Book Notes

• What approach does the cognitive directly contrast?

  The behaviourist approach
• What does it argue?

  That mental processes should be studied e.g. studying perception and memory
• What are mental processes?

  They're private and can't be observed
• How do cognitive psychologists study mental processes?

  Indirectly by making inferences about what's going on inside people's heads on the basis of their behaviour
• What does the information processing approach suggest?

  That information flows through a sequence of stages that include, input, storage and retrieval
• What models do they use to describe and explain mental processes?

  Theoretical and computer models
• What do computer models refer to?

  Programming that can be run on a computer to imitate the human mind

  By running such a programme psychologists can test whether their ideas about information processing are correct
• What is central to the cognitive approach?

  Idea of schema
• What are schema?

  Packages of information developed through experience
• What do they act as?

  A mental framework for the interpretation of incoming information received by the cognitive system
• What are babies born with?

  A simple motor schema for innate behaviour such as grasping
• What occurs as we get older?

  Our schema become more detailed and sophisticated
• What is cognitive neuroscience?

  The scientific study of the influence of brain structures on mental processes
• What has the advances in brain scanning technology in the last 20 years led to?

  Scientists being able to describe the neurological basis of mental processing, this includes research in memory that has linked episodic and semantic memories to opposite sides of the prefrontal cortex in the brain
• What has scanning techniques also proved?

  Useful in establishing the neurological basis of some disorders such as OCD