Approaches Paper: Cognitive

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  • Created on: 29-05-16 16:38
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  • Cognitive Approach
    • Explanation
      • Focuses on mental processes
        • These include memory, thinking, perception and language
      • Uses lab experiments
      • Mental processes are invisible
        • Therefore experiments are used to infer what people are thinking based on their actions
          • Uses lab experiments
    • Studies
      • AS - Loftus and Palmer
        • Aim: to see the effect of vocab/time on memory
          • Experiment 1 procedure: watched car crash video, answered questionnaire with critical q (contacted, bumped, hit, collided, smashed) with and estimate of the speed of the car
            • Results: More intense verb = higher speed estimate
              • Conclusion: cognitive process of memory influenced by vocab/time
          • Exp 2: crash video, waited 1 week, asked if they saw broken glass
            • Results: leading question meant participants recalled seeing broken glass
              • Conclusion: cognitive process of memory influenced by vocab/time
      • A2 -  Beck
        • Aim: to understand how depressed people think
          • Procedure: interviews with reports of patients thoughts before, during and after the session. Some patients kept diaries.
            • Findings:  low self esteem, self blame, paranoia, inferiority
              • Conclusion: depression = cognitive distortions that deviate from realistic and logical thinking
    • Strengths and limitations
      • Strengths
        • Helps to understand cognitive disorders and has useful applications in helping treat people with these disorders
          • Beck: depressed people think differently to clinically 'normal' people, CBT can be used to alter their way of thinking
            • Beck and Ellis: CBT effectively treats depression - CBT patients showed a 78.9% improvement compared to 20% in drug therapy
        • Scientific and uses lab objective methods e.g. lab experiments which are not open to bias
          • B-C: each condition looked at same set of 25 eyes, same target/foil words etc.
            • Gathers quantitative data which is easy to analyse and compare, easy to check for reliability
      • Limitations
        • Tends to favour lab experiments - lack EV
          • L+P: watched clip in lab, artificial setting so would have been expecting something
            • Difficult to generalise findings about memory - wouldn't be expecting crash in real life, can't relate to a real life situation
        • Validity - measuring cognitive processes which can't be seen
          • Savage-Rumbaugh - can only infer that pygmy chimps are really using language when they communicate through a Lexigram
            • Decreases reliability
  • Aim: to see the effect of vocab/time on memory
    • Experiment 1 procedure: watched car crash video, answered questionnaire with critical q (contacted, bumped, hit, collided, smashed) with and estimate of the speed of the car
      • Results: More intense verb = higher speed estimate
      • Exp 2: crash video, waited 1 week, asked if they saw broken glass
        • Results: leading question meant participants recalled seeing broken glass

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