Pschology - cognotive approach

Cognotive approach

. Look to explain behaviour by looking at our; perception, language, attention and memory.

. Human's are treated as information processors, and explained in terms of information processing approach.

.Limitations come about though, because reasearch is often carried out in artificial situations, and so cannot be generalised and has low mundane realism, lacking ecological validity.

. Another criticism is that cognitive approach doesn't take into account individual differences. E.G - people who may have Alzheimer's would not be taken into account.

4 laboratory types

1) Laboratary experiments- A lot of reasearch in cognotive happens in laborataries. So therefore it's seen as scientific and deemed as reliable, because you can control all variables. However this experiment has low ecological validity.

2) Field experiments- These take place in natural situations. E.G- studies of memory attention in a normal school environment. This has high ecological validty, but has less control over the variables.

3) Natural experiments- They involve making observations of a naturally occuring situation. Very little control over…