CSC 205
Professor Stearns
Some Fundamental Cognitive Psychology Principles

• Selective Attention
  Information is constantly entering 5 buffers - one for each sense. The mind must focus on one of those buffers if a particular input is to be perceived.
  Do you really believe you can read while watching TV?

• Short Term Memory
  When information is selected, it enters your short term memory and disappears in 2 to 15 seconds. This process is called reception.
  

• Rule of 7
  The short term memory holds 7 memory chunks (The number varies by individual but most people's STM holds exactly 7). A person will "dump memory" if the external stimuli exceed that limit; many people will turn off the senses altogether if the input is excessive. The thinking process also fills short term memory from the brain (cognition).

• Memory Chunks
  A memory chunk is an abstraction; chunks can be hierarchical or groups of information. Or a single piece of information.

• Closure
  People need to feel a sense of completion when they perform an activity. Such closure should occur whether the activity is done correctly or incorrectly.

• Conceptual Integrity
  People like similar operations to work the same way.

• Cognitive Dissonance
  People have opinions, values, attitudes and knowledge about anything they do. Whenever a decision is made among alternatives, there will be dissonance created between the competing alternatives.
  Have you felt this dissonance when you bought something and a friend suggested that you should have made a different purchase?

• Known Language, Icons and Metaphors
  People like to see words and symbols they are comfortable with. And they like metaphors to match their own domains.

• Least Astonishment Principle
  People don't like surprises.