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Cognitive approach - Coggle Diagram

- - - - A young child tends to have very simple schemas about objects, situations and animals.
  - - - An example of accommodation
        
        A young child may have a schema for 'a bug' that includes both spiders and insects, but as they get older they learn that a spider is not a type of insect. The spider schema and insect scheme become separate in the child's mind.
  - - - When he told his students stories about a Native American battle, they tended to miss parts out and change things when they later recalled the stories. This was because parts of the stories did not fit with the participants' cultural schemas.
  - - - However, maladaptive schemata can lead to negative thoughts, bias and prejudice, so can be very harmful. Maladaptive schemata can be a factor in many mental illnesses, especially depression, social phobias and OCD.
- - - - Atkinson and Shiffrin's (1968) model of memory (A-S model) is a good example of a computer model from the early days of cognitive psychology. It views memory as being based on processing and storing information.
- - - - For example, researcher Noam Chomsky (1959) explained that language cant be learned through classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Instead, we build up mental models of the rules of grammar, such as the idea that (in English) we form past tense by adding -ed to a verb.
  - - - CBT tries to solve problems such as anxiety and depression by changing people's beliefs and habits, and tackling harmful patterns of thinking.
- - - - The idea that every cognitive process is direclty linked to brain activity is called materialism.
        
        As it is based on materialism, cognitive neuroscience assumes that all cognitive processes are based on the activity of the brain areas and their neurons.
  - - - This technology allows people to do a cognitive task such as a memory or attention test in a brain scanner, so that researchers can see which parts of the brain become active.
- - - - He told 20 student participants an unfamiliar story that was part of Native American Folklore. They were then asked to recall it as several different time intervals, ranging from a few hours to years later.
        
        Bartlett conclusion
        
        The study demonstrated that memory is reconstructive, and it is shaped by cultural schemata.
        
        Findings - assimilation
        
        Bartlett found that participants changed the story as they tried to remember it - a process called distortion. Bartlett found that there were three patterns of distortion that took place.
        
        1) Assimilation: The story became more consistent with the participants' own cultural expectations - that is, details were unconsciously changed to fit the norms of British culture.
        
        2) Levelling: The story also became shorter with each retelling as participants omitted information that was seen as not important. Participants shortened the story from its original 330 to on average 180 words..
        
        3) Sharpening: Participants also tended to change the order of the story to make sense of it using terms more familiar to their own culture.
        
        They also added detail and/or emotions.
        
        The participants remembered the main themes in the story, but changed the unfamiliar elements to match their own cultural expectations so that the story remained a coherent whole although changed.
        
        Evaluation of Bartlett
        
        Strengths
        
        Easy to replicate (controlled experiment)
        
        Practical applications for education etc
        
        Limitations
        
        Lacks ecological validity - not how we use memory in everyday life.
- - - - A computer model of memory such as MSM or WMM are good examples. Information stored on the hard disk is like long-term memory and RAM corresponds to working memory.
    - - A limitation if the computer analogy is that as the brain came first, the analogy is really the wrong way around: computers are trying to be like human brains. That is the rationale behind Artificial Intelligence (AI)
      - Computer analogies have been criticised for machine reductionism, which means that they reduce complex thought processes down to simple mechanical processes.