P1 - Cognitive - Digi Tech Flashcards
what is digital technology?
electronic tools, systems, devices and resouces that generate, store or process data. These include social media, online games and mobile phones.
what does the UK’s Office of Communications (2021) say about digital technology?
UK adults spent almost 4 hours a day on computers, tablets and smartphones
18-24 year olds spend an average of 5 hours online a day
what is the google effect?
also called digital amnesia, is the tendency to forget information that can be found readily online by Internet search engines.
what is transactive memory?
knowledge of where information can be found and how to access it, such as dad may not remember birthdays of family members, because he knows mum will remember them. because of the relationships access to the information whenever it is needed, there is no need to commit that info to LTM
in digital technology, what two things do we look for in the studies?
positive or negative influence
reliable or unreliable memory
what does Sparrow et al (2011) aim to look into
To investigate if we invest less effort in committing information to memory if we believe we can simply retrieve the information from an external memory store such as Google, at a later date.
what was Sparrow et al’s (2011) procedure?
2x2 indpendent samples design -
participants asked to type 40 trivia facts into a computer, which represent new knowledge and other facts which are more likely to be known
- save condition : told the computer store everything
- erased condition: told the info would be erased
- save remember: told the computer would store it, but told to try and remember
- erased remember: told the info would be erased, but told to try and remember
what were Sparrow et al’s (2011) findings?
no significant difference to the participants ability to recall trivia when asked to remember
but significant difference if the participant believed that the information would be stored in the computer.
what was Sparrow et al’s (2011) conclusion?
if they believed they would be able to retrieve the information, they made far less effort to remember the information.
- less likely to use memory if you can retrieve it from an external memory store such as google
- using online platforms to remember info means people are less accurate when they are asked to recall it, shows that intial memory was unreliable
critical thinking for Sparrow et al (2012)
+ clearly manipulates IV to establish clear relationship between IV and DV
- research is new and needs testing for reliability, confirmation bias
- relies on trivia information, lacks ecological validity
what is the social comparison theory?
Festinger 1954, shows there is a drive within individuals to have accurate self-evaluations and we determine our self worth based on how we compare to others.
how does social media impact our self evaluations?
- more influenced by negative comparison
- people present ‘best case scenario’ online and this shows upward comparisons
- availability heuristic (Chou and Edge, 2014), are likely to remember the most different from our own, e.g remember posts describing people having the most fun and compare our own experience against the benchmark
what does Chou and Edge (2012) aim to test?
To test the influence of the availability heuristic on how Facebook users evaluate themselves in comparison to other people.
what is Chou and Edge (2012) procedure?
- opportunity sample of 425 US undergraduate students.
- Participants completed a survey including a 10 point Likert scale allowing them to indicate how strongly they agreed with a series of statements such as “many of my friends have a better life than me” or “many of my friends are happier than me”.
- indicated how many hours a week they spent on Facebook, how long they had used FB, the average time spent actually with friends per week, and the number of ‘friends’ on Facebook whom they did not actually know personally.
what are Chou and Edge (2012) findings?
Participants who spent the most hours per week on Facebook were more likely to agree that ‘other people are happier than me’.
By contrast, those who spent the most time out with friends in the ‘real world’ were very unlikely to feel that ‘other people are happier than me’ or ‘many of my friends have a better life than me’.
Interestingly, those participants who reported having a larger number of contacts not personally known to them were very likely to agree that ‘many of my friends have a better life than me’ but did not feel that other people were happier.
what is Chou and Edge’s (2012) conclusion?
The more time spent on Facebook means that examples of other people engaged in exciting, fun, and social activities are more ‘available’ - and Facebook users are very likely to compare their own lives to these examples. In addition, they found that we over-estimate the extent to which the behaviour of other people reflects their disposition rather than their situation.
For example, we tend to think “Mary is always posting exciting status updates because she is much more fun than me” rather than “Mary is away on holiday at the moment; of course, she is posting lots of interesting things”
critical thinking for Chou and Edge (2012)
+ testing young people is appropriate as more engaged with social media
+ Shakya and Christakis (2017) demonstrated negative correlation between liking other content and mental health
- bidirectional ambiguity, did fb reduce mental health, or did they already have it
- self reported data
what is the theory behind the studies that show the positive effect of digi tech?
dual systems theory
what did Bavalier et al (2011) aim to investigate?
to investigate the connection between action games and decision making
what was Bavalier et al (2011) procedure?
studied men and women, average age of 26 who said they had not played video games in the past year
group 1: play video games for two hours for a total of 50
group 2: play a simulation game in which they had to make decisions about a character’s life
after 50 hours of game time,
both groups were then asked to do a simple test which had dots, and they had to determine which way the dots were moving in, but some were more complex
What were the findings of Bavalier et al’s (2011)?
those who had played the action game who did the task faster with fewer errors, as they were able to decipher a large amount of information more quickly
what was Bavalier’s et al (2011) conclusions?
this suggests that regular video games use can lead to more reliable and quicker thinking and decision making than those who don’t regularly play video
critical thinking of Bavalier et al (2011)
+ high temporal validity: tells us about effects of modern technology
+ control group: can determine cause and effect
- low population validity: only used people under the age of 26
- weren’t tested beforehand and so they could have simply had quicker thinking and decision making before hand
Glass, Maddow and Love (2013) aim
to investigate whether playing a fast-paced video game can improve strategic thinking
Glass, Maddow & Love (2013) procedure
72 undergrad female students volunteers from Uni of Texas, Austin - participants had to play video games for less than two hours a week on average
measured cognitive flexibility at the beginning of the study where they had to switch between cognitive tasks and think on their feet, this also included a stroop test
asked to play video games for 40 hours over 8 weeks, either a fast paced game (starcraft) and simulation game (sims)
at the end of 8 weeks, congitive flexibility was rmeasured
what are Glass, Maddow & Love (2013) findings?
those who had played Starcraft had shown greater improvements in cognitive flexibility
what are Glass, Maddow & Love (2013) Conclusion??
regular video games can use lead to more reliable and quicker ‘cognitive flexibility’ than those who play a simulation game
critical thinking for Glass, Maddow & Love (2013)
+ high temporal validity
- longitudinal
- small sample and only females
+ tested participants cognitive flexibility before and after
what is emotion?
conscious mental reaction subjectively experienced as strong feeling usually directed toward a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioural changes in the body
Schaefer et al (2011) aim
to see if there is a difference in memories of the 9/11 attacks depending on reception contexts
what is the procedure of Schaefer et al (2011)
38 uni students were asked to do a free recall of when they heard the news of 9/11 both 28 hours after and then 6 months later
immediate viewing: saw the event live on tv
delayed viewing: saw the event hours later
responses were coded by two independent researchers who coded the responses for: time, location, what they were doing, informant, presence of others, clothes worn, first thought, feelings, what they did after
critical thinking for Schaefer et al (2011)
+ tested at different intervals
+ coded by two different independent researcher who didnt know the hypothesis
- different number of participants in each condition
- could have been influenced by the media since
what were the findings of Schaefer et al (2011)
The quantity of information provided in the initial and follow-up reports, based on the number of canonical categories and word length, did not differ with regard to reception context. However, the delayed viewing of images resulted in less elaborate and less consistent accounts over the 6-month interval.
what is the conclusion for Schaefer (2011)
Receiving emotional information via television doesn’t make you remember more information. However, over time, information first learnt through the media was more reliable and detailed. Therefore, being exposed to emotional information via digital media does enhance the reliability and depth of information over time.
what is depression?
a mental disorder characterised by at least two weeks of low mood that is present across most situations
what is CBT based on?
Beck’s cognitive triad of negative views of ‘self, experiences, future’
what does CBT consist of?
12-20 weekly sessions, daily practise exercises,
what is maladaptive thinking?
a belief that is false or rationally unsupported
e.g i did not get top marks so i will fail the real exam
Titov et al (2009) findings
74% completed all lessons within 8 week programme
signifcantly reduced symptoms of depression as measured by Beck Depression Inventory and the Patient Health Questionaire
what is iCBT?
internet based CBT
can overcome many obstacles such as geographical distance, social stigma, cost of treatment, numbers of healthcare providers that are available
Titov et al (2009) aim
to determine the efficacy of an internet-based clinician-assisted computerised CBT programme for depression
Titov et al (2009) conclusion
These results replicate those from the researchers previously pilot trail and are consistent with literature indicating that Internet-based programmes for depression and other mental disorders, combined with clinical guidance, can result in clinically significant improvements. These data provide further support for the development of Internet-based treatment for common mental disorders.
titov procedure
45 individuals meeting diagnostic criteria were randomly assigned to either Sadness Programme or waitlist control group.
participants complete six online lessons, weekly homework assignments, recieve weekly email contact from a psychologist, and online discussion forum
critical thinking for Titov et al (2009)
+ high in temporal validity
+ used classifying technique
+ real life applications
- self answer questionaire
- ethical issues: waitlisted
- small sample size
