What do we mean by cognitive processes?

Field (2004, p. 61) defines cognition as ‘the use or handling of knowledge’. Field elaborates by referring to cognition as both a ‘faculty’ and a ‘process’. With regards to this study we are interested in exploring the cognitive processes which take place whilst students engage in reading in order to write. This might be restated as exploring the way in which students process the knowledge they acquire from reading texts and integrate it with their existing knowledge to produce a written academic assignment.

Of course, studying cognitive processes is a much-debated area. After all, we cannot observe or measure with certainty what happens in the mind. We can observe behaviour that results from cognitive processes or we can measure brain activity in the form of electrical activity but neither of these tells us what ‘thinking’ is taking place behind the scenes. We are therefore limited to interpreting behaviour and drawing conclusions about the cognitive processes it represents and asking subjects to report what they are thinking, and this is inevitably problematic.

For the moment let us focus more closely on defining what cognitive processing is in relation to reading into writing. Field (2004) and Eysenck and Keane (2005) suggest that many of the ideas that are current in cognitive psychology arose from the information processing approach (Newell, Shaw and Simon, 1958) which was developed in the 1950s. This approach focuses on the flow of information through the mind as tasks are performed. As a result of this information processing approach many researchers have adopted the opinion that

human behaviour is based on problem-solving. Much of the recent research into the nature of expertise has been carried out from this standpoint. Newell and Simon (1972) report that cognitive psychology has developed protocol analysis (or ‘think aloud’ as it is sometimes referred to) as a powerful tool with which to investigate the processes people use when

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tackling problem-solving tasks. This perhaps explains the widespread use of protocol analysis for studying reading into writing.

Turning our attention to the type of cognitive processes that readers / writers engage in, Field (2003) describes ‘an information processing approach’ in which any form of communication is broken down into a whole series of stages or sub-tasks which need to be completed in order to process the information. Field uses the example in Figure 1 to illustrate the kind of information processing that occurs when somebody asks you the way to the station, for example.

Figure 1 Cognitive stages in listening and responding to a question Field (2003:p17)

However, Field goes on to suggest that this is a simplification of the way communication is processed. Field suggests that this kind of ‘bottom-up’ serial processing of information is not what really happens. Instead Field suggests that the listener or reader is simultaneously using the context (the bigger picture) to analyse the information in a ‘top-

identify the

words in

question

organise the

words into a

syntactic pattern

turn the question

into an abstract

idea

search memory

for information

retrieve the

information

turn the

information into

words

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down’ way. For example, when a stranger approaches in the street, we are already thinking back to previous such encounters and beginning to predict what the stranger may want or say.

Therefore, we can begin to see that cognitive processes happen at a range of levels, some of which are more conscious and effortful, and others occur at a level which escapes our notice on a daily basis. In other words, some low-level processes happen so quickly and automatically that in everyday life we are unaware of them. Only when a break-down in

communication occurs do we occasionally have cause to review them; for example, if we mishear a word which causes a sentence to be syntactically wrong or semantically unlikely, then we may be fleetingly aware of our re-interpretation of the sounds into a more plausible word. When reading, low level processes like word recognition are automated in adult readers / competent readers to the extent that for the most part readers are unaware of the process. Likewise, in writing, low level processes like spelling are usually automated for adult writers, most of the time.

Higher level processes are more conscious and effortful. In Field’s (2003) example

in Figure 1, the person giving directions will probably be aware of actively considering where the station is in relation to their current location. In reading, higher level processes might include working out which ideas are key / central to text. In writing, deciding how to order the ideas within the text would be a high-level process.

The level of consciousness associated with a process affects how we can record it / evidence it. Higher level cognitive processes which are conscious have the ability to be accurately reported by participants using techniques such as protocol analysis or think aloud methods of research. For other lower level processes, the sub-conscious nature of them puts them largely beyond the reach of accurate self-reporting. However, as will be discussed later,

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some methodologies such as the study of eye-movements during reading, can be used to infer some of the lower level processes.

Having outlined what is meant by ‘a cognitive process’, we will now go on to review the models of reading and writing available in the literature and consider how their cognitive processes may interact during reading into writing.