– The term ‘cognitive’ has come to mean ‘mental processes’, so this approach focuses on how our mental processes (e.g. thoughts, perceptions, attention) affect behaviour.
– Emerged in the 1960s
– Response to the behaviourists approach ignoring mental processes
– Focuses on how people perceive, store, manipulate and interpret information
– The development of the first computers gave cognitive psychologists a metaphor for describing mental processes
– Uses computer metaphors such as ‘encoding’, ‘processing’ and ‘retrieval’
– In the middle of the nature-nurture debate – Interactionist
– Soft determinism
– Experimental reductionism
ASSUMPTIONS
– Argues that internal mental process should, and can, be studied scientifically
– Studies areas that have been neglected such as memory, perception and thinking
– These processes are private and cannot be observed
– So, cognitive psychologists study them indirectly by making inferences
INFERENCE
– The process whereby cognitive psychologists draw conclusions about the way mental processes operate on the basis of observed behaviour
– Means of reaching a logical conclusion on the basis of evidence and reasoning
INTERNAL MENTAL PROCESSES
– ‘Private’ operations of the mind such as attention and memory that mediate between stimulus and response.
THE ROLE OF THE SCHEMA
– A mental framework of beliefs and expectations that influence cognitive processing.
– A package of information
– Helps us to organise and interpret information in the brain
– Helps an individual make sense of a new situation
– They are developed from experience
– You have a schema for everything eg a chair is something with legs that you can sit on
– Schemas for specific events are based on how to behave in certain situations or roles
– Babies are born with certain motor and innate schemes eg. Sucking
– As we get older our schemas become more detailed and sophisticated
ADVANTAGES
– They allow us to take shortcuts when interpreting the huge amounts of data that we have to deal with
– Help us to fill the gaps in the absence of full so we can understand
– Enable us to interpret large amounts of data very quickly and prevents us from being overwhelmed
PROBLEMS
– They cause us to exclude any information that does not conform to our established schemas
– This can lead to very strict, rigid and stereotypical views
– Schemas can distort our interpretations of sensory information, leading to perceptual errors
Eg. Mishearing song lyrics
COMPUTER MODELS
– The cognitive approach uses computer analogies as a representation of human cognition
– Information processing in humans resembles computers and is based on transforming information, storing information and retrieving information from memory
– Information flows through the cognitive system in a sequence of stages that includes input, storage and retrieval
– Information is inputted through the senses, encoded into memory and then combined with previously stored information to complete a task
– Eg. The multi-store model of memory – A THEORETICAL MODEL
– Information is stored on the hard disk is like long-term memory and RAM
– The computational models of the mind have been useful in making artificial intelligence
THE EMERGENCE OF COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE
– The scientific study of the influence of brain structures on mental processes
– Advancement of technology has led to the emergence of cognitive neuroscience which allows researchers to study the living brain.
– This has brought together brain scanning technologies when studying cognitive processes involved in memory
– Gives detailed information about which brain structures are involved in different mental processing.
– Non-invasive Neuroimaging techniques such as PET scans and fMRI highlight different parts of the brain as active when engaging in cognitive activities which test memory, perception, attention and even emotions.
– Eg. Paul Broca identified how damage to the frontal lobe could permanently impair speech production
– Eg. There is a link between activity in the parahippocampal gyrus and OCD, and it appears to play a part in unpleasant emotions
EVALUATION OF THE COGNITIVE APPROACH
STRENGTHS
Practical applications
– Has been applied to a wide range of practical and theoretical contexts.
– For example, cognitive psychology has made an important contribution in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and the development of thinking machines (robots), advances that may well revolutionise how we live in the future.
Scientific and objective methods
– The cognitive approach has always employed highly controlled and rigorous methods of study in order to enable researchers to infer cognitive processes at work.
– This has involved the use of lab experiments to produce reliable, objective data.
– This means that we can establish cause and effect as well as universal laws
– In addition, the emergence of cognitive neuroscience has enabled two fields of biology and cognitive psychology to come together.
– This means that the study of the mind has established a credible scientific basis of psychology
CONTRIBUTIONS
CBT therapy
– The cognitive approach has contributed new therapies for mental disorders such as phobias, depression and anxiety.
– Cognitive behavioural therapy changes our thought processes which therefore changes our behaviour
– This was made by the help of Becker and Ellis who are cognitive psychologists who used artificial intelligence and thinking machines
Cognitive interview
– The Cognitive Interview is a questioning technique used by the police to enhance retrieval of information about a crime scene from the eyewitnesses and victims memory.
– This has helped the witness’s memory and has helped to solve cases
LIMITATIONS
Mechanistic reductionism
– Although there may be plausible similarities between the mind and the operations of a computer (inputs and outputs, storage systems, central processor, etc.)
– The computer analogy is an example of mechanistic reductionism as it broadly ignores the influence of human emotion and motivation on the cognitive system and how this may affect how information is processed.
– For instance, research has found that human memory may be affected by emotional factors, such as the influence of anxiety on eyewitness testimony (Loftus).
– Although it can tell us how different cognitive processes take place it fails to explain why the and role of emotions is needed to explain this
Computer Models have Limited Explanatory Powers
– Uses computer models to explain human information processing
– Terms such as ‘encoding’, ‘storage’ and ‘retrieval’ are borrowed directly from the field of computing
– However, there is a difference between the sort of information processing that takes place within the human mind
– Computers do not make mistakes, nor do they ignore available information or forget anything that has been stored on their hard drives
– But, humans do all of these things
– This limits the appropriateness of explaining human thought and behaviour using computer models
Lack of Ecological Validity
– Many studies of cognitive psychology tend to use tasks that have little in common with participant’s natural everyday experiences
– For example, experiments in memory use artificial test materials that are relatively meaningless in everyday life (eg. memorising lists) rather than being based on the way which memory is used in everyday life (eg. why we forget appointments)
– Lacks mundane realism as these tests do not reflect real life activities
– We can’t generalise these findings to real-life situations, therefore they are not generalisable
– Therefore, the research lacks ecological validity