🧠 Cognitive Approach Flashcards
Primacy & recency effects
Glanzer & Cunitz (1966)
Aim: Investigate the serial position effect and its relationship to the MSM.
Procedure: Participants listened to a list of 15 words and recalled them immediately or after a 10- or 30-second distraction task involving counting backward.
Results: The primacy effect remained after a delay, while the recency effect disappeared.
Conclusion: STM and LTM are distinct stores; recency effects rely on STM, while primacy effects result from rehearsal transferring information to LTM.
🏛️ Memory models (Multi-Store Model of Memory)
Phonological loop (word length effect)
Baddeley, Thomson, & Buchanan (1975)
Aim: Explore the word length effect in STM.
Procedure: Participants were asked to recall lists of short and long words to determine whether word length affected memory capacity.
Results: Short words were recalled significantly better than long words, indicating that the phonological loop has a limited capacity based on the time required to articulate the words.
Conclusion: This study supports the working memory model (WMM) by demonstrating the role of the phonological loop in processing auditory information. Memory capacity is influenced by articulation time, providing evidence against the uniform STM capacity proposed in the MSM.
🏛️ Memory models (Working Memory Model)
Schema & memory recall
Anderson & Pichert (1978)
Aim: Investigate how schemas influence memory retrieval.
Procedure: Participants were assigned one of two perspectives (burglar or homebuyer) and read a passage about a house with 73 details. After a filler task, they recalled the passage, then either kept their original perspective or switched and recalled again without rereading.
Results: In the first recall, participants remembered details relevant to their assigned perspective. After switching, they recalled an additional 7.1% of details relevant to the new perspective.
Conclusion: Schemas act as filters for memory retrieval, focusing on perspective-relevant information.
🔄 Schema theory
Car crash study & leading questions
Loftus & Palmer (1974)
Aim: Investigate whether memory could be influenced by misleading post-event information.
Procedure:
* Experiment 1: Participants watched car accident videos and answered a critical question using varied verbs (e.g., “smashed,” “collided,” “hit”).
* Experiment 2: Participants viewed a car accident video, then were asked a critical question with verbs “smashed” or “hit,” or received no critical question. A week later, they were asked if they saw broken glass.
Results:
* Experiment 1: Speed estimates were higher with more emotionally intense verbs (e.g., “smashed” = 40.5 mph; “contacted” = 31.8 mph).
* Experiment 2: 32% of the “smashed” group falsely recalled broken glass, compared to 14% in the “hit” group and 12% in the control group.
Conclusion: Misleading information influences memory and perception. Results support the genuine memory change explanation, as participants recalled nonexistent details like broken glass.
🏗️ Reconstructive memory
🎭 Biases in thinking & decision-making (misinformation effect)
False memories of committing a crime
Shaw & Porter (2015)
Aim: Determine if false memories of committing a crime could be implanted in a lab setting.
Procedure:
* Participants were led to believe they had committed a crime (e.g., theft or assault) or experienced a non-criminal emotional event (e.g., dog attack).
* Researchers used visualization exercises and social pressure to encourage memory recall.
Results: By the third interview, 70% of the “criminal” group developed false memories, recalling fabricated details about the alleged crimes.
Conclusion: False memories can be implanted through suggestive questioning and visualization.
🏗️ Reconstructive memory
Confirmation Bias
Wason (1968)
Aim: To investigate confirmation bias in logical reasoning.
Procedure:
* Participants were presented with four cards, each showing a number or a letter.
* They were tasked with testing the rule: “If a card has a vowel on one side, then it has an even number on the other.”
Results: Most participants selected cards that could confirm the rule rather than those that could disprove it.
Conclusion: This bias reflects the preference for evidence that supports one’s beliefs, ignoring contradictory information.
🎭 Biases in thinking & decision-making
Flashbulb memory
Brown & Kulik (1977)
Aim: To investigate the factors influencing the formation and maintenance of flashbulb memories related to significant events.
Procedure:
* Participants completed a questionnaire about 10 events (nine public, one personal).
* Participants wrote a free recall of the circumstances surrounding their learning of the events.
* Rated each event’s personal consequentiality and frequency of overt rehearsal on a 5-point scale.
Results:
* Black participants showed more vivid memories of events involving civil rights leaders (e.g., Martin Luther King Jr.) due to higher personal consequentiality.
* Vividness correlated with both personal consequentiality and overt rehearsal.
Conclusion: The findings support the roles of surprise and personal consequentiality in the formation of flashbulb memories and the role of rehearsal in maintaining their vividness.
🎭 Emotion & cognition
Video games & spatial memory improvement
Sanchez (2012)
Aim: To test if spatial skills gained through gaming improve comprehension of scientific concepts.
Procedure:
* 60 university students were divided into two groups.
* One group played a spatial game (Halo), while the other played a verbal game (Word Whomp).
* Both groups read a complex, text-only scientific document and wrote an essay on it.
Results: Students in the spatial gaming group demonstrated better understanding of the material, as evaluated by independent scorers.
Conclusion: Gaming enhances abstract spatial reasoning, aiding in the comprehension of complex scientific concepts like plate tectonics.
📱 Digital technology & cognition
Framing Effect
Tversky and Kahneman (1981)
Aim: To explore how framing affects decision-making under risk.
Procedure: Participants were divided into two groups and presented with hypothetical scenarios about saving lives during a disease outbreak. Options were framed in terms of gains (lives saved) or losses (lives lost).
Results:
* Gain frame: 72% chose the risk-averse option (200 lives saved).
* Loss frame: 78% chose the risk-seeking option (1/3 chance to save 600 lives).
Conclusion: The framing of outcomes significantly influences decisions.
🎭 Biases in thinking & decision-making
