Cognitive Approach

• How does the cognitive approach explain behaviour?

  • focuses on how people perceive, store, manipulate and interpret information
  • Attempt to study internal mental processes and how they affect behaviour
• Assumptions of the cognitive approach

  • internal mental processes should be studied scientifically
  • Seeks to explain how this effects behaviour
  • Mental processes cannot be directly observed
  • Inferences are made
• Inference


  the act of drawing a conclusion from evidence and reasoning.
• Theoretical model

  • more abstract
  • simplified
  • pictorial representations
• Computer model


  • more concrete
  • human cognition compared to computer
• Schemas


  • mental framework developed from experience
  • set of beliefs that help organise information
  • allow us to behave appropriately
  • mental shortcuts
• Strengths of the Cognitive approach

  • Scientific method
  • Real world application
• Limitations of the cognitive approach

  • Machine reductionism
  • Use of computer models