Working Memory

Question 1

Why do we categorise things?

Answer 1

Adds structure and simplifies information, reducing time to think - we’re cognitive misers (Fiske and Taylor, 1991)

Question 2

Human brain cannot cope with how many friends?

Answer 2

more than 150 Dunbar, 2006

Question 3

What is temporal primacy?

Answer 3

features encountered first

Question 4

What is perceptual salience?

Answer 4

when differences are very salient

Question 5

What is chronic accessibility?

Answer 5

when we’re very used to classifying using particular categories

Question 6

Despite social categorisation helping us to navigate our world…

Answer 6

it leads to stereotyping

Question 7

Hutter and Crisp (2005) found…

Answer 7

frequency analysis of traits used to describe gender social categories

Question 8

When is categorisation not used?

Answer 8

when there’s a poor fit
may be a sub-type of original category
may be individuated

Question 9

Person perception is based on…

Answer 9

…a continuum running from categorisation to individuation (Fiske and Neuberg, 1990)

Question 10

Hutter and Crisp (2005) gave the example of a bricky from Oxford Uni as…

Answer 10

poor compositional compatibility

Question 11

What does poor compositional compatibility result in?

Answer 11

Causal reasoning

Question 12

What is a naive scientist? (Heider, 1958)

Answer 12

looking for cause in our social world to achieve coherence

Question 13

What is dual processing?

Answer 13

actively switching processing styles when forming impressions

Question 14

Who’s continuum model is widely used?

Answer 14

Fiske and Neuberg’s (1990)

Question 15

What is a key aspect of the continuum model?

Answer 15

allocation of attention

Question 16

Working memory was developed by…

Answer 16

Baddeley and Hitch (1974)

Question 17

What are executive functions concerned with? (LaDoux, 1996)

Answer 17

co-ordinating direction and operations of working memory

Question 18

Where are executive processes associated with?

Answer 18

the frontal lobes - the prefrontal cortex

Question 19

What’s the social brain hypothesis?

Answer 19

Dunbar (1998) human intelligence did not evolve to solve information about the world in the environment, but a means to live in large and complex social groups

Question 20

What were Dunbar’s (1998) assumptions based on?

Answer 20

Humans have large prefrontal cortex (neanderthals had larger visual processing areas and we less successful group wise)

Question 21

What do social skills allow for?

Answer 21

Group co-ordination and communication of ideas

Question 22

Why has social cognition incorporated WM?

Answer 22

to understand social perception

Question 23

What are five methods for testing executive processing in social perception?

Answer 23

dual tasking
populations with involvement
ageing populations
substances
brain neuroimaging techniques

Question 24

Hutter and Crisp (2006) dual tasking study…

Answer 24

found perceiving incongruent social conjunctions requires executive resources

Question 25

Hutter, Wood and Dodd (2011) ageing study…

Answer 25

Older vs younger adults describe a male midwife. Older found it harder to resolve inconsistency through use of existing social categories

Question 26

Why are older perceivers more likely to maintain categorical boundaries?

Answer 26

Incorporating a target would involve changing their current categorical structure

Question 27

Two additional measures of executive ability are…

Answer 27

digit symbol substitution test (attention)

stroop (inhibition)