Briefly Describe the Cognitive Approach to Psychology and the Concept of Eyewitness Testimony (Ent)

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Briefly describe the cognitive approach to psychology and the concept of Eyewitness Testimony (ENT). This paper will be examining the cognitive approach to psychology. The historical background will be considered as well as how cognitive psychology has been evaluated and defined. It will also be considered how it plays a vital role in understanding the concept of Eyewitness Testimony. Historically, the concept of cognitive psychology originated from Plato and Aristotle, two thousand years ago. This concept was largely ignored in the first part of the twentieth century due to the influence of behaviourism. This is because behaviour aspects were emphasised as an external factor rather than an internal factor. However, in the 1950s the cognitive approach was reinstated after the failing behaviourist approach in understanding the human mind. The cognitive approach involves the study of how people think, reason, remember and problem solve in a series of mental processes. It studies how people gather information and how that information is processed. This process can be analogous to how a computer functions. Thus, scientists have used the analogy to better understand the human brain. In 1990, Eysneck and Keane categorised cognitive psychology into three main branches which are experimental cognitive psychology, cognitive science and cognitive neuropsychology. Experimental cognitive psychology still uses laboratory based testing on normal humans to study cognition. Cognitive scientists look at new technologies to construct a model which can mimic the human mind i.e. computer. Cognitive neuropsychology is a study of brain damaged patients where memory loss and recollections are analysed. It has shown that some brain damaged patients can only remember for a few second. In contrast to others remember long term but for a short time. This can be classed as normal
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