Cognitive Approach

Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of the mind as an information processor. It concerns how we
take in information from the outside world, and how we make sense of that information.

*involves the study of internal mental processes—all of the workings inside your brain, including perception,
thinking, memory, attention, language, problem-solving, decision making and learning .

* try to build up cognitive models of the information processing that goes on inside people’s minds,
including perception, attention, language, memory, thinking, and consciousness.

*has profoundly affected the field of psychology and our understanding of “what it is to be human”.

*attempts to understand human cognition by focusing on what appear to be cognitive tasks that require
little effort.It also allows psychologists to help people deal with psychological difficulties.

*grew from the more general "cognitive revolution" which can be traced to developments both inside and
outside of psychology. The outside influences include advances in mathematics, biology, and artificial
intelligence, and especially the development of the computer.

The emphasis of psychology shifted away from the study of conditioned behavior and psychoanalytical
notions about the study of the mind, towards the understanding of human information processing using
strict and rigorous laboratory investigation.
Ulric Neisser is considered the founder of cognitive psychology.

His primary interests were in the areas of perception and memory, but he suggested that all
aspects of human thought and behavior were relevant to the study of cognition.

The cognitive approach utilizes controlled experiments to understand cognitive processes. We can
only infer cognitive processes by observing behaviour and talking to people.

Inference is a key aspect of the cognitive approach. This involves going beyond the immediate
evidence to make assumptions about mental processes that cannot be directly observed.

The so-called "cognitive revolution" put a greater emphasis on understanding the way people process
information and how thinking patterns might contribute to psychological distress

Whereas behavioral and other realms of psychology focus on actions--which are external and
observable--cognitive psychology is instead concerned with the thought processes behind the
behavior.

Cognitive psychologists see the mind as if it were a computer, taking in and processing information,
and seek to understand the various factors involved.
Let’s take an example of walking down the road. Imagine now that we are also taking a call. We’re
now combining several concurrent cognitive tasks:
1)Perceiving the environment-Distinguishing cars from traffic signals and discerning their direction
and speed on the road as well as the people ahead standing, talking, and blocking the sidewalk.

2)Paying attention-Attending to what our partner is asking us on the phone, above the traffic noise.

3)Visualizing-Forming a mental image of items in the house, responding to the question, “Where did
you leave your car keys?”

4)Comprehending and producing language-Understanding the real question (“I need to take the car.
Where are your keys?”) from what is said and formulating a suitable reply.

5)Problem-solving-Working out how to get to the next appointment without the car.

6)Decision-making-Concluding that the timing of one meeting will not work and choosing to push it to
another day.

While cognitive psychologists initially focused firmly on an analogy comparing the mind to a
computer, their understanding has moved on.
IMPORTANT

Cognitively oriented researchers and therapists view certain cognitions, particularly

thoughts about the self, as especially important in the development of psychological
disorders.

Because these thoughts are usually connected to emotions, they affect how persons feel
about themselves and their relationships with others.

Cognitive therapists attempt to modify maladaptive behavior by influencing a client's

cognitions: beliefs, schemas, self-statements, assumptions, expectations, and
problem-solving strategies.

The client's beliefs about the causes of events, called attributions or appraisals, seemed to
play an important role in their problems.
There are currently four approaches, often overlapping and frequently combined, that science
uses to understand human cognition:-

1)Cognitive psychology-The attempt to “understand human cognition by using behavioral

evidence” . Focus on thinking processes.

2)Cognitive neuropsychology-Understanding ‘normal’ cognition through the study of patients

living with a brain injury .

3)Cognitive neuroscience-Combining evidence from the brain with behavior to form a more
complete picture of cognition.cognitive neuroscience is focused on finding connections between
thinking and specific brain activity. Cognitive neuroscience also looks at the underlying biology
that influences how information is processed.

4)Computational cognitive science-Using computational models to understand and test our

understanding of human cognition.
History Of Cognitive Psychology

Kohler (1925) published a book called, The Mentality of Apes. In it, he reported observations which suggested that
animals could show insightful behavior. He rejected behaviorism in favour of an approach which became known as
Gestalt psychology.

Norbert Wiener (1948) published Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine,
introducing terms such as input and output.

Tolman (1948) work on cognitive maps – training rats in mazes, showed that animals had an internal representation
of behavior.

Birth of Cognitive Psychology often dated back to George Miller’s (1956) “ The Magical Number 7 Plus or Minus 2:
Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information.” Milner argued that short-term memory could only hold
about seven pieces of information, called chunks.

Newell and Simon’s (1972) development of the General Problem Solver.

In 1960, Miller founded the Center for Cognitive Studies at Harvard with the famous cognitivist developmentalist,
Jerome Bruner.

Ulric Neisser (1967) publishes “ Cognitive Psychology”, which marks the official beginning of the cognitive
approach.
History of Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive psychology grew into prominence between the 1950s and 1970s.

Relatively young branch of psychology, it has quickly grown to become one of the most popular subfields.

In 1967, the psychologist Ulric Neisser introduced the term cognitive psychology, which he defined as the study of
the processes behind the perception, transformation, storage, and recovery of information.

Prior to this time, behaviorism was the dominant perspective in psychology. This theory holds that we learn all our
behaviors from interacting with our environment. It focuses strictly on observable behavior, not thought and
emotion. Then, researchers became more interested in the internal processes that affect behavior instead of just
the behavior itself.

This shift is often referred to as the cognitive revolution in psychology. During this time, a great deal of
research on topics including memory, attention, and language acquisition began to emerge.
IMPORTANT
*George Kelly -the first cognitive clinical psychologist. He developed a theory based on the
fundamental assumption that human behavior is determined by personal constructs, or ways
of anticipating the world .
*According to Kelly, individuals act in accordance with their unique set of expectations about the
consequences of behavior, and their major goal is to validate their personal constructs and thus
make sense of the world as they perceive it.

*According to his theory, disordered behavior results when a person develops inaccurate,
oversimplified, or otherwise faulty constructs about social experiences.

*Much as a scientist will make incorrect predictions from faulty constructs, people are likely to behave
inappropriately if their personal constructs do not allow them to correctly anticipate and comprehend
daily events.
*Thus, a man who construes everything in life as either "good" or "bad" is going to have problems,
because not all events and people can be classified this way without distorting them. He may decide
that all college students, political activists, and foreigners are bad and that all children, doctors, and
clergy are good, but he will be wrong at least part of the time.
*He will also be seen by others as close-minded, prejudiced, and a poor judge of character. His
interpersonal relationships will likely be stormy.
IMPORTANT:
Albert Ellis and rational-emotive therapy -The core principle of his rational-emotive therapy is
evident in this quote:
“When a highly charged emotional Consequence (C) follows a significant Activating Event (A),
A may seem to but actually does not cause C. Instead, emotional Consequences are largely created
by B- -the individual's Belief System . When, therefore, an undesirable Consequence occurs, such as
severe anxiety, this can usually be quickly traced to the person's irrational Beliefs, and when these
Beliefs are effectively Disputed (at point D), by challenging them rationally, the disturbed
Consequences disappear and eventually cease to reoccur.”

According to Ellis, the therapist's task is to attack these irrational, unrealistic, self-defeating beliefs
and to instruct clients in more rational or logical thinking patterns that will not upset them. For
example, clients who believe that they are unlovable are likely to claim that "nobody likes me". The
belief that they cannot tolerate rejection and may break down emotionally is revealed by the
comment, "I can't ask them for that--what if they say no?". Ellis advocated use of strong, direct
communication in order to persuade clients to give up the irrational ideas with which they indoctrinate
themselves into misery.
Other versions of cognitive therapy, like that of Aaron Beck (1976), provided detailed accounts of how
specific types of thoughts influence specific disorders, such as depression. They are all related to
theories that describe the connections between cognitive processes and social behavior.
Topics in Cognitive Psychology-

Cognitive psychologists explore a wide variety of topics related to thinking processes.

Some of these include:

1)Attention--our ability to process information in the environment while tuning out

irrelevant details

2)Choice-based behavior--actions driven by a choice among other possibilities

3)Decision-making-the cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a

course of action among several possible alternative options

4)Forgetting-or disremembering is the apparent loss or modification of information

already encoded and stored in an individual's short or long-term memory.
5)Information processing- The flow of information through the human nervous system,
involving the operation of perceptual systems, memory stores, decision processes, and
response mechanisms.

6)Language acquisition--how we learn to read, write, and express ourselves.

7)Memory -The power or process of reproducing or recalling what has been learned and
retained especially through associative mechanisms.

8)Problem solving -the process of finding situation- or context-specific solutions to

problems encountered in life.

9)Speech perception-how we process what others are saying.

10)Visual perception--how we see the physical world around us.

11)Perception-the process of receiving, selecting, organizing, interpreting, checking,

and reacting to sensory stimuli or data.
Attention:It is hardly possible to imagine a world in which attention doesn’t play an essential role in
how we interact with the environment, and yet, we rarely give it a thought.

According to cognitive psychology, there are many possible ways-

1)Top down processing-attention is most active when driven by an individual’s expectations or

goals.

2)Bottom up processing -Attention is more passive when controlled by external stimuli, such as a
loud noise.

3)Focused attention (selective)- focus on one item (noise, image, etc.) when there are several

4)Divided attention-how we can maintain attention on two or more stimuli simultaneously.

Donald Broadbent proposed the bottleneck model to explain how we can attend to just one message
when several are presented, for example, in dichotic listening experiments, where different auditory
stimuli are presented to each ear. Broadbent’s model suggests multiple processing stages, each one
progressively restricting the information flow
Perception-perception is far more complicated than we might first imagine. Take, for example, vision. While a
great deal of research has “involved presenting a visual stimulus and assessing aspects of its processing,” there
is also the time aspect to consider.

We need to not only perceive objects, but also make sense of their movement and detect changes in the visual
environment over

Bottom-up processing -It involves neurons that fire in response to specific elements of an image – perhaps
aspects of a face, nose, eyebrows, jawline, etc.

Top-down processing - It considers how the knowledge someone brings with them affects their perception.

Bottom-down processing -It helps explain why two people, presented with the same stimuli, experience different
perceptions as a result of their expectations and prior knowledge

Combining bottom-up and top-down processing also enables the individual to make sense of both static and
moving images when limited information is available; we can track a person walking through a crowd or a plane
disappearing in and out of clouds

The mirror neuron system is incredibly fascinating and is proving valuable in our attempts to understand biological
motion. Observing actions activates similar areas of the brain as performing them. The model appears to explain
how we can imitate the actions of another person – crucial to learning
Cognitive psychology and it’s relation with Issues And Debates:-

Free will vs. Determinism-The position of the cognitive approach is unclear as it argues, on the
one hand, the way we process information is determined by our experience (schemas).
On the other hand in, the therapy derived from the approach (CBT) argues that we can change the
way we think.

Nature vs. Nurture-The cognitive approach takes an interactionist view of the debate as it argues
that our behavior is influenced by learning and experience (nurture), but also by some of our brains’
innate capacities as information processors e.g., language acquisition (nature).

Holism vs. Reductionism-The cognitive approach tends to be reductionist as when studying a

variable, it isolates processes such as memory from other cognitive processes.
However, in our normal life, we would use many cognitive processes simultaneously, so it lacks
validity.

Idiographic vs. Nomothetic-It is a nomothetic approach as it focuses on establishing theories on

information processing that apply to all people.
Basic assumptions of cognitive approach
1)Psychology should be studied scientifically.

*The cognitive approach believes that internal mental behavior can be scientifically studied using
controlled experiments. They use the results of their investigations as the basis for making
inferences about mental processes.

*uses laboratory experiments that are highly controlled so they avoid the influence of extraneous
variables. This allows the researcher to establish a causal relationship between the independent
and dependent variables.

*measure behavior that provides information about cognitive processes.They also measure
physiological indicators of brain activity, such as neuroimages (PET and fMRI).

*For example, brain imaging MRI and PET scans map areas of the brain to cognitive function,
allowing the processing of information by centers in the brain to be seen directly. Such processing
causes the area of the brain involved to increase metabolism and “light up” on the scan.
*These controlled experiments are replicable, and the data obtained is objective (not influenced by
an individual’s judgment or opinion) and measurable. This gives psychology more credibility.

*Replicability is a crucial concept of science as it ensures that people can validate research by
repeating the experiment to ensure that an accurate conclusion has been reached.

*Without replicability, a scientific finding may be invalid as it cannot be falsified.

*Additionally, scientific research relies on the peer review of research to ensure that the research is
justifiable.Without replicability, it would be impossible to justify the accuracy of the research.

Current research on cognitive psychology helps play a role in how professionals

approach the treatment of mental illness, traumatic brain injury, and degenerative brain
diseases.
2) Information received from our senses is processed by the brain, and this processing
directs how we behave.

Cognitive psychology has been influenced by developments in computer science and analogies are
often made between how a computer works and how we process information.

Information processing in humans resembles that in computers, and is based on transforming

information, storing and processing information, and retrieving information from memory.

Information processing models of cognitive processes such as memory and attention assume that
mental processes follow a linear sequence.

For example:
Input processes are concerned with the analysis of the stimuli.
Storage processes cover everything that happens to stimuli internally in the brain and can include
coding and manipulation of the stimuli.
Output processes are responsible for preparing an appropriate response to a stimulus.

This has led to models which show information flowing through the cognitive system, such as the
multi-store model of memory.
3)The mind/brain processes information like a computer:-

We take information in, and then it is subjected to mental processes.

There is input ,processing, and then output.

The cognitive approach began to revolutionize psychology in the late 1950s and early 1960s to
become the dominant approach (i.e., perspective) in psychology by the late 1970s. Interest in
mental processes was gradually restored through the work of Jean Piaget and Edward Tolman.

Tolman was a ‘soft behaviorist’. The behaviorists’ view was that learning occurred due to
associations between stimuli and responses.

Tolman suggested that learning was based on the relationships formed amongst stimuli. He
referred to these relationships as cognitive maps.

The arrival of the computer gave cognitive psychology the terminology and metaphor it needed
to investigate the human mind.
IMPORTANT

The Role of Schemas

A schema is a “packet of information” or cognitive framework that helps us organize and

interpret information. They are based on our previous experience.

Schemas can often affect cognitive processing (a mental framework of beliefs and expectations
developed from experience). As you get older, these become more detailed and sophisticated.

Schemas help us to interpret incoming information quickly and effectively; this prevents us from
being overwhelmed by the vast amount of information we perceive in our environment.

However, it can also lead to distortion of this information as we select and interpret environmental
stimuli using schemas that might not be relevant.

This could be the cause of inaccuracies in areas such as eyewitness testimony. It can also
explain some errors we make when perceiving optical illusions.
Eyewitness testimony. the account a bystander or victim gives in the courtroom, describing what
that person observed that occurred during the specific incident under investigation
Schemas are the basis of our ideas- Our schemas for events are called scripts. Those for groups
of people are called stereotypes.
Faced with a novel situation we can rely on existing schemas as a guide.

Ex- I may not have been to a wedding before but I still have expectations of what will happen; a
bride, a groom, a ring, speeches, dad dancing and a punch up in the car park! .
When faced with a novel situation or unfamiliar face they allow us to make snap decisions with little
or no mental effort.

Schemas are not always ideal, and it’s important for schemas to develop and change. Jean Piaget
believed that we change schemas all of the time as children. For example, if a child sees a chicken
for the first time it will learn the schema that all chickens have feathers, a beak, wings and claw like
feet. When the child sees a duck for the first time they may call it a chicken. They have applied the
schema, but it doesn’t fit. The child will then develop a new schema that learns that ducks are birds
that live in ponds and have feathers and a beak etc.

Stereotypes are the perfect example of where schemas can go wrong. They may be based on
previous experiences, but they are not always accurate. Schemas may not change due to people
disregarding information that doesn’t fit neatly into existing schemas whilst focusing on that that
does.
Strengths of schemas:

1)schemas help us predict what will happen in our world based on our experiences

2)schemas enable us to process vast amounts of information rapidly

3)schemas prevent us from becoming overwhelmed by environmental stimuli.

Weaknesses of schemas:

1)schema can distort our interpretation of sensory information

2)schema lead to perceptual errors or inaccurate EWT / memories

3)schema can cause biased recall / see what we expect

4)negative / faulty schema may have a negative impact on mental health

4)Mediational processes (e.g., thinking, memory) occur between stimulus and response.

*The behaviorists approach only studies external observable (stimulus and response) behavior that
can be objectively measured.

*They believe that internal behavior cannot be studied because we cannot see what happens in a
person’s mind (and therefore cannot objectively measure it).

*However, cognitive psychologists regard it as essential to look at the mental processes of an

organism and how these influence behavior.

*Cognitive psychology assumes a mediational process occurs between stimulus/input and

response/output.

*These are mediational processes because they mediate (i.e., go-between) between the stimulus
and the response. They come after the stimulus and before the response.
*Instead of the simple stimulus-response links proposed by behaviorism, the mediational processes
of the organism are essential to understand.

*Without this understanding, psychologists cannot have a complete understanding of behavior.

*The mediational (i.e., mental) event could be memory, perception, attention or problem-solving etc.

*For example, the cognitive approach suggests that problem gambling is a result of maladaptive
thinking and faulty cognitions. These both result in illogical errors being drawn, for example
gamblers misjudge the amount of skill involved with ‘chance’ games so are likely to participate with
the mindset that the odds are in their favour so they may have a good chance of winning.

*Therefore, cognitive psychologists say that if you want to understand behavior, you must
understand these mediational processes.
Critical Evaluation
B.F. Skinner criticizes the cognitive approach as he believes that only external
stimulus-response behavior should be studied as this can be scientifically measured.

Therefore, mediation processes (between stimulus and response) do not exist as they cannot
be seen and measured. Due to its subjective and unscientific nature, Skinner continues to find
problems with cognitive research methods, namely introspection (as used by Wilhelm Wundt).

Humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers believes that the use of laboratory experiments by
cognitive psychology has low ecological validity and creates an artificial environment due to
the control over variables. Rogers emphasizes a more holistic approach to understanding
behavior.

The cognitive approach uses a very scientific method which are controlled and replicable, so
the results are reliable. However, experiments lack ecological validity because of the
artificiality of the tasks and environment, so it might not reflect the way people process
information in their everyday life.
Evaluation of the Cognitive Approach

A viable approach which has been used to create the multi-store model of memory processes, supported by many
other experiments.

Easily combined with other approaches. Cognitive-behavioural therapy is a popular and successful form of
treatment for issues such as obsessive compulsive disorder.

Takes into account the internal, invisible thought processes that affect our behaviour, unlike the behavioral
approach.

Depends largely on controlled experiments to observe human behaviour, which may lack ecological validity (being
compared to real-life behaviour).

Does not take into account genetic factors; for example hereditary correlations of mental disorders.

Reductionist to an extent, although case studies are taken into account, the behavioural approach attempts to
apply the scientific view to human behaviour, which may be argued to be unique to each individual.
For example, Baddeley (1966) used lists of words to find out the encoding used by LTM, however, these words
had no meaning to the participants, so the way they used their memory in this task was probably very different
than they would have done if the words had meaning for them. This is a weakness as the theories might not
explain how memory works outside the laboratory.

These are used to study rare conditions which provide an insight on the working of some mental processes i.e.
Clive Wearing, HM. Although case studies deal with very small sample so the results cannot be generalized to
the wider population as they are influenced by individual characteristics, they allow us to study cases which
could not be produced experimentally because of ethical and practical reasons.

The information processing paradigm of cognitive psychology views the minds in terms of a computer when
processing information. However, although there are similarities between the human mind and the operations of
a computer (inputs and outputs, storage systems, the use of a central processor), the computer analogy has
been criticized by many.
The approach is reductionist as it does not consider emotions and motivation, which influence the processing of
information and memory. For example, according to the Yerkes-Dodson law anxiety can influence our memory.

Such machine reductionism (simplicity) ignores the influence of human emotion and motivation on the cognitive
system and how this may affect our ability to process information.

Behaviorism assumes that people are born a blank slate (tabula rasa) and are not born with cognitive functions like
schemas, memory or perception.

The cognitive approach does not always recognize physical (biological psychology) and environmental (behaviorist
approach) factors in determining behavior.

Cognitive psychology has influenced and integrated with many other approaches and areas of study to produce, for
example, social learning theory, cognitive neuropsychology, and artificial intelligence (AI).
Strengths:

1)Scientific methods:
The cognitive approach attempts a scientific explanation and adopts a scientific methodology.
Because it uses scientific methods its theories and assumptions are testable and more
objective than those of the psychodynamic approach.

For example the study by Loftus & Palmer and all of the studies within the MSM such as
Peterson & Peterson and Baddeley.
They all use lab experiments in order to understand the cognitive process of memory.

This is a key strength of the cognitive approach because there is a high degree of control over
variables which means that cause and effect can be established.
In addition, variables are operationalised to make measurements accurate and objective.
Standardisation of procedures means research can be replicated to enhance reliability.
2)Useful Applications:
In the memory process we use the cognitive interview technique for improving Eyewitness
Testimony.
Kohnken et al. (1999) – Carried out a meta-analysis of 42 studies and found that the Cognitive
Interview gave consistently more accurate information in comparison to the Standard Interview.
Police departments and courtrooms can improve the accuracy of testimony and ensure a fair trial.
.
In addition, during the psychopathology, cognitive approach has been widely applied in the treatment
of depression and anxiety and stress disorders. CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy) combining
cognitive and behaviourist approaches tackles the thought processes behind unwanted or abnormal
behaviour.It has been very effective in treating depression, and moderately effective for anxiety problems .
CBT’s basis is to change how the person processes their thoughts to make them more rational or positive.

Beck argues that it is the negative schemas we hold about the self, the world, and the future which lead to
depression rather than external events.

David et al (2008) Using 170 patients suffering from major depressive disorder that were treated using
REBT had better outcomes than those treated with anti-depressants 6 months after treatment. This
makes the treatment more useful because it ensures that the individual does not need to return to be
treated again.
3)In Cognitive Neuroscience :
The cognitive approach spurred the development of Cognitive Neuroscience which has been
used to gain even further insight into how the mind and brain are connected. Previously the
mind was seen as separate from the brain, but now it is the common belief that they are very
much intertwined. It has many useful applications.
For example, Use of scanning/imaging techniques eg to locate different types of memory in
different areas of the brain leading to treatment for memory problems

4)Further Useful Applications:

Another strength of the cognitive explanation of behaviour is it’s usefulness within the real
world. For example, studies like Peterson and Peterson (1959) have lead to the development
of educational theories on retrieval practise, highlighting the importance of rehearsal in
learning, and the theory of cognitive load, based on the computer model that our minds can
only process so much at once. These both come from the cognitive approach and have lead
to improvements within the education system and teaching.

This is a strength of the approach because it highlights how beneficial it is within society, by
improving teaching and making education more effective, this will result in better outcomes for
younger generations both within academic achievements and also post school choices.
Weaknesses:

1)Alternative Explanations: A weakness of the cognitive approach is the alternative explanation of

the biological approach to explain behaviour. Early Cognitive psychologists place an emphasis on
the concept of the mind and how the internal mental processes cause behaviours. For example,
Beck’s negative triad explains that negative thought processes are what lead to symptoms of
depression. In comparison, Gottesman (2010) found that the risk of mental illness was much
greater for children who had of two parents with a diagnosis of bipolar, thus suggesting that there is
likely to be a biological element to the development of mental disorders, which isn’t considered by
early cognitive psychology. As a consequence, this suggests that the cognitive approach doesn’t
provide a full enough explanation of all behaviours and that other approaches needs to be
considered with cognitive theories to ensure their accuracy. However it can be argued that the later
development of cognitive neuroscience resulted in the integration of the mind and brain working
together to cause behaviour, allowing for a more interactionist perspective and therefore a more
accurate depiction of the causes of behaviour.

2)Internal mental processes aren’t observable (unscientific- use as a challenge) However, it is

worth recognising that there are aspects of this approach which could be argued to be less
scientific. Internal mental processes are located within the mind, which is an unobservable concept,
therefore suggesting that regardless of highly controlled lab studies, the approach is still lacking in
the empirical method, a feature of science.
3)Subjectivity of the approach: The main disadvantage of the cognitive approach is that it
refers to cognitive processes that we cannot directly observe. It relies heavily on
inference. Critics of Loftus and Palmer’s leading questions experiments pointed to the
validity of the reconstructive memory hypothesis, as we cannot be sure that memory has
changed as the researchers couldn’t observe memories, but only the answers given –
which may have been the result of demand characteristics, or even poor judgement of
speed. Therefore, the cognitive approach may lack being scientific on the basis that it is
subjective in what is taken from findings. Assuming that findings are the result of invisible
processes is heavily subjective and therefore the internal validity being raised as issues.

4)Reductionist: ( e.g., ignores biology)

A weakness of the cognitive approach is it takes a reductionist perspective of behaviour.
Lab studies and a high control of variables mean that the psychologist tend to only be
looking at one aspect of behaviour at a time, rather than how many factors interact to
cause a behaviour. As a consequence this may mean that the approach misses the
complexity of human behaviour and context behind behaviour and therefore might not be
as accurate when explaining certain phenomena.
5)Nomothetic approach: whilst these theories have been developed to be applied to the wider
population, it can be argued that this doesn’t apply to everyone and taking a nomothetic approach
isn’t an accurate way to apply psychological knowledge. Craik & Watkins suggest that elaborative
rehearsal, where you connect a memory to a previous memory, results in the greatest recall
therefore suggesting that a more idiographic approach to applying the cognitive approach would be
better.

6)Low ecological validity due to high use of lab experiments: Artificiality of the situation impacts
on ecological validity; ecological validity often affected by narrowness of dependent variables so
that sight is lost of behaviour as a whole. Studies such as Loftus and Palmer and Peterson and
Peterson use artificial stimuli – eg nonsense words / ambiguous figures, and this means that the
approach may not be an accurate explanation of behaviour when applied to real situations of
cognitive processes such as memory. In addition, the awareness of participation means people
taking part may exhibit demand characteristics which could affect the validity of the research. If the
research to support the approach can be questioned, then the credibility of the cognitive approach
can also be questioned.