Cognitive Approach Flashcards
What is the cognitive approach
It is the study of internal mental processes and how it affects behaviour
What approach was introduced in the 1950s?
The cognitive approach
When was the cognitive approach introduced?
1950s
What revolution gave the new generation of psychologists a metaphor for studying the mind?
the digital revolution
What is the digital revolution?
the shift from mechanical and analogue electronic technologies from the Industrial Revolution towards digital electronics
What was the metaphor used?
That the mind is like a computer
What did they test for their predictions?
Their predictions for memory and attention
What did the cognitive approach ensure?
That the study of the mind is in fact a legitimate and highly scientific aspect of the discipline
What are internal mental processes
Private operations of the human mind such as perception and attention that mediate between a stimulus and response
What are the 4 aspects associated with the Cognitive Approach
The role of schema, theoretical models, computer models and the emergences of cognitive neuroscience
What is schema
It’s a mental framework made up of beliefs and expectations that influence the cognitive processing and they are developed from experience
What does schema act as
A mental framework for the interpretation of incoming information coming to the cognitive system
What are babies born with
Motor schema
Why do a babies have motor schema
For innate behaviours such as sucking and grasping
What happens to our schema as we get older
It becomes more sophisticated and detailed and has a mental representation of most situations
What does schema enable us to do
Enables us to process information quickly and is useful as a sort of mental shortcut to prevent us from feeling overwhelmed by the stimuli
What may schema distort though?
It may also distort our interpretations of sensory information, leading to perceptual errors
What is used to help researchers understand internal mental processes
Theoretical and computer models
What are theoretical models
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
What concepts do theoretical models represent
Abstract concepts
What concepts do computer mode;s represent
Concrete concepts
What is the main theoretical model
Information Processing Approach
What does the IPM suggest
That’s information flows through a cognitive system in a sequence of stages (input, storage and retrival)
What is the IPM based on
On the way that computers function