Comparing Two Approaches to Cognitive Psychology

Dissociative Identity Disorder, previously referred to as Multiple Personality Disorder, is a psychological illness that has raised a lot of controversy and led researchers to question its validity. This disorder has been recorded as early as the 1800’s, but has recently been given more attention to by clinical researchers because of its diagnosis rates. The brain is a very complex organ and certain traumas can lead to the occurrence of this illness. Dissociative identity disorder is an illness in which individuals develop two or more very different personality states. In this paper, I will explain the causes of dissociative identity disorder, outline the symptoms, and elaborate on the

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 is a discipline that involves monitoring mental processes and behaviour scientifically. Psychologists try to delve into the basic functions of a person and animals cerebral activity. This usually involves studying relationships, emotions, personality and many more areas of a person or animals day to day life. Psychology tends to steer towards finding reasons for a person or animals actions in an attempt to resolve them.

American Psychiatric Association (APA). 1994. Somatoform Dissociative Disorder, Dissociative Amnesia. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth Ed. Retrieved from http://behavenet.com/capsules/disorders/disamnesia.htm

Through my aspirations for improvement, I have become fascinated with the cognitive psychology and neuroscience behind human performance. With this essay, I intend to show the path which led me

Several new methods can improve temporal and spatial resolution in fMRI. A possible methodological change involves focusing on specific regions of interest and ignoring other areas (37), thus increasing temporal resolution by decreasing the number of voxels measured per slice. This method requires a more hypothesis driven approach to fMRI because of the inability to record from the entire brain. Using a staggered single trial design, where

Dissociative Disorders is the disruption in the integrated functions of consciences, memory, identity, or perception of the environment. They are marked by a dissociation from or interruption of a person’s fundamental aspect of waking consciousness such as personal identity and one’s personal history. In this paper I will be discussing the main dissociative disorders, which are: Dissociative Amnesia, Dissociative Fugue, Dissociative Identity Disorder, and Depersonalization Disorder. All of the dissociative disorders are thought to stem from trauma experienced by the individual with the disorder. (Maser, 2000) Seen in a number of other mental illnesses, including post-traumatic stress disorder, panic disorder, and obsessive

My goal for this paper is to help others have a better understanding of how dissociative

As the prevalence of brain injury and disease has increased over past the century, biopsychologists have been able to dynamically make significant advances in the field of neurology. Specifically neuropsychology, the study of psychological effects of individuals with brain damage. The origin of neurology traces back to 1848, with the case study of Phineas Gage. At age 25, Gage suffered from a traumatic accident resulting in a 3cm thick and 90cm long iron rod breaking through his skull and coming out another side. After surviving this incident and recovering, Gage showed disrespectful, impulsive, and unreliable behaviour to his loved ones and co workers.

The methods described in this paper are cognitive rather than cognitive neuropsychological, although they are certainly amenable to enhancement via neuropsychological measurement, especially to the extent that any hypothesized cognitive constructs have theoretical correlates in brain structures, pathways, and systems. The perspective adopted here is that studies should be designed to be sound in a cognitive sense so that they then have the best potential to yield useful insights whether the main focus is strictly cognitive or more speciWcally cognitive

The brain plays an important role in determining cognitive functions. Cognitive functions denote the personal abilities to process information and thoughts. Examples in this case include perception, learning, and memory. According to findings in neuropsychology, certain areas of the brain support specific cognitive functions (Bear, Barry & Michael, 2007, p. 10). Thomas Willis, a contemporary of Descartes is known as the father of neurology, and was the first person to suggest that the brain was not only a locus of the mind, but also a determinant of cognitive functions (Finger, 2001, p. 23). Willis noted that various parts of the brain give rise to different cognitive functions (Finger, 2001, p. 23). From the onset, it should be noted that cognitive functions emanate from the part of the brain known as the cerebral cortex or the cerebrum.

The current state of understanding individuals with dissociative disorder is indifferent. Because In the 1970 the diagnosis of dissociative identify disorder grew dramatically after the publication of the Sybil, in 1973(.Gleaves.1996). in the 1970’s there were more cases. Because of the high number of DID cases that were being developed form the professional that the diagnosis were culture-specific and it was caused by the American society because of the child abuse and other trauma related events. The likelihood to be misdiagnosed with (DID) is very high because of the similar symptoms that it has with other disorders.

Dissociation serves as a temporarily adaptive function, as it allows the individual to escape from the traumatic event while it is underway (9). However repeated reliance on dissociative defenses can lead to the inability to properly process information from past events and possibly future events into a narrative (explicit memory) form (12). It is theorized that the repeated use of dissociation can lead to the development of a series of separate entities or mental states which may eventually take on an entity or identity of their own (8). These entities may become internal "personality states" which reflect different

Cognitive psychology is the scientific investigation of human cognition, that is, all our mental abilities – perceiving, learning, remembering, thinking, reasoning, and understanding. The term “cognition” stems from the Latin word “

Neuroimaging is a multidiscipline science and experts from the field of psychology, statistics, physics and physiology all contribute to its further development (Poldrack et al., 2007). In the last 20 years the imaging techniques developed from single proton emission tomography (SPET) to positron emission tomography (PET) and finally to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) (Page, 2006). Their applications are numerous in experimental and cognitive psychology. However, at one level they can constitute another dependent variable (brain activity) as a response to an independent variable (stimulus manipulation) and at the other level, understanding the structure and processes of the brain can shed light on ‘normal’ cognitive