Cognitive

• Assumptions

  • focuses on how people perceive, store and mainpulate and interpret information, studying processes like perception, memory and thinking.
  • looks at internal thought processes, unlike the biological approach
  • scientific rigour as they use well controlled lab experiments to investigate what we are thinking
  • cognitive psychologists study mental processes indirectly by making inferences about what is going on inside a mind based on behaviour
• Schemas:

  • cognitive representation of ideas and expectations about a person or situation formed through experienced
  • help to understand predict the world around us
  • help process our world quickly
  • schemas help fill in gaps of information where there is absence of full information
  • schemas can lead to errors and/or developing stereotypes that are difficult to disconfirm
  • schemas are unique to individual because experiences of the world are unique
  • cultural effect due to shared experience
• Models

  • two types of models : theoretical and computer model
• Theoretical models

  • used to study and make inferences about our mental processes
  • models such as the MSM are pictorial in nature
  • they try to explain how information is processed by using flow diagrams that indicate the stages of a particular mental process
  • substantiated using research evidence
  • e.g. Glanzer and Cunitz into primary and recency
• Computer models

  • the development of the first computers gave cognitive psychologists a metaphor for describing mental processes
  • compare mind to a computer
  • INPUT ---> PROCESS ---> OUTPUT
  • using a computer analogy, info is inputted into senses, encoded into memory and combined with previously stored memory to complete a task
• Cognitive neuroscience

  • scientific study of the brain structures that influence mental processes
  • it combines several disciplines, cognitive psychology, cognitive science and neuroscience
  • cognitive neuroscience was thought that it was necessary to consider physiological reasons for thought
  • as technology has progressed in the last 20 years, brain imaging techniques enable scientiststo observe and describe what parts of the brain are involve in mental processes
  • e.g. Broca and Tulving both mapped out the brain using these
• A03

  • A strength of this approach is that it has scientific rigour. The cognitive approach uses experimental methods and produces reliable and objective data that increases the scientific credibility.
  • BUT a criticism of this could be that the research lacks validity as thought processes measured could be argued to be artificial due to the context of the tasks performed. Lab experiments lack ecological validity and mundane realism, e.g. witnessing a car accident in real life and on a video can have different consequences
• A03

  • A weakness to this approach is that the use of models can be seen to oversimplify the complex processes, e.g. the role of motivation and emotion is overlooked which suggests that the approach could be emotionally reductionist.
• A03

  • The approach is critical of being mechanistic. This is because it suggests that we lack free will and is therefore a deterministic explanation. However it is less deterministic than behaviourist because it at least recognises that we have free will before we produce a response
• A03

  • Value as it has helped us develop treatments and has been applied to a range of practical and theoretical contexts. It has developed a range of treatments for e,g, CBT for depression.
  • Cognitive psychology has made an important contribution in the field of AI and the development of robots
• A03- COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE

  • Value due to highlighting specific brain structures that are linked to some mental disorders, e.g. the OFC in OCD
  • scientific approach as it uses functional brain scans which are an objective way of showing which parts of the brai are linked to specific mental processes such as memory
  • cognitive neuroscience is an emerging paradigm that combines both cognitive and biological approaches and is therefore less reductionist than using one approach