Cognitive approach

What does cognitive psychology focus on?

How people perceive, store, manipulate and interpret information (the brain).

Cognitive psychologists believe it’s necessary to look at internal mental processes to understand behaviour.

How can the processes of the human brain be explained?

By using computer models.

Metaphors such as ‘processing’ and ‘encoding’ are used.

The cognitive approach studies information processing. What is this?

The ways that we extract, store and retrieve information that helps to guide our behaviour.

What mental processes contribute to information processing?

Attention - selecting important information

Thinking - solving problems

Storing information in memory and retrieving it when needed.

How does the cognitive approach study these mental processes?

Inferring what goes on - studying indirectly

What are the aspects of the cognitive approach?

Schemas

Models

Cognitive neuroscience

What is a schema?

A cognitive framework that helps organise and interpret info in the brain.

Eg we have schemas for how to behave in different situations (being quiet in a funeral, being loud at a party)

Why are schemas useful?

They allow us to take shortcuts when interpreting the huge amount of information we have to deal with on a daily basis.

They also tell us what to expect in certain situations (eg we expect old people to have a lack of hearing, so we speak louder)

What’s a negative consequence of schemas?

We may develop stereotypes that are difficult to change.

Models: what are theoretical models?

Simplified representations of based on research evidence.

These are often pictorial - represented by boxes and arrows.

Models may be incomplete and can be frequently changed and updated.

(Eg the working memory model)

What are computer models?

Computer analogies for the mind.

This is because of the development of computers - focuses on how sensory info is ‘coded’

Explain the computer analogy for memory.

Info stored on the hard disk - long-term memory

RAM - corresponds to working memory

What is cognitive neuroscience?

The study of the underlying brain structures of cognitive functions.

How are these studied?

By using PET and fMRI scans

What type of techniques are PET and fMRI scans?

Non-invasive - they don’t physically enter the body

What do these non-invasive neuroimaging techniques help psychologists understand?

How the brain supports different cognitive activities and emotions.

How does it do this?

By showing what parts of the brain become active in specific circumstances.

(Eg several brain regions are active when people feel guilty, including the medial prefrontal cortex)

What aspects of human cognition does cognitive neuroscience study?

The neural processes underlying memory, attention, perception and awareness.

Also social cognition - the brain regions involved when we interact with others, and how impairments in these regions may characterise different psychological conditions.

Why was the cognitive approach a paradigm shift in psychology?

Because the cognitive approach attempted to infer what was happening in the mind, even if it could not be directly observed.

This inference was based on evidence.

Positive evaluation

Cognitive approach has been applied in many other areas of psychology - eg the cognitive approach to psychopathology has been used to explain how much of the dysfunctional behaviour shown by people with depression/OCD can be traced back to faulty thinking processes

The cognitive approach is scientific - Use of experimental method. So reliable conclusions - explanations for how the mind works are based on evidence.

Negative evaluation

Computer models aren’t exactly identical to the human brain - computers don’t make mistakes or forget anything, and they can glitch randomly. The human brain can make mistakes but can’t glitch. Therefore this isn’t a completely appropriate analogy.

The cognitive approach ignores emotion and motivation - doesn’t explain why cognitive processes take place.

The studies into cognitive psychology (eg memory experiments) lack mundane realism - They are contrived so have low ecological validity.