You Left Brain or Right Brain Dominant?
Left Brain vs. Right Brain Dominance
young girl reading and writing
Understanding Accommodation in Psychology
gestalt laws of perceptual organization
What Are the Gestalt Principles?
Woman smelling bouquet of flowers
What Is Perception?
IQ scores
What Is an IQ Test?
Man and woman holding hands and looking over their shoulders on a sunny day
How Hindsight Bias Affects How We View the Past
girl lighted with colorful code
Fluid vs. Crystallized Intelligence
Child in a wheel chair looking at a group of boys in the distance
How People Develop Prejudices
Boy yelling next to brick wall
The Schachter-Singer Two-Factor Theory of Emotion
Close up of woman's eye
The Trichromatic Theory of Color Vision
Theories of emotion
The 6 Major Theories of Emotion