Cognitive Approach

Question 1

Two examples

Answer 1

Loftus and Loftus and Palmer

Loftus: 36 students split up into up into 2 groups either – cheque condition or gun condition
- all shown slides where they had to finally recall the identification of the man who pulls out a gun or a cheque on the cashier man in a restaurant
They would identify the man through a photo line up, their eye movements were watched using an eye reflection corneal machine and they would also rate how confident they were 1-6

• eye movements on the gun were 3.72 and for cheque it was 2.44
• correct identification was 38.9% for cheque and 11% for gun
• no difference is confidence

Loftus and Palmer – wanted to test the hypothesis they thr languae used in eyewitness testimony can alter memory. 45 uni stud s who watched a series of 7 clips involving a car accident. They each had a different leading verb such as ‘smashed’ ‘hit’ and had to estimate how fast they thought the car was going
-smashed verb produced a higher estimate of 40.8 mph compared to other verbs which produced lower (30 for collided)

Question 2

Two strengths of cog

Two weaknesses

Answer 2

+scientific, and useful

-reductionist and lacks validity as it’s hard to study thought processes accurately

Question 3

Main assumption

Answer 3

.we are intricate computers with an Input and output
.the way we think,judge, memorise, appraise determines the way we act around other people and in situations
.can be measured scientifically