Cognitive psychology Flashcards
what is cognitive psychology?
concerned with the internal mental processes, such as language, memory, problem solving and thinking.
what is cognition
cognition refers to the mental processes: perception, attention, language, thinking, problem solving and MEMORY.
what is the Key Assumption?
Brains work like computers:
- both have inputs and output.
- inputs for a computer include: keyboard, mouse, and joystick.
- inputs for the brain include sensory information from the environment
- outputs for a computer include: sound, on screen info
- outputs for the brain is the behavioural responses and reactions.
- the brain a computer both store information
- both need to be registered and recharged.
Cognitive psychology assumes that information is processed in the brain and that this process is considered to be linear - it flows ‘through’ the brain in a way that seems logical.
AO1 for Tulving’s Theory of LTM
long term memory, is any memories that are held for longer than 30 seconds.
LTM can be split into 2 separate memory stores: declarative (facts and events that are consciously brought to mind) and procedural memory (skills and tasks without a conscious thought) Declarative memory can be further split into 2: Semantic Memory and Episodic Memory.
Episodic Memories:
- Recall of events and personal life experiences
- autobiographical episodic memories: memories from a particular time in someones life
- experimental episodic memories: when learning a fact has been associated, with memory from the specific time it was learnt.
- Are time referenced, you know when the event happened
- context dependent, you need to use your previous memories to understand.
- localised in the hippocampus
Semantic memories:
- conscious memories of facts, concepts, and meanings that link together (eg: bird and a nest)
- these memories are associated with other facts that link the concepts together: birds and nest, or school and learning.
- not time referenced, you don’t know when you learned the fact
Clive Wearing Case Study:
suffered brain damage from a viral infection. He suffered almost complete amnesia. He also lost the ability to encode new long term memories. Clive Wearing forgets everything within 30 seconds. However, although Clive Wearing has lost his episodic memory, he still has semantic memory.
When his wife Deborah enters the room he greets her joyously, believing he hasn’t seen her for years or even that they are meeting for the first time. Although he has no episodic memories of Deborah, he has semantic knowledge of her: he remembers that he loves her.
Similarly, although he cannot remember their names or ages, (episodic memories) Clive Wearing knows that he is a father and that he has children. (semantic memory)
Clive Wearing also has intact procedural memory. He can still play piano and conduct a choir – although he cannot remember his musical education and as soon as the music stops he forgets he was performing and suffers a shaking fit.
Evaluating Tulving Theory of LTM:
EACH
E- Clinical Evidence comes from the case study of Clive Wearing. He had an impaired episodic memory, but intact semantic memory and procedural memory. He forgets everything within 30 seconds and cannot form new memories. He remembers that he is a father and has children- semantic memory. But cannot remember their names or their ages- episodic memory. He can still play the piano, and conduct a choir- intact procedural memory, but he cannot remember his musical education. As soon as he finished, he cannot remember he was performing- impaired episodic. This evidence supports Tulving’s view about the different types of memory store in the LTM as when one store is damaged the others are unaffected, which also shows that they are stored in different parts of the brain
(CA) Cases such as Clive Wearing are hard to use as evidence as they are case studies (studies of one individual). There is no way to test the memory of such individuals before their brain damage, and it is hard to use one person’s case to apply to the entire population. This weakens the supporting evidence for types of LTM.
A- Usually patients suffering from with Alzheimers and Dementia have difficulty forming new memories. Episodic memories are next to go as they begin to forget autobiographical events, and recent episodes are lost. Semantic memories are then lost, as they struggle with language and recognising family members. This supports the idea that LTM has separate stores, as the stores are each lost at separate times. Showing that memories are not stores in in one store otherwise they would be lost all at one time.
C- It has also been suggested that the medial temporal lobe is used for both episodic and semantic memories, suggesting that they may not be separate stores. Squire and Zola (1998) put this to the test. They examined children with amnesia (who never got a chance to acquire a semantic store in the first place) and adults with amnesia (who had semantic and episodic memories from before suffering brain damage). The participants’ episodic and semantic memories seem to be equally impaired which supports the idea that the two memory functions are linked or even the same thing.
Working Memory Model AO1(Baddeley and Hitch)
Working Memory Model is a cognitive model that describes short term memory.
The model consists of three main components, also known as slave systems: the Central Executive, the Phonological Loop, and the Visuospatial Sketchpad.
Central Executive: Modality Free (can process information from the 5 senses) This works as a control centre and directs attention to particular tasks, memory retrieval and decision making. It does not store information and has a limited capacity.
Phonological Loop: This is involved with the temporary storage of auditory information. It has two parts - The phonological store (Hold words that we hear, and has a memory chase of 1.5 to 2 seconds.) and the articulatory control system (allows for subvocalised repetition, and is a verbal rehearsal system that holds words that we have seen, heard, about to say and silently repeated)
Visuospatial Sketchpad: This temporarily stores and manipulates visual and spatial information. Sets up and manipulates metal images as well as remembering shapes and colours or the location of objects
Episodic Buffer: Baddeley added this in 2000. It acts as a ‘backup’ store which communicates with both long term memory and the components of working memory.
Key Concepts and processes proposed by the WMM
Phonological Similarity Effect: words that sounds similar will have poorer recall. This explains why there would be poorer recall with acoustically similar word than with semantically similar words.
Dual Task Performance: The model can explain how we can do two tasks at once, as long as they use different processing systems.
If one store is utilised for both tasks, then task performance is poorer than when they are completed separately, due to the store’s limited capacity. For example: peating “the the the” aloud and reading some text silently would use the articulatory-phonological loop for both tasks, slowing performance.
Word Length Effect: Shorter words are more easily recorded than longer words. If the word is polysyllabic it is harder to remember, as the rehearsal of the word takes longer then 2 seconds.
Evaluating the WMM
(+) There is strong evidence that suggest STM has separate stores. The KF Case Study supports Working Memory. KF suffered brain damage from a motorcycle accident that damaged his short-term memory. KF struggled to process verbal information but his visual memory was unaffected. This shows that visual information (VSSP) is processed separately from verbal information (phonological loop).
(+) Dual Task Performance studies have supported the existence of the visuospatial sketchpad. For Example: Baddeley made participants do a visual (eg: writing, reading, and drawing) and verbal task simultaneously. Then separately he made participants do two visual tasks simultaneously. He found that when they performed the 2 visual tasks at the same time, performance decided as they were using the same slave systems. This supported the WMM as it shows that there are separate slave systems for visual and verbal tasks, and that they have a limited capacity- leading to a cognitive overload.
(+) Neuroscience research supported the localisation of the different slave systems in the brain. For example: PET scans have shown that the phonological loop is localised in the parietal Lobe. and that the phonological store is located in the left frontal lobe. Supporting the claim that slave systems are separate regions of the brain.
(-) There are criticisms over the descriptions of the Central Executive. Baddeley mentioned that the central executive is the most misunderstood. The CE needs to more clearly defined then simply “attention” This is a weakness as the CE is too reductionist and fails to provide a complete explanation of memory.
(-) There have been strong evidence against the description of the Visuospatial sketchpad. For example: Lieberman 1980, criticises the WMM when explaining that blind people have spatial memory- as they remember where things are and not bumping into them, without ever having any visual information.
CA- Logie 1995 responded to this and developed the VSSP. He suggested that it had two stores: the visual cache (encodes colour) and the inner scribe (encodes information around movement) This is shows that blind people have an inner scribe, which allows them to remember visual information when moving around.
What is the Multi-Store Model (MSM) AO1
One key assumption that early psychologist made way that the human brain is like a computer.They suggested that like a computer, information is processed stored and retrieved.
Instead, when we unconsciously or deliberately choose to encode and store sensory information, it needs encoding. This process turns the sensory input into an electrochemical memory trace that can be stored In the brain. Once encoded human memory has no conscious control over how long it will last. For example some memories last forever.
Sensory information from the environment is passed into the sensory register. The sensory Register codes visual and auditory information. has a duration of 1/2 a second, and has an unlimited capacity.
If paid attention to the information passes into the short term memory store, if not information will decay. The short term memory store: Encodes acoustically and has a duration of approximately 30 seconds and has a capacity of 7+/- items. Information is retrieved sequentially. In order for information to to stay in STM a rehearsal loop is required, if storages reaches full capacity information will be displaced- otherwise will be consolidated into the long term memory store.
The long term memory store: encodes semantically, duration of anything over 30 seconds (possibly unlimited) capacity unlimited and is retrieved by recall and recognition. If information is not retrieved from the ltm it will decay or have interference (concise of muddle information)
Evaluate the MSM
(+) Evidence to support the distinction between STM and LTM from case studies and experimental evidence: HM had his hippocampus removed. He then suffered from retrograde amnesia. HM could keep information in stm as long as he rehearsed it however he suffered from severe anterograde amnesia and could not make new memories. This case study demonstrates that stem and ltm are located in different regions of the Brain, not only this but it showed that the hippocampus has an important role to play in memory.
CA: However, the subjects of case studies are unique and the nature of the brain injury sustained by the subject are equally as unique. This means that we cannot generalise this distinction based on individual cases.
(+) Compelling evidence fro the existence of separate STM and LTM stores, comes from the serial position effect or the primacy recency effect. For example Glanzer and cunitz (1966) found that word position affected recall, with words at the start and end of the list being recalled more easily. This aligns with the multi-store model, which proposes that information moves from STM to LTM through rehearsal and that they are two separate memory systems.
(-) P The Multi-Store Model (MSM) does not fully explain why some information is remembered without rehearsal or why rehearsed information can still be forgotten.
E- For example, flashbulb memories can be recalled without deliberate rehearsal, suggesting that factors like emotional impact play a role in memory retention.
E- This suggests that the MSM may be overly simplistic, as it assumes a direct relationship between rehearsal and memory retention. Other factors, such as emotional significance influencing memory storage and retrieval.
(-) The MSM assumes that short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM) are completely separate stores, but research suggests a more complex relationship between them.
KF, had brain damage that severely impaired his short-term memory for verbal information but not for visual information. According to the MSM, if STM is damaged, LTM should also be affected since information must pass through STM first. However, KF’s LTM remained intact, suggesting that STM and LTM are not entirely dependent on each other.
This contradicts the MSM’s linear structure, implying that memory is more flexible than the model suggests.
Bartlett’s Reconstructive Memory AO1
Bartlett observed that people often recall events differently over time and that their recall may be influenced by their own personal biases, emotions, and expectations. He argued that recall is an active process, where the brain selectively retrieves information and then recombines it in a way that is meaningful to the individual.
Bartlett also introduced the concept of schema, which is a mental framework or a set of beliefs and expectations that individuals use to interpret and organize new information. He argued that schemas influence how information is stored and retrieved from memory, and that they shape the way that memories are reconstructed.
sometimes we assimilate new information: changing your schemas to fit into what you’ve learned.
sometimes we distort information: Changing our memories to keep the schemas intact and unchanged. We do this by levelling and sharpening: levelling: involves removing or downplaying details from our memories. Sharpening: adding or exaggerating details.
Confabulation: schemas filling the gaps in our memories, or applying to pressure to remember details in a way to fits out schemas.
rationalisation: reasoning with what happened.
AO1 Study: (+) Allport and Postman 1947 showed participants a drawing of an argument on the subway train. They were asked to describe what happened through serial reproduction. The black character was better dressed, and more respectable than the white character. After serial production white pps swapped the appearances. Some even described the Black character having a knife. This is an example of distortion (changing details to fit into our schemas)
Evaluating Bartlett’s Theory of Reconstructive memory
(+) Another strength is the successful application of the theory to real world behaviours. For example, the police now employ the cognitive interview when speaking to witnesses of a crime, this allows for the witness to state what they saw without interruption limiting the chances of leading questions, this in turn preserves the memory rather than changing it
(+) There is strong evidence supporting this theory.One key example is Bartlett’s War of the Ghosts study. In this study, participants were asked to recall a Native American story over time. Bartlett found that their recollections became distorted, with details being changed to fit their own cultural expectations. They changed “canoe” to “boat” and “hunting seals” to “fishing” (confabulation) removing the supernatural element by not mentioning “ghosts” (levelling- removing details) This supports the idea that memory is reconstructive, as it suggests people unconsciously alter information to make it more familiar and meaningful to them.
(-) Real life evidence goes against the idea that our memories are contaminated in stressful situations. For example: Yuille and Crutshall showed that witnesses of a real life incident had accurate memories of stressful events. The police interviewed months later and recall was still found accurate, even when involving leading questions. Disputing claims that memories can be infiltrated.
(-) War if the Ghost was conducted in the 1920s, there was little control over variable and no standardised procedure was used. This intern reduces the reliabilty and credibility of the study, as you cannot infer cause and effect neither replicate the study.
Case Studies AO1:
An in-depth investigation of a single person, group, event or community. Typically the data is collected from a variety of sources, and uses several different methods. In cognitive psychology this could be: investigating a brain damaged patient, assessing effects of brain damage on memory. A real-life example of this was HM.
use multiple methods (triangulation) such as interviews, questionnaires, observations, psychological tests, medical records, and brain scans to gather comprehensive data. In cognitive psychology this may also include memory tests, and cognitive functioning.
In the participants natural setting: this may include their home environment, monitoring everyday behaviour
Longitudinal design: in cognitive psychology, this would be monitoring how memory improves over time, or how memory decline . HM was monitored for 50 years.
HM case study aim
Aim: Investigate the structure of memory as revealed in HM behaviour and the function of brain structures like the hippocampus.
HM case study sample
Sample: Adult Male, HM. Aged 27 at the beginning of the study. He suffered from both retrograde amnesia (loss of memories before the brain operation) and anterograde amnesia (loss of memories after the brain operation.) He was considered to have “clean” amnesia as he had no other mental problems.
HM Case Study procedure:
Early tests were simple recall tasks: asking him questions from his childhood, adulthood and before the operation. She also tested his stm and ltm recall. Finally she tested his IQ, General Knowledge, and perception.
HM was asked to trace the correct route from a maze with his finger. He was presented with this task numerous times, to see whether he could remember the route, even if he didn’t remember doing the task before.
HM was also had to trace between the lines of a star template from only looking in the reflection of a mirror. He was asked to re- attempt this task multiple times to see whether he grew more skilled at the procedure.
The looked at the effects of punishment and reinforcement: whether giving him mild electric shocks would increase the likelihood of him remembering the correct answers.
what were the results of HM case study:
HM forgot all new experiences within 30 seconds. However he remembered information from before his 16th birthday.
His personality was consistent, good language skills, and an above average IQ.
HM had clear knowledge of past events (Wall Street crash, and WW2) Yet he could not remember where he lived, who cared for him, or what his last meal was.
He remembered how to play tennis, but could not remember being taught to play tennis.
Over 252 attempts HM did not improve on the maze task. However he showed improvements on the star task, making fewer mistakes on each attempt.
what were the conclusions of HM Case Study?
Concluded that the hippocampus had a role in transforming STM into LTM, as this was something HM could not do- he forgot event after 30 seconds
HM did not improve at the maze task, when he figured out the correct route for the maze he immediately forgot it. (couldn’t convert STM in LTM) However, HM improved on the star task despite not remembering doing it before.
This suggests that HM remembered skills even if he forgot events. Tucking explain this as HM having an impaired episodic memory (recall of events, but intact procedural memory (skills) and semantic memory ( facts and concepts)
Evaluating HM Case Study:
(+) The case study of HM provided valuable insights into the role of the hippocampus in memory formation. (add AO1) This finding was crucial for understanding memory processes and supported the distinction between different types of memory (e.g., procedural vs. declarative memory). However, because HM was a unique case, the findings may not be generalizable to the wider population, limiting their external validity.
(+) The case study of HM provided in-depth, detailed data on memory loss and brain function.Researchers used multiple methods, including interviews, MRI scans, and memory tests, to study his condition over many years.his allowed for a comprehensive understanding of memory processes, making the findings highly valid and reliable.
(+) Tulving’s ideas are credible because they are supported by lab experiments like Baddeley (1966b). Baddeley showed that LTM is confused by word lists with similar meanings. LTM must be encoded semantically because similar sounding word lists had no such effect.
(-) Reductionist, case studies like KF & HM show STM to be more nuanced and complex
(-)The findings from HM’s case may not be applicable to everyone.HM had a unique medical history (epilepsy and surgery), meaning his brain damage was not representative of the general population.is limits the external validity of the study, as his memory impairments may not apply to others with different types of brain damage.
