McGaugh and Cahill ERQ

Question 1

What can this study be used for?

Answer 1

Hormones, reliability of cognitive process, emotion and cognitive process

Question 2

Year

Answer 2

McGaugh and Cahill (1995)

Question 3

Background

Answer 3

• Hormones are chemical molecules that act as messengers in the body
• Produced in endocrine system by glands
• E.g., pituitary gland produces melotonin and adrenal glands produce cortisol
• Long-acting
• Growth, metabolism, behavior
• Adrenaline is associated with activation of amygala, fight or flight, produced by adrenal gland near the kidneys

Question 4

Aim

Answer 4

Study the role of emotion in the creation of memories

Question 5

Experimental design

Answer 5

Repeated measures design

Question 6

Participants

Answer 6

-

Question 7

Procedure

Answer 7

-Participants saw 12 slides which were accompanied by a different story
- Boring condition heard a story about a woman and her son visiting his father in a hospital where they visited the staff in a disaster preparation drill
- In the second condition, they heard a story where the boy was involved in a car accident were his feet were severed. The boy’s limbs had to be reattached and he stayed in the hospital for several weeks with his mom
- Afterwards they took a recognition task test that required participants to answer simple questions about the stories, such as what profession was the boy’s father
- In a followup study in 1999 the study was repeated and this time the ‘traumatic story’ participants were injected with a beta blocker or placebo, supposed to interfere with release of hormone adrenaline

Question 8

Results

Answer 8

• In the original study, researchers found that participants recalled more details of the emotional story
• In the follow-up, they found that beta-blockers reduced recall of details and traumatic story participants did similarly to those of the mundane story

Question 9

Link to hormones

Answer 9

• This shows that adrenaline plays a role in formation of memories

Question 10

Evaluation

Answer 10

+ Cause-and-effect relationship can be established since researchers could effectively block adrenaline release
- Low ecological validity
+ Easy replication
+ High internal validity, since this was a lab experiment