Overview
Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes that underlie how people acquire, represent, store, transform, and use information. Its core domains include perception, attention, memory, language, concept formation, reasoning, problem solving, decision making, and executive control. The field treats the mind as an information-processing system and uses controlled experiments, reaction-time measures, and computational and theoretical models to infer the structure of unobservable cognitive operations. Influential frameworks examine how abstract concepts are represented, including conceptual metaphor accounts in which abstract ideas are grounded in sensory and bodily experience, and how emotional or motivational factors shape processes such as conflict monitoring and cognitive control. Cognitive psychology connects closely with neuroscience, where mental constructs are mapped onto neural mechanisms, and with applied work on learning, self-monitoring, and behavior change. Sub-areas address working memory and attention, semantic and episodic memory, mental imagery, judgment under uncertainty, and the interaction between cognition and emotion. Methodologically, the discipline emphasizes operational definitions, experimental manipulation, and convergence across behavioral and physiological evidence. Findings inform education, clinical assessment and rehabilitation, human factors, and the design of interventions that depend on understanding how attention, memory, and reasoning operate and how they can be supported or disrupted.
Research published in this journal
5 peer-reviewed articles, ranked by relevance. Each links to its DOI.
Cognitive Mechanism of Emotional Validity Influencing Conflict Control
“That Which is Measured Improves”: A Theoretical and Empirical Review of Self-Monitoring in Self-Management and Adaptive Behavior Change
Psychosomatics: Exploring the Role of the Mind-Body Connection in Causing Physical Illnesses
How Africa Should Engage Ubuntu Ethics and Artificial Intelligence
How this research is being cited
The 5 articles above have been cited 54 times in the scholarly literature. Citation data via OpenAlex and Crossref, updated Jun 2026.
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2026 · Acta Psychologica
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2026 · Journal of Public Health
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2026 · Internet Interventions
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2026 · Behavior Therapy
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2026 · Journal of School Psychology
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2026 · Child & Youth Care Forum
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2026 · Journal of Language, Literature, and Educational Research
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2026 · South African Journal of Philosophy
A sample of recent works citing this journal's research on Cognitive Psychology, linking to each citing work.