CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES OF THE COGNITIVE APPROACH TO BEHAVIOR
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Step 1: Introspectionism
• Intro = within, inside; spection = looking
• In a typical experiment, the psychologist would expose the subject to a
stimulus and ask them to describe what you see or feel.
• With introspection, the focus was on conscious subjective experiences
Step 2: Psychoanalysis
• Sigmund Freud = the father of psychoanalysis
• The cornerstone of his work is the introduction of the “unconscious”
• Claimed that conscious subjective experiences are just one insignificant part
of human psyche, and not the main one.
• In psychoanalysis, the leading role in directing a person’s experiences and
behavior is given to the unconscious drives and desires that we inherit from
our ancestors.
• The role of the conscious mind is to control these primitive drives
when they pose a threat to one’s survival or wellbeing.
• Psychoanalysis uses methods such as dream interpretations or analysis of
associations
Step 3: Behaviorism
• Claims that the mind is not observable so “psychology is not scientific”
• Should only study observable behavior (black box metaphor)
Step 5: Behavioral Economics
• People make mistakes in their judgments, and these mistakes are not just
random deviation from the norm as cognitive psychologists would claim.
• Sometimes the biases are systematic and predictable.
• Irrational decisions are an important part of human behavior, and irrationality
in judgment and decision-making should be accounted for in the models of
cognitive functioning.
Basic overall principles that define the cognitive approach in regards to behavior:
• Mental processes can be studied scientifically
• Mental representations guide behavior
• Cognitive processes do not function in isolation
• Biases in cognitive processes can be systematic and predictable
MODELS OF MEMORY
Memory = a cognitive process used to encode, store and retrieve information
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Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968) proposed the MULTI-STORE MEMORY MODEL and said that it consists of three separate
components:
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Sensory memory (does not process info/ visual, auditory, olfactory – function is to detect info & hold it until it’s transferred
to STM or lost – very short duration)
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Short-term memory store (capacity of 5-9 chunks of info / duration no longer than 30 seconds (rehearsal is key for transfer
to LTM)
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Long-term memory store (stores large amounts of info for indefinite periods of time – not all info is easily retrievable –
duration is potentially a lifetime)
Glanzer and Cunitz (1966): research on the serial position effect
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Serves as support for STM and LTM being separate memory stores.
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Serial position effect = tendency to recall the first and last items on a list better than the items in the middle
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Participants were required to memorize a list of words followed by a free-recall task
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1st condition: 240 army-enlisted men were presented a recording with 20 words which they were to free-recall right after.
RESULTS clearly demonstrated the serial position effect as they remembered more words from the beginning of the list
(primacy effect) and the end of the list (recency effect).
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2nd condition: researchers introduced a delay between the end of the list and the start of recall (participants engaged in a
filler task, counting backwards for 30 seconds)
RESULTS supported the primacy effect but not the recency effect. Therefore, supporting the idea that STM and LTM
have separate memory mechanisms
 MODEL criticized for its focus on structure rather than the process & for the fact that it only explains the flow of info in one
direction
 criticized for oversimplification of “rehearsal” enabling the transfer of info from STM to LTM
 LEVELS OF PROCESSING: shallow vs deep processing (shallow = physical characteristics, deep = meaning – stronger trace in
LTM)
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Craik and Tulving (1975) – aimed to determine whether the level of processing has an influence on recall
Asked participants questions relating to the different levels of processing before showing words to them for 200
milliseconds. then, asked participants to recall or recognize the words that they had seen
RESULTS support the idea that consolidation of memory traces in LTM is not only due to rehearsal, but also of how the info
was processed at the stage of encoding.
WORKING MEMORY MODEL is short-term memory w/ different systems for different types of info instead of one single store
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Central executive: Drives the whole system (e.g., the boss of working memory) and allocates data to the subsystems: the
phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad. It also deals with cognitive tasks such as mental arithmetic and problemsolving.
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Visuospatial Sketchpad (inner eye): Stores and processes information in a visual or spatial form. The VSS is used for
navigation.
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Phonological Loop: Part of working memory that deals with spoken and written material. It can be used to remember a
phone number. It consists of two parts:
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Phonological Store (inner ear) – Linked to speech perception. Holds information in a speech-based form (i.e., spoken
words) for 1-2 seconds.
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Articulatory control process (inner voice) – Linked to speech production. Used to rehearse and store verbal
information from the phonological store.
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Conrad and hull (1964) - demonstrated the phonological similarity effect
Participants were required to recall list of letters (some lists were phonologically similar [rhymed] while others were not)
RESULTS: rhyming lists were more difficult to remember because the traces of similarly sounding letters are easier to
confuse with each other.
 supported the idea that memory for speech material uses a sound-based storage system, which we now know as the
phonological store.
Strengths of model: more sophisticated than multi-store & allows for wider range of phenomena to be explained
Weakness: models w/ this degree of complexity are harder to test empirically & only involves STM & not sensory or LTM
SCHEMA THEORY
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Cognitive schemas or schemata: mental representations that organize our knowledge,
beliefs and expectations.
Schemas are derived from prior experience
Research has shown that schemas influence memory processes at all stages – encoding,
storage, and retrieval.
Bransford and Johnson (1972): - Investigated the effect of context on comprehension and
memory of text passages.
Independent measures design
Used five groups of participants
All participants heard the same tape-recorded passage
Then, participants were asked to recall it as accurately as possible (there were five
conditions, one for every group)
• 1. participants simply heard the passage
• 2. participants heard the passage twice
• 3. prior to hearing the passage, participants were provided with a context picture for 30
seconds
• 4. the same picture was shown but after participants heard the passage
• 5. a context picture was provided before the passage but the objects were rearranged
RESULTS showed that on average, participants in the third condition were able to recall
more than double of the idea units when compared to the other conditions ( shows that
after the schema has been created (or activated), it influences the organization of our
knowledge).
SOCIAL SCHEMAS: mental representations abut groups of people (stereotypes)  DARLEY &
GROSS (1983) illustrates the effect social schema on our perceptions/interpretations
(participants gave significantly higher ratings of academic performance when they thought
the child was rich)
SCRIPTS: sequences of events (stored in our memory & helps us make sense of sequential
data (SELF-SCHEMAS: about ourselves)
TWO TYPES OF INFO PROCESSING:
• Bottom-up processing: Occurs when the cognitive process is data-driven; perception is not
biased by prior knowledge or expectations. It is a case of “pure” info processing based on
the reality as it is.
• Top-down processing: Occurs when prior knowledge or expectations (schemas) act as a lens
or a filter for the info that you receive and process
Rat Man of Bugelski and Alampay (1961) - helped to visualize top-down processing
• Participants in this study saw an ambiguous picture after being exposed to a series of
drawings of either animals (condition 1) or faces (condition 2)
• In the first condition, participants were more likely to see a rat. In the second condition,
they were more likely to see a man wearing glasses.
RELIABILITY OF COGNITIVE PROCESSES – RECONSTRUCTIVE MEMORY
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Reconstructive memory: Memory, rather than being the passive retrieval of info from the
long-term storage, is an active process that involves the reconstruction of info.
 In order to see the extent to which memories can be altered by irrelevant external
influences, Loftus and Palmer (1974) conducted their famous study on eyewitness
testimony.
 Experiment 1: 45 students were split into 5 groups and are shown film recordings of traffic
accidents.
 Following the films, participants were given a questionnaire asking them to answer a series
of questions about the accident.
 Most of the questions were just meant to be distracters, but there was one critical
question that asked about speed of the vehicles involved in the collision.
 This question varied among the five groups of participants:
 “about how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?”, and for the other
groups the word “hit” was changed for “smashed”, “collided”, “bumped”, or
”contacted”.
 Results: mean speed estimates varied significantly (Ex. Smashed: 40.5 mph, Contacted: 31.8
 Loftus and Palmer suggested that this finding could be interpreted in two possible ways:
 Response bias: a subject might be uncertain whether to say 30 mph or 40 mph, and a
verb of higher intensity biases the response to a higher estimate.
 Memory change: the question causes a change in the subject’s memory representation
of the accident.
 Experiment 2: 150 participants were shown a film depicting a multiple-car accident and
were given a questionnaire that included a number of distractor questions & a critical one.
 This time, they were split into three groups: “smashed into each other”, “hit each other”
and a control group (that was not asked the critical question).
 One week later, the subjects were given a questionnaire again (without watching the film).
 10 questions, and the critical yes/no question was “did you see any broken glass?”
 There had not been any broken glass in the video.
 Results showed that the probability of saying “yes” to the question about broken glass was
32% when the verb “smashed” was used, and only 14% when the word “hit” was used
(which was very similar to the control group).
 So a higher-intensity verb led both to a higher speed estimate and a higher probability of
recollecting an event that had never actually occurred.
 Based on this result, the researchers concluded that an actual change in memory, not just
response bias had occurred.
How reliable is reconstructive memory in the event of recognition and in the presence of
misleading information? Also, can verbal post-event information interfere with visual
information obtained originally?
 Loftus, Miller and Burns (1978): - Results showed that misleading post-event verbal
information was integrated with visual information from before, which resulted in
reconstructive memory. The more time passes from the moment of the original event, the
stronger effect misleading information has on our visual memory.
EMOTION & COGNITION - Theories of Emotion:
DARWIN (1872): —> claimed that emotions have an evolutionary meaning
- EX. Sweaty palms we get when we experience a sudden fear is because sweat makes
our palms softer and enhances our grip for when we climb trees.)
• If emotions have an evolutionary basis, then they should be expressed similarly across
cultures (EX. Darwin uses the example of blushing. Blushing is seen in people of all cultures
and all ages.)
THEORY OF FLASHBULB MEMORY - proposed by BROWN & KULIK (1977)
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—> FLASHBULB MEMORIES = (explanatory theory for how emotion influences cognition &
memory processes) vivid memories of the circumstances in which one first learned of a
surprising and emotionally arousing event => like a snapshot of a significant event (ex. JFK
assassination)
—> They observed that people generally had very vivid memories about the circumstances
of first receiving the news about the assassination; they seemed to clearly remember
where they were when they heard the news, what they were doing, who told them, what
was the immediate aftermath, the weather, the smells in the air.
- two variables that had to attain sufficiently high levels for flashbulb memory to occur:
surprise and personal significance
—> HOWEVER, this theory never assessed the accuracy of flashbulb memory
HOW ARE ACCURATE ARE FLASHBULB MEMORIES? TALARICO & RUBIN (2003)
AIM => tested the accuracy of the flashbulb memory
PROCEDURES => On September 12, 2001 they asked 54 students to record their memory of
first hearing about the 9/11 terrorist attacks and of a recent everyday event.
• The same students were tested again 1, 6 or 32 weeks later
• RESULTS => accuracy for the flashbulb and everyday memories did not differ; both
declined over time
• CONCLUSION => that flashbulb memories are only special in their perceived accuracy.
• They say that the true mystery ”is not why flashbulb memories are so accurate for so long,
as Brown and Kulik (1977) thought, but why people are so confident for so long in the
accuracy of their flashbulb memories”.
COGNITIVE PROCESSING IN THE DIGITAL WORLD ( HL only )
• Experience shapes neuronal connections and influences physiology of the brain
• Our interaction with digital technologies and its affect on our cognitive processing is
relevant to understand developing minds because neuroplasticity is most obvious at a young
age
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Research studies are contradictory which suggests the interaction between cognitive
processing and digital technology is complex and multiple factors must be considered
Rosen et al (2011)
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suggests metacognitive strategies as a solution to compensate for negative effects
of technology.
• Metacognitive strategies – ability to consciously monitor and regulate your cognitive
processes
• Rosen aimed to examine the impact of text-message interruptions on memory recall in
classroom.
• Students in class received messages, all requiring a response.
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RESULTS: the more text messages received, the worse the test performance
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Mediated by response delay: those who responded immediately scored
significantly worse than those who decided to wait
This suggest you can consciously counterbalance the time you get distracted by
regulating the time of response. i.e., read texts when lecture is more relaxed
POINTS TO CONSIDER:
• We are surrounded by digital technology, so research studies should be conducted in
real life settings to approximate the reality of everyday life. Achieved by using
surveys, structured naturalistic observations or the experience sampling method
• These methods have inherent limitations: impossible to make cause-effect
inferences, they rely on self-report, and hard to isolate effects of specific variables
• Research should be supplemented by experiments. Independent variable, dependent
variable and control allow researchers to make cause-effect inferences. (ex.
Rosser et al 2007 study).
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Controlling confounding variables inevitably makes research more artificial and
reductionist —> such studies are usually specific to narrow populations,
concrete skills, or concrete forms of technology
• Correlation research may be used to bring in more variables and make understanding
between technology and cognitive processes more holistic
 We can only fully understand technology effects if we combine diverse sources of
evidence