A03

• Strengths of the cognitive approach

  1. Scientific credibility
  2. Less deterministic than other approaches
• Limitations of cognitive approach

  1. Machine reductionism
  2. Low ecological validity
• Strength = scientific credibility

  • Use of rigorous and highly controlled experimental methods in order to enable researchers to infer cognitive processes at work
  • This has given the study of the mind scientific rigour
• Strength = less deterministic than other approaches

  • Founded on soft determinism and recognises that cognitive systems can only operate within limits of what we know, but that we are free to think before responding to a stimulus
  • This is a more reasonable 'middle-ground' position than the hard determinism suggested by the behaviourist approach
• Limitation = machine reductionism

  • Computer analogy criticised for seeing people as mechanistic and losing sight of the person as a whole
  • It over-simplifies complex processes and ignores the influence of emotion and motivation on the cognitive system and how this may affect our ability to process information
  • e.g. research shows emotional factors having impact on human memory -> influence of anxiety on eyewitnesses
• Limitation = low ecological validity

  • Experimental studies of mental processes are often carried out using artificial stimuli (e.g. tests of memory using word lists) that may not represent everyday memory experience
  • The context and tasks performed with these settings are artificial