The Cognitive Approach

Question 1

What is the cognitive approach?

Answer 1

The term ‘cognitive’ has come to mean ‘mental processes’, so this approach is focused on how our mental processes (I.e. Thoughts) affect behaviour.

Question 2

What are internal mental processes?

Answer 2

‘Private’ operations of the mind such as perception and attention that mediate between stimulus and response.

Question 3

What is a schema?

Answer 3

A mental framework of beliefs and expectations that influence cognitive processing. They are developed from experience.

Question 4

What is inference?

Answer 4

The process whereby cognitive psychologists draw conclusions about the way mental processes operate on the basis of observed behaviour.

Question 5

What are the key assumptions of the cognitive approach?

Answer 5

• they believe that internal mental processes lie between stimulus and response
• these mental processes are not observable so cognitive psychologists study them indirectly by making inferences about them, these can be modelled and tested scientifically
• people are information processors and the mind operates in the same way as a computer
• humans actively organise and manipulate information from the environment (schemas)

Question 6

What is the information processing model?

Answer 6

Cognitive psychologists compare the human mind to a computer (the computer analogy) arguing that there are similarities in the way that information is processed.

Like computers, human beings are information processors and so it should be possible to identify the different forms and stages of processing which explain our behaviour.

The information processing model suggests that information does through the cognitive system in a sequence of stages that include input, transformation, and output.

Many different kinds of mental processing contribute to information processing. These include selecting important information (attention), using it to solve problems (thinking), storing it retrieving it when needed (memory).

Question 7

In the following example, identify the three stages of information processing:

Rob, a young man, is in a supermarket when he sees an old lady struggling to reach the top shelf for a pack of biscuits. He offers to get them down for her and then reaches up for them.

Answer 7

Input: seeing old woman struggling

Transformation: deciding whether to help her or not

Output: offering to help

Question 8

How does the cognitive approach study these mental processes?

Answer 8

They study them indirectly by inferring what is going on. This enable cognitive psychologists to develop theories about the mental processes and how they work.
One way to study internal processes is through the use of theoretical models such as the information processing model.

Question 9

What are theoretical models?

Answer 9

These models are simplified representations of mental processes based on research evidence which therefore supports a scientific approach to enquiry and testing. They are usually represented by boxes and arrows which show how information flows through the cognitive system in a sequence is stages.

Research on these models can then be carried out to confirm, refute, or modify them by testing observable behaviour using experiments.

Question 10

Give an example of a theoretical model

Answer 10

The multi-store model

Question 11

Why is the mind compared to a computer?

Answer 11

Because there are similarities in the way information is processed.

Cognitive psychologists use the computer metaphor to simulate human mental abilities in artificial intelligence to perform tasks that require decision making.

Question 12

Give an example of a computer simulation and what it does

Answer 12

One early example of computer simulation is the general problem solver (GPS) that completes simple sequential puzzles such as the tower of Hanoi.

Question 13

What is artificial intelligence?

Answer 13

It is concerned with producing machines that behave intelligently. Expert systems are programmed with a body of knowledge and then used to deal with real world problems to replace the work of humans.

Question 14

Give an example of artificial intelligence

Answer 14

The dendral programme which has been used to help chemists to establish structure of complex molecules.

Question 15

Cognitive processing can often be affected by a person’s bellies or expectations, often referred to as a schema. What is a schema?

Answer 15

Schemas are packages of ideas and information gathered through experience that often distort our interpretation of sensory material.

Question 16

How are schemas useful?

Answer 16

Schemas are useful to us as they allow us to take short cuts when interpreting the huge amount of information we have to deal with on a daily basis. Our cognitive processes have a limited capacity.

Question 17

What happens to our schemas as we get older?

Answer 17

As we get older, our schemas become more detailed and sophisticated. Adults have developed mental representations for everything from the concept of psychology to a schema for what happens in a restaurant.

Schemas cause us to exclude anything that does not fit into our ideas of the world and fill in the gaps in the absence of full information about a person, event or thing.

Question 18

‘Paris in the the spring’

‘Once in a a lifetime’

‘Bird in the the hand’

Explain the role of schema in the misinterpretation of the sentences above

Answer 18

Schemas are packages of information gathered through experience that often distort our interpretation of sensory material. Schemas cause us to exclude anything that does not fit into our ideas of the world. So people would misread the sentences because their schema causes them to not notice the repeated words.

Question 19

Describe Bugelski and Alampay’s ‘rat-man’ study

Answer 19

Two groups of participants were shown a sequence of pictures, either a number of different faces or a number of different animals. They were then shown the ambiguous figure the ‘rat-man’.
Participants who saw a sequence of faces were more likely to perceive the figure as a man, whereas participants who saw a sequence of animals were more likely to perceive the figure as a rat.

Question 20

Explain how the influence of schema may account for this

Answer 20

Many studies of perception research have demonstrated how participants’ interpretation of what they see is affected by their expectations. So people who saw a series of faces would expect to see another face. Cognitive processing can often be affected by schemas.

Question 21

What is the aim of cognitive neuroscience?

Answer 21

The aim of cognitive neuroscience is to look for a biological basis to thought process.

Question 22

What is cognitive neuroscience a combination of?

Answer 22

It combines cognitive psychology, cognitive science and neuroscience and has emerged as technology has advanced.

The rapid advances in brain scanning techniques such as PET scans and fMRI scans have helped psychologists to see which parts of the brain become active in specific circumstances.

Question 23

What have brain scans enabled neuroscientists to do?

Answer 23

It means that neuroscientists are able to study the living brain giving them detailed information about the brain structures involved in different kinds of mental processing.

For example, psychologists have found that when people feel guilty, several brain regions are active including areas of the prefrontal cortex which is associated with social emotions.

Question 24

How does the cognitive approach study behaviour?

Answer 24

Cognitive psychologists mainly use controlled laboratory experiments to investigate mental processes in humans.

Question 25

What are the strengths and limitations of the research method used by cognitive psychologists?

Answer 25

Strengths
- high control of variables so can establish cause and effect

• standardised procedures are easy to replicate so findings are reliable
• objective data - all behaviour has been directly observed

Limitations
- highly artificial tasks/environment so lack ecological external validity

• there’s a possibility of demand characteristics which may become a confounding variable and effect the cause and effect relationship
• problems with generalisation

Question 26

What is the case study approach?

Answer 26

Case studies are a useful alternative to the laboratory experiment in cognitive psychology. They have provided important information on how brain damage can adversely affect the cognitive system, most notable in the field of memory.

E.g. HM

Question 27

What are the strengths and limitations is using case studies in the cognitive approach?

Answer 27

Strengths

• useful insight into unusual cases
• high degree of validity
• rich and detailed data as it is subjective (thoughts+feelings)

Limitations

• it is based on very small samples so not representative and can’t generalise as it is an individual case
• possibility of researcher bias, they’re too over involved and can’t look at it objectively. This affects reliability and accuracy
• possible ethical issues as you are studying people that have gone through a trauma

Question 28

EVALUATION OF THE COGNITIVE APPROACH

Outline three strengths of the cognitive approach

Answer 28

• soft determinism
• has scientific credibility
• real-life application

Question 29

EVALUATION OF THE COGNITIVE APPROACH

Explain the strength of the cognitive approach in that it is softly deterministic

Answer 29

The cognitive approach recognises that we can only operate on the limits of what we know e.g. Language ability, but also acknowledges that we are free to think before responding to a stimulus. This is an interactionist/middle ground position that psychologists refer to as soft determinism, which is different to the behaviourist approach.

This is a less extreme position as it states that we can choose to do things when we want so there is a big element of free will.

Question 30

EVALUATION OF THE COGNITIVE APPROACH

Explain how the cognitive approach has scientific credibility

Answer 30

Cognitive psychologists’ emphasis on scientific methods is a strength of the approach. The use of lab experiments in controlled settings has allowed reliable objective date to be obtained and allowed researchers to infer cognitive processes at work.

The emergence of neuroscience has also enabled the biological and cognitive approach to come together which means the study of the mind has established more of a credible scientific basis since Wundt’s early attempts to measure private mental processes.

Question 31

EVALUATION OF THE COGNITIVE APPROACH

Explain the limitation of the cognitive approach

Answer 31

A limitation of the cognitive approach is that it is machine reductionist. Although there are similarities between the human mind and the operations of a computer (inputs and outputs, storage systems, the use of a central processor), the computer analogy has been criticised by many.

Such machine reductionism ignores the influence of human emotion and motivation on the cognitive system, and how this may affect our ability to process information.

Question 32

EVALUATION OF THE COGNITIVE APPROACH

Explain how the cognitive approach has real-life applications

Answer 32

A strength of the cognitive approach is that it has been applied to many other areas of psychology. For example the cognitive approach to understanding symptoms of psychological disorders such as depression comes from faulty thinking processes that influence behaviour. This has also led to successful treatment for people suffering from depression using cognitive based therapies where faulty thinking is identified and altered.

Cognitive psychology also has practical applications in the field of EWT. Research has demonstrated the unreliability of eye witness accounts and how these are easily distorted. The cognitive interview, which was designed as a way of overcoming these issues, is based on research into how our cognitive process of memory works. The concepts of ‘report everything’ and ‘reinstate the context’ have been based on research into retrieval failure.