Cognitive Approach

• What does the cognitive approach focus on?

  how our mental processes affect behaviour.
• The development of computers allowed cognitive psychologists a metaphor to explain mental the mental processes of:

  Perception

  
  

  Memory

  
  

  Thinking

  
  

  Language
• What ways are mental processes studied?

  Case studies of brain injuries

  
  

  Brain mapping (MRI)

  
  

  Testing theoretical and human models of memory (MSM and WMM
• What is a schema

  A mental framework of beliefs and expectations that influence cognitive processing. They are developed form experience.
• What does schema enable us to do?

  to process lots of information quickly and this is useful as a mental shortcut as our schema becomes more detailed as we get older. It helps us not get overwhelmed by environmental stimuli
• How do cognitive psychologists understand internal mental processes?

  they use both theoretical and computer models
• What does the information processing model suggest?

  information flows through the cognitive system in a sequence of stages: input, storage and retrieval.
• What was Jacob's study


  Conducted lab experiments on STM

  
  

  Participants required to memorise a series of numbers/letters

  
  

  Increased one extra number each time
• What did Maguire discover?

  that London taxi drivers had more grey matter in their posterior hippocampi than those who were similar in age, education and intelligence. Taxi drivers had plumper memory centres than their peers as they had to memorise intricate routes which improved with experience.
• What does Maguire's study suggest?

  This suggests that extensive practice with spatial navigation affects the hippocampus.
• What could Maguires study help?

  Stroke victims, Alzheimer's and brain damage patients with exercises that can stimulate the brain
• What are the strengths of the Cognitive approach?

  Real life application (e.g., Maguire)

  
  

  Uses scientific and objective methodology

  
  

  Less deterministic than other approaches
• What are the weaknesses of the cognitive approach?

  Machine reductionism: human mind is more complex and sophisticated than a computer and it ignores emotions and motivations

  
  

  Lack of ecological validity: can only explain mental processes from the behaviour that they observe which makes the approach abstract and too theory based
• How do cognitive psychologists study the mind?

  indirectly by making inferences
• What are the three basic assumptions of the cognitive approach?

  Between stimulus and response are complex mental processes, which can be studied scientifically.

  
  

  Internal mental processes can and should be studied scientifically

  
  

  Mechanisms of computers and the human mind can become alike- they encode and store information and have outputs
• How did the cognitive approach emerge?

  as a response to the behaviourist approaches failure to acknowledge mental processes.