Cognitive Approach Flashcards
Cognitive Approach
- Focuses on the internal mental processes
- Behaviourists rely on external observations e.g the environment and behaviour, cognitive psychologists are more concerned with how the brain deals with information
- Research should be carried out on a scientific basis
- The focus has to be thought process
Information - Processing Approach
- The mind operates like a computer that pulls in all of the information from the senses. (sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch) These are inputs.
- After this an output is created e.g a set of behaviours or language
**INPUT ——> PROCESSING ——-> OUTPUT **
1. Info comes in from environment and is encoded
2. After encoding, info is processed and put into schemas
3. A behaviour/ response is the outcome
Schemas
Schema- Packages of knowledge about a particular event or object that act as cognitive frameworks to help us organise and interpret information
* Based on our experiences
* We build them throughout our lifetime - longevity + complexity
* Help us to understand world around us and to make sense of others
* Act as a good guide on how we should behave
* Based on expectations and what we learn to categorise
+ Process information quickly and predict whats going to happen
**- ** Can also lead to interpretations being distorted and incorrect
Emergence of Cognitive Neuroscience
Cognitive neuroscience- scientific study of the influence of brain structures on mental processes
* We map brain areas to a specific cognitive function e.g.
1860s- Paul Broca identified how damage to an area of the lobe (Broca’s area) could permanently impair speech production
* Last 20 years, advances in brain imaging techniques e.g FMRI and PET scans, has been useful for establishing the neurological basis of some mental disorders
* Includes the use of computer generated models that are designed to read the brain leading to the development of mind-mapping techniques known as brain fingerprinting
* Future application: it could be used to analyse the brain wave patterns of eyewitness to determine whether they are lying in court
Inferences
- Drawing conclusions on whats going on inside someones mind, based on their observed behaviour using assumptions
Evaluation
+ Scientific Methods
- Machine Reductionism
+ Real world application
+ Soft determinism
+ Scientific Methods
- Approach uses objective scientific methods that are highly controlled and rigorous methods of study so researchers can infer cognitive processes at work
- Lab studies produce reliable data
- Enabled cognitive psychology and biology to enhance the scientific basis and make it credible
COUNTERPOINT: -
- It relies on inference on mental process (not direct observation of behaviour) so its sometimes too abstract + theoretical - Artificial stimuli may not recognise everyday experience so it may lack ecological validity
Real world application
- Approach has practical apllication
- Applied to a wide range of practical and theoretical contexts e.g development of AI and robots
- Revolutionise how we live in the future
- Applied to the treatment of depression and the reliability of EWT
- Supports the value of the cognitive approach
Machine Reductionism
- Approacch is based on machine reductionism
- Similarities between human brain and robots e.g input, output and storage
- Analogy has been criticised for ignoring the influence of human emotion and motivation that can affect our ability to process information
- Weakens the validity of the approach
Soft determinism
- Approach is founded on softe determinism, the view that behaviour may be determined by internal and external factors
- However, we can also exert our free will at times
