Cognitive approach

Question 1

what does the cognitive appraoch study?

Answer 1

our internal mental processes, and how they affect our behaviour

Question 2

what areas does the cognitive approach investigate?

Answer 2

NEGLECTED areas such as memory, perception, and thinking.

Question 3

what is a schema?

Answer 3

A mental FRAMEWORK of beliefs and EXPECTATIONS that INFLUENCE our cognitive processing.

These are developed from EXPERIENCE.

Question 4

What are some positives of schemas?

Answer 4

• help predict things based on our experiences.
  E.G the misspelled words that we can still tell what they are meant to be.

*process vast amount of information rapidly.

*prevent us being overwhelmed by environmental stimuli

Question 5

what are some weaknesses of schemas?

Answer 5

• They can distort out interpretation of sensory info
  *Lead to perceptual errors
  *Cause bias recall, due to us recalling what we expect rather than what’s actually there.

Question 6

How do psychologists study internal mental processes?

Answer 6

since they are PRIVATE, and can’t be observed, these are studied INDIRECTLY by making INFERENCES and what’s going on inside peoples minds based on their BEHAVIOUR.

Question 7

why do psychologists use theoretical computer models?

Answer 7

To help them understand internal mental processes.

Question 8

what does the theoretical model of information processing suggest?

Answer 8

That information flows through the cognitive system in a sequence of stages. This is based on the way COMPUTERS function, but in order to prove this accurate, we would have to programme a computer to see if such instructions produce a similar output to humans. Only then, could we INFER similar processing in humans to computers.

Question 9

what is cognitive neuroscience?

Answer 9

The scientific study on the influence of the BRAIN structures, on mental processing.

Question 10

what links have been made to the brain thanks to advances in brain imaging techniques?

Answer 10

Paul Broca- the brocas area, found to be the frontal lobe which could permenantly impair speech production.

Buckner + Peterson did research involving tasks that used episodic and semantic memory to show how these different LTM may be located on opposite sides of the brain.