Cognitive Approach

• A strength of the cognitive approach is that it uses scientific and objective methods.
• For example, cognitive psychologists have always employed controlled and rigorous methods study, including the use of lab experiments to produce reliable and objective data, in order to enable researchers to infer cognitive processes at work.
• The emergence of cognitive neuroscience has also enabled the two fields of biology and cognitive psychology to come together.
• This strengthens both the reliability and support for the cognitive approach in explaining human behaviour as the study of the mind has established a credible, scientific basis.
• Another strength of the cognitive approach is the application to everyday life.
• For example, it has been applied to a wide range of practical and theoretical contexts.
• The approach has made an important contribution to the field of artificial intelligence and the development of robots.
• This strengthens both the applicability and support for the cognitive approach in explaining human behaviour given that these exciting advances are likely to revolutionise how we live in the future.
• A limitation of the cognitive approach is that it is based on machine reductionism.
• For example, despite there being similarities between the operations of the human mind and a computer, the computer analogy has been criticised.
• Human emotion and motivation have been shown to influence accuracy of recall in eyewitness accounts, which are important factors that are not considered within the computer analogy.
• This weakens both the generalisability and support for the cognitive approach in explaining human behaviour as it oversimplifies human cognitive processing and ignores important aspects that influence performance.