Cognitive Area Flashcards
Strengths of the cognitive area:
- Establish cause and effect
- Highly controlled studies
- Extended our understanding of people
Weaknesses of cognitive area:
- Studies lack ecological validity
- Open to social desirability
- Cognitive reductionism
When was Loftus and Palmer conducted?
1974
What is a schema?
- Framework of knowledge about the world
- Knowledge packages that are built up through experience of the world
What is the background of Loftus and Palmer’s study?
- Memory involves interpreting what is seen or heard, recording it, then reconstructing it
- Recall can be distorted or biased
- Investigated how memory can be distorted
What was the aim of Loftus and Palmer’s experiment 1?
- To see whether using different verbs to describe a collision between two cars would affect speed estimates
What was the sample used in experiment 1 of Loftus and Palmer?
- Opportunity sample
- 45 students split into 5 groups of 9
What were the 5 verbs used in experiment 1 of Loftus and Palmer?
- Smashed
- Collided
- Bumped
- Contacted
- Hit
What was the first question asked to participants in experiment 1 of Loftus and Palmer?
“Give an account of the accident you have just seen”
What was the critical question in experiment 1 of Loftus and Palmer?
“About how fast were the cars going when they ______ each other”
How long did experiment 1 of Loftus and Palmer last?
1 hour and 30 mins
How did Loftus and Palmer counteract order effects in experiment 1?
Each group saw the films in different orders
What were the results of Loftus and Palmer’s experiment 1?
- Smashed- 40.8 mph estimated
- Collided- 39.3 mph estimated
- Bumped- 38.1 mph estimated
- Hit- 34 mph estimated
- Contacted- 31.8 mph estimated
What conclusions were drawn from experiment 1 of Loftus and Palmer?
- Humans are not accurate in judging car speed
- Participants use verb to give them an idea of speed when they are unsure
- Verb alters a participant’s memory of the crash
How many videos did participants of Loftus and Palmers experiment 1 watch?
- 7 videos
- Between 5-30 seconds long
What was the aim of Loftus and Palmer’s experiment 2?
To examine of the wording of a question would influence memory recall
What was the sample used in Loftus and Palmer experiment 2?
- 150 students
- Different from experiment 1
How long did the film and the accident last in Loftus and Palmer’s experiment 2?
- Fillm was less than 1 minute
- Accident lasted 4 seconds
Which verbs what used in experiment 2 of Loftus and Palmer?
- Hit
- Smashed
How long after being shown the film did participants in experiment 2 of Loftus and Palmer’s study return?
One week
What was the critical question asked to participants in experiment 2 of Loftus and Palmer?
“Did you see any broken glass?”
Was there any broken glass in the video shown to participants in experiment 2 of Loftus and Palmer?
No
What were the results of experiment 2 of Loftus and Palmer?
- Smashed- 10.46 mph estimate- 16 saw glass, 34 didn’t
- Hit- 8 mph estimate- 7 saw glass, 43 didn’t
- Control with no verb- 6 saw glass, 44 didn’t
What conclusions were drawn from Loftus and Palmer’s experiment 2?
- Leading questions distort memory
- Information from even and after event become integrated which makes memory inaccurate
What 2 types of information make up memory from a complex event?
- Info gather from perceiving event
- Info gathered after event
When was Grant’s study conducted?
1998
What is a cue?
Extra information/ triggers
What is recall?
Accessing memories with few prompts
What is recognition?
Identifying items you have seen before
What is meaningful information?
Information that is understandable and relatable
What is cue dependency?
- Other information is stored alongside to-be-remembered information
- Extra information aids recall
What is context dependent memory?
Improved recall of specific information when context present at encoding and retrieval and the same
What is the background of Grant’s study?
- Research shows context dependence memory may be important
- Grant wanted to see if environmental context dependency effects would be found in school
What was the aim of Grant’s study?
To test the effect of noise as a source of context on the studying and retrieval of information in an academic context
Who were the participants in Grant’s study?
- 39 American participants
- From Iowa state university
- 17-56 years old
- 17 female, 23 male
- 8 members of a psychology class were experimenters, each gathered 5 friends
What were the 4 conditions used in Grant’s experiment?
- Silent silence
- Noisy noisy
- Silent noisy
- Noisy silent
TRUE OR FALSE:
Only members of the noisy condition wore headphones when reading the article
FALSE:
All participants wore headphones for standardisation
How long was the break between the end of the study phase and beginning of the test phase?
2 minutes
How many times were Grant’s participants asked to read through the article?
Once
What were the two tests used in Grant’s study?
- Short answer
- Multiple choice
What order were the tests performed in Grant’s study?
Short answer then multiple choice (to make sure the multiple choice options didn’t give people answers)
How long did Grant’s study last?
About 30 minuts
How was Grant’s experiment controlled?
- Experimenter brought their own cassette player and headphones
- Each participant was tested individually
- All participants received the same article to read
Describe the article used in Grant’s study.
- 2 pages
- 3 columns
- about psychoimmunology
- Interesting and understandable but unfamiliar
What were the results of Grant’s study?
- Context dependency advantage for both tests
- Performance was better in matched conditions than others
- Silent silent did better than noisy noisy
What were the mean scores in Grant’s study?
Noisy noisy:
- Short answer- 6.2/10
- Multiple choice- 14.3/16
Silent silent:
- Short answer- 6.7/10
- Multiple choice- 14.3/16
Noisy silent:
- Short answer- 5.4/10
- Multiple choice- 12.7/16
Silent noisy:
- Short answer- 4.6/10
- Long answer- 12.7/18
What conclusions were drawn from Grant’s study?
- Noise does not affect student’s capacity to study
- Students should study in quiet surroundings as that is how tests are held
When was Moray’s study?
1959
What is the background of Moray’s study?
- Broadbent said the world is composed of more sensations than humans can handle
- Cherry- shadowing dichotic messages found that if you shadow one ear you miss the other message
What is shadowing?
The participant can hear two different messages and is asked to retreat one as they hear it and reject the other
What is the aim of Moray’s study?
To test Cherry’s dichotic listening findings in relation to the amount of information recognised in the rejected message, the effect on hearing their name in the unattended message, and the effect of instruction to find a specific target in the rejected message
Who was the sample used in Moray’s study?
- Undergraduate students or research workers of both genders
- Number in experiment 1 is unknown
- 12 took part in experiment 2
- Two groups of 14 in experiment 3
Describe the procedure of experiment 1 of Moray:
- Short list of words repeated 35 times in unattended ear, shadowed prose message in attended ear
- Participant was asked to recall everything they could from the unattended message
- Recognition test made up of words from shadowed message, rejected message, and control words not present in either
What are the results of experiment 1 of Moray’s study?
- No evidence that words from rejected message were recognised
- 4.9/7 shadowed words recognised
- 1.9/7 rejected words recognised
- 2.6/7 control words recognised
Describe the procedure of experiment 2 of Moray’s study:
- Participants shadowed 10 short passages of light fiction, each with different instructions
- 4 conditions with no instructions
- 3/6 conditions with instructions used the participants name
What were the results of experiment 2 of Moray’s study?
- Most participants ignored instructions in shadowed passages
- Significant difference between hearing instructions with name vs no name (3.05)
What was the procedure of experiment 3 of Moray’s study?
- Messages are made with digits interspersed and words towards the end
- One group was told they’d be asked about the passage the other group was told to remember as many numbers as they could
What were the results of Moray’s experiment 3?
- No significant difference between the number of digits listed when told to listen for them vs when not told to listen to them
What conclusions can be drawn from Moray’s study?
- When someone listens to one message and rejects the other, almost none of the rejected message is heard (1)
- A short list of words as the rejected message shows little trace of being remembered (1)
- Important messages like a person’s name often can penetrate the attentional barrier (2)
- It is difficult to make material important enough to break the attentional barrier (3)
