cognitive approach

• basic assumptions


  • focuses on how people perceive, store, manipulate and interpret information
  • cognitive psychologists look at internal mental processes to understand behaviour
  • though processes can and should be studied scientifically. well controlled lab studies can investigate what we are thinking
  • mental processes are 'private' and can't be observed. cognitive psychologists study them indirectly by making inferences about what is going on inside people's heads
  • The mind is likened to a computer:

  input -> processed -> output

  • called the computer analogy
• inference/inferring


  • the process whereby cognitive psychologists draw conclusions about the way mental processes operate on the basis of observed behaviour
  • making a logical conclusion on the basis of evidence and reasoning
• schemas


  • a 'package' of beliefs and expectations on a topic that comes from a prior experience
  • they are useful by helping us to take shortcuts in thinking
  • born with basic ones then develop from experience
  • but can lead to faulty conclusions and unhelpful behaviour
• cognitive neuroscience - part 1

  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 of psychology. as early as the 1860s, paul broca had identified how damage to the area of the frontal lobe ( broca's area) could permanently impair speech production.
• cognitive neuroscience - part 3

  scanning techniques have also 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 mindmapping techniques known as 'brain fingerprinting'