Zusammenfassung der Ressource
cognitive approach
- explanations of behaviour
- problems with eye witness testimony:
the cognitive approach asssumes that
our internal mental processes such a
memory infulence human behaviour.
according to psychologists our memory is
not a factual record and can become
distorted by the information received
after the event. in particular, the way in
which people are asked to recall
informations e.g leading questions.
leading questions can cause the witness
6to recall false information. Loftus and
Palmer studied the infulence of leading
questions on ppt's memory recall of car
accidients. they manipulated the verb
used in the question about speed
estimates. they found that the more
severe the verb used, ther higher the
speed estimate, result9ing in false
eyewitnes testimony.
- Diffiulties experienced by individuals with
autism: the cognitive approach assumes that
our internal mental processes such as
thinking and resoning are infulence by our
behaviour. people with autism are described
as having a triad of impairments as they
display deficits in the areas of social
interactions, communications and repetative
behaviours. furthermore, people with autism
lack theory of mind since they are unable to
make inferences about what other people
might think, feel or believe in any given
situation. Baron-Cohen studied adult6s with
autism and asprger's syndrome and found
that they were significatly less able yto
identify people's emotions in the eye task
than adults with tourettes or clinically
normal adults.
- Development of language: the cognitive
approach assume4s that internal mental
processes infulence all human behaviour.
cognitive psychologists are interested in the
development of language as a way of using
symbols to represent our thoughs and
emotions. they make a distinction between
associative language - where words are
produced in association with pleasant stimuli
without the understanding of theirmeaning,
and representative language - which is based
on understanding the meaning and
gramatical structures. in humans, language4
developes in stages from associative to
representative. savage- rumbough studied
language development in primates and
demonstarted that bonobo chimps were
capale of developing represtantive language
where as common chimps only used
associatrive language.
- Loftus and palmer
- Behaviour: Effect of leading
questions on eyewitness
testimony
- Method: Lab experiment
(controlled). IV- verb in the
critical question. DV-
speed estimate.
- Sample: 195 students from
washington university- 45 in
experiment 1 and 150in
experiment 2
- Data: Quantitative-
Experiment 1= speed estimate
in MPH Experiment 2= Speed
estimate in MPH and broken
glass percentage
- Baron-Cohen
- Behaviour: difficulties
with theory of mind in
adults with autism/
asperger's syndrome
- Method: Quasi
experiment. Natural
IV= clinical dianosis.
DV= score in tasks
- Sample: 76 ppts. 50
clinically normal (25f
25m). 10 tourettes (8m
2f). 16 Autistic (13m 3f)
- Data: Quantitative. correct
answers in the tasks. Qualitative
data collected in the happee's
strange stories task
- Savage-rumbaugh
- Behaviour: language
aquisition by pygmy
chimpanzees
- Method: Longitudinal
experiment (case
study) 4 chimps
studied over 10 years
- Sample: 4 in total - 2 pygmy
chimps (kanzi and mulika) and
2 common chimps (austtin and
sherman)
- Data: Quantitative- number
of correct words produced
Qualitative- observations of
use and context of use
- Ethics: Not ethical as the
chimps were separated from
their mothers at an early age,
were not living in their
natural environment and
were being fed sweets and
sugar drinks
- comparisions
- strength: L+P and Baron-Cohen both collected quantitative data in
their research, which is objective and not open to researcher
interpretation. for exapmle, L+P collected quantitative data by
recroding the speed estimates in MPH for the differentr groups of
ppts. similarly, Baron-cohen collected quantitative dta as they
recorded the number of correct responses to the different tasks,
inculding Eye task, Gender recognition task and the basic emotion
recognition task for the different clinically diagnosed ppts.
- Differences: one difference between L+P and
Savage-Rumbaugh is the sample sized used in their research.
For example, L+P used a relatvely large sample of 194 students
from the university of washington (45 in experiment 1 and 150
in experiment 2) to test the effects of leading questions on
their eyewiness testimonies. In contrast, Savage-rumbaugh
used only 4 chimpanzees (2 bonobo and 2 common) in their
study about symbol aquisition of primates.
- strengths and limitations of the approach
- Strength- POINT: helps us
understand the factors which
affect our cognitive processes. E.g.
Baron-cohen. more useful for
practical applications. POINT:uses
scientific methods so is
objective.E.g. L+P. more reliable
data.
- Limitations- POINT: can be
concidered reductionist as it
ignores biology. E.g. L+P. too
simplistic so is less useful. POINT:
controlled artioficial settings.E.g
Savage- Rumbaugh. Low ecological
validity.