Approaches in Psychology - Cognitive Approach Flashcards
What are the key assumptions of the cognitive approach?
- The scientific study of mental processes.
- The role of inference in the study of mental processes.
- Thought/mediational processes determine behaviour.
- The use of theoretical models when describing and explaining mental processes.
- The use of computer models when describing and explaining mental processes.
- The idea of schema is central to the cognitive approach.
- The emergence of cognitive neuroscience.
What does the cognitive approach focus on?
In direct contrast to the behaviourist approach, the cognitive approach argues that mental processes should be studied, e.g. studying perception and memory.
How does the cognitive approach use inferences?
Mental processes are ‘private’ and cannot be observed, so cognitive psychologists study them indirectly by making inferences (assumptions) about what is going on inside people’s heads on the basis of their behaviour.
How are theoretical models used?
The information processing approach suggests that information flows through a sequence of stages that include input, storage and retrieval, as in the multi-store model.
How are computer models used?
Computer models refer to programmes that can be run on a computer to imitate the human mind. By running such a programme, psychologists can test whether their ideas about information processing are correct.
What are schemas?
Part of the mental process identified by the cognitive approach are schemas. These are mental structures that represent an aspect of the world, such as an object or event. Schemata helps us to make sense of the world, by providing short cuts to identifying things that we come across (our building blocks of knowledge).
- Schema are packages of information developed through experience.
- They are learnt and formed culturally.
- They act as a ‘mental framework’ for the interpretation of incoming information received by the cognitive system.
- Babies are born with simple motor schema for innate behaviours such as sucking and grasping.
- As we get older, our schema become more detailed and sophisticated.
- New information is assimilated into existing schemas.
- Schemas can be difficult to change.
- Schemas may have an evolutionary purpose.
- Schemas may lead to stereotyping and prejudice.
What is cognitive neuroscience?
- Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific study of the influence of brain structures (neuro) on mental processes (cognition).
- With advances in brain scanning technology in the last twenty years, scientists have been able to describe the neurological basis of mental processing.
- This includes research in memory that has linked episodic and semantic memories to opposite sides of the prefrontal cortex in the brain.
- Scanning techniques have also proved useful in establishing the neurological basis of some disorders, e.g. the parahippocampal gyrus and OCD.
What are the strengths of the cognitive approach?
- It uses scientific and objective methods.
- Application to everyday life (e.g. EWT in court).
- Use of computer models helps us to understand unobservable mental processes.
- Less determinist than other approaches as it allows for individuals to think before responding to the stimulus.
- It has been successfully integrated into other approaches in order to provide a more comprehensive understanding of some behaviours (e.g. depression).
- It is a functional explanation.
What are the weaknesses of the cognitive approach?
- Based on machine reductionism. The metaphor of ‘man as machine’ is seen as simplistic and reductionist, and ignores emotional, motivational and social factors in human behaviour.
- Based on research and laboratory experiments that lacks external validity.
- The approach explains how cognitive processes happen but tends to ignore why.
- Doesn’t include emotional and physiological explanations.
Why is the cognitive approach using scientific and objective methods a strength?
Cognitive psychologists have always employed controlled and rigorous methods of study, e.g. lab studies, in order to infer cognitive processes at work. This has enabled the two fields of biology and cognitive psychology to come together (cognitive neuroscience). This means that the study of the mind has established a credible, scientific bias.
Why is the cognitive approach having application to everyday life a strength?
The cognitive approach is dominant in psychology today and has been applied to a wide range of practical and theoretical contexts. For instance, the approach has made an important contribution to the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and the development of robots. These exciting advances are likely to revolutionise how we live in the future. Schemas can also be seen in the gender schema and relationship schema, which can be used in everyday life.
Why is the cognitive approach being less determinist than other approaches a strength?
The cognitive approach is based on soft determinism, recognising that our cognitive system can only operate within certain limits, but that we are free to think before responding to a stimulus.
This is in contrast to the behaviourist approach which suggests that we are passive ‘slaves’ to the environment and lack free choice in our behaviour. This cognitive approach takes a more reasonable and flexible middle-ground position in the free will-determinism debate and is more in line with our subjective sense of free will.
Why is a weakness that it is based on machine reductionism?
Although there are similarities between the operations of the human mind and a computer (inputs and outputs, central processor, storage systems), the computer analogy has been criticised.
For instance, human emotion and motivation has been shown to influence accuracy of recall, e.g. in eyewitness accounts. These factors are not considered within the computer analogy. Therefore, the cognitive approach oversimplifies human cognitive processing and ignores important aspects that influence performance.
Why is a weakness that it is based on research that lacks external validity?
Cognitive psychologists are only able to infer mental processes from the behaviour they observe, so the approach sometimes suffers from being too abstract and theoretical.
Also, research is often carried out using artificial stimuli, such as recall of word lists in studies of memory which may not represent everyday experience. Therefore, research into cognitive processes may lack external validity.
What is the cognitive approach? Why was it developed?
Cognition means ‘knowing’ and cognitive processes refer to the way in which knowledge is gained, used and retained. Cognitive psychologists explain all behaviour in terms of thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, and study how these direct our behaviour. The cognitive approach was developed as a reaction against the behaviourist stimulus-response approach.
