Cognitive Approach Flashcards
What are the four assumptions of the cognitive approach?
Thoughts can and should be studied scientifically
Humans process information like computers
Mental processes lie between stimulus and response
Humans organise and manipulate information from the environment
What was mackworths study?
Used a radar simulation to note down all the errors and it took 30 minutes until errors were made.
Therefore people lose vigilance overtime, maintain vigilance for 30 minutes
What was McClelland’s connectionist model?
Many stimuli activate a set of ‘nodes’ which have developed due to learned association like cat, dog, fur etc
What was Miller’s information processing model?
Encoding - information taken from environment
Transformation - decision making after receiving information
Output - behavioural response
What is priming and how does it support the connectionist model?
Recalling something if memory is jogged by a related concept.
Demonstrating that information is absorbed quicker when making connections
What are schemas?
To help navigate or to make connections using previous experience
What are the strengths of the cognitive approach?
Models can be developed my studying inputs and outputs which means you can predict behavioural outputs
Can be applied to real life like mackworths study on vigilance so we can use the knowledge to adapt ourselves
Objective research methods are used which increases the validity of research
What are the limitations of the cognitive approach?
Models can be made but there are an oversimplification and they don’t take into account emotions and other effectors
Humans are thought of like computers so everyone is thought to think the same. But computers don’t make mistakes but humans do and think individually
Objective research is used but in real life it is rare that things happen in a controlled environment so it’s difficult to apply to real life
