Cognitive

• Basic Assumptions

  • Thoughts, beliefs and attitudes (internal processes of the mind) affect our behaviour and decisions

  • We encode and store information
• Strengths

  • Help us think and learn new information quickly

  • Saves time - mental shortcuts
• Limitations

  • Contributes to stereotypes

  • Makes difficult to retain new information if it doesn't conform to our ideas of the world

  • Can distort our interpretations of sensory information which leads us to make mistakes
• Inference

  Conclusions reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning
• Schema

  A pattern of thought or behaviour that helps organise and interpret information and the relationships among them
• Theoretical model

  Suggests that the mind processes information in a systematic way
• Computer model

  Suggests mind works like a computer, turning information into a format in which it can be stored
• Bartlett's War of the Ghosts theory, 1932


  • Aim = to investigate effect of cultural schemas on reconstructive memory

  • Task = serial reproduction - PP reads WotG book and writes down his recollection which is showed to next PP, and so on

  • PPs = 20 males Cambridge undergrads

  • Results = key details missed out and changed to fit cultural schema e.g. paddling to rowing, canoes to boats

  • Conclusion = cultural schemas contribute to reconstructive memory and memory is an active process where pre-existing expectations interfere with its accuracy and reliability