Cognitive Processing

Introduction

• Cognitive psychologists are involved in finding out how the human mind comes to know things about the world and how it uses this knowledge.

• The cognitive approach developed around the 1950s because of increasing dissatisfaction with behaviorism, which was the dominant school of scientific psychology.  

• Behaviorists, such as B. F. Skinner, argued that only behavior that could be observed should be studied and that the mind was a "black box", the processes that take place within the mind cannot be studied.

• Cognitive psychologists argued that scientific psychology should include research on mental processes and how humans process information and create meaning. 

• According to cognitive psychologists, the mind can be conceptualized as a set of mental processes that are carried out by the brain. 

  • These mental processes include perception, thinking, decision-making, problem-solving, memory, language, and attention. 

• Cognition is also related to one's personal experience. 

  • As we interact with the world around us, we create mental representations, conceptual understandings of how the world works. 

  • Since people have different experiences, they have different mental representations - for example, of what is right or wrong, or about what boys and girls can and cannot do. 

  • This will influence the way they think about the world and behave. 

Assumptions of the cognitive approach

1. We are information processors. 

• Cognitive psychologists see the mind as an information-processing machine using hardware (the brain) and software (mental representations).  

• Input - sensory information that comes to us through our interaction with the environment. 

• This is referred to as bottom-up processing. 

• Information is then processed in the mind by top-down processing via pre-stored information in memory.

• Finally, there is some output as behavior.

2. Scientific research methods can study scientifically cognitive processes. 

• This is demonstrated in theories and models of cognitive processes that are continuously tested both in laboratories and in naturalistic settings. 

• As our understanding of cognition has increased, models have been changed. 

• Cognitive psychologists have, to a large extent, used the experimental method because it was assumed to be the most scientific method. However, the experimental tasks did not always resemble what people did in their daily lives. 

• The cognitive psychologist Ulric Neisser argued that cognitive psychology had become too artificial and that researchers should not forget that cognition cannot be isolated from our everyday experiences. 

• Cognitive psychologists now study cognition in the laboratory and in a daily context.

3.  Mental representations guide behavior. 

• How we process and organize our information determines how we behave.

• We process new information through the filter of past experience and understanding. This then determines how we attend to, perceive, and remember new information. This assumption plays a key role in understanding all behaviors.  

• Cognitive psychologists also recognize that we are bombarded with information in our environment every day. If we paid attention to all the stimulation in our surroundings, we would be overwhelmed.

• Fiske and Taylor (1991) argue that we are cognitive misers - we make the choice not to actively process information because we want to save time and effort. 

• We use mental shortcuts to make decisions because of:  

  • knowledge,

  • motivation, 

  • and economy.

Schema and scripts

• Schema: mental representations that are derived from prior experience and knowledge. 

• The bottom-up information derived from the senses - interpreted by the top-down influence of relevant schemas to determine which behavior is most appropriate. 

• Schemas predict what to expect based on what has happened before.  

• They organize our knowledge, assist recall, guide our behavior, and help us to make sense of current experiences.

• Schemas help our minds simplify the world around us.   

• When we discuss how things work - a script. 

• Scripts: patterns of behavior that are learned through our interaction with the environment. 

• Scripts are developed within a cultural context - they are not universal. 

Schema Theory

• Schema theory: theory of how humans process incoming information, relate it to existing knowledge, and use it.  

• It is based on the assumption that humans are active processors of information. 

  • People do not passively respond to information. They interpret and integrate it to make sense of their experiences, but they are not always aware of it. 

  • If information is missing, the brain fills in the blanks based on existing schemas.Obviously, this can result in mistakes. 

Schema theory and memory

• Frederic Bartlett was a pioneer in developing schema theory.  

• Bartlett suggested that cognitive schemas - specific knowledge is organized and stored in memory that can be accessed and used when it is needed.

• The early Freudians argued that we could study what was in the unconscious mind. 

• Behaviorists reacted against this and argued that we should only study that which can be observed.  

• Cognitive theorists found a middle ground; they argued that we should study what we cannot directly observe, but we must use scientific approaches. 

• In the cognitive approach - cognitive processes are influenced by social and cultural factors. 

• Bartlett was one of the first to show how cultural schema influences remembering.

  • He found that people had problems remembering a story from another culture and that they reconstructed the story to fit in with their own cultural schemas.  

  • He showed that memory is not like a photograph or an audio recording, but that people remember in terms of what makes sense to them.  

  • This is why memory is subject to distortions. 

• Bartlett used an experiment to study the role of schema in recalling a story from an unfamiliar culture.  

  • He used serial reproduction. 

    • Participant A reads a story and then reproduces it to Participant B, who then reproduces it to Participant C, and so on until six or seven reproductions have been created.

  • A second technique was repeated reproduction. 

    • A participant learns the material and then recalls it repeatedly over various testing occasions. It is the same person who recalls the same story each time.

Bartlett (1932)

• Aim: to investigate how the memory of a story is affected by previous knowledge. If cultural background and unfamiliarity with a text would lead to distortion of memory when the story was recalled. 

• Hypothesis: memory is reconstructive and that people store and retrieve information according to expectations formed by cultural schemas.

Method

• Bartlett told participants a Native American legend called The War of the Ghosts. The participants were British; for them, the story had unfamiliar names and concepts, and the style was foreign to them.Bartlett allocated the participants to one of two conditions. 

• One group was asked to use repeated reproduction and the second group was told to use serial reproduction.

Results

• Bartlett found that there was no significant difference between how the groups recalled the story. 

• Over time, the story became shorter; Bartlett found that after six or seven reproductions, it reduced to 180 words. 

• The story also became more conventional. It retained only those details that could be assimilated to the social and cultural background of the participants. 

• Bartlett found that there were three patterns of distortion. 

  • The story became more consistent with the participants’ own cultural expectations - details were unconsciously changed to fit the norms of British culture. 

  • The story also became shorter with each retelling as participants omitted information that was considered not important. 

  • Participants also changed the order of the story to make sense of it using terms more familiar to the culture of the participants. 

• They also added detail and/or emotions. 

• The participants overall remembered the main themes in the story but changed the unfamiliar elements to match their own cultural expectations so that the story remained a coherent whole, although changed.

Advantages and Disadvantages

• Bartlett wanted to study memory in a naturalistic setting.

• Bartlett documented his research procedures but is criticized for not being specific enough, which made it difficult to replicate his findings. 

• No independent variable was manipulated with other factors held constant to observe its effect on a dependent variable.  

• Psychologists are critical of Bartlett's methods because they were not scientific in a modern sense.

• Many researchers have attempted to replicate the findings of Bartlett's original study, but they have been unsuccessful. Hence, the findings have low reliability. 

Bergman & Roedeger (1999) carried out a replication with a slight twist.  

• The independent variable was the amount of delay before the retelling of the story.  

• They found that when there was a 15-minute delay in the first retelling of the story, there was a higher rate of distortion than if the story were replicated immediately. 

• The immediate retelling of the story was often highly accurate and resulted in less distortion over time.

• Bartlett's suggestion that schemas are complex unconscious knowledge structures is one of Bartlett's major contributions to psychology, despite the sloppy nature of his original study. 

• His research was one of the first to investigate mental processes in a time when psychological science insisted on studying only behaviors that could be directly observed.

• Schema theory has been used to explain how memory works. Cognitive psychologists divide memory processes into three main stages:

  • Encoding: transforming sensory information into memory.

  • Storage: creating a biological trace of the encoded information in memory, which is either consolidated or lost

  • Retrieval: using the stored information in thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making.

• It is now believed that schema processing can affect memory at all stages. 

Brewer and Treyens (1981)

• Brewer and Treyens wanted to study the role of schema in the encoding and retrieval of memory. 

Method

• They carried out an experiment to see how well people could recall what was in an office.

• Participants were seated in a room that was made to look like an office. 

• The room consisted of objects that were typical of offices: a typewriter, paper, and a coffee pot. There was also a table with tools and electronics. There were some items in the room that one would not typically find in an office. Finally, there were items that were omitted.

• Each participant was asked to wait in the professor's office while the researcher "checked to make sure that the previous participant had completed the experiment." The participant did not realize that the study had already begun. The participants were asked to have a seat. All the chairs except for one had objects on them to guarantee that all participants would have the same vantage point. The researcher left the room and said that he would return shortly.After 35 seconds the participants were called into another room and then asked what they remembered from the office.  

• When they finished the experiment, they were given a questionnaire. 

• The important question was "Did you think that you would be asked to remember the objects in the room?" 93% said "no."

• The recall condition: 

  • Participants were asked to write down a description of as many objects as they could remember from the office. 

  • They were also asked to state the location, shape, size, and color of the objects. 

  • They were asked to write their description as if they were describing the room for someone who had never seen it. 

  • After this, they were given a verbal recognition test with a booklet containing a list of objects. 

  • They were asked to rate each item for how sure they were that the object was in the room. 

    • "1" meant that they were sure it was not in the room;

    • "6" meant that they were absolutely sure it was in the room. 

  • The questionnaire consisted of 131 objects: 61 were in the room; 70 were not.

• The drawing condition:

  •  In this condition, participants were given an outline of the room and asked to draw in the objects they could remember.

• The verbal recognition condition: 

  •  In this condition, the participants were read a list of objects and simply asked whether they were in the room or not.

Results

• The researchers found that when the participants were asked to recall either by writing a paragraph or by drawing, they were more likely to remember items in the office that were congruent with their schema of an office, the "expected items" were more often recalled. 

• The items that were incongruent with their schema of an office - e.g. the skull, a piece of bark, or the screwdriver - were not often recalled.  

• When asked to select items on the list, they were more likely to identify the incongruent items.

• However, they also had a higher rate of identifying objects which were schema-congruent but which were actually not in the room.

• In both the drawing and the recall condition, they also tended to change the nature of the objects to match their schema. 

Evaluation of schema theory

Advantages

• A significant amount of research has supported the idea that schemas affect cognitive processes, such as memory. 

• The theory seems quite useful for understanding how people categorize information, interpret information, and make inferences. 

• Schema theory has contributed to our understanding of memory distortions and false memories.

Limitations

• It is not yet entirely clear how schemas are acquired in the first place or the exact way they influence cognitive processes.  

• Schema theory cannot account for why schema-inconsistent information is sometimes recalled. 

• However, in spite of some imperfections, it seems to be a robust theory that generates a lot of research.

TEACUP: Evaluating Schema theory

• Testable: Schema theory is testable as seen in the Bartlett and Brewer & Treyens studies

• Empirical evidence: 

  • There is also biological research to support the way in which the brain categorizes input. 

  • Mahon et al (2009) found that from the visual cortex, information about living and non-living objects is shuttled to different parts of the brain - even in blind participants. 

  • These findings suggest that our brains automatically sort information and classify it in the same manner that schema theory predicts.

• Applications: 

  • Schema theory has been applied to help us understand how memory works and memory distortion. 

  • Schema theory has also been applied to abnormal psychology (therapy for depression and anxiety), relationships (theories of mate selection), and health psychology (health campaigns to change unhealthy behaviors). 

• Construct validity: 

  • Cohen (1993) argued that the concept of schema is too vague and hypothetical to be useful. 

  • Schema cannot be observed.

• Unbiased: 

  • Schema theory is applied across cultures. 

  • There is no apparent bias in the research, although most of the early research was done in the West.

• Predictive validity: 

  • The theory helps to predict behavior. 

  • However, we cannot predict exactly what an individual will recall.

Multi-store Model

• Memory: the process by which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved.  

• In psychology, a model of memory is a hypothesized representation of memory.  

• Obviously, models change over time as new evidence becomes available. 

• In order to understand more about the structure and function of memory, researchers within the cognitive approach have suggested models of memory that can be tested to determine their validity.

Types of memory

• Researchers distinguish between different types of memory.  This is important because it appears that different types of memory may be stored in different parts of the brain.

• Declarative memory: memory of facts and events and refers to those memories that can be consciously recalled. 

  • There are two subsets of declarative memory:

• Episodic memory: memory of specific events that have occurred at a given time and in a given place.

• Semantic memory:  general knowledge of facts and people, for example, concepts and schemas, and it is not linked to time and place.

• Procedural memory: unconscious memory of skills and how to do things.

The Multi-store Model

• Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) suggested a basic structure of memory with their Multi-store Model [MSM] of memory. 

• Although this model seems rather simplistic today, it sparked much research because humans are information processors.

• The model is based on a number of assumptions. 

  • Memory consists of a number of separate locations in which information is stored. 

  • Those memory processes are sequential. 

  • Each memory store operates in a single, uniform way. 

STM Store

• Short-term memory (STM) serves as a gateway by which information can gain access to long-term memory. 

• The various memory stores are seen as components that operate with the permanent memory store (LTM) through processes such as attention, coding, and rehearsal. 

• You need to pay attention to something to remember information. 

• Rehearsal is vital to keeping material active in STM by repeating it until it can be stored in LTM.

• Sensory information from the world enters sensory memory.

• The most important stores in the model are the visual store (iconic memory) and the auditory store (echoic memory). 

• Information in the sensory store stays here for a few seconds and only a very small amount of the information will continue into the short-term memory (STM) store.

• The capacity of STM is around seven items (7+/-2) and its duration is around 6–18 seconds. 

• With rehearsal, information may stay in STM for up to 30 seconds. Information in STM is quickly lost if not rehearsed. 

• Information may also be displaced from STM by new information.The rehearsal of material in STM plays a key role in determining what is stored in long-term memory in the multi-store model of memory.

Miller's Magic Number 7 (1956)

• The Multi-Store Model argues that STM is limited in both capacity and duration - there is a limited amount of information that can be held in STM for a limited amount of time.

• After running tests to see how many numbers an individual can recall in a sequence of numbers, Miller (1956) proposed the "Magic Number 7" - plus or minus two.  

• According to Miller, the average memory span is between 5 and 9 items.

• Cowan (2010) argues that Miller's magic number 7 may be overly optimistic.  

• In the original task, Miller's participants were asked to memorize a string of numbers, each time increasing by one digit.   

• But Cowan argues that this type of task sets the participant up to employ "processing strategies" that do not reflect how we actually use our short-term memory on a day-to-day basis. Instead, Cowan had participants recall a "running span procedure", they listened to a list of numbers but they did not know in advance how long the list would be.  

• He found that participants recalled a range of 3 - 5 digits, not 5 to 9.

• Cowan's findings are supported by biological research. fMRIs have shown that the parietal cortex of the brain plays a key role in short-term (working) memory.  Brain scans indicate that activity in the parietal cortex correlates with STM capacity - where activity increases with every additional number that needs to be recalled, until four digits.  

• Then activity in this part of the brain levels out. (Vogel and Machizawa, 2004).

• This is a good example of the problem of using artificial procedures in laboratory experiments.  

• The original research by Miller had low ecological validity - and today's research challenges the belief that STM memory can hold up to 9 digits. 

LTM Store

• The long-term memory (LTM) store is conceptualized as a vast storehouse of information. 

• This storehouse is believed to be of indefinite duration and potentially unlimited capacity.

• The material is not an replica of events or facts but is stored in some outline form. Memories may be distorted when they are retrieved because we fill in the gaps to create a meaningful memory. 

Evidence in support of the model

• In Milner's study, HM had anterograde amnesia, he could not transfer new information to long-term memory; however, he still had access to many of his memories prior to his surgery. 

• However, the fact that he could create new procedural memories shows that memory may be more complex than the MSM predicts.

• Glanzer and Cunitz (1966) used free recall of lists of 15 items combined with an interference task to show that there are two processes involved in retrieving information. 

• The researchers showed fifteen lists of 15 words one at a time. 

• The researchers used a repeated measures design in which the participants were asked to recall the words either with no delay, with a 10-second delay, or with a 30-second delay.  

• With no delay, the first five and last three words were recalled best but with a 10 or 30-second delay during which the participant counted backward, there was little effect on the words at the beginning of the list but poor recall of later items. 

• This suggests that the later words were held in short-term storage and were lost due to interference, whereas the earlier words had been passed to long-term storage. 

• The ability to recall words at the beginning of the list because they had already been transferred to long-term memory is called the primacy effect. 

• The ability to recall words that have just been spoken because they are still in short-term memory is called the recency effect.

Evaluation of the multi-store model

• Today, the multi-store model is considered being too simplistic. 

• It presents a good account of the basic mechanisms in memory processes (encoding, storage, and retrieval). 

• Several experiments support the assumption of multiple memory stores. 

• There is also supporting evidence from case studies of patients with brain damage, 

  • such as HM suffering from amnesia, 

    • who have impaired long-term memory but intact short-term memory. 

• This clearly points toward multiple memory stores. 

Limitations

• The assumption that STM is simply a gateway to LTM has been challenged by Logie (1999). 

• He argues that information in STM is not simply passed into LTM through rehearsal. Instead, there must be an interaction between STM and LTM in which the information is interpreted regarding previously stored knowledge and past experience. 

• Short-term memory is therefore not part of a sequential system but a 'workstation' that handles and computes information coming from the sensory store together with knowledge already stored in LTM. 

Strengths and limitations of the Multi-Store Model

Strengths of the MSM

• There is significant research to support the theory of separate memory stores - both in experimental research and biological case studies of patients with brain damage.

• The model is of historical importance. 

• It gave psychologists a way to talk about memory and much of the research which followed was based on this model.

Limitations of the MSM

• The model is over-simplified. It assumes that each of the stores works as an independent unit.

• The model does not explain memory distortion.

• The model does not explain why some things may be learned with a minimal amount of rehearsal. For example, once bitten by a dog, that memory is quite vivid in spite of the lack of rehearsal.

• There are several times that we rehearse a lot to remember information and it is not transferred to LTM.

Working memory model

• The working memory model can be seen as a development of the multi-store model of memory. 

• What is called short-term memory in the original model is changed to a more sophisticated version in the working memory model. 

• Baddeley and Hitch (1974) challenged the view that STM is a single store. 

• Their working memory model suggests that STM is not a single store but consists of a number of different stores.

• Baddeley and Hitch observed in lab experiments that if participants perform two tasks simultaneously that both involve listening, they perform them less well than if they did them separately. They also noticed that if participants performed two tasks simultaneously that involved listening and vision, there was no problem. 

• The procedure where participants carry out two tasks at once is known as a dual-task technique. This suggests that there are different stores for visual and auditory processing. 

• Baddeley and Hitch suggested that working memory should be considered a mental workspace:provides a temporary platform that holds relevant information for any cognitive task. 

• Once the task is completed, the information can quickly disappear and make space for a new round of information processing. 

• Baddeley and Hitch have continued to work on the model since it was devised in 1974 and they have added new features to the model in response to criticism and new findings.

• The Working Memory Model is a hypothetical model of STM that includes several components in contrast to the Multi-Store Model's version of STM as one big store.

The central executive

• The central executive: an attention control system that monitors and coordinates the operations of the sub-systems of processing and storage. 

• The central executive is the most important part of the model because it decides how and when the sub-systems are used. 

• The central executive can focus attention, divide attention between two or more sources, and switch attention from one task to another. 

• The central executive has limited capacity and is modality-free.

The phonological loop (verbal STM)

• The phonological loop: the auditory component of STM and it is divided into two components. 

  • The articulatory control system, or inner voice, which can hold information in a verbal form. 

  • The articulatory loop is also believed to hold words ready for cognitive tasks. 

• The second component is the phonological store or inner ear. It holds auditory memory traces. 

• Research shows that a memory trace can only last from 1.5 to 2 seconds if not rehearsed by the articulatory control system. 

• The phonological store can receive information directly from:

  •  sensory memory as auditory material

  •  from LTM as verbal information

  • from the articulatory control system. 

• The phonological loop has significant implications for a wide range of everyday activities.

• Research using articulatory suppression lends support to the working memory model. 

• Articulatory suppression: participants are asked to repeat a word such as 'the' or a number such as 'one' while they memorize a list of words. 

• Concurrent tasks decrease the accuracy of recall of information because the phonological rehearsal system is overloaded. 

• The same would happen if you were asked to read prose and at the same time repeat a word or a number as described above because both tasks depend on the phonological loop.

Landry and Bartling (2011)

• Landry and Bartling (2011) conducted an experiment using articulatory suppression to test the Working Memory Model. 

• The aim: to investigate if articulatory suppression would influence the recall of a written list of phonologically dissimilar letters in serial recall.  

Method

• The experiment used independent designs with two groups: a control group that performed no concurrent task while memorizing a list and an experimental group, which performed the concurrent task of articulatory suppression while memorizing a list.The participants were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions. 

• Hypothesis: the accuracy of serial recall would be higher in the control group compared to the experimental group. 

• In the experimental group, participants first saw a list of letters that they had to recall while saying the numbers '1' and '2' at a rate of two numbers per second (the articulatory suppression task). 

• The control group saw the list of letters but did not engage in an articulatory suppression task.

• There were ten lists, each consisting of a series of 7 letters randomly constructed from letters that were chosen because they don't sound similar. 

• The experimenter presented one letter series at a time. The participants received an answer sheet with seven blanks in each row..

• In the control group, the experimenter showed participants a printed list for five seconds, instructed them to wait for another five seconds, and then instructed them to write the correct order of the letters on the answer sheet as accurately as possible.This was repeated ten times. 

• In the experimental group, participants received instructions to repeatedly say the 1 and 2 at a rate of two numbers per second from when presenting the list until they filled in the answer sheet. This was also repeated ten times. 

Results

• The scores from the experimental group were much lower than the scores from the control group.

• The results supported the experimental hypothesis as the mean percent of accurate recall in the control group was higher than the mean percent of accurate recall in the experimental group. 

• The data seems to support the prediction of the Working Memory Model that disruption of the phonological loop through the use of articulatory suppression results in less accurate working memory. 

• In line with the model's prediction, articulatory suppression is preventing rehearsal in the phonological loop because of overload. 

• This resulted in difficulty in memorizing the letter strings for participants in the experimental conditions, whereas the participants in the control condition did not experience such overload. 

• This experiment is asking participants to remember strings of random letters in order to test a specific part of the working memory, although this does not resemble a task that you would do in your everyday life. 

The visuospatial sketchpad

• The visuospatial sketchpad is the visual component of STM or the inner eye. 

• It is a temporary store for visual and spatial information from either sensory memory or LTM. 

• Visual processing includes the storage and manipulation of visual patterns and spatial movements in two or three dimensions. 

• The visuospatial sketchpad helps us remember not only what visual information is important but also where it is. 

The episodic buffer 

• This buffer temporarily holds several sources of information active ‌while you consider necessary information in the present situation. 

• This means - auditory and visual information together, as well as information from LTM.   

• Baddeley argues that the episodic buffer is accountable for our conscious awareness.

Case studies of brain damage and WMM

• Warrington and Shallice (1970) carried out a series of tests on patient KF, who had suffered brain damage because of a motorcycle accident.  

• KF's LTM was intact, but he showed impairment in his short-term memory. 

• Even though he appeared to have problems recalling lists of words and numbers - something that is referred to as his "memory span" - he could learn. 

• He was clearly moving information from STM to LTM.

• During the case study, Warrington and Shallice (1972) found that although he quickly forgot numbers and words when they were presented to him orally, he could remember these words or numbers when presented to him visually. 

• KF's impairment was mainly for verbal information - his memory for visual information was largely unaffected. 

• This supports Baddeley's theory that there are separate STM components for visual information and verbal information (the phonological loop).

• Since the study was longitudinal, over time Warrington and Shallice could be even more precise in their findings. 

• Later testing showed that although KF could not recall words or letters when presented orally, he had no difficulty recalling cats meowing or telephones ringing.  

• The researchers concluded that his accident had resulted in damage to a short-term memory store that was auditory and not visual, and also verbal rather than non-verbal.  

• This research supports the theory that STM is much more complex than suggested by the original Multi-store model.

Evaluation of the Working Memory Model

• Most researchers today accept the idea of working memory. 

• Experiments using dual-task techniques seem to provide support for the model. 

• In dual-task experiments, a participant might be asked to tell a story to another person while also performing a second cognitive task, such as trying to learn a list of numbers. Such concurrent tasks impair overall performance. 

• If the two tasks interfere with each other so that one or both are impaired, both tasks use the same component in STM.

• Working memory has proved quite fruitful as it has generated a lot of research and discussion concerning the different parts of the model is ongoing.  

• Neuroimaging studies have also been used to test the possible neurobiological correlates of working memory. 

• The Working Memory Model provides a much more satisfactory explanation of storage and processing than the Multi-Store Model.  

• The Working Memory Model can explain why people can perform different cognitive tasks at the same time,at least if the task is not drawing on the same component of STM.

• However, there are some limitations to the model.  

• The model is oversimplified as it does not address how other sensory information is processed, and spatial memory within the model is not fully developed. 

• It is difficult to identify the nature of the processes associated with the central executive.  

• The interaction among the four components is not well explained in the model, so much more research is needed in this area. It is not really clear how the episodic buffer actually integrates information from the other components with long-term memory. 

• The model just presents a role for the episodic buffer but it is not fully developed.

Strengths and limitations of the Working Memory Model

Strengths

• The model is supported by considerable experimental evidence.

• Brain scans have shown that a different area of the brain is active when carrying out verbal tasks than when carrying out visual tasks. This supports the idea that there are different parts of memory for visual and verbal tasks.

• Case studies of patients with brain damage support the theory that there is more than one STM store.

• This model helps us to understand why we can multi-task in some situations and not in others.

Limitations

• The role of the central executive is unclear, although Baddeley and Hitch said it was the most important part of the model. For example, they suggested that it has its own limited capacity, but it is impossible to measure this separately from the capacity of the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad.

• How the various components of the model interact is not yet clear.

• This model really only explains short-term memory and so tells us very little about the processes involved in long-term memory.

• This model does not explain memory distortion or the role of emotion in memory formation.

Thinking and decision-making

• Thinking: the process of using knowledge and information to make plans, interpret the world, and make predictions about the world‌.

• There are several components of thinking - problem-solving, creativity, reasoning, and decision-making. 

• Decision-making is needed during problem-solving to reach a conclusion. 

• Problem-solving is thinking that is directed toward solving specific problems by a set of mental strategies. 

• The concepts of problem-solving, decision-making, and thinking are very much interconnected. 

The Dual Process Model

• The Dual Process Model of thinking and decision-making postulates that there are two basic modes of thinking - referred to as "System 1" and "System 2."

• System 1 is an automatic, intuitive, and effortless way of thinking. System 1 thinking often employs heuristics.

• Heuristics: mental shortcuts that involve focusing on one aspect of a complex problem and ignoring others. 

  • This ‘fast’ mode of thinking allows for efficient processing of the often complex world around us but may be prone to errors when our assumptions do not match the reality of a specific situation. 

  • These errors may have greater consequences in our day-to-day lives because system 1 thinking creates a greater feeling of certainty that our initial response is correct.

• Gilbert and Gill (2000 - we become more likely to use System 1 thinking when our cognitive load is high, when we have lots of different things to think about ‌or we have to process information and make a decision quickly.

• System 2 is a slower, conscious, and rational mode of thinking.  

• This mode of thinking is assumed to require more effort. 

• System 2 starts by thinking carefully about all of the ways we could interpret a situation and gradually eliminates possibilities based on sensory evidence until we arrive at a solution. 

• Rational thinking allows us to analyze the world around us and think carefully about what is happening, why it is happening, what is most likely to happen next, and how we might influence the situation. 

• This mode of thinking is less likely to create feelings of certitude and confidence.

System 1 and System 2 thinking

• It is important to remember that we often use both systems when addressing a problem. 

• System 1 will reach a quick conclusion and then System 2 will go into further analysis to  reach a "more correct" conclusion. 

• Because System 1 is activated before System 2 can do its work, often System 1 interferes with the effectiveness of System 2.

Wason (1968)

• One example of research that supports the dual-process model is based on the Wason selection task.

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• Evans and Wason (1976) found that when asked why they chose the cards that they did, they could not clearly explain their choices.

• The Wason selection task provides important evidence for the dual-process model. 

• Most people make the decision of which cards to choose without any reasoning - but as an automatic response to the context of the question.  

• Wason (1968) found that even when he trained people how to answer this question, when he changed the context, the same mistakes were made.  

• Griggs and Cox (1982) found that when the task is not abstract, we do not tend to show a matching bias. Try to solve this final logic puzzle.

• Biological evidence supports what we see in the Wason Selection Task by showing that different types of processing may be located in different parts of the brain.  

• Goel et al (2000) had participants carry out a logic task. In some cases, the task was abstract in nature and some tasks were "concrete" in nature. 

  • The researchers had the participants decide on the correct choices while on an fMRI. 

• Although there were many common areas of the brain that were active in solving the problems, there was a clear difference.  When the task was abstract, the parietal lobe was active; when the task was concrete, the left hemisphere temporal lobe was active. 

• The parietal lobe is often associated with spatial processing. 

• This seems to indicate that the brain processes these two types of information differently and thus may be seen as support for the model.

Reliability of Cognitive Processes

Introduction

• When we discuss the reliability of a cognitive process, we want to know how consistent is the information over time.  

• Memory can be influenced at the encoding stage.

• Researchers have demonstrated that memory may not be as reliable as we think.

From Freud to the 21st century

• Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) thought that forgetting was caused by repression. 

• According to Freud, people who experience intense emotional and anxiety-provoking events may use defense mechanisms, such as repression, to protect their conscious self from knowing things they can’t cope with. They send the dangerous memories to the unconscious, so they will deny it ever happened. However, the memory will continue to haunt them in symbolic forms in their dreams and lead to feelings of anxiety until a therapist can retrieve the memory using specific techniques. Some researchers claim that these techniques can create false memories, which people believe to be true. The psychotherapist wouldn’t be surprised because the aim of therapy is to gain access to the unconscious.

• The US cognitive psychologist Elizabeth Loftus does not deny that child abuse happens, but she has argued that some of the recovered memories may simply be created by post-event information during therapy. 

• Her laboratory research has supported the case that it is possible to manipulate people’s memories - and that memories, even as intense as those related to abuse, may not always be reliable.

• To test this under controlled conditions, Loftus & Pickerell carried out a study to see if they could get university students to experience a false memory.

Loftus & Pickerell (1995)

• Loftus & Pickerell carried out a study on false memories.  

• The aim: to determine if false memories of autobiographical events can be created through the power of suggestion.

• The participants received a questionnaire in the mail. There were four memories that they were asked to write about and then mail back the questionnaire to the psychologists. Three events were real and one was “getting lost in the mall.” They were instructed that if they didn’t remember the event, they should simply write “I do not remember this.”  

• The participants were interviewed twice over a period of four weeks. They were asked to recall as much information as they could about the four events. Then they were asked to rate their level of confidence about the memories on a scale of 1 - 10. After the second interview, they were debriefed and asked if they could guess which of the memories was a false memory.

Results

• About 25% of the participants “recalled” the false memory.  

• However, they also ranked this memory as less confident than the other memories and they wrote less about the memory on their questionnaire.

• Although this is often seen as strong evidence of the power of suggestion in creating false memories, only 25% of the participants had them.  

• The study does not tell us why some participants were more susceptible to these memories than others, but it shows that the creation of false memories is possible.

Reliability and decision-making

• When discussing thinking and decision-making, it is difficult to really talk about "reliability."  

• Instead, we could talk about how effectively we can make decisions.  

• Fiske and Taylor argue that we are "cognitive misers." We take shortcuts because thinking takes a lot of energy. Often we choose to take the less difficult road because we don't have the energy or resources to make a more complex, informed decision.  

• In addition, as with memory, we are influenced by social and cultural factors. We also have biases that influence our decision-making.  

Reconstructive memory

• In 2002, Loftus wrote an article on the case of a Washington DC sniper who killed a number of people. The police asked people to come forward with information on the murderer and many reported having seen a white van in the vicinity of the shootings. 

• In fact, the sniper’s van was a blue Chevrolet Caprice. 

• Loftus tried to find out where the myth of the white van came from. 

• She discovered that a bystander had mentioned a white van in an interview. 

• After this, other people reported that they had seen a white van.

• Loftus supports Bartlett’s idea of memory as reconstructive. 

• Loftus claims that the nature of questions asked by police or in a courtroom can influence witnesses’ memory. 

• Leading questions, questions that are suggestive ‌- and post-event information facilitate schema processing, which may influence the accuracy of recall. 

• This is called the misinformation effect.

• Witnesses are often quite confident of what they remember, even though their recollections don’t fit the facts.  

• When witnesses try to retrieve a past event, they may unknowingly fill in the gaps with information based on other experiences, stereotypes, or post-event information. 

• Post-event information is any information that you are exposed to after you have witnessed something. 

• This information can come as television or social media reports - or from listening to other people tell their stories.

• When eyewitnesses' memories are distorted, it can have very damaging effects.

• Such stories of false identification by eyewitnesses inspired Elisabeth Loftus to carry out a series of studies that highlighted the problem of leading questions in eyewitness testimony.  

• Previous research has demonstrated that people’s memory of details after a car accident is inaccurate. 

• Since previous research had shown that estimation of speed was liable to distortion 

• Loftus and Palmer hypothesized that people’s memory for details of an accident could be distorted if they were asked to estimate how fast the car was going. 

• Therefore, they set up two experiments where participants were shown videos of traffic accidents and after that; they had to answer questions about the accident. 

• The study demonstrates the role that schema can play in how we recall an event.

Loftus and Palmer (1974)

• The aim: to investigate whether the use of leading questions would affect an eyewitness's estimation of speed.

Method

• When the participants had watched a film, they were asked to give an account of the accident, they had seen and then they answered a questionnaire with different questions about the accident. 

• There was one critical question that asked the participant to estimate the speed of the cars involved in the accident.

• The participants were asked the same question, but the critical question included different verbs. 

• Some participants were asked, “How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?" 

• The critical word "hit’" was replaced by ‘collided’, ‘bumped,’ ‘smashed’ or’ contacted’ in the other conditions which each had the participants answering the question.

• The researchers predicted that using the word ‘smashed’ would result in higher estimations of speed than using the word ‘hit’. 

• The independent variable was the different intensities of the verbs used in the critical question and the dependent variable was an estimation of speed.

Results

• The mean estimates of speed were highest in the ‘smashed’ condition and lowest in the ‘contacted’ group.The findings were that the more intense the verb that was used, the higher the average estimate.

• In a second variation of the study, students were randomly allocated to one of three conditions. 

• Participants were asked only one of two questions: 

  • Either how fast the cars were going when they smashed or when they hit each other. 

• A third group, the control group, was not asked anything. 

• The participants were asked to come back a week later and without re-watching the video, they were asked one of the following questions: 

  • Did you see any broken glass? Yes or no?

• The results showed that those who had originally had the question with the more intense verb (smashed) were more likely to recall seeing broken glass than those who had the less intense verb (hit).

• Loftus argues that when different verbs are used, they activate schemas that have a different sense of meaning.  

• When the question is asked using smashed, the connotation of the verb influences how the memory is formed.

• These two studies were controlled laboratory experiments, so we should question whether there are problems with ecological validity.  

• The situation is quite artificial, which lowers its external validity.  

• When watching a video of a car crash, one does not experience the emotions that one would experience when actually seeing a real car accident. 

• Thus, emotion or stress, which are conditions normal for most eyewitnesses, are absent in her research.

• There may also be a problem in using closed questions, where people have to answer yes or no. 

• In addition, all the participants were students, so the sample was biased. 

• The research also begs the question of how well people are able to estimate speed. 

• This too may have had an influence on the results. 

Counterargument: Memory is reliable

• In response to Loftus's research, Yuille and Cutshall (1986) carried out an experiment where they examined whether leading questions would affect the memory of eyewitnesses at a real crime scene. 

• The crime scene was in Vancouver. 

• A thief entered a gun shop and tied up the owner before stealing money and guns from the shop. The owner freed himself, and thinking that the thief had escaped, went outside the shop. But the thief was still there and shot him twice. 

• Police had been called and there was gunfire - and the thief was eventually killed. As the incident took place in front of the shop, there were eyewitnesses - 21 were interviewed by the police.

• The researchers contacted the eyewitnesses four months after the event. They gave their account of the incident, and then they were asked questions. Two leading questions were used. They were also asked to rate their stress on a seven-point scale.

Results

• It was found that eyewitnesses were actually very reliable. 

• They recalled a large amount of accurate detail that could be confirmed by the original police reports. 

• They also did not make errors because of the leading questions, and those who were most distressed by the situation had the most accurate memories.

• First, Yuille & Cutshall's study had stronger ecological validity in comparison to Loftus & Palmer's laboratory study. 

• Because they had actually witnessed a crime, they would have had an emotional response different from what the students felt watching videos of drivers' education car crashes. 

• In addition, there was archival evidence (police records of the original testimonies) to confirm the accuracy of the testimonies.

• However, Loftus and Palmer's study has a higher level of reliability.  

• Yuille and Cutshall's study is not replicable and also not generalizable since it was a one-off incident. 

• There was also no control of variables, so it is difficult to know the level of rehearsal that was used by the different eyewitnesses. 

• Maybe those who agreed to be in the study had spent the most time thinking and reading about the case.

• It may very well be that different types of memory are more reliable than others. 

• This clearly indicates that different memories may be located in different parts of the brain - and that they also may have different levels of reliability.

Bahrick et al (1975)

• The aim of the study was to investigate the reliability of autobiographical memory over time, specifically the names and faces of the people who had gone to school together.

The participants were asked to do five tests, a free recall, a photo recognition, a name recognition, a matching test, and a picture cueing test.

• The free recall test was always given first and then participants were randomly assigned to the order of the remaining tests. 

• For each question, participants were asked to indicate their degree of confidence on a three-point scale: 3 being certain, 2 being probable and 1 being a guess.

Results

• The results of the study showed that participants who were tested within 15 years of graduation were about 90% accurate in identifying names and faces. 

• After 48 years, they were accurate 80% for identifying names and 70% for identifying faces.  

• Free recall was worse. After 15 years it was 60% and after 48 years it was 30% accurate.

• This study is a cross-sectional study, not a longitudinal study. 

• Therefore, we cannot account for participant variability. 

• However, because of the large sample size, we can establish a trend in the data that demonstrates that facial recognition has high reliability.

Emotion and memory

• The key appears to be that we remember better those experiences that involve emotions. 

• Emotions are rich and diverse, and they are often what make the experience something special.

• Research seems to show that emotions play a key role in how memory is formed.  

• But as you will also see, it may not be that emotional memories are special, it is just that we think that they are. 

• And that feeling that our memories are "special" may lead us to believe that they are more accurate than they actually are.

Flashbulb memory theory

• The theory of Flashbulb memory was first proposed by Brown & Kulik (1977). 

• Flashbulb memory: highly detailed, exceptionally vivid "snapshot" of the moment when a surprising and emotionally arousing event happened. 

• They postulated the special-mechanism hypothesis, which argues for the existence of a special biological memory mechanism that, when triggered by an event exceeding critical levels of surprise, creates a permanent record of the details and circumstances of the experience. 

• This implies that flashbulb memories have different characteristics than "ordinary memories." They also argued that these memories are resistant to forgetting.

• Brown and Kulik suggested that there may be a special neural mechanism that triggers emotional arousal because the event is unexpected or extremely important. It was only a hypothesis, but it is supported by modern neuroscience: emotional events are better remembered than less emotional events—perhaps because of the critical role of the amygdala. 

• Today, the most commonly accepted model of flashbulb memory is called the importance-driven model. 

  • This model emphasizes that personal consequences determine the intensity of emotional reactions.

Brown and Kulik (1977)

• Brown & Kulik's (1977) original study was based on questionnaires. 

• The participants were given a series of nine events - for example, the assassination of President Kennedy - and asked if they "recalled the circumstances in which you first heard about the event." For those events in which they said "yes," they were then asked to write an account of their memory and rate it on a scale of personal importance.

Results

• Brown and Kulik found that people said that they had very clear memories of where they were, what they did, and what they felt when they first learned about an important public occurrence such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King. 90% of the participants recalled the circumstances in which they heard about the assassination of the president - thirteen years after the event. 

• People in the study were also asked if they had flashbulb memories of personal events. Of 80 participants, 73 said that they had flashbulb memories associated with a personal shock, such as the sudden death of a close relative.

• Brown & Kulik observed a much lower rate of flashbulb memories among white participants than black participants to the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. 

• This shows that the link between personal importance and the event is important in the creation of a flashbulb memory.

Limitations

• There is no way to determine whether the memories stated by the participants are accurate. 

• There was also no way to test the individual's level of surprise upon hearing the event. 

• Although it can be assumed that the participants would have been surprised to hear about the assassination of a public official, this emotional response cannot be measured.

• Finally, because of the national importance of these events, the probability that demand characteristics affected the results is very high. 

Biological support for flashbulb memory

• The original theory by Brown & Kulik was rather vague about the "biological mechanism" that plays a role. 

• More recent research has found that the amygdala, a small structure in the temporal lobe, appears to be critical in the brain’s emotional circuit - and it is believed to play a critical role in emotional memories.

• It makes sense that our brains would make sure to store information about fearful experiences in good detail.

• When we are stressed, afraid, or surprised, we get a rush of adrenaline.  

• In evolutionary terms, the brain's ability to remember fear has most likely played a key role in our survival. 

• Research by Cahill and McGaugh found that not only did participants remember the details when they had an emotional response to a story, but they remembered less when they had an emotional response, but adrenaline levels were artificially suppressed.

• Sharot et al (2007) carried out a study after the 9-11 attacks on the United States to determine the potential role of biological factors on flashbulb memories. 

• The study was conducted three years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in Manhattan. 

• There were 24 participants who were in New York City on that day. Participants’ brain activity was observed using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

• While in the scanner, they were presented with word cues on a screen.  

• In addition, the word "Summer" or "September" was projected along with this word in order to have the participant link the word to either summer holidays or to the events of 9-11. 

• Participants’ brain activity was observed while they recalled the event.

• After the brain scanning session, participants were asked to rate their memories for vividness, detail, confidence in accuracy, and arousal. 

• Participants were also asked to write down their personal memories. 

• Only half of the participants actually reported having what would be called "flashbulb memories" of the event, a greater sense of detail and strong confidence in the accuracy of the memory. 

• Those who did report having flashbulb memories also reported that they were closer to the World Trade Center on the day of the terrorist attack. 

• Participants closer to the World Trade Centre also included more specific details in their written memories.

• Sharot and her team found that the activation of the amygdala for the participants who were downtown was higher when they recalled memories of the terrorist attack than when they recalled events from the preceding summer, whereas those participants who were further away from the event had equal levels of response in the amygdala when recalling both events. 

• The strength of amygdala activation at retrieval was shown to correlate with flashbulb memories. 

• These results suggest that close personal experience may be critical in engaging the neural mechanisms that produce the vivid memories characteristic of flashbulb memory.

• Although this study demonstrates the role of the amygdala because of proximity to the event, it does not explain why someone who simply saw it on television may claim to have a flashbulb memory. 

• The study is correlational in nature and does not establish a cause-and-effect relationship that explains how the memory is actually attributed to activity in the amygdala.

Could FBM be genetic?

• Further research has shown the role of α2b-adrenoceptor, which is found in the amygdala. 

• The role of the α2b-adrenoceptor is to promote memory formation - but only if it is stimulated by adrenaline. 

• Since emotionally charged events are often accompanied by adrenaline secretion, the α2b-adrenoceptor acts as a gatekeeper that decides what will be remembered and what discarded. 

• This could be the "biological mechanism" that Brown & Kulik were hoping for.

• Research by Quervain et al (2007) argues that there may be genetic roots to one's likelihood of having a flashbulb memory. 

• The gene for the α2b-adrenoceptor comes in two variations. The researcher hypothesized that one variation would result in better emotional memories than the other.

• To carry out their research, they went to the Nakivale refugee camp in Uganda, where they could work with refugees from the Rwandan civil war and genocide of 1994.

• With the help of specially trained interviewers, they recorded how often people in the camp suffered flashbacks and nightmares about their wartime experiences. They then compared those results with the α2b-adrenoceptor genes in their volunteers.

• As predicted, those with the less common version had significantly more flashbacks than those with only the common one.

Criticism of flashbulb memory theory

• Neisser (1982) has questioned the idea of flashbulb memories. 

• People do not always know that an event is important until later, so it is unclear how flashbulb memories could be created at the moment of the event. 

• He suggests that the memories are so vivid because the event itself is rehearsed and reconsidered after the event. 

• According to Neisser, what is called a flashbulb memory may simply be a well-rehearsed story. 

• The flashbulb memories are governed by a storytelling schema following a specific structure, such as place (where were we?), activity (what were we doing?), informant (who told us?), and affect (how do we feel about it?).

• On 28 January 1986, the seven astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger were killed in a tragic accident. 

• It was a shocking experience for those who watched the shuttle launch in person or on television. 

• Neisser and Harsch (1992) investigated students’ memory accuracy of the incident 24 hours after the accident, and then again two and a half years later. 

• When filling out the second questionnaire which asked questions like - where were you when you heard about the Challenger disaster?  

• Who were you with? 

• What were you doing?  

• The participants were also asked how confident they were of these memories.

• The participants were very confident that their memories were correct, but the researchers found that 40 percent of the participants had distorted memories in the final reports they made. 

• Possibly, post-event information influenced their memories. 

• The researchers concluded that emotional intensity was associated with greater memory confidence, but not with accuracy.

• Cultural dimensions also seem to play a role in flashbulb memories. 

• Kulkofsky et al (2011) looked at the role of culture in flashbulb memory in five cultures: China, Germany, Turkey, the UK, and the USA. 

• Participants were given five minutes to recall as many memories as they could of public events occurring in their lifetime. 

• They were then asked to complete a "memory questionnaire" for each event where they were asked if they remembered where they first heard of the event. 

• If so, then they were asked a series of questions to determine the extent of the FBM. 

• They were then asked to answer questions about the importance of the event to them personally.

• The researchers found that in a collectivistic culture like China, personal importance and intensity of emotion played less of a role in predicting FBM, compared with more individualistic cultures that place greater emphasis on an individual's personal involvement and emotional experiences. 

• Because focusing on the individual's own experiences is often de-emphasized in the Chinese context, there would be less rehearsal of the triggering event compared with participants from other cultures - and thus a lower chance of developing an FBM. 

• However, it was found that national importance was equally linked to FBM formation across cultures.

Evaluation of Flashbulb Memory Theory

Strengths

• There is biological evidence that supports the role of emotion in memory formation - for example, McGaugh & Cahill (1995) and Sharot (2007).

• The theory challenged our understanding of memory and led to findings that different types of memory are processed in different parts of the brain.

Limitations

• Neisser argues that it is one's level of confidence, not accuracy, which defines FBM.

• Several constructs in the study of FBM are problematic - level of personal relevance, level of surprise, amount of overt rehearsal

• There are cultural differences that indicate that rehearsal may play the most important role in the development of FBM.

• Often with real-life research on the topic, it is impossible to verify the accuracy of memories.

• It is not possible to measure one's emotional state at the time of an event - thus making it impossible to demonstrate a clear causal explanation.

Biases in thinking and decision-making

• Although System 1 thinking is an efficient way to process the information we receive from the world around us  it is also prone to errors because it depends on assumptions about the world that are sensible but which do not always match the complexities of the real world which are difficult to predict. 

• These assumptions are often referred to as heuristics – a ‘mental shortcut’; it is usually a simple rule that is applied with little or no thought and quickly generates a ‘probable’ answer. 

• Demonstrating the existence of heuristics is a good way to provide empirical support for a distinct intuitive, fast, and effortless system 1 mode of thinking. 

• Understanding common errors in the way people think about the world can be useful as it helps us to anticipate poor decision-making and take steps to improve it.

• Heuristics can result in patterns of thinking and decision-making that are consistent, but inaccurate. 

• These patterns of thought are usually described as cognitive biases. 

• However, it is important to note that some cognitive biases are not dependent on a heuristic – for example, the bias may be the result of an individual trying to protect self-esteem or trying to fit into a group.  

Anchoring bias

• Anchoring Bias is the tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered (the "anchor") when making decisions. 

• During decision-making, anchoring occurs when individuals use an initial piece of information to make subsequent judgments.

• Englich and Mussweiler (2001) found that anchoring bias could play a significant role in determining sentencing in courtrooms.  

• For their study, they used young trial judges with an average of 9.34 months of experience.  

• They were given a scenario of a rape case, including the demand from the prosecutor for either a 34-month sentence or a 2-month sentence. 

• When told that the prosecutor recommended a sentence of 34 months, participants recommended on average eight months longer in prison than when told that the sentence should be 2 months – for the same crime.

• One of the original studies on anchoring bias was done by Tversky & Kahnemann (1974).  

• In this study, high school students were used as participants.  Participants in the “ascending condition” were asked to quickly estimate the value of 1 X 2 X 3 X 4 X 5 X 6 X 7 X 8. 

• Those in the “descending condition” were asked to quickly estimate the value of 8 X 7 X 6 X 5 X 4 X 3 X 2 X 1. 

• Since we read from left to right, the researchers assumed that group 1 would use "1" as an anchor and predict a lower value than the group that started with "8" as the anchor.  

• The expectation was that the first number seen would bias the estimate of the value by the participant. 

• The researchers found that the median for the ascending group was 512; the median for the descending group was 2250. The actual value is 40320. 

Strack and Mussweiler (1997)

• The aim of Strack and Mussweiler's (1997) study - to test the influence of anchoring bias on decision-making. 

• The researchers used an opportunity sample .The participants answered questions on a computer screen.  Each question had two components.

• In one part of the experiment, participants were given an implausible anchor to see if it would have an effect.  

• The participants were randomly allocated to one of two conditions. In each condition, participants were asked one of the following questions:

• Did Mahatma Gandhi die before or after the age of 9?     [low anchor, implausible]

• Did Mahatma Gandhi die before or after the age of 140? [high anchor, implausible]

• After the participants indicated their answers, they were asked to provide an estimate of how he was when he died.

• Even though the anchor presented was outlandish, it clearly influenced the participants' estimates. 

• It is interesting to note that the low anchor (9) appears to have been more influential than the high anchor (140). This could reflect the belief that the high anchor is in fact impossible, rather than implausible.

Peak-end rule

• The peak-end rule is a heuristic in which people judge an experience largely based on how they felt at its peak (i.e., its most intense point) and at its end, rather than based on the total sum or average of every moment of the experience. 

• The effect occurs regardless of whether the experience is pleasant or unpleasant. 

• It is not that other information aside from that of the peak and end of the experience is forgotten, but rather it is not used in reaching a decision or judgment.

• Kahnemann et al (1993) asked participants to hold their hand up to the wrist in painfully cold water until they were invited to remove it. 

• With their free hand, participants recorded how strong the pain was with 1 finger being little to no pain and 5 fingers being strong pain.  

• The researchers used a repeated measures design.  

• The two conditions were:

• Condition 1: 60 seconds of immersion in water at 14 degrees Celsius.  

  • At the end of the 60 seconds, the experimenter instructed them to take their hand out.

• Condition 2: 90 seconds of immersion.  

  • The first 60 seconds are the same as Condition 1. At the end of 60 seconds, the researcher opened a valve that allowed slightly warmer water to flow into the tub. 

  • The water temperature rose by about 1 degree Celsius.

• The participants were then told that there would be one more trial - either a repeat of Condition 1 or a repeat of Condition 2.  

• Now, if you look at the two conditions, it makes sense that Condition 1 is the smarter choice.  

• Both conditions have the same level of pain for 60 seconds - but after that time, Condition 1 gets a warm towel while Condition 2 gets a slight decrease in pain for an extra 30 seconds.

• 80% of the participants chose the second condition!  

• This is a clear example of the peak-end rule.  

• The fact that the second trial was longer was not taken into account by the participants (something called duration neglect).  

• They were basing their choice on how the condition ended, rather than making an overall assessment of the pain.

• This means that the research is open to memory distortion on behalf of the participants.  In a study of why a relationship ended, the researcher may ask the participant to rate the level of disclosure in the relationship.  

• If the couple was estranged during the last year of the relationship, it is very possible that due to the peak-end rule, the perception will be that disclosure was “always a problem” in the relationship, when in fact, the relationship may have been quite healthy for a significant amount of time that the couple was together.

Framing effect

• Prospect theory (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979) describes the way people choose between alternatives that involve risk, where the probabilities of outcomes are known.

• The theory states that people evaluate these losses and gains using heuristics.  

• One of those heuristics is the framing effect, in which people react to choices depending on how they are presented or "framed." 

• People prefer certain outcomes when information is framed in positive language, but prefer less certain outcomes when the same information is framed in negative language. 

• In simple terms, when we expect success we prefer a definite win rather than a possible win, but when things look bad we will gamble on an uncertain defeat rather than a definite loss.

Tversky and Kahneman (1986)

• Tversky & Kahneman (1986) aimed to test the influence of positive and negative frames on decision-making. 

• Participants were asked to make a decision between one of two options in a hypothetical scenario where they were choosing how to respond to the outbreak of a virulent disease. For some of the participants, the information was framed positively while for others it was framed negatively.

• All four options, (A, B, C, and D) are effectively the same; 200 people will survive and 400 people will not.

Results

• Where information was phrased positively, (the number of people who would be saved) people took the certain outcome, (option A) and avoided the possibility of a loss in the less certain option (option B).  

• By contrast, when the information was phrased in terms of people dying (a negative frame) people avoided the certain loss (option C) and took a chance on the less certain option D.

• It is important to consider cultural differences in thinking and decision-making. 

• For example, a recent meta-analysis (Wang et al, 2016) of research on loss aversion tasks like the one above has shown that people from more individualistic cultures are more risk-averse than those from a collectivist culture.

Critical thinking about cognitive biases

• We often use System 1 thinking which does not spend the time to examine carefully what our options are in order to make "informed choices."  

• But it is difficult to measure the actual use of such biases in real-life situations.  

• We are not very good at explaining our thinking processes.  

• Since heuristics are often used unconsciously, our explanation as to how we decided what was the best price to pay is most likely a rationalization, rather than a true reflection of our thinking processes.

Limitations of research

• Much of the research is done with Western university student samples under highly controlled - and rather artificial - conditions.  

• Many of the questions given to the students would be of little interest to them and were not asked in a way that was natural.  

• The studies lack ecological validity as well as cross-cultural support - assuming that cognitive biases are universal.

Emotion and decision-making

• The Dual Processing Model of thinking and decision-making suggests that we have two distinct modes of thinking: 

  • an intuitive, fast mode of thinking (System 1)

  •  a slower, conscious, and rational mode of thinking (System 2). 

• However, this model does not directly address the role of emotion in thinking and decision-making. 

• Emotion is an important factor in decision-making, although most models do not address exactly how and why emotion might influence the way we think and the decisions we make. 

• Many researchers believe that an increase in emotion will increase our dependence on System 1 as cognitive load is increased, making cognitive processing by System 2 difficult.

• Most people would probably say that their decision-making is impaired by emotion; that we think more clearly and make more logical decisions when our thinking is free of strong emotions. 

• However, recent neurobiological research has indicated that emotion may be essential to good decision-making.

• The somatic marker hypothesis suggests that good decision-making depends on an ability to access appropriate emotional information linked to the situation in which the decision is being made.

The Somatic Marker Hypothesis (Damasio, 1994)

• Damasio's Somatic Marker Hypothesis argues that emotional processes guide decision-making.

• The vmPFC seems to be involved in somatic markers of emotions associated with thoughts and memories.

• Somatic markers are feelings in the body that are associated with emotions, such as the association of a rapid heartbeat with anxiety or nausea with disgust. 

• Damasio wondered what would happen if this layer of information was removed when we try to decide what to do in a difficult situation.

Bechara

• Bechara et al (1999) developed a game known as the Iowa Gambling Task to test the Somatic Marker Hypothesis. 

• The aim: to determine the role of damage to the vmPFC on decision-making. 

• In this game, participants saw four decks of cards on a computer screen. The decks were labeled A, B, C, and D at the top end of each deck. Using a mouse, the participant could click on a card on any of the four decks.  Every time the participant chose one of the decks, the face of the card appeared on top of the deck and a message was displayed on the screen indicating the amount of money the participant had won or lost.  

• Participants were asked to decide which deck to select on 100 trials, although they were not told in advance how many trials there would be.  In addition, a test of skin conductive response was given as means of measuring "emotional response."

• The sample was made up of 13 healthy participants and 5 participants with vmPFC damage.

• The decks were not random. 

• Decks A and B would return high rewards initially but would then deliver larger and larger losses as the game went on. These decks should, therefore, be identified as ‘bad’, and participants should learn to avoid them through the experience of the game. 

• Decks C and D, by contrast, would deliver small rewards initially but would also have very small losses as the game continued. These decks should, therefore, be identified as ‘good’, and participants should learn to favor them through the experience of the game.

Results

• Control participants (with no brain damage) quickly learned the best strategy while those participants with bilateral damage in the vmPFC did not fare so well.

• The control participants developed anticipatory skin conductive responses to the disadvantageous decks (A and B); however, the vmPFC had a significantly lower anticipatory SCR and no clear difference in SCR between the two conditions.

De Martino et al (2006)

• De Martino et al, (2006) aimed to explore the interaction of emotion in a financial decision-making task.

• A sample was asked to complete a simple financial decision-making task while brain activity was measured using an fMRI scanner. Information was presented to participants as a loss (negative frame: you had £50, but have lost £30) or a gain (positive frame: you had £50, and you can keep £20). The outcome in both frames is the same: you have £20 you didn’t have before.

• In the positive frame, participants were then offered a chance to gamble (risky option – the outcome is unknown) or keep £20 (sure option – a certain ‘win’). 

• In this positive frame, loss aversion predicts that people will prefer the sure option and keep £20 – the risky ‘gamble’ option represents a possible loss.

• In the negative frame, participants were offered a chance to gamble (risky option – the outcome is unknown) or lose £30 (sure option – a certain ‘loss’). 

• In this negative frame, loss aversion predicts that people will prefer the risky ‘gamble’ option as the ‘sure’ option states a certain loss.

Results

• Participants were far more likely to choose to gamble in the negative frame condition, even though the options are in fact exactly the same as in the positive frame.

• fMRI results demonstrated an interesting pattern of activity in the amygdala, a part of the brain's limbic system which is regarded as being central to emotion. Participants recorded a significant increase in activity whenever they selected the ‘loss averse’ option, regardless of the frame in use.

• A key question for this study is the direction of causality. 

• It is difficult to be sure if the emotion associated with increased activity in the amygdala is guiding decision-making or if it is a consequence of decision-making. 

• Emotion and decision-making are interacting.

Evaluation of the Somatic Marker Hypothesis

• Most of the research done to support this theory uses the Iowa Gambling Task.  

• This raises the question of how robust the theory is in explaining decision-making behavior.

• In one version of this study, (Bechara et al, 1997) the team demonstrated that vmPFC patients continued to select cards from decks A and B even though they had told researchers that they knew these decks were disadvantageous.  This may indicate that it is not solely a lack of emotional feedback that leads to the patients' poor decision-making.

• Wright and Racow (2017) conducted a computerized test using the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). 

• In this task, the participant was presented with a balloon and offered the chance to earn money by pumping the balloon up by clicking a button. 

• Each click caused the balloon to inflate and money to be added to "the pot",  up until some point at which the balloon was overinflated and exploded. 

• Thus, each pump brought greater risk, but also greater potential reward. 

• Although they did find that ‘bad’ decisions, (where participants burst the balloon) did result in increased emotional response - indicated by Galvanic Skin Response -  they did not find any evidence that this somatic marker helped participants avoid bad decisions in future tasks.

• The Somatic Marker Hypothesis may demonstrate that decision-making is improved by access to an emotion that is relevant to the specific decision being made, but what about decisions made during periods of intense emotion not connected to the decision itself? 

• Such an approach may be a more useful focus for research into emotion and decision-making in the real world.

Cognitive Processing in the Digital World

Introduction

• According to the UK's Office of Communications (2015), young people between the ages of 16 and 24 spend more than 27 hours a week on the Internet. 

• The average adult spends more than 20 hours online a week, which includes time spent on the Internet at work.The question psychologists want to answer is - is this good for us?

• Fundamental problem: 

  • Most of the research on the effects of technology has not been replicated. 

  • The question of how we can effectively investigate the effect of technology on our cognition is a complicated one.  

  • And as you can probably guess, there is a lot of researcher bias on both sides of the aisle.

Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014)

• Taking notes on laptops rather than taking notes by hand is increasingly common. 

• Today it is normal to see lecture halls full of students tapping away.

• A study by Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014) suggests that using laptops to take notes may actually hinder learning.  

• Their argument is that when we take notes by hand, we cannot write fast enough to "keep up" with the professor; as a result, we have to process information and put what the professor says into our own words in order to get it on paper. 

Method

• Participants were given either a laptop or pen and paper and were instructed to take notes on a series of four lectures. 

• Participants were told that they would be tested in one week on the content of the lectures - and they would not be allowed to take their notes home with them. 

• Each participant watched the lecture on a private monitor with headphones in order to avoid any distractions.

• The two conditions - handwriting and laptop note-taking - were then randomly divided into two more conditions.  

• In the "study" condition, the participants were given 10 minutes to study their notes before being tested.  

• In the "no-study" condition, the participants were immediately tested without a chance to review their notes.  

• There were 40 questions - 10 for each lecture.  

• The questions were categorized by the researchers into "factual" questions and "conceptual" questions.

Ethics and Internet research

• The study by Mueller and Oppenheimer used an experimental design and a volunteer sample, but it was not very natural.  

• The lectures were disconnected from the interests of the students, the participants were questioned a week later without being allowed to access their notes, and the trivia-style questions that were asked all made for a rather artificial experiment.  

• Field studies are also being used in psychology to study the effect of technology on our cognitive processes.. 

• However, attempts to avoid demand characteristics by carrying out field experiments have raised serious ethical concerns with regard to informed consent.

• Interest in how we study the impact of the digital world on the way we think, the decisions we make, and our emotional state intensified following the publication of a study often referred to as a ‘secret experiment’ conducted by Facebook. Many people were angry that the study (Kramer et al, (2014)) had manipulated the information they received in their Facebook feed in order to test how this slight manipulation might affect them emotionally. Despite widespread and high-profile criticism, Kramer responded with a passionate defense of the study.

• This research raises important questions about the way in which research should be conducted as well as the extent to which corporations should be bound by the same rules as academics. The study was conducted as part of an internal investigation within Facebook, thereby falling beyond the scope of the ethics committee at the relevant university.Facebook confirmed that the manipulation fell within its own Data Use Policy. 

• The manipulation of the news feed was done remotely and without any direct involvement of any researchers or Facebook staff. All participants were still able to see all posts if they took the time to view their friend’s ‘wall’. Kramer has argued that the research was important given the scale and intensity of social media use, especially Facebook.  

• However, as none of the participants were aware of any manipulation, there is little reason to suppose they would do so. 

• Kramer argues that the benefit of such research outweighs the costs of failing to provide any form of consent.

Ethics in research: Kramer et al (2014)

• Kramer et al (2014) wanted to test the idea that information in an individual’s Facebook feed could cause emotional contagion - that is, the transfer of emotional states from one person to another. 

• Emotional contagion is well established as something which can happen in face-to-face interaction and it seemed clear that this could also occur in response to the information we see on our Facebook feed.

• The research used an existing Facebook algorithm and a software system to identify posts containing positive and negative words. 

• For some participants between 10% and 90% of the ‘positive’ posts (posts containing one or more positive words) of their friends were omitted from their feed. For other participants, 10% to 90% of the negative posts of their friends were omitted.

•  

• A control group for each condition was also assessed, where a proportion of their feed was omitted at random. 

• Importantly, researchers never viewed or altered any posts manually; this was all done automatically by algorithms. 

• The words used by participants in their own posts were analyzed during the week of the experimental manipulation and the percentage of positive and negative words used in these posts was recorded.

Results

• When participants had the positive content of their news feed reduced, they were less likely to use positive language in their own posts. When participants had the negative content of their news feed reduced, they were less likely to use negative language in their own posts.

• Kramer et al concluded that the emotional content to which we are exposed through our Facebook feed does indeed affect our own emotional state; when we see fewer positive posts we are less likely to post positive events or positive opinions of our own.

Survey research

• Much research into the way we are affected by the digital world has been conducted using survey data, often collected online. 

• This method has several benefits, most notably the absence of any significant ethical concerns as participants are often fully informed or are at least provided with a full debrief and the right to withdraw their data if they are unhappy when the study is completed. 

• However, research conducted with surveys consistently raises concerns in terms of both internal and external validity.

• One limitation is the social desirability effect. 

  • Even when survey data is collected anonymously it remains true that many participants will be reluctant to provide any information about themselves which could be negatively judged. 

• Another limitation is sampling bias. 

  • Surveys are often sent out or made available to very large numbers of people on the assumption that only some of them will choose to respond. 

  • This is very sensible from a practical point of view, (especially if surveys can be distributed without cost by electronic means) but it can reduce the population validity of the research.

  • We might consider why some people would take part in a survey about social media while other people choose not to do so. 

  • In either case, this may make it difficult to generalize results to a wider population.

Memory in the digital world

• In 2008, Nicholas Carr wrote an article for the magazine “The Atlantic” which asked a provocative question: Is Google making us stupid? 

• As computers have become not just a significant part of our social life, but also our day at school, the use of technology has raised many questions.  

• There has been a lot of anecdotal evidence where people claim that computers either help or hinder their learning, but up until now, there is no definitive answer to Carr’s question. 

• The belief that people are using the Internet as a personal memory bank is referred to as the Google effect. The question is, does it really exist?

A different type of memory?

• So far in this unit, we have discussed short-term and long-term memory, procedural memory, episodic memory, and semantic memory.  

• Wegner et al (1985) suggested that an additional form of memory might exist within groups of closely linked individuals. 

• Such transactive memory systems are expected to be more than just the sum total of memories stored by the members of the group. 

• They also include knowledge of where information can be found (i.e. who knows what) and how to access it (i.e. the best way to extract information from another member of the group).  

• Collaboration between group members may also be essential to the retrieval of essential information.

• We often see this type of memory in relationships.   

• Because the relationships allow access to that information whenever it is needed, there is no need to commit that information to long-term memory.

• Frequent use of Internet search engines and databases may represent a new type of transactive memory system that reduces reliance on our own individual memory stores. Sparrow et al, 2011 wondered if the Internet has become an enormous transactive memory store. 

• In this model, individuals would no longer need to remember information but would simply need to remember how to search for it effectively using a search engine such as Google. One prediction would be that we invest less effort in committing information to memory if we believe we can simply retrieve the information from an external memory store such as Google at a later date. 

• Sparrow investigated this type of transactive memory in a simple but effective lab experiment.

• Participants were asked to type 40 trivia facts into the computer. 

• Some of the facts were expected to represent new knowledge (An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain) whilst other facts were more likely to be already known to the participants (The space shuttle Columbia disintegrated during re-entry over Texas in Feb. 2003).

• The experiment used a 2 x 2 independent samples design – meaning that two independent variables were manipulated at two different levels. 

• 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. 

• This meant that four conditions were present in the study:

• The results showed that being asked to remember the information made no significant difference to the participants’ 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.

Percentage of trivia facts recalled

• Participants who believed they would be able to retrieve the information from the computer appear to have made far less effort to remember the information than those who knew they would not be able to do this. 

• However, it is not really possible to measure the “level of effort” in this study – so although we can see that there is an effect on recall, we cannot be certain as to why this difference exists.

• In a follow-up study, Sparrow et al tried to measure how well people recall where information can be found compared to recall of the information itself. In this experiment, participants were asked to read and type a series of trivia facts. 

• After typing each fact participants were given the name of a specific folder that this information would be stored in. 

• There were six folders in total but participants were not explicitly given this information or asked to recall the folder names, (‘facts’, ‘data’, ‘info’, ‘points’, ‘items’ or ‘names’)

• Participants were then given ten minutes to write down as many of the statements as they could remember. 

• They were then given a part of a statement and asked which folder it was saved in.  

• For example, “What folder was the statement about the ostrich saved in?”

Percentage of recall

• Participants were much more likely to remember the name of the folder (i.e. where the information could be found) than the information itself. 

• The highest rate of recall was for the name of the folder when the information itself was forgotten, suggesting that participants were prioritizing their memory of where information could be found, exactly as expected if we are using the Internet as an external store in a transactive memory system.

• This research suggests that the Internet is increasingly occupying an important role in human memory, acting as an external store in a transactive memory system. 

• Furthermore, our confidence in this external store appears to discourage us from investing effort in encoding and/or retrieval of potentially important information in our individual long-term memory stores.

• As long as the Internet remains operational, we might feel confident that we can continue to rely on what is after all a colossal external memory store. 

• However, evidence from Storm et al, (2016) suggests that our confidence in the internet leads to diminishing effort in remembering things for ourselves; the more we use Google, the less we seek to remember.

• Both Sparrow et al and Storm designed experiments that clearly manipulate one or more independent variables and demonstrate a clear relationship between the IV and the DV.  

• Both experiments, however, rely on trivia information.  

• These studies raise important questions about the way in which the Internet is changing the way we learn and commit information to memory. 

• However, the research in this field is relatively new and needs to be rigorously tested for reliability. 

• At this point, it is not advisable to draw any definitive conclusions; doing so may open you up to confirmation bias - that is, using insufficient evidence to confirm what you already may believe to be true, while not seeking out information that may challenge what you believe.

Storm et al (2016)

• Storm et al (2016) aimed to study that successful use of Google to retrieve information made it more likely that participants would rely on Google in the future rather than recalling information from their individual memory store.

• They were randomly allocated to one of three conditions: Internet, memory, or baseline. 

• In the first phase of the procedure, participants in the Internet condition were told to use Google Search to answer a series of eight difficult general knowledge questions. 

• Participants in the ‘memory’ condition were asked to answer the same questions, but relying entirely on their own memory to do so. 

• Participants in the baseline condition were not asked any questions.

• In the second phase, all participants were asked to answer eight easy general questions as fast as possible. 

• All participants were given access to Google Search but without any explicit instruction to use it. 

• The dependent variable was the proportion of questions for which participants chose to use Google Search in the second phase of the procedure.

• The results clearly suggested that using Internet search engines to retrieve information makes us more likely to do so, (and therefore less likely to use our own memory) in future information recall tasks.

Technology and thinking

• There are many conflicting claims in the media about the role that technology has in our thinking. 

• On the one hand, there is a lot of research that seems to indicate that we are easily manipulated by technology - including what we see on our Facebook feed.  

• This research has been gobbled up by marketing companies looking to take advantage of our System 1 thinking to sell us things that we don't need.

• Another set of research seems to show that engaging with technology may improve our problem-solving, spatial reasoning, and creativity.

• As we have seen, dependence on heuristics in System 1 thinking can result in cognitive biases - consistent but mistaken beliefs about how the world works. 

• This process could be influenced by our immersion in a digital world such as our engagement with social media.

• Frequent use of social media could reinforce cognitive biases such as confirmation bias as we can select the information which confirms our view. 

• Algorithms used by social media networks may further amplify this effect as information that is in line with our status updates or browsing history is ‘pushed’ to us through social media feeds. 

• Even in our online shopping, we are exposed to advertisements that fit our past purchasing behavior.

• Frequent use of social media may also intensify negative cognitive biases based on comparisons between ourselves and the apparent experience of our online friends. 

• Research indicates that social media may have an effect on both our self-concept and our self-esteem.

Psychology terminology

• Self-concept and self-esteem are clearly linked, but they are not the same thing.

• In simple terms, the difference can be thought of as follows:

• Self-concept refers to our view of who we are. 

• Baumeister (1999) defines self-concept as the individual's belief about oneself, including the person's attributes and who and what the self is. 

• Self-concept includes how we perceive our own personality, what we are good at, and what we like to do. 

• There is no element of ‘judgmentt’ in self-concept, it is simply our view of who we are rather than an emotional feeling about who we are.

• Self-esteem refers to our emotional response to our self-concept. Self-esteem is a person's overall subjective evaluation of his or her own worth.

Social Comparison Theory

• Social Comparison Theory (Festinger, 1954) postulates that there is a drive within individuals to have accurate self-evaluations. 

• We determine our own social and personal worth based on how we compare to others.  

• People compare their experiences to that of those around them as a way to work out what kind of person they are (self-concept) and how they should judge themselves (self-esteem). 

• We might compare our feelings, experiences, abilities, and situations with those of our friends as a way to judge our own value and place in the world.

• Many social media networks provide an increased opportunity for social comparison as they allow users to maintain a very clear idea of ‘what everyone else is doing’ (for example, through status updates) and compare this to their own daily routine. 

• Although we all engage in this kind of social comparison to some extent, it seems clear that some people are more interested in doing so and may be more influenced by any negative comparison. 

• These individuals may be more vulnerable to a negative cognitive bias - a tendency to compare themselves negatively to others, thereby reducing their self-esteem and potentially impacting their mood.

• This risk of negative comparison may be further intensified due to the likelihood that comparisons based on information from social media are upward comparisons – comparisons where we deem the experience, behavior, and characteristics of others to be preferable to or better than our own. 

• This is because most people present a ‘best-case scenario’ of themselves online. 

• People are strongly motivated to post a status update describing something they are doing with friends which seems exciting and enjoyable rather than an update stating that they are currently not doing much and feeling a bit bored on their own!

• Evidence from Chou and Edge (2014) suggests that the availability heuristic is also a factor in the way our use of social media influences our thinking. 

• We are likely to base our self-esteem on those examples we can most easily remember (the most available) and that are likely to be the most different from our own experience. 

• In simple terms, we are most likely to remember the posts describing people having the most fun and excitement and compare our own experience against that benchmark.

• Like a lot of research on the impact of the digital world, this study relies on self-reported survey data from younger people. 

• This could be seen as appropriate as this age group may be more engaged with social media and therefore more vulnerable to any negative consequences. 

• However, this assumption may disregard the potential impact on a wider population of users.

• A growing body of research seems to confirm the idea that more intense use of social media can have negative effects. 

• For example, a large, longitudinal study by Shakya and Christakis, (2017) demonstrated a negative correlation between ‘liking’ other people’s content and mental health. 

• In simple terms, Facebook users who clicked ‘like’ more often were likely to have less positive mental health. 

• Although interesting, this evidence may suffer from bidirectional ambiguity; does more use of Facebook reduce mental well-being, or do those people already suffering from poor mental health make greater use of Facebook?

Chou and Edge (2012)

• Chou and Edge (2012) aimed to test the influence of the availability heuristic on how Facebook users evaluate themselves in comparison to other people.

• They used an opportunity sample.Participants completed a survey including a 10-point Likert scale allowing them to indicate how strongly they agreed with a series of statements such as “many of my friends have a better life than me” or “many of my friends are happier than me”.

• They also indicated how many hours a week they spent on Facebook, how long they had used FB, the average time spent actually with friends per week, and the number of ‘friends’ on Facebook whom they did not actually know personally.

• The results showed that participants who spent the most hours per week on Facebook were more likely to agree that ‘other people are happier than me’. 

• By contrast, those who spent the most time out with friends in the ‘real world’ were very unlikely to feel that ‘other people are happier than me’ or ‘many of my friends have a better life than me’.

• Interestingly, those participants who reported having a larger number of contacts not personally known to them were very likely to agree that ‘many of my friends have a better life than me’ but did not feel that other people were happier.

• Chou and Edge concluded that more time spent on Facebook means that examples of other people engaged in exciting, fun, and social activities are more ‘available’ - and Facebook users are very likely to compare their own lives to these examples. 

• In addition, they found that we overestimate the extent to which the behavior of other people reflects their disposition rather than their situation. 

Positive influences of technology on thinking

• Contrary to what many of the headlines out there tell you, there is research that indicates that technology may actually be improving thinking and decision-making skills - especially in the study of the effects of moderate video gaming.

• A recently published meta-analysis (Uttal et al., 2013) concluded that the spatial skills improvements that result from playing shooter video games are comparable to the effects of high school and university-level courses aimed at enhancing these same skills. 

• Further, this recent meta-analysis showed that spatial skills can be trained with video games in a relatively brief period, that these training benefits last over an extended period of time, and crucially, that these skills transfer to other spatial tasks outside the video game context. 

• In addition to spatial skills, researchers have also found evidence that video games are an excellent means of developing problem-solving skills.

• According to Glass, Maddox, and Love (2013), playing a fast-paced video game can improve strategic thinking. 

• In their study, they used a sample. 

• In order to be in the sample, the participants had to regularly play video games for less than two hours a week on average.

• At the beginning of the study, the researchers measured the volunteers’ cognitive flexibility - that is, their ability to switch between cognitive tasks and to "think on their feet" when solving problems. 

• The participants were then asked to play video games for 40 hours over an eight-week period - either a fast-paced game that required strategic thinking (StarCraft) or a simulation game (The Sims).  

• At the end of the eight weeks, the results showed that those who had played StarCraft had shown greater improvement in cognitive flexibility. 

• A limitation of the study, however, is that the study was not longitudinal.  

• The participants' level of cognitive flexibility was measured at the end of the study, but not after a later period. We do not know if the effects were long-term.

• Daphne Bavelier argues that the effects are long-term and that they transfer to solving a large range of problems.

• It appears that gaming may actually change our brains. 

• Kühn et al (2013) carried out a study to determine the effects of prolonged video game playing on the brains of young adults.  

• In this study, the researchers had participants play Super Mario 64 for 30 minutes every day for two months. 

• The experiment used a pre-test / post-test design. 

• The researchers carried out MRI scans on the participants both before and after the two-month period of game playing.  

• In addition, the MRIs were compared to a control group that did not play video games.

• The MRIs showed that the volume of grey matter in the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and cerebellum had increased and was on average larger in the gaming group than in the controls.

• Remember the roles of the different parts of the brain:

• The prefrontal cortex is involved in strategic planning, decision-making, and cognitive control.

• The hippocampus is involved in memory formation, with the right hippocampus being particularly involved in spatial navigation.

• The cerebellum is involved with fine motor function.

• These findings seem to lend biological support to some of the studies above.  

• However, we should use a bit of caution.  

• First, the sample size was small. 

• In order to trust these findings, the study would need to be replicated and obtain similar results.

Bavelier et al (2011)

• To investigate the connection between action games and decision-making, Bavelier and her team first studied two groups of men and women, average age 26, who said they had not played video games in the past year. 

• One group was told to play two action video games for two hours for a total of 50 hours. 

• The second group was asked to play a simulation game in which they had to make decisions about a character's life.

• After the 50 hours of game time, members of both groups were asked to look at a computer screen and do a simple test. 

• The computer screen showed a pattern of dots. 

• Participants had to determine which way the majority of dots were moving by pressing a key on the keyboard. 

• Some of the patterns were easy - with pretty much all of the dots heading in the same direction.  

• Others were more complex.

• Findings showed that although both groups could accomplish the task, those who had played the action video did the task faster and with fewer errors - that is, they were able to decipher a large amount of information more quickly and come to a decision.

• Bavelier and her lab have carried out a lot of research on the positive effects of gaming on cognitive processing.

Technology, emotion, and cognition

• We now live in a world of "breaking news", social media, and 24-hour news coverage.  

• When something bad happens, our phones alert us and we are often able to watch events happen live. 

Flashbulb memories

• Although Brown and Kulik (1977) argued that surprise was the key to flashbulb memories, modern adaptations of the theory recognize that the theory is much more complex than they proposed.

• Our prior knowledge and experience play a key role in what will actually be a flashbulb memory. 

• This helps us to determine whether an event is important to us - and it will also determine the level of surprise or emotion in our reaction to the news. 

• If the event is important, we will discuss this with others or ruminate (think a lot about) this event, thereby engaging in overt rehearsal.  It is the combination of these variables that may lead to a flashbulb memory.

• The question is whether "reception context" should also be considered a variable in this model.

Reception context

• How we hear the news, known as the reception context, may make a difference in how we recall the news.  

• A study by Schaefer et al (2011) wanted to see if there was a difference in memories of the 9/11 terrorist attacks depending on whether people heard the information on television or from another person.  

• Obviously, when we first hear news from another person, visual images are absent.  

• The researchers wanted to know just how important these visual images are in the creation of flashbulb memories.

Method

• They were asked to do a free recall of when they heard the news about the terrorist attack both 28 hours after the event and then again six months later. 

• They were not told at the time of the first recall task that they would be tested again six months later.

• The participants were divided into two groups: immediate and delayed viewing of television coverage of the event.  

• Those in the immediate group (n = 27) saw the event live on television or turned on television within minutes of hearing the news.  

• Those in the delay condition (n = 11) saw the event on television hours after being informed.  

• The responses were coded by two independent research assistants who were blind to the hypotheses.

• The quantity of information provided in the initial and follow-up reports, based on the number of canonical categories and word length, did not differ with regard to reception context.  

• However, the delayed viewing of images resulted in less elaborate and less consistent accounts over the 6-month interval.

The problem with 9/11 FBM research

• The terrorist attack of 9/11 led to a lot of research on flashbulb memories.  

• However, we have to be cautious in our interpretation of the research. 

• Because there is no way to control the amount of media exposure over time, many of the studies have low internal validity.  

• In the case of national tragedies, anniversaries of the tragedy receive more media coverage which then encourages overt rehearsal.

• The initial "breaking news" media coverage may play a critical role in encoding a flashbulb memory, but it may be the annual reinforcement of this memory that actually plays a role in its vividness and accuracy over time.

• Hirst et al (2008) looked at two different national tragedies in the US - the Challenger disaster which was famously studied by Neisser and Harsh (1992) and the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  The researchers wanted to see if there was a correlation between the amount of media coverage and the accuracy of their memories of the event.

• There was a higher level of accuracy in the 9/11 memories; however, there was also more media coverage of the 9/11 attacks over the three years following the event.

•  It is not possible for researchers to say that the initial exposure to the media alone was responsible for the accuracy or vividness of the memories.

The role of social media

• Berntsen (2009) argued that another potential factor in the development of a flashbulb memory is when an event activates one’s social identity.  

• This would lead to a sense of a heightened personal significance of the event, an emotional reaction to the event, and rehearsal of that event within one’s social group. 

• Therefore, one would expect social media sites would enhance vividness and confidence in the accuracy of memories. 

• As social media is still a relatively new phenomenon - and it takes time to measure the accuracy of flashbulb memories - there is very little research done on this question. Talorico et al (2017) carried out a study to see if the reception context would make a difference in the vividness and accuracy of memories of the assassination of Osama bin Laden - the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks. 

• She and her team compared the memories of those who learned about the assassination through television, social media, or another person.

• Participants were asked to recall how they heard about the event and what they remembered two days after the assassination and then again either 7, 42, 224, or 365 days later.  

• After two days, the findings were that television exposure was strongest both in accuracy and the vividness of the memory.  

• For accuracy of recall, personal communication was the weakest; for vividness, it was social media. When examining the consistency of flashbulb memory over time (up to one year later), the reception context did not make a difference.