The cognitive approach Flashcards
(34 cards)
Define the cognitive approach
The term cognitive has come to mean ‘mental processes’, so this approach is focused on how our mental processes (e.g. thoughts, perceptions, attention) affect behaviour.
What does the cognitive approach argue?
It argues that internal mental processes can, and should, be studied scientifically.
What has the cognitive approach investigated?
It has investigated those areas of human behaviour that were neglected by behaviourists, such as memory, perception and thinking.
What are the processes studied within the cognitive approach?
The processes are ‘private’ and cannot be observed, so cognitive psychologists study them indirectly by making inferences about what is going on inside people’s minds on the basis of their behaviour.
Define schema
A mental framework of beliefs and expectations that influence cognitive processing. They are developed from experience.
What can affect cognitive processing?
Cognitive processing can often be affected by a person’s beliefs or expectation, which are often referred to as schema.
For an exmaple, what is the schema of a chair?
Something with legs that you can sit on.
What does the schema help with?
A package of information which is learnt through experience that helps you to respond to the object appropriately.
What schemas are babies born with?
Babies are born with simple motor schema for innate behaviours such as sucking and grasping.
What does the grasping schema consist of?
It consists of moving a hand towards and object and shaping the hand around the object in co-ordination with visual input.
What happens to our schema as we get older?
As we get older, our schema become more detailed and sophisticated. Adults have developed mental representations for everything.
What do schema’s allow us to do?
Schema enable us to process lots of information quickly, it prevents us from being overwhelmed by environmental stimuli.
What is a disadvantage of schemas?
Schemas may also distort our interpretations of sensory information, leading to perceptual errors.
What do cognitive psychologists use to understand internal mental processes?
Cognitive psychologists use both theoretical and computer models to help them understand internal mental processes.
Theoretical models are … whereas computer models are …. …..
Theoretical models are abstract whereas computer models are concrete things.
What is the information processing approach?
It is a theoretical model which suggests that information flows through the cognitive system in a sequence of stages.
What are the sequence of stages in the theoretical model?
These include input, storage and retrieval, as in multi-store model.
What the information processing approach based on?
Based on the way that computers function, a computer model would involve programming a computer to see if the input produces a similar output to humans.
What can we suggest if similar outputs are created by the computer model?
We can then suggest that similar processes are going on in the human mind.
How have computer models proved useful?
They have been proved useful in the development of ‘thinking machines’ or AI.
What is cognitive neuroscience?
The scientific study of the influence of brain structures on mental processes.
Who was Paul Broca and what did he discover in the 1860s?
Paul Broca identified an area in the frontal lobe (now known as Broca’s area) where damage could impair speech production.
Which two imaging techniques have advanced cognitive neuroscience in the last 25 years?
fMRI and PET scans
What did Buckner and Peterson (1996) discover about long-term memory?
They found that episodic and semantic memory are located on opposite sides of the prefrontal cortex.
