Cognitive Psychology

Question 1

Give 4 AO1: Multi-store model of memory

Answer 1

1. Sensory register- Two stores the iconic (visual) and the echoic (sound) D- less than half a second C- over 100 mil cells in each eye.
2. Short term memory- Miller found that it had a capacity of 7 + or – 2. P&P found duration of 18-30 seconds. Encoded acoustically
3. Rehearsal- If this data is rehearsed to maintain the information it can be transferred to long term memory
4. Long term memory- Duration of a lifetime and potentially unlimited capacity. Baddeley found the capacity is unlimited

Question 2

Give 2 strengths: Multi-store model of memory

Answer 2

1. Short term memory- Baddeley found we tend to mix up words that sound similar when using our short term memory.
2. HM couldn’t improve his LTM and couldn’t make new long term memories. Suggesting STM and LTM are separate stores.

Question 3

Give 2 weaknesses: Multi-store model of memory

Answer 3

Not just one STM- There’s more than one STM as KF found that his short term memory was very poor when read aloud to him but much better when he could read it himself.

Campitelli argues that STM is the part of LTM that we are currently focusing our attention on. So no such thing as STM.

Question 4

Give 4 AO1 points: Working Memory Model

Answer 4

1. Central executive- Attentional process that has a supervisory role. It focuses divides and switches our limited attention. It monitors incoming data, makes decisions and allocates slave subsystems to tasks.
2. Phonological loop- Has the phonological store which stores auditory information and the articulatory process which allows maintenance rehearsal. The capacity is believed to be 2 seconds of what you can say.
3. Visuospatial sketchpad- The visual cache which stores visual data and the inner scribe which records the arrangement of objects in the visual field.

Question 5

Give 2 strengths: Working Memory Model

Answer 5

1. Baddeley and Hitch- There are 2 separate sub components is supported by Baddeley’s experiment into dual task performance that there was no difference in performance when completing an auditory and a visual task together and separately.
2. KF as he had poor short term memory for auditory information but could process visual information relatively normally.

Question 6

Give 2 weaknesses: Working Memory Model

Answer 6

1. Lack of information surrounding the central executive- Baddeley says that the central executive is the most important but least understood component.
2. Long term memory- Doesn’t acknowledge different types of long term memory.

Question 7

Give 4 AO1 points: Explanation of long term memory

Answer 7

Episodic memory- Our ability to recall events.

1. Time stamped
2. Includes several elements
3. Allow us to time travel

Semantic memory- Stores our knowledge of the world.

1. Stores language and concepts
2. Less vulnerable to distortion

Procedural-

Type of implicit memory which aids the performance of particular types of tasks without conscious awareness of these previous experiences.

Question 8

Give 2 strengths: Explanation of long term memory

Answer 8

1. HM’s episodic memory was severely impaired as a result of brain damage and had difficulty recalling events from his past but his semantic was relatively unaffected.
2. Clive Wearing was still able to play the piano. Despite having severe dementia and being unable to recall episodic and semantic memories very well.

Question 9

Give 2 weaknesses: Explanation of long term memory

Answer 9

1. Case studies- Case studies lack control of variables. They involve people who have experienced brain damage and have no knowledge of what their memory was like before the brain damage.
2. Doesn’t account for interrelationship or continuity- When given a list of words for example, a word can have a semantic feature (meaning) and an episodic reference (when and where the word was remembered) so not completely isolated.

Question 10

Give 4 AO1: Reconstructive memory

Answer 10

1. Reproduction vs reconstruction- Memory is an active process where we store fragments of information. When we recall something we reconstruct these fragments into a meaningful whole. So some parts might be missing or distorted.
2. Schema theory- A mental structure in memory containing our stored knowledge of aspects of the world. When we come across a new situation the relevant schema is activated.

Question 11

Give 2 strengths: Reconstructive memory

Answer 11

1. Bartlett’s ‘War of the Ghosts’ study. He showed participants a story and asked them to reproduce it 15 mins later. Then showed the new version to the next person and asked them to do the same thing (serial reproduction) He found it became shorted and rationalised.
2. Schemas effect what you encode and what you retrieve. New knowledge that conflicts with an existing schema might not be encoded. Bartlett found that the story became rationalised to match the persons schema.

Question 12

Give 2 weaknesses: Reconstructive memory

Answer 12

1. Bartlett not standardised- However Bartletts procedure was not standardised so each participant had a different experience. Reducing the reliability and validity of results.
2. Flashbulb memories- Not all memories are effected by schemas as at has be found that in situations that are personally important or distinctive we do remember in considerable and accurate detail.

Question 13

Give 4 AO1 points: Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil

Answer 13

575 children aged 5-17. 5 year olds had average digit span of 3.76 and 17yr olds had a digit span of 5.91.

Digits read allowed at a constant rate of 1 per second.

Sequence of random digits that increased by one every time recited correctly. Digit span defined as longest sequence recalled 2/3 without error.

Compared with a group of 9 patients with Alzheimer’s and their digit span was not significantly different from that of the 5 and 6 year old.

Question 14

Give 2 strengths: Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil

Answer 14

1. Standardised procedure- Ensuring that the experience did not vary from participant to participant so the outcome couldn’t be attributed to differences in how the procedure was controlled.
2. Internally valid- The sample size of 575 was quite large. Making digit span results validity quite high.
3. Ecological validity- Ecologically valid due to being set in a school and tested during breaktimes rather than a lab.

Question 15

Give 2 weaknesses: Sebastian and Hernandez-Gil

Answer 15

1. Potential lack of validity- Lacked control in some other areas. Children were not directly tested and relied on children and parents to divulge any hearing, reading or cognitive impairments.
2. Type 1 errors- The sample sizes in the comparison studies were small. Making type 1 errors more likely.
3. Artificial- Artificial test and not a good representation of how STM works in real life.

Question 16

Give 4 AO1: Evaluate case studies as a method of studying cognitive psychology.

Answer 16

1. Case study- A detailed study of one person or group of people over a long period of time and in depth.
2. HM- Hippocampus removed. Found that he lost episodic memories from 10 years prior and couldn’t make new long term ones.
3. KF- Poor short term memory for auditory but could process visual relatively normally. Phonological loop damaged and visual spatial sketchpad intact.
4. Phineas Gage- Metal pole through head and his personality changed from hard working and responsible to restless and indecisive. Parts of brain can be removed and still live.

Question 17

Give 2 strengths: Evaluate case studies as a method of studying cognitive psychology.

Answer 17

1. Rare- Used to investigate instances of human behaviour and experiences that are rare or not able to be created in research labs.
2. Rich in depth data- The methods produce rich in depth data because of the complex interaction of many factors that can be studied, in contrast to experiments where variables are held constant.

Question 18

Give 2 weaknesses: Evaluate case studies as a method of studying cognitive psychology.

Answer 18

1. Difficult to generalise from an individual case as each one has individual characteristics and or because we cant make before and after comparisons. Eg Phineas gage we only have anecdotal evidence to what he was like before.
2. Retrospective- Necessary to use recollection of past events as part of a case study. Such evidence may be unreliable because peoples memories are inaccurate

Question 19

Give 4 AO1 points: Assess the use of experiments in the study of memory.

Answer 19

1. Highly controlled- Laboratory experiments in cognitive psychology are conducted under highly controlled conditions.
2. Manipulates the IV and DV- The experimental method manipulates an IV and measures the DV to find out about memory.
3. Unnatural tasks- Laboratory experiments often used unnatural tasks to test participant recall and memory, such as word lists.
4. Standardised procedure- Laboratory experiments in cognitive psychology can be replicable as they have a standardised procedure.

Question 20

Give 2 strengths: Assess the use of experiments in the study of memory.

Answer 20

1. Standardised procedures increase reliability so studies such as Baddeley (1966b) can be replicated, making them useful because results can be checked.
2. Steyvers and Hemmer (2012) used a naturalistic scenes for testing the effect of prior knowledge so experiments can be conducted with some ecological validity and be useful to cognitive psychology.

Question 21

Give 2 weaknesses: Assess the use of experiments in the study of memory.

Answer 21

1. Low validity- It could be difficult to generalise findings from studies such as Peterson and Peterson (1959) to real life memory situations from experiments because of low validity so they may not be fully useful.
2. Replication- Bartlett (1932) used serial reproduction to test reconstructive memory so his research is difficult to replicate to retest the results, therefore experiments are more useful for providing empirical evidence about memory.

Question 22

Give the procedure of Baddeley’s study

Answer 22

1. 75 participants, 3 participants were excluded due to results of hearing test.
2. List A- Acoustically similar words, List B- Acoustically dissimilar words, List C- Semantically similar words and List D- Semantically dissimilar words.
3. Independent groups design as they were split into roughly 4 groups of 17-20.
4. Each list was presented aloud on tape, one word every 3 seconds. Participants had 40 seconds to write down as much as many of the 10 words as they could. Repeat 4 times.
5. They then spend 20 mins on an unrelated task then asked to recall again.

Question 23

Give 3 findings of Baddeley’s study

Answer 23

1. On learning trials STM recall of the acoustically similar list was consistently lower than for the acoustically dissimilar control list.
2. On the recall list after 20 mins there was no significant forgetting of dissimilar control list.