Approaches- Cognitive approach Flashcards
The cognitive approach focuses on what ?
The thought process of an individual as opposed to behavioural outcome.
The approach suggests that all behaviour is driven by internal intention.
Thinking requires perception, attention, memory, language and problem solving.
What is meant by the term cognition?
The mental act or process by which knowledge is acquired.
What are the main principles of cognitive psychology?
Thought processes can be, and should be studied scientifically (lab methods rather than introspection).
The human mind is like a computer system with input(sensation), process and output (language and behaviour).
When looking at input (stimulus) and output (response) we must consider the process in between (criticises behaviourism).
Explain the role of schema
Schemas are “knowledge packages” developed from our experiences of the world and are so unique to each person.
They allow us to interpret new situations appropriately and make sense of our world.
Each person’s reality is shaped by their schemas (formed based on personal experiences). They are therefore differences in expectation depending on a person’s culture, upbringing and social encounters.
What is an example of how shcemas are used?
War of the ghosts- Bartlett (1932)
The aim of this study was to investigate how memory of a story is affected by previous knowledge.
Bartlett wanted to see if a cultural background and unfamiliarity with a text would lead to distortion of memory when the story was recalled.
Bartlett’s hypothesis was that memory is reconstructive and that people store and retrieve information according to expectations formed by cultural schemas.
Bartlett performed a study where he used serial reproduction, which is a technique where participants hear a story or see a drawing and are told to reproduce it after a short time and then to do so again repeatedly over a period of days, weeks, months, years.
Bartlett told participants a Native American legend called the war of the ghosts.
The participants in the study were British; for them the story was filled with unknown names and concepts, and the manner in which the story was developed was also foreign to them.
The story was therefore ideal to study how memory was reconstructed based on schema processing.
Results
Bartlett found that participants changed the story as they tried to remember it- a process called distortion.
Bartlett found that there were three patterns of distortion that took place.
Assimilation: the story became more consistent with the participants own cultural expectations- that is details were unconsciously changed to fit the norms of British culture.
Levelling: the story also became shorter with each retelling as participants omitted information which was seen as not important.
Sharpening: participants also tended to change the order of the story in order to make sense of it using terms more familiar to the culture of the participants.
They also added detail and/or emotions. The participants overall remembered the main themes in the story but changed the unfamiliar elements to match their own cultural expectations so that the story remained a coherent whole although changed.
Discussion
Remembering is not a passive but rather an active process, where information is retrieved and changed to fit into existing schemes.
This is done in order to create meaning in the incoming information.
According to Bartlett, humans constantly search for meaning. Based on his research Bartlett formulated the theory of reconstructive memory. This means that memories are not copies of experiences but rather reconstructions.
This does not mean that memory is unreliable but rather that memory can be altered by existing schemes.
Sensory information from the environment ( input) enters the what?
Multi-store model of memory
Sensory registration store.
Then if attention is paid to it it will enter the STM here it held in acoustic form for a few seconds.
Rehearsal (repetition) can keep information in STM and can transfer it to LTM for more permanent storage.
In order to retrieve information from the LTM (in the multi-store model of memory) it must be passed back into what ?
The short term memory
What are the similarities between a computer and the human mind which help psychologists to study the mind ?
Process information
Have an input (data/senses
Have an output- (print out/ behaviour)
Memory
However a computer is plastic/metallic where’s the human mind is organic
A computer has limited memory whereas the human mind has unlimited memory.
What are the stages of the information processing system ?
INPUT comes from the environment via the senses and is encoded by the individual.
STORAGE/PROCESSING- once encoded, the information is processed e.g. Schemes.
OUTPUT- behavioural response after the processing.
The invention of the computer helped phycologists develop cognitive psychology it gave pathologists a what to the brain ?
An analogy
The computer-brain analogy.
What is cognitive neuroscience ?
Academic field concerned with the underlying biological basis for explaining cognition with a specific focus on the neural substrates of mental processes.
It addresses the questions of how psychological/cognitive functions are produced by neural circuits in the brain.
Cognitive neuroscience is a branch of both psychology and neuroscience, overlapping with disciplines such as physiological psychology, cognitive psychology and neuropsychology.
Cognitive neuroscience relies upon theories in cognitive science coupled with evidence from neuropsychology and computational modelling.
What technologies are used to map brain injuries?
Cognitive neuroscientists have examined the brains of atypical individuals with brain damage and trauma.
The brain injuries can be mapped using technologies such as PET and FMRI scanning.
Patients are often required o carry out cognitive tasks whilst their brains are being scanned so the activity can be noted and compared with individuals without such damage.
What is an example of cognitive neuroscience in action ?
Double dissociation
Two patients showing mirror image impairments.
For example
KF has an impaired STM due to a motor bike accident and resultant damage to his parietal occipital lobe (his LTM was unaffected).
Whereas HM couldn’t commit new memories to LTM due to the removal of his hippocampus after epilepsy surgery, but has an unaffected STM.
These cases can help to identify where STM and LTM centres are located in the brain.
What is a contribution of the cognitive approach ?
The cognitive approach has made a significant contribution to our understanding of the causes of psychological problems such as depression and anxiety, where thought patterns are closely linked to emotional experience.
CBT was developed as a result and has had an excellent track record for many people.
Evaluate the cognitive approach (AO3) referring to the scientific method
Cognitive phycologists’ emphasis on scientific methods is a strength of their approach, although some would question the value of their experimental research, which often makes use of unrealistic tasks and measures which may not adequately reflect real-world psychological and behavioural processes.
The approach addresses some of the shortcomings of the behaviourists and social learning approached by offering a much better developed account of the internal process that shape behaviour, thanks to the use of the computer metaphor.
