IB Psych SL Cognitive Approach

Working Memory Model

• Model that relates to the formation of the short term memory, 4 parts

• Central Exectutive: controls attention and coordinate subsystems; “manager”

• Episodic Buffer- temporary store that holds visual, auditory info

• Phonological loop: processes auditory info for (1.5-2 seconds)

  • “Inner Ear”

• Visuospatial Sketchpad- processes visual information

  • Inner Eye

Studies:

KF: case study, damage to STM

• Remembered verbal information but not visual; suggests there are separate stores for visual and verbal info

Robbins

Multi-Store Model

Model that suggests information from the short-term memory needs to recieve attention to transfer to long term memory

• If info in STM is rehearsed, it moves to LTM

Studies that support:

HM,

Schema Congruence

Information that is in line with our past experience and knowledg

Schema Incongruence

Info is not align with our prior experiences and knowledge

Schema

Mental representations derived from prior knowledge and experiences

• Help us to predict what to expect

• Used to organize knowledge, assist recall, guide behavior, and make sense of current experiences

Dual Process Model

Theory that decision making and thinking is split into two systems

System 1 (Dual Processing Model)

Intuitive

• Fast, Non conscious and automatic form of thinking

• Uses heurisitics

• More Prone to errors

System 2 (Dual Processing Model

Rational

• slow, effortful thinking

• Requires thinking about all possibilities and gradually eliminating them

• Slower but less prone to errors

Heurisitic

Rules of thumb that can be applied to guide decision making based off of available information

• Rely on less information

• Makes decision making faster

Cognitive Misers

Theory that states we tend to minimize the amount of effort to think

Cognitive Load

used amount of working memory resources

• When cognitive load is high, we are more likely to use system 1 thinking

Reconstructive Memory

act of remembering is influenced by other cognitive processes such as perception, past experience, imagination, and beliefs

Misinformation Effect

Tendency for post-event information to interfere with the memory of the original event

Flashbulb Memories

highly detailed snapshot of a moment in which a shocking event took place

• Brown and Kulik, talarico and ruben

Adrenaline

hormone linked to the human flight or fight response

Amygdala

responsible for encoding emotional memories

Ethic Go- tos (Cognitive)

Deception

Brewer and Treyens

• schema theory

AIM: see if schema affects memory

METHOD: correlational

PROCEDURES:

• 30 University Students taken into an office for 35 seconds

• Taken out and asked to recall objects in the room, werent told they would need to.

RESULTS:

• People remembered things that werent there- stereotyical office items such as a pen stapler and books

• Forgot items that were there that werent stereotypical to an office

Suggests that Schema can have an impact on memory

Robbins

• working memory model

HM

• multi-store model

loftus and palmer

• schema theory, reconstructive memory

englich and mussweiler

• thinking and decision making- anchoring bias

AIM: wanted to know if a request for the length of a prison sentence would influence the decision by the judge

PROCEDURES: experiment, independent measures

• 44 german law students in last year, control for courtroom experience

• case of alleged rape, prosecuter recommended ½ sentences

  • low anchor: 12 months

  • high anchor: 34 months

• given case materials and copies of penal code and asked to read materials and form opinion about case

RESULTS:

low anchor: 12 months: average sentence 18.78 months

high anchor: 34 months: average sentence 28.7 months

tversky and kahnanmen

• anchoring hueristic

AIM: see if first number seen would influence estimate of value by participant

PROCEDURES:

• experiment: independent measures: high school students

• quickly estimate sum of product:

  • ascending condition: 1×2×3×4×5×6×7×8

  • descending condition: 8×7×6×5×4×3×2×1

RESULTS: median ascending condition was 513

• median descending condition was 2250

• actual answer: 40320

chou and edge

• availability heuristic

AIM: test influence of avaliability hueristic on how FB users evaluate themselves in comparison to others

PROCEDURES: survey with 10 point likert scale

• collected info on FB users, # of friends they had, time spent with friends in person

RESULTS:

• people who spent more time online indicated that people where happier and had better lives than them

• people who spent more time with friends were less likely to indicate that people were happier and had a better life

yuille and cutshall

• reliability of memory, reconstructive memory

AIM: see if leading questions would affect the memory of an eyewitnesses of real crimes

PROCEDURES: contacted 13 witnesses 4 months after events of crime- 13 agree, gave account, asked questions

= 2 leading questions- broken headlight/ yellow panel

• ½ “a” - ½ “the”

• - nobroekn headlight, panel was blye

• - asked to rate stress on day of event on a 7 point scale

RESULTS:

• the eyewitnesses were actually very reliable - with an accuracy between 79 and 85%.

talarico and ruben

• study of flashbulb memories

AIM:

METHOD:

PROCEDURES:

RESULTS:

EVAL:

brown and kulik

• flashbulb memories

AIM:

PROCEDURES:

RESULTS:

EVAL:

Blacker (HL)

• positive effects of tech

AIM: investivate the extent to which action video games may improve quantity and quality of information stored in visual component of working memory model

PROCEDURES: train for 30 hours for continuous stretch of 30 days

• prior training- self report motivation for visual working memory task (0-9)

• another self report about how they engaged and rate level of enjoyment and absorption

1. action playing condition: asked to play action videogame like modern warfare in single-player mode

2. non-action game condition: asked to play simcity (control group)

RESULTS:

• action game participant demonstrated significant improvement in change detection tasks while non-action game participants did not

loftus and pickerall

• reconstructive memory

AIM: determine if false memories of autobiographical events can be created through the power of suggestion

PROCEDURES: 3M, 21F

• before: family members contacted and asked 2questions

  • 1. retell 3 participant childhood memories

  • do you remember a time when the participant got lost in a mall

• questionnaires sent to participants in the mail- asked to recall about 3 real memories and the “lost in mall”- told to write “i dont remember” if they didn’t remember- interviewed twice over 4 weeks

• asked to recall as much info as possible about the events and rate confidence on a scale of 1-10

• 2nd interview: debriefed and guessed which memory was false

RESULTS: 25% recalled false mall memory- ranked as less confident than others- wrote less on questionaire when asked to recall

• proves that the brain can formulate false memories through suggestion, reliability of memory is weak

avaliability hueristic

cognitive bias in which we make judgements on how accessible information is and how easily it comes to your mind

representative hueristic

we judge something or someone based on how well they fit into our schema/mental category

anchoring hueristic

we judge something based off the first part of information provided