approaches- cognitive Flashcards
what does inference mean
means reaching to a logical conclusion on the basis of evidence and reasoning for example internal mental process arnt empirical so must infer their impact on behaviour
what is a schema
a cognitive framework in which proposes we store info in form of schemas a store of knowledge eg physical characteristics of dog built through experiences they act as short cuts to help interpret new info however we might exclude info that doesn’t fit in pre existing schema eg if racist meets nice black person
what is a theoretical model
-illustrate processes and structures of a particular mental process eg multi store model of memory these are simplified often visual representations based on research
sensory store—-> short term memory ——> long term memory
what is cognitive psychology
how people perceive store and manipulate info and relates to mental processes such as perception, memory and reasoning in order to understand behaviour
what is the computer model
-liken mental processes to computer processes data entry and coding of info and storage for example LTM could be seen as hard disk and Ram as working memory
input (stimuli) —-> internal mental processes (attention, memory etc) —–> output ( behaviour/feeling)
what is assimilation
within schemas these help us to interput large about of information
what is accommodation
“change and create” adaption of altering existing schemas for example “foreign food”
what is cognitive nueroscience
noninvasive nueroimaging techniques such as PET scans and fMRI scans enable psychologists to see which parts of the brain are active during certain tasks
the supporting study for cognitive nueroscience
Burnett et al
found the pre-frontal cortex assosiatied with social emotions like guilt
cognitive evaluation
APPLIED
+strength of cognitive approach is that it has been applied in many areas of psychology eg has been used to explain anxiety and depression ELLIS ABC model focuses on negative thinking with the aim to improve thought systems through disputing eg logical disputing
cognitive evaluation -
Reductionism
-may be limited in its emphasis on the human mind being like a computer eg ‘coding’ ‘storage’ ‘retrieval’ eg important difference is that humans unlike computers make mistakes ignore or forget information TMB an example of machine reductionism and is criticised for being over simplistic and complex behaviours such as memory can’t just be explained by one factor it is a network of various factors
explain one limitation of the cognitive approach -3 marks
The computer model siggests that we use the inter mental process ed memory decides weather we do or dont perform a behaviour. These are not empirical as we cannot be directly observed. this matters because inference is not very reliable suggesting that we cant trust this model as there is no empirical data
what is the theoretical model draw it
visual representation of a theory
sensory store —-> short term memory —-> long term memory
evaluate cognitive approach
SCIENTIFIC
+ cognitive approach is scientific eg cognitive neuroscience uses experimental methods such as fMRI scans these are scientific because they are empirical which is observer data not open to subjective opions TMB it increases the rate of accurate conclusions and also helps establish cause-effect relationship
