cognitive psychology – Cognition in Class

April 27, 2026April 28, 2026

Constantly studying but still lost? Well, organization might be the key to your solution

By: Chloe Pluger

Introduction

Have you ever stayed up hours on end studying: rereading the notes, writing everything down, even pulling an all nighter to open the test and thinking your still going to fail.

It’s very annoying when you know you put all that effort into studying. The issue is though the problem might not be how much you were studying all that information it could be the way you organized what you were learning.

While in college theres so much going on multiple classes, different deadlines, sports, and other responsibilities. Without having a clear schedule all the information you are told could start to come together or you could forget it. Now this is when cognitive psychology comes into play.

This post will be going over how organization affects memory, why your brain relies on structure to process the information, and how you can apply simple, research-backed strategies so you are able to change the bad study habits into more organized and effective ways to recall the information.

April 27, 2026April 28, 2026

How much Space? – Spacing Effect

By: Natallie Tobuk

Thinking back to my time as a freshman in college, I think that my advice to myself would be to rethink how I study for tests. I think that cramming for a test can be successful on occasion but doing it all the time will make your life more stressful than it needs to be. Procrastination was a method that I relied on throughout high school for assignments and even studying for tests and exams. Now that I have been in college for three years, I know that though I am a busy person, it is not effective and causes a lot of unnecessary stress. By rethinking how you study, you too can save yourself a lot of stressful nights and mornings by using the spacing effect to make your study sessions more effective.

April 26, 2026April 27, 2026

Study Smarter, Not Harder: How “Levels of Processing” Can Change the Way You Learn

By: Braylon Boyer

If I could go back to my first year of college, I wouldn’t tell myself to study more, I would tell myself to study differently. Like most students I thought college was cramming everything to the night before exams and reread notes a million times. It felt productive, but the results didn’t always match my effort.

A concept that changes how we think about studying from cognitive psychology is Levels of Processing. Once you understand it, you stop wasting time on useless strategies and start using ones that work.

April 26, 2026April 27, 2026

Think You Can Multitask? Think Again

By: Breannyn Dixon

Picture this: You have a test that you need to study for. You get ready at your desk with your textbook and notes to begin studying. Then your phone goes off and before you know it, you are scrolling on TikTok or Instagram while trying to study. Does this sound like you before tests?

In this scenario, you can feel like you are getting a lot more done than you are because you are studying and scrolling or answering friends on your phone. There is a misconception that when you are working through multiple tasks at the same time, or multitasking, you are getting a lot done faster. However, in reality, you are actually less productive. This is called divided attention, and it could be the real reason why you are not able to remember the material you try to study before a big test or final. So how do you avoid falling into the trap of divided attention? We will dive into different solutions for your scrolling time and study time not overlapping.

April 26, 2026April 27, 2026

The Hidden Study Method Your Brain Uses Without You

By: Jayden Crowder

Have you ever seen a term on a test and thought, “I’ve definitely seen this before,” even if you couldn’t fully explain it? That feeling isn’t random, it’s your brain using something called repetition priming. And even though it usually happens automatically, you can actually design your studying around it. Most students think learning only happens when they sit down and focus, but cognitive psychology shows that your brain is constantly learning from repeated exposure, even when you’re not trying. Repetition priming is one of the clearest examples of this.

What Is Repetition Priming?

Repetition priming happens when your brain processes something faster or more easily simply because you’ve seen it before. It doesn’t require conscious effort. In fact, it’s part of what psychologists call implicit memory, which works without you actively trying to remember anything. Research shows that when a stimulus, like a word or concept, is repeated, your brain becomes more efficient at processing it later, even if you don’t consciously remember seeing it before (1). This is why a vocabulary word looks more familiar the second time you see it, or why a concept starts to feel easier after repeated exposure. Your brain isn’t just remembering it’s becoming more efficient.

April 26, 2026April 27, 2026

Wait… Did That Actually Happen?

How Your Memory Can Be Rewritten and What to Do About It

By: Railynn Brown

Introduction

Have you ever been talking with a friend about something that happened, and suddenly your memory of it starts to change? Maybe you were completely sure about what you saw or learned, but then someone describes it a little differently, and now you’re second-guessing yourself. This actually happened to me during my first year of college when I was studying with a group and realized later that something I “remembered” for the exam was completely wrong.

Picture this: you’re talking with a friend about something that happened last week, and they confidently say, “Remember when that car sped through the stop sign?” You pause. You thought the car just rolled through it, but now you’re not so sure. As it turns out, the way someone describes something after the fact can actually change how you remember it.

In this post, I’m going to break down the misinformation effect and source monitoring errors in a way that actually connects to your experience as a college student. Once you understand how easily your memory can be influenced, it becomes a lot easier to avoid studying the wrong thing and walking into an exam feeling confident only to be disappointed with the results.

April 26, 2026April 27, 2026

Study Techniques; Spaced v.s Mass Practice

By: Leon Danta

Introduction

Have you ever tried to intensely study for a long period of time without breaks? If so, do not worry, you are amongst many who believe that this is an efficient way of studying. As a first year freshman, I came into college with some knowledge about studying, but not as much as I know now. It can be overwhelming entering a new stage in your life, especially if no one in your family was interested in furthering their education. With your first lectures you may think to yourself: Am I taking notes right? What does that mean? Is this useful? I can’t push you to study a certain way as to each their own but, personally what I thought was the best way to study was to cram everything into one session right before a test, although the outcomes varied. Or even studying for a long amount of time with no breaks.

April 26, 2026April 27, 2026

Want to be more confident before a test? Well then, Never Eat Soggy Waffles!

By: Naitzy Garcia

You’re studying and studying, but can’t retain the information, no matter how many times you review it? However, if you were asked for directions, you’d know to Never Eat Soggy Waffles? That is a mnemonic; a golden tool to help create shortcuts for information we want to remember. This same tool is used by top participants at the “World Memory Championship”, who credit their success not to the anatomy of their brain, but to their training with mnemonics.

April 26, 2026April 27, 2026

Way of studying; Relating words to survival value

By: Joshua Stanley

Studying for classes or a test can be stressful at times, and prevent you from fully understanding the full material. Even when you prepare for a big exam you may not remember everything you studied and that can lead to an unwanted grade. A way to make your studying easier is by relating words or information to survival value. Doing this will make studying more effective because it taps into how human memory naturally works.

Our brains are wired to prioritise information that seems important for survival, so when something feels relevant to staying alive or solving real-life problems, the brain processes it more deeply and remembers it better. For example, instead of trying to memorize vocabulary or facts you can ask yourself how that information might help you in a real life situation, that way the information comes easier to remember because you related it to a real world experience. Say you were studying biology terms, you should think about how knowing them could help you identify or understand an illness.

April 26, 2026April 27, 2026

Why Your Brain Loves Words and Pictures: Dual Coding Theory

By Cierra Crady

Introduction

As you can see, we see pictures with words and pictures 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 times a year. We visualize what we see and/or imagine. For example, if we see words and can imagine what we read in a book or magazine, this is called the Dual Coding Theory.

How that works is that we have two brain systems:

Verbal System – Words, language, and/or written or spoken information
Non-verbal System – Images, mental pictures, and sensory pictures