Cognitive Approach

• Cognitive approach

  Concerned with how thinking shapes our behaviour
• Cognitive psychologists

  Explain all behaviour in terms of thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, and study how these direct our behaviour
• Cognitive psychologists

  Look at the internal processes of the mind
• Computer analogy


  Cognitive psychologists often compare the human mind to a computer
• Computer analogy


  1. Input (from a keyboard)

  2. Process (through display and storage)

  3. Output (recalling a document previously saved)
• Human mind


  1. Input (listening to the teacher explaining the computer analogy)

  2. Process (paying attention, rehearsal, store it)

  3. Output (recalling when asked a question)
• Hardware


  The brain
• Software


  Cognitive processes
• Inputs are how we take in information
• Processes are how we change/store information - using perception, attention, rehearsal, memory etc.
• Output is how we recall information when necessary
• Humans as information processers

  Information received from our senses is processed by the brain and this processing directs how we behave
• Cognitive functions


  • Memory
  • Language
  • Attention
  • Decision making
  • Perception
• Thoughts cannot directly be observed or measured
• Introspection


  A participant describes how a task/stimulus makes them feel
• Introspection has issues with validity
• We cannot directly observe the inner workings of the mind, but scientific and controlled experiments allow psychologists to infer what is happening
• Schemas


  Mental structures that represent an aspect of the world, such as an object or event
• Schema for a cooker

  • Has a large metal door
  • Buttons and knobs
  • Gets hot inside
  • Has hot metal rings on top
• Schemas help us make sense of the world, providing shortcuts to identifying things we come across
• Schemas are generated through experience and interactions with others
• Schemas are not always correct and can be the basis for stereotypes, causing racism, sexism etc.
• Schemas can cause us to misremember events that do not fit our schema
• Halo Effect


  If our schema for an individual contains positive impressions, we are more likely to believe they have other positive characteristics
• Three assumptions are;


  The Computer Analogy, Internal Mental Processes and Schemas
• What people say and do can be taken as measures of their thought processes
• Cognitive psychologists mainly use laboratory experiments to test human behaviour
• The cognitive approach is generally seen as very scientific as the studies are conducted under controlled conditions, are replicable and objective
• Introspection


  When a participant describes how a task/stimulus makes them feel
• Introspection


  1. Give yourself a task to complete (e.g. drawing a picture of a dog)

  2. Say aloud what you are thinking/feeling as you do the task
• Griffiths (1994) asked participants to use introspection when playing on a fruit machine and found that regular gamblers made more verbal reports than non-regular gamblers
• Schemas can change with experience and new information
• Schemas are not necessarily factual as they can be based on false information or rumours
• Scripts


  Schemas that describe how we expect certain situations to unfold
• Most people have very similar scripts for social situations, e.g. being seated and paying the bill when entering a restaurant
• Sensory memory


  Lasts for only a fraction of a second and involves input from the senses
• Short-term memory


  Lasts for around 20 seconds and can hold 5-9 items
• Long-term memory


  Information is stored and can be retrieved when needed
• Sensory memory is the input, attention and rehearsal are forms of processing, and retrieval is an example of output
• The halo effect can lead to biases in decision-making, such as juries being more likely to find an attractive defendant not guilty