Cognitive Approach Flashcards
Define Schema
A pattern of thought or behavior that organizes categories of information and the relationships among them.
Bradford and Johnson 1972
Aim: Investigate how schemas help us to store new information in our memory
Participants: 50 American high school volunteers
Method: Experiment Independent measures
Procedure: Participants are randomly divided into three groups. All participants are read a paragraph describing a number of steps in a certain procedure.
Group 1 are told that the paragraph is about doing laundry before they hear the paragraph
Group 2 are told that the paragraph is about doing laundry after they hear the paragraph, before they are asked to recall it
Group 3 are not told what the paragraph is about
All participants are then tested on how much of the paragraph they can recall
Findings: The group that were told the topic of the paragraph before they listened to it (Group 1) had significantly better memory than the other two groups.
Bartlett 1932
Aim: Investigate how cultural schemas can influence memory
Procedure: British participants read a Native American folk story called “War of the Ghosts” twice, then asked to reproduce it from memory soon after, as well as on a later date.
The content and style of the story was unfamiliar to the British readers, as it was not written according to the storytelling conventions of English literature
Results: When the participants recalled the story, the length of the story became shorter, and the story became more conventional. Unusual details (such as the unfamiliar names, or the revelation that the warriors were actually ghosts) were left out or distorted (for instance, some participants remembered “boats” instead of the unfamiliar “canoes”)
No matter how much the recollection of the story differed from the original, it remained a coherent, complete story. This suggests that participants tried to remember the story as a whole, rather than trying to memorize specific details individually
How may schema distort memory?
-Information which is inconsistent with our schemas may be forgotten or distorted to “fit” our schemas.
-When you can’t remember an event well, you may “fill in” the missing details with your best guess, based on your schema for that event.
What are the effects of schema on behavior?
-Schemas help us to organize memories & help in recall
-Schemas help guide behavior.
-Schemas help you predict what will happen next
What are the three types of memory?
-Sensory
-Short term
-Long term
Murdock 1962
Aim: Investigate how the position of words in a list affects memory
(multi store memory model)
Procedure
Participants were shown a list of words of varying length (10-40 words), one word at a time, for 1-2 seconds each
Immediately after all the words were shown, participants tried to recall as many of the words as they could
Results
Participants tended to remember more of the words at the beginning of the list (known as the primacy effect) and at the end of the list (known as the recency effect)
Participants had the worst recall for the words in the middle of the lis
What are the structures in working memory model?
-Central executive: Decides what receives attention
-Phonological loop: Verbal component of short-term memory that stores auditory information
-Visuo-spatial sketchpad: This is the visual & spatial component of short-term memory that allows for mental pictures
-Episodic buffer: This is a sort of mental “TV screen” where all the information from your senses, short-term and long-term memory is projected, ready for you to make use of.
Landry & Bartling 2011
Aim: Investigate the effects of “multi-tasking” when both tasks utilize the same working memory system - in this case, the phonological loop
Participants: 34 Undergrad students
Method: Experiment independent measures
Procedure: Participants were randomly divided into two groups - the “multi-tasking” group and the “single task” group
All participants were shown 10 letter strings, each consisting of 7 random letters (eg. GHKALKE). Participants had to memorize each string of letters, then write their answer down on an answer sheet
The participants in the “multi-tasking” group were also told to repeatedly say the numbers “1” and “2” at a rate of two numbers per second, while they were trying to memorize the string of random letters
Findings
The participants in the “multi-tasking” group performed significantly worse, recalling the letters with 45% accuracy compared with 76% in the “single task” group
What does it mean that memory is reconstructive?
The idea that we consciously rebuild our memories every time we try to remember something. And when we try to rebuild our memories, we may be influenced by other factors - such as our beliefs or feelings about the past, or unrelated memories that get misplaced and mixed together.
Loftus & Palmer 1974
Aim: Investigate how leading questions can influence eyewitness memory
Participants: 45 American college students
Method: Experiment Independent measures
Procedure: The students were shown a video of a car crash
The students were randomly divided into groups, and each group was asked a slightly different question regarding the speed of the cars at the time of the accident. One group was asked “How fast were the cars going when they smashed each other?”, while for other groups, the word smashed was replaced by either hit, collided, or bumped
In a follow-up experiment, participants were also asked if they had seen broken glass
Findings
Participants estimate that the cars were travelling at a significantly higher speed when the question involved the word smashed.
Significantly more participants also reported seeing broken glass when the question involved the word smashed (in reality, there was none)
What are flashbulb memories?
Events of high emotional state that can be remembered to great detail
Brown & Kulik 1977
Aim: Investigate whether people have unusually vivid memories of highly emotional events
Participants in the study were 80 Americans, half of which were white, the other half African-American
Procedure: Participants were asked to recall assassinations of famous people, like JFK. They were also asked to recall memories of an emotionally intense personal event, such as the unexpected death of a family member
Results: Nearly all participants had very vivid memories of JFK’s assassination, including where they were and what they were doing when they first heard the news
African-Americans also had vivid memories of the assassination of key civil rights leaders, such as Martin Luther King Jr, who were important figures in the fight for racial equality
Most participants (73 out of 80) also had at least one exceptionally vivid memory of an emotionally intense personal event, the most common being the death of a parent
Neissar & Harsch 1992
Aim: Assess the accuracy of flashbulb memories
Participants: 106 university students
Procedure
Within 24 hours of the Challenger disaster, participants (who were all American psychology students) filled in a survey with 7 questions regarding where they were, and what they were doing, when they heard the news of the disaster
2.5 years later, participants filled in the same questionnaire again. The researchers compared the two versions of the questionnaire to see if participants’ memories would still be accurate, over two years later. Participants were also asked how confident they were (on a scale of 1 to 5) in their memory of the event
Results
For most participants, there were significant discrepancies between the two questionnaires, indicating that memory of the event had become distorted. Out of 7 questions, only an average of 2.95 were answered identically to the original survey
Despite the poor memory of the event, most participants felt confident that they could remember the Challenger disaster accurately, with an average confidence rating of 4.17
Sharot et al 2007
Aim: Investigate which brain regions play a role in flashbulb memory
Procedure
24 participants who were in New York City at the time of the 9/11 terrorist attacks recalled their memories of the event (and other events of that summer) while having their brain scanned by an fMRI machine
The participants were also asked to rate how detailed and vivid their memories were of the 9/11 attacks and other events of that summer
Results
Only participants who were very close to the attacks reported very detailed and vivid memories of 9/11. The memory of those further away from the attacks was less detailed, as were other memories from that summer
Participants who were close to the 9/11 attacks showed increased activity in the amygdala when recalling the event. The amygdala is known to be involved in emotion
How does system 1 and system 2 compare in the dual process model?
System 1 vs system 2
-Fast | Slow
-Unconscious | Conscious
-Automatic | Effortful
-Unreliable | Reliable
Atler & Oppenheimer, 2007
Aim: Investigate how font affects thinking
Procedure
40 Princeton students completed the Cognitive Reflections Test (CRT). This test is made up of 3 questions, and measures whether people use fast thinking to answer the question (and get it wrong) or use slow thinking (and get it right)
Half the students were given the CRT in an easy-to-read font, while the other half were given the CRT in a difficult-to-read font
Findings
Among students given the CRT in easy font, only 10% of participants answered all three questions correctly, while among the students given the CRT in difficult font, 65% of participants were fully correct
What are Heuristics?
Mental shortcuts in system 1 In order to come up with a fast, effortless answer.
What is the anchoring effect?
The anchoring effect involves making use of a reference point, or anchor, in coming up with an estimate
Kahneman and Tversky (Anchor)
Aim: To investigate how anchors influence thinking and decision making
Participants: 156 University students
Procedure: Participants spun a wheel with numbers ranging from 1 to 100. However, the wheel was fixed so that the wheel would always land on either the number 10 or 60
Afterwards, participants were asked to estimate what percentage of U.N. member countries were African countries
Findings
Participants who spun the number 10 tended to give a significantly lower estimate for African membership in the U.N. than participants who spun the number 60
The mean estimate for the “low anchor” group was 25%, compared to 45% for the “high anchor” group
Kahneman & Tversky (Judgment)
Aim: Investigate how the availability heuristic affects judgement
Participants: 152 University students
Procedure: Participants were asked, “If a random word is taken from the English language, is it more likely that the word starts with the letter K, or that K is the third letter?”
Results: Over two thirds (105 out of 152 participants) thought it was more likely that words in English would begin with the letter K
In fact, there are about twice as many words in the English language that have K as the third letter than there are words that begin with K
Conclusion: This results of this study are likely due to the availability heuristic. It is much easier to think of words that begin with the letter K (such as kangaroo, kitchen, kidnap) than words that have K as the third letter (such as acknowledge, ask). Because participants find it easier to recall words that begin with K, they incorrectly assume that there are more such words
Rosser et al 2007 HL
Aim: to investigate whether playing video games results in better surgery performance
Methods: Correlational study
Participants: 33 Laparoscopic surgeons
Procedure: Participants carried out a series of drills, which are used to train surgeons. Researcher observed how many errors were made and how long to drills took.
Participants were asserted on their game mastery via a self reported questionnaire as well as their scores obtained from playing 3 games for 25 min. The games required precision & reaction time.
Results: High correlation between Video Game Mastery and less errors and shorter duration of drill.
Those who played videogames for 3 hours a week or more made 37% less errors and did the drill in 27% less time
Sanchez 2012 HL
Aim: To investigate how transferable the effect of playing videogames are to a wider domain such as science learning.
Method: Independent measure experiment
Participants: 60 University students
Procedure: Participants were randomly divided into two groups
One group played a first person shooter “Halo” to train there spatial skills.
Group two played a verbal game involving combining letter to for a word.
After playing their respective games, participants read 3,500 words without illustrations about a theoretical model.
Participants wrote an essay after, which independent scores graded on understanding of the concepts
Results: Those who played the first person shooter scored higher on the essay - showing better understanding of the concept.
Sparrow et al 2011 HL
Aim: Investigate how technology can lead to cognitive offloading of factual information
Participants: 60 undergraduates
Method: Independent Measures, Lab experiment
Procedure: Participants were asked to type 40 trivia facts into a computer (ex. An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain)
Participants were randomly assigned to two groups - in one group, participants were told that the computer would store everything they typed for future reference, while in the other group, participants were told that the information would be erased
Furthermore, within each group, participants were randomly divided into two subgroups - half were explicitly told to remember the facts, while the other half were not told to remember.
Thus, there were four groups in total - 1. Computer will save & asked to remember, 2. Computer will save & not asked to remember, 3. Computer will erase & asked to remember, 4. Computer will erase & not asked to remember
Findings
Participants told that the computer would erase the information remembered significantly more of the facts (around 30%) than participants told that the computer would store the information (around 20%)
Interestingly, asking the participants to remember the facts had no effect on their memory
Rosen et al 2011 HL
Aim: To investigate the effects of amount of multitasking and response delay on attention and academic performance.
Method: Experiment; Independent measure
Participants: 185 college students
Procedure: Students viewed a videotaped lecture and were then given a test to asses their understanding. During the lecture participants received text messages in varying quantitates (Small, medium, large).
Results: More text messages resulted in lower tests grades
Students which responded immediately scored significantly worse than those which responded to the texts up to 5 min later
Konrath, O’Brein and Hsing 2011 HL
Aim: To examine changes in empathy scores of College students over time
Method: Correlation study; Meta-analysis
Participants: 72 samples of college students who complete an interpersonal reactivity index between 1979-2009
Procedure: IRI scores were correlated with the year of data collection
Results: A decrease in IRI scores in more recent degenerations with the largest decrease between 2000-2009. During this the largest spike in website and technology usage
What is the Interpersonal Reactivity Index? HL
A personality scale that measures both emotion and cognitive components of empathy
Carrier et al 2015 HL
Aim: To investigate the relationship between digital activities, virtual empathy and real-word empathy
Method: Correlation study
Participants: 1762, born after 1980
Procedure: Participants filled out anonymous questionnaires which gave information on daily media usage and empathy scores. The emotional and cognitive components of empathy were measured.
Results: Engaging in activities that eventually led to face to face communication (email, social networking) was shown to be associated with higher real life empathy scores.
Videogames reduced face to face communication, reducing real world empathy
Storm et al 2016 HL
AIM: To test the idea that the successful use of Google to retrieve information would make participants more likely to use Google in the future, rather than their own individual memory store.
Participants: 60 undergraduate
students
PROCEDURE:
Randomly allocated to one of 3 conditions (internet, memory, baseline). First phase involved participants being asked to find the answer to 8 difficult general
knowledge questions.
The internet condition was allowed to use Google, memory condition had to use their own memory to answer and baseline condition was not asked any questions.
Second phase involved participants being asked to answer 8 easy general knowledge questions as fast as possible. (all participants were given access to Google but no explicit instructions to use it.
RESULTS: The results suggest that using internet search engines to retrieve information makes us more likely to do so in the future.
Google search percentage by; Internet group 83%; Memory group 63%; Baseline 65%.
What are transactive memory systems? (Google effect) HL
Wegner et al (1985) suggested that there might be an
additional form of memory that might exist within groups
of close individuals
- These are called transactive memory systems
- They include the sum total of the memories stored by
members of the group and knowledge of where
information can be found
Kramer et al 2014 HL
Aim: Test the idea that information in an individual’s Facebook feed could cause emotional contagion - that is, the transfer of emotional states from one person to another.
Method: Independent measure experiment;
Participants: 689,003 Facebook users
Procedure: Algorithm and a software system were used identify posts containing positive and negative words. For some participants between 10% and 90% of the ‘positive’ posts of their friends were omitted from their feed. For other participants, 10% to 90% of the negative posts of their friends were omitted. A control group for each condition was also assessed, where a proportion of their feed was omitted at random. The words used by participants in their own posts were analyzed during the week, percentage of positive and negative words used in these posts was recorded.
Results: When positive content was reduced, participants were less likely to use positive language in their own posts.
When Negative content was reduced, participants less likely to use negative language in their own posts.
Chou and Edge (2012) HL
Aim: To test the influence of the availability heuristic on how Facebook users evaluate themselves in comparison to other people.
Participants: 425 US undergraduate students
Procedure: Participants completed a survey including a 10 point Likert scale allowing them to indicate how strongly they agreed with a series of statements such as “many of my friends have a better life than me” or “many of my friends are happier than me”. They also indicated how many hours a week they spent on Facebook, how long they had used FB, and the average time spent actually with friends per week.
Results: The results showed that participants who spent the most hours per week on Facebook were more likely to agree that ‘other people are happier than me’. By contrast, those who spent the most time out with friends in the ‘real world’ were very unlikely to feel that ‘other people are happier than me’ or ‘many of my friends have a better life than me’.
Rosen, Carrier and Cheever 2013 HL
Aim: To investigate the relationship between the use of digital technology, multi-tasking and school achievement.
Participants: 236 students
Method: Correlational study
Procedure:
On-task and off-task behavior was assessed using a checklist. The behaviors were noted every minute during the observation. Participants filled out a questionnaire abut their self reported GPA.
Results:
On average participants maintained on task behavior for 6 minutes before changing to an off task behavior.
On average 10min out of 15min were used for on task behavior. There was strong correlation between reduced on-task behavior and; texting, using Facebook and amount of technology available and walking/stretching. Off task behavior was associated with reduced school achievement. Those which accessed Facebook once during the 15 min had lower GPAs.
Define Empathy HL
The ability to understand or feel what another person is experiencing
Define Minute-by-Minute assessment of behavior HL
A type of structured observation with a checklist that is used every minute of the observation until the end of the observation
Define Experience Sampling Method HL
A research procedure where participants are asked to provide self-reports of their emotions, symptoms or environment, at different moments during their daily lives
Articulatory suppression
A research technique where participants are required to repeat a sequence of sounds while at the same time performing the experimental task
Capacity
The number of units of information that can be held in a memory store
Memory
A cognitive process of encoding, sorting and retrieving information
Primacy effect
A memory phenomenon where words in a list a better remembered if they are at the begging of the list rather than the middle
Recency effect
A memory phenomenon where in a list of words, the words at the end of the list are better remembered than words in the middle
Retrieval
A process of memory; extracting information from the long-term store when it is needed
Reconstructive memory
The theory that views memory to be an active process of reaction of past events as opposed to passive retrieval
Glanzer and Cunitz 1966
Aim: To investigate the serial position effect with or without interference of a filler task
Method: Experiment; Repeated measure
Participants: 46 arm enlisted-men
Procedure: A series of 15 word lists were read to participants with instructions to memorise as many words as they could. The participants were then instructed to do a free recall of the words, or told to countdown from a number for ten seconds or countdown from a number for 30 seconds.
Each participant had a total of 15 lists (5 in each condition). The experimenters measure what proportion of words from thee list were memorised from the beginning and end.
Results: In the free recall condition, both primacy and recency effect were preserved. In the filler conditions, only primacy was preserved, with a weakened or complete lack of recency effect (more so in 30 second filler than 10 second)
Serial position effect
The tendency to recall the first and last words from a list of words better than the words within the middle of the list
x
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Memory models (3)
Schema (3)
Thinking and decision making (3)
Reconstructive memory (2)
Emotion and Cognition (3)
Memory - Multi store:
-Mudrock 1962
-Glanzer and Cunitz 1966
Memory - Working Memory model:
-Landry and Bartling 2011
Schema:
-Barlett 1932
-Bradford and Jhonson 1972
-Loftus and Palmer 1974
Thinking and decision making:
-Kahneman and Tversky (Anchor)
-Kahneman and Tversky (Hueriistics)
-Atler & Oppenheimer, 2007
Recnstructive memory:
-Loftus and Palmer 1974
-Barlett 1932
Emotion and cognition:
-Brown and Kulik 1977
-Sharot et al 2007
-Neischer and Harsh 1992
