Cognitive approach

Question 1

Assumption: behaviour can be explained by internal mental processes (Wundt)

Answer 1

The most well studied cognitive processses include perception, attention, memory and language
-the cognitive approach focuses on how our thinking affects our behaviour
- assumes mental internal processes are of prime importance in understanding our behaviour
- all work together to enable us to make sense of and responsible to the world around it

Question 2

What are the cognitive processes?

Answer 2

perception- the ability to see, her or become aware of something through the senses
attention - we pay attention the object
memory - search through our memory store to see if theres a match with something we have already seen or experienced
language - able to use our knowledge of language to name it

Question 3

Assumption: behaviour can be explained by schemas

Answer 3

This assumption is the idea that schemas organise our knowledge, assist recall and guide our behaviour.
- mental structures that represent an aspect of the world, such as a object or event
- derived from prior experiences and knowledge and set up expectations about what is probable
- our experiences add to our schemas and refine them

Question 4

A dog schema

Answer 4

four legs, furry, wet nose, barks, wagging tail

Question 5

Allport and postman (1947)

Answer 5

-investigated schemas on recall
- in the study a group of white participants were shown a photo of a white man threatening a black man
- the narrative of the story ended up being switched
- show our schemas are influenced by cultural stereotypes

Question 6

Assumption: behaviour can be explained using the computer analogy

Answer 6

• idea that the human mind is like a computer
  -we take in info (input), chnage it/store it (process), recall it when neccessary (output)
• mind is the hardware of a computer and cognitive processes with a computers software

Question 7

What is the multi store model of memory?

Answer 7

stimuli - sensory memory attention - short term memory - eleborative rehearsal - retrieval - long term memory

Question 8

Duration, capacity, encoding

Answer 8

sensory memory
- capacity - all sensory memory
duration - 1/4 to 1/2 second
encoding - sense specific

short term memory
-capacity- amount of info that can be stored at a time
duration- length of time that info can be kept in memory
encoding- changing sensory input into a form of code to be processed

long term memory
-capacity - unlimited
duration - unlimited
encoding - mainly semantic