What are key principles of the cognitive area?
- Behavior is influenced by mental processes such as memory and attention
- Interested in investigating mental processes
- Infers information about thought processes indirectly through psychometric tests. E.g. We cannot look inside the mind to observe memory processes directly, but can carry out a memory test to infer how much content is remembered.
How does Loftus’ study fall into this area?
- The cognitive area is interested in the investigation of mental processes
- Loftus’ study looked at the effect of leading Qs on memory (a mental process)
- Found that P’s who saw the leading verb ‘smashed’ gave higher speed estimates than those who saw the verb ‘hit’ => Findings
- Indicates that the leading post-event information can cause memory distortion - The cognitive area infers information about thought processes indirectly by recording behavior in tasks requiring cognition
- Loftus’s study fits this as researchers could not look into P’s minds to ‘see’ their recollection of the car crashes
- Had to rely on P’s answers to Qs on questionnaires to infer what they remembered about the event
How does Grant’s study fall into this area?
- Cognitive area is interested in the investigation of mental processes
- Grant’s study looked at the effect of context matching on memory (a mental process)
- Found that memory was enhanced when the conditions of the encoding and retrieval was similar E.g. Silent silent rather than silent noisy - Cognitive area infers information about thought processes indirectly by recording behaviour in tasks requiring cognition.
- Researchers could not look into P’s minds to ‘see’ their memory for the article on psychoimmunology
- Had to rely on P’s answers to MCQs and SAQs to infer what they could remember about the article
Strengths of the cognitive area
(+) Tend to be high in control because lab settings and standardization are usually used
=> Researchers can claim cause and effect because extraneous variables are used
(+) Easy to replicate because procedures are standardized as part of cognitive lab experiments
=> Researchers can repeat studies to see whether similar results occur
(+) Sample easy to obtain because the mind architecture is assumed to be universal
WEAKNESSES
(-) Difficult to study because the mind is unobservable. We cannot see the processes of encoding, storage and retrieval even thought they are main subjects that this area is interested in
=> The cognitive area does not uphold the scientific principle of empiricism (Explanations of behavior should be determined by direct observation)
(-) Low ecological validity because the studies are usually lab experiments
=> Findings not true to life
=> Not always generalizable to real world behavior
(-) Reductionist because it explains complex behavior (like eyewitness testimony) using simplistic explanations (Police used leading Qs)
=> Cognitive factors like attention occurs alongside social factors —> Not acknowledged in cognitive studies
STRUCTURE:
Practical application
What, where, who, how, and link to application
MODEL ANSWER:
Practical application
Principles of the cognitive area can be applied to help students to revise more effectively. This can be done by making the school library a silent study space where earphones and talking are not allow. Posters on the library walls could remind students that silence is mandatory, and a school librarian could reinforce the message. The silent library application fits with the cognitive assumption that mental processes are mechanistic and operate according to predictable rules. One rule of the memory machine is context dependence- information is better remembered when the context of encoding matches the context of retrieval. So, having library policies which encourage students to revise in silence means students will recall more of the revised information in their silent exams.
