The core focus of cognitive psychology is on how people acquire, process and store information. The word “cognition” refers to the mental processes of the brain associated with thinking, knowing, and remembering

The cognitive approach began to revolutionize psychology in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, to become the dominant approach (i.e. perspective) in psychology by the late 1970s. But it was the arrival of the computer that gave cognitive psychology the terminology and metaphor it needed to investigate the human mind. The start of the use of computers allowed psychologists to try to understand the complexities of human cognition by comparing it with something simpler and better understood i.e. an artificial system such as a computer.

In order to understand the mind – both conscious and unconscious thought – one has to understand the brain and how it works. Problem solving & planning Behavioral control Language & speech Memory Visual Processing Motor movement Transfers new memories from short to long term Spatial orientation

Phineas P. Gage (1823–1860) was an American railroad construc­tion foreman remembered for his improba­ble sur­vival of an accident in which a large iron rod was driven com­pletely through his head, destroy­ing much of his brain's left frontal lobe … and for that injury's reported effects on his personal­i­ty and behavior over the remaining twelve years of his life  ​ effects so profound that (for a time at least) friends saw him as "no longer Gage."

The frontal lobe and it’s parts are also responsible for the way we perceive things.

In 1953, an anonymous patient by the name of HM underwent one of the most drastic and educational surgeries that neuroscientists and psychologists had ever seen. The surgery was performed in an attempt to cure his epilepsy. Doctor Scoville removed a section of HM's brain encompassing the hippocampus. HM lost the ability to form new memories. He would have a conversation with someone new … and moments after meeting, would be quite unaware that the conversation had taken place. He became suspended in time on that surgical day.