Cognitive Approach

• What are the assumptions of the Cognitive Approach?

  1. Mental processes should be studied in a scientific way
  2. Inferences- drawing conclusions about what goes on in someone's mind on their observed behaviour
  3. Mental processes can be modelled through computer/ theoretical models
• What is a schema?


  Packages of information that act as a cognitive framework to help us organise and interpret information based on past experiences
• What is the information processing approach?


  Cognitive psychology perspective that views the mind as a computer-like system that processes information through various stages.

  1. Input
  2. Storage
  3. Retrieval
• What is Cognitive Neuroscience?

  The scientific study of the influence of brain structures on mental processes
• What did Tulving et al find out about the brain?

  That different parts of the brain is activated when you think about episodic and semantic memories
• Evaluation of Cognitive Approach: Scientific methods

  • Use objective scientific methods
  • Able to infer cognitive processes from highly controlled studies
  • Emergence of cognitive neuroscience means you can enhance scientific study
• Evaluation of Cognitive Approach: Counterpoint to the idea of Scientific Methods

  • Relies on inferences rather than direct observation of behaviour
  • Too abstract and theoretical
  • Artificial stimuli so it doesn't represent everyday experience
  • Lacks external validity
• Evaluation of Cognitive Approach: Real World Application

  • Practical Application
  • Development of AI and 'thinking machines' that may revolutionise how we live in the future
  • used in the explanation and treatment of depression
  • Improved the reliability of eyewitness testimony
• Evaluation of the Cognitive Approach: Machine Reductionism

  • May be similarities between the human mind and a computer but it has been criticised
  • Ignored the influence of human emotion and reduces everything to a basic computer analogy
  • Thoughts and emotions can affect our ability to process information so it may weaken the validity of the cognitive approach
• Evaluation of the Cognitive Approach: Soft Determinism

  • Soft Determinism- the view that human behaviour may be determined by internal and external factors but we can also exert free will at times
  • We have SOME free will
• AO3 Cognitive Neuroscience

  • More scientific and objective in research study
  • fMRI technology e.g London taxi drivers
  • Research studies identifying neurological basis of mental processes e.g Tulving study on long term memory and different locations
  • Machine reductionism as humans are complex
  • Provided biological basis of certain psychological disorders (eg role of the Parahippocampul gyrus in OCD) resulting in the development of new therapies