cognitive psychology in paper 1 Flashcards

1
Q

multi store model of memory

define capacity

A
  • how much information this store can retain.
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2
Q

multi store model

define encoding

A
  • how long this store can retain info for.
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3
Q

multi store model

define maintenance rehearsal.

A
  • acoustically repeating knowledge in your head.
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4
Q

multi store model

define elaborative rehearsal

A
  • the way you get information from your short term memory to your long term.
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5
Q

multi store model

define retrieval

A
  • the process by which memory are acessed at a later date.
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6
Q

multi store model

define decay

A
  • when learnt material fades over time unless its practiced and used.
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7
Q

multi store model

define displacement

A
  • Once the memory is full, new information will replace the old one, short term memory has a limited capacity.
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8
Q

multi store model

define interference

A
  • when some information makes it difficult to recall similar material.
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9
Q

multi store model

what is ionic memory?

sensory memory

A
  • visual information from the eyes, stored as images.
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10
Q

multi store model

what is echoic memory?

sensory memory

A
  • auditory input from the ears, stored as sounds.
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11
Q

multi store model

what is haptic memory?

sensory memory

A
  • tactile input from the body, stored as feelings.
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12
Q

multi store model

what is sensory memory?

A
  • when information from the environment is encoded through the senses, each one having a different store.
  • i.e. haptic memory.
  • information is stored for 1 sec unless we pay attention then it enters our STM.
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13
Q

multi store model

what is short term memory?

A
  • a temporary store that has a capacity of 5-9 items.
  • it can be held for up to 30 secs.
  • information is mainly encoded acoustically, if its elaboratively rehearsed it can be transferred to the LTM.
  • information can be maintained with maintence rehearsal.
  • if information isnt rehearsed, it is forgotten by decay or displacement.
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14
Q

multi store model

what is long term memory?

A
  • has an unlimited capacity.
  • its duration is from minutues to a lifetime.
  • information is mainly encoded semantically (in terms of its meaning).
  • information is forgotten by decay or interference.
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15
Q

multi store model

what is a stregnth of this model?

A
  • there is evidence from case studies of people with brain damage that supports the distinction between STM and LTM.
  • Clive Wearing still rememebered his wife but not the things she just said.
  • demonstrating to exsistence of seperate STM and LTM stores, damage of the STM prevents the transfer of information to the LTM.
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16
Q

multi store model

what is weakness of this model?

A
  • the description of the STM may be to simplistic.
  • dual task experiments show that we perform poorly when trying to complete two similar tasks at the same time, but that we perfom well when doing two tasks of a different nature. This cant be explained by the MSM.
  • therefore working memory model may be a better explantion as it explains dual task performace and is seen as a more dynamic model of STM.
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17
Q

working memory model

what does the model explain?

A
  • how information is temporarily stored and manipulated.
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18
Q

working memory model

what is the central executive?

A
  • an attentional process that has a supervisory role, it focuses and divides and switches our limited attention.
  • its able to briefly process different forms of information, i.e. acoustic, visual
  • it allocates slave sub systems tasks.
  • it has a very limited processing capacity and doesnt store information.
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19
Q

working memory model

what is the phonological loop?

A
  • a slave system which temporarily stores verbal information
  • it encodes acoustically.
  • its divided into the articulatory process and the phonological store.
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20
Q

working memory model

what is the articulatory process?

A
  • A process that allows maintence rehearsal.
  • it has a capacity of 2 seconds.
  • i.e. repeating a phone number in your head while you look for a pen.
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21
Q

working memory model

what is the phonological store?

A
  • a store which stores auditory information.
  • i.e. you’ll be able to hold auditory memory of your teachers last sentence when they dictate notes to you in class to write down.
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22
Q

working memory model

what is the visuospatial sketchpad?

A
  • can temporarily store visual or spatial information.
  • i.e. can visualise a map of the route when asked.
  • has a limited capacity of 3 to 4 objects.
  • can be subdived into the visual cache and the inner scribe.
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23
Q

working memory model

what is the visual cache?

A
  • it briefly stores visual data including shape and form of 2D objects.
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24
Q

working memory model

what is the inner scribe?

A
  • it briefly records the arrangement of objects in the visual field (3D).
  • i.e. mental picture of a diagram before drawing it.
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25
Q

working memory model

what is the episodic buffer?

A
  • A temporary store that integrates the acoustic, visual and spatial information processed by other subsystems.
  • it also maintains a sense of time sequencing (recording events).
  • has a limited capacity of 4 chunks.
  • it combines other subsytems and LTM.
  • I.e. visualising ur house and counting the number of windows in your head.
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26
Q

working memory model

what is a stregnth of this model?

A
  • theres evidence fom case studies of brain damage patients also support the idea of separate short term memory stores.
  • an example being shallice and warrington (1974) who reported the case of KF who suffered STM impairment following a motorbike. KF had a digit span of 1, suggesting a gross impairment in his phonological store, but his visual memory was intact.
  • Therefore supporting the proposal that working memory has 2 subsytems to deal with verbal and visualspatial information relatively independently.
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27
Q

working memory model

what is a weakness of this model?

A
  • there are problems in specifying the precise functioning of the centeral executive.
  • Elisinger & Damasio (1985) describe a case study of a man with brain damage resulting from the removal of a brain tumour. His reasoning was good, his IQ was high and he coped well with interference during memory tasks, indicating tht his CE was working fine.However, his decision making was poor.
  • if the CE was a single system we would expect none of these abilities to be affected therefore implying that the CE is not a single system.
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28
Q

long term memory model

what did Tulving propose with this model?

A
  • LTM could be divided into episodic memory (remebered experiences) and semantic memory (remebered facts).
  • These stores were different in the way they stored memories, i.e. time referencing.
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29
Q

long term memory model

what is episodic memory in the nature of memory?

A
  • a mental diary which stores memories in an autobiographical way linked to time and context of an individuals life.
  • i.e. if you’ve been to south africa in the summer you’ll know its hot bc you’ll remember the sun shining etc.
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30
Q

long term memory model

what is semantic memory in the nature of memory?

A
  • a mental encylopaedia storing words, facts, rules, meaning and concepts as an organised body of knowledge.
  • the memories are associated with other facts that link the concepts togther like school and learning.
  • i.e. if you’ve never been to south africa in the summer but u know its hot your using semantic storage.
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31
Q

long term memory model

what is episodic memory in time referencing?

A
  • memories of events that have happened to you are linked to the time in which they occured.
  • i.e. remebering ur first day of school will be linked to the date this occured, you’ll remember how old u were & who ur teacher was etc.
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32
Q

long term memory model

what is semantic memory in time referencing?

A
  • is detached from any temporal link and u can recall this information without referencing to when it was learned.
  • i.e. can recall that adjectives describe a noun without remembering where u learnt it.
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33
Q

long term memory model

what is episodic memory in spatial referencing?

A
  • input into episodic memory is continuous as we experience a whole episode in one temporal frame of reference.
  • i.e. memories of a birthday party contains experiences over a period of time and within a time frame, it cant be later added to.
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34
Q

long term memory model

what is semantic memory in spatial referencing?

A
  • memory input in a fragmented way, we can piece together factual information which has been learned at different times.
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35
Q

long term memory model

what is episodic memory in retrieval?

A
  • recall is dependant on the context in which the event was learnt or experienced.
  • i.e. info can be easily be recalled in the same setting.
  • lack of cues can lead to forgetting.
  • its more autobiographical and is susceptible to transformation (change).
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36
Q

long term memory model

what is semantic memory in retrieval?

A
  • recall isnt dependent on context of learning, its based on inferences, generalisation and logical thought.
  • making it unlikely to be forgotten, dont need cues.
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37
Q

long term memory model

what is a stregnth of this model?

A
  • theres evidence from brain damaged patients that support Tulvings idea of 2 separate stores.
  • KF suffered braind damage after a motorbike accident and left him unable to recall memories of personal events (episodic) but he was able to recall facts (semantic).
38
Q

long term memory model

what is a weakness of this model?

A
  • other studies like HM and Clive Wearing show a weakness in the model.
  • in both cases they were unable to recall long term info from episodic storage but were able to perform tasks like playing the piano.
  • therefore there must be a further long term store for remebering practical skills which is shown in his reformation model in 1985.
39
Q

reconstructive memory

what did Bartlett suggest?

A
  • That memory isnt a tape recorder of our lives but a reconstruction of it.
  • its not perfectly formed but perfectly encoded and then retrieved.
  • our previous knowledge of the world affects the way that memories are stored or recalled, we try to make sense of new info with info we already know.
40
Q

reconstructive memory

what is a schema?

A
  • the mental structure which holds prior knowledge about the world around us, built from personal experiences.
  • it saves the brain processing power, it knows what to expect (predictions).
  • but it can alter memory and cause prejudice.
41
Q

reconstructive memory

what are the 3 patterns of distortion?

A
  • confabulation
  • levelling
  • rationlisation
42
Q

reconstructive memory

what is confabulation?

A
  • changing or adding details aligned with your schemas.
  • i.e. the canoe changed to a boat.
43
Q

reconstructive memory

what is levelling?

A
  • when memories are shortend, some information is deemed irrelevant.
  • i.e named places were removed.
44
Q

reonstructive memory

what is rationalisation?

A
  • when parts are changed as they’re deemed irrational.
  • i.e. the youths were frightened instead of 2 young men.
45
Q

reconstructive memory

what is a strength of this?

A
  • its supported by empirical research evidence.
  • in Bartletts war of ghosts study, participants altered the story each recall, confabulating and rationalising the information.
  • illustrating how we have subjective memory construction rather than an accurate objective recall that other model suggest.
46
Q

reconstructive memory

what is a weakness of this?

A
  • further research shows that he may be incorrect.
  • Wynn and Logie (1988) conducted a replication and found that there was only a small reduction in the amount of information recalled.
  • therefore showing that real life situations which are more familiar may be less susceptible to reconstruction than implied. (in fact more like a tape recorder).
47
Q

classic study - baddeley 1966

what was the aim of the study?

A
  • to investigate the influence of acoustic and semantic on learning and recall in short term and long term memory.
48
Q

classic study - baddeley 1966

what was the procedure?

A
  • the participants consisted of 72 men and women recruited from the applied psychology research unit and the uni of cambridge and were assigned 1 of 4 list conditions.
  • each list of 10 words was presented via a projector at a rate of 1 word every 3 secs.
  • after they were asked to do an interference task.
  • they were then asked to recall the word list in 1 min in the correct order. (done 4 times)
  • they were then givien a 15 min interference task and suprised with a retest of the sequence.
49
Q

classic study - baddeley 1966

what was the findings of this study?

A
  • recall of acoustically similar sounding words was worse than the dissimilar sounding words during the initial phase of learning.
  • however it wasnt statistically significant after the suprise retest.
  • demonstrating that acoustic encoding is initially difficult but didnt affect LTM.
  • semantically similar words were more difficult to learn than the dissimilar ones and recalled signficantly fewer in the retest.
50
Q

classic study - baddeley 1966

what was concluded?

A
  • short term memory is largely acoustic, making acoustically similar sounding words more difficult to encode.
  • encoding in long term memory is largely but not exclusively semantic.
51
Q

classic study - baddeley 1966

what is a stregnth of this study?

A
  • highly controlled, the study can be regarded as replicable and reliable.
  • can be applied to the wider world to improve long term recall, has validity, useful students revising.
52
Q

classic study - baddeley 1966

what is a weakness of this study?

A
  • lacked mundane realism, the findings of STM/LTM encoding may not represent real life memory.
  • however it can be argued that in order to understand memory we need to remove the context in which normal memory is used and simplify it.
  • it lacked ecological validity, took place in a lab, indiviidual couldve tried harder than they normally would to remember.
53
Q

contemporary study - sebastian and hernandez gil 2012

what was the aim of the study?

A
  • to investigate the development of the phonological loop component of working memory.
  • they aimed to do this by using verbal digit span.
  • they wanted to confirm the finding of studies with anglo-saxan participants ( that digit span increases with age).
54
Q

contemporary study - sebastian and hernandez gil 2012

what was the procedure of this study?

A
  • 570 volunteered participants were taken from schools in Madrid.
  • Divided into 5 different age groups and the average digit span was recorded for each age and age group.
    Participants read an increasing sequences of digits to recall in the correct order.
    The digits were read out at a rate of one per second and the digit list increased one digit per sequence.
    The digit span for participants was recorded as the maximum digit recalled in the correct order without error. ( 2 out of 3)
55
Q

contemporary study - sebastian and hernandez gil 2012

what were the findings of the study?

A
  • digit span increased with age.
  • youngest age group had a digit span of 3.76 wheras the oldest had a mean one of 5.91.
  • digit span in a healthy group of erderly people was similar to the ones with dementia (anglo-saxon)
  • the average digit span was lower in spanish kids than english ones.
56
Q

contemporary study - sebastian and hernandez gil 2012

what was concluded?

A
  • Digit span was found to increase with age. - Digit span in Spanish population is significantly shorter than Anglo-Saxon Culture, probably due to the word length effect associated with digits.
  • Comparing the findings to research into patients with degenerative neurological disease and the aged population, it is possible to speculate from this research that poor digit span is a result of ageing rather than dementia.
57
Q

contemporary study - sebastian and hernandez gil 2012

what was the strength of this study?

A

replicable
- A strength is that the researchers used several standardised procedures.

For example, the digits were read aloud at a constant rate of one per second for every participant. These procedures ensured that the experience of the study did not vary greatly from one participant to another. This means the outcomes could not be attributed to differences in how the procedure was conducted, but only IV (age).

The tight controls also mean the study can be replicated to test verbal digit span across cultures to understand cross-cultural developmental and individual differences in phonological processing in working memory.

58
Q

contemporary study - sebastian and hernandez gil 2012

what is a weakness of this study?

A
  • Mundane realism
    Digit sequence recall is artificial and has limited task validity as children are unlikely to learn random sequences of numbers in their day-to-day experiences.
    Therefore, this limits the usefulness of the findings on phonological loop development in children.
59
Q

what is an advantage of a lab experiment?

A
  • highly controlled, so there will be no extraneous variables affecting it, therefore increasing internal validity
60
Q

what is a disadvantage of a lab experiment?

A
  • it’s a more artificial environment, there’s limited applicability and participants might try harder to give the results research’s might want.
61
Q

what’s an advantage of a field experiment?

A
  • it’s a more natural environment, behaviours are more representative, increasing mundane realism and ecological validity.
62
Q

what’s a disadvantage of a field experiment?

A
  • difficult to control, extraneous factors might affect results.
63
Q

what is an independent variable?

A
  • the element of the study which is directly manipulated.
64
Q

what is a dependant variable?

A
  • the element which is measured.
65
Q

what is a null hypotheses?

A
  • states that the IV will have no effect on the DV.
66
Q

what is a experimental hypothesis?

A
  • states that the IV will have an effect on the DV.
67
Q

what is a directional (one tailed) hypotheses?

A
  • states the direction of the results, it predicts the nature or directions of the outcome.
68
Q

what is a non-directional (two-tailed) hypothesis?

A
  • doesn’t state the direction of the results, it could go in either direction.
69
Q

what are the different types of experimental designs?

A
  • independent group design
  • matched pairs design
  • repeated measure design
70
Q

what are the potential issues of an experimental design?

A
  • order effects
    participants may be better on the 2nd test as they already have experience or may do bad due to being tired or bored.
  • demand characteristics
    may be cues in the research situation which leads to participant altering behaviour.
  • participant variables
    age or intelligence may play apart
  • number of participants involved
71
Q

case studies

what are case studies?

A
  • a research method where unique individuals who have suffered brain damage are studies.
  • they gather data by asking questions, running tests (mri), medical records, friends and family.
72
Q

case studies

explain the case study of HM.

A
  • HM had a surgery to remove his hippocampus in an attempt to stop his epileptic seizures.
  • after he was able to form new memories like his new address, after a while, he wasnt able to recall previous memories.
  • however he was able to write his signature meaning his procedural long term memory was intact.
  • suggesting that the hippocampus must play a role in explicit (semantic) long term memory and not implicit (procedural) long term memory.
73
Q

case studies

what are the strengths of case study research?

A
  • allows us to gain insights in to how memory works.
    . impossible to recreate in lab conditions.
    . useful as we learn about diffferent parts of the brain and the different types of memory.
  • allows invesitgation into memory in an ethical way.
    . not ethically or practically ossible to recreate in a lab.
    . making them particularly useful.
  • HM helped made it clear that there is 2 types of long term memory.
74
Q

case studies

what are the weaknesses of case study research?

A
  • can be difficult to generalise due to the uniqueness of each individuals.
    . might be other damage
    . making it hard to assume
  • rely on retrospective data about an individuals memory prior to their damage.
    . friends and family might show bias, not reliable
    . valid concluscions cant be drawn
75
Q

cognitive investigation practical

what was the aim?

A
  • to investigate whether short term memory encodes acoustically similar words better or acoustically dissimilar words better.
76
Q

cognitive investigation practical

what was the procedure?

A
  • 10 participants
  • independant group design
  • IV = word type
  • DV = how many words recalled
  • opportunity sampling
  • participants were either put into condition A or B and shown 1 of 2 lists of 10 words.
  • each word was displayed for 3 secs on a screen, after that all the words were presented in the wrong order and the participants had to recall them in the correct order.
77
Q

cognitive investigation practical

what were the findings?

A
  • mann whitney u test
  • as the U value is 9.5 which is greater than the critical value of 4, the results arent significant.
  • condition A = 4.4
  • Condition B = 5.2
  • dissimilar done better (condition B)
78
Q

cognitive investigation practical

what is a strength?

A
  • followed a standarised procedure.
  • all participants were given the same written instructions on what to expect during the experiment.
  • Each word was shown on the screen for 3 seconds for every participant.
  • eliminated the extraneous variables.
79
Q

cognitive investigation practical

what was a weakness?

A
  • Participants were tested in different environments.
  • . Due to the limitations of resources, some participants had to be tested in noisy, public environments, while others had silent rooms.
  • Extraneous situational variables, such as the noise could have affected the concentration of my participants. Decreasing the internal validity, as environmental factors could have affected the recall abilities of my participants, rather than acoustic similarity of the word lists
80
Q

cognitive investigation practical

what could be improved?

A
  • conduct the experiment in the same place for every participant, e.g. a quiet library, to ensure every participant has the same experience and noise would not affect my participants concentration. Therefore, I could be certain that the only influence on their recall ability is word type and not the environment.
81
Q

Cognitive Key Question

what is the key questions?

A

is eyewitness testimony too unreliable to trust?

82
Q

Cognitive Key Question

what are eyewitness testimonies?

ao1

A
  • Eyewitness testimonies are reports of an incident given by people who were present at the time of an event
  • People have been imprisoned purely based on a witness giving an account of what they believe they saw
  • If eyewitnesses are unreliable people may be imprisoned incorrectly
83
Q

Cognitive Key Question

name some data.

a01

A
  • There have been 375 DNA evidence-linked exonerations between 1989 and 2020, where 69% of cases were convicted based on eyewitness misidentification.
  • On average 9.1 years of a person’s life is lost per wrongful conviction, with a total of 32,789 years of people’s lives lost to incarcerations.
  • for every 8.3% of executions in the US, a wrongfully convicted death-row prisoner is exonerated.
84
Q

Cognitive Key Question

describe the ronald cotton case.

ao1

A
  • Cottons conviction relied on the testimony of one witness and there were many problems with the way information was gained from the witness after the crime.
  • Later, DNA evidence proved that he was not guilty, and he was released from prison 11 years later.
    Implications on society:
    Bobby Poole continued to offend whilst Cotton was in prison.
85
Q

Cognitive Key Question

what is weapon focus?

ao2

A
  • When an eyewitness sees that a weapon is being used during a crime, they tend to focus on it.
  • This distracts them from encoding other information that may be relevant to their testimony.
  • Therefore, they remember less about the event because they were distracted by the weapon, which can make their testimony unreliable.
86
Q

Cognitive Key Question

why does attention and arousal affect weapon focus?

ao2

A
  • Attention – because a weapon is so unusual in many cultures, it is focused on more closely at the expense of peripheral information
  • This focus causes eyewitnesses to encode less information about the crime.
  • Arousal – The Inverted U Theory suggests that the high state of arousal caused by the presence of a weapon might make the eyewitness focus on the weapon but remember less about other details.
87
Q

Cognitive Key Question

how does reconstructive memory affect eyewitness testimonies?

A
  • Witnesses may be more accurate in their identification of own race suspects than those of a different race.
  • may use schemas to incorrectly fill in the gaps in their memory resulting in an unreliable testimony and identifying the wrong suspect.
88
Q

issues and debates

how might we have ethical issues in psychology?

ao1

A
  • case studies
    . lack of anonimity
    . patients might lack the compentance to give consent.
    . allows ethical ways to research brain damaged individuals.
  • lab experiments
    . more ethical, participants can give consent to tests and can withdraw.
    . controlled environment, easy to debrief.
89
Q

issues and debates

how can research have no ethical problems?

ao3

A
  • Baddeley (1966b) (LAB)
    . Easy consent; asking people to recall lists of words dont require special ethical permission (e.g ppts cannot change their memory so there is no need to deceive ppts, so no need to get permission for deceit)
    Learning word lists presents no risk of harm (psychological or physical) to ppts.
90
Q

issues and debates

how can research pose ethical problems?

ao3

A
  • Clive Wearing/HM (CASE STUDY)
    . Amnesia impacts researchers’ ability to get valid consent as they would not remember the study being explained to them.
    Researchers have to use presumptive consent given by doctors or carer of HM and Clive Wearing to avoid issues with guidlines.
91
Q

issues and debates

what are practical issues in psychological research?

A
  • Practical issues include trying to control research to ensure replicability and increase reliability.
  • Considering design based on appropriateness, cost and time constraint.
  • Choosing how to sample participants
  • Choosing what research method is most appropriate.
  • Balancing realism with control.
92
Q

issues and debates

how do we see practical issues in cognitive research?

A
  • Lab:
    High control over extraneous variables, like noise.
  • Case study:
    Provide rich in-depth data about unique individuals which can be highly useful but lack generalisability.

Difficult to study memory in naturalistic settings due to range of variables that are difficult to control.
Therefore, most research is lab based and uses artificial tasks.