Cognitive Approach Flashcards
What are the main assumptions of the cognitive approach?
Reaction against the behaviourist approach
Events within a person that must be studied
Cognitive psychologist believe that it is possible to study internal mental processes
Concerned with how thinking shapes our behaviour
What is inference?
Means to work out what is happening to information in the brain
What are schemas?
Help us to make sense of the world by providing shortcuts to identify things that we come across
What are theoretical models?
Model which help is understand how the brain works
What is a good example of a theoretical model?
Working memory model
What was the bransford and Johnson experiment?
Showed that the number of words recalled by the group who had a schema was higher that the group who did not (balloon and music to the top of the tower block)
How is the human mind compared to a computer?
It compares how we take in information, store it or change it, and then recall it when it is necessary
What is an example of the human mind compared to a computer?
The multi-storey model of memory
What is emergence of neuroscience?
Concerned with the study of the biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental processes
What did elenor maguire investigate?
Function of hippocampus in spatial memory
What was Elenor maguires research called?
Taxi driver study
What were the findings of Maguires study?
The longer the participant worked as a taxi driver, the bigger the hippocampus
What are the strengths to the cognitive approach?
Supports psychology as a scientific discipline
Reductionist
Successful and diverse applications
What are the weaknesses to this approach?
Methodology and issues with validity
Over simplistic view of humans
Use of inference
