COGNITIVE APPROACH
COGNITIVE PROCESSING
Introduction
Cognition
- Mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought,
experience and senses
Cognitive approach
- Cognitive psychologists examine the relationship between cognition (“the mind”) and
human behaviour
- Idea that the mind is like a computer with data input through the senses,
cognitive processing occurring in the brain and a behavioural output.
Cognitive misers
- Miser = wealthy person that spends as little money as possible
- Psychologists believe that humans don’t like to spend any more processing power
than necessary to achieve a desired result
- We take cognitive shortcuts to make thinking easier
Models of memory
Introduction:
- Early researchers thought memory was a place in the brain
- Engram: unit of cognitive information in the brain theorized to be the place
where memories are stored
- Research on damaged brains indicate that there are different types of memory stored
in different parts of the brain
Types of memory:
Sensory memory (SM):
- Details of our environment that we perceive through our senses, needs attention
- Lasts 1 second for visual stimuli but 2-5 seconds for auditory stimuli
Short-term memory (STM):
- If sensory information is recognized or considered important it is coded and sent to
STM
- Capacity of 7±2 pieces/chunks of information → discovered by Miller (1956)
- Generally not longer than 30 seconds
Long-term memory (LTM):
- If information is rehearsed or attended to it is recorded and transferred to LTM
- The limits for both duration and capacity have not been established, potentially lasts
the life of a human and is unlimited in capacity.
Types of long-term memory:
- Explicit memory: Conscious and intentional recall of previously learned factual
knowledge or experiences
- Semantic memory: Factual knowledge
, - Episodic memory: autobiographical memories (e.g. memories of
events/experiences, childhood, important days, etc.)
- Facial recognition ability to recall and recognize faces. Considered both
explicit and implicit.
- Implicit memory: unconscious recall of how to perform tasks, skills or learned
responses
- Procedural memory: how to do something, habits that we have.
- Facial recognition: ability to recall and recognize faces. Considered both
explicit and implicit.
Multi-store model:
- Theorized by Atkinson and Shiffrin in 1968
- Suggests that information flows through three memory stores, each having a different
capacity and duration
- Sensory Memory (SM)
- Short-term memory (STM)
- Long-term memory (LTM)
Process:
- Information is present in SM through attention, if much attention is given it is
recognized and goes to STM. If not, information in SM is lost through decay.
- In STM information stays there through rehearsal (and eventually passes to LTM), if
it is not rehearsed, it gets lost through displacement decay (being replaced by
another piece of information).
- Information passes to LTM through rehearsal of STM, it supposedly stays there for
an unlimited amount of time, yet can be lost through interference decay.
- Information from the LTM is retrieved and goes back to the STM.
Evaluation:
Disadvantages:
- Reductionist
- It suggests that rehearsal is the main process involved in encoding but this
doesn’t explain incident learning or flashbulb memories
- It’s too general to describe memory
- MSM states that LTM is like a bottomless-memory pit representing it badly
- There are multiple subsystems and subprocesses in LTM
- Only explains information flow in one direction
COGNITIVE PROCESSING
Introduction
Cognition
- Mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought,
experience and senses
Cognitive approach
- Cognitive psychologists examine the relationship between cognition (“the mind”) and
human behaviour
- Idea that the mind is like a computer with data input through the senses,
cognitive processing occurring in the brain and a behavioural output.
Cognitive misers
- Miser = wealthy person that spends as little money as possible
- Psychologists believe that humans don’t like to spend any more processing power
than necessary to achieve a desired result
- We take cognitive shortcuts to make thinking easier
Models of memory
Introduction:
- Early researchers thought memory was a place in the brain
- Engram: unit of cognitive information in the brain theorized to be the place
where memories are stored
- Research on damaged brains indicate that there are different types of memory stored
in different parts of the brain
Types of memory:
Sensory memory (SM):
- Details of our environment that we perceive through our senses, needs attention
- Lasts 1 second for visual stimuli but 2-5 seconds for auditory stimuli
Short-term memory (STM):
- If sensory information is recognized or considered important it is coded and sent to
STM
- Capacity of 7±2 pieces/chunks of information → discovered by Miller (1956)
- Generally not longer than 30 seconds
Long-term memory (LTM):
- If information is rehearsed or attended to it is recorded and transferred to LTM
- The limits for both duration and capacity have not been established, potentially lasts
the life of a human and is unlimited in capacity.
Types of long-term memory:
- Explicit memory: Conscious and intentional recall of previously learned factual
knowledge or experiences
- Semantic memory: Factual knowledge
, - Episodic memory: autobiographical memories (e.g. memories of
events/experiences, childhood, important days, etc.)
- Facial recognition ability to recall and recognize faces. Considered both
explicit and implicit.
- Implicit memory: unconscious recall of how to perform tasks, skills or learned
responses
- Procedural memory: how to do something, habits that we have.
- Facial recognition: ability to recall and recognize faces. Considered both
explicit and implicit.
Multi-store model:
- Theorized by Atkinson and Shiffrin in 1968
- Suggests that information flows through three memory stores, each having a different
capacity and duration
- Sensory Memory (SM)
- Short-term memory (STM)
- Long-term memory (LTM)
Process:
- Information is present in SM through attention, if much attention is given it is
recognized and goes to STM. If not, information in SM is lost through decay.
- In STM information stays there through rehearsal (and eventually passes to LTM), if
it is not rehearsed, it gets lost through displacement decay (being replaced by
another piece of information).
- Information passes to LTM through rehearsal of STM, it supposedly stays there for
an unlimited amount of time, yet can be lost through interference decay.
- Information from the LTM is retrieved and goes back to the STM.
Evaluation:
Disadvantages:
- Reductionist
- It suggests that rehearsal is the main process involved in encoding but this
doesn’t explain incident learning or flashbulb memories
- It’s too general to describe memory
- MSM states that LTM is like a bottomless-memory pit representing it badly
- There are multiple subsystems and subprocesses in LTM
- Only explains information flow in one direction
