COGNITIVE - INTRO TO COGNITIVE

Question 1

cognitive process

Answer 1

-cognitive psychology ultimately believes all behaviour is predominantly caused by inter cognitive processes
-TOP-DOWN PROCESSING: where we use past experiences and knowledge to interpret the stimulus
-BOTTOM-UP PROCESSING: where we have no past experience or knowledge of the stimulus, so what we see is based only on the sensory information coming in

IS THE COGNITIVE APPROACH A GOOD EXPLANATION OF MEMORY?
(yes - strengths)
->the cognitive approach allows people to understand their feelings and behaviours
–>top-down processing means we use background/past info to interpret a stimulus
–>this may explain why we react a certain way to a specific scenario
(yes - strength)
->as we age, we may develop memory issues
–>if we study memory, we can learn how to assist those with memory issues
–>therefore, allowing us to find new ways to help dementia/alzheimer’s patients
(no - weakness)
->research is lab based
–>eg. measuring memory through a word recall task
–>study is low in mundane realism and therefore results cannot be generalised to wider population
(no - weakness)
->the brain is explained through a computer analogy
–>it explains that we process information through problem solving, memory, attention, and perception
–>we, as humans, can make mistakes when processing info due to emotional interference, etc, which is something the computer analogy does not account for

Question 2

what is memory?

Answer 2

• memory is the mental function of retaining information about stimuli, events, images, ideas, etc, after the original stimuli are no longer present

STAGES OF MEMORY:
1. encoding: this refers to how we put info into our memory; do we remember things based on how they look/sound/mean
2. storage: this simply refers to how we keep info in our memory
3. retrieval: this refers to how we access our memories

SENSORY REGISTER:
-capacity: a measure of the amount that can be held in our memory; measured in terms of “bits” of information, eg. digits or chunks
-duration: a measure of how long a memory lasts before it is no longer available
-forgetting: a memory that can no longer be retrieved after the stimulus/info has gone

Question 3

stm & ltm

Answer 3

STM:
->capacity: on avg, the STM can hold 5-9 bits of info before full capacity (7+/-2)
->duration: info can decay after 18-30 secs if not rehearsed
->encoding: info most likely to be encoded acoustically
->forgetting: happens during displacement and decay
->retrieval: happens in sequence

LTM:
->capacity: thought to be infinite
->duration: cam be from a few mins to a lifetime
->encoding: semantic encoding is thought to be the best encoding unit; however, various codes are used eg. visual (faces) and acoustic (sounds)
->forgetting: happens due to interference, retrieval failure, and decay
->retrieval: happens due to prompts and cues