Hot Topics in Cognitive Psychology

The goal of this discussion forum is to offer you an introduction to the field of cognitive psychology. Cognitive psychology is a discipline within psychology that is concerned with the scientific study of the human mind. The mind is responsible for a variety of functions and abilities, including perception, attention, consciousness, memory, reasoning, and decision-making. Most of our mental life is unconscious. If the objects of our attention are equated to the objects of our consciousness, it is reasonable to assume that we are aware of only a limited number of events in our daily lives.

For your initial post, complete the following steps:

• Watch the video entitled, The Magic of the Unconscious: Automatic Brain (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site..
• Select a “hot topic” of cognitive psychology based on what you have heard and/or seen in the media and your personal interests.
• Look for a report in the media (e.g., newspapers, magazines, web pages of professional organizations, etc.) that refers to the selected topic such as “defendant cannot remember what happened,” “false memories explain UFO abduction stories,” and so forth.
• Describe the content of the selected report and offer your own perspective. Namely, use your critical-thinking skills to examine the extent to which the claims made in the report and the evidence upon which the report relies are to be trusted. Then, discuss the real-life consequences of the evidence reported.

In your post, include a link to the selected report, and explain to the members of the class why you have selected it. Support your points with evidence from at least one peer-reviewed research article. Your initial post must be a minimum of 300 words.

Reference:

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Introduction

Cognitive psychology is a branch of psychology that focuses on understanding the internal mental processes that shape human behavior. It explores how people perceive, attend to, remember, think, and make decisions about the world around them. Unlike behaviorism, which emphasizes observable actions, cognitive psychology examines the unseen workings of the mind—many of which occur unconsciously. As highlighted in The Magic of the Unconscious: Automatic Brain, much of human cognition operates below the level of conscious awareness, influencing daily actions, judgments, and emotional responses without deliberate thought.

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The study of unconscious mental processes has become a “hot topic” in both scientific research and popular media, particularly regarding how memory, attention, and decision-making can be affected by hidden cognitive mechanisms. Media reports frequently highlight stories that draw from cognitive psychology—such as cases involving false memories, eyewitness testimony errors, unconscious bias, or the reliability of recovered memories—illustrating how cognitive processes can profoundly impact real-life outcomes in law, healthcare, and everyday decision-making.

This discussion will analyze one such media report related to a current issue in cognitive psychology, evaluate the credibility of its claims using critical thinking and evidence-based reasoning, and connect it to peer-reviewed research. By doing so, it will demonstrate how scientific insights into cognition not only deepen our understanding of the human mind but also challenge common assumptions about how accurately we perceive and remember the world.

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