COGNITIVE APPROACH

MEDIATING PROCESSES:

• come between stimulus and response
• focus of structure and finding 'o'
• actively process the stimuli not through trial and error but through sysetematic, organised medicating processes
• Schema.. mental representation of the world.. help make sense 
• we have systems that transform/ alter info recieved
• 'top down' processing 

2. MENTAL PROCESSES CAN BE STUDIED SCIENTIFICALLY:

• eg face recognition.. holistic approach.. ready made sequenial model
• eg gender.. schemas help make sense of correct behaviour to start imiating and incorprate 

3. COMPUTOR ANAOLGY:

• brain opperates in a similar way to a computor ie information processing approach 
• computors code info, store it, use it and produce an outcome 

1. input info... information from the environment is input through our senses.

2. transformtion... our sense change our envrionmental data into neural activity

3. mental process.. info is either stored, transformed, retrieved or forgotton

4. output.. behavioural response 

Emotions... human yes and effects behaviour ... computor no

Forgetting... yes human, computor no 

Memory.. unlimited human.. computor limited RAM

Freewill... yes humans have... no computors dont

Processing.. connectionist for humans.. serial for computors (too slow for humans)

Connectionist is the interconnecting neurons which form a pattern

Coding..  human; electrial impulses... computer must have coding 

• scientific... rigrious methods, objectivie, C+E
• less determinstic ... as it alls for indivduals to make sense of stimuli (think) before responding to the stimuli rather than just merly repsonding with thought
• practical appliactions/implications... CBT and cognitive interview helped with disorders 
• N-N debate... middle .. nature side- inherit mediating processes which are innate... nurture- learn processes

• artificial ... expiermental methods.. doesnt reflect real world
• deterministic... reducses human cog processes to those of a computor 
  
• mechanistic ... says brain is like a computer so machine
• only results ... cant see processes actually working only sees outcome and it cant explain why they happen 
• too much emphasis on info- processing approach... sees brain as a computor.. there are differences eg emotions