Cognitive approach

Question 1

what does cognitive psychology look at?

Answer 1

looks at the internal workings of the mind and explains behaviour through cognitive processes

Question 2

what do cognitive psychologists try to do?

Answer 2

try to explain behaviour by looking at our perception,language attention and memory

Question 3

how is the cognitive approach a reductionist approach?

Answer 3

the mind can be compared to a computer

Question 4

what are the 3 main research methods used by cognitive psychologists?

Answer 4

lab
field
natural

Question 5

what are the 3 principles of the cognitive approach?

Answer 5

our mental systems have limited capacity
a control mechanism oversees all mental processes
there is a 2 way flow of information

Question 6

as computers developed the analogy between the human brain and the computer model was formed how?

Answer 6

people began to see similarities in how computers and humans make sense of info

Question 7

computer models and the human mind follow the same route what is this?

Answer 7

data input
data processing
data output

Question 8

what are the differences between humans and computer models that make computer models less useful?

Answer 8

humans are often influenced by emotional and motivational factors -something which computers arent affected by
humans have an unlimited but unreliable memory - computers have a limited but reliable memory
humans have free will whereas computers don’t

Question 9

what does a schema help to do?

Answer 9

helps organise all the information you know - a schema contains all the information you know about an action object or concept

Question 10

what happens when information is consistent with a schema?

Answer 10

it is assimilated into the schema

Question 11

what happens when information is inconsistent with a schema?

Answer 11

accomodation occurs and and the schema has to change in order to resolve the problem

Question 12

what are the 3 types of schema?

Answer 12

role schemas
event schemas
self schemas

Question 13

what are role schemas?

Answer 13

ideas about the behaviour which is expected from someone in a certain role setting or situation

Question 14

what are events schemas?

Answer 14

they contain information about what happens in a situation

Question 15

what are self schemas?

Answer 15

these contain information about ourselves based on physical characteristics and personality

Question 16

what is a problem with schemas?

Answer 16

schemas can stop people from learning new information

Question 17

what are the 3 different methods that cognitive neuroscience uses?

Answer 17

leison studies
electrophysiology
neuroimaging

Question 18

what are leison studies?

Answer 18

looking at people with brain damage to see how they are affected

Question 19

what are electrophysiology?

Answer 19

using electric and magnetic fields to measure brain activity

Question 20

what is nueroimaging?

Answer 20

pinpointing areas of the brain which are active when a task is performed

Question 21

what are the strengths of the cognitive approach?

Answer 21

it considers mental processes

it has a big influence of the development of therapies

Question 22

what are the weaknesses of the cognitive approach?

Answer 22

research is often carried out in artificial situations - for this reason it is often argues the results aren’t valid in the real world
it fails to take individual differences into account by assuming that all of us process stuff in exactly the same way