Knowledge analysis and representation: contributions from Cognitive Psychology

Abstract

The main aim of this lecture is to give light to some of the demands required to documentalists about the psychological models which define at present the cognitive activity of the human beings considered as processors of information. Taking into account the mentioned models frame, the author pays a special attention to the analysis of the human knowledge and its representation from five dimensions: a) the kinds of knowledge used by human beings; b) the influence of the individual's previous experience; c) the different stages of thought involved in the construction of the consolidated products that we call science; d) the strategies of thought used by human beings; and, at last, e)the influence of the motivational factor within the thinking process. It is unthinkable trying to transmit thoughts without considering this set of requirements demanded by the cognitive activity of the users. This lecture encourages the basic research of human knowledge and its processes which tends to make clear the different levels of involvement of every hemisphere in the processing of information, the human beings' evolutionary stages referred to their possibilities of thinking and their capacity of cognitive training and the cognitive links of interaction between the specific nature of the knowledge which must be assimilated. (Author)