Cognative Approach - Studies & Key Terms

Define the multi-store model & key terms, the assumptions of the model, and its strengths/weaknesses

Define the multi-store model & key terms, the assumptions of the model, and its strengths/weaknesses

Multi-store model: A model that proposes that memory consists of three stores: a sensory register, short-term memory (STM), and long-term memory (LTM)

1. Environmental inputs: information is received

   • visual store

   • auditory store

2. Sensory memory: initial, brief, and immediate stage

   • briefly retained

   • iconic memory( for visual) or echoic memory (auditory)

3. Short-term memory: given attention, can be recalled

   • hold info for a short duration without rehearsal

   • can be recalled with the rehearsal loop to maintain info to become long-term

   • limited — Mile’s magic number

   • 18-30 seconds duration

4. Long-term memory: give rehearsal, final stage

   • can be retrieved and accessed info

ASSUMPTIONS:

1. Memory consists of several separate locations in which information is stored

2. Memory processes are sequential

3. Each memory store operates in a single/uniform way

STRENGTHS:

1. Significant research to support — both experimental and biological

2. Historical importance and basis for further research

WEAKNESS:

1. Over-simplified — assumes stores work independently

2. Doesn’t explain memory distortion, why some can be learned with minimal rehearsal, or difficulty transferring to long-term with rehearsal

STUDIES: Glanzer and Cunitz (1966) & Milner HM case study

Recall two studies relating to the multi-store model including aim, procedure, findings, strengths & limitations & ethical considerations

GLANZER AND CUNITZ (1966):

• Aim: To investigate recency effect in free recall (in any order)

• Procedure: Participants heard a list of items and asked to immediately recall them in any order/filler task

• Results: Recalled words in the beginning of the list (primary effect) and at the end of the list (recency effect) in the U-shaped curve, but filler task → primary effect only

• Findings: Rehearsal could be a factor in info transfer to LTM, multiple stores (STM/LTM), primary effect and recency effect

• Strengths: Highly controlled, supports theory of multi-store model

• Weakness: Low ecological validity, no random allocation of participants

MILNER HM: Longitudinal case study

• Aim: To study the biological reasons for anterograde amnesia in patient HM

• Procedure: Method triangulation including:

  • Psychometric testing — IQ test above average

  • Direct observation

  • Interviews with HM and family members

  • Cognitive testing: memory recall, learning tests, reverse mirror drawing

  • MRI for the extent of damage

• Results: Could not acquire new episodic/semantic knowledge

  • Could remember house/picture of floor plan → form a cognitive map of spatial layout

  • Capacity of working memory & minimal level retention

  • Could remember things for up to 15 minutes with constant verbal rehearsal

  • Motor skills and procedural memories were well maintained and showed improvements

• Findings: Brain’s memory systems are highly specialised & complex

  • The hippocampus plays a critical role in converting memories from short-term to long-term

  • STM is not stored in the hippocampus

  • Could retain memories from a long time ago → Medial temporal region is not the site of permanent storage → Organises storage somewhere

  • Implicit memory contains several stores (procedural, emotional, skill, habit) with different parts of the brain

• Strengths:

  • High ecological validity

  • Method triangulation

  • Supportive research → gave us a way to talk about memory and much of the research we have is supportive of this model

• Weakness:

  • Case study — one person

  • Oversimplified — assumes each stores work independently and alone

• Ethics:

  • Good: Anonymity, undue stress/harm, deception

  • Bad: Informed consent (family members allowed him to do tests, but was unable to get informed consent personally), right to withdraw, debrief

Define the working memory model & its key terms, strengths and limitations

Suggests that short-term memory is not a single store, but consists of many different stores

1. Central executive: attention control system

   • automatic level: schema-based habits

   • supervisory attention: planning and decision-making

2. Phonological loop: Verbal and auditory

   • articulatory control system: verbally holds info

   • phonological store: holds auditory memory traces

   • articular alorysupression

   • Concurrent tasks decrease accuracy with the impression

3. Episodic buffer: Temporary & passive display store for all information types

4. Visuospatial sketchpad: Temprory visual & spatial memory in 2D and 3D

STRENGTHS:

1. Considerable experimental evidence

2. Brain scans support for differences in visual and verbal parts

3. Case study evidence

4. Helps understand contextual multi-tasking

LIMITATIONS:

1. Central executive role is unclear

2. Doesn’t explain long-term memory

3. Doesn’t explain memory distortion or emotion

Studies: Landry and Bartling, Baddeley and Hitch

Recall two studies relating to working memory model including aim, procedure, findings, strengths & limitations & ethical considerations

LANDRY AND BARTLING: True experiment, opportunity sampling, independent sample design

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

• Procedure:

  • Experiment group: participants saw list of letters they had to recall while saying the number 1 and 2 (articulatory suppression task 

  • Control group: Saw the list of letters for 5 seconds, wait 5 seconds, and recall order but no articulatory suppression task

  • Both groups repeated the task 10 times individually 

  • Tested for percentage/accuracy of recall

• Results: The scores from the experimental group were lower than the control group (76% accurate to 45% accurate) Standard deviation was identical for both groups

• Findings: The articulatory suppression is preventing rehearsal in the phonological loop because of overload  — Increased difficulty memorising

• Strengths: Avoided order effect/demand characteristics with independent sample design → Highly controlled → High internal validity

• Weakness: Participant variability, small sample size — 17 per condition

BADDELEY AND HITCH (1974)

• Aim: To investigate if participants can use different parts of working memory at the same time

• Procedure: Used a dual task technique - a digit span task (remembering numbers) & verbal reasoning task (true/false questions)

• Results:

  • As the number of digits increased in the digit span tasks, participants took a slightly longer time to answer reasoning questions

  • Not a significant increase in time (less than seconds)

  • Didn’t make any more errors in the verbal reasoning task as number of digits

• Findings:

  • The verbal reasoning task made use of the central executive and digit span task used the phonological loop 

  • The short term memory by the multi-store model is too simple 

  • There are different systems for different types of information, not just one unit

  • Central executive drives the hold system and allocates data to subsystems

• Strengths:Highly controlled, high internal validity, avoided order effect/demand characteristics (independent sample design)

• Weakness: Participant variability, small sample size (17 per condition)

Define the schema theory & its key terms

Schemas: a mental representation/concept/framework that’s built from experiences about an object/event (script) /person/group

1. Schemata influence the way we interpret, organise, communicate, and remember info

   • allows to simplify reality → set expectations

   • organise knowledge, recall, guide behaviour, predict

   • they are culturally specific/dependent on socioeconomic status

2. Using schematic processes, we see patterns in unstructured stimuli → pattern recognition → find meaning

3. Cognitive misers: Humans make choices to not actively process information to save time and effort:

4. Accommodation: when an existing schema is replaced

5. Assimilation: when you add information to your schema

TYPE OF PROCESSING

1. Bottom-up processing: new info not based in prior knowledge → sensory stimulation

2. Top-down: use prior info/schema as a filter for info

THREE STAGES OF LEARNING SCHEMA

1. Encoding: transforming sensory info into memory to deal with (visual, acoustic, semantic)

2. Storage: creating a biological trace of encoding info

   • consolidated or lost

   • location dependent

3. Retrieval: accessing and using stored info

Studies: Brewer & Treyens, Anderson and Pichert

Recall two studies relating to schema theory including aim, procedure, findings, strengths & limitations & ethical considerations

BREWER & TREYENS (1981): True experiment, opportunity sampling

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

• Procedure: Set room to look like office and asked participants to wait for 35 seconds

  • Questionnaire if they could remember

  • Three different recall conditions: recall, drawing, and verbal

• Results: All were able to remember schema-congruent items better, distorted items to match schema

• Findings: Schema plays a role in the encoding and recall of objects → we are more likely to remember things that are congruent with our schema

• Strengths: High ecological validity, method triangulation with questionnaire

• Weakness: Unable to verify schema

• Ethics: Deception is used

ANDERON & PICHERT: True experiment

• Aim: To investigate if schema processing influenced both encoding and retrieval

• Procedure: Told story of house but had 2 conditions with different perspectives (burglar & buyer)

  • Asked to perform a distracting task for 12 minutes before recalling the story

  • 2 conditions for retrieval: 5-minute delay before participants given different schema, or asked to retain original schema and test recall again

• Results:

  • Burglar info recalled better than homebuyer info

  • Changed schema: recalled 7% more

  • Same schema: decline in recollection

• Findings: Young people don’t have homebuyer schema → schema influenced encoding AND retrieval (remembered perspective more)

• Schema may assist or inhibit recall and memory encoding

• Strengths: Highly controlled in lab environment, variable control allowed for cause-and-effect relationship on how schemas affect different memory processes

• Weakness: Low ecological validity

Define the reconstructive memory & its key terms

• Reconstructive memory is the omission or addition of details to a recalled event based on an individual personal experience

• Memory economises — activating schema relevant to the event

• Influenced by outside forces, leading questions, suggestions, and other people’s perceptions

• Efforts after meaning: trying to make the past more logical, coherent → may change the truth

Studies: Neisser & Harsch (unreliable), Loftus & Pickrell (unreliable) Yuille and Cuthshall (reliable)

Recall two studies relating to the unreliability of reconstructive memory including aim, procedure, findings, strengths & limitations & ethical considerations

NEISSER & HARSCH: American psych students, case study (questionnaire & semiconstructive interviews)

• Aim: To determine whether flashbulb memories are susceptible to distortion.

• Procedure:

  • Within 24 hours of the Challenger disaster (flashbulb event), participants askedto fill out 7 questions with specific details and emotions of memory 

  • Participants asked the same questions after 2.5 years to compare the accuracy + confidence scale 

  • Semi-constructed interviews conducted after a couple of months

• Results:

  • 75% forgot about the questionnaire 

  • Accuracy of memory decreased, but confidence remained high 

  • Additional cues/leading questions had little effect on accuracy: participants couldnt’ account for discrepancies

• Findings: Flashbulb memory is susceptible to distortion over time 

  • Participants couldn’t explain why they remembered it differently -- unintentional distortion

• Strengths: High ecological validity, no manipulation of variables, naturalistic, transferable to other studies with different studies of events showing same results

• Weakness: although naturalistic, difficult to determine confounding variables, no control of participants behaviour of exposure, confidence levels due to demand characteristics

LOFTUS & PICKRELL: Questionnaire & semi-constructive interviews

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

• Procedure:

  • Contacted family for childhood memories, and participants then received questionnaire of three real events and one false one (getting lost in the mall)

  • Two interviewers: asked to recall info, rate confidence of the memory

• Results: 25% of the participants “recalled” the false memory, but ranked it as less confident, and wrote less on the questionnarie

• Findings: Memory is unreliable and is susceptible to distortion with leading questions

• Strengths: hgih ecologicial valdity

• Weakness:

Recall one study relating to the reliability of reconstructive memory including aim, procedure, findings, strengths & limitations & ethical considerations

YUILLE AND CUTSHALL (1986): Lab experiment with natural conditions:

• Aim: To determine whether leading questions would affect the memory of eyewitnesses at a real crime scene

• Procedure:

  • Contacted eyewitnesses 4 months after event, in which 13 of the 21 agreed 

  • They gave their account of the incident and asked questions -- two leading questions, and asked to rate their stress on the day on a 7-point scale

• Results: Did not make errors because of leading questions 

• 79-84% accuracy of witnesses compared to police reports

• Findings: When there are emotional connections or personal memory is more reliable

• Strengths: High ecological validity, naturalistic

• Weakness: sampling bias, case study, not replicable

Define the flasbulb memory, its limitations & its key terms

• A particularly vivid memory that was created because of high emotion or personal significance

OVERALL LIMITATIONS:

• level of accuracy

• ecological validity

• level of rehearsal

• level of personal relevance

• level of surprise/emotion

• Demand characteristics: national importance

STUDIES: Brown & Kulik, Sharot

Recall two studies relating to the flashbulb memories including aim, procedure, findings, strengths & limitations & ethical considerations

BROWN & KULIK - questionnaire

• Aim: To investigate whether surprising ad personally significant events can cause flashbulb memories

• Procedure:

  • Asked 40 black and 40 white male participants to fill out a questionnaire regarding death of public figures (President John F Kennedy/ Martin Luther King Jr/personal connection) 

  • Asked questions (Where/prior actions/who with etc)

• Results:

  • 90% of participants recalled significant detail about the day when large scale & personal event (public figure AND loved ones) 

  • 75% of black participants had flashbulb memories of the murder of Martin Luther KIng (compared to 33% of white participants)

• Findings: Reliability of memories are better with personal significance

• Strengths:

• Weakness: Demand characteristics (social desirability), inability to verify true memories, difficult to establish cause/effect, sampling bias with questionnaires

SHAROT et al: Quasi-experiment

• Aim: To determine the potential role of biological factors on flashbulb memories

• Procedure:

  • Conducted 3 years after 9/11

  • Participants had MRI scans with cue words and brain activity was studied 

  • After, participants rated their memories for vividness, detail, confidence,and accuracy with a description of personal memories

• Results:

  • Only half the participants had flashbulb memories (greater detail/confidence) 

  • Those who had flashbulb memories were closer to the World Trade Centre

  • Activation of the amygdala for the participants was higher when they recalled memories of the attack than a control event 

• Findings: Close personal experience may be critical in engaging the neural mechanisms that produce the vivid memories characteristic of flashbulb memory

• Strengths: No demand characteristics possible, doesn’t explain why people have vivid memories after seeing events on tv/interent

• Weakness: Correlational: no cause/effect relationship, highly artificial, low ecological validity, sample size small and culturally biased

Define the dual process model & key terms, the assumptions of the model, and its strengths/weaknesses

1. System one is automatically intuitive and uses heuristics that is prone to error

   • generates impressions and inclinations

   • found in every-day decision making

   • greater confidence

2. System 2 is a slower, more conscious and rational model of thinking

   • requires more effort

   • eliminates possibilities based on sensory information

   • analyse world, why things happen, make predictions

3. Stroop Effect: delay in the reaction time between automatic/controlled processing of information

   • names of words interfere with the ability to name the colour used to print the words

STRENGTHS:

1. There is biological evidence that different types of thinking may be processed in different parts of brain

2. Watson selection task and other tests for cognitive biases are RELIABLE in results

WEAKNESSES:

1. Can be overly reductionist as it doesn’t explain how/if these models of thinking interact/how our thinking and decision making could be influenced by emotion

2. Definitions of system 1/2 are not always clear (just because processing is fast, doesn’t mean it’s system 1, as experience can make system 2 faster

Recall two studies relating to the dual processing model including aim, procedure, findings, strengths & limitations & ethical considerations

STROOP: True experiment

• Aim: To examine how incongruence between colour/word content would impair ability, and to measure what effect practising reacting to colour stimuli would have upon reaction times

• Procedure:

  • IV: congruence of font name and colour 

  • DV: reaction time in reporting the letter colour

• Results:

  • The interference of conflicting word stimuli (say colour, wrong word) caused a 74.3% increase of the normal time 

  • The interference of conflicting colour stimuli (say word, wrong colour) caused an increase of 5.6% time than words printed in black 

• Findings:

  • Disparity in the speed of naming colours and reading names of the colour due to a difference in training

  • Word stimulus is associated with a specific response (to read), whilst colour stimulus is associated with admiration/naming. 

• Strengths: Highly controlled, high internal validity

• Weakness: Highly artificial, low ecological validity

Define cognitive bias & key terms, the assumptions of the model, and its strengths/weaknesses

1. Cognitive bias is a systematic error in thinking due to the brain's attempt to simplify — heuristic generalisation

2. Anchoring bias: heuristic (mental shortcut) of the common human tendency to rely on the first piece of information (anchor)

Cognitive biases are caused by HEURISTICS

• Heuristics are mental short cuts used to make decisions

• based on past experiences

3. Availability heuristic: When we make a decision based on what “comes to mind,” or available to us quickly

4. Representativeness heuristic: When we make a decision based on traits of an individual/object which represent something to us

Recall two studies relating to the biases including aim, procedure, findings, strengths & limitations & ethical considerations

TVERSKY & KAHNEMAN: Lab experiment

• Aim: To investigate the impact of order and initial information on the estimated product

• Procedure: 2 Conditions of estimating the product of 9! in ascending and descending order in 5 seconds

• Results: Median for ascending 512, median for descending 2250, actual value 40320

• Findings: Anchoring bias

• Strengths: Highly controlled, high internal validity

• Weakness: Highly artificial, low ecological validity

HAMILTON & GIFFORD: Opportunity sampling, true experiment

• Aim: To investigate what generalisation and information they would take when presented with a majority and minority group

• Procedure

  • Two hypothetical groups of different sizes A and B with statements that were equally positive and negative

  • Participants were asked to recall the statements and compare the groups

• Results: People overestimated the number of negative traits in the minority group

• Findings: Cognitive is bias depending on what is available — availability heuristic

• Strengths: Controlled, credible, can replicate

• Weakness: Low mundane realism, questions ecological validity