Cognitive Approach

Question 1

What is the cognitive approach

Answer 1

It is the study of internal mental processes and how it affects behaviour

Question 2

What approach was introduced in the 1950s?

Answer 2

The cognitive approach

Question 3

When was the cognitive approach introduced?

Answer 3

1950s

Question 4

What revolution gave the new generation of psychologists a metaphor for studying the mind?

Answer 4

the digital revolution

Question 5

What is the digital revolution?

Answer 5

the shift from mechanical and analogue electronic technologies from the Industrial Revolution towards digital electronics

Question 6

What was the metaphor used?

Answer 6

That the mind is like a computer

Question 7

What did they test for their predictions?

Answer 7

Their predictions for memory and attention

Question 8

What did the cognitive approach ensure?

Answer 8

That the study of the mind is in fact a legitimate and highly scientific aspect of the discipline

Question 9

What are internal mental processes

Answer 9

Private operations of the human mind such as perception and attention that mediate between a stimulus and response

Question 10

What are the 4 aspects associated with the Cognitive Approach

Answer 10

The role of schema, theoretical models, computer models and the emergences of cognitive neuroscience

Question 11

What is schema

Answer 11

It’s a mental framework made up of beliefs and expectations that influence the cognitive processing and they are developed from experience

Question 12

What does schema act as

Answer 12

A mental framework for the interpretation of incoming information coming to the cognitive system

Question 13

What are babies born with

Answer 13

Motor schema

Question 14

Why do a babies have motor schema

Answer 14

For innate behaviours such as sucking and grasping

Question 15

What happens to our schema as we get older

Answer 15

It becomes more sophisticated and detailed and has a mental representation of most situations

Question 16

What does schema enable us to do

Answer 16

Enables us to process information quickly and is useful as a sort of mental shortcut to prevent us from feeling overwhelmed by the stimuli

Question 17

What may schema distort though?

Answer 17

It may also distort our interpretations of sensory information, leading to perceptual errors

Question 18

What is used to help researchers understand internal mental processes

Answer 18

Theoretical and computer models

Question 19

What are theoretical models

Answer 19

They are diagrams that help researchers visualise certain systems and allows them to have a better and clearer understanding, they are mainly in the form of flowcharts and an example of this is the multi story memory model

Question 20

What concepts do theoretical models represent

Answer 20

Abstract concepts

Question 21

What concepts do computer mode;s represent

Answer 21

Concrete concepts

Question 22

What is the main theoretical model

Answer 22

Information Processing Approach

Question 23

What does the IPM suggest

Answer 23

That’s information flows through a cognitive system in a sequence of stages (input, storage and retrival)

Question 24

What is the IPM based on

Answer 24

On the way that computers function

Question 25

What can we suggest if a programmed computer and the instructions given to the brain, produces a similar output?

Answer 25

We can suggest that similar processing are being processed in the human brain

Question 26

Why are computational models of the brain useful?

Answer 26

They are deemed as useful as they have been able to prove positive development of “thinking machines” and AI

Question 27

what is cognitive neuroscience

Answer 27

the scientific study of the influence of brain structures on mental processes

Question 28

what is known to have a long history in psychology

Answer 28

mapping brain areas to cognitive functions

Question 29

what did Broca identify

Answer 29

how damage to the frontal lobe can permanently impair speech production

Question 30

how have scientists been able to systematically observe and describe the neurological basis of mental process?

Answer 30

with advances in brain imaging techniques such as fMRI and PET scans

Question 31

what have brain imaging techniques enabled scientists to do

Answer 31

be able to systematically observe and describe the neurological basis of mental process

Question 32

what else have scanning techniques been useful for?

Answer 32

it is proved useful for establishing the neurological basis of some mental disorders

Question 33

what has the focus of CN expanded to

Answer 33

including the use of computer generated models that are designed to read the brain

Question 34

what is a future application of brain fingerprinting

Answer 34

to analyse the brainwave patterns of eyewitnesses to determine whether they are lying or not in court

Question 35

what are 2 strengths of the CA

Answer 35

.that it uses objective scientific methods with lab studies which allows the study of the mind to be a more credible science
.that is has practical real world application and can revolutionise how we live in the future and this supports the value of the CA

Question 36

what are 2 limitations of the CA

Answer 36

.that it relies one the inference of mental processes rather than direct observations and can suffer from being too abstract meaning it lacks external validity
.that it is based on machine reductionism as the computer analogy has been critisied for ignoring the influence of human emotion and motivation and so this weakens the validity of the CA