Cognitive

• What are the two assumptions of the cognitive approach?

  Psychology must study mental processes.

  The mind works like a computer because stimuli are like inputs, the mind processes those inputs, and then behaviour is like an output.
• What is meant by: An inference?

  An inference is when psychologists make conclusions about mental processes, based on observations of behaviour.
• Explain how cognitive psychologists use theoretical models and inference to study the mind.

  Cognitive psychologists measure behaviour and then make inferences about how mental processes work. These inferences allow us to support or reject theoretical cognitive models. Inference is also used to adjust and refine cognitive models/theories.
• What is meant by: Mental processes occurring in sequence, or in parallel?

  Mental processes occurring in sequence means that each mental process happens one after the other, for example perceiving an environment, then paying attention to it, then making a decision and then undertaking a behaviour.

  Mental processes occurring in parallel means when mental processes happen at the same time, for example seeing and hearing something at the same time.
• What is a schema?

  A schema is a mental framework that we form from our experiences that affect our expectations and our behaviours. Different people will have different schemas.
• What is Assimilation in the context of a schema?

  When a new experience matches our schema.
• What is Accommodation in the context of a schema?

  Accommodation is when we change our schema to match new information that does not fit with the current schema.
• Which research found support for schemas?

  Bartlett in 1932 with 'The war of the Ghost' Folk Tale
• What are the 3 mental processes used in the cognitive approach?

  Perception - Processing stimuli in the environment

  Attention - selecting which stimuli to focus on

  Memory - storing information in the mind
• Give one example of a theoretical model.

  A schema
• What is a theoretical model?

  It is used to make inferences about how mental processes work.
• What did Bartlett find in his 1932 study?


  That participants changed the story to match their own schemas.
• Explain Bartletts 1932 study. 


  English citizens read 'The War of the Ghosts' another culture folk take and were asked to recall the story. Bartlett recorded how many details they got wrong.