Cognitive level of analysis

What is cognitive psychology ? Study of mental processes Study of the way in which the brain

processes information It concerns the way we take in

information from the outside world, how we make sense of that information and what use we make of it.

Stimulus - response

What is this ?

What are mental processes?( the thing in the black box)

Decision-making – perception- language- memory-attention ??

Billy is walking across the school campus. He spots a friend and they have a quick chat about last night’s football training. He then apologises as he rushes off to his own football training, unsure of whether to cycle or catch the bus.

Such an every-day sequence of seemingly trivial events actually involves a sequence of complex cognitive processes. Which process is being used ?

Billy is able to find his way across campus and recognize his friend.

He focuses on only a portion of the campus as he makes his way across it

He remembers his friend, details of the match the night before and his training session

They chat about the football match He then has to working out the best form of transport to

get home.

Outline principles that define the cognitive level of analysis:

Outline principles that define the cognitive level of analysis:

1. Humans are information processors

2. Mental processes can be scientifically investigated

3. Cognitive processes are influenced by social and cultural factors

1. Humans are information processors

Human behaviour is determined by a set of mental tasks/processes

Mental tasks/processes include; perception, thinking, problem solving, memory, language and attention

They are also known as cognitions

Cognitive psychologist see these cognitions/mental tasks as active systems;

In between taking in and responding to information a number of processes are at work.

Information can be transformed, reduced, elaborated, filtered, manipulated, selected, organized, stored and retrieved

Therefore the human mind is seen as an active system processing information, and cognitive psychologists aims to study these processes.

Central to this information processing approach is the computer metaphor.

One of the difficulties facing cognitive psychologists is that they were trying to study processes that are not directly observable.

Consequently the computer revolution of the 1950 provided the terminology and metaphor they needed.

People, like computers, acquire information from the environment ( input ).

Both people and computers store information and retrieve it when applicable to current tasks;

both are limited in the amount of information they can process at a given time;

both transform information to produce new information; both return information to the environment ( output).

This information processing approach can be seen in;

Models of memory Schema theory

(more about each of these later).

Principle 2: Mental processes can be scientifically investigated Cognitive processes are difficult to study. They often occur rapidly, and inside the mind

so they cannot be observed directly. It is only the responses that participants make

when given some cognitive task to perform that can tell us about cognitive processes.

These tasks usually take place under tightly controlled lab experiments where the main aim is to isolate a particular component of the cognitive process for the study.

The stroop effect One of the earliest and most famous

experiments into cognitive processes is the Stroop Effect.

The stroop effect is a phenomena involved in attentional processes.

Although we will actually focus on the process of memory this is a good study to look at.

People are often introduced to the Stroop Effect in beginning psychology classes as they learn about how their brains process information.

The stroop effect

It demonstrates the effects of interference, processing speed (reaction time) and automaticity in divided attention.

The effect is named after John Ridley Stroop who first published the effect in English in 1935.

Stroop effect This is a classic laboratory experiment that

involves the manipulation of an independent variable ( colour or name of word ) to see what effect it has on the dependent variable ( reaction time).

It attempts to control the influence of all other extraneous variables – such as other cognitive processes or skills.

It also allows us to establish a cause and effect relationship between task and mental process.

Mental processes can be scientifically studied A further example of the laboratory

experiment was conducted by Ebbinghaus (1885).

His experiment intended to isolate the process of pure memory and show that it could be studied scientifically under carefully controlled conditions.

The aim of the study was to study forgetting, i.e. how quickly a person forgets what has been learned 100%.

He used himself in most of the studies , i.e. the design was N=1 and he tested his memory using nonsense syllables. Learned lists of nonsense syllables (e.g., DAX,

QEH) Why nonsense syllables?

Did not want actual words to influence his ability to memorize or recall certain words

He manipulated the independent variable of ‘time delay before recall’ to find the effect on the dependent variable of ‘the amount of information retained’ thus being able eventually to draw the famous ‘forgetting curve’.

Principle 3:Cognitive processes are influenced by social and cultural factors Cognitive processes can be influenced by our

culture Bartlett found that schemas ( past knowledge)

can affect our memories – Cole and Scribner found that non-schooled

children in parts of Africa struggled with aspects of memorisation.

MORE ABOUT THIS LATER……….

Evaluate schema theory with reference to research studies

What is schema theory ?

Schema Theory What is a Schema?

“A mental model or representation built up through experience about a person, an object,

a situation, or an event.” (Head, 1920)

“Organised structures of knowledge and expectations of some aspect of the world.”

(Bartlett, 1932)

Schema of an “egg”

What is a schema ? Schema theory seeks to explain our

interpretation of the world from a psychological perspective, which stems from cognitive science.

Schemas (or schemata) are cognitive structures (mental templates or frames) that represent a person's knowledge about objects, people or situations.

Schemas are derived from prior experience and knowledge. They simplify reality, setting up expectations about what is probable in relation to particular social and textual contexts.

What is a schema ? Schemas are used to organise our knowledge,

to assist recall, to guide our behaviour, to predict likely happenings and to help us to make sense of current experiences.

Schema theory predicts that we interpret our experiences by using relevant social and textual schemas. Bartlett (1932) described how schemata influence memory in his research with 'Story of the ghosts'.

A schema can be seen as a kind of framework with 'slots' for 'variables', some of them filled-in and others empty.

What is a schema ? Schema theory predicts that we interpret our

experiences The slots are either filled in already with compulsory values (e.g. that a dog is an animal) or 'default values' (e.g. that a dog has four legs) or are empty (optional variables) until ' instantiated' with values from the current situation (e.g. that the dog's colour is black).

When what seems like the most appropriate schema is activated, inferences are generated to fill in any necessary but inexplicit details with assumed values from the schema.

If no relevant schema is retrieved from long-term memory a new schema is created. Explicit events and inferences, as well as new schemas, are stored in long-tern memory.

Schema-driven processing is a top-down perceptual process that guides a selective search for data relevant to the expectations set up by the schema.

Schema-driven processing interacts with bottom-up data-driven processes (which may lead to the activation, modification or generation of a schema).

Schema theory is consistent with the notion of both perception and recall as constructive and selective cognitive processes.

Schemas are culturally specific: schemas for common routines vary socio-culturally- even within a single country.

Evaluation of Schema theory

Support for the influence of schemas on cognitive processes is widespread. Bartlett (1932) described how schemata influence memory in his classic study based on a Native American folktale.

War of the Ghosts (1932)This was an unusual story for

people from a Western culture to understand because it contained unfamiliar supernatural concepts and an odd, causal structure.

After an interval participants were asked to recall as much of the story as possible.

methodology Serial reproduction – participant reads

and recalls the story, second person reads and recalls the second reproduction…….and so on

Repeated reproduction – partipants reads the story and repeats it over various recall intervals

The War of the Ghosts http://cla.calpoly.edu/~dlvalenc/PSY307/LINKS/GHOSTWAR.HTM

One night two young men from Egulac went down to the river to hunt seals, and while they were it became foggy and calm. Then they heard war cries and they thought; 'Maybe this is a war-party.' They escaped to the shore, and hid behind a log.

Now canoes came up, and they heard the noise of paddles and saw one canoe coming up to them. There were five men in the canoe and they said; 'What do you think? We wish to take you along. We are going up the river to make war on the people.'

One of the young men said; 'I have no arrows.' 'Arrows are in the canoe,' they said. 'I will not go along. I might be killed. My relatives do not know where I have gone. But

you,' he said, turning to the other, 'May go with them.' So one of the young men went, but the other returned home. And the warriors went

on up the river to a town on the other side of Kalama. The people came down to the water and began to fight, and many were killed. But presently, one of the young men heard one of the warriors say; 'Quick let us go home. That Indian has been hit.'

Now he thought; 'Oh, they are ghosts.' He did not feel sick, but he had been shot. So the canoes went back to Egulac, and the young man went back to his house and made a fire. And he told everybody and said; 'Behold, I accompanied the ghosts, and we went to fight. Many of our fellows were killed and many of those that attacked us were killed. They said I was hit, but I did not feel sick.'

He told it all, and then he became quiet. When the sun rose, he fell down. Something black came out of his mouth. His face became contorted. The people jumped up and cried. He was dead.

War of the Ghosts (1932) Bartlett found that their accounts were

distorted in several ways that, generally, made them more consistent with a Western world – view.

Specifically he found the following;

Findings/Results Some things in the story were changed by

the participants, especially parts of the story that were difficult for the participant to comprehend (i.e. ghosts and the Indian's death). Ghosts coming out of the mouth of the unconscious Indian was commonly written. The excuse for not fighting "I have run out of arrows" was avoided and instead put down to "worried relatives", because it was more familiar to the participant.

Every participant rationalized the.story to some degree

Findings/Results Some added material to the story to bring it

into closer agreement with their prior knowledge and beliefs (for example he had a fever before he died).

There was a tendency for males to forget the 'no arrows' excuse for joining the war. This was because many men were going off to war and relatives would miss him were in the forefront of the participants minds.

Findings/Results

Bartlett found that participants tended to alter their memories in order to make the story more coherent. This often involved them down playing the things they did not understand, such as the supernatural elements: The participants were not reading back a copy of the story but reconstructing it from the main details held in their memory.

Evaluation of Bartlett’s study The ecological validity of the War of the

Ghosts lab study has been questioned. Whilst Bartlett rejected the artificiality of

traditional stimulus such as nonsense syllables ( Ebbinghaus) and word lists to test memory, his use of a native American folk tale was " about as similar to normal prose as nonsense syllables are to words

Evaluation of Bartlett’s study

Wynn & Logie (1998) did a similar study with students using " real - life" events experienced during their first week at university at various intervals of time ranging from 2 weeks to six months.

They found that the initial accuracy of recall was sustained throughout the time period, suggesting that schema-induced memory distortions may be less common in naturalistic conditions than in the laboratory.

Evaluation of Bartlett’s study Furthermore Bartlett’s study wasn't a very well

controlled study. Bartlett did not give very specific instructions to his participants ( Barlett, 1932 " I thought it best, for the purposes of these experiments, to try to influence the subject's procedure as little as possible".)

As a result, some distortions observed by Bartlett may have been due to conscious guessing rather than schema-influenced memory

Gauld and Stephen ( 1967) found that the instructions stressing the need for accurate recall eliminated almost half the errors usually obtained.

Further support for the influence of schemas on memory at encoding point was reported by Anderson and Pichert ( 1978).

Subjects asked to adopt a particular perspective: Home-buyer Burglar

Then read a passage about two boys playing truant from school...

2nd supporting study schema theory ( Anderson & Pichert, 1978)

Schemata and Memory(Anderson & Pichert, 1978)

[Coding: Burglar items (18); Homebuyer items (18)]

There are three color TV sets in the house. One is in the large master bedroom (which has a three piece bathroom en suite), one is in the main floor family room, and one is in Tom's bedroom. The house contains four bedrooms in all, plus an office, family room, and three washrooms. In addition to the TV, the family room contains a new stereo outfit , a microcomputer, a VCR, and a rare coin collection.

The boys enter the master bedroom. Beside the jewelry case in the closet they find Tom's father's collection of pornographic video tapes. They select their favorite (an encounter between a guy and 12 women in a park in downtown Kitchener) and go to the family room to watch it.

Evaluation of schema theoryAnderson & Pichert ( 1978)

In a classic experiment, Pichert and Anderson1 asked participants to read a story in which a house was described.

The participants were told to read the story from one of two perspectives, either a potential home buyer or a burglar.

After a delay, participants were asked to recall as much as they could about the story.

Items

Pro

porti

on R

ecal

led

During this first recall session, participants recalled significantly more information about the house that was relevant to their perspective • (e.g., the potential home buyer might remember

defects in the house, • burglars might remember information about the

entrances and exits) • than information that was relevant to the other

perspective,

Identity

After the first recall session, participants were told to think about the story again, but this time, from the other perspective (potential home buyers were now told to be burglars, and vice versa).

Then, without reading the story again, they were told to recall as much as they could about the story again.

During this second recall, participants were able to recall information about the house that was relevant to their new perspective, but which they had not recalled before.

Items

First identity/second identity

Cha

nge

in p

ropo

rtion

re

calle

d

This result shows two things: 1.) The information that was irrelevant to their

original perspective (schema) was actually learnt ( encoded ) and

2.) This information was not accessible unless a relevant perspective (schema) was activated.

Evaluation of Anderson & Pichert (1978) This experiment was also conducted in a

lab, so ecological validity may also be an issue here.

However the strength of the experiment was its variable control, which allowed researchers to establish a cause-and-effect relationship how schemas affect memory processes.

General comment on schema theory

Finally, one of the main problems of the schema theory is that it is often very difficult to define what a schema is.

Cohen (1993) points out that "the whole idea of a schema is too vague to be useful' and argues that schema theory provides no explanation of how schemas work.

Schemas are untestable

General comment on schema theory

Nevertheless, there is enough research to suggest schemas do affect memory processes knowledge, both in a positive and negative sense. They do simplify reality, and help us to make sense of current experiences. Schemas are useful concepts in helping us understand how we organize our knowledge.

Evaluate two models of memory

Memory – Types

Memory – Types Explicit/Declarative MemoryExplicit memory requires conscious thought—such as recalling who came to dinner last night or naming animals that live in the rainforest. EpisodicEpisodic memory represents our memory of experiences and specific events in time in a serial form, from which we can reconstruct the actual events that took place at any given point in our lives. It is the memory of autobiographical events (times, places, associated emotions and other contextual knowledge) that can be explicitly stated. SemanticSemantic memory is a more structured record of facts, meanings, concepts and knowledge about the external world that we have acquired. It refers to general factual knowledge, shared with others and independent of personal experience and of the spatial/temporal context in which it was acquired.

Memory – Types Implicit/Non-declarative MemoryImplicit memory is a type of long-term memory that stands in contrast to explicit memory in that it doesn’t require conscious thought. ProceduralProcedural memory is the type of implicit memory that enables us to carry out commonly learned tasks without consciously thinking about them. It's our "how to" knowledge. Riding a bike, tying a shoe and washing dishes are all tasks that require procedural memory. PrimingImplicit memory can also come about from priming. You are "primed" by your experiences; if you have heard something very recently, or many more times than another thing, you are primed to recall it more quickly.

Models of memory1. Multistore model

There are three types of store; sensory, short term and long term stores The sensory stores are modality specific and hold information only very

briefly ( Sperling ) The STM has limited capacity, limited to +/- seven items ( Miller) and a

duration of about 6-12 seconds Information from this store can be lost due to interference ( Brown

Peterson) or decay The LTM has unlimited capacity and is divided into two systems. Retrieval

from LTM can be distorted, affected by such things as schemas

Capacity of STM Capacity refers to the amount of information

that can be stored in the short-term memory. Miller (1956) suggested that most people

store about seven independent or discrete items in short term memory.

These items may be numbers, letters or words etc. Miller referred to each of these items as chunks.

For example: 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 = Seven discrete chunks

Long Term Memory

According to this model of memory. Long term memory has a potentially

limitless capacity and duration but it is very difficult if not impossible to prove this.

It's encoding is semantic, that is the meaning and understanding of something

Glanzer & Cunitz, 1966 Presented partisipants with list of 15 familiar words. Half recalled the words immediately after presentation

(immediate free recall condition – IFR). Half after delay of 30 seconds (delayed free recall condition – DFR)

In DFR condition, participants had to count backwards aloud (to prevent further rehearsal).

Glanzer and Cunitz obtained the expected Serial Position curve with pronounced primacy and recency effects. The last few words were still in STM store – primacy effects resulted from words being recalled from LTM store. The first few items attracted attention – thus were rehearsed more than subsequent words.

Findings support the MSM

Evidence of MSM

Evidence of MSM

Case studies of brain-damaged patients provide evidence for separate memory stores.

If STM and LTM are really distinct there should be certain kinds of brain damage which impair one without affecting the other

Read through the two case studies …..

Case studies of brain – damaged patients ( eg. HM and Clive Wearing )

1. the case of clive wearing  Clive Wearing was a highly

respected musician who, in his 40’s, contracted a viral infection – encephalitus in 1985.

Tragically this disease left him with extensive brain damage (parts of his hippocampus – important in forming new memories – are damaged).

He is still able to talk, read and write and retained remarkably intact musical skills.

His memory for past events is hazy, but he still has long-term memories formed before the onset of the disease.

In all other respects, however his memory is dramatically impaired.

He lives totally within the most recent one or two minutes of his life.

He remembers what just happened but forgets everything else. Clive is unable to form new long-term memories.

Because of his inability to form new memories he constantly feels he has just become conscious for the first time.

Clive is convinced he has just woken up and he keeps a diary in which he records hs obsessive thoughts “ I have just woken up” “I am conscious for the first time”……

It is now 20 years since the onset of the illness which has left Clive trapped in an eternal present.

He can’t enjoy books or TV as he is unable to follow the thread, he cant read newspapers as he has no context in which to embed the new stories.

He can’t go out alone because he immediately becomes lost.

Clive describes his situation as “hell on earth”

Damage to the hippocampus usually results in profound difficulties in forming new memories (anterograde amnesia), and normally also affects access to memories prior to the damage (retrograde amnesia).

– Retrograde versus anterograde amnesia. In retrograde amnesia, memory for events that occurred prior to the onset of amnesia is lost. In anterograde amnesia, memory for events that occur subsequent to the onset of amnesia suffers. ie CLIVE WEARING & HM

Although the retrograde effect normally extends some years prior to the brain damage, in some cases older memories remain - this sparing of older memories leads to the idea that consolidation over time involves the transfer of memories out of the hippocampus to other parts of the brain.

Fig 7.27 – Theories of independent memory systems. There is some evidence that different types of information are stored in separate memory systems, which may have distinct physiological bases.

The Case of H.M.http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7584970

H.M was an active teenager from Conneticut, USA. However he suffered from epilepsy and had

frequent fits to the point when in 1953 he was having up to 11 fits a week.

The drugs available at the time couldn't control them. For a young person, this was devastating.

Without any intervention, there was no chance that he would be able to apply for a job, let alone leave the house.

It was then, that the idea of surgery was floated.

In 1953, aged 27-year-old he entered a hospital for surgery that would cure him of the devastating fits that resulted from his epilepsy.

For H.M. he had the most common form of intractable psychomotor epilepsy, that which is localised in the temporal lobes.

So, to stop the fits from continuing, the only option was remove parts of these lobes.

An apple-sized chunk of his temporal lobes on both sides of his brain were removed and the fits never returned.

However, something else, something quite extraordinary, yet equally saddening, happened. Positioned just underlying the temporal lobes is the hippocampus.

It was never really known what it was for, until this point. When his surgeon removed parts of H.M's temporal lobes, he would have had no option but to disturb the hippocampus too. The effect of this on H.M was marked.

From 1953 onwards, he couldn't remember anything you told him for any reasonable length of time. Every time a doctor who was assigned to his case came to chat to him, they had to reintroduce themselves every time they met because he couldn't remember who they were.

If you talked to him, and a loud noise, say a slamming door, distracted him for a moment, he would have no recollection of what you said to him, moments before.

He could no longer form long term memories. He was able to talk normally and to recall accurately

events and people from his life before surgery, and his immediate digit span was within normal limits.

He was, however, unable to retain any new information and could not lay down new memories in LTM.

It was a breakthrough in understanding the damage to H.M.s brain when researchers could use the MRI scanner in 1997

He had been subject to study for 44 years before his brain was ever scanned

Scans showed the extent of damage ( which was less than originally thought) to the hippocampus and other areas close

HM / Clive Wearing Damage to LTM

Damage to STM should also affect access to LTM – KF should be impossible.

Evaluation of MSM HOWEVER the model oversimplifies the process of

memory. The linear order from STM-LTM oversimplifies the many ways in which the two stores interact with each other.

STM and LTM involve different encoding. STM uses semantic encoding whereas LTM uses multiple ways of encoding including visual, acoustic and semantic.

Baddeley & Hitch demonstrate the STM is not just a store but a working process – divided STM into a number of sub-components (WMM)

LTM is more complex – different types of memories including procedural and declarative – declarative includes semantic and episodic memories.

Emphasis on STRUCTURES and not on PROCESSES – does include some processes (eg rehearsal) but inadequate to explain complexity

Baddeley’s (1998) Criticism

– Memory is complex and dynamic.• Short-term memory is not like a passive

storehouse with shelves to store information until it moves to long-term memory.

• It is more complex than that.

The Working Memory Model (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974)

Central executiveKey component in modelFunctions:

Direct attention to tasks Determine how resources (slave systems) are allocated.

Limited Capacity

Phonological LoopLimited CapacityDeals with auditory information

and preserves word orderBaddeley (1986) further subdivided

it intoPhonological store ( holds words

heard)Articulatory process ( holds words

heard/seen and silently repeated ( looped) like an inner voice.

Visuo-spatial sketch padVisual and/or spatial information stored here Visual = what things look like Spatial = relationships between things

Limited capacityLogie (1995) suggested subdivision: Visuo-cache (store) Inner scribe for spatial relations.

Episodic Buffer Baddeley ( 2000) added episodic buffer as he

realised model needed a more general store. Slave systems deal with specific types of

information. Central executive has no storage capacity Buffer extra storage system but with limited

capacity. Integrates information from all other areas.

2. Model of memory 2Levels of Processing This influential theory of memory is often

seen as the main alternative to the multi-store model.

They suggested that memory is not three or any specific number of stores

Memory is based on depth of encoding. The strength of a memory trace does not

depend on the type of store within which it is located, but on how much attention is paid to the information at the time of encoding.

Levels of processing

Structural

Weak memory trace Strong memory trace

Phonological Semantic

Shallow processing Deep processing

www.

psyc

hlot

ron.

org.

uk

Concerned with Process rather than Structure Strength of memory depends on how deeply

information (eg. Words )are processed

Shallow Deep

Eg.Physical Rhyming Semantic / Meaning

Levels of Processing Deep, meaningful kinds of information

processing lead to more permanent retention, than shallow, sensory kinds of processing.

Depth is defined in terms of the amount of meaning extracted from the stimulus rather than on the number of rehearsals

This suggests that straightforward rehearsal through repetition may not be the best way of remembering, more elaborate strategies are more effective

Craik & Tulving (1975) experiment……..

Levels of ProcessingCraik & Tulving, 1975

LOP and rehearsal

The multi-store model claimed that rehearsal of any type could benefit LTM.

However, Craik & Lockhart suggest that there are two types of rehearsal:

Only elaborative leads to better remembering.

Two Types of Rehearsal maintenance rehearsal: holds

information active at a given level. elaborative rehearsal: increases

"depth" of analysis. leads to longer lasting memory traces.

Elaboration and distinctiveness

It is not just depth of processing that affects storage but also elaboration (how much processing of any kind) and distinctiveness (how unusual the processing).

Evaluation of LOP Emphasises the interdependence of perception,

attention and memory rather than seeing memory as series of separate processing stages (as in MSM).

No convincing measure of Processing depth. More descriptive than explanatory Questions of the ordering (Semantic better than

Phonological better than Structural) not always supported by research. Some evidence that deeper processing does NOT guarantee better memory (eg – when encoding is semantic but RETRIEVAL is phonological – learner encodes ‘table’ semantically but is asked to retrieve word that rhymes with ‘cable’). LOP does not address RETRIEVAL stage of memory

Depth of processing

Retention test performance (eg.20)

• It is difficult to measure depth independently of a person’s actual retention (memory) score.

• SO if ‘depth’ is defined as the ‘number of words remembered’ and ‘the number of words remembered’ is taken as a measure of ‘depth’ this definition of depth is circular

• (What’s being defined is part of the definition!)

depth = no. of words

no. of words = depth

Levels of processing - Support Elias & Perfetti (1973)

PPs had greater recognition of words they had thought of similes for (semantic) than word they had thought of rhymes for (phono)

Craik & Tulving (1975) Highest recognition of semantically processes

stimuli, followed by phono, followed by structural

www.

psyc

hlot

ron.

org.

uk

LOP and revision You will recall more if you use…

Depth – make sure you understand & make connections between the topics & ideas

Spread – use several different techniques on the material

Elaboration – mental effort is required to store material effectively

Distinctiveness – make the material your own

www.

psyc

hlot

ron.

org.

uk

Hyde & Jenkins (1973) Presented a list of words 4 Different Instructions:

1. Memorise the word list2. Estimate frequency of usage3. Count how many times the letter ‘e’ appears in the

list4. Rate the Pleasantness of the words

Explain how biological factors may affect one cognitive process (memory)

how brain damage can affect memory

How does damage to the hippocampus ( biological factors ) affect memory (cognitive process)?

To answer this we need to look at the link between the hippocampus and memory

How do we know about the effects of the hippocampus on memory ?

Case studies of brain – damaged patients and animal studies

Case-studies of brain damaged patients show that hippocampal damage can affect`our memory

Specifically explicit/declarative memories

Look at the case studies of H.M and Clive Wearing again

Look at the animal studies

Fig 7.27 – Theories of independent memory systems. There is some evidence that different types of information are stored in separate memory systems, which may have distinct physiological bases.

Mirror-drawing task . On this task, the patient sits down

in front of a mirror and is given a pencil and a line drawing of a star. Then he's asked to trace the star while looking at the reflection of his hand and the paper in the mirror.

When people try to do this, they move the pencil left when they mean to go right, up when they mean to go down, and so on.

Over 3 days trials H.M became quite skilled at this task

Delayed nonmatch to sample testsAnimal studies

V. Delayed nonmatch to sample tests (DNMS) C. Effects of lesions 1. bilateral medial temporal

lobe lesion (23.12) a. normal test with short

delay b. increasing errors with

increasing delay (19.10)

Discuss how social or cultural factors affect memory

If one assumes that cognitive processes follow universal laws then all humans all over the world, regardless of culture, would perform the same cognitive tasks with the same results.

Human cognition is culturally dependent – ie. Cognitive abilities are influenced by the social and cultural context in which people live

Although the processes – memory,perception, language etc may be universal how they function may differ

We shall look at one study that support this notion

Cole & Scribner ( 1974 ) Memory Strategies in different cultures

But you could also refer to Bartlett’s War of the Ghosts study

Scribner ( 1977) Researchers gave an unschooled farmer this

reasoning problem, a standard western syllogism

“ all Kpelle men are rice farmers. Mr. Smith is not a rice farmer. Is he a Kpelle man?”

The farmer insisted that the information provided did not allow a conclusion

“ If I know him in person” the famer said “ I can answer that question, but since I do not know him in person I cannot answer that question”

The interviewer concluded that because the farmer was accustomed to drawing on personal knowledge alone to reach conclusions, he could not reason deductively.

Yet the kpelle farmer was reason deductively, Premise: if I do not know a person, I cannot

draw any conclusions about that person Premise: I do not know Mr. Smith Conclusion: Therefore I cannot draw any

conclusion about Mr. Smith.

The answer that the kpelle farmer gave was not what his interviewer expected but it was perfectly smart in his culture’s term.

Basic cognitive capacities are universal, but because cultures differ in which of these abilities they foster and which they regard as unecessary, the very meaning of ‘intelligence’ is culturally determined.

Thus people like the kpelle are able to learn to reason deductively but the areas in which they apply such reasoning will depend on their experiences and needs.

Cole & Scribner ( 1974) Argued that cognitive processes are universal

but not cognitive skills. Cognitive skills are dependent on the

environment – education, social interaction, culture and technologies make up the environment

Cole & Scribner investigated memory strategies in different cultures – USA and Liberia.

They observed the effects formal schooling / education ( culture) had on memory

Cognitive psychologists have traditionally conducted research in western countries

If one assumes that cognitive processes follow universal laws than all humans all over the world, regardless of culture would perform the same cognitive task with the same results

Following this logic the same memory test could be applied globally – but this is not the case

Cole & Scribner ( 1974)

When researchers from the West performed memory tests with participants in non-western countries they found they did poorly on many memory tests

This could be misinterpreted as memory processes/strategies being better in Western society

However it is the test that is not valid when applied to other cultures, not the inability of the participants

Cole & Scribner ( 1974)

They compared recall of a series of words in the US and amongs the Kpelle people

They were aware they couldn’t use the same list of words in the two different countries so they started by observing everyday cognitive activities in Liberia

They devised word lists that were culturally specific

Cole & Scribner ( 1974)

The researchers asked liberian children to recall as many items as possible from 4 categories – utensils, clothes, tools and vegetables

They found striking differences in memory between schooled and non-schooled children in Liberia

Cole & Scribner ( 1974)

Results In general educated Kpelle children

performed better in the recall of list than non-educated Kpelle children

Overall American children performed better than Kpelle children

Analysis Analysis showed that non-educated did

not use strategies such as chunking – grouping bits of information into larger chunks – to help them remember

Kpelle children also appeared not to apply rehearsal as the position of the word in the list did not have an effect on the rate of recall

HOWEVER in later trials the researchers varied the so that the objects were now presented in a meaningful way as part of a story.

This is called a narrative The non-educated children recalled the

objects easily when presented as a story

Analysis

Discussion There is a danger that one could conclude that

memory skills amongst certain non-western children are inferior to those of Western children.

But this overlooks the influence of culture. Western schooling emphasises certain cognitive

strategies such as clustering / categorising. It is unlikely such parallels exist in traditional

societies like the Kpelle People learn to remember in ways that are relevant

for their everyday lives, and these do not always mirror the activities that cognitive psychologists use to investigate mental processes

To what extent is memory reliable ?

You could refer to Bartlett’ study ( cultural schemas affect memory, and therefore make it unreliable) or Loftus & Palmer study

Elisabeth Loftus ( 1983) Elizabeth Loftus is a leading figure

in the field of eyewitness testimony research.

She expressed concern at the over-reliance on eyewitness testimonies in court, knowing that research shows;

Our memories can be affected ( interefered) with by post – event information such as misleading questions

Our memories can reconstruct information

Eyewitnesses are the Most PersuasiveForm of Evidence Loftus (1983)Type of Evidence % guilty

votesEyewitness testimony

78Fingerprints 70Polygraph 53Handwriting 34

Loftus & Palmer ( 1974 ) The aim of this study was to investigate how

information supplied after an event, influences a witness's memory for that event

AND MORE SPECIFICALLY

Loftus was interested to see the extent to which interference from misleading questions ( often asked by lawyers and police ) could alter a witness’s subsequent recall of a crime

Misleading questions Did you beat your wife ? How often did you beat your wife ?

Have you ever taken drugs ? When was the last time you took drugs ?

Methodology The study actually consists of two laboratory

experiments. They are both examples of an independent

measures design. The independent variable in both of the experiments

is the verb used. The dependent variable in the first experiment is the

participant’s speed estimate and the dependent variable in the second experiment is whether the participant believed they saw glass.

Method / Procedure / SampleThe participants were 45 students of the

University of Washington. They were each shown seven film-clips of

traffic accidents. The clips were short excerpts from safety

films made for driver education. The clips ranged from 5 to 30 seconds long.

Following each video participants were

given a questionnaire asking them to give an account of what they had just seen.

They were asked to answer a number of questions, but most of these questions were ‘filler’ questions.

However there was one critical question which was asked…….

There were five conditions in the experiment (each with nine participants)

Loftus & Palmer ( 1974 )

Condition 1: 'About how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?‘

Condition 2: 'About how fast were the cars going when they collided into each other?‘

Condition 3: 'About how fast were the cars going when they bumped into each other?‘

Condition 4: 'About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?

Condition 5: 'About how fast were the cars going when they contacted each other?'

The independent variable was manipulated by means of the wording of the questions.

The dependent variable was the speed estimates given by the participants.

Loftus & Palmer ( 1974 )

VERB MEAN ESTIMATE OF SPEED (mph)

Smashed 40.8

Collided 39.3

Bumped 38.1

Hit 34.0

Contacted 31.8

Results of the first experimentTable 1. Speed estimates for the verbs used in the estimation of speed question

Explanation of findings

Loftus and Palmer give two interpretations/explanations of the findings of

their 1st experiment.

 1.Firstly, they argue that the results could be due to a distortion in the memory of the participant.

The memory of how fast the cars were travelling could have been distorted by the verbal label which had been used to characterise the intensity of the crash.

2. Secondly, they argue that the results could be due to response-bias factors,

in which case the participant is not sure of the exact speed and therefore adjusts his or her estimate to fit in with the expectations of the questioner.

(This is also an example of a demand characteristic)

They wanted to prove the former was the case…..to increase the validity / reliability of the results

So they conducted a second experiment..

The researchers aimed to show that information provided after an event is capable of distorting memories.

Once again, participants were shown a film of a car crash. They were split into 3 different groups

1. the first group were asked “how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other ?”

2. The second group were asked “ how fast were the cars going when they hit each other ?

3. The third group formed a control and were not asked a question about the speed of the cars

The second experiment……

Participants were recalled one week later; Again they were asked questions about the film. Again, 9

of the questions were filler questions The critical question this time was;“ did you see the broken glass ?” (there was no glass in the actual film footage they saw)

Results……1 week later: Did you see any broken

glass?smash group: 32% said yeshit group: 14% said yes

The results of this experiment show that the labels attached to the car-crash by the researcher affected the memories of the participants – altering their perception of events a week later….

The idea that the cars had “smashed”into each other had led participants to incorporate the notion of broken glass into their memories (as “smashed” implies that glass was broken)

Loftus & Palmer ( 1974 )

So,….

Memories are unreliable because they are reconstructive ( we draw on schemas to aid our memory)

Discuss the use of technology in investigating memory

What is alzheimer’s disease? Alzheimer's disease is a degenerative brain

disorder that results in memory loss, impaired thinking, difficulty finding the right word when speaking, and personality changes.

Its course is marked by a continual loss of neurons (nerve cells) in areas of the brain that are crucial to memory and other mental functions.

Levels of brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters, which carry complex messages back and forth among billions of nerve cells, are also diminished.

After the symptoms first appear, people live anywhere from 2–20 years in an increasingly dependent state that exacts a staggering emotional, physical, and economic toll on families.

No blood test, brain scan, or physical exam can definitively diagnose Alzheimer's disease.

And because so many conditions can produce symptoms resembling those of early Alzheimer's, reaching the correct diagnosis is complicated.

Nevertheless the following tools are available to doctors;

A complete medical history includes information about the person's general health, past medical problems, and any difficulties the person has carrying out daily activities.

Medical tests - such as tests of blood, urine, or spinal fluid - help the doctor find other possible diseases causing the symptoms.

Neuropsychological tests measure memory, problem solving, attention, counting, and language.

Unfortunately, the definitive signs of Alzheimer's, namely the presence of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, can only be seen after death, when brain tissue can be examined during biopsy.

However brain scanning is increasingly being used;

Brain scans allow the doctor to look at a picture of the brain to see if anything does not look normal.

Brain scans such a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) can be used to confirm diagnosis, but in the very early stages they often fail to show very much change.

Later on, there will be a significant and clear loss of brain tissue and an enlargement of the fluid-filled spaces (ventricles) in the brain, but by then the diagnosis is probably fairly certain.

Scans are most likely to be performed in early-onset cases or to eliminate other causes, for example, if a brain tumour is suspected.

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Positron Emission

Tomography (PET) scans detect special radioactively labeled tracers which are injected into a patient's body before the imaging procedure starts. 

PET scans can be used to accurately monitor brain activity while a patient's memory and cognition are being tested.

PET scans The scans are made by injecting the

patient with a form of sugar that has been altered to carry a weak, short-lived radioactive element.

The sugar hits the bloodstream and flows to the brain, which needs huge amounts of energy to keep all its nerve cells running.

The most active areas of the brain need the most sugar -- while damaged and less active areas need much less.

By detecting the weak radiation signal from the sugar molecules as they travel throughout the brain, PET scanners can make a picture of brain cell activity.

The resulting scans show the level of activity using a scale of colors; red and orange for high activity, and blue and purple for low.

Technology now used for early detection Researchers from the New York University School of Medicine

have developed a brain-scan-based computer programme that quickly and accurately measures metabolic activity in the hippocampus – an important brain structure in memory processes.

Using PET scans and the computer programme the researchers showed that in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease there is a reduction in brain metabolism in the hippocampus.

In a longitudinal study they followed a sample of 53 normal and healthy participants – some for 9 years and others for as long as 24 years.

They found that individuals who showed early signs of reduced metabolism in the hippocampus were associated with later development of Alzheimer’s disease.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) MRI scans use magnetic and radio

waves, instead of X-rays, to provide very clear and detailed images of brain or other internal organs. 

MRI scans provide static three dimensional images of brain structure.

Currently MRI is used to mainly rule out other possible causes for cognitive impairment, such as a brain tumor or blood clot.

However use of MRI scans is turning to images of shrinkage in the hippocampus.

Cells in the brain’s hippocampus, a region involved in memory and learning, progressively deteriorate and die in Alzheimer’s disease

MRI imaging can detect atrophy (shrinkage) of the hippocampus that occurs when substantial numbers of cells die.

Research has found that shrinkage can be detected even before symptoms interfere with daily function.

In a 2000 Researchers* looked at MRI results for 119 patients with varying degrees of cognitive impairment.

Some patients were normal, some had cognitive impairment at the time of the MRI, and others were already diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

The researchers (who did not have access to the patients' files) were 100% accurate when determining which patients had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and which had no symptoms.

The study reported a 93% accuracy rate when researchers were asked to distinguish between patients with no symptoms and patients who had only mild cognitive impairment, but were not yet diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

To what extent do cognitive and biological factors interact in emotion

What is emotion?  A feeling?  Then what is a feeling?  These terms are difficult to define and

even more difficult to understand completely. 

25 yrs ago, experimental psychology silent on emotions

Psych wants to be a science, emotions too flakey

How do you even study emotion? Emotional revolution (1990 – and

ongoing) R. Zajonc: Humans have emotions!

Emotions affect thinking and behavior.

The mainstream definition of emotion refers to a feeling state involving thoughts, physiological changes, and an outward expression or behavior. 

But what comes first?  The thought?  The physiological arousal?  The behavior? 

There are three basic components of emotions: Physical: The physical component of emotion

is the arousal of the autonomic nervous system and endocrine system. We are not consciously aware of this arousal.

Cognitive: The cognitive component is our interpretation of a stimulus or feeling. For example; if you are alone, sitting in the dark, watching a scary movie, and you hear a loud noise, you may become scared.

Behavioral: This component is the associated behavior. We cry because we are sad or run because we are scared.

Biological theories of Emotions1.James – Lange theory

James-Lange Somatic Theory of Emotions The body informs the mind (we know we

are sad because we cry)Distinctive body changes/symptoms are

accompanied by different emotions Perception of these changes/symptoms

determines the experience of emotionDifferences between emotions are a

direct result of the different patterns of physiological response associated with them

Support for james-lange theoryfacial feedback hypothesis Such a theory can be supported by research such as

Laird’s ( 1974) Facial feedback hypothesis. According to facial feedback theory, emotion is the

experience of changes in our facial muscles.  In other words, when we smile, we then experience

pleasure, or happiness.  When we frown, we then experience sadness.  It is the changes in our facial muscles that cue our brains

and provide the basis of our emotions.  Just as there are an unlimited number of muscle

configurations in our face, so to are there a seemingly unlimited number of emotions

In his study he induced participants to make facial expressions corresponding to specific emotions (with electrodes attached to face).

He found that participants reported emotions consistent with the facial expression e.g., those told to “pull brows together” reported feeling angry . Subjects also had stronger emotional reactions to stimuli consistent with the emotion of a particular facial expression they made e.g., subjects who smiled found cartoons funnier than subjects using other facial muscles

Criticism of james-lange theory However a study by Maranon ( 1924) contradicts

the James-Lange theory. Participants were injected with adrenaline (which is associated with fear).

71% of participants reported only physical sensations, with no emotional reaction.

The remaining participants merely reported ‘as if’ they were feeling an emotion.

This suggests that physiological arousal is not sufficient to produce emotional experiences.

This suggests that cognitive factors need to be brought into a theory of emotions.

Schacter ( 1964 ) Two – factory theory

Schacter ( 1964) was the first theorist to bring together the two elements of physiological arousal and cognition.

It is sometimes known as the two-factor theory of emotion.

For an emotion to be experienced, a physiological state of arousal is necessary AND situational factors will then determine how we interpret this arousal.

In other words, an event causes physiological arousal first. 

You must then identify a reason for this arousal and then you are able to experience and label the emotion.

For example you are walking down a dark alley late at night.  You hear footsteps behind you and you begin to tremble, your heart beats faster, and your breathing deepens.  Upon noticing this arousal you realize that is comes from the fact that you are walking down a dark alley by yourself. 

This behavior is dangerous and therefore you feel the emotion of fear.

The strength of physiological arousal will determine the strength of emotion experienced, while the situation will determine the type of emotion.

These two factors are independent of each other BUT both are necessary for the emotion to be experienced.

A classic study by Schacter & Singer ( 1962) supports these ideas, in which participants, unable to label certain emotions looked to the behavior of confederates in order to provide cues for their emotions.

This suggests that feelings/emotions are meaningless in isolation, and it is our labeling of them which helps us make sense of them.

IN the history of emotion theory, four major explanations for the complex mental and physical experiences that we call "feelings" have been put forward.

They are; the James-Lange theory in the 1920's,(event ==> arousal ==> interpretation ==> emotion) the Cannon-Bard theory in the 1930's,(event ==> Simultaneous arousal and emotion) the Schacter-Singer theory in the 1960's,(event ==> arousal ==> reasoning ==> emotion Lazarus theory, developed in the 1980's and ‘90's.(event ==> thinking ==> Simultaneous arousal and

emotion)

Schacter & SingerAim To investigate ‘2 factor theory’ which

states that arousal, plus cognition to make sense of emotional experience

Method Lab experiment

184 Male college students IV = information given about adrenaline IV = euphoria ( happy ) or angry situation

Procedure 4 x physiological conditions ‘Ignorant’ - adrenaline + no info ‘Informed’ - adrenaline + correct info ‘Misinformed’ - adrenaline + wrong info Placebo 2 x emotional conditions 'euphoria' 'anger'

Schacter & Singer

Results Subjects who were misled or naive ( conditions 1 &

3 )about the injection's effects needed to explain the arousal they were experiencing. The behaviour of the confederates acted as a cue to identify this arousal as anger or euphoria.

Conclusions This suggests that subjects who were informed were

able to cognitively attribute the physiological effects of the adrenaline, while the uninformed or misinformed groups could perform no such attribution.

Schachter's cognitive labelling theory derives from these findings and forms the basis of the Two Factor theory of emotion

Schacter & Singer

Ethics in Schacter & Singer No informed consent or proper right of

withdrawal (participants were bribed to take part).

Participants were deceived and some were harmed by being made angry.

Other theories have built on the work of Schacter & Singer and current research now focuses on cognition as a central factor of emotion

Schacter & Singer

Lazarus ( 1982 ) appraisal theory Whilst there are some problems with

Schacter’s theory it has nonetheless been an important influence on theoretical accounts of emotion.

Lazarus has built on the work of Schachter and also proposed a theory that demonstrates the interaction of cognitions and biology in understanding emotions.

He has however, emphasised the role of cognitions or ‘cognitive appraisals’.

He argued that an emotion-provoking stimulus triggers a cognitive appraisal, which is followed by the emotion and the physiological arousal.

He suggested we initially make a brief analysis of a situation in terms of whether or not it represents a threat ( we appraise a situation).

Cognitive appraisal of the situation determines the level of physiological arousal and the specific type of emotion to be experienced

Put simply you must first think about your situation before you can experience an emotion.

For example you are walking down a dark alley late at night. 

You hear footsteps behind you and you think it may be a mugger

so you begin to tremble, your heart beats faster, and your breathing deepens and at the same time experience fear

Lazarus His theory focuses on the appraisal

of the situation and he identified three stages of appraisal

Primary appraisal (relevance) – in which we consider how the situation affects our personal well-being or how threatening the situation is.

Secondary appraisal (options) - we consider how we might cope with the situation

Reappraisal ( ability to handle emotion) - Reappraisal refers to whether the emotion / situation is changeable or manageable

Speisman et al ( 1964 ) A study that supports Lazarus theory is that conducted by Speisman.

He showed college students a film called ‘Sub-incision’, a graphic film about an initiation ceremony involving unpleasant genital surgery.

The aim was see if the people’s emotional reactions could be manipulated. The experiment deliberately manipulated the participants appraisal of the situation and evaluated the effect of the type of appraisal on their emotional response.

Group 1: One group saw the film with no sound. ( control ) Group 2: Another group heard a soundtrack with a "trauma" narrative

emphasizing the pain, danger, and primitiveness of the operation. Group 3: A third group heard a "denial" narration that denied the

pain and potential harm to the boys, describing them as willing participants in a joyful occasion who "look forward to the happy conclusion of the ceremony."

Group 4: The fourth group heard an anthropological ( cultural, scientfic )interpretation of the ceremony.

Speiseman et al Physiological ( heart rate ) and self-report measures

of stress were taken. Those who heard the trauma narration reacted with

more stress than the control group (no sound); those who heard the denial and scientific narrations

reacted with less stress than the control group. Such results seem to support Lazarus’s theory that

it is not the events themselves that elicit emotional stress but rather the individual’s interpretation or appraisal of those events.

Discuss the use of technology in investigating memory

Evaluate one theory of how emotion can affect one cognitive process

Emotion and memory

Where you were ? What you were doing ? How you were

informed ? How you reacted ?

When; Princess Diana died World trade centre

( NY) was attacked Micheal Jackson died

Flashbulb memory Originally described by Brown & Kulik (1977): A theory that refers to vivid and detailed

memories of highly emotional events that appear to be recorded in the brain as though with the help of a camera’s flash

Brown + Kulik suggested that a special mechanism in the brain is activated by events which produce high levels of emotion and surprise, and which are seen as particularly significant. As a result, the entire scene is 'printed' in memory as a 'flash'.

Survey by Brown & Kulik 1977 Participants were asked a series of questions

testing their memories of ten major events, such as the assasination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 (14 years earlier).

Results showed Memories for such events were particularly vivid, detailed and long lasting.

People usually remembered where they were when they heard the news, how they heard it, what they and others were doing at the time, and the emotional impact of the news on themselves and those around them

Evaluation Other events such as graduating from

college or a first romance can be recalled in the same way as flashbulb memories. Suggesting that FLASHBULB MEMORIES ARE NO DIFFERENT from ordinary memories.

Flashbulb memories are sometimes quite INACCURATE. McCloskey et al, 1988, found that people who were asked to recall the Challenger explosion recalled an increasing amount of inaccurate details over time.

Neisser ( 1982)

Questioned the idea of flashbulb memories on the basis that people do not always know an event is important until later

He suggested that the memories are so vivid because the eventis rehearsed and reconsidered after the event

According to Neisser what is called a flashbulb memory may simply be a narrative convention.

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

Neisser ( 1982)

Neisser & Harsch ( 1992)28 January 1986 7

astronauts aboard the spaceship Challenger were killed on launch

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

Evaluation study Neisser & Harsch investigated people’s memory accuracy

of the incident 24 hours after the accident and the again 2 years later

The pps were very confident there memories were correct, but the researchers found that 40% of the participants had distorted memories in the final reports they made.

Possibly post-event information had influenced their memories.

The researchers concluded that inaccuracy of emotional memories is common

Talarico & Robin ( 2003) found that emotional intensity was often associated with greater memory confidence but not with accuracy

Evaluating the Cognitive Perspective

• Contributions of this Perspectiveo Innovative methods for exploring the “Black box” of the

mindo An understanding of how cognition affects behavior and

emotiono Findings of tremendous social and legal relevanceo Understanding and improving mental abilities from

infancy to old age• Misuses and Misinterpretations of the

Perspectiveo Cognitive reductionismo Errors of cause and effecto Cognitive relativism

Strength of cognitive approach A main strength of cognitive psychology is that this

approach has tended to use a scientific approach through the use of laboratory experiments

. A strength of using laboratory experiments is that they are high in control therefore researchers are able to establish cause and effect.

For example Loftus and Palmer were able to control the age of the participants, the use of video and the location of the experiment. All participants were asked the same questions (apart from changes in the critical words), and the position of the key question in the second was randomised.

Strength of cognitive approach Furthermore, such standardised

experiments are easy to test for reliability. However, as many cognitive studies are carried out in laboratory settings they can lack ecological validity. When cognitive processes such as memory and theory of mind are studied in artificial situations it may be difficult to generalise the findings to everyday life

It has been argued that a weakness of the cognitive approaches reliance on the computer analogy leads to a reductionist and mechanistic description of experiences and behaviour.

Reductionism is the idea that complex phenomena can be explained by simpler things. The cognitive approach often takes this narrow focus and ignores social and emotional factors which may impact on cognition

Misc stuff after this – please ignore

Ebbinghaus invented several tests of retention, as listed and described below:

Recall -- simply try to remember each item. Ebbinghaus used two types of recall task: Free recall -- attempt to recall the list

items; order is not important. Serial recall -- attempt to recall the list

items in the order studied.

Three ways to measure emotionsPhysical Thoughts Behaviour

– blood pressure– heart rate– adrenaline levels– muscle activity

when smiling, frowning, etc.

– neural images– posture– tears, – perspiration– lie detector

readings

– spoken and written words on rating scales

– answers to open-ended questions on surveys and during interviews

– responses to projective instruments, sentence stems, etc.

– self-assessments or perceptions regarding the behavior and intentions of others

– other cognitive operations such as rational/logical thinking

-facial expressions – activity level– alertness – screaming – laughing – Smiling

– aggression– approach/avoidance– attention/distraction– insomnia– anhedonia

Kandel ( 1990) Our knowledge about biological factors

involved in memory is in its infancy but research is providing major new insights

Research is showing that memory is not in fact etched in brain cells but are stored in the intricate circuitry of neurons in the brain ( known as neural networks).

In other words; Memory is a not a trace but syntactic

process. It is a sequence of cellular events that leads

from temporary to permanent memory New information is absorbed and retained

through a process characterized by changes in synaptic interconnections among neurons in the hippocampus and cerebral cortex, regions of the brain associated with memory.

Very simply, we make and store memories by forging new neural pathways to the brain from things we take in through our five senses

Kandel ( 1990) Kandel studies the sea snail aplysia and discovered that;

Short-term storage for implicit memory involves functional changes in the strengthof pre-existing synaptic connections.

Long-term storage for implicit memory involves the synthesis of new protein and thegrowth of new connections

Cultural differences in perception Proceeding within this framework, we

predicted that people in different cultures would be differentially susceptible to geometric illusions because they have learned different, but always ecologically valid, visual inference habits.

Cultural differences in perception Recall Perception is the ability to make sense of

information coming in through the senses Again, although perceptual processes are

universal certain perceptual skills may differ between cultures

Depth perception is the ability to see the world in three dimensions and to perceive distance.

Research has found differences in depth perception, illustrated by certain visual illusions

Which is line is longer ?

Müller-Lyer illusionAre lines in top image of same or different

lengths? Most people say that right-hand line is

longer.Illusion may occur because of familiarity with

vertices in buildings and other environments.

one explanation of why the right hand figure appears to be so much larger involves interpreting the images in depth.

The right hand figure can be easily interpreted as representing the inside corner of a room whilst the arrowlike left hand figure can be seen as the outside corner of a building.

As an inside corner the right hand figure may appear to be nearer (and therefore larger) than the outside corner.

Cultural differences in PerceptionSegall ( 1966) Segall et al suggested that the Müller-Lyer

illusion may be absent or reduced amongst people who grow up in certain environments.

They tested some Zulu people in South Africa who, at the time, lived in circular huts with arched doorways and had little experience of Western rectangular buildings.

The Zulus seemed less affected by the Müller-Lyer illusion.

The Carpentered – world hypothesis The argument is that these people lived in a

'circular culture' whereas those who are more subject to the illusion live in a 'carpentered world' of rectangles and parallel lines (Segall, Campbell & Herskovits 1966).

Europeans and Americans are more likely to interpret oblique and acute angles as displaced right angles and to perceive two-dimensional drawings in terms of depth