Cognitive 10

• Positive characteristics

  Caused by faulty attention system.

  Have deficits & biases in the way they process info.

  Have an unusual attention bias -> stimuli being interpreted as threatening or dangerous.

  The mechanisms that filter and process incoming stimuli are defective -> struggle to focus their attention selectively. They try to process too much irrelevant info. (Disorganised thinking).

  Breakdown between memory & schema processes - failure to activate schema -> cannot identify what is important info. Internal thoughts are often thought to be from an external source.
• Negative characteristics

  Beck et al used the cognitive triad to explain the development of negative symptoms. Believes that a negative view of oneself leads to dysfunctional beliefs around their performance & ability to feel pleasure.

  People with SZ hold a cynical view of the future -> avolition.

  Negative views of the world -> flat affect.

  Negative views of oneself -> anadonia.
• Thought disorder

  Input ->

  Process (faulty attention processes) ->

  Output (hallucinations, delusions, disorganised thinking)
• Barch et al

  One group consisted of people with SZ.

  The other group consisted of people who didn’t have SZ.

  Those with SZ were slower & made more mistakes on the stroop test.

  Shows people with SZ have defective attentional filters as they struggle to focus on just the colour of the word.
• Strengths of the cognitive explanation

  Supporting evidence

  Successful therapy
• Weaknesses of the cognitive explanation

  Fails to explain SZ fully as it doesn’t identify the origin of the disorder.

  Where do the deficits come from in the first place?