Cognitive approach

• Internal mental process- The cognitive approach studies information processing i.e way to extract, store and retrieve information helping us guide our behaviour
• Cognitive psychologists explain our behaviour by looking at our perception and memory.
• principles are- Our mental systems have a limited capacity
• Second principle is - A control mechanism oversees all mental processes i.e. the brain
• Third principle- There is a two way flow of information i.e. we take in information from the world, process and react to it. We also use our knowledge and experiences.
• Computer models are used to represent particular features of the human mind. The brain is described as a process with inputs and outputs like a computer.
• The computer and human system follow the same route (data input → data processing → data output).
• Schemas are knowledge structures that allow humans to interpret the world around them. They contain all the information that you know about objects, actions and concepts
• Schemas- help you to organise and interpret information and experiences.
• Events Schema - These also referred to as scripts. They contain information about what happens in a situation. E.g what you expect to see in a restraunt
• Role Schemas - Contains information about how people are meant to behave based on circumstances like social situations or their role. E.g. a teacher to behave in a certain way
• Self Schemas - These contain information about ourselves based on physical characteristics, personality beliefs and values. E.G. you may have a self schema that says you are sporty
• Through the process of assimilation and accommodation schemas change and become more sophisticated:
• Assimilation - when information is consistent within a schema, e.g a child’s schema for a human may be that they all have two arms and two legs and this is reinforced every time they see that
• Accomodation - when the information is inconsistent within a schema, accommodation occurs, meaning the schema changes to adapt to the new information, e.g. when they see a human being with a limb missing they have to accommodate that new information and realise that not 41 all humans have four limbs.
• Bartlett investigated schemas
• Bartletts- Method - English participants were asked to read a native american folk tale, called ‘The war of the ghosts’. It was an unusual story. It was structured differently to a typical English story and contained lots of strange and unfamiliar concepts. The participants were then asked to recall the story, after different lengths of time
• barletts- Results - Participants rearranged the story to match their own schemas. The structure became more traditional and their stories contained more elements of English culture. and different details/emotions were added. The amount of information remembered by the participants decreased, after increasing the length of time after hearing the story Conclusion - Schemas are used to help people interpret the world around them more quickly and use our existing expectations of the world
• Cognitive neuroscience is an approach in psychology which maps human behaviour to brain function. With modern brain imaging techniques and procedures
• Brain imaging techniques allow psychologists to discover when and where things happen in the brain in relation to people’s behaviour
• There are three major types of brain scans, computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and positive emission tomography (PET)
• (+) The cognitive approach uses controlled rigorous scientific procedures which means the variables are high in control and the studies are easy to replicate and show cause and effect.
• However, as they are scientific they take place in an artificial setting i.e. results may not extrapolate to real life cognitive thinking as the tasks have little to no correlation to everyday tasks
• Cognitive- the computer model has been criticised for reducing human personality and overlooking the impact of emotion on behaviour. This is an issue as it does not recognise complexity of humans compared to machines
• The results of the approach may not be as accurate as once thought as it involves internal mental processes that cannot be directly measured.