Our mental processes significantly affect the way we experience the world: perception, attention and memory
One of the key themes explored in the weeks on cognitive psychology is how mental processes (note that mental processes and cognitive processes are the same) allow us to interpret the world around us.
As you have seen, this interpretation means that we do not always experience the whole environment around us as it actually exists. This includes only attending to certain aspects of the environment, using existing knowledge to support perception and the reconstructive nature of memory.
Throughout this block you have further developed your skills in critical reading and writing for different audiences. Critically discuss the extent to which cognitive processes affect the way we experience the world.
This assignment essentially asks you to critically discuss a statement, drawing on relevant theory and research. This means you need to find relevant literature and critically evaluate it with reference to the statement in the provided essay title.
In order to do this, you need to carefully consider the provided title: the question mentions mental processes and the way we experience the world, highlighting the need to consider cognition in relation to how it might affect the information we receive from the senses.
Secondly, it uses the term ‘significantly affect’ which means you need to critically discuss the extent to which cognitive processes affect the way we experience the world. In other words as well as focusing on whether cognition may affect sensory information that you also need to consider how extensive and important these effects may be.
Once you have clearly established what the title is asking for, make sure you keep this as the key focus as you begin searching for relevant literature.
You may also want to think about how specific research questions have been addressed and studied. For example, using an example from perception, if you find research which suggests that cognitive processes operate principally by analysing information from the senses (i.e. bottom-up), with little need of using prior knowledge to interpret the information, you may use this as evidence that cognition does not significantly affect the way we experience the world.
Equally, if you find research which highlights the interpretive nature of cognition, emphasising its reliance on existing knowledge for example (i.e. top-down processing), this may provide evidence that cognitive processes can profoundly affect the way we experience the world.
As such, rather than simply providing evidence for or against a position, you can use these different approaches to build a critical discussion of relevant research.
When critically discussing your literature think about different ways to approach the material. Do you take it at face value, or might it be read differently depending on the particular academic perspective you take, or are some pieces of research more relevant than others?
When considering the literature on phenomenology, top-down perception or the reconstructive nature of memory, for example, it may be useful to think about what type of experiences the research is referring to, and whether these play a significant role in everyday life. Interrogating the literature in this way might help you to think critically about the material you present.
Remember, your essay should be written in the traditional, formal ‘academic’ style that you are used to using in psychology essays.