Cognitive Psychology Paper Guidelines

Topics for Cognitive Psychology Paper

1. Pick a topic from the Topics below and relating it to cognitive psychology write a paper

2. You will write a minimum 1000 word (approx 4-5 pages double spaced)

3. You must include at least 2 original research experiments on a cognitive process as measured by a task you consider relevant to your topic.

a. Explain the hypothesis – what were the predicted outcomes (in units of measure), and what did the possible results imply.

b. Briefly describe the methods. Choose your details carefully! Identify the relevant variables of the experiments and describe those ones only.

c. Discuss the findings. Explain what the results mean in terms of general or universal principles of cognition then explain how the principles apply to your specific topic.

d. When you discuss the study do not present statistics.

4. Use Primary Sources, original research papers, reviews, or books. Do not use newspapers, magazines or non-academic websites as the sources for the experiments you are summarizing.

5. The more concise and specific, the better. Don’t try to develop a ‘theory of everything’, but pick a premise and follow through.

1) Define your interests in cognitive psychology, for yourself  and

2) Apply the methods and knowledge of cognitive psychology in perception, attention, memory, learning, language, decision making, problem solving, creativity and emotions, to everyday experiences.

It is a good idea to outline your paper first. You do not know enough 'off the tops of your heads' to write an outline or paper. You must do a literature search before putting together an outline.

The purpose of this assignment is to help you break down the literature search into smaller steps and give you tangible goals that will get you to your final destination.

Identify qualities critical to effective leadership, and those which can be understood through methods and theories of cognitive psychology. Topics include, but are not limited to, empathy, decision making, emotion and memory or even body language and lie detection. What are the biological, behavioral and computational methods used in understanding and brain in leadership?

You travel to the future to find our human descendants have evolutionarily evolved in terms of perception and cognition. The people of tomorrow are to the people of today the same way the people of today are to bonobos and great apes. Describe what that could look like. What neurological differences would you expect and why? What would the abilities look like in terms of semantic knowledge, or short-term memory or long-term memory or Theory of Mind (the ability to take on the perspectives of others)? What disabilities, illusions or dissociations would arise in this super-intelligent population?

How do we best learn? What are the best practices and do they differ when teaching numeracy, literacy or motor-coordination and what role does social context play? Summarize research using biological, behavioral or computational methods in learning. Topics include attention, perception, spacing versus massed practice, desirable difficulties, as well as neurological differences between novices and experts. 

What is the impact of culture on perception and cognition, be it colors, tastes in music, the use of language to frame a problem, or recognition of emotions in others and do the values taught in the homes of a nation play a role the foreign policies of that nation? Do the differences in culture affect complex cognitive decisions? Is one language more susceptible to ‘financial duping’ than another? How will today’s digital media contribute? Summarize research using behavioral, neurological or computational methods.

The clinical disorders while fascinating, also shed light on the design of the brain and the organization of perception, memory, attention, volition, mood, and reasoning. You will need to pick the disorders carefully, and focus on a specific expression of the disorder. They can be mental disorders from any of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Axis’s: biological deficits, resulting from strokes, and lesions, clinical disorders like schizophrenia or bi-polar disorders, personality disorders like narcissism, and borderline personality disorders. 

Starting from courtship, through commitment, to conception, pregnancy to the empty nest and being a grand-parent, what are the cognitive changes that pervade the life of  humans as progenitors? How does the influx of hormones change a maiden to a mom? What evolutionary calculus enters the decision-making when it comes to raising boys versus girls, infidelity or adoption and how do grandparents view it differently from parents? What skills do we employ in raising a child, what regions of the brain are affected, and how does parental behavior change in the face of shifting cultural norms?

While these topics are very engaging, the papers are about Cognition and Cognitive Psychology.

Your paper presents original research in a field of cognitive psychology that illuminates processes of perception, thinking, attention, feeling or creativity in the topic you have chosen. The umbrella topic (Parenting) is a context to connect cognition to everyday life, in other words the paper is about cognition not about the overall topic (e.g., Parenting).