Cognitive Approach AO3

• Cognitive approach


  • Uses scientific methods when testing theoretical and computer models
  • Uses brain scanning techniques within cognitive neuroscience
  • Allows for replicability
  • Lends the research more generalisability, particularly where samples are larger
• The use of inference in the cognitive approach is not objective and could be seen as a leap too far in explaining thinking
• Machine reductionism


  The idea that computer modelling to explain cognitive processes in humans ignores the influence of human emotion and motivation on the cognitive system
• Anxiety affects the accuracy of eyewitness testimony


  This wouldn't happen with a computer
• Using a computer analogy to explain the cognitive system may weaken the validity of the cognitive approach
• Cognitive approach


  • Has real-life application, e.g. the field of AI has been developed through cognitive neuroscience, and treatments for depression (CBT) have been developed based on its principles
  • The idea of schemas and the understanding that people are cognitive misers gives an awareness of how to deal with stereotyping in society
  • The soft determinism of this approach is more reasonable than the hard determinism of the behavioural approach, and is perhaps a more valid way of explaining behaviour