Cognitive approach Flashcards
What are the assumptions of the cognitive approach
Unlike behaviourist internal mental processes should be studies scientifically. Investigates areas neglected by behaviourists such as memory, perception and thinking. These processes are private and cannot be observed therefore have to be studied indirectly by making inferences.
What is the cognitive approach
An approach to psychology emphasising the mental processes involved in our behaviour: how we direct our attention, perceive, remember, think, and solve problems.
What are internal mental processes
‘Private’ operations of the mind such as perception and attention that mediate between stimulus and response
What is a scheme
A mental framework of beliefs and expectations that influence cognitive processing. They are developed from experience
What is an inference
The process whereby cognitive psychology draw conclusions about the way mental processes operate on the basis of observed behaviour
What is cognitive neuroscience
The scientific study of those biological structures that underpin cognitive processes
How are theoretical and computer models used in the cognitive approach?
Help understand internal mental processes. Theoretical models are abstract whereas computer models are concrete things. One example of a theoretical model is the information processing approach, which suggests that information flows through the cognitive system in a sequence of stages (input, storage and retrieval). This is based on the way that computers function, but would involve actually programming a computer to see if such instructions produce a similar output to make it a computer model. Computer models have proved useful in the development of ‘thinking machines’ or artificial intelligence.
How do cognitive scientists refine theoretical models
Inferences
What are the role of schemas
They are packages of ideas and information developed through experience, and act as a mental framework for incoming information.
- e.g. if you have a schema for a chair, you are aware it is something that has legs that you can sit on.
- Babies are born with a simple motor schema for innate behaviours such as sucking and grasping, and as we get older, our schema becomes more detailed and sophisticated.
The emergence of 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.
