Psychology · The approaches (content)
COG — Cognitive approach
Psychology · SL / HL · syllabus-mapped notes
Conditioning: classical and operant
The behaviourist roots of the approach: how associations between stimuli, and the consequences that follow behaviour, shape what organisms learn to do.
Schema theory
Mental frameworks built from experience that organize knowledge and guide how we perceive, interpret and remember, at the cost of predictable distortions.
Cognitive models and information processing
The mind as an information processor bridging stimulus input and behavioural output, and how models such as the multi-store memory model make that processing testable.
Cognitive load theory
Working memory has a hard limit, so how information is presented can overload or support learning and everyday cognition.
Dual processing and cognitive biases
Two systems of thinking, one fast and automatic, one slow and effortful, and the anchoring and confirmation biases that fast thinking produces in decision-making.