Cognitive Approach

Question 1

What are the three assumptions of the cognitive approach?

Answer 1

1. Internal mental processes can and should be studied
2. How our brains process the world affects how we behave
   3.The mind works like a computer

Question 2

What is inference?

Answer 2

Going beyond immediate evidence to make assumptions about mental processes that cannot be directly observed

Question 3

What are the two models in the cognitive approach?

Answer 3

Information processing model and computer analogy

Question 4

What is the information processing model?

Answer 4

1. Input
2. Process
3. Output

Question 5

What is the computer model?

Answer 5

The belief that our mind works like a computer in the way it processes information

Question 6

What is a schema?

Answer 6

A mental framework which helps us to predict what may happen in our world

Question 7

What are the three strengths of the cognitive approach?

Answer 7

Scientific credibility- Use of rigorous and highly controlled experimental methods in order to enable researchers to infer cognitive processes at work. This has given the study of the mind scientific rigour.
Counter- Lack ecological validity. Experimental studies of mental processes are often carried out in artificial settings that may not represent everyday experience.

Real life application- The cognitive approach has been applied to a wide range of practical and theoretical contexts. For example:
1. In psychopathology to understand dysfunctional behaviour and tracing it back to faulty thinking processes. This has led to successful treatment of people suffering from OCD/ depression.
2. In the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and the development of ‘thinking machines’ (robots).

Less deterministic- It is founded on soft determinism-it recognises that our cognitive system can only operate within the limits of what we know, but that we are free to think before responding to a stimulus. This is a more reasonable ‘middle- ground’ position than the hard determinism suggested by the behaviourist approach.

Question 8

What is the limitation of the cognitive approach?

Answer 8

Machine reductionism- Computer analogy criticised for seeing people as mechanistic and losing sight of the person as a whole. It over-simplifies complex processes and ignores the influence of emotion and motivation on the cognitive system and how this may affect our ability to process information. E.g research has shown that emotional factors have an impact on human memory, such as the influence of anxiety on eyewitnesses.