Introduction cognitive psychology

• Cognitive Psychology


  Concerns the mind - thinking (rationally and irrationally), solving problems, perceiving, making sense of and understanding the world, using and making sense of language and remembering and forgetting
• Cognitive Approach to Psychology

  How we think is central in explaining how we behave and how we respond to different people and situations
• Cognitive Approach


  • Mind actively processes information from our senses (touch, taste etc.)
  • Between stimulus + response are complex mental processes, which can be studied scientifically
  • Humans seen as data processing systems
  • Workings of a computer + human mind are alike – they encode + store information, + they have outputs
  • Psychology should be studied scientifically
  • Information received from our senses is processed by brain, + this processing directs how we behave
  • Mind/brain processes information like a computer. We take information in, + then it is subjected to mental processes. There is input, processing, and then output
  • Mediational processes (e.g., thinking, memory) occur between stimulus + response

  
• Study of internal mental processes


  Cognitive approach studies internal mental processes such as attention, memory and decision-making

  
• Theoretical and computer models

  Proposed to attempt to explain and infer information about mental processes

  
• Information-Processing Model


  Describes mind as if a computer, in terms of relationship between incoming information to be encoded (from the senses), manipulating this mentally (e.g. storage, a decision), and consequently directing an output (e.g. a behaviour, emotion)

  
• Information processing models


  • Assume that mental processes follow a linear sequence
  • Input processes are concerned with the analysis of the stimuli
  • Storage processes cover everything that happens to stimuli internally in the brain and can include coding and manipulation of the stimuli
  • Output processes are responsible for preparing an appropriate response to a stimulus

  
• Computational model


  Compares with a computer, but focuses more on how we structure process of reaching behavioural output (i.e. the aim, strategy and action taken), without specifying when/how much information is dealt with
• Connectionist model


  Takes a neural line of thought; it looks at the mind as a complex network of neurons, which activate in regular configurations that characterize known associations between stimuli
• Schema


  An internal 'script' for how to act or what to expect from a given situation
• Schema


  • A child may assume that all boys enjoy playing football
• Assimilation


  Incorporating new experiences into existing schemas
• Accommodation


  A schema no longer works and has to be changed to deal with a new experience
• Equilibrium


  When a child's schemas work for them and explain all that they experience, the child is in equilibrium. They are in a state of mental balance
• Key terms


  • Adaptation: using assimilation and accommodation to make sense of the world
  • Assimilation: incorporating new experiences into existing schemas
  • Accommodation: when a schema has to be changed to deal with a new experience
  • Equilibrium: when a child's schemas can explain all that they experience, a state of mental balance
• Methodology


  • Uses laboratory experiments that are highly controlled so they avoid influence of extraneous variables
  • Allows researcher to establish a causal relationship between independent + dependent variables
  • Measure behaviour that provides information about cognitive processes (e.g., verbal protocols of thinking aloud)
  • Also measure physiological indicators of brain activity, such as neuroimages (PET and fMRI)
  • Controlled experiments are replicable, + data obtained is objective (not influenced by an individual's judgment or opinion) and measurable
  • Gives psychology more credibility
  • Replicability is a crucial concept of science as it ensures that people can validate research by repeating experiment to ensure that an accurate conclusion has been reached
• Strengths of Cognitive Psychology

  • Models have presented a useful means to help explain internal mental processes
  • Approach provides a strong focus on internal mental processes, which behaviourists before did not
  • Experimental methods used by approach are considered scientific
  • Objective measurement, which can be replicated and peer-reviewed
  • Real-life applications (e.g., CBT)
  • Clear predictions that can be can be scientifically tested
• Weaknesses of Cognitive Psychology

  • Over-simplify explanations for complex mental processes
  • Data supporting cognitive theories often come from unrealistic tasks used in laboratory experiments, which puts ecological validity of theories into question (i.e. whether or not they are truly representative of our normal cognitive patterns)
  • Comparing a human mind to a machine or computer is arguably an unsophisticated analogy
  • Reductionist (e.g., ignores biology)
  • Experiments have low ecological validity
  • Behaviourism – can't objectively study unobservable internal behaviour