Cognitive Approach studies

Aim (Glanzer & Cunitz)

To determine whether delayed recall influences the number and position of words recalled from a list

Procedure (Glanzer & Cunitz)

The sample consisted of 46 army men, and the participants were first given three 5-word practice lists to learn the procedure. They were shown fifteen 15-word lists on a projector, with all of the words being common one syllable words. The words were each shown for one second with a two second delay between words, and the researcher read the word as it appeared on the screen. After being shown the list, the participants were either told to write as many words as they could remember immediately, or to count from a number that appeared on the screen until the researcher stopped them at either 10 or 30 seconds. The study used a repeated measures design, so the order in which they did the conditions was randomized, and each participant was tested individually.

Results (Glanzer & Cunitz)

In the immediate recall condition, the first five and last three words were recalled best, demonstrating the primacy and recency effect. In the delayed recall conditions, the words at the beginning of the list were still remembered, but recency effect was greatly reduced, being almost non-existent for the 30 second recall condition. This suggests that the earlier words were held in long-term storage because of rehearsal, but the later words became displaced because they were held in short-term storage.

Evaluation (Glanzer & Cunitz)

Strengths:

• Repeated measures design controls for participant variability

• Cause and effect can be established

Limitations:

• Artificial task (low ecological validity)

• The sample is not representative of the entire population (army men could be used to memorizing things)

Aim (Landry & Bartling)

To investigate if articulatory suppression would influence the recall of a written list of phonologically dissimilar letters in serial recall

Procedure (Landry & Bartling)

Participants were shown ten lists with a series of seven letters picked from F, K, L, M, R, X and Q (because they don’t sound similar), one list at a time. The participants had an answer sheet with seven blanks in each row and saw a practice list before the experiment began to become familiar with the procedure. In the control group, participants were shown a printed list for five seconds, told to wait five seconds, and then told to write the correct order on the sheet. This was repeated ten times. The procedure for the experimental group was similar, but they were instructed to say the numbers 1 and 2 at a rate of two numbers per second (an articulatory suppression task) while the list was being shown and while waiting to write (also repeated ten times). The trials were scored as correct if all of the letters were in the correct order, and the average percent correct recall for both groups was calculated.

Results (Landry & Bartling)

The average percent correct recall was 76% for the control group and 45% for the experimental group. The standard deviations were nearly identical. A T test showed that there was a significant difference between the groups (p ≤ 0.01). This implies that articulatory suppression was preventing rehearsal in the phonological loop, and supports the working memory model.

Evaluation (Landry & Bartling)

Strengths:

• High internal validity (well-controlled)

• Cause and effect can be established

• Findings have been replicated (reliable)

Limitations:

• Artificial task (low ecological validity)

Aim (Warrington & Shallice)

To investigate the memory of KF, who suffered brain damage to his left parietal occipital region from a motorcycle accident and had impaired short term memory, but intact long term memory

Procedure (Warrington & Shallice)

Series of tests, included reading lists of words and numbers and presenting them visually

Results (Warrington & Shallice)

KF could not immediately recall lists of words or numbers, but he was able to learn. For example, he could learn a 10 word list and retain most of the items months later. If multi-store model was sufficient, this wouldn’t be possible because you would need an intact short term memory to move information to long term memory. He wasn’t able to remember words or numbers when presented orally, but he could remember them when presented visually. He also was able to recall non-verbal sounds, like a phone ringing. Researchers concluded that his brain damage only caused impairment to verbal auditory memory storage, leaving non-verbal and visual memory storage intact. This supports the working memory model by demonstrating that visual and auditory information are stored in different parts of the brain and that memory is more complex than the memory store model.

Evaluation (Warrington & Shallice)

Strengths:

• Method and researcher triangulation increase credibility

• High ecological validity

Limitations:

• Difficult to generalize results

Aim (Brewer & Treyens)

To investigate the role of schema in the encoding and retrieval of episodic memory

Procedure (Brewer & Treyens)

Participants (86 university students) were seated in a room decorated like an office. The room included objects typical of an office, such as a typewriter and paper, as well as objects one wouldn’t expect to see in an office, such as a skull or toy top. There were also typical office objects deliberately omitted, such as books. The participants were told to wait in “the professor’s office” while the researcher “checked to make sure the previous participant had completed the experiment”. The participant did not realize that this was actually the experiment. They were told to have a seat, but all the chairs except one had objects on them, which ensured that all participants had the same vantage point of the room. The researcher left the room, said he would return shortly, and called the participant into another room 35 seconds later. The participants were asked what they remembered from the room and given a questionnaire, the most important question being “did you think you would be asked to remember the objects in the room?”. Participants were divided between three conditions: recall, drawing, and verbal recognition. In the recall condition, they were asked to write down a description of as many objects in the room as they could remember, including location, shape, size, and color. They were then given a recognition test where they were shown objects and asked to rate each one on how sure they were that it was in the room. In the drawing condition, participants were given an outline of the room and asked to draw the objects they remembered. In the verbal recognition condition, participants were read a list of objects and asked whether or not they were in the room.

Results (Brewer & Treyens)

93% of participants did not expect to be asked what was in the room. In the recall and drawing condition, participants were more likely to remember schema-congruent objects, and less likely to remember schema-incongruent objects. In the verbal recognition condition, participants had a higher rate of recognizing schema-incongruent objects, but also a higher rate of remembering schema-congruent objects that were not in the room. Participants in the recall and drawing condition were more likely to change the nature of their objects to fit their schema (they said the notepad was on the table even though it was on the chair). The results indicate that schema played a role in encoding and recalling memories of objects in the office.

Evaluation (Brewer & Treyens)

Strengths:

• A pilot study was conducted to determine schema-congruent objects

Limitations:

• Schema of participants before the experiment could not be verified

• Deception was used in the study (participants agreed to be in the study but were not informed on what the study actually was and when it began; this was necessary to prevent demand characteristics)

Aim (Bartlett)

To determine if cultural background and unfamiliarity with a text would lead to distortion of memory when the story was recalled

Procedure (Bartlett)

British participants were told the Native American legend The War of the Ghosts. This story was chosen because it included concepts, names, and structures that were unfamiliar to the participants. Participants were assigned to either repeated reproduction (hearing the story and then recalling it after progressively longer time intervals) or serial reproduction (recalling the story to another person who then had to repeat it).

Results (Bartlett)

There wasn’t a significant difference between the recall conditions, and both groups changed (distorted) the story as they recalled it. The story was changed in three main ways: assimilation (details of the story changed to better fit British culture), leveling (information deemed unimportant was removed to make the story shorter), and sharpening (the order of the story was changed so that it would make more sense to a British audience). Detail and emotion was also added. Participants tended to remember the main themes of the story and it remained coherent, although unfamiliar elements were changed to better fit their cultural expectations. This implies that remembering is an active process in which information is changed to fit existing schema to create meaning.

Evaluation (Bartlett)

Strengths:

• Many applications and explains many real-life situations (high ecological validity)

Limitations:

• General lack of standardization and methodological control (instructions weren’t standardized, participants weren’t told to be as accurate as possible, and time intervals between recall were not standardized)

• Low reliability (results have not been replicated, but could be because there wasn’t a specific enough procedure to follow)

• There wasn’t a significant IV manipulated in order to determine causality

Aim (Cox & Griggs)

To see if matching bias was less commonly used to solve the Wason Selection Task when the task was personally relevant

Procedure (Cox & Griggs)

Participants were given a workbook with three problems, and the order was different across six randomly allocated groups to counterbalance order effects. For each task they were asked what cards would need to be turned over to prove the statement true. The abstract statement was “if a card has an A on one side, then it has a 3 on the other side”, with one card showing A, one showing B, one showing 2, and one showing 3. The intermediate statement was “if a person is wearing blue, then the person must be over 19 years old”, with the cards showing wearing blue, wearing green, 22 years of age, and 16 years of age. The memory cueing statement was “if a person is drinking beer, then that person must be over 18 years old”, with the cards saying drinking beer, drinking coke, 22 years of age, and 16 years of age.

Results (Cox & Griggs)

5/144 (3%) solved the abstract task correctly, 62/144 (43%) solved the intermediate task correctly, and 87/144 (60%) solved the memory cueing task correctly. Researchers also found that if the abstract task was first, participants were more likely to show matching bias in the following tasks. Therefore, when the task cued memories of a past experience, a more logical approach was taken, but if the task was abstract, heuristics tended to be used.

Evaluation (Cox & Griggs)

Strengths:

• Study has been replicated (results are reliable)

• Repeated measures design controls for participant variability

• The study is counterbalanced to control for order effects

Limitations:

• Highly artificial task (low ecological validity)

• Some factors are not accounted for, such as the importance of the decision or the role of others in decision making

• Sampling bias (study was done only on undergraduate psychology students; not representative of the entire population)

Aim (Englich & Mussweiler)

To determine whether the request for a certain length of a prison sentence would influence the decision made by a judge

Procedure (Englich & Mussweiler)

To control level of experience, the sample consisted of 19 young trial judges with an average of 9 months of experience. The participants were presented with an alleged case of rape, with the prosecutor in the high anchor condition recommending a 34 month sentence, and the prosecutor in the low anchor condition recommending a 2 month sentence. The case materials were developed with advice from highly experienced trial judges, and a pilot study was conducted on senior law students to determine a prison term of 17 months as a basis for the anchors. The participants were given the case materials and the penal code, and were given 15 minutes to read the materials and form their opinion. They were then told what the recommended sentence for their condition was and given a questionnaire. The questionnaire asked “do you think the sentence was too low, adequate, or too high?”, “what sentence would you recommend?”, “how certain are you about your sentencing decision?” (a scale of 1 – 9), and “how realistic do you think this case is?” (a scale of 1 – 9).

Results (Englich & Mussweiler)

The low anchor group suggested an average sentence of 19 months, with a standard deviation of 9, and the high anchor group suggested an average sentence of 29 months, with a standard deviation of 6.5. The average certainty of the participants was 4.5, while the average certainty of the pilot group was 7. It appears as though anchoring bias did influence the decisions of the judges.

Evaluation (Englich & Mussweiler)

Strengths:

• Cause and effect between anchor and sentence can be established

• The pilot group allowed reasonable anchors to be established and demonstrated system 2 thinking, as opposed to the system 1 thinking used in the experimental group

Limitations:

• Independent samples means participant variability could have impacted the results

• Small sample size (19) makes it difficult to generalize findings

• Sample was only young, inexperienced judges, so the findings are best generalized to this small group

Aim (Loftus & Palmer)

To investigate whether the use of leading questions would affect estimations of speed

Procedure (Loftus & Palmer)

45 students were divided into five groups of nine. Seven films of traffic accidents taken from driver’s ed films, ranging from 5 to 30 seconds in length, were shown. After watching a film, participants were asked to give an account of the accident and fill out a questionnaire, with the most important questions being to estimate the speed of the cars in the accident. This question was the same for all groups except for the critical word; one group got the question “about how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?”, and the others had the same question but hit was replaced by collided, bumped, smashed, or contacted.

Results (Loftus & Palmer)

The mean estimates of speed were highest for the smashed group (40.8 mph) and lowest for the contacted group (31.8 mph). A statistical test showed that the results were significant (p ≤ 0.005). The results indicate that the critical word impacted the participants’ responses. Researchers argued that response bias could have caused this; if a participant was unsure of the speed, a strong verb like smashed would bias their estimate. It is also possible that the verb changed the participants’ perception of the accident by activating schemas. This supports the theory of reconstructive memory, in that it is not the actual details that are remembered, but rather what fits with the schema.

* In a follow-up experiment using just the verbs hit and smashed after being shown a video of an accident, those who received the question with smashed were more likely to report seeing broken glass in the video (16/50 vs 7/50; 6/50 for the control that didn’t estimate speed) when filling out a questionnaire a week later, even though there was none. This demonstrates that schema processing was used to inform their perception of the accident.

Evaluation (Loftus & Palmer)

Strengths:

• Confounding variables are controlled

• Cause and effect can be established

Limitations:

• Low ecological validity (films were for teaching purposes and don’t reflect the emotional state of witnessing an accident)

• Students are not representative of the entire population (sampling bias; students tend to be inexperienced drivers)

• It is difficult to estimate the speed of a car

Aim (Yuille & Cutshall)

To determine whether leading questions would affect the memory of eyewitnesses at a real crime scene (the same as Loftus and Palmer but with a real event)

Procedure (Yuille & Cutshall)

21 eyewitnesses were interviewed by the police for their account of an armed robbery in which the store owner was shot (this incident was chosen because there were many eyewitnesses and forensic evidence could confirm the eyewitness accounts). 13 of the eyewitnesses agreed to be in the study four months afterwards, in which they gave their account of the incident and were asked questions. Two leading questions were asked; half the participants were asked if they saw “a” broken headlight on the getaway car while the other half was asked if they saw “the” broken headlight, and the same thing was done when asking about a yellow panel on the car (there was no broken headlight and the panel was blue). Participants were also asked to rate the level of stress during the incident from 1-7.

Results (Yuille & Cutshall)

The accuracy of the eyewitness compared to police reports was 79-84%, and they did not make errors because of the leading questions (10/13 said no to the leading questions). This contradicts the results of Loftus and Palmer*, and could be explained by the presence of an emotional response, since, although the witnesses didn’t report feeling afraid, they reported an adrenaline rush.

*A higher percentage of people remembered false information in this study than Loftus and Palmer, which means that leading questions may still impact reconstructive memory

Evaluation (Yuille & Cutshall)

Strengths:

• The accuracy of memories could be verified

• Consent was given by all participants, so recalling the incident would not cause undue stress or harm

• Naturalistic setting (high ecological validity)

Limitations:

• The study is not replicable or generalizable (it is a specific instance)

• Variables were not controlled (difficult to know the level of rehearsal; the participants could have agreed to be in the study because they had spent the most time talking about the case)

• This could be a case of flashbulb memory because the participants’ safety was threatened, which would mean it can’t be compared to Loftus and Palmer

• Attempted deception (ethical concerns)

• Qualitative responses could be open to researcher bias

• Very small sample size

Aim (Loftus & Pickrell)

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

Procedure (Loftus & Pickrell)

Before the study, a parent or sibling of each participant was asked for three childhood memories of the participant and if they were ever lost in a mall. The participants then received a questionnaire by mail asking them to describe four memories: the three real ones and getting lost in the mall. They were told that if they didn’t remember the event they should write “I do not remember this”. The participants were interviewed twice over four weeks, in which they were asked to recall as much information about the events as they could and to rate their confidence in their memories from 1-10. They were debriefed after the second interview and asked to identify what the false memory was.

Results (Loftus & Pickrell)

About 25% of participants “remembered” getting lost in the mall, but they also ranked this memory as lower confidence than the others and wrote less about it in the questionnaire.

Evaluation (Loftus & Pickrell)

Strengths:

• Memories could be verified through parents or siblings

• High ecological validity (talking about memories is a realistic situation)

• Findings have been applied to eyewitness testimony and therapy

Limitations:

• Doesn’t explain why some people were more susceptible to suggestion than others

• You can’t determine whether the new memory is truly a false memory or if it is just a distortion of a real memory of getting lost

• Ethical concerns around deception and the potential stress of having a false memory implanted

• The participants could have spoken with someone when filling out the questionnaire at home (contamination)

• Potential demand characteristics (social desirability)

Aim (Tversky & Kahneman - 1986)

To test the influence of positive and negative frames on decision-making

Procedure (Tversky & Kahneman - 1986)

Participants were asked to make a decision between two hypothetical responses to the outbreak of a contagious disease. For participants in the first condition, the choices were framed positively: if program A is chosen then 200 people will be saved, if program B is chosen then there is a ⅓ probability that 600 are saved and a ⅔ probability that no people will be saved. The options were presented with a negative frame in condition 2: If program C is adopted 400 people will die, and if program D is chosen there is a ⅓ probability that nobody will die and a ⅔ probability that 600 people will die. Note that program A is the same as program C and program B is the same as program D, just framed differently.

Results (Tversky & Kahneman - 1986)

In the positive framing condition, 72% of participants chose program A, and in the negative framing condition, 78% of participants chose program D. When the options were framed positively, more people chose the certain outcome, but when the options were framed negatively, more people chose the risky option. This demonstrates the influence of the framing effect.

Evaluation (Tversky & Kahneman - 1986)

Strengths:

• High internal validity

• Cause and effect can be established

• Highly standardized (replicable)

• Reliable results

• The framing effect has many applications such as marketing and health campaigns

Limitations:

• Low mundane realism (hypothetical situation; in a real situation like this there would be more emotion involved and many people would be making the decision together)

• Sampling bias (Western university students)

Aim (Tversky & Kahneman - 1974)

To determine the effect of anchoring on estimating the value of a math problem

Procedure (Tversky & Kahneman - 1974)

The participants were high school students placed in either the ascending or descending condition. In the ascending condition, participants were asked to estimate the value of 1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8 in five seconds, and in the descending condition, participants were asked to estimate the values of 8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1.

Results (Tversky & Kahneman - 1974)

The ascending group estimated a median value of 512, while the descending group estimated a median value of 2250. The actual value is 40320. This demonstrates that the first number was used as an anchor to influence the size of the estimate.

Evaluation (Tversky & Kahneman - 1974)

Strengths:

• Easily replicated (reliability can be established)

• High internal validity (highly controlled)

• Cause and effect can be established

• The median was reported for the results, which decreases the impact of outliers

Limitations:

• Low ecological validity

• Independent samples means that participant variability can impact the results (matched pairs would have been better because it ensures both groups have an equal level of math ability)

Aim (Brown & Kulik)

To investigate whether surprising and personally significant events can cause flashbulb memories

Procedure (Brown & Kulik)

40 Black and 40 white American male participants were given a questionnaire with questions regarding their experiences with the deaths of public figures (e.x. JFK and MLK Jr.) and someone they personally knew. These questions included “where were you when you heard about the event?”, “who was with you when you heard about the event?”, “what were you doing when you heard about the event?”, “how did you find out about the event?”, “how did you feel when you heard about the event?” (to indicate the level of emotion), “how important was this event in your life?” (to indicate personal relevance), and “how often have you talked about this event?” (to indicate rehearsal).

Results (Brown & Kulik)

90% of participants remembered a large number of details about the days these events happened, with most participants also having a detailed account of the death of a loved one. 75% of Black participants had a flashbulb memory about the assassination of MLK Jr. compared to only 33% of white participants, which indicates the role of personal relevance in flashbulb memory formation.

Evaluation (Brown & Kulik)

Strengths:

• First study to empirically test flashbulb memory; led to a lot of further research

• Replicable procedure (reliable)

Limitations:

• As a questionnaire, it can’t establish cause and effect between identity and flashbulb memories

• Retrospective, so data is self-reported and cannot be verified

• Level of surprise/emotion during the actual event cannot be measured

• The role of rehearsal in memory formation also cannot be measured

• Social desirability effect (important national events)

• Sampling bias (only American men), difficult to generalize findings; recent findings show that collectivistic cultures may have fewer flashbulb memories

Aim (Neisser & Harsch)

To determine whether flashbulb memories can be distorted

Procedure (Neisser & Harsch)

Less than 24 hours after the Challenger disaster, 106 psychology university students were given a questionnaire asking them to write a description of how they heard the news. The questionnaire included questions such as “what time was it?”, “how did you hear about it?”, “where were you?”, “what were you doing?”, “who told you?”, “who else was there?”, “how did you feel about it?”, “how did the person who told you seem to feel about it?”, and “what did you do afterward?”. The participants were given the questionnaire again 2.5 years later. They were also told to rate their confidence in the accuracy of their memories from 1-5. Semi-structured interviews in which the interviewers gave the participants a retrieval cue were also conducted a few months later to determine whether participants would stick to their answers or go back to the original memory.

Results (Neisser & Harsch)

The participants were scored based on their accuracy relative to the original questionnaire, excluding the questions about emotion (“how did you feel about it?” and “how did the person who told you seem to feel about it?”), and given a point for each correct answer. The average score was 2.95/7, with eleven participants scoring 0, twenty two scoring 2 or less, and only three scoring 7. The participants had a high level of confidence, however, with the average confidence rating being 4.17. The participants told roughly the same story in the second questionnaire and in the interview, and the cues didn’t have much of an impact on accuracy. When the students saw their original questionnaire, they couldn’t explain the discrepancies.

Evaluation (Neisser & Harsch)

Strengths:

• Longitudinal and prospective

• Method triangulation (interviews and questionnaires)

• High ecological validity

• Transferability (results have been replicated in similar situations)

Limitations:

• Cannot be replicated

• Participant attrition

• No researcher-manipulated variables

• Not conducted under highly controlled conditions (confounding variables)

• Demand characteristics (increased confidence rating)