Cognitive approach Flashcards
What did Claiborn estimate in relation to hallucinations?
Between 2.5% and 4% of the general population have experienced hallucinations.
Most who are not diagnosed with a psychiatric problem.
What did Morrison suggest can cause some individuals to “hear” voices in maladaptive ways?
Triggers such as sleep deprivation.
The individuals appraise these voices inappropriately as belonging to the devil, for example.
What may an individual hearing voices in maladaptive ways cause them to do?
Socially withdraw.
Self-harm.
What did Beck et al propose in relation to negative symptoms of schizophrenia?
The individual endorses dysfunctional beliefs about their performance and their ability to experience pleasure.
They also hold a cynical and gloomy view of the future.
Their mental filters only allow in negative messages and deficits in information processing.
This leads to negative symptoms of schizophrenia such as flatness of affect and anhedonia.
What did Beck et al use to offer a model of the negative symptoms seen in some people with schizophrenia?
The cognitive triad.
This is usually used to explain depression.
What did Frith propose in relation to preconscious content?
The core positive symptoms of schizophrenia could be explained by difficulties in inhibiting preconscious content.
In some people the attentional filters that inhibit most of the sensory information from making it out of the preconscious are defective.
According to Frith, if the attentional filters that inhibit most of the sensory information from making it out of the preconscious are defective, what issue may this have for people with schizophrenia?
May cause them to become aware of ambiguous and multiple interpretations of events and find it difficult to select and carry through an appropriate course of action.
Normally, how is information processed in relation to the preconscious and conscious?
Our senses receive information from our environment.
This information reaches our awareness and we interpret it (this is our preconscious).
The “best fit” of the incoming information gets propelled into our consciousness, allowing us to make sense of the information.
What did Frith propose that individuals with schizophrenia are working with?
A compromised theory of theirs and others minds.
What does Frith believe that many of the symptoms seen in those with schizophrenia are the result of?
Disorders within three separate cognitive symptoms.
Frith believe many of the symptoms seen in those with schizophrenia are the result of disorders within three separate cognitive symptoms. What are these systems?
The disorders of willed action can explain negative and disorganised symptoms.
Disorders of self-monitoring can explain symptoms such as delusions of alien control and vocal hallucinations.
Disorders of monitoring other people’s thoughts and intentions can lead to symptoms such as delusions of persecution.
What did Barch et al compare?
Performance on a Stroop test of people with schizophrenia and people without.
What did Barch et al conclude? Whose ideas does this support?
Their findings was evidence that those with schizophrenia couldn’t filter the information as effectively.
This supports Frith’s ideas that the attentional filters of individuals with schizophrenia are defective.
What did Barch et al find?
Those with schizophrenia were slower and made more mistakes on the Stroop test.
Unlike some cognitive psychologists, Frith has offered a causal explanation for the deficits associated with schizophrenia. What is this?
The faulty operation of cognitive mechanisms is due to a disconnection of the functions within the frontal cortex (decision making) and more posterior areas of the brain (perception).
What supporting evidence does Frith have for their causal explanation?
Detecting changes in cerebral blood flow in the brains of people with schizophrenia when completing cognitive tasks.
What is one reason why sone researchers criticise the cognitive explanations of schizophrenia?
They only explain cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia.
Other symptoms such as issues with movement, are not explained well by cognitive explanations.
What is a criticism of cognitive explanations of schizophrenia in relation to proximal and distal causes? What does this suggest?
Cognitive theories can explain the proximal causes of schizophrenia but not the distal causes. This suggests that we should be cautious about the claims made by the cognitive approach as a single explanation for schizophrenia.
What are proximal causes?
What causes current symptoms.
What are distal causes?
Origins of the condition.
How do psychologists now believe schizophrenia should be considered?
In a holistic way.
What model have Howes and Murray proposed?
An integrated model of schizophrenia which proposes that genes or certain factors early in life (e.g. birth complications) combine with life events or social stressors.
This provokes the dopamine system into releasing dopamine.
This increase in dopamine secretion causes problems with cognitive processing, specifically delusions and hallucinations.
What does Howes and Murray’s theory suggest about cognitive explanations of schizophrenia?
Cognitive explanations alone are insufficient but they can contribute to a wider theory.
