CLA Flashcards
Ochsner and Gross (2008)
Identified the areas in prefrontal lobes associated with active reappraisal of the emotional importance of the events
-Activation increases in the prefrontal cortex. More active the more successful the reappraisal
Conclusion: Biological factors do interact in emotion.
- Emotional states cannot arise in the absence of cognition
- Influence is often Biological Influences –> Cognitive Influences
Recognition of an emotion can occur at an unconscious level
-The more elaborate the emotion the higher the involvement of the deliberate conscious process
Speisman (1964)
To investigate the extent to which manipulation of cognitive appraisals could influence emotional experience (Genital mutilation)
Three types of soundtracks
- Trauma
- Intellectualization
- Silent Condition (control group)
Checked the participants with heart rate and galvanic skin response (sweat)
Participants in the trauma condition showed higher physiological measures of stress
Conclusion: support the appraisal theory- manipulation of participants cognitive appraisal did not have a significant impact in their physiological stress reactions
Trauma: reacted more emotionally
Appraisal Theory
Appraisals are evaluations related to how the situation will impact on one’s personal well-being
- Positive Emotions emerge if the appraisal assesses potential benefit
- Negative emotions emerge if the appraisal assesses potential harm
Lazarus (1975) Appraisal Theory
Cognitive factors can modulate stress responses
i.e. The physiological and psychological reactions involves in the experience
(Jaws Soundtrack)
Reliability of Memory
Memory is a reconstructive process of images, perhaps related to our social/cultural background, not being too reliable from times to times
3 Principles of CLA
- Humans are information processors and their mental processes guide behavior
- The mind can be studied scientifically
- Cognitive processes are influenced by social and cultural factors
Bruner and Postman (1949) [CLA Principle 1]
How expectations and perception influence what we “see”
Black and Red cards
Continuous red cards made a change to black look like purple or brown- a mixture of red & black
Conclusion: experiment shows how the way we process visual stimuli is dependent to a certain degree on our expectation (pre-stored information)
-Our brain is capable of fabricating illusions which are so realistic we believe they are true
War of Ghosts - Serial Reproduction
The effect of culture on memory.
Native American folk tale- recalling the story several times. European and Nat. American participants
Results: Changes show the alteration in culturally unfamiliar objects changed to culturally familiar. The study supports the principle that social and cultural factors affect cognitive processes- difference in participant stimuli (culture) affected mental representations (schemas)
Schema Theory- Bartlett
A cognitive structure that provides framework for organizing informations about the world, events, people and actions.
Shortcuts that our brain uses to identify and refer to cultural events or happenings
- Organize information in our brains
- Activated to increase information-processing efficiency.
- Enable the generation of expectations about objects, events and people.
- Regulate Behaviour.
- Relatively stable and usually very resistant to change; ensuring continuity so that we can process information and the ways we act. Schemas can also lead to distortions and mistakes when:
- Settings are unfamiliar.
- The wrong Schemas become activated
Schemas- Scripts
Provide information about the sequence of events that occur in a more-or-less un changing order in particular contexts. Ex- attending class or visiting the dentist
Schemas- Self Schemas
Organizing information we have about ourselves, information stored in our memory about our strengths and weaknesses and how we feel about them
Gauld and Stephenson (1967)
Replicated Bartlett’s (1932) study
Schemas- Social Schemas
(Stereotypes) represents information about groups of people.
Ex-Women can’t drive
Bransford and Johnson (Balloon Picture Schema)
2 groups
One was given a paragraph and another a picture and then the paragraph - (made more sense to the participants)es
Picture as a schema help structure our information, and then we select what we can remember from it. Without this structure we cannot select thus remember.
Schemas encode information
Bransford and Johnson (Laundry)
3 groups
- One third just heard the paragraph
- Another third were told that the paragraph was about doing laundry (made perfect sense and remembered it
- Other third learned the topic of the paragraph after they were given the paragraph, it didnt make too much sense to them- the topic served to activate the relevant schema
The topic helped the participants to work out the structure of the paragraphs and allowed them to remember more about it
Macrae et al (1994)
Participants were shown images of people labelled doctor, artist, lawyer, skinhead etc.
- They were given the stereotype consistent and stereotype inconsistent personality traits for each label.
- Participants remembered more stereotype consistent personality traits
Demonstrating that we are cognitive misers, we rely solely on our stereotype when we don’t have time for systematic processing or lack cognitive resources to think carefully and accurately
Brewer and Treyins (1981) Office Study
The activation of a schema will influence the outcome of information processing
An office setting with random objects that do not fit that setting- picnic basket, skull
Conclusion: When recalling information they remembered the info that was consistent with the schema, they forget info that is not consistent with the schema (picnic basket)
Discuss in reference to research studies, the extent to which one cognitive process is reliable (Memory)
-To what extent is memory reliable?
Eye witness testimony
“Memory is a reconstructive process” Bartlett (1932)
Loftus and Palmer (1974) Accident Study
Participants saw a film of an accident
The different words (crashed, bumped etc.) triggered different speed estimates and the severity of the accident
-II PART-
Questionnaire- had you seen broken glass, when actually there had been no broke glass, but schema to car crash related to seeing broken glass so we automatically can infer that there will be broken glass
Conclusion: the wording of a question can immediately create a distortion. Different words lead to different reconstructions
Clive Wearing
Suffered brain damage and is densely amnesic. Cannot store information for periods longer that seconds
His impairment affected his episodic and autobiographical memory. Unable to transfer novel information from the STD to the LTS
Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) Multi Store Model of Memory**
Classic model of memory- modal or dual process model
Grail and Lockhart (1971) Levels of Processing **
The more important/meaningful something is to a person, the more information shall be processed by your mind.
Brown and Kulik (1977) Flashbulb Memories**
Investigating shocking events
Conway et al (1994)
Resignation of Margaret Thatcher to study FBM (Flashbulb Memory)
People tend to interpret an event from their current perspective
Meissen and Harsch (1992)
FBM counter study
Investigated memory accuracy 24hours after the accident and 2 years later
Results: Major discrepancies (differences), participants had poor results but felt highly confident i how accurately they had recalled the event (4/5)
Conclusion: The results challenged the theory of predictions of the FBM theory, participant memories had deteriorated. FBM’s are not very reliable, perhaps just ordinary memories
Williams et al (2008)
Suggested that FBM’s are especially more vivid depending on the importance of the event
Phelps et al (2009) 9/11 FBM study
People remember more accurately if they had been closer to the accident site. Emotional arousal determined the vividness of the memory.
The more directly you are affected by the event (physically and emotionally) the better it will be remembered
The effects of Social & Cultural factors in Cognitive Processes
- Differences in cultures
- Individualist Cultures (needs of the individual)
- Collectivist Cultures (needs of the group, ex-loyalty for the family)
Flashbulb Memory (FBM) Conclusion
- Highly emotional events activate the amygdala; leading to the formation of FBM’s
- FBM is a reconstructive memory
- Emotionality also influences the extent to which memory is rehearsed and shared
- The more intense the emotional experience, the more social sharing- leading to further reconstruction of events (Luminet et al 2009)
Individualist and Collectivist cultures and FBM
Research has shown that cultural factors may influence FBM formation and maintenance
-People in individualist cultures will form more FBM’s
Wang and Adyin (2008)
Chinese participants recalled fewer FBM’s
Otani et al (2005)
A small percentage of Japanese participants formed FBM of a nuclear accident
Culture and social practices associated with it, affect the maintenance of FBM’s
LeDoux’s theory of emotional brain (1999)
Short Route: the amygdala reacts immediately to sensory input and activates response system (fight or flight)
Long Route: the sensory input goes via the sensory cortex to the hippocampus. Involved the evaluation of the stimulus- links to cognitive appraisal (Lazarus, 1975)
Loftus (Eye-witness testimony)
The video we watched ….
Corkin et al. (1997)
MRI to study HM’s lesion in the first attempt to study his brain
Relationship between damage to the medial temporal lobes (including hippocampus) and HM’s amnesia
Cole and Scribner (1974) Cross Cultural study of Memory
To investigate free recall in two different cultures, the USA and Kpelle people in Liberia
Rogoff and Waddel (1982)
Mayan children did better in a memory task if they were given one that was meaningful to them in local terms.
Neisser and Harsch (1992) Challenger disaster)
To test the flashbulb memory by investigating the extent to which memory for a shocking event
Glanzer and Cunitz (1966)
Participants heard a list of items and then immediately had to recall them in any order
Recalled the beginning and the end of the list the best. Recency and Primary effect
The almost parabola type of graph
Severe damage to the Hippocampus
Is critical to storage information
Murdock (1962)
Primacy and Recency Effects
People will be most likely to remember the first and last things/words
-Primacy effects results from words being retrieved from LTS
-Recency effects results from words being retrieved from the STS
(Words in the middle did not make it to either LTS nor STS)
Serial Position Curve!
Eysenck (1990) criticism for LOP theory
Claims that the LOP describes rather than explain- why deep processing is so effective
*Elaborate encoding enriches the memory representation of an item by activating many aspects of its meaning and linking jt into the pre-existing network of semantic associations
