Overview of Cognitive Learning Theory

Understanding Cognitive Learning Theory

People often struggle to remember names, lengthy lists, or specific details from stories. Cognitive learning theory focuses on how we process, store, and retrieve information. Over fifty years of cognitive research has revealed insights into how the mind manages information—how it enters, gets represented, and gets recalled or forgotten.

As learning and development professionals working in an information-centered field, understanding cognitive theory’s core principles is essential. All instruction involves information in some form, making familiarity with cognitivism foundational to effective practice.

What is Cognitive Learning Theory?

Cognitive learning theory comprises interconnected theories treating the mind as “an information processing device that collects, manipulates, and stores information in ways similar to a computer.” While not claiming the mind literally functions as a computer, this analogy provides useful language for discussing mental operations: input, process, output.

The cognitive sciences examine:

• How information reaches our minds from the world
• What form information takes mentally
• How we store and retrieve information
• How we mentally manipulate and transform information
• How we express information

What is Learning According to Cognitive Theory?

From this perspective, learning occurs when we “take information from the external world, bring it into our mental space, process it appropriately, produce whatever output is intended, and retain our ability to do the same thing again in the future.”

Three distinguishing features characterize this view:

1. Information as the Object of Learning

Information—in verbal, visual, or auditory forms—sits at cognition’s center. Information is perceived, collected, moved, manipulated, and expressed. Without it, mental activity cannot occur.

2. Cognition Occurs in the Mind

Unlike behaviorism focusing on observable behavior, cognitive theory emphasizes internal mental processes. Action results from thinking; knowledge and action are distinct. Learning can occur without visible evidence.

3. Hardware and Software Components

Learning involves information (software) and the mind (processing equipment). The mind has inherent limits, capacities, and protocols. Effective learning requires analyzing both information and human processing constraints.

Philosophical Roots

Cognitive learning theory, like behaviorism, is objectivist—presupposing an objective world existing outside our minds. This contrasts with relativistic theories like constructivism, which posit that meaning is relative to individual interpretation.

This distinction matters significantly. Objectivist approaches assume learners can succeed or fail; outcomes are measurable. Relativist theories view truth and right/wrong as individual constructions resistant to objective judgment.

How the Mechanics Work

Learning processes vary by content type. How we learn facts differs from learning concepts or processes. However, all learning operates within identical perception and memory structures—the “hardware” constraining learning.

Memory: The Basic Parts

The human memory system has three components:

Part 1: Sensory Registers

Our senses constantly receive more information than our minds can process. Sensory registers hold information temporarily while we assign meaning to certain parts; the rest is rapidly discarded unconsciously.

Part 2: Short-Term Memory

Information assigned meaning moves into short-term memory. Some gets committed to long-term memory; the rest is discarded permanently. Information here remains available for approximately fifteen seconds on average.

Part 3: Long-term Memory

Long-term memory permanently stores information. However, retrieval mechanisms are necessary to access stored information.

How Information Reaches Long-Term Memory

The path information follows to reach long-term memory involves four steps:

1. Sensory perception: Information enters sensory registers when picked up by the senses—though not necessarily noticed. Attention depends on goals and conscious/subconscious factors.

2. Short-term memory entry: Noticed information enters awareness and short-term memory. It can be discarded or given attention. Short-term memory capacity: approximately seven units of meaning (plus or minus two).

3. Encoding into long-term memory: Information moves from short-term to long-term memory through association with existing long-term memory content—a usually conscious process called encoding.

4. Retrieval using encoded cues: Information is retrieved by using the associated existing long-term memory item as a recall trigger.

Information Storage Form

When information enters sensory registers, it appears in raw form initially. Upon assigning meaning, we store that meaning—not original details—in short-term and long-term memory. We remember gist using different language rather than exact words.

Once meaning enters long-term memory, it integrates into pre-existing schemas—mental models organizing information types. For example, we possess body anatomy schemas; new biceps information becomes part of this schema. New meaning transforms existing schemas while being transformed by them.

Schemas enable movement from short-term to long-term memory through association with existing information. Without pre-existing schemas, random associations (mnemonics, memory palaces) must substitute—but these create weaker retrieval cues.

Implications for Instructional Design

The human memory architecture offers essential lessons for instruction:

1. Prime Learners to Notice Important Information

We constantly receive more stimuli than we can process. Sensory registers quickly discard irrelevant information before conscious awareness. Effective instruction requires:

• Reducing noise and increasing signal in instructional materials/environments
• Pointing out or emphasizing things requiring attention
• Giving learners goals or tasks priming them to assign meaning to relevant data

2. Associate New Things with Familiar Things

People incorporate new content into long-term memory by associating it with existing long-term memory items. Instruction should connect new material to learner experiences, using analogies, metaphors, and other devices.

3. Associate New Things with Schema

While random familiar associations work, effectiveness increases when associating new content with existing schemas. Teaching management concepts to leaders should connect to their pre-existing management schemas by invoking prior experiences.

4. Create Schema When Absent

If learners lack existing schemas, begin by creating them. Provide overarching organizing frameworks allowing learners to situate new learning. Properly designed advance organizers help accomplish this.

5. Lead with the Old, Then Add the New

Though simple, this principle rarely gets practiced despite substantial impact. When making old-new associations, always lead with the old. Present examples before concepts. Invoke prior experience before relating new ideas to it.

6. Avoid Information Overload

Never presenting learners with more information than short-term memory can hold (seven plus or minus two) matters greatly. Allow consolidation time for information transitioning from short-term to long-term memory, and provide mental breaks permitting memory system reset.

Implications for Reinforcement and Coaching

Cognitive theory offers limited guidance for reinforcement and coaching. Since cognitivism focuses on internal mental processes while coaching emphasizes overt behaviors, alignment is incomplete. Additionally, cognitivism insufficiently addresses association strength and lacks robust motivation theory.

Cognitivism primarily guides initial instruction design rather than ongoing reinforcement and behavioral coaching.

Notable Thinkers and Researchers

• John Robert Anderson
• David Paul Ausubel
• George Armitage Miller
• Allan Paivio

Conclusion

Describing mental activity as information processing may not match subjective thinking experience. However, information undeniably plays crucial roles in thinking and learning. We consume information constantly through books, articles, podcasts, television, and movies. These undoubtedly affect our knowledge bases.

Whether describing learning entirely as information processing or partially, information unquestionably features in nearly all instruction. PowerPoints, articles, case studies, charts, diagrams, and spoken language all convey information learners must process. Following how learners’ minds process information becomes essential.

Cognitivism provides “an extraordinarily robust and highly practical framework” for understanding learning and thinking. This overview presents only a fraction of cognitivism’s practical lessons.