Psychology Paper one things i have forgotten

starting with perception

describe interference theory as a factor affecting the accuracy of memory

-interference is when we have difficulty recalling info due to other info getting in the way

-more likely to occur when two memories are similar

-reduces accuracy when recalling

Proactive:

-old info interferes with new info, preventing recollection of new info

Retroactive:

-new info interferes with old info, preventing recollection of old info

Explain why interference studies may lack validity

-studies often involve the use of artificial materials such as word lists, which may not represent real-life memory tasks, reducing ecological validity

-interference studies are conducted in controlled lab settings, may not reflect how memory works in natural uncontrolled environments, questioning external validity

Describe Bartlett’s theory of reconstructive memory

-the way we store and recall info is an active process

MEMORY IS INACCURATE:

-memory of an event will be different to a friend, as you store memory in fragments in a different. way to them

RECONSTRUCTION:

when we need to recall an event, we take the small fragments of info stored and actively rebuild the memory, each time we tell the story, we reconstruct the fragments differently

SOICAL AND CULTURAL INFLUENCES:

-when storing and retrieving memories, we adjust them to fit our social and cultural understanding of the world. These could include stereotypes about people, or changing words in a story that makes it more culturally relevant to the storyteller. Bartlett called this ‘the social psychology of remembering’.

EFFORT AFTER MEANING:

-we focus on the meaning of a memory or story first, then we make an effort to interpret the meaning of these memories by changing them into more familiar terms

Evaluate Bartlett’s theory

-supporting research is representative of memory in the real world, War of the Ghosts study used storytelling activities with real stories, increased external validity as it can be applied to real-life storytelling

-real world applications, can be used to explain disparities in two eyewitness testimonies of an event, and how they can each be different to what actually happened, increases external validity

-some memories are accurate and not reconstructed, some are highly personal eg first day of school and are rarely altered, cannot be applied to all memorise as some do not go through the reconstructive process

Evaluate Dweck’s Mindset Theory

-research support: conducted a study with low achieving students, half attended a session

about how they can apply a growth mindset to their learning, whilst the other half

attended a control group session with just facts about memory, The students in the

growth mindset group had improved motivation and grades compared to the

control group, showing growth mindset leads to success, and can be taught

-can inform effective teaching practices, praising students for effort leads to a growth mindset, can be used to help students succeed

-may unfairly place blame on the child for low performance, if too much emphasis is placed on their mindset and not other factors such as poor quality teaching, places too much pressure on children.

Describe praise and self-efficacy

-expressing approval or admiration for the effort into, or the standard of a piece of work, receiving praise gives a rewarding sensation, making us want to repeat the action that was praised, because it increases our self-esteem and motivation.

-self-efficacy is the belief in your own capabilities to succeed at a specific task or to produce certain levels of performance

-shaped by our past experiences with a given task

-sense of our own competence can also come from what others say

-self-efficacy affects motivation - high efficacy leads to greater task persistence & more resilience to failure

Evaluate our understanding of praise and self-efficacy

-research to support the idea that higher self‐efficacy leads to higher academic performance, researchers found that students high in academic self-efficacy participate more in lessons, work harder, and show more task persistence, increases validity

-practical applications, researchers found that students previously praised for effort coped better when faced with challenges than those praised for performance, teachers can learn to use praise more effectively to improve self-efficacy and therefore outcomes of students

-praise might actually reduce motivation, researchers found when children had been offered a reward for doing something they were less interested performing the task than if they had not been offered the reward in the first place, they learned to do the task for the external reward rather than for their own interest, reducing motivation in the long term.

Evaluate learning styles

-practical applications to teaching, argued that traditional methods focussed too much on verbal techniques alone, best strategy is to adopt a mixed approach, beneficial to children’s outcomes.

-lack of supporting evidence, no methodologically soundidence that shows accommodating learning styles can improve performance, undermines the validity of the approach

-too many learning styles for us to practically implement effective learning strategies, as many as 71 different learning styles, questions the validity of the concept.

Describe Willingham’s learning theory

Describe McGarrige & Donaldson’s Naughty Teddy Study

-A: too see if children can conserve when the display change is accidental compared to deliberate
-M: 80 children from Edinburgh were each shown 2 rows of 4 counters that were equidistant from each other. In the deliberate coniditon, the researcher made pushed the counters in one row together, in the accidental condition, a ‘naughty teddy’ made the row look smaller, the same question was asked after each condition, ppts took part in both conditions
-R: deliberate condition - 41% accuracy, accidental condition 68% accuracy, overall primary school children were more accurate than nursery children
-C: Piaget underestimated children’s abilities, as a scenario that was more relatable found that children were able to conserve, however, there were still age difference

Evaluate McGarrigle and Donaldson’s study

-scientific method
-use of a teddy bear - ecological validity
-biased sample, lowers generalisability of results

Describe Hughes’ Policeman Doll study

-A: to investigate egocentrism with a child friendly task
-M: 30 children aged 3.5 - 5 years old from Edinburgh were split into groups based on their ages and introduced carefully to the task of hiding a doll from a policemen: a model of two intersecting walls simulated a room, and as a practice the policeman was placed in different rooms to ensure they understood, then the experiment began and the policeman was placed so that he could see into two of the four rooms, then a second policman added to leave only one room available for the boy doll to be hidden
-R: children were able to hide the boy doll from the policemen on average 90% of the time, however the oldest group were more accurate ((95%) than the younger groups (88% each)
-C: Piaget underestimated a child’s abilities, as a task that was more relevant to children than the three mountains Piaget used found that children were not as egocentric as Piaget though

Evaulate Hughes’ policman doll study

-scientific method
-use of a doll is realistic - ecological validity
-biased sample - lowers generalisability

Evaluate Bartlett’s War of the Ghosts study

-external validity - can explain mistakes when discussing other cultures in the real world

-didn’t use scientific method - no standardisation

-may be subject to researcher bias: qualitative data is interpreted by Bartlett only

Describe the monocular depth cue of height in plane

objects higher in the visual field are perceived as being further away

Describe the monocular depth cue of relative size

when objects you know are the same size appear to be different sizes, you perceive the smaller one to be further away

Describe the monocular depth cue if linear perspective

when lines are parallel, they appear to converge the further out you look

Describe the monocular depth cue of occlusion

objects that are blocked by other objects are perceived as being behind them, and so further away

Describe the binocular depth cue of retinal disparity

our eyes are roughly 6cm apart, so each retina picks up slightly different images of the visual field

-the closer the object is, the bigger the disparity, the further away an object is the less of a disparity

Describe the binocular depth cue of convergence

-the brain interprets the level of strain on the muscles that control the eyes, giving us an understanding of how far away an object is

-when an object is close, eye muscles contract more so that we can focus on it

-when an object is far away, our muscles are more relaxed and converged, as they don’t need to work as hard, so look more forward

Describe misinterpreted depth cues

-when our brains perceive distance when it’s not actually there, causing objects to be scaled up or down when they shouldn’t be, causing an illusion

Describe ambiguity

when there are two or more possible interpretations of an image and the brain can’t decide on which one it is seeing, so it focuses on one interpretation at a time

Describe fiction

the image may suggest that something is there when in reality it isn’t

our previous experiences with similar images then creates an expectation of seeing something that doesn’t exist

Describe size constancy

when seeing something far away, it looks a lot smaller than it actually is, but our brain perceives it as being the same size

Define monocular depth cues

ways of perceiving depth or distance using only one eye

-cues are visible in 2D, for example in a photo

-retinal disparity, occlusion, relative size linear perspective

Define binocular depth cues

ways of perceiving depth or distance using both eyes, not only one

-give us a perception of 3d depth

-retinal disparity & convergence

define primacy effect

when information presented at the beginning of the list is more likely to be recalled than information in the middle/end of the list, since the items have gone through enough rehearsal to enter the long-term memory store

define recency effect

when information presented at the end of a list is more likely to be recalled than information presented in the middle/beginning since the items are still fresh in the short term memory

Describe Gibson’s theory

-bottom-up theory - our immediate sensory experiences give us all info necessary to judge distance, depth and movement

-sensation is perception

-perceptual abilities are innate, since they are important for survival, it is in our nature

MOTION PARALLAX: a monocular depth cue, objects closer appear to move quicker compared to objects far away

-we see objects in more detail and brighter the closer they are to us

-OPTIC FLOW PATTERNS - the rest of our visual field appears to flow away from the stationary target we are moving towards, the speed of this flow tells us how fast we are moving towards it.

Evaluate Gibson’s theory

-research supports innate perception - Gibson and Walk’s visual cliff experiment with infants, could not have learnt it - innate

-struggles to explain visual illusions, brain draws wrong conclusions from visual stimuli, based on past experiences, fails to explain, whereas Gregory’s can

-doesn’t explain how culture can affect perception, research showed people living in cultures with more rounded building not tricked by Muller alter, shows untrue plays a role, decreases validity of Gibson’s theory.

Describe and explain how culture affects perceptual set

-past experiences and upbringing + social world around us can affect beliefs and attitudes

-brain adapts to the sensory info we experience the most - differs between cultures

-research into people from different cultures not being tricked by Muller-lyre illusion since they have no past experiences of seeing interior and exterior edges of buildings

define perceptual set

-a tendency to notice or prefer certain aspects of the environment whilst ignoring others

Describe and explain emotion affects perceptual set

-our current mood affects sensitivity to info in the environment

-more likely to notice something that aligns with our current emotion - affects our interpretation and perception of a situation eg. anger or sadness - negative aspects

-people take longer to perceive something they find unpleasant, as they may try to block it out.

Describe and explain motivation as a factor affecting perceptual set

-if we make a consious effort to look for something, we are more likely to see it

-when we are deprived of something we crave, our perception of ambiguous figures eg. Necker Cube and Rubin’s Vase: when we want to see the other interpretation, we can.

Describe and explain how expectation affects perceptual set

-we may have a predisposition or readiness to perceive something a particular way, so we often jump to conclusions to save time (or to see what we want to see), sometimes creating inaccuracies in our perception

-constructivist - expectations are heavily influenced by past experiences

-PRIMING: perception can be influenced by another person telling us their interpretation of something ambiguous before we experience it

Describe early brain development

-3rd week: multiplying cells form the neural plate, folds over to form the neural tube
-4th week: neural tube divides into forebrain, midbrain, hindbrain and spinal cord
-6th week: forebrain divides into what will become the cortex and the thalamus
-15th week: cerebellum forms in the hindbrain
-6th month: general shape and structure of the brain is fully formed, but not yet reched its full size

Describe assimilation and accommodation of schemas using examples

-ASSIMILATION: new info is learnt or a new situation is experienced that is similar to or more advanced to what we have in our schema, we add the knowledge to develop the pre-existing schema eg. child seeing a sportscar
-ACCOMODATION: new info is learnt that is drastically different to our schema, we either make big changes to our pre-existing schema or develop one or more new schemas to deal with the new info eg. a child seeing a tractor

Evaluate Piaget’s theory

influential in education, learning now focuses on child’s own discovery, real world applications
-supporting research involves a biased sample, only middle class families from Switzerland, lowers generalisability to other socioeconomic groups
-may have underestimated children’s abilities in first 3 stages, Hughes, McGarrigle and Donaldson - more child friendly - more developed thinking, suggests stages are not accurate

Describe how Piaget’s theory can be applied to education

-Readiness: a child cannot acquire a skill until they are biologically ready - activities must be age apporopriate to be effective
-Sensorimotor - stimulating environment, eg toys to also learn moto co-ordination
-Preoperational - games involving role play to reduce egocentrism, hands-on activites for conservation
-Concrete - practical materials, instructions for logical sequencing
-Formal: scientific activity, group discussions