Cognitive approach

• What are the assumptions of the cognitive approach?

  • The mind is like a computer, it is an information processor
  • Thoughts can be studied under well controlled experiments
  • To understand behaviour internal mental processes must be studied
• How are mental processes measured?

  Inferance
• What is a schema?

  Cognitive framework that helps the brain organise information
• What do computer models do?

  Describe mental processes which are frequently incomplete and often changed
• What are some strengths of the cognitive approach?

  • Scientific - can experiment
  • Applications - CBT as treatment for depression
  • Historical support - Plato said the brain is the seat of mental processes
• What are the weaknesses of the cognitive approach?

  • Machine reductionism - too many differences between humans and computers, they cannot be compared
  • Studies lack ecological validity
  • Ignomes motivation and emotion, explains how they occur but nothing else