Cognitive psychology
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Overview
Cognitive psychology is the study of how the mind works, and what mental processes take place there. According to the American Psychological Association, these processes include “attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and thinking.
You may also find numerous references to similar processes with terms such as:
- Cognitive and behavioral psychology
- Human Computer Interaction
- Cognition
- Cognitive sciences
- Psychology
How this affects IA
The way we think about and perceive information affects our interaction with it.
IA needs to work in harmony with the following cognitive psychology elements to create usable systems:
- Mental models
- Labels and organization of information need to reflect the perceptions and beliefs that the users hold about a specific topic
- Cognitive load and decision making
- The structure, labeling and navigation need to be at the right level of breadth, depth and complexity to make it as easy as possible to interpret, make sense of and act on information
- Attention
- Information needs to be structured to accommodate browsing and scanning patterns of a digital reader
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