OUTLINE TWO PRINCIPLES THAT DEFINE THE COGNITIVE LEVEL OF

ANALYSIS
One of the principles in the cognitive level of analysis is ‘the mind can be studied
scientifically’. A study by Bartlett (1932) was conducted illustrating this principle. His
aim was to investigate the effects of unfamiliarity on recalling folk story. He conducted
this experiment on English participants where they were told the story of ‘The War of the
Ghost’. The study was based on a Native American legend. No participants knew the
purpose and aims of the experiment. After 15 minutes, Bartlett asked the participant to
reproduce the story from their memory. And further told them when they’re free to come
to his laboratory and reproduce the story for him. He noticed how each participant’s
memory of an experience changed with ach reproduction. The findings shows that
recalling folk story was difficult for people from western cultured to reproduce because
of the unfamiliar styles and content. He found some characteristic changes. This includes
the story becoming shorter, the story remained a coherent story no matter how distorted it
was compared t the original. This is because, according to Bartlett, people interpret the
story as a whole. Moreover, the story became more conventional. The detail was
influenced by shared past experience and cultural background of the participants.
Another principal is ‘mental processes can be studied scientifically’. Anderson and
Pichert conduct a well-controlled experiment investigating whether schema processing
would influence both the encoding and retrieval. This experiment allows the extraneous
variables to be held constant and balanced where cause and effects can be identified. The
participants were given one schema at the encoding stage and another at the retrieval.
This is to see if the last schema would influence the recalled story when they have to
recall the information. All participants heard the story about 2 boys whether they wanted
to stay away from school. They both went to one of their houses and stayed there because
no one is home. There were details on the house containing expensive object and the
broken roof. First they heard it based on 72 points from a potential buyer. They then later
heard it from a burglar point of view. The findings shows that the participant in the
change schema group recalled 7% more points on the second recall test when compared
to the first trial. The results increased by 10%. This indicates that schema processing may
have an effect at the retrieval and the encoding. This is because new schema could only
have influenced the recall at the retrieval stage. Therefore this identify that behaviours
and human mental processes can be studied scientifically.