Cognitive Vs Neuropsychological

Due to their compelling findings, the authors were able to construct several conclusions. Firstly, psychoanalytic journals, dissertations, and flagship articles have not been in the spotlight of mainstream psychology for the past several decades (Robins, Gosling, & Craik, 1999, p.123, 124). Secondly, with the focus currently on cognitive psychology, behavioural psychology has and continues to subside in scientific psychology (Robins, Gosling, & Craik, 1999, p.124). Moreover, the authors’ state that one reason cognitive psychology is transcending behavioural psychology is due to the immeasurable role of computers in modern society. For example, thanks to computers, considerable changes have taken place in regards to scientists’ understanding of memory, information processing, etc (Robins, Gosling, & Craik, 1999, p.124). Lastly, mainstream psychology does not yet recognize neuropsychology; however, there is an obvious increase in popularity that is underway. Authors recommend further research to explore the growing prominence

Cognitive psychology is a pure science based mainly on laboratory experiments and began to revolutionize psychology in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s and became the dominant approach in psychology by the late 1970’s [ (McLeod, 2007) ] according to Saul McLeod. An example of the cognitive perspective would be when one learns to take blood pressure. First you must learn how to manipulate the blood pressure manometer, learn how to hear blood pressure sounds and understand the meaning of the sounds. As each time you practice these activity, you will gain more confidence and competence in performing the task. The strong point of this perspective is that it mostly uses rigorous scientific methods and the approach has had many practical applications. The weakness of this perspective is that it is to simplistic. It ignores the complexity of the human function, biological influences of the human function and it ignores the emotions, conscious experience and free will.

Psychology. (2010, March 16). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:58, March 17, 2010, from

Bernstein, D.A., Roy, E. J., Skull, T. K. & Wickens, C. D. (1991). Psychology. 2nd Edition. Boston: Houghton Miffin.

For example, in Blakemore’s study, they focus specifically on the social brain, or the part of the brain that we use during social interactions. The social brain is used to read social emotional responses or behaviors and emotions to establish what another person’s mental state is on any given situation. In social cognition tasks, the medial prefrontal cortex activity was found to decrease in nine different developmental studies. It also showed that this section of the brain is more active in adolescents than adult, and this could be due to the different types of cognitive methods we use to make social choices. A lab Blakemore conducted to study the different cognitive methods was to place objects in a wall where you could see all the objects and another person could only see a few of them. When the other person asked for example “move the highest truck left”, the highest truck for them was only the second highest from your perspective. This resulted in a 50% failure from adults, where they forgot to consider the other party’s perspective and instead moved the highest truck that they could

Kowalski, R., & Westen, D. (2011). Psychology (6th ed.). Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection database.

The Cognitive approach focuses on mental processes, it assumes that how we perceive ourselves and our environment affect our emotions, which in turn affects our behaviour. The approach suggests disordered thinking causes abnormal behaviour. Cognitive disorders are learned, therefore, they can be unlearned, which is similar to the behaviourist approach. If the behaviour is monitored and evaluated, it can be altered. Therefore the approach assumes cognitive change will lead to changes in behaviour. The cognitive approach has been influenced by the development with computer science. Researchers often make comparisons are between how a computer processes information and how the human brain processes information. Cognitive research tends to take

For the last three decades, there has been significate improvement, interest, and understating on how the brain decodes and processes daily information. This increase from the field of neuroscience and education, has helped us “expand our understanding of the neural chemistry, physiology, and growth processes that support behavior, cognition, language, emotion, sociality, and their development” (Hruby, Goswami, Frederiksen, & Perfetti, 2011). The recent advances in cognitive neuroscience has caught the attention of educators. “Naturally, people interested in learning and education might want to know how results from relevant cognitive neuroscience research could be applied in the classroom” (Ansari, Coch, & Smedt, 2011).

267 participants (194 females, 73 males, mean age = 20.98 years) were recruited from a second year psychology class. Participants were tested in sixteen sessions in groups of up to twenty-four, supervised by an experimenter, and gave informed consent.

Howard, A., Pion, G. M., Gottfredson, G. D., Flattau, P. E., Oskamp, S.; Pfaffin, S. M., Bray, D. W., Burstein, A. G. (1986). American Psychologist, 41(12), 1311-127. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.41.12.1311

Although it shares cognitive neuroscience’s roots, cognitive neuropsychology has developed into a discrete discipline. While cognitive neuroscience studies neural organisation of the brain, cognitive neuropsychology concerns itself with the brain’s functional architecture; Coltheart (2010) describes this as a distinction between brain and mind. According to, among others, Coltheart (2002, cited Coltheart, 2010) this makes cognitive neuropsychology a branch of cognitive psychology rather than neuroscience.

Both behavioral psychology and neuropsychology have rich backgrounds. For the purposes of my philosophy of psychology, I will cover operant condition and Skinner’s approach to verbal behavior. I will also look aspects of neuropsychology such as neuroplasticity and the dimensional systems model. I will also look at Sensory Integration theory, which combines a number of different perspectives including behavioral and neuropsychology.

This essay will be focused on two different approaches to cognitive psychology: Cognitive Neuropsychology and Cognitive Neuroscience. Cognitive Neuropsychology is concerned with the patterns of cognitive performance and emphasis on the cognitive effects of brain-damaged patients who suffered lesions, injuries or diseases, providing vest information on normal human cognition. (Eysenck and Keane 2015, p.5) Whereas cognitive neuroscience involves in-depth study of our brain and behaviours. As the brain contains numerous neurones and is so complicated, the cognitive neuroscience emphasis on the biological side of the brain and focuses on the lobes that are divided from the cerebral cortex.

There are several approaches to interpreting literature nowadays: two most important ones are the psychoanalytic and cognitive psychology. The first one draws upon the writings of Freud, stating that fiction allows for the expression of unconscious fantasy to act as a safety valve for the individual: Bruno Bettelheim, in his famous study on the psychoanalysis of fairy tales states that…… cognitive psychology; on the other hand, stresses the challenge children face in their constant need to understand what is happening around them and the major figure studying this was Jean Piaget: His approach is important in explaining the appeal of stories to children, too, though in different terms than Bettelheim and other authors did: Piaget points out

Professor Jason Moser, at Michigan State University, measured brain activity for participants who were asked to complete a relatively simple task. Evidenced from higher brain activity, Professor Moser