7. The Cognitive Approach AO1

Question 1

What does the cognitive approach argue??

Answer 1

Mental processes should be studied

Question 2

Outline the role of inference in the study of mental processes

Answer 2

Mental processes are private and cannot be observed, cognitive psychologists study them indirectly by making inferences about what is going on inside peoples heads based on their behaviour

Question 3

What does the information processing approach suggest?

Answer 3

Information flows through a sequence of stages as in the multi-store model

Question 4

What are computer models?

Answer 4

Programs that can be run on a computer to imitate the human mind

Question 5

Outline the use of computer models when describing/explaining mental processes

Answer 5

By running this, psychologists contest whether their ideas about information-processing are correct

Question 6

What is a schema?

Answer 6

Packages of information developed through experience - act as mental framework for interpretation of incoming information received by cognitive system, as we age they become more detailed and sophisticated

Question 7

What is cognitive neuroscience?

Answer 7

The scientific study of the influence of the brain structures on mental processes

Question 8

What have scientists recently been able to do in regard to neuroscience?

Answer 8

Advances in brain scanning technology in the past 20 years has helped to describe the neurological basis of mental processing.

Question 9

What else have scanning techniques proved useful in?

Answer 9

Proved useful in establishing the neurological basis of some disorders e.g. OCD