Cognitivism (psychology)

Cognitivism denotes a main flow of the learning theories. It is to be distinguished and marked by the different influences of the disciplines of philosophy, psychology and linguistics from behaviorism and constructivism. The focus of cognitivism are the individual information processing and related thinking and processing processes of the learners. The first roots of cognitivism find themselves the 1920s and are mainly based on the work of Edward Tolman ( forerunner of cognitivism ), Kurt Lewin (Gestalt psychologist ), Jerome Bruner ( initiator of the cognitive revolution - the development phase from behaviorism to cognitivism ) and Jean Piaget ( developmental psychologist ). Other important representatives of cognitivism are Jerry Fodor with his Modularitätstheorie of mind and Dietrich Dörner with the PSI theory.

Relation to cognitive psychology

The learning theoretical knowledge of cognitivism derived from cognitive psychology, which is an example of the overall thinking in the social sciences. This refers to taking over and installing the findings of other disciplines. To write Willig and Kommerell that the " learning gained through self-control [ ... ] in the last few decades more and more important within the learning theories [ has ] because psychology can not be represented with simple explanations, the complexity of human life. "

Cognition

The term cognition ( engl. cognition; Latin cognitio = knowledge, idea, concept, recognition ) includes on the one hand the ability to recognize certain regularities ( = thought). This process includes the acquisition, processing and evaluation of information. On the other hand, the presence of, and recourse to comparative knowledge ( = memory) is included. In short, these are the set of all processes which are used to receive, process and store information. For this reason, all theories that set their sights on mental processes, cognitive theoretical models are mentioned. Reference may be made at this point illustratively on the model learning by Albert Bandura.

Examples of cognitive processes are according to Holzinger:

  • Concept formation,
  • Perception,
  • Recognition and
  • Reasoning.

A terminology, which can be found in modern psychology, is the "cognitive dissonance ". The background here is the striving of the people for a match within his thought structure and between his thought and action. An inner conflict (or the "cognitive dissonance " ) arises therefore when man acts differently than he thinks or if he represents two fundamentally different opinions.

Cognitivism

Cognitivist learning theories assume that learning is influenced by processes and states that lie between stimulus and response. The key here "inner psychic processes " are regarded as information processing, which can be processes such as conception, learning, planning, insight, and explain decisions.

Cognitivism and differentiation from other learning theories

A completely uniform direction in cognitive theoretical models do not exist, since the individual approaches are developed independently from each. Nevertheless, some basic assumptions are common. Thus, for example, it is assumed that cognitive processes and structures have a significant influence on the behavior and experience of a people, because the internal cognitive system is always in interaction with the information from the outside. The learner processes new information by using existing information and adjusts existing in an organized network of knowledge, even as the schema (Ulrich Neisser, 1976) refers to a.

The view of behaviorism, that man is a being who will almost exclusively dominated by environmental stimuli and organizing his behavior after coming from the environmental rewards and punishments is, however, abandoned in the wake of cognitivism. Cognitive learning psychologists assume that not only the environmental stimuli cause in itself experience and behavior, but that it essentially depends on how a person perceives environmental incidents, mentally processed and evaluated. In other words, they are convinced that play while learning far more complex processes than the passive formation of new stimulus-response associations. Thus, even the idea that the brain is a "black box " or a "passive tank ", with only the external conditions (input and output ) are of interest and both feelings and thoughts will not be considered rejected. The classical conditioning is considered rather as an active process in which the organism can learn about the relationship between two events, and not as automatic stamping of stimulus compounds ( Rescorla, 1988).

A further and very significant addition to the learning theory is cognitivism, constructivism. Since the learning processes are influenced from a constructivist point of view, depending on the individual experiences of different processes, the psychology of learning constructivists pay particular attention to the subjective interpretation and construction in learning processes. In other words, what one learns, under certain conditions, thus greatly depends on the learner himself and his experiences from. Compared to behaviorism (the " storage " of knowledge) and constructivism ( the 'structure ' of knowledge), it goes in the cognitivism to the " processing " of knowledge. An essential feature of cognitivism in contrast to constructivism is his philosophical objectivism, ie the world can be constructed, there is not a constructed truth of the individual without the subject.

The image of man cognitivism

The cognitivists accept people increasingly as an individual, not alien " controlled " that, but is self-contained and can process stimuli of the environment differently. With this ability, ie the ability to think, man lifts off from the animal world. As a supplement to this review Willig and Kommerell: " Any man can make his life largely through insight and reason. He may even act against the laws of learning by themselves intellectually rewarding themselves. "By the psyche of the people running information processing and the independence of the people take to the cognitivists, that he carried out actions are purposeful.

The actual learning process in the cognitivism

From the perspective of cognitivism is a learning process takes place as a classic "information processing process " from. Specifically, this means that the brain analogy takes up to technical systems as " informationsverabeitendes device" accordingly (eg multimedia ) encrypted information on the sense organs. These are then processed with the individually available knowledge and to generate a so-called "output". Thus, the outputs (depending on the previous knowledge ), despite the same information " input " of different learners may vary. The basic communication model with transmitter, transmission ( through a medium ) and receiver can be applied to instruction. The associated learning arrangement is called instruction learning.

Particularly interesting in this context, the cognitive development theories. Because influenced by Piaget's research results of this area to the development of human intelligence also want to clarify, " [ ... ] the way in which the human being the world cognitively appropriates and what characteristic stages by running this cognition of it." Piaget here describes two basic learning processes as exchanges with the environment. He thereby assumes that behaviors in so-called " schemas" are summarized. In the process of accommodation is an existing schema of the environment "adjusted" in the system while a scheme " applied " in the assimilation.

Critique of cognitivism

Is criticized on the one -sided focus on information processing during the learning process. Thus, the aspects of information processing may indeed play a role in the explanation of learning processes, but do not serve as the sole explanatory model. Secondly, the aim of the criticism on the objectivist view of cognitivism with the idea of ​​a single, objectively true and recognizable reality. Thus, knowledge would externally and independently of the mind exist and processed differently only in individual internal processes. In addition, the difficulties of the cognitivist to explain physical skills and that the flow of information in the human brain can not be accurately observed and interpreted with its very complex neuronal activity to date, emphasized.

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