The Cognitive Approach

The Cognitive Approach began to revolutionise psychology in the late 1950's and early 1960's.  It became the dominant paradigm in psychology by the 1970's.  Interest in psychological processes were encourage by the work of people like Edward C. Tolman and Jean Piaget, but what really got people interested was the introduction of the computer.  Computing gave the cognitive psychologist the terminology to describe human activity, for example - Information Processing, is what many people believed is what humans do.  This also allowed psychologists to start to study the internal mental processes that we all have, memory, attention, perception, etc.

Assumptions

The study of internal mental processes is important in understanding behaviour - cognitive processes actively organise and manipulate the information that we receive - humans do not passively respond to their environment.

Humans, like computers are information processors - regardless of our hardware (brains or circuits) both receive,  interpret and respond to information - and these processes can be modified and tested scientifically.

Methods of Study

Experiment is a method that cognitive psychologists mostly use, usually in a laboratory e.g Loftus and Palmer's research into memory.  There are usually strictly controlled conditions where the Independent Variable can be manipulated to show its effect on the Dependent Variable, e.g the estimate of speed.

Case Study is another method commonly used by cognitive psychologists.  In this case they would make a study of someone who had a serious brain injury and suffers from anterograde amnesia ( a memory disorder where the individual cannot make new memories but retains the memories from before the brain damage).

Contributions to Psychology

Cognitive Psychologist attempt to explain:

• Memory - e.g. Atkinson and Shiffrin's multi-store model of the input, storage and loss of information etc.
• Perception - e.g. Gregory's theory on the role of mental processes in influencing/organising visual stimuli.
• Attention - Broadbent's filter model.
• Artificial Intelligence - Rumelhart and McClelland's parallel distributed network models.
• Social Cognition - e,g, the effects of stereotypes on interpersonal perception.
• Abnormality - e.g. Beck's idea on the errors of logic and negative thinking of depressed patients.