Lesson 5 Cognitive Approach Flashcards
Define the cognitive approach
It argues that internal mental processes can be studied scientifically so it investigates perception, memory and thinking
What does the cognitive approach use?
Inferences which means that the cognitive model might make assumptions about mental processes that cannot be directly observed and thus goes beyond immediate research evidence
What are internal mental processes?
Operations that occur during thinking
What is a way to study internal processes?
The use of theoretical models
What is an important theoretical model?
Information processing approach which suggests that information flows through the cognitive system in a sequence of stages that include input, storage and retrieval like in the MSM
What else does the cognitive approach use?
Computer models where the mind is compared to a computer by suggesting that there are similarities in the way information is processed
What concepts of the computer model is used?
The concepts of a central processing unit as the brain
The concept of coding
The use of stores to hold information
Define schemas
Packages of ideas and information developed through experience
What do schemas do?
Act as a mental framework for the interpretation of incoming information received by the cognitive system
what do schemes allow us to do?
enable us to process lots of information quickly
useful as a mental short-cut that prevents us from being overwhelmed by environmental stimuli
what may schemas do that we don’t want them to do?
distort our interpretations of sensory information leading to perceptual errors
who carried out the study of the role of schemas and what year was it carried out?
Bartlett
1932
where was Bartlett’s study carried out?
a lab
procedure of Bartlett’s study
English participants asked to read a Native American joke tale called the war of the ghosts
unfamiliar story as it came from a different culture
participants had to read the story and then after different lengths of time recall the story as accurately as possible to test their schemas and recall
findings of Bartlett’s study
all participants changed the story to fit their own schema
reconstructed in order to recall it better
details of the story became more English and contained elements of the English culture
order of the story became more ‘logical’
changes were made like arrows changing to guns
as more time passed less information was remembered
define cognitive neuroscience
the scientific study of the influence of brain structure on mental processes
