Casey - Delay Of Gratification Flashcards
Background, “cognitive control”
Psychologist believes that we use cognitive control to create strategies that delay gratification
Give an example of a cognitive strategy
Cooling- directing your attention away from a hot or appealing features and focusing on the cold or cognitive ones
Aim 1
To see if children with low self control became adults with low self control
Aim 2
To see if the inferior frontal gyrus and the ventral striatum are involved in delaying gratification
What kind of study is this? What’s the problem with it?
Longitudinal, subject attrition
Starting sample number
562 children
How many adults between 20’s and 30’s completed the self report?
155 from the original sample
Sample number and qualities of experiment 1
59…
23 males and 36 females
Sample number and qualities for experiment 2
27…
13 males and 14 females
What was the initial experiment?
Children got given a cookie and got told if they wait till tea time they can have another one
How were they classified at low and hugh delayers in the initial experiment?
If they could wait they were high delayers,
If they couldn’t wait they were low delayers
What were the 2 versions of the go/no-go tasks?
Hot and cool versions
What was presented in both the versions?
Photos of people and they were given a ‘stimulus/go/target’ gender
What did they have to do when they saw the target stimulus?
Press the button
How many pictures were there per run?
160
How many runs did each participant do?
4, 2x2 factorial design
How did the hot version differ from the cool?
Some of the pictures had fearful and happy expressions
What was the cool condition?
No emotion in pictures
What were the results for the ‘go’ trails?
No difference between types of delayers
What were the results for the ‘no-go’ trails?
The low delayers pressed the button more often that high delayers
Was there any difference in performance between the hot and cool versions?
Low delayers were significantly poorer for the hot version of the task than the cool
What do the results of the hot condition show?
When we see a happy face we associate it with ‘go’ so we want to press the button more. The low delayers found it hard to resist.
Why were there hot and cool conditions?
To explore the influence of alluring social cues on delayers
What was the aim of the second experiment?
To see brain activity whilst doing the hot condition using an fMRI scan
Which parts of the brain were looked at?
Inferior frontal gurus and ventral striatum
Which condition was the second experiment?
Hot
What designs were the trails?
2 x 2 x 2
Was there a difference between the go and no-go trails in exp.2?
All did better at go trails compared to the no-go trials
What did the activity of the inferior frontal gyrus show?
It’s involved in accurately withholding a response
Who used their inferior frontal gyrus more?
High delayers
Who used their ventral striatum more?
Low delayers
For how long were the photos up for?
500 milliseconds, with a 1 second interval
Conclusion 1
Resistance to temptation appears to be a relatively stable individual characteristic over time
Conclusion 2
Cognitive control can be strongly influenced by contextual factors
