The Cognitive Approach Evaluation Flashcards
Scientific & Objective Methods = Strength
The cognitive approach has always employed highly controlled and rigorous methods of study in order to enable researchers 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.
Machine Reductionism = weakness
Although there are similarities between the human mind & the operations of a computer (inputs & outputs, storage systems, the use of a central processor), the computer analogy has bee criticised by many. Such machine reductionism ignores the influence if 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.
Application to everyday life = Strength
Cognitive psychologists are only able to infer mental processes from the behaviour they observe in their research. As a consequence, cognitve 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 tests of memory involving word lists) that may not represent everyday memory experience. Therefore research on cognitve processes may lack external validity.
Real - Life Application = Strength
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 artifical intelligence (AI) and the development of ‘thinking machines’ (robots), exciting advances that may revolutionise how we live in the future.
Less Determinist Than Other Approaches = strength
The cognitive approach is founded on soft determinsim - it recognises that our cogntive sustem 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 ‘inyteractionsit’ (middle-ground) position than the hard determinsim suggested by some other approaches
