Studies Needed for PSYCH PG (Memorization)

Aim of HM’s case study

The aim of the study was to determine the effects of damage towards the medial temporal lobe and hippocampus on memory.

Participants of HM’s case study

The participant of the study was HM who had experienced a head injury at the age of 7, leading to epileptic seizures. At 27, HM underwent a lobotomy which involved the removal of medial temporal lobe tissue, including the hippocampus.

Procedure of HM’s case study

After the surgery, HM was studied by researchers, primarily the neuropsychologist Brenda Milner. The researchers conducted a lot of cognitive testing on HM, including observations, interviews with both HM and family members, and memory recall tasks as well as learning tasks, such as reverse mirror drawing. H.M. was shown a star, and asked to trace its outline with a pencil, but in a condition when he could only see his hand and the star as reflected in a mirror. The longitudinal case study spanned over 50 years, and researchers conducted an MRI to determine the extent of damage done to his brain.

Results of HM’s case study

The results showed that HM suffered from anterograde amnesia, being unable to form new long-term memories. For instance, he was unable to remember the researchers, despite the fact that they had been visiting him for 6 years. Additionally, HM could hold a conversation with someone, but once they left the room, he had completely forgotten their conversation. Despite memory deficits, HM retained the ability to learn and remember procedural skills, as evident from his ability to improve in the mirror-drawing task and exhibit retention of the skill, despite not being able to remember that he could. Additionally, HM demonstrated that his spatial memory was intact, as evidenced by his ability to remember his house and draw its floor plan. The MRI scans had revealed that HM had suffered the most damage in his parahippocampal region, which gave researchers new insight into memory processes in the brain.

Aim for Landry & Bartling (2011)

The study aimed to investigate if articulatory suppression would influence recall of a written list of phonologically dissimilar letters.

Participants for Landry & Bartling (2011)

The participants were 34 undergraduate psychology students who were tested individually.

Procedure for Landry & Bartling (2011)

Participants saw a list of letters they had to recall while saying “1” and  “2” at a rate of two numbers per second. A control group saw letters but did not carry out articulatory suppression. There were 10 lists of 7 random dissimilar sounding letters. The experimenter presented one series at a time. Participants saw the list for 5 seconds, were instructed to wait for 5 seconds, then told to write the correct order of letters on the answer sheet. Each trial was scored for accuracy of recall.

Results for Landry & Bartling (2011)

The mean percent of accurate recall in the control group was 76% compared to the mean of  45% in the experimental group.

Aim for Loftus and palmer (1974)

The study aimed to investigate if asking leading questions would affect participants’ speed estimation

Participants for Loftus and palmer (1974)

In the first part, there were 45 participants split into 5 groups. In the second part, 150 participants were divided into 3 groups.

Procedure for Loftus and palmer (1974)

In the first part, participants were shown 7 different 6-30 second clips of car accidents, and then asked to fill in a questionnaire regarding it. The questionnaire asked questions about the car accident with the critical question being, “about how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?” The verb “hit” was replaced with ‘collided,’ ‘bumped,’ smashed, or ‘contacted’ in the other conditions which each had 9 participants answering the question. In the second part, participants were again shown a film of a car crash and given a questionnaire. They had to describe the accident in their own words and then answer some other questions. Fifty participants were asked the critical question using the verb  “smashed,” while another 50 were asked using “hit.” The remaining fifty participants were not asked for speed estimations. A week later, participants came back to answer another questionnaire with the critical ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question being “Did you see any broken glass?” However, there was no broken glass. 

Results for Loftus and palmer (1974)

For the first part, results showed that the mean estimation of speeds was highest in the ‘smashed’ condition, while it was the lowest in the ‘contacted’ condition. For the second part, results showed that the mean estimation of speed for those given the verb ‘smashed’ was higher compared to those given ‘hit.’ Although overall more participants had accurately not reported broken glass, participants in the ‘smashed’ condition were more likely to report broken glass as compared to participants of the ‘hit’ and control conditions.

Aim for Tversky and Kahneman (1974)

The study aimed to determine how anchoring bias affects one’s ability to solve a math problem.

Participants for Tversky and Kahneman

The participants were high school students who were assigned to one of two conditions.

Procedure for Tversky and Kahneman

In the “ascending” condition, participants were asked to quickly estimate the value of the multiplication problem 1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8. In the “descending condition” participants were given the same multiplication problem in a different order, 8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1. In both conditions, participants were given 5 seconds to respond.

Results for Tversky and Kahneman

The results showed that the “ascending” condition had on average estimated a lower value than the “descending condition.” Furthermore, both conditions of participants’ responses were very inaccurate compared to the correct response.

Aim for Brown and Kulik (1977)

The aim of this study was to investigate whether surprising and personally significant events can cause flashbulb memories.

Participants for Brown and Kulik

Participants were 40 black and 40 white American males.

Procedure for Brown and Kulik

They filled out a questionnaire regarding the death of public figures, such as President John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr, as well as people they personally knew. They were asked a series of questions about how they heard of the event, who they were with, what they were doing, how they felt, the importance of the event for them, and how often they talked about it. The study was carried out in 1977, JFK was assassinated in 1963 and Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968.

Results for Brown and Kulik

Researchers found that 90% of participants recalled a significant amount of detail about the day when the events occurred. Most participants had a very detailed memory of the death of a loved one. There was a difference between the memories of assassination of public officials based on personal relevance of the event to the participant. 75% of black participants had flashbulb memories of the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. compared to 33% of white participants. 

Aim for McAvinue et Al.

McAvinue et al aimed to determine how a cognitive training program would affect the working memory of adults.

Participants for McAvinue et Al

The participants of the study were 36 older adults between ages of 64 and 79.

Procedure for McAvinue et Al

The researchers utilized a 5 week online training program which was developed to improve both auditory and visual spatial memory. 

The participants had been allocated to one of two groups. Participants in the treatment group were assigned to an adaptive training program. The online program was a game in which the difficulty increased as participants progressed through each level. The difficult increase meant that the cognitive effort required for each level increased. Participants in the control group were put in a non-adaptive training program, meaning that the program did not increase in difficulty and the tasks did not require great effort. Participants had taken a battery of cognitive tests before engaging in the training program and afterwards. Further tests were carried out 3 and then 6 months later. 

Results for McAvinue et Al

The results showed that there was an increase in the treatment groups' auditory short-term memory span. This means that participants were able to recall and repeat more digits after hearing them spoken than they could before they underwent training. The results pertained 6 months later. However, there was no significant improvement in working memory.

Aim for Blacker et Al

Blacker et al aimed to determine how playing video games can help develop one’s visual working memory.

Participants for Blakcer et Al

The study utilized a self-selected sample of 34 male university students. The participants were allocated to one of two conditions.

Procedure for Blacker et Al

In the action game condition, participants were asked to play an action single-player game. In the non-action game condition, participants were asked to play a passive game which served as a control group. The participants were asked to spend at least an hour a day for 30 days. Participants were asked their motivation to play and level of enjoyment both prior to and after the training. Additionally, both prior to and after the training, the participants working memory was tested through a change detection task. Participants were first given a series of color blocks that they are asked to remember. They are shown the card for 3-5 seconds, and then shown a blank card for the same amount of time. They are then shown the final card and asked whether the pattern is the same or different.

Results for Blacker et Al

The results demonstrated that despite the fact that both groups had the same level of motivation and both improved in their game performance over time, the action game participants showed a significant improvement in the change detection task, while the non-action game participants did not.

Aim for Sparrow et Al

The study aimed to determine how the presence of technology affects one’s ability to commit information to memory.

Participants for Sparrow et Al

The participants of the study were 60 undergraduate students at Harvard

Procedure for Sparrow et Al

They were asked to type 40 trivia facts into a computer. Some of the facts represented new knowledge while other facts were likely already known by participants. The study utilized a 2x2 independent samples design, meaning independent variables were manipulated in two ways. Half of the participants were told that the computer would store everything they typed for later reference, while the other half were told the information would be erased. Within each of these groups, half of the participants were explicitly asked to try to remember the information.

Results for Sparrow et Al

The results showed that being told to remember the facts had no significant effect on recall. However, participants who believed the computer would save the information did not put much effort into remembering the information compared to those who were told that the computer would not save the information.

Aim for Hembrooke and Gay

The study aimed to determine how technological distractions could affect learning.

Participants for Hembrooke and Gay

The study utilized a sample of 44 American university students during a university lecture. The class had been split into two groups.

Procedure for Hembrooke and Gay

Half of the class was moved to another room while the other half was encouraged to leave their laptops open during the lecture. The first group then went into the other room and took a short test of 20 questions on the content of the lecture. Meanwhile, the second group was called in to listen to the lecture, but had not been allowed to have their laptops open. Afterwards, they were given the same test. Two months later, the study was replicated where group 1 had their laptops closed and group 2 had their laptops open.

Results for Hembrooke and Gay

The results showed that participants in the open laptop condition performed significantly worse than those in the closed laptop condition.

Aim for Magurie et Al

This study aimed to determine how the brains of London taxi drivers differ from ordinary individuals, as well as to further investigate the role of the hippocampus in spatial memory

Participants for Maguire et Al

The participants of the study were 16 healthy male, right handed London taxi drivers, whose experience ranged from 1.5 to 42 years. They were compared with MRI scans of 50 right-handed males who did not drive taxis.

Procedure for Maguire et Al

The researchers made use of correlational analysis, as they investigated the relationship between brain scans and length of time as a taxi driver. Data was collected using structural MRI scans, which gathered data about the anatomy of the brain, specifically the hippocampus.

Results for Maguire et Al

The researchers made use of correlational analysis, as they investigated the relationship between brain scans and length of time as a taxi driver. Data was collected using structural MRI scans, which gathered data about the anatomy of the brain, specifically the hippocampus.

Aim for Newcomer et Al (1999)

The study aimed to determine whether high levels of the stress hormone cortisol interfere with verbal declarative memory.

Participants for Newcomer et Al

The participants were healthy employees and students at the Washington University Medical Center.

Procedure for Newcomer et Al

Researchers carried a double blind lab experiment where participants were allocated to three conditions based on age and gender: 

• Condition 1 - High level of cortisol- participants in the high level cortisol were given a tablet containing 160 mg of cortisol each day of the four day experiment.  

• Condition 2 - low level of cortisol - participants in this condition were given a tablet containing 40 mg of cortisol per day.

• Condition 3 - placebo group - participants were given placebo tablets- with no active ingredient in order to have a control group. 

All participants were asked to listen to and recall parts of a prose paragraph. This

tested their verbal declarative memory over a period of four days. All participants were first tested before taking cortisol to determine there are no significant differences in the participants. Then they were tested one day after taking the pill, then again four days later. Another test after six days to make sure there were no long term effects on participants.

Results for Newcomer et Al

The results indicated high levels of cortisol impaired performance in memory tasks since the participant in the high level condition had the worst performance in verbal declarative memory. Researchers also determined that the effect was not permanent and decline in performance stopped after not taking the tablet. Results demonstrate a clear link between cortisol and remembering as it interfered with the recall of the passage. No significant difference between low levels of cortisol and placebo group. 

Aim for Caspi et Al (2003)

The study aimed to determine which alleles of the 5-HTT gene are linked to a higher risk of developing depression

Participants for Caspi et Al

There was a sample of 847 New Zealand 26-year-olds. They were divided into 3 groups based on their 5-HTT genes: Group 1 had two short alleles, Group 2 had one short and one long allele, Group 3 had 2 long alleles.

Procedure for Caspi et Al

The participants were asked to fill out a “stressful life events” questionnaire, asking them about the frequency of 14 different stressful events between the ages of 21 and 26. They were also assessed for depression.

Results for Caspi et Al

People who had inherited one or more short versions of the allele demonstrated more symptoms of depression and suicidal ideation in response to stressful life events. The effect was strongest for those with 3 or more stressful life events. Simply inheriting the gene was not enough to lead to depression, but the gene’s interaction with stressful life events increased one’s likelihood of developing depression.

Aim for Sherif et Al (1961)

The aim of this study was to see the natural and spontaneous development of group organization, attitudes and group norms.

Participants for Sherif et Al

This was a field experiment and the participants were 22 boys aged 11-12. They were matched into one of two groups, all boys were healthy, socially well adjusted, white, and from middle-class homes. None of the boys know each other. The participants thought they were attending a regular summer camp and were not aware they were being studied.

Procedure for Sherif et Al

For the first 5-6 days groups were kept separate from each other. They played activities and games within the group to establish a group bond. Each group had developed their own way of interacting with special jargon, jokes, secrets, and special ways of performing tasks. By the end of the first week, participants were introduced to the other group. Researchers then started organizing competitions between the groups with valued prizes and team trophies. Finally, there was an "emergency" situation where the camp truck presumably "broke down" and the boys were forced to work together and cooperate to pull the truck. This was done in an attempt to promote reconciliation.

Results for Sherif et Al

Results of this study found when the researcher introduced conflict through games, the games started well but soon tension began to form and boys started calling each other negative names  (Stinker and cheaters) and soon refused contact with the opposing group and even turned on friends created in other groups. The boy gave a negative rating for the opposing group and soon hostility was shown towards the other groups.  The boys also had fights between the group and some physical.

Aim for Berry (1967)

The study aimed to determine if the influence of collectivist or individualistic culture plays a role on the level of conformity.

Participants for Berry

Berry utilized three different cultures in his study, the Temne of Sierra Leone, a collectivist society based on farming, Inuits from Baffin Bay in Canada, an individualistic society based on hunting and fishing. Both groups involved participants who had never had a Western education and maintained the “traditional way of life,” along with people in transition, who either had Western education or employment. Additionally, a group of both urban and rural Scots was used as a control group. There were approximately 120 participants in each group.

Procedure for Berry

Each participant was individually shown a set of lines and a comparison line,  from which they had to select the line that most closely matched the comparison line. Two practice tests were done to ensure that the directions were understood. In the third trial, participants were given a hint beforehand, saying that ‘most Temne/Inuit/Scottish people say this line (experimenter points to line) is equal in length to the one at the top.’ In trial 3, correct responses were given, but in trials 4-6, the wrong response was given.

Results for Berry

The results showed that the collectivist culture, the Temne, had a much higher rate of conformity when told what other Temne believed, even though it was incorrect. The Inuits, on the other hand, had even a lower rate of conformity than the Scots. Furthermore, there was no difference within groups, meaning there was no difference in participants living traditional lives versus Westernized lives.

Aim for Bandura (1961)

The study aimed to determine whether children exposed to aggressive behaviour by adults will imitate the behaviour when given the opportunity.

Participants for Bandura

36 boys and 36 girls participated in the study, with a mean age of 52 months.

Procedure for Bandura

The study utilized three main conditions: a control group, a group exposed to an aggressive model, and a group exposed to a passive model. The children were tested individually and separated by their gender and the gender of the model they were shown. In stage 1 they were taken to the experimental room set for play. One corner was arranged for play with toys while the other had weapons and an inflatable Bobo doll. In the non-aggressive condition, the model only played with blocks. In the aggressive condition, the model began by playing with blocks, but after 1 minute turned to the Bobo doll and attacked it aggressively both physically and verbally. In the second stage, children were subjected to “mild aggression arousal.” The child was taken to a room full of attractive toys but after they started playing with them, the researchers revealed that these were the experimenter’s best toys and had been reserved for other children. In the third stage of the experiment, the children were taken to a final room with a variety of non-aggressive and aggressive toys. The child was kept in this room for 20 minutes and their behaviour was observed.

Results for Bandura

The results showed that children who saw the aggressive model performed more aggressive acts than those who did not. Boys made more aggressive acts than girls, and the boys showed more aggression if the model was male rather than female. The girls also showed more physical aggression if the model was male, but more verbal aggression if the model was female. The exception to this pattern was the observation of how often they punched Bobo, in this case, the effects of gender were reversed.

Aim for Asch (1956)

The aim of this study was to determine the extent to which individuals would conform to the opinions of a majority group, even when they are incorrect.

Participants for Asch

This was a true experiment where the participants were male college students who believed they volunteered to take part in a ‘vision test.’

Procedure for Asch

In each trial, there was one real participant and the rest of the people in the experimental group were confederates of the experimenter. The confederates were aware of the study and instructed to provide incorrect responses. The real participant was unaware that the others were confederates.

In each trial, participants were shown a standard line and a set of comparison lines. They were asked to state which comparison line matched the standard line. In some trials, confederates intentionally provided incorrect answers, unanimously agreeing on the wrong choice. The real participants were the second last person to state their judgement, which means they heard the answers of almost the entire group before stating their own. The researchers observed whether the real participant would conform to the group’s incorrect answers or stick to their own judgement.

Results for Asch

Approximately 75% of participants conformed to the majority group’s incorrect answer at least once. Overall, participants agreed with the confederates’ incorrect responses about one-third of the time. To confirm that the lines were being accurately judged, in a control group, each subject was asked to individually write down his or her answer to the line questions. They were correct 98% of the time. Additionally, conforming pressure peaked with three to four confederates.