cognitive approach

Question 1

what is the cognitive approach?

Answer 1

the study of internal mental processes

Question 2

what are two assumptions of the cognitive approach?

Answer 2

• the cognitive approach focusses on the examination of internal mental processes such as perception, memory, attention and consciousness.
• since these processes are internal and cannot be studied directly, their operation must be inferred from the observation and measurement of visible human behaviour.

Question 3

what is attention?

Answer 3

focussing on one task at a time or dividing our focus between a number of tasks.

Question 4

what is perception?

Answer 4

taking in and interpretating information from our environment.

Question 5

what is memory?

Answer 5

encoding, storing and recalling information

Question 6

what is problem solving?

Answer 6

manipulating information to reach a conclusion, make decisions and form judgements.

Question 7

what are cognitive deficiencies?

Answer 7

when an individual does not think or plan sufficiently, leading to negative behaviours.

Question 8

what are cognitive distortions?

Answer 8

a result of the cognitive system inaccurately processing information e.g. it distorts the information so it is percieved in a different way.

Question 9

what are schemas?

Answer 9

an internal mental representation of our world.

a cognitive framework that help us to organise and interpret information.

used as a reference point to tell us how to behave.

Question 10

what are theoretical models?

Answer 10

used to explain unobservable processes in a concrete, testable way.

Question 11

what do theoretical models suggest?

Answer 11

that information will process through several stages

Question 12

what are computer models?

Answer 12

where information is physically input into a computer to see if the output is similar to that of a human (Ai)

Question 13

what are two strenghts of the cognitive approach?

Answer 13

• it is very scientific and usually uses controlled experimental methods
• use of computer models help us to understand unobservable mental processes

Question 14

what are two weaknesses of the cognitive approach?

Answer 14

• explains how mental processes work but fail to explain why.
• use of this perspective often relies on laboratory experiments which lack eccological validity.

Question 15

what deos inference mean?

Answer 15

make assumptions about mental processes that cannot be directly observed.

Question 16

what did loftus and palmers (197) study?

Answer 16

• showed participants videos of cars crashing and asked them to judge the speed of the cars by asking the critical question: about how fast were the cars going when they smashed (40.8)/collided (39.3)/bumped (38.1)/hit (34)/contacted (31.8) together.