Cognitive Approach Flashcards
What is the cognitive approach?
Human behaviour is a result of information processing , perception, reasoning and problem-solving
Explain the role of interfence in the study of mental processes
Mental processes are ‘private’ and cannot be observed
Cognitive psychologists study them indirectly by making interfences (assumptions) about what is going on inside people’s head on the basis of their behaviour
What is the role of the schema?
The cognitive framework that helps to organise and interpret information
Furthermore, the schema used for specific events based on expectations on how we behave in different situations e.g restaurant or classroom
Allows taking a shortcut in processing info.
However, info doesn’t fit, e.g stereotype based on existing beliefs
Theortical model What does it show?
Simplified Diagrammatic representations of cognitive process Represented by boxes to indicate the effects of mental processes
They help to guide researchers who refine them as understanding improves
E.g WMM contain three plus 4(episode buffer) in 2000
Computer model What does it show?
Developments in computing led to computer models representing cognitive processes
These model help to stimulate human processing and test understanding of particular cognitive processes
By running such programme psychologists can test whether their ideas about information processing are correct
What does cognitive neuroscience mean?
Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific study of influence of brain structures (neuro) on mental processes (cognitions)
What is the emergence of cogntive neuroscience?
- With advances of non-invasive neuroimaging techniques such as PET and fMRI, scientists are able to improve the understanding of the brain and during cognitions
- e.g when people feel guility certain brain reigons associated with social emotions are active (Burnett et al, 2009)
- This also includes research in memory linked to episodic and semantic memories to opposite sides of the prefrontal cortex in brain
- Scanning techniques also been useful to establish neurological basis of some disorders e.g parahippocampal gyrus and OCD
Strength Scientific and objective methods
- Cognitive psychologists have alwaays employed controlled and rigorous methods of study e.g lab studies in order to infer cognitive processes at work
- This has enabled two fields of biology and cognitive psychology to come together (cognitive neuroscience)
- This means the study of the mind has established credible , scientific basis
Strength: Application to everday life
- The cognitive approach is dominant in psychology today and has been applied to a wide range of practical and theoretical contexts
- For instance, the approach has made a huge contribution to the field of artifical intellgience (AI) and development of robots
- These exciting advances are likely to revolutionise how we live in the future
Weakness: Lacks external validity
- Cognitive psychologyists are only able to infer mental processes from the behaviour they observe , so the approach sometimes suffer from being too abstract and theoretical
- Also research is often carried out using artifical stimuli, such as recall of world lists in studies of memory which may not represent everyday experience
- Therefore, research into cognitive processes may lack external validity
Strength: Approach is less determinist than other approaches
- Based on soft determinism recongnising that our cognitive system can operate within certain limits, but that we are free to think before responding to a stimuli
- In contrast to the behaviourist approach, suggests we are passive ‘slaves’ to the envirnoment and lack free choice in our behaviour
- Takes more reasonable and flexibile middle-ground position in free-will determinism debate and is more in line with our subjective sense of free will
