Case Studies (CLOA) Flashcards
French and Richards (1933)
Aim:
To investigate the schemata influence on memory retrieval.
Methods:
In the study there were three conditions:
Condition 1: Participants were shown a clock with roman numerals and asked to draw from memory.
Condition 2: The same procedure, except the participants were told beforehand that they would be required to draw the clock from memory.
Condition 3: The clock was left in full view of the participants and just had to draw it.
The clock used represented the number four with IIII, not the conventional IV.
Results:
In the first two conditions, the participants reverted to the conventional IV notation, whereas in the third condition, the IIII notation, because of the direct copy.
They found that subjects asked to draw from memory a clock that had Roman numerals on its face typically represented the number four on the clock face as “IV” rather than the correct “IIII,” whereas those merely asked to copy it typically drew “IIII.”
Conclusions:
French and Richards explained this result in terms of schematic knowledge of roman numerals affecting memory retrieval.
The findings supported the idea that subjects in the copy condition were more likely than subjects in other conditions to draw the clock without invoking schematic knowledge of Roman numerals.
Evaluation:
Strengths:
Strict control over variables to determine cause & effect relationship
Limitation:
Lacks ecological validity
Laboratory setting artificial environment
Task does not reflect daily activity
Connection of study to question:
This study provides evidence to support how our schemas can affect our cognition/cognitive processes, in particular memory.
Our schemas influence what we recall in our memory.
Strength of schema theory – there is many types of research evidence to support it.
Bartlett (1932)
Aim:
Bartlett aimed to determine how social and cultural factors influence schemas and hence can lead to memory distortions.
Method:
Participants used were of an English background.
Were asked to read “The War of the Ghosts” – a Native American folk tale.
Tested their memory of the story using serial reproduction and repeated reproduction, where they were asked to recall it six or seven times over various retention intervals.
Serial reproduction: the first participant reading the story reproduces it on paper, which is then read by a second participant who reproduces the first participant’s reproduction, and so on until it is reproduced by six or seven different participants.
Repeated reproduction: the same participant reproduces the story six or seven times from their own previous reproductions. Their reproductions occur between time intervals from 15 minutes to as long as several years.
Results:
Both methods lead to similar results.
As the number of reproductions increased, the story became shorter and there were more changes to the story.
For example, ‘hunting seals’ changed into ‘fishing’ and ‘canoes’ became ‘boats’.
These changes show the alteration of culturally unfamiliar things into what the English participants were culturally familiar with,
This makes the story more understandable according to the participants’ experiences and cultural background (schemas).
He found that recalled stories were distorted and altered in various ways making it more conventional and acceptable to their own cultural perspective (rationalization).
Conclusion:
Memory is very inaccurate
It is always subject to reconstruction based on pre-existing schemas
Bartlett’s study helped to explain through the understanding of schemas when people remember stories, they typically omit (”leave out”) some details, and introduce rationalisations and distortions, because they reconstruct the story so as to make more sense in terms of their knowledge, the culture in which they were brought up in and experiences in the form of schemas.
Evaluation:
Limitations:
Bartlett did not explicitly ask participants to be as accurate as possible in their reproduction
Experiment was not very controlled
instructions were not standardised (specific)
disregard for environmental setting of experiment
Connection of study to question
Bartlett’s study shows how schema theory is useful for understand how people categorise information, interpret stories, and make inferences.
It also contributes to understanding of cognitive distortions in memory.
Anderson and Pichert (1978)
Aim:
To investigate if schema processing influences encoding and retrieval.
Method:
Half the participants were given the schema of a burglar and the other half was given the schema of a potential house-buyer.
Participants then heard a story which was based on 72 points, previously rated by a group of people based on their importance to a potential house-buyer (leaky roof, damp basement) or a burglar (10speed bike, colour TV).
Participants performed a distraction task for 12 minutes, before recall was tested.
After another 5 minute delay, half of the participants were given the switched schema. Participants with burglar schema were given house-buyer schema and vice versa.
The other half of the participants kept the same schema.
All participants’ recalls were tested again.
Shorter Method:
Participants read a story from the perspective of either a burglar or potential home buyer. After they had recalled as much as they could of the story from the perspective they had been given, they were shifted to the alternative perspective (schema) and were asked to recall the story again.
Results:
Participants who changed schema recalled 7% more points on the second recall test than the first.
There was also a 10% increase in the recall of points directly linked to the new schema.
The group who kept the same schema did not recall as many ideas in the second testing.
Research also showed that people encoded different information which was irrelevant to their prevailing schema (those who had buyer schema at encoding were able to recall burglar information when the schema was changed, and vice versa).
This shows that our schemas of “knowledge,” etc. are not always correct, because of external influences.
Summary: On the second recall, participants recalled more information that was important only to the second perspective or schema than they had done on the first recall.
Conclusion:
Schema processing has an influence at the encoding and retrieval stage, as new schema influenced recall at the retrieval stage.
Evaluation:
Strengths
Controlled laboratory experiment allowed researchers to determine a cause-effect relationship on how schemas affect different memory processes.
Limitations
Lacks ecological validity
Laboratory setting
Unrealistic task, which does not reflect something that the general population would do
Connection of study to question
This study provides evidence to support schema theory affecting the cognitive process of memory.
Strength of schema theorythere is research evidence to support it. O
Craik and Tulvig(1975)
To investigate how deep and shallow processing affects memory recall.
Method
Participants were presented with a series of 60 words about which they had to answer one of three questions. Some questions required the participants to process the word in a deep way (e.g. semantic) and others in a shallow way (e.g. structural and phonemic). For example:
Structural / visual processing: ‘Is the word in capital letters or small letters?
Phonemic / auditory processing: ‘Does the word rhyme with . . .?’
Semantic processing: ‘Does the word go in this sentence . . . . ?
Participants were then given a long list of 180 words into which the original words had been mixed. They were asked to pick out the original words.
Results
Participants recalled more words that were semantically processed compared to phonemically and visually processed words.
Conclusion
Semantically processed words involve elaboration rehearsal and deep processing which results in more accurate recall. Phonemic and visually processed words involve shallow processing and less accurate recall.
Critical Evaluation
Strengths
The theory is an improvement on Atkinson & Shiffrin’s account of transfer from STM to LTM. For example, elaboration rehearsal leads to recall of information than just maintenance rehearsal.
The levels of processing model changed the direction of memory research. It showed that encoding was not a simple, straightforward process. This widened the focus from seeing long-term memory as a simple storage unit to seeing it as a complex processing system.
Craik and Lockhart’s ideas led to hundreds of experiments, most of which confirmed the superiority of ‘deep’ semantic processing for remembering information. It explains why we remember some things much better and for much longer than others.
This explanation of memory is useful in everyday life because it highlights the way in which elaboration, which requires deeper processing of information, can aid memory.
Weaknesses
Despite these strengths, there are a number of criticisms of the levels of processing theory:
- It does not explain how the deeper processing results in better memories.
- Deeper processing takes more effort than shallow processing and it could be this, rather than the depth of processing that makes it more likely people will remember something.
- The concept of depth is vague and cannot be observed. Therefore, it cannot be objectively measured.
Brewer and Treyens (1981)
Aim: To see whether a stereotypical schema of an office would affect memory recall of an office.
Methods: university students were taken to an office and were left for 35 seconds, then write as much as they could remember.
Results: they didn’t recall the picnic basket and wine that was in the office.
Loftus and Palmer (1974)
Aim: to investigate the effect of leading question on EWT of an event.
Method: participants were shown 7 films of car accidents (5-30seconds) after each clip they were told to give an account of it, and answer a number of question, the main verb was changed to smashed/collided/hit/bumped/contacted. 5 groups of 9. The more severe sounding verb produced higher speed estimates.
Schwindt and Black (2009)
Aim: to test the affect of episodic memory on AD
Method: they conducted a meta analysis of fMRI studies on episodic memory in AD patients compared to normal and AD patients
Results: more brain activity in MTL and frontal lobe of the control group. AD patients showed decreased activation in the MTL and increased activity in the prefrontal cortex. Findings were consistent.
Loftus et. al (1987)
Aim: to provide support for the weapon focus effect. Which affects witnesses during crimes where a weapon in present.
Lab
Found that people spent longer looking at the weapon and therefore were less likely to correctly identify the holder.
Hyde and Jenkins (1973)
Aim: the theory that retention of an item is dependent on the depth or level of processing.
Pleasantness and frequency of usage for word produced the best recall.
Craik and Lockhart (1972)
Shallow processing: structural processing. And phonetic processing. Assessing the structure and or physical qualities of the word.
Deep processing: semantic processing. Encode and relate to a similar word. Linking words with previous knowledge.
Better than Atkinson and Shiffrins theory of transfer from LTM to STM. Made people stop seeing memory as a simple process. But it doesn’t explain what depth is. The term is vague. Some things take longer to learn this could be the reason for deeper memory.
Speisman (1964)
To investigate the extent to which manipulation of cognitive appraisal could influence emotional experience.
G1: Trauma G2: Anthropological G3: Denial (kids looked happy)
Participants shown a video. And their heart rate and galvanic skin response was measured.
Those shown the traumatic video reacted more emotionally compared to the other groups.
Brown and Kulik (1977)
Flashbulb memory
80 participants to recall times when they learned shocking news.
Emotional arousal, in the amygdala
Rubin and Kuzin (1984)
Personal/ non personal events equally flasbulby
