what is cognitive in psychology

Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning. The term "cognition" refers to all processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used. Cognitive psychology is concerned with these processes even when they operate in the absence of relevant stimulation, as in images and hallucinations. Every psychological phenomenon is a cognitive phenomenon, and cognition is involved in everything a human being might possibly do. Cognitive psychologists use experimental methods to study the internal mental processes that underlie behavior. They study how people acquire, perceive, process, and store information, and how they make sense of that information. Cognitive psychology focuses on studying mental processes, including how people perceive, think, remember, learn, solve problems, and make decisions. Cognitive psychologists try to build up cognitive models of the information processing that goes on inside people’s minds, including perception, attention, language, memory, thinking, and consciousness. They use the insights gained from studying how people think and process information to help people develop new ways of dealing with problem behaviors and live better lives.