Cognitive Approach to Psychology

Shane Galvin-061 AT- utilise mental knowledge Shane Galvin Class 061/AT Applied psychological science T for each oneer Carol Neenan Title Psychological Perspective account playscript count 3121 The cognitive Approach to psychology Contents foliate 1 Contents Page 2 Introduction Page 3 floor Page 4 cognitive psychological science and Cognitive Science Page 6- Research modes i) iii) v) Re exertion time Studies Eye Tracking Studies Psychophysics ii) iv) vi) Priming Studies lateralization Studies Single-Cell Studies Page 8 computer storage Storage and Models Page 10 healthful Appli vomit upions Page 11 Evaluation Page 12 Bibliography Shane Galvin-061 AT-Applied psychological science The Cognitive Approach to psychology What is Cognitive Psychology? Literally, Cognition means knowing, scarcely in the great framework of Psychology, Cognition is mentation, perceiving instruction, understanding, occasionion and presentation of an per take a crap to a question. Esse ntially, cognition is a precondition for the practice of our ami satisfactory litigatees. Cognitive Psychology is the cartoon of higher mental processes such as attention, phraseology use, shop, perception, problem solving, and thinking. (Gerrig & Zimbardo. 2002) Cognitive Psychology uses scientific rules and scrutiny to ramp up a deeper understanding of the gentleman understanding, rather than the headland, a methodological analysis perhaps adequate from Behaviourism, in which modern Cognitive Psychology holds its roots. Yet, unlike demeanorism, which only focuses on observable behaviour, Cognitive Psychology is in any case concerned with internal mental states. 2 Shane Galvin-061 AT-Applied Psychology History In 1932, Behaviourist Edward Tolman published his book Purposive Behaviour in Animals and Men In his works Tolman study rats in a snarl, in which food was placed at the sack of the maze.In the initial phase of a test, the rat would not be empty-bellied whi le setoff entering the maze this would deliver the rat to bring where the food would be and to associate a certain location with the look of food. Of course, beingness armed with such a primal survival disposition would influence the rat to learn and adapt quickly. The rat would move in the general direction of the food as opposed to a particular pathway and Tolman observed that the rats were able to use untrained routes towards the food.This meant that rats had an ability to learn, beyond mere survival instinct and presented a problem for radical behaviourism. Whether Tolman knew it or not, both he and his rats were laying down the groundwork for modern cognitive psychology. Tolman theorized that the animal had unwraped an image of its environment that it later utilize as a reference when finding its food. This is called a Cognitive Map i. e. , the rats showed use of their cognitive map by reaching a design (food) from a number of different starting points.The rats had no instinctive information of the maze and no stimuli that would condition it to thrust knowledge of the maze, in other linguistic process the rats learned about their environment and stored the information. This championed to establish around basis for entrepot storage, learned behaviour and analytical methodology for Cognitive Psychology and would help Psychologists prepargon for the Cognitive Revolution of the 1950s where Cognitive Psychology and its prescript argonas of interrogative begin to move around defined. 3 Shane Galvin-061 AT-Applied PsychologyThe Term Cognitive Psychology came into use in 1967 in the book Cognitive Psychology by Neisser. the term cognition refers to all processes by which the sensory input is change , reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered and used it is app atomic number 18nt that cognition is involved in everything a homosexual being might possibly do that every psychological phenomena is a cognitive phenomena (Neisser, 1967) Perhaps it w as the invention of the computer that gave Cognitive Psychology the most credibility.For the first time in history, mankind had nighthing to which it could comp ar with the human judgement or mind, and gave the cognitive approach its terminology. By being able to study a simpler artificial construct, psychologists now had the opportunity to learn much about cognitive processes. Cognitive psychology focuses on the way homo process information, looking at how we treat information that comes in to the somebody (what behaviorists would call stimuli), and how this treatment leads to responses. In other words, they argon interested in the variables that mediate in the midst of stimulation/input and response/output. (McLeod, 2007) Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Science Part of the effect that the cognitive revolution had on its approach is the amalgamation of techniques and ideologys from other distinct arenas of interrogation and study such as linguistics, computer science, developmental psychology and cognitive psychology. It seems as though it is a reaction to the stimulus-response methodology and mode of rendition espoused by behavioural scientists. Noam Chomsky theorised that the brain had a centre for language scholarship that went beyond what could be explained by behavioural psychology.Jean Piaget had laid out stages of cognitive development that children go finished which again could not be explained indoors the framework of Behaviourism. Computer scientists provided a new way of comparably examining the brain by using computer touch on as a method to conceptualise brain processing. These scientists maintained their own distinct methodologies but they held unitedly and remained united in their interest in cognition and in their goal to bring the scientific study of these processes to unhorse. This scientific collective became known as cognitive science (Solso, et al. 2008) In modern times cognitive science relies on computer science, phil osophy, psychology, neuroscience, linguistics and anthropology. Cognitive science is heavily influenced by computer science in computer modelling it is possible to construct and test cognitive models, in the form of artificial intelligence (AI) which has leaked into hot use in the form of interactive technology such as video gaming. 4 Shane Galvin-061 AT-Applied Psychology But it is of particular benefit to psychologists because they batch test certain, although limited, cognitive models and theories ground on computer models.Cognitive Psychology uses a combination of techniques adapted from other areas of research in order to research its own theories, thus we gain an intrinsic relationship between cognitive psychology and other methodologies as illustrated in Gardners Hexagon. The diverse thread of methodologies in the cognitive approach allows researchers and clinical psychologists to approach problems, issues and hypotheses from a citizenry of different backgrounds and all ow a wider range of scrutiny to verify their findings in keeping with scientific inquiry.Ultimately this allows the cognitive scientist/psychologist to create models of predictive capability that are reproducible which, in Psychology, allows for a greater understanding of the human mind and its mechanisms. 5 Shane Galvin-061 AT-Applied Psychology Research Methods The research methods of cognitive psychology observe and record how we take in information from the natural universe of discourse, the response time of reactions and how we process this information to perceive it. The methods of cognitive psychology stem from those used by early German researchers studying recollection, association and processes.These tools became a mainstay of experimental psychology. As cognitive psychology began to form and become interdisciplinary, methods from other research fields were borrowed and circumscribed for use in the study of cognitive processes. Research methods are the tools by which w e come to know and understand, as healthful as test ideas and develop new ones. (Solso, et al. , 2008) i) Reaction Time Studies Reaction time studies are used to study cognitive processes and seem to be a defining methodology in the cognitive approach.An usage is Donders complication studies, in which a subjects response speed to a flannel inflame being turned on was recorded and compared to a yellow light being turned on. Researchers believed early on that the time difference between the two responses could assume been attributed to additional processing that it took to differentiate the yellow from the white light. Reaction time studies fundamentally rely on the assumption that cognitive activity takes time and that one stage is completed before the other starts. (Solso, et al. , 2008) ii) Priming studiesPriming studies have been used by psychologists for quite some time. With the invention of computer technology, specifically brain imaging technology, undercoat studies ar e becoming more popular. In priming studies a stimulus is presently presented (a prime) and then, after a delay, a second stimulus is presented and a actor is asked to make some judgement regarding the second stimulus, such as, Is the second stimulus the same as the first? (Solso, et al. , 2008) in that respect are two suits of priming effects. The Semantic priming Effect and the Object priming effect.The Semantic priming effect is that by activating one token, the acceptability of the second item is enhanced. The Object priming effect is typically in two stages. The first stage is the presentation of an object. This is followed by an interval that may be as ill-considered as a millisecond or as considerable as several months. In the second stage an object alike(p) to the first object is presented, it could be changed, degraded or rotated etc. The participants accuracy in remembering the first object is then thrifty and sometimes the reaction time is measured as well. Tu lving & Schacter, 1990) 6 Shane Galvin-061 AT-Applied Psychology iii) Eye-Tracking studies A large portion of the brain is used for interpreting and processing ocular sensory information. Researchers have developed techniques to track the movement of look in order to determine where a somebodys midpoint is fixed which in particular helps to study people reading, what sentence they are looking at and where they look next. Eye-tracking studies have helped researchers to discover that people who have dyslexia have different eye movements to people who do not have dyslexia. v) Lateralisation Studies Lateralisation studies developed from the idea that the two sides of the brain are responsible for different cognitive functions, in an effort to localise functions in spite of appearance the brain, Broca and Wernickes areas ( centres that are responsible for speech and language) are located on one side of the brain, the left side, this implies that the brain has place areas for differe nt functions, these studies were particularly important in the area of memory study and studies of amnesiac patients, through the methodology used in lateralisation studies, i. e. riming type tests, and brain imaging we know that the genus Hippocampus is responsible for memory, although on that point are two hippocampi. There are in any case more invasive techniques used in lateralisation studies using patients with essential epilepsy undergoing preventative surgery whereby the corpus collosum, the fibres which connect the hemispheres of the brain, are cut. v) Psychophysics Psychophysics is the scientific study of the relationship between stimuli and the sensations and perceptions evoked by these stimuli. (Solso, et al. , 2008) Psychophysicists are interested in perceptual thresholds.For example in Webers study of perceptual thresholds he tested a souls ability to detect weight. If a person was dimension a weighted object, how much weight could be added before the person could detect and perceive the difference in weight. vi) Single-cell Studies Single-cell studies are typically conducted in animals as opposed to humans because of their invasive genius. Hubel & Wiesel, who were awarded a Nobel Prize for their 1959 research, mapped the visual cortex of cats. This research involved the opening of the skull of the subject.They had theorised that because wiz cells communicate with each other via electrical impulses then it would be possible to probe these single cells with a an extremely fine meter to measure the amount of electrical activity in a cell without damaging it, thereby allowing them to appreciate perceptual experience at a cellular level. Hubel & Wiesel basically retiring a cat , opened its skull, probed its brain and then showed the cat 7 Shane Galvin-061 AT-Applied Psychology moving images and kept probing until they could record the level of cellular electrical activity.This gave us an insight into how we visual perceive the world and the physical action that takes place in the brain. (Solso, et al. , 2008) Memory, Storage and Models Cognitive Psychology is viewed as a pure science, its accepted theories on memory, for example, are based on laboratory experiments with demonstrable results as well as self-coloured work in case studies. For example the Multi store Model (MSM) by Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968, 1971) cited by (McLeod, 2007) attempted to explain how information is transferred from Short Term Memory to Long Term Memory.This model views sensory memory, STM and LTM as permanent structural components and suggests that memory is made up of a serial publication of stores. MSM likens memory as information flowing through a system of rules. entropy is detected by the sense organs and enters the sensory memory. If attended to this information enters the short term memory. Information from the STM is transferred to the long-term memory only if that information is rehearsed. If rehearsal does not occur, then informa tion is forgotten, lost from short term memory through the processes of displacement or decay. McLeod, 2007) This model has influenced the study and research of memory and is supported and informed by studies of retrograde and anterograde amnesia. The Working Model of Memory (Baddely & Hitch, 1974), shows that short term memory is more than one store and consists of different components. Similarly, in long term memory different kinds of memory such as addition/subtraction, how to play cheat or what we did yesterday are not stored in one hard-drive type long term memory store. There are different types of memory, occasional (memory of events), procedural (memory of how to do 8 Shane Galvin-061 AT-Applied Psychology hings) and semantic (general knowledge). This model of memory espouses that rehearsal is the process whereby by we transfer information into Long term memory but that it is not necessary to rehearse in some cases. . We know, now, that the part of the brain that deals with memory is the genus Hippocampus it is part of the limbic system and deals with short term memory and long term memory, as well as spatial functions, the hippocampus is shown in this diagram. As we post see, there are hippocampi there is a hippocampus in both sides of the brain. The hippocampus is part of the cerebral cortex and is located in the medial blase lobe.Damage to the hippocampus batch result in a person being unable to store new memories and is quite devastating to a persons quality of sprightliness. In the case of Clive wearing, based on Baddely, 1990 Blakemore 1988 as cited in (Gross, 2010), who suffered from anterograde amnesia, we burn see the effects of damage to the hippocampus, in this case caused by a rare brain infection caused by the cold sore virus (Herpes Simplex). Mr. Wearing lives almost as if he is frozen in time, constantly believing he has just woken from days of unconscious sleep. He retains developed skills, for example he was the chorus keep down of the London Sinfonietta.Unfortunately for Mr. Wearing his ability to recall memories from earlier in his life is extremely patchy, at best. Atkinson and Schiffrin regard the kind of memory Deficits displayed by Clive Wearing as perhaps the single most convincing demonstration of a dichotomy in the memory system (Gross, 2010) 9 Shane Galvin-061 AT-Applied Psychology remedial Applications Cognitive behavioural Therapy (CBT) Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is based on how our sentiments, feelings and behaviour all interact with each other our judgements influence our feelings and behaviour.CBT helps the knob to develop alternate ways of thinking and behaving in order to reduce psychological distress. Through reflective processes and tasks such as homework, the clients nonadaptive thought process and behaviour is challenged. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is a drapery term for different therapeutic interventions that share similar characteristics. Two therapies which form the basi s of CBT are Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy, developed by Albert Ellis in the 1950s, and Cognitive Therapy, developed by Aaron T.Beck in the 1960s. Beck puts forward the line of products that our emotional reactions are essentially a function of how we construe the world. depress people see themselves as victims, and Beck sees them as victims of their own illogical self-judgements. Becks central idea is that depressed individuals feel as they do because their thinking is dominated by negative schemas. (Gross, 2010) Beck essentially implies that we interpret our reality by using our cognitive processes and our perception.If our perceptions are skewed because our cognitive processes are dysfunctional or our methods of reasoning are incorrect then our emotions and behaviour become distorted from reality. In order to correct emotional or psychological disturbances then we must seek to render the root of the problem, viewing this through the lens of cognition means that we must correct our thought process in order to correct the symptomatic behavioural and emotional disorder. Beck uses methods to treat a disorder depending on the disorder that the client suffers from. He stresses the importance of the quality of the relationship between the client and therapist.Beck as well places particular emphasis on the client discovering misconceptions for themselves. (McLeod, 2008) Albert Ellis Rational Emotional Behavioural Therapy is quite contrasting to Becks method. Ellis Proposes that the therapist should be a teacher and that a warm personal relationship is unnecessary. REBT can also be highly directive, persuasive and confrontational. REBT also uses different methods of approach to a clients issue depending on the clients personality. Human cognition can be held responsible for the individuals successes and accomplishments, according to CBT cognition can also be held responsible for our problems. You are responsible for the termination of the pip It emphas ises control over ones behaviour and emotions through correcting thought processes. The nature of Cognitive 10 Shane Galvin-061 AT-Applied Psychology Psychology/Science allow cognitive theories to be tested in a variety of situations, for example Rimm & Litvaks 1969 (McLeod, 2008) study shows that When experimental subjects are manipulated into adopting unpleasant assumptions or thought they became more anxious and depressed.Moreover, many people with diagnosed psychological disorders such as anxiety and sexual disorders have been found to display maladaptive thoughts and assumptions, devising a case for the effectiveness of CBT. Aaron Becks work in researching natural depression and order disorders in clinical as well as laboratory settings and testing memory and other cognitive functions, and in particular his outcome studies have shown that CBT can be highly effective. CBT is also used in the treatment of drug abuse, bipolar disorder and in patients with cancer, HIV, OCD, PTSD and schizophrenia.It has also been theoretically applied in the treatment of psychopathy. Evaluation/Personal larn Upon examining the field of Cognitive Psychology, I have learned that cognitive Psychology is adaptive. It evolves with the times and incorporates new technologies, but also has a serious understructure in scientific methodology in order to correctly examine and understand the human mind. Cognitive Psychology is informed by the greater umbrella that is cognitive science. For example it uses information from computer science and neuroscience in order to better understand the cognitive processes that exist in the human brain.Given that the mind is not a physical entity this style of scientific inquiry may be the best approach in understanding it. There is a good scientific framework underlying Cognitive psychology which then allows the Psychologist to move forward and deal with issues presented by the mind. As we can see in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, the therapist a pproaches the abstract nature of the mind by focusing on the underlying mental hierarchy. That being, Cognition, Emotion, Behaviour, in order to treat symptomatic issues, the therapist using this approach must deal with the thought processes that create these symptoms.The most important lesson that I have learned is that, while the mind is an abstract construct and is quite onerous to quantify, quantifiable information about physical constructs such as the brain and general human biology and chemistry and its influences informs the understanding of the human mind. 11 Shane Galvin-061 AT-Applied Psychology Bibliography Baddely, A. & Hitch, G. , 1974. Working Memory. In G. Bower, ed. The Psychology of Learning and Motivation Advances in Research and Theory. New York Academic Press, pp. 47-89.Gerrig, R. J. & Zimbardo. , &. P. G. , 2002. Glossary. Online Available at http//www. apa. org/research/action/glossary. aspx Accessed 14 November 2012. Gross, R. , 2010. Psychology The Science o f Mind and Behaviour. 6th ed. London HodderArnold. McLeod, S. , 2007. Atkinson and Shiffrin Multi fund Model of Memory.. Online Available at http//www. simplypsychology. org/multi-store. html Accessed 16 November 2012. McLeod, S. , 2007. http//www. simplypsychology. org/cognitive. html. Online Available at fromhttp//www. implypsychology. org/cognitive-therapy. html Accessed 10 November 2012. McLeod, S. , 2008. Simply Psychology, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Online Available at http//www. simplypsychology. org/cognitive-therapy. html Accessed 12 November 2012. Neisser, U. , 1967. Cognitive Psychology. New York Appleton-Century-Crofts. Solso, R. L. , Maclin, O. H. & Maclin, M. K. , 2008. Cognitive Psychology. 8th ed. capital of Massachusetts Pearson. Tulving, E. & Schacter, D. L. , 1990. Priming and Human Memory Systems. Science, Volume 247, pp. 301-306. 12