cognition and technology

Ahern et al.

aim: investigate the role that viewing graphic television images may have on PTSD, and see if this would play a more significant role than the amount of time exposed to the media.

Procedure: participants had a telephone survey in which the participants exposure to media and symptoms of PTSD were discussed.

Results: specific disaster related television images were associated with PTSD and depression, people who repeatedly saw people falling from the towers of the world trade center had higher prevalence of PTSD and depression than those that didn’t.

Personal relevance of media coverage played a role in mental health, like the loss of a family member.

Hirst et al.

aim: Wanted to see correlation between amount of media coverage and accuracy of people’s memories of 2 US tragedies, challengers disaster and 9/11.

Procedure: interviewed participants repeatedly over a delayed period of time, asked questions about the event to assess accuracy of memory, and observed amount of media coverage done on the events.

Results: 9/11 memories were more accurate due to more media coverage being done on the event over the course of 3 years, emotion may have lead to memory formation but reminder from media would lead to overt rehearsal that would allow people to have flashbulb memory

Uttal et. al

aim: to see if spatial skills are malleable and can be improved through training and whether they are durable and transferable.

Procedure: a meta analysis where they combined results from over 200 training studies involving thousands of participants, people recieved some form of spatial training like video games, navigation tasks etc. or a control (they did nothing)

Results: spatial skills improvements that result from playing video games are comparable to the effects of highschool and university level courses aimed at enhancing these same skills. showing that spatial skills can be trained with video games in a relatively brief period and that the benefits last over an extended period of time as well as transfer to other spatial tasks outside the video games context.

flashbulb memory

vivid memories that stem from a surprising event with personal importance with a combination of overt rehearsal

Sparrow et al

aim: determine if the Internet has become an enormous transactive memory store.

Procedure: participants asked type 40 trivia facts into the computer. Some of the facts were new knowledge, whilst other facts were already known to the participants. They were asked to read the statements, and then type what they read. Half of the participants were told to press the spacebar to save what they typed to the computer. The other half were told to press the spacebar to erase what they just typed so that they could type the next statement. In addition, half were told to try to remember the statements, and half were told nothing.

Results: results showed that being asked to remember the information made no significant difference to the participant’s ability to recall the trivia facts, but there was a significant difference if the participant believed that the information would be stored in the computer. Participants who believed they would be able to retrieve the information from the computer appear to have made less effort to remember the information than those who knew they would not be able to do this.

transactive memory

relying on collecting information by remembering where it is found rather than remembering the information itself.