Course Overview

Reflective Essay
Student’s Name
Institution Affiliation
Course Overview: Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive psychology is an interesting topic to discuss because of its complexity. During this course, three take-away elements enhanced my understanding of cognitive psychology. First, learning the historical contexts of the different processes associated with cognitive psychology helps in understanding the subject. For example, a historical perspective of how Ivan Pavlov conducted experiments using dogs explains the processes by which humans learn to associate stimuli and consequently anticipate events. Second, learning using scenarios helped in my critical thinking. For example, the scenario of a four-year-boy sitting at the kitchen table with his father helps in breaking down how intelligence and creativity works. Lastly, learning through dialogues also gave me different perspectives on the topic. All these elements help in my personal and professional life by enhancing my creative thinking through interpretation using scenarios and building my teamwork spirit to understand phenomena through different perspectives.
Further, the first meaningful experience was engaging in dialogues about what approach to give a certain topic. For example, Pavlov was physiologists who mainly studied life processes in organisms (Pavlov, 2010). We argued whether his experiment of classical conditioning is psychological or physiological. As stated by Freedheim & Weiner (2003), he termed it as “psychic reflexes.

” Therefore, the dialogues enhanced my understanding of these scientific experiments. The second meaningful experience was the peer reviews. The idea of a classmate reviewing my work intrigued discussions that were useful for my understanding of the course. The last experience was with the difference in opinions. Having to come to a common understanding of some topics was one of the most difficult experiences. However, the experiences gave me different perspectives and ways of understanding the biological processes.
Lastly, if I could pick just one thing that the world would be well served to understand cognitive psychology better, it would be classical conditioning. I chose this because it explains how human beings learn to associate stimuli and what intrigues them to react to these stimuli. The reflexive processes result from learning, which means that most of the human processes are learned. Therefore, cognitive processes are learned processes where a person learns to associate stimuli and anticipate events.
Reference
Freedheim, D. K., & Weiner, I. B. (2003). Handbook of Psychology, History of Psychology (Vol. 1). John Wiley & Sons.
Pavlov, P. I. (2010). Conditioned reflexes: an investigation of the physiological activity of the cerebral cortex. Annals of neurosciences, 17(3), 136.