Cognitive Processes and Memory

Cognitive Processes: Schema Theory

• Schema Theory: May be used as a memory model, possible Short-Answer Question (SAQ) or Extended-Response Question (ERQ).

Bartlett (1932) Study

• Aim: To investigate how memory is influenced by prior knowledge and cultural background, specifically how unfamiliar information is distorted when recalled.

• Procedure:

  • Participants: British individuals.

  • Story: "The War of the Ghosts," a Native American legend with unfamiliar names and concepts.

  • Conditions:

    • Repeated reproduction: Participants heard the story, then reproduced it shortly after and over time.

    • Serial reproduction: Participants repeated the story to another person.

• Findings:

  • No significant difference between the two conditions.

  • Participants distorted the story as they recalled it:

    • Assimilation: Changed the story to fit cultural expectations.

    • Leveling: Shortened the story by removing "unnecessary" parts.

    • Sharpening: Changed the order of the story to fit cultural norms.

• Conclusion: The study demonstrated how Schema Theory explains memory distortion. Participants applied their existing schemas to make the story more understandable, altering it to align with their cultural knowledge.

Anderson & Pritchard (1978) Study

• Aim: To investigate the role of schemas in encoding and recalling a story.

• Sample: 39 psychology students.

• Procedure:

  • Participants read a story with 72 ideas, some related to burglary and some to home buying.

  • Allocated to two groups: robber condition or home buyer condition.

  • Participants read the story from the perspective of either a burglar or a homebuyer for two minutes.

  • Followed by an 84-item vocabulary test (distractor task and control for language proficiency).

  • Afterward, they were asked to recall as much of the story as they could.

• Findings:

  • Participants recalled more burglar-related information than homebuyer-related information.

  • Schema-influenced encoding: The group with the burglar perspective recalled more burglar information due to familiarity with that schema.

  • Schema-influenced retrieval: Those who changed perspective (from burglar to homebuyer or vice versa) recalled 7.1\%% more relevant information to the new perspective.

  • Participants who did not change perspective recalled 2.9\%% less relevant information than their initial perspective.

• Conclusion:

  • People are more likely to remember information that aligns with their existing schemas.

  • Changing perspectives can help access additional, previously overlooked information.

Reliability of Cognitive Processes: Influence of Emotion

• Influence of emotion on one cognitive process: Possible exam topic.

Brown & Kulik (1977) Study

• Aim: To investigate whether surprising and personally significant events can cause flashbulb memories (memories that are vivid and detailed, like a photograph).

• Procedure:

  • Participants: 40 black and 40 white American male participants.

  • They filled out a questionnaire about the deaths of public figures (e.g., John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr.) and a person they knew.

  • Questions included:

    • Where were you when you heard about the event?

    • Who was with you?

    • What were you doing?

    • How did you find out about the event?

    • How did you feel? (emotion)

    • How important was the event in your life? (personal relevance)

    • How often have you talked about the event? (rehearsal)

  • The study was conducted in 1977, with the public figures' deaths occurring in the 1960s.

• Results:

  • 90\%% of participants recalled detailed memories about the event.

  • Personal relevance: There was a difference in flashbulb memories based on personal relevance.

    • 75\%% of black participants had flashbulb memories about Martin Luther King's death.

    • 33\%% of white participants had flashbulb memories about the same event.

  • More detailed memories were reported for the death of a loved one compared to public figures.

• Evaluations:

  • Strengths:

    • Groundbreaking Study: One of the first studies to empirically test flashbulb memories, contributing to a large body of research.

    • Replicability: The study’s procedure allows for replication to test the reliability of the findings.

  • Weaknesses:

    • No Cause-and-Effect: The study uses interviews and questionnaires, which cannot establish a causal relationship between in-group identity and flashbulb memories.

    • Retrospective Nature: The study relied on self-reported, retrospective data, which may be inaccurate or biased (compared to prospective studies like Neisser & Harsch's).

    • Social Desirability Effect: Participants may have answered in a way they thought was expected, influencing results.

    • Sampling Bias: The study only involved American males, which limits generalizability, and may be biased culturally and by gender. More recent research suggests collectivistic cultures may show lower rates of flashbulb memories.

    • Unmeasurable Variables: The level of surprise, emotion, and rehearsal in the creation of these memories couldn't be directly measured or verified.

Ethical and Methodological Considerations (Potential Exam Topics)

• Ethical considerations in the study of the reliability of cognitive processes. All topics from here down might come in the exam.

• The use of one or more research methods in the study of the reliability of cognitive processes.

• Ethical considerations in the study of emotion and cognition.

• The use of one or more research methods in the study of emotion and cognition.

• The reliability of one cognitive process.

Here are the evaluations for the studies you asked about:

Bartlett (1932) Study:
This study wasn't described with any evalutations.

Anderson & Pritchard (1978) Study:
This study wasn't described with any evalutations.

Brown & Kulik (1977) Study

• Strengths:

  • Groundbreaking Study: One of the first studies to empirically test flashbulb memories, contributing to a large body of research.

  • Replicability: The study’s procedure allows for replication to test the reliability of the findings.

• Weaknesses:

  • No Cause-and-Effect: The study uses interviews and questionnaires, which cannot establish a causal relationship between in-group identity and flashbulb memories.

  • Retrospective Nature: The study relied on self-reported, retrospective data, which may be inaccurate or biased (compared to prospective studies like Neisser & Harsch's).

  • Social Desirability Effect: Participants may have answered in a way they thought was expected, influencing results.

  • Sampling Bias: The study only involved American males, which limits generalizability, and may be biased culturally and by gender. More recent research suggests collectivistic cultures may show lower rates of flashbulb memories.

  • Unmeasurable Variables: The level of surprise, emotion, and rehearsal in the creation of these memories couldn't be directly measured or verified.