Research Blog #7 - Frame

Understanding and incorporating cognitive information processing theory helps make sense of my project by going further into how cognitive events, such as a sexual assault incident, would process in the victim's mind. With sexual assault, a therapy called Cognitive Processing Therapy is used to address disorders that come about, such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The theory itself draws upon an information processing theory of PTSD where the information of the stressful event are stored in "fear networks" in the brain. Within these fear networks are memories of traumatic stimuli and the specific responses that go along with those meanings. After a sexual assault incident, a victim may feel stuck after their traumatic experience, but this therapy approach and theory as a whole is meant to address the reasons why they do feel stuck.

An academic term used to further make sense of my project is "cognitive factors". Cognitive factors are characteristics of the person that affect performance and learning. These factors include attention, memory, and reasoning - all which are critical in processing events like sexual assault. These factors may improve or decline performance but in most sexual assault cases, they decline performances. It's important to understand this term in order to make sense of my project because all of these factors tie into the effects of how victims decipher a traumatic incident and what it does to them.