Cognitive Flashcards
Outline principles that define the cognitive level of analysis.
The cognitive level of analysis concerns itself with thinking about mental processes determining behaviour. They see thought processes being the route of behaviour. Cognitive processes include perception, thinking, problem solving, memory and attention.
- Humans are active information processors and these mental processes guide our behaviour.
Memory can effect our behaviour, if you have had an experience with one bad teacher then you may be prejudiced or more cautious with the next one - schema theory. - Social and cultural factors influence our cognitive processes.
The demands of formal education for example, may effect how we cognitively process information and give us strategies for remembering. In western cultures we categorise (clustering), and we use mind maps and ways for our brains to remember information. Due to the education system our brains have been trained to remember. - The mind can - and should - be studied scientifically (for example using traditional scientific methods) e.g. experiments.
Although the mind cannot be seen, cognition can be manipulated and the resultant behaviour can be measured thereby establishing causation.
Explain how principles that define the cognitive level of analysis may be demonstrated in research?
The cognitive level of analysis concerns itself with thinking about mental processes determining behaviour. They see thought processes being the route of behaviour. Cognitive processes include perception, thinking, problem solving, memory and attention.
- Humans are active information processors and these mental processes guide our behaviour.
Memory can effect our behaviour, if you have had an experience with one bad teacher then you may be prejudiced or more cautious with the next one - schema theory.
BARTLETT (1932) - Social and cultural factors influence our cognitive processes.
The demands of formal education for example, may effect how we cognitively process information and give us strategies for remembering. In western cultures we categorise (clustering), and we use mind maps and ways for our brains to remember information. Due to the education system our brains have been trained to remember.
COLE AND SCRIBNER (1974) - The mind can - and should - be studied scientifically (for example using traditional scientific methods) e.g. experiments.
Although the mind cannot be seen, cognition can be manipulated and the resultant behaviour can be measured thereby establishing causation.
LOFTUS AND PALMER (1974)
Discuss how and why particular research methods are used at the cognitive level of analysis?
Experiments
Manipulation of IV and DV and you can establish causation. You have control over variables.
LOFTUS AND PALMER (1974) - memory
(if it asks for just one method then choose experiments and use SCHACTER AND SINGER, DUTTON AND ARON, SPEISMAN, these are emotion and not just memory for variety)
Experiments are good at the CLOA because the nebulous nature of the mind does not allow for direct observation of cognition so experiments are the only way we can establish causation.
+ control means we can establish causation
- control means it is artificial and so has low ecological validity.
Case Studies
Study of a small group or individual who possesses behavioural characteristics relevant to the chosen area of research. It is not necessarily used to generalise to a wider population because often you cannot. The focus of the research is often on their experience of having those characteristics and often uses a variety of techniques e.g. interviews, brain scans and the data is often qualitative.
SQUIRE (1992) - memory
It is used at the CLOA because it allows us to study dysfunctional cognition that has ‘naturally occurred in individuals’ it would be highly unethical to cause such cognitive deficits for research purposes.
+ a more in-depth study of why people behave like they do, not just a quantitive measure.
- low population validity, we cannot generalise to findings
- no causation
Discuss ethical considerations related to research studies at the cognitive level of analysis?
Psychological harm:
YUILLE & CUTSHALL
Asked participants to recall a shooting; a potentially emotionally scarring event.
LOFTUS AND PALMER
Took a softer approach; showed participants a safety video of a car crash.
Deception & informed consent:
Schacter and Singer
Use of a stooge in the waiting room and not told that they were injected with adrenaline
Yuille & Cutshall
Participants were not deceived.
Confidentiality & Anonymity:
Squire’s study of Eugene Pauly
His memory issues mean that he cannot consent to the extent of use of his medical information.
Misuse of data:
Bouchard and McGue (1981)
Meta analysis, could be used for advertising, same point as biological.
What is the consideration? Why is it important?
At least one study to illustrate how it has been upheld or contravened and why it is an issue in that study.
Evaluate schema theory with reference to research studies?
INTRO
A schema is an organised and representation of information about the world, events or people stored in long term memory. If we don’t have a schema for a particular teacher for example we fill in the gaps with experiences with other teachers to make sense of it.
Schema theory suggests that what we already know will influence the outcome of information processing. This idea is based on the assumption that humans are active processors of information. People do not passively respond to information, they interpret and integrate it to make sense of their experiences, but they are not always aware of it. If information is missing the brain fills in the blanks based on existing schemas.
BARLETT (1932)
LOFTUS AND PALMER (1974)
Evaluations of Schema theory?
- The theory does not explain how schemas are acquired or where they are stored or how they are used. It is very hypothetical.
- Very vague, not useful
- It is not backup up with any biological evidence for sample it is not possible to actually observe schema processing taking place.
+ However it does give us an idea of how memory is distorted
+ It helps us to predict behaviour
+ We cannot use it to predict what an individual will recall but it gives us an idea.
+ It is very useful to social psychologists.
Bartlett?
1932
Aim: To investigate the reconstructive nature and reliability of memory and how culture can effect schema processing.
Procedure: Bartlett asked his 20 participants to read through a story twice. This story was ‘The War of the Ghosts’. None of the participants knew the purpose or the aim of the experiment. After 15 minutes, Bartlett asked the participants to reproduce the story from memory. He asked them to reproduce the story a couple more times when they had the opportunity to come into the laboratory.
Findings: It appeared that the war of the ghosts was difficult for people from Western cultures to reproduce because of its unfamiliar style and content.
- The story became shorter.
- The story remained co-herant no matter how distorted it was compared to the original. Bartlett said this was because people interpreted the story as a whole; both when they were retelling it and when they were listening.
- The story became more conventional, that is retained only those details that could be assimilated to the shared past experience and cultural background of the participants canoe became boat for example.
Conclusions: Remembering is not passive but rather an active process, where information is received and changed to fit into existing schemas. This is done to create meaning in the incoming information. Memories are not copies of experience but rather reconstructions, memory can therefore be altered by existing schemas.
Memory is an imaginative reconstruction of experience.
Criticisms:
- only one ethnicity - they may only change canoe to boat because it is shorter not because of schemas.
- all Cambridge students and there highly intelligent and of the same background cannot therefore be generalised, they may just shorten it as a result of learning. Some cultures have a history of oral storytelling not this one, might just be in their culture to change the story.
- Only 20 participants
- The participants could have revised the story at home or talked to each other.
+ acted as a starting point for more schema research.
+ does suggest existence of schemas
Loftus and Palmer?
1974
Aims: To investigate whether the nature of questions can effect the witnesses memory and therefore whether memory is reconstructive in nature. To see if changing one word in certain critical questions would influence speed estimates.
Procedures: A second experiment used 150 students as participants. They were divided into 3 and saw a video of a car accident. They then had to estimate the speed of the car in the film. They asked the participants ‘How fast do you think the cars were going when they hit each other’, and then in the second experimental group the word ‘hit’ was replaced with the word ‘smashed’.
They then asked them to return a week later, they were then asked if they had seen broken glass. There was no broken glass.
Findings: The mean speed estimate was in fact affected by the words, so that ‘smashed’ increased the estimated speed.
The smashed group, 33% of them said they had seen smashed glass, compared to the 14% of the hit group.
Conclusions: Different words had an effect on the estimation of speed and consequences. ‘Smashed’ provides the participants with verbal information that activates schemas for a severe accident. Broken glass is in line with this and so the participant is more likely to think there was broken glass. This indicates that it is possible to create a false memory using post-events information.
Criticisms:
+ Very highly controlled
- Low ecological validity, people may member better if they had some emotional connection to it.
- They used closed answer questions only allowing yes or no answers.
- Cultural bias all American uni students.
- Her own psychology students they may have figured out the experiment.
+ significantly significant results
Evaluate two models or theories of one cognitive process with reference to research studies?
INTRO
Is memory reliable?
Schemas say no. BARTLETT (1932) lead to LOFTUS AND PALMER (1974) but there was no emotional envolvement so this lead to YUILLE AND CUTSHALL (1986) investigating flashbulb memory.
Flash bulb memory
Flash bulb memory refers to an emotional memory that is vivid and detailed almost photographic like. These can be memories of highly emotional events that appear to be recorded in the brain as though with the help of a camera flash.
It is argued that the special biological memory mechanism of FMB is triggered when an individual usually encounters significant often unexpected and emotional events or experiences.
FMB theory has unique features that differ from other memories in that they are more vivid, detailed, accurate ad long-lasting, consistent and easy to remember. This is in contrast to normal memories which are believed to be selective unreliable and malleable. This theory goes against the idea that memories are reconstructive in nature.
YUILLE AND CUTSHALL (1986)
NEISSER AND HARSCH (1992)
Criticisms of theory
+ The theory can help to explain why emotional memories are often more vividly remembered.
- it does not explain why they are only sometimes more vivid than other memories
- the name is not chosen well as a picture would remember everything and in both studies at least one person got it wrong.
- it is reconstructed, just the emotional response may change the way it is reconstructed.
- because it is emotionally significant people relive and replay it, that means it stays accurate not that the memory is actually different.
- the participants still might have filled in information with schemes it is just the schemes may be correct
Yuille and Cutshall?
1986
Yuille and Cutshall argued and criticised Loftus and Palmer’s research saying that their experiment lacked ecological validity and that in real life settings it would be very different.
Aim: To investigate the accuracy of recall of eyewitness accounts of a real crime.
Procedures: They asked eyewitness accounts of a real life gun theft and shooting in Vancouver. Twenty eyewitnesses were contacted and 13 agreed to participate. 3 females and 10 males. THE VICTIM WAS NOT ASKED AS THE RESEARCHERS DID NOT WANT HIM TO RELIVE THE TRAUMA.
The researchers interviewed the participants at this four or five month period afterwards. Half the group were asked if they saw ‘a’ broken headlight (indefinite article) and the other half were asked if they saw ‘the’ broken headlight, when in fact there was no broken headlight. They were asked the same with a yellow side panel on the car.
Findings: 10 of the eyewitnesses said that there was no broken headlight and panel which was correct. The researchers found out more information than the police and it was thought that the leading questions had no effect on recall.
Conclusions: Schemas did not play a role despite being 4 to 5 months afterwards, their memories were intact and correct and therefore the emotional involvement made them able to the event well. The eye witness memories were reliable.
Criticisms: \+ real case, had not been manipulated - not all witnesses took part - hard to generalise findings - lack of control \+ ecological validity yay - there is no way to know if it was emotion enhancing the memory or just because they were continually asked about it and so recalled the memory further.
Neisser and Harsch?
1992
Aim: To test the theory of flashbulb memory by investigating the extent to which memory for a shocking event (the challenger disaster) would be accurate after a period of time.
Procedure: Less than 24 hours after the event, 106 psychology students were given a questionnaire and asked to write how they heard the news. They also had to answer seven questions related to where they were and what they were doing.
2.5 years later, 44 of the original students answered the questionnaire again and were asked to rate their confidence out of 5, and were asked if they have filled out a questionnaire before.
Findings: Only 11 participants out of the 44 remembered that they had filled out the questionnaire before. The mean score of correctness of recall of the seven questions was 2.95 out of 7. For 11 participants the score was 0. But the average confidence level was 4.17.
Conclusion: FBM are not as reliable as they are theorised to be and memory itself is not very reliable.
Criticisms:
+ higher ecological validity than Loftus
- however the event may not have been personal enough for them to remember and therefore not actually be a flashbulb memory.
Explain how biological factors affect one cognitive process?
INTRO (8marks)
Introduce - Memory
Neurotransmitters
Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter, and it plays a role in spacial memory.
MARTINEZ AND KESNER (1991)
Hormones (because factors, plural)
Cortisol, stress hormone, to do with levels of arousal
NEWCOMER ET AL (1999)
Discuss how social or cultural factors affect one cognitive process?
INTRO
Memory is the ability to be able to store, retrieve and recall information. Depending upon your culture, because of the neuro plasticity of the brain different connections can be formed and depending upon your environment and the requirements of it. The demands of formal education can alter the way that we think and memorise events. Regular schooling in western cultures and the repetition, and methods taught can forever impact the way that you learn and take in information.
Piaget made an incorrect assumption in the earth 20th century. He assumed that memory is universal and that it develops the same way regardless of culture. Therefore memory tests developed in the west could be applied to those of different cultures. This lead to the western people appearing more intelligent, however more recent research has discovered that culture can influence the way that you learn and read and therefore the development of intelligence is not universal and tests need to be adapted for different cultures. The demands of formal education, have meant that westerners brains have developed in the best way to formulate these tests and been taught different techniques as a way to remember than those from other cultures.
COLE AND SCRIBNER (1974)
- Criticise for being etic for the initial technique
- Then do the story technique, positive criticism that it is now emic.
Local researchers were used to overcome problems of translation bias and also to check that American categories of items were not being imposed on Liberian reality. LINK - shows how culture has a direct influence on the way i which memory is developed and used.
ROGOFF AND WADDEL (1982)
Memory is a universal intellectual requirement and a universal cognitive process BUT specific forms of memory and memory techniques are not universal and we cannot assume that the tests can be used universally. If they are so used it can lead to ethnocentric conclusions being drawn about the intellectual superiority of Westerners over non-westerners and this could be used for unethical purposes such as social engineering.
Cole and Scribner?
1974
They first conducted an experiment that had an etic approach, they assumed they could apply a western test to non-western cultures. This is one where the researchers decide what to study before arriving in the field. They assumed that everyone used memory in the same way and so assumed the non-westerners would use categorisation too. As a result the Liberians performed poorly on the first test. They therefore formed the incorrect assumption that non Westerners had a worse memory.
They then changed their approach to be a emic one.
Aim: To investigate the development of memory among tribal people in rural Liberia
Procedures: The researchers showed the Liberian participants 20 items. These 20 items fell into four distinct categories. To ensure American categories were not simply being imposed on the Liberian reality the researchers made preliminary investigations to ensure that Liberian participants were familiar with the items and could put them into the four groups. They were asked to recall the items in whatever order they wished.
Findings (1): Liberian children showed no regular increase in memory during middle childhood unless they had attended school for several years. The non-schooled people improved their performance on these tasks very little after the age of 9 or 10. These participants remembered approximately ten items on the first trial and managed to recall only two more items after 15 practise trials. The Liberian children who were attending school, by contrast, learned the materials rapidly much like the US children. School children in Liberia and the United States not only learned the list rapidly but used the categorical similarities to aid their recall. They clustered the items, recalling food, clothes in that order. The non-schooled Liberian participants did very little such clustering indicating that they were not using the categorical structure.
They then restructured the test, and told the participants a story with the objects listed in a meaningful way. Then the non-schooled children recalled them as the roles they played in the story.
Conclusion:
Although capacity for memory is universal the way in which different cultures develop memory is not.
Rogoff and Waddel?
1982
Aim: To determine whether non western children would show a memory defect for contextually organised spatial material. To investigate narrative memory techniques.
Procedure: They gave Guatemalan children what was meaningful in local terms. They constructed a diorama (model) of a Mayan village located near a mountain and a lake, similar to the locale in which the children lived. Each child watched as the local experimenter selected 20 miniature objects from a set of 80 and placed them in the diorama. Objects included: cars, animals, people, furniture. Then the 20 objects were returned to the group of 60 others remaining on the table. After a few minutes, the children were asked to reconstruct the full scene they have been shown. This methodology was then repeated to children from the US.
Findings: Under these conditions, the memory performance of the Mayan children was slightly superior to that of the US.
Conclusions: Although the ability to remember is a universal intellectual requirement, specific forms of remembering are not universal and the problem with many memory studies is that they are usually associated with formal schooling.
Criticisms:
+ Emic approach, this eliminates the assumptions that the children will be clustering.
+ they acted on the mistakes of Piaget
+ they used local researchers who understood the culture.
+ increased ecological validity due to the diorama having a similar structure to their environment.
- lack of control because the test varied, one could have been easier.
With reference to relevant research studies, to what extent is one cognitive process reliable?
Literally just repeat the question
Evaluate two models or theories of one cognitive process with reference to research studies?
Schema Theory
- BARTLETT (1932)
- LOFTUS AND PALMER (1974)
With Flashbulb
- Yuille and Cutshall (RELIABLE)
- Neisser and Harsch (NOT RELIABLE)
