The Cognitive Approach

Question 1

The cognitive approach

Answer 1

Explains human behaviour in terms of thought processes such as beliefs and memories. It argues that if thinking changes, behaviour will also change.

Question 2

What does the cognitive approach contrast with?

Answer 2

Learning approaches, which only focus on behaviour that can be observed from the outside NOT internal mental processes.

Question 3

Examples of cognitive processes

Answer 3

• Memory
• Perception
• Language
• Attention
• Thoughts and beliefs

Question 4

Noam Chomsky (1959)

Answer 4

• Language cannot be learned through classical and operant conditioning
• Instead, we build up mental models of the rules of grammar e.g adding -ed to a verb when forming the past tense in English

Question 5

Assumptions of the cognitive approach

Answer 5

• The computer analogy. The human mind is compared to a computer and human beings are seen as information processors
• Models - Cognitive psychologists may build theoretical or computer models of cognitive processes
• Stimulus and response is appropriate only if the thought processes that occur between them are acknowledged
• Inference
• Internal mental processes should be studied scientifically

Question 6

Schema

Answer 6

A cognitive structure where thoughts and memories are linked together. It influences future thinking.

Question 7

What are schemas influenced by?

Answer 7

The culture in which you grow up

Question 8

Assimilation (Jean Piaget)

Answer 8

The process by which new information is added to schemas.

Question 9

Accommodation

Answer 9

When a new schema forms due to inconsistent information.

Question 10

An example of accommodation

Answer 10

A young child may have a schema for a bug that included both spiders and insects, but as they get older they learn that a spider is not a type of insect.
The spider and insect schema become separate in the child’s mind.

Question 11

Frederick Bartlett (schemas and memory)

Answer 11

• Showed how memories can be distorted by schemas
• When he told his students about a Native American battle, they tended to miss out parts and change things when they later recalled the stories.
• This was because parts of the stories did not fit with the participants’ cultural schemas

Question 12

An example of a schema

Answer 12

A stereotype

Question 13

3 types of schema

Answer 13

Role schema
Event schema
Self-schema

Question 14

Role schema

Answer 14

Knowledge about how to act in a certain role e.g. expectation about how a waiter should act.

Question 15

Event schema

Answer 15

Also known as scripts. Our knowledge and expectation about what should happen in certain scenarios e.g. going to the movies.

Question 16

Self-schema

Answer 16

All about us, what we are now, what we were in the past and what we hope to be in the future. Our sense of self.

Question 17

Strength of schemas

Answer 17

• Useful in everyday life as they allow us to take cognitive shortcuts enabling us to process large amounts of information rapidly
• Help us predict what will happen in our world based on experiences
• Prevent us from becoming overwhelmed by environmental stimuli

Question 18

Problems with schemas

Answer 18

• Maladaptive schemata can lead to negative thoughts, bias (we see what we expect) and prejudice, so it can be very unhelpful
• Maladaptive schemata can be a factor in many mental illnesses, especially depression, social phobias and OCD
• Schema can distort our interpretation of sensory information
• Can lead to perceptual errors or inaccurate EWT

Question 19

Theoretical models

Answer 19

• Made up of boxes and arrows to show cognitive processing e.g. multistore model of memory
• Presents an idea of how a mental process works
• These models can be tested using experiments and modified if findings don’t fit with the model

Question 20

Computer models

Answer 20

• Use computer analogies e.g. working memory is like the RAM of computer
• The cognitive approach emerged in the mid-20th Century around the same time that computer scientists were developing the earliest computers
• Researchers realised that a computer was a useful model of the mind

Question 21

Bartlett (1932) War of the Ghosts Study

Answer 21

• Told 20 student participants an unfamiliar story that was part of Native American Folklore
• They were then asked to recall it at several different time intervals, ranging from a few hours to year later.

Question 22

The three patterns of distortion (Findings of the War of the Ghosts Study)

Answer 22

• Three patterns of distortion
• Assimilation: The story became more consistent with the participants’ own cultural expectations - that is, details were unconsciously changed to fit the norms of British culture
• Levelling: The story became shorter with each retelling as participant omitted information that was seen as not important. Participants shortened the story from its original 330 to on average 180 words
• Sharpening: Participants also tended to change the order of the story to make sense of it using terms more familiar to their own culture.

Question 23

Conclusion - Bartlett (1932)

Answer 23

Memory is reconstructive and it is shaped by cultural schemata.

Question 24

Strengths of Bartlett’s study

Answer 24

• Easy to replicate
• Practical applications for education etc.

Question 25

Limitations of Bartlett’s study

Answer 25

Lacks ecological validity - not how we use memory in everyday life

Question 26

Strengths of the cognitive approach

Answer 26

• Has always employed highly controlled and rigorous method of study to enable researchers to infer cognitive processes at work
• The emergence of cognitive neuroscience has enabled the two fields of biology and cognitive psychology to come together so that the study of the mind has a scientific basis
• Real life application e.g. CBT
• Founded on “soft determinism” so less deterministic than other approaches. It recognises that our cognitive system can only operate within the limits of what we know but that we are free to think before we respond to a stimulus.

Question 27

Weaknesses of the cognitive approach

Answer 27

• It could be said that it is reductionist as it reduces us down to the operations of a computer. Machine reductionism ignores the influence of human emotion.
• Cognitive psychologists are only able to infer mental processes from the behaviour they observed in their research. It could be argued that it is too abstract and theoretical
• Lack of ecological validity. Experimental studies of mental processes are carried out using artificial stimuli e.g. tests of memory using words.
• People may differ in their mental processes

Question 28

Inferences

Answer 28

• Going beyond the immediate evidence to make assumptions about mental processes that cannot be directly observed
• Inferences are used to build and test models and theories about how the mind works

Question 29

A-S model

Answer 29

• Atkinson and Shiffrin’s (1968) model of memory
• A good example of a computer model from the early days of cognitive psychology
• It views memory as being based on processing and storing information

Question 30

Weakness of the computer analogy

Answer 30

• Computers are different from the human mind in many ways
• They don’t think actively, and are not conscious of their surroundings
• The brain came first so the analogy is really the wrong way round: computers are trying to be human brains (AI)
• Machine reductionism

Question 31

Neuroscience

Answer 31

The study of the brain

Question 32

fMRI imaging

Answer 32

• Functional magnetic resonance imaging
• A key method used in cognitive neuroscience
• Allows people to do a cognitive task such as a memory or attention test in a brain scanner, so that researchers can see which parts of the brain become active

Question 33

Materialism

Answer 33

• The idea that every cognitive process is directly linked to brain activity
• Cognitive neuroscience is based on materialism

Question 34

What do inferences and computer models not tell us?

Answer 34

How and why cognitive processes are happening in the brain.

Question 35

An explanation of the computer analogy

Answer 35

• Information is taken in via the five senses, processed by the brain and the output is behaviour or speech
• The central processing unit (CPU) - the brain - encodes information into a suitable format for process or storage
• Information is input through the senses, encoded into memory and then combined with previously stored information to complete a task