Cognitive Psychology 2 Flashcards
Changing History - Sacchi
Sacchi investigated how doctored photographs of past events affected the memory of participants . The participants were Italian and were shown both original and doctored images depicting the 1989 Tiananmen square Protest and the protest against the way in Iraq .
Participants were given questions which had to be answered then and there . Those who saw the doctored photo of the Beijing event produced a higher estimate for the amount of participants , and those who saw the doctored image of Rome said that the event was more violent , more negative than those who saw the original .
Finally the conclusion was that participants who viewed the doctored images had an affect on the way they remember past public events , theirs attitudes as well as their behaviors . The age did not alter the results by much as concluded by the study .
Schmolck Study (2002)
The patient studied was Henry Gustave Molaison or more commonly known as HM . Due to epileptic seizures he got during a bike accident , he had surgery to fix it after it started to get worse after 16 . This procedure caused his hippocampus as well as other parts of the brain to be removed . His seizures stopped at the cost of permanent amnesia .
Schmolck compared H.M. with other patients with similar brain issues to see if any comparison could be made between brain structure and semantic memory.
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Schmolck Study (2002) - Aim
The aim was to find out if Semantic LTM is linked to a particular part of the brain.
The study had 2 purposes which include ;
1) To see the similarities between test performances and the extent of damage to the lateral temporal cortex .
2) To see if any aspects of H.M. were unique compared to the other patients .
Schmolck Study (2002) - Sample
The sample Included 8 controls with no brain damage , 6 patients with damage to the MTL and 3 patients had damage to the temporal cortex (MTL+)
Schmolck Study (2002) - Procedure
There were a total of 9 tests , all of which were based off of 48 drawings . Half of these were animals ahile the other half were objects . These pictures were grouped in sixes .
Schmolck Study (2002) - Results
For similar pictures the controls got all of them right , therefore generally performing well . The MTL+ group performed quiet badly in all tests .
H.M. performed better than the MTL+ patients but worse when compared with the MTL patients .
The best performance was gotten by the MTL patients , with the controls coming second and the MTL+ patients in third .
Schmolck Study (2002) - Conclusion
With the test results we can come to a clear understanding of there being a connection between the Loss of LTM and damage to the Temporal Cortex
