Cognitive Approach Flashcards
Cognitive approach
- Mental processes
- how are mental processes (e.g. thoughts, perceptions, attention) affect behaviour.
Internal mental processes
– Operations of the mind such as perception and attention that mediate between stimulus and response.
Schema
-A mental framework of beliefs and expectations that influence cognitive processing.
– They are developed from experience
Inference
The process whereby cognitive psychologist draw conclusions about the way mental processes operate on the basis of observed behaviour.
Cognitive neuroscience
-Scientific study of biological structures that influence cognitive processes.
What does the cognitive approach argue?
- in direct contrast to the behaviourist approach, it argues that internal mental processes can, and should, be studied scientifically.
- Such as memory perception and thinking, but these are “private” so cognitive psychologists study them indirectly by making inferences about what’s going on in people’s minds on the basis of their behaviour.
Theoretical and computer models
– One way to study internal processes is through the use of theoretical models.
-The cognitive approach also use his computer models, where the mind is compare to a computer by suggesting that there are similarities in the way information is processed.
Information processing approach
Suggests that information flows through the cognitive system in the sequence of stages that include input storage and retrieval, as in the multi store model
Computer analogy
– Use the concept of central processing unit (the brain), the concept of coding (to turn information into a usable format) and the use of “stores” to hold information.
The role of schema
– Cognitive processing can often be affected by a persons beliefs or expectations, often referred to as schema.
-They are ideas and information developed through experiences.
– Example, you have a steamer for a chair – something with legs that you can sit on.
-Scheme is unable us to process lots of information quickly and this is useful as a sort of mental shortcut that prevents us from being overwhelmed by environmental stimuli.
-However schemas may also distort our interpretations of sensory information, leading to perceptual errors.
Evaluation: scientific and objective methods
– Cognitive approach always employed highly controlled methods of study in order to enable researchers to infer cognitive processes at work.
-Involves the use of lab experiments to produce reliable, objective data.
Emergence of cognitive neuroscience is unable to field of biology and cognitive psychology to come together which means that the study of the mind has established a credible scientific basis.
Evaluation: machine reductionism
- Although there are similarities between the human mind and operations of a computer (inputs and outputs, storage systems, the use of the central processor the brain) the computer analogy has been criticised by many.
- Machine reductionism ignores the influence of human emotion and motivation on the cognitive system, and how this may affect our ability to process information.
- E.g., research has found that human memory may be affected by emotional factors, like the influence of anxiety on eyewitnesses.
Evaluation:Application to every day life
Cognitive psychologists are only able to infer mental processes from the behaviour they observe in their research. As a consequence, cognitive psychology occasionally suffers from being too abstract and theoretical in nature.
-similarly, experimental studies of mental processes are often carried out using artificial stimuli (such as test of memory involving wordlists) that may not represent every day memory experience.
Evaluation: less determinist than other approaches.
- The cognitive approach recognises that we are free to think before responding to a stimulus.
- Soft determinism is a more reasonable interaction this position in the hard determinism suggested by other approaches.
