Cognitive approach

• What is cognition?

  It is the mental process of aquiring knowledge through thought, experience and the senses.
• What are internal mental processes?

  They are private operations of the brain.
• What is cognitive psychologists main concerns?

  How information recieved from our senses is processed by the brain and how this processing directs how we behave.
• What is inferring in cognitive psychology?

  Cognitive psychologists draw conclusions about the way mental processes operate based on observations.
• What are 3 examples of mental processes that are studied?

  Perception, Thinking and Memory.
• What is a schema?

  It is a mental framework of beliefs that influence cognitive processing (helps to organise and interpret information). Schemata help us make sense of the world by giving short cuts to indentifying things that we come across every day, for specific events they are based on our expectations of how to behave in different situations. However they may cause stereotypes.
• What is the role of computer models in cognitive psychology?

  They compare how the brain takes in informations, stores it or changes it and then recall it when necessary. Cognitive psychologists often use their results of research to develop models of how people process information.
• What is cognitive neuroscience?

  It is the scientific study of biological structures that underpin cognitive processes.
• What are the strengths of the cognitive approach?

  It is scientific and based on carefully controlled research, Computer models can help to understand unobservable processes, Less deterministic than other approaches, Many useful applications e.g Piaget- cognitive development and Beck- mood disorders.
• What are the limitations of the cognitive approach?

  Inference can be too abstract and theoretical in nature, Research of mental processes use artificial stimuli so may not represent everyday experience e.g memory tests like remembering lists, Computer models are simplistic and reductionist, Emphasis on lab experiments which lack ecological validity.