Cognitive Approach P1 Flashcards
limitation of the cognitive approach is that its study of internal mental processes can lack ecological validity.
E – Cognitive researchers typically test their theories by giving participants artificial tasks to complete (e.g., memorising lists of random words) in laboratory settings.
E – This has led to accusations that cognitive research is lacking in ecological validity (a type of external validity). Since cognitive research involves both an artificial setting and task, its inferences on the way that IMPs process information may only tell us about the way IMPs process information in artificial settings and tasks, and therefore may not generalise to how IMPs process information and guide behaviour in real-world settings and tasks.
L - This limitation of cognitive research means we can’t be sure that cognitive theories genuinely explain how internal mental processes work outside of the laboratory.
One strength of the cognitive approach is that it uses inference to study internal mental processes (IMPs) in a scientific way.
E – Behaviorists argued that because IMPs (like thoughts and memory) can’t be directly seen, they can’t be studied scientifically.
E – However, this objection is flawed as other sciences, such as physics and palaeontology, also study things that cannot be directly observed. For example, palaeontologists can’t observe the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, as it happened millions of years ago. But they can observe evidence, such as the fossil record and the impact crater, and then make inferences about the meteor’s effects. Similarly, cognitive psychologists use the empirical method to directly observe human behaviour. They then make inferences from this empirical evidence to build theoretical models about internal mental processes, like memory. These models lead to testable hypotheses, making them falsifiable. Furthermore, since the observed behaviour is observed in controlled conditions and then quantified and measured, cognitive psychologists have developed a way of studying behaviour that is objective.
L – Therefore, the cognitive approach successfully applies scientific methods to study internal mental processes, even though they cannot be directly observed.
