The Cognitive Approach-approaches in psychology Flashcards
What does cognitive approach mean?
The term cognitive has come to mean mental processes, so this approach is focused on how our mental processes
(e.g. thoughts, perceptions, attention) affect behaviour.
What does Internal mental processes?
‘Private’ operations of the mind such as perception and attention that mediate between stimulus and response.
What does schema mean?
A mental framework of beliefs and expectations that influence cognitive processing. They are developed from experience.
What does inference mean?
The process whereby cognitive psychologists draw conclusions about the way mental processes operate on the basis of observed behaviour.
What does cognitive neuroscience mean?
The scientific study of biological structures that underpin cognitive processes.
What are assumptions of the cognitive approach?
In direct contrast to the behaviourist approach, the cognitive approach argues that internal mental processes can, and should, be studied scientifically. As a result, the cognitive approach has investigated those areas of human behaviour that were neglected by behaviourists, such as memory, perception and thinking. These processes are private and cannot be observed, so cognitive psychologists study them indirectly by making inferences about what is going on inside people’s mind on the basis of their behaviour
How do you study the cognitive approach through theoretical and computer models?
On way to study internal processes is through the use of theoretical models. One important theoretical model is the information processing approach, which suggests that information flows through the cognitive system in a sequence of stages that include input, storage and retrieval as in the multi store model.
-The cognitive approach uses computer models, where the mind is compared to a computer (the computer analogy) by suggesting that there are similarities in the way information is processed. These models use the concepts of a central processing unit (the brain), the concept of coding(to turn information into a useable format) and the use of stores to hold information. Such computational models of the mind have proved useful in the development of thinking machines or artificial intelligences.
What is the role of the schema in the cognitive approach?
Cognitive processing can often be affected by a person’s beliefs/ expectations often referred to as a schema. Schema are packages of ideas and information developed through experience. They act as a mental framework for the interpretation of incoming information received by the cognitive system; for example, you have a schema for a chair- something with legs that you can sit on. That’s a package of information learned through experience that helps you to respond to the object appropriately.
- Babies are born with simple motor schema for innate behaviours such as sucking and grasping. For example, the grasping schema consists of moving a hand towards an object and shaping the hand around the object in co-ordination with visual input. As we get older, our schema 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 or what a typical zombie looks like.
- Schema enable us to process lots of information quickly and this is useful as a sort of mental short- cut that prevents us from being overwhelmed by environmental stimuli. However, schema may also distort our interpretations of sensory information, leading to perceptual errors.
What is the emergence of cognitive neuroscience?
Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific study of the influence of brain structures on mental processes. Mapping brain areas to specific cognitive functions has a long history in psychology. As early as the 1860’s Paul Broca had identified how damage to an area of the frontal lobe (which came to be known as Broca’s area) could permanently impair speech production.
- It’s only in the last twenty years, however, with advances in brain imaging techniques such as fMRI and PET scans, that scientists have been able to systematically observe and describe the neurological basis of mental processes. For example, in researching involving tasks that required the use of episodic and semantic memory, Tulving et al were able to show how these different types of long- term memory may be located on opposite sides of the pre-frontal cortex. As well as this, the system in overall charge of working memory- the central executive- is thought to reside in a similar area.
- Scanning techniques have proved useful in establishing the neurological basis of some mental disorders.
- The focus of cognitive neuroscience has expanded recently to include the use of computer generated models that are designed to read the brain. This has led to the development of mind mapping techniques known as brain finger printing. One possible future application of this could be to analyse the brain wave patterns of eyewitnesses to determine whether they are lying in court.
How is the scientific and objective methods a strength for cognitive approach?
The cognitive approach has always employed highly controlled and rigorous methods of study in order to enable researches to infer cognitive processes at work. This has involved the use of lab experiments to produce reliable, objective data. In addition, the emergence of cognitive neuroscience has enabled the two fields of biology and cognitive psychology to come together. This means that the study of the mind has established a credible scientific basis.
How is machine reductionism a limitation for cognitive approach?
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. For instance, research has found that human memory may be affected by emotional factors, such as the influence of anxiety on eyewitnesses.
How is application to everyday life a limitation for cognitive approach?
As we have seen, cognitive psychologists are only able to infer mental processes from the behaviour they observe in their research. As a consequence, cognitive psychology occasionally suffers from being too abstract and theoretical in nature.
Similarly, experimental studies of mental processes are often carried out using artificial stimuli (such as test of memory involving world lists) that may not represent everyday memory experience.
Therefore research on cognitive processes may lack external validity.
How is a real-life application a strength for cognitive approach>?
The cognitive approach is probably the dominant approach in psychology today and has been applied to a wide range of practical and theoretical contexts. For example, cognitive psychology has made an important contribution in the field of artificial intelligence and the development of thinking machines exciting advances that may revolutionise how we live in the future.
How is being less determined than other approaches an evaluation for cognitive approach?
The cognitive approach is founded on soft determinism- it recognises that our cognitive system can only operate within the limits of what we know, but that we are free to think before responding to a stimulus. This is a more reasonable ‘interaction’ position than the hard determinism suggested some other approaches.
