CIE A Level Psychology Cognitive Approach Exam Questions

About CIE A Level Psychology Cognitive Approach

The cognitive approach explains behaviour through internal mental processes such as attention, memory, perception and understanding of others. On the Cambridge 9990 course it is assessed at AS in Paper 1: Approaches, Issues and Debates, through three compulsory core studies: Andrade (2010) on doodling, Baron-Cohen et al. (2001) on the Eyes Test, and Pozzulo et al. (2011) on line-ups. Questions ask for precise details of procedures and results, and essays ask you to evaluate studies using methodology and the issues and debates, such as the use of children in research and application to everyday life. The approach links to eyewitness testimony, autism research and attention in work and education.

What you need to know

• Cognitive approach assumptions Behaviour can be explained in terms of information processing, including attention, memory and perception. Mental processes can be studied scientifically using controlled tasks, often in laboratory experiments.
• Andrade (2010) Forty participants who had just finished another study listened to a dull 2.5-minute mock telephone message about people coming to a party. Half shaded shapes on a sheet while listening (doodling) and half did not. In a surprise memory test, doodlers recalled about 29% more information, supporting the idea that doodling reduces daydreaming and keeps attention on the task.
• Baron-Cohen et al. (2001) The Revised Eyes Test shows 36 photographs of the eye region, each with four mental-state words to choose from. Adults with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism scored significantly lower than control groups, and females in the general population scored slightly higher than males. Scores correlated negatively with Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) scores.
• Why the Eyes Test was revised The original test had problems such as only two answer choices, so ceiling effects were likely and guessing gave a 50% chance. The revision used more items and four foils, including some matched to the target word to be harder, and controlled for gender of faces.
• Pozzulo et al. (2011) Children aged 4 to 7 and adults watched short clips of human and cartoon targets, then saw four-photo simultaneous line-ups that were target-present or target-absent. Both groups were very accurate for cartoon targets in target-present line-ups. Children made more false positive choices in target-absent line-ups, even for familiar cartoon characters, suggesting a social explanation (feeling they must choose) rather than poor memory alone.
• Evaluation themes All three studies use controlled procedures that can be replicated and produce quantitative data. Weaknesses include artificial tasks (a mock phone message, photographs of eyes, short clips) that reduce ecological validity, and samples that limit generalisation, such as Andrade's participants from a single research panel.

Common mistakes in Cognitive Approach

• Writing that Andrade's doodlers drew freely. They shaded printed squares and circles, which made the doodling standardised across participants.
• Saying the Eyes Test measures emotion recognition only. It measures theory of mind, the ability to attribute complex mental states such as 'reflective' or 'suspicious'.
• Describing Pozzulo et al. as showing that children have worse memories than adults for everything. Children matched adults in target-present cartoon line-ups; their main weakness was rejecting target-absent line-ups.
• Mixing up false positives and correct rejections. A false positive is choosing someone from a line-up that does not contain the target; a correct rejection is saying the target is not there.
• Forgetting to link the cognitive studies to everyday life. Use them for application questions, e.g. Pozzulo et al. suggests changes to how line-ups are run with child witnesses.

Try three Cognitive Approach exam-style questions