Cognitive Assumptions

Question 1

Cognitive
Describe Internal mental processes

Answer 1

• What enables us to make sense of the world

Perception
- Interpret/make sense of what we see

Attention
- How we pay attention to things

Language
- Using our knowledge of language to name and understand.

Memory
- Retaining/recalling

Question 2

Cognitive
Give the psychological example for Internal mental processes

Answer 2

Minimalisation (Criminal Behaviour
- Cognitive distortion where the consequences of actions are underexaggerated
- Perception is altered e.g stealing is a minor issue to a major chain

Question 3

Cognitive
Describe Schemas

Answer 3

• Schemas organise knowledge, guide behaviour, predict happenings and make sense of current experiences
• ‘Mental shortcuts’ ‘Pockets of info’
• Helps us identify things we come across (e.g. Schema for a dog could be 4 legs, furry, tail, etc.)

Question 4

Cognitive
Give the psychological example for Schemas

Answer 4

• Barlett’s war of the ghosts study
• Schemas can distort our memory
  -British Participats memorised a native American tradition based story
• Participants fitted the story into their western Schemas which distorted their recall [guns instead of bows, boat instead of canoe]

Question 5

Cognitive
Describe the Computer Analogy

Answer 5

• Human mind is compared with a computer by cognitive psychologists
• Mind is hardware, cognitive processes are software
• Input= how we take in info
  Process= how we store info
  Output= recalling info when needed

Question 6

Cognitive
Give the psychological example for the Computer analogy

Answer 6

• Multistore model of memory

stimulus -> SENSORY MEMORY -> attention -> SHORT TERM MEMORY -> elaborate rehearsal-> LONG TERM MEMORY

Maintenance rehearsal keeps it in short term
Retrieval is long term to short term.
For the SHORT TERM MEMORY, average is 7 items [5-9] for approx 18-30 seconds.