cognitive area

Question 1

iprinciples

Answer 1

-Our behaviour is driven by internal mental processes (such as attention, memory, perception and language) so we need to study these processes to understand behaviour

-The mind processes information like a computer with input from the senses, storage and processing of information and then retrieva

Question 2

concepts

Answer 2

• schemas
• context-dependent memory
• reconstructive memory
• inattentional blindness
• cocktail party effect

Question 3

strengths of cognitive area

Answer 3

• help improve our understanding of human behaviour, to the extent to which it is affected by the way we think and how our brain processes incoming sensory information, in addition understanding that often it is what we do not process can help us more fully understand our behaviour, as in studies of selective attention
• extremely useful as it has practical applications in the real world, such as developing effective interviewing techniques for police officers that avoid leading questions
• it favours scientific methods as it uses lab experiments to investigate mental processes. this enables researchers to establish cause and effects between variables meaning that the cognitive area brings academic credibility to psychology such as discipline since it favours scientific methodology.
• the emphasis on controlled scientific study in the cognitive area makes it easier to test such studies in the cognitive area that the scientific values of the studies in the cognitive area can be increased, since replications of the findings is an important feature of scientific enquiry

Question 4

weakness of the cognitive area

Answer 4

• findings from the research within the cognitive area may not be true if studies lack ecological validity, and this is often where laboratory experiments are used
• limitations to the way that data are gathered into the cognitive area. cognitive processes can only be studied by inference which is where we cannot study them directly. we can only gather what is going on in someones head by recording what they can or cannot tell us (self -report) or can or cannot do (observation), or even making and interpreting recordings of the active parts of their brain by for example using MRI scans
• the use of lab experiments increases the chances of participants responding to demand characteristics in the study. e.g. Loftus and palmer where in the study participants were shown film clips because of the practical and ethical problems with viewing real-life accidents and were then asked questions about what they had seen which reduces ecological validity and introducing an opportunity for participants to work out the purpose of the study and behaving accordingly. this would mean that there are number of challenges to the validity of the cognitive studies carried out in the laboratory

Question 5

studies that link to the area

Answer 5

• Loftus and palmer
• Moray
• Grant
• Simons and Chabris