Cognitive Level Of Analysis Theory

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Outline principles that define the cognitive level of analysis. The cognitive level of analysis (CLOA) focuses on the mental processes such as language, perception, memory and the thinking in the brain that processes information. It focuses a lot on how we take information and the use that we make of it. In this level of analysis, there are three principles, the first one being “human beings are information processors and that mental representations guide our behaviour”, the second one is “Mental processes can and should be studied scientifically” and the last one “social and cultural factors affect cognitive processes”. These three principles are prime ideas that have affected research on areas of behaviour. They help us find out more about…show more content…
They see the mind as a sort of machine where when information is received, it is encoded. There is also a storage for information in our minds and has an effect on how we give information back to be given to others. Some psychologists believe that our mind is similar to a computer as both can process information. This particular principle can be found in the schema theory which is thought to run through “top down processing”. A case study using the first principle would be the Multi-Store Model case study done by Atkinson and Shiffrin. The multi-store model proposes that there are three different memory stores and that each different memory store is in charge of a different type of memory. The first store of memory would be the sensory memory which involves the sense of touch, sound etc. However, it does not last long. The second one would be short term memory which involves the sensory store memory and picks a certain memory to remember. The researchers found that it did not last long either as the memories were replaced by new ones and that in order to preserve those memories there had to be a repetition pattern. Lastly, long term memory involves the short term memory store through repetition of a certain memory. The duration lasts as long as it can and is stored in larger store for when…show more content…
Schemas are an example of a cognitive process as they are mental representations of knowledge. The schema theory is the cognitive theory of understanding information. A person discovering new information can be ruled by the culture they are in. Since people have different cultures, information may vary when people are exposed to them, which means that people are going to have different schemas. The two factors, social and cultural depend on the culture, for example, religion, beliefs, morals etc. The study relating to this third principle would be the study “War of Ghosts” conducted by Bartlett in 1932. In this study, Bartlett wanted to show that memory is reconstructive and that schemas have an effect towards recalling, he also wanted to show the role of culture in processing. The participants were European American and Native American, Bartlett asked them to read a Native American story two times and then asked them to tell the story 15 minutes after reading. The participants did not know the aim of the study. Bartlett found that Native American participants found it much easier to tell the story whereas the European American participants replaced details that came from Native American culture with simpler words, instead of canoe, they would say boat. He also found that European Americans would replace the blanks with their cultural schema. Bartlett then concluded that people tend to fix

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