Cognitive Level of Analysis

Outline principles that

define the cognitive level of
analysis.
Explain how principles that
define the cognitive level of
analysis may be
demonstrated in research.

Principles
1. Mental representations guide
behaviour
2. Mental processes can be
scientifically investigated.
3. Cognitive processes are influenced
by social and cultural factors.

1. Mental representations guide

behaviour
Cognition refers to the mental tasks or thinking
involved in human behaviour. Thinking may
involve memory, attention, perception,
language and decision making at any one time.
Perception the cognitive process that
interprets and organizes information from the
senses to produce some meaningful experience
of the world. What people think is objectively
experienced and therefore may be the result of
the brains interpretation of the object/event.

 Information input to the mind comes

via bottom-up processing ie. From
the sensory system. This information
is processed in the mind by top-down
processing via pre-stored information
in the memory. There is some output
in the form of behaviour.
Information can be transformed,
reduced, elaborated, filtered,
manipulated, selected, organized,
stored and retrieved.

 There are cognitive mediators

between what happens in the
environment and how one reacts to
it. The processing that intervenes is
based on the way the world is
represented in our memory.
Examples of mental representations
include schemas, which organize our
knowledge of objects, events, others
and ourselves. Theyre not directly
observable.

 Information processing model

Input stimuli Information Output
processed
response

Stimulus Input processing

Storage & related processes (eg.
Elaborating, selecting, storing)
output responses (production of

 Peoples memories arent infallible

due to the reconstructive nature of
memory. People dont store exact
copies of their experiences, but an
outline which is filled with
information when its recalled. People
may have false memories because
people cant distinguish between
what theyve experienced and what
theyve heard after the event.

Bransford and Johnson

(1972)
Please go to the following website
and read and summarise the study:
www.uic.edu/classes/psych/psych353
cs/Bransford_&_Johnson_1972.pdf
Remember Aim, Method, Result,
Conclusion

Tolman (1948)
Please go to the following website
and read and summarise the study:
www.psychclassics.yorku.ca/Tolman/
Maps/maps.htm

 APPLICATION
World Wide Web internet is similar
to a journey, and cognitive maps are
formed of actions.
Hodkinson et al (2000) researched
human computer relationships,
internet search behaviours and
strategies. Search strategies and
possible methods of improvement to
search effectiveness were deduced.

2. Mental processes can be scientifically

investigated.

This occurs by developing theories

and using a number of scientific
research methods.
Ulric Neisser in the 1960s reported
that cognitive psychology had
become too artificial, and
researchers shouldnt forget that
cognition cannot be isolated
from our everyday experience.

 Models of theories can be tested by

conventional scientific methods without
having to rely on introspection for data
collection.
Study of mental processes has enabled
pyschologists to address important
psychological phenomena which
behaviourism cant address.
Viewing mental processes in terms of
information processing has made it possible
to formulate testable theories about
unobservable cognitive structures and
processes.

 Advances in modern cognitive

psychology, cognitive neuroscience
and other fields bear witness to
success of addressing psychological
phenomena at the CLOA.
Study of phenomena at the CLOA can
often be integrated with study of
these same phenomena at the BLOA
and SCLOA, therefore leading to
more comprehensive explanations.

Stroop 1935
Please go to the following website.
Read and summarise the study:
www.psychclassics.yorku.ca/Stroop/
Remember - Aim, Method, Results,
Conclusion

Goldstein et al (1999)
Please go to the following website.
Read and summarise the study:
www.bjp.rcpsych.org/content/178/4/33
7.full
Remember Aim, Method, Results,
Conclusion

Goldstein et al (1999)
AIM To scan the whole of the
cerebral cortex in a sample of
patients with schizophrenia and
assess regional alterations in cortical
volumes against a control group of
healthy volunteers.

 METHOD
29 patients with DSM-III-R schizophrenia
were systematically sampled from 3 public
outpatient service networks in the Boston,
Massachsettss areas.
Healthy subjects, recruited from catchment
areas from which patients were drawn,
were screened for psychopathological
disorders, and proportionately matched to
patients by age, sex, ethnicity, parental
socioeconomic status, reading ability and
handedness.

 The brain of each patient was

scanned using an MRI, and analysis
of covariance of the volumes of brain
regions, adjusted for age and sex,
corrected head size, were used to
compare patients with controls.

 RESULTS
Patients with schizophrenia several areas
of the cortex (including frontal gyrus,
paralimbic brain regions eg. Frontomedial
and front-orbital cortices, anterior cingulate
and paracyngulate gyri and the insula) were
significantly smaller than the control group.
Findings have implications of understanding
brain abnormalities in schizophrenia and
suggest the importance of the paralimbic
areas are their connections with prefrontal
brain regions.

3. Cognitive processes are influenced by

social and cultural factors.
Frederic Bartlett coined the term schema the
mental representation of knowledge. He was
interested in how cultural schemas influence
remembering, and found people had problems
remembering a story from another culture and
reconstructed it to fit their own.
Bartlett demonstrated that memory isnt a tape
recorder, but that memories are formed in terms
of their meaning, and what makes sense to the
person.
This is the reason memory is subject to distortion

Cole & Scribner (1974)

AIM to investigate the development
of memory within children, with and
without education and test free recall
memory.
Cole and Scribner argued that
cognitive processes are universal,
but cognitive skills arent skills are
dependent on environment, including
education, social interaction, culture
and technologies.

 HYPOTHESIS Students who

attended school would remember
more items than non-schooled.
METHOD- researchers took a group of
Liberian and American children
(different ages) both educated and
non educated approx. 1000
subjects
A multitude of memory tasks were
conducted abstraction, logic and
categorization.

 Both educated and non educated

subjects were given the same tests
and the results were recorded.
Children were presented with a list of
words, culturally known, and given a
short amount of time to remember
them 10 seconds.
Asked to remember these words eg.
Plate, calabash, pan etc, and write
them down.

 RESULTS US showed regular

increase in memory performance and
overall performed better than
Liberian children.
In general educated Liberian children
performed better in the recall of list
than no educated Liberian children.
Older children didnt do much better
after practice unless they attended
school.
If no school, no improvement in recall
after age of 10 years. They

10 items on the first trial, but after 15

practice trials only remembered 2
more.
Schooled children (eg. US) learned
the material rapidly.
CONCLUSION- Children (educated)
categorize items into categories to
learn them (chunking).
If they didnt attend school, words
presented in the form of a story were
remembered.

 Educated Liberian children performed

better in recall than non educated,
and overall, US children performed
better.

 EVALUATION
Research method experimental,
single blind, sampling random.
Experimental design independent
measures
STRENGHTS
High cross cultural validity, both
male and females used
Reliable and replicable

 Good causal relationship

Given the right to withdraw
Accounted for western bias
researchers started by observing
cognitive activities in Liberia,
enabling them to create memory
tasks slightly more relevant to
culture.
High ecological validity natural
schooling environment

WEAKNESSES
Lack of control group
Use of children
Although this could be interpreted as memory
skills being better in US children, it overlooks
cultural influence. Western schooling
emphasizes cognitive strategies eg
clustering/categorising. Its unlikely such
parallels exist in traditional societies. They
learn to remember in ways relevant to their
lives, which dont always mirror the activities
that cognitive psychologists use to investigate
mental processes.

 Hard to replicate cross-culturally

No consent forms for either culture,
due to the time and era of study.
No debriefing possible emotional
effects if it was a negative
experience.