cognitive approach

• key assumptions

  • argues that internal mental processes can and should be studied scientifically
  • the cognitive approach investigated areas of human behaviour that were neglected by behaviourists such as memory, perception and thinking
  • cognitive psychologists study thoughts indirectly by making inferences about what's going on in people minds based on their behaviour.
• theoretical models

  • to study internal processes they use theoretical models
  • the information processing approach suggests that information flows through the cognitive system in stages: input, storage and retrieval
• computer models

  • the mind is compared to a computer suggesting there are similarities in way information is processed
  • these models use the concepts of a central processing unit (brain) the concept of coding and the use of stores to hold information
  • computational models of the mind have proved useful in the development of thinking machines
• the role of the schema

  • cognitive processing can be affected by persons beliefs of expectations referred to as schema
  • packages of ideas and information developed through experience
  • schema acts as a mental framework for the interpretations of incoming information received by cognitive system
• schema

  • enables us to process lots of information quickly
  • as we get older our schema become more detailed
  • born with simple motor schema for innate behaviours
• schema

  • schema may also distort our interpretations of sensory information leading to perceptual error
• the emergence of cognitive neuroscience

  cognitive neuroscience is the scientific study of the influence of the brain structures on mental processes

  • in 1860s Broca identified how damage to an area of the frontal lobe could permanently impair speech production