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What is happening inside the black box?

?

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What is happening inside the black box?

?

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What is happening inside the black box?

?

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• Do we need to look inside the black box to find out what it does?

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Today’s session

You will learn how to... You will learn about...

Describe and apply psychological approaches & theoriesConsider the relationship between an approach and its methods

The cognitive approachThe information processing metaphorCognitive models

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Behaviourism

S R

Behaviourists aren’t interested in what happens in between S and R. They don’t

think you need to know.

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Social learning theory

S RO

Social Learning Theorists say that things take place within the organism that mediate between S and R.

You do need to know about the person’s mental processes.

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Cognitive approach

S RIP

Cognitive psychologists extend this idea and say that our behaviour is determined by the way we process information

taken in from our environment.

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The computer metaphor

In which ways is a brain similar to a computer?

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The computer metaphor

Input processes

Information manipulation

processes

Output processes

Information storage

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Cognitive models

• Cognitive psychologists use the results of their research to develop models of how people process information

• They infer mental processes from comparisons between the information (input) a person receives and the behaviour (output) they produce

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1. Takes in a shape.

2. Counts the vertices.

3. Adds one to this number.

4. Outputs a shape with the new

number of vertices.

What does this information processor do?

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What does this information processor do?

This may not be what is actually happening in the black box, but it allows us to account for how the box

translates input into output. It is a useful model.

1. Takes in a shape.

2. Counts the vertices.

3. Adds one to this number.

4. Outputs a shape with the new

number of vertices.

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What will the output be?

Our model allows us to predict how the information processor will behave. It is still not necessary for us to

know what’s actually happening in the box.

1. Takes in a shape.

2. Counts the vertices.

3. Adds one to this number.

4. Outputs a shape with the new

number of vertices.

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Cognitive models

Info from environment

BehaviourSpeech

LTM

WMP B

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Cognitive methods

• Experimental cognitive psychology– Laboratory experiments

• Cognitive neuropsychology– Case studies– Investigations of the brain