Transcript Cognitive level of analysis

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 – perceptionlanguage- memory-attention ??
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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.
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.
•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
( another good one to replicate!)
• 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.
•
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/words.ht
ml
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……….
•NOW, write out the
‘War of the Ghosts’
story told to you
earlier
•Evaluate schema theory
with reference to
research studies
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)
You have 1 minute…………….
EGG
Schema of an “egg”
1.What is a schema ?
• Schemas (or schemata) are cognitive
structures (mental templates or frames) that
represent a person’s knowledge about objects,
people or situations.
• The concept of schema was first used by Jean
Piaget in 1926 and later developed by Bartlett
(1932).
2.What is a schema ?
• Schemas are used to organize our knowledge,
to assist recall, to guide our behavior, to
predict likely happenings and to help us to
make sense of current experiences.
• They come from prior experience and
knowledge. They simplify reality, setting up
expectations about what is probable in
relation to particular social contexts
3. What is a schema ?
• Schemas are assumed to operate in a “top
down” way to help us interpret the “bottomup” flood of information reaching our senses
from the outside world.
• They allow us to take shortcuts in interpreting
vast amounts of information.
What is schema theory ?
• As active processors of information, humans
integrate new information with existing,
• stored information.
• Schema theory therefore predicts that what
we already know will influence the outcome
of information processing.
• In other words new information is processed
in the light of exisiting schema – schema can
affect our cognitive processes.
• For example if you already have an expectation about
a person or an event, your memory of that person or
event will be shaped based on your preexisting
schema.
• For example, if you have already the stored schema
that urban teenage males are aggressive and you meet
a pleasant urban male teen, your memory of him may
be affected.
• If you were surprised with his politeness, you may
remember him as even more polite than he is.
• Or, you may not even notice how polite he was
because you were expecting him to be rude, and so
you remember him as the typical urban teen you had
previously imagined in your mind
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
• 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;
Did you make these errors ?
• Rationalisation errors—making the story read
more like a typical English story. Most of the
errors were of this nature.
• Omissions — certain elements were left out
• Changes of order – events were sometimes reordered to make the story more coherent
• Substitutions
• Shortening
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.
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 schemainfluenced 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).
2nd supporting study
schema theory
( Anderson & Pichert, 1978)
• Subjects asked to adopt a particular
perspective:
– Home-buyer
– Burglar
• Then read a passage about two boys playing
truant from school...
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 theory
Anderson & 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.
Proportion Recalled
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
Items
Change in proportion
recalled
• 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.
First identity/second identity
Items
• 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 onschema
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
theories of memory
Models of memory
1. 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
Fig 7.9 – Sperling’s (1960) study of sensory memory. After the subjects had fixated on the
cross, the letters were flashed on the screen just long enough to create a visual afterimage.
High, medium, and low tones signaled which row of letters to report. Because subjects had to
rely on the afterimage to report the letters, Sperling was able to measure how
rapidly the afterimage disappeared by varying the delay between the display
and the signal to report.
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
Duration of STM
http://www.s-cool.co.uk/alevel/psychology/human-memory.html
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
Evaluation of MSM
• Lot of evidence to support this model such as
the primacy – recency effect ( Glanzer &
Cunitz, 1966)
• Do primacy-recency experiment
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.
1. State which memory store is working
2. Give an example of what they can and can’t do
Case
STM
LTM
Clive
Intact or impaired ? Intact or impaired ?
HM
Intact or impaired ? Intact or impaired ?
3. What conclusions can we draw from this phenomena ?
Evaluation of case studies
The cases of HM and Clive Wearing are case studies.
A case study is: ‘[A] detailed examination of one person
or group
It includes a number of methods such as self-report data
(diries etc) observations, interviews, as well as
impression and intuition
Evaluation of MSM
• HOWEVER the model oversimplifies the
process of memory
• Baddeley & Hitch demonstrate the STM is not
just a store but a working process
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.
2. Model of memory 2
Levels 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.
Shallow processing
Structural
Weak memory trace
Deep processing
Phonological
Semantic
Strong memory trace
www.psychlotron.org.uk
Levels of processing
• Concerned with Process rather than Structure
• Strength of memory depends on how deeply
information (eg. Words )are processed
Deep
Shallow
Eg.Physical
Rhyming
Semantic / Meaning
• 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 time
thinking about the stimulus rather than on the
number of rehearsals (repetitions)
• 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 Processing
Craik & Tulving, 1975
100
90
80
70
60
Percent
50
Recognised
40
yes
no
30
20
10
0
case
rhyme
Question Type
sentence
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. (Atkinson & Shiffrin – MSM)
– elaborative rehearsal: increases "depth" of
analysis. leads to longer lasting memory traces. (
C& L- Levels of processing)
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).
LOP
• LOP states that the deeper we process
information the better it is remembered.
• Craik & Tulving demonstrated shallow
processing by using words in capitals
(structural)
• They demonstrated deep processing by using
sentences.
• Deeper processed words (semantic) were
better remembered
Evaluation of Levels of Processing
• Emphasises the interdependence of
perception, attention and memory rather than
seeing memory as series of separate
processing stages (as in MSM).
• Supported by studies such as;
• Craik & Tulving (1975)
• Hyde & Jenkins
• Elias & Perfetti
• NOTE: all these studies are good to replicate!!
• 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.psychlotron.org.uk
Levels of processing
Hyde & Jenkins (1973)
– Presented a list of words
– 4 Different Instructions:
1. Memorise the word list
2. Estimate frequency of usage
3. Count how many times the letter ‘e’ appears in the list
4. Rate the Pleasantness of the words
Criticism of LOP
• Mainly descriptive rather than explanatory.
• It doesn’t really explain why deeper
processing leads to better recall.
• In other words, why should something that is
deeply processed be stored more
permanently (in LTM?)
• It is difficult to obtain an independent
measure of depth of processing.
• It is hard to decide whether a task involves
deep or shallow processing.
• Craik & Lochart assumed that semantic
processing was ‘deeper’ than visual processing
but their only real evidence for this was that
more words were remembered in the
semantic condition.
• This is a circular argument.
No of words recalled (eg.20)
Depth of processing
•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
• Some studies contradict the model.
• For example, Morris et al (1977) showed that
information processed for sound (rhyming)
was better remembered than information
processed for meaning (semantic) if rhyming
was more relevant to the task.
• (In their study participants were asked to
perform a rhyming recognition task.)
• 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.psychlotron.org.uk
LOP and revision
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 strength
of pre-existing synaptic connections.
• Long-term storage for implicit
memory involves the synthesis of new
protein and the
growth of new connections
•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 tests
Animal 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)
•
questions
• Explain the difference in Lashley & Kandel’s understanding of
memory
• How does lesioning help explain the link between hippocampus and
memory ?
• Define anterograde and retrograde amnesia
• What evidence is there that H.M’s and CW ‘s procedural memory is
intact ?
• What does this tell about the hippocampus ?
• How do animal studies support the role of the hippocampus in
memory ?
• What is the problem in using lesioning ?
• Name some ethical issues in investigating the role of the
hippocampus in memory
• With reference to relevent
research studies to what
extent is one cognitive process
(memory )reliable ?
• You could refer to Bartlett’ study (
cultural schemas affect memory, and
therefore make it unreliable) or Loftus &
Palmer study and Freud/recovered
memories/repression.
• A man is on trial for robbing a convenience
store, and several witnesses report seeing him
at the scene.
• During the trial, the defense sets up an
experiment to discredit the eye-witness
testimony.
• See how you do on this experiment.
• Keep quiet if you’ve seen it before !!
• Count the number of times the team in white
passes the ball to each other.
• Count yourself and make no comments during
the movie.
• Count the number of times the team in white
passes the ball to each other.
• Count yourself and make no comments during
the movie.
•Did you notice
anything odd ?
• The video was made as part of an experiment
by Harvard professors Daniel Simons and
Christopher Chabris designed to test peoples
“inattentional blindness.”
• In the original study, only 42% of the people
observing the video noticed the gorilla
walking through the middle of the scene.
• This activity could also illustrate the
unreliability of eye-witness testimony.
• People watching this video will either count
the number of passes correctly and not see
the gorilla, or see the gorilla but not count the
correct number of passes (and in some cases,
they will both miss the gorilla and incorrectly
count the passes).
• .
• Unreliable eye-witness testimony is an
ongoing concern for law enforcement
• —many convictions that have been
overturned by DNA evidence were based on
faulty witness testimony.
• Studies have shown that even the classic
“police line-up” can mislead witnesses and
even alter their memories.
• The inaccuarcy of eye-witness testimony
strengthens the importance of forensic
science in determining guilt and innocence
Case of ronald cotton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=u-SBTRLoPuo
• In two separate incidents in July 1984, an
assailant broke into an apartment, severed
phone wires, sexually assaulted a woman, and
searched through her belongings, taking
money and other items.
• On August 1, 1984, Ronald Cotton was
arrested for the rapes. In January 1985, Cotton
was convicted by a jury of one count of rape
and one count of burglary.
•
The prosecution based on its case on several
points:
• A photo identification was made by one of the
victims.
• A police lineup identification was made by one
of the victims.
• A flashlight in Cotton's home resembled the
one used by the assailant.
• In November 1987, the second victim also claimed
that Cotton was the rapist.
• Before the second trial, a man in prison, who had
been convicted for crimes similar to these assaults,
stated to another inmate that he had committed
Cotton's crimes.
• The superior court judge refused to allow this
information into evidence,
• Cotton was also convicted of the second rape and
given another life sentence
• In 1994 two new lawyers took over Cotton's
defense and filed a motion for DNA testing
• The samples from one victim were too
deteriorated to be conclusive, but the samples
from the other victim's vagainal swab and
underwear were submitted to PCR testing and
showed no match to Cotton
• The state's data base showed a match with
the convict who had earlier confessed to the
crime
• On June 30, 1995, Cotton was officially cleared
of all charges and released fron prison.
• In July 1995. the governor of North Carolina
officially pardoned Cotton, making him eligible
for $5,000 compensation from the state.
Cotton had served 10 1/2 years of his
sentence
Eyewitness testimony (EWT)
• Eyewitness testimony is an important area of
research in cognitive psychology and human
memory.
• Eyewitness testimony is a legal term which refers to
an account given by people of an event they have
witnessed eg. a robbery or something other crime.
• It is often a vital factor taken into account by juries in
deciding whether defendants are guilty or not guilty.
• It is important, therefore, that we have some idea of
how reliable these testimonies really are.
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;
Eyewitnesses are the Most Persuasive
Form of Evidence
Loftus (1983)
Type of Evidence
% guilty votes
• Eyewitness testimony
78
• Fingerprints
70
• Polygraph
53
• Handwriting
34
• Bartlett’s ideas on reconstructive memory
have been developed and extended by
Elizabeth Loftus and have influenced her
research into eyewitness testimony and false
memory syndrome.
• Bartlett suggested that recall is subject to
personal interpretation dependent on our
learnt or cultural norms and values - the way
we make sense of our world.
• Many people believe that memory works something
like a videotape.
• Storing information is like recording and
remembering is like playing back what was recorded,
with information being retrieved in much the same
form as it was encoded.
• However, memory does not work in this way. It is a
feature of human memory that we do not store
information exactly as it is presented to us.
• Rather, people extract from information the gist, or
underlying meaning.
• In other words, people store information in
the way that makes the most sense to them.
• We make sense of information by trying to fit
it into schemas, which are a way of organising
information.
• Schemas are mental 'units' of knowledge that
correspond to frequently encountered people,
objects or situations.
.
• Schemas are therefore capable of distorting
unfamiliar or unconsciously ‘unacceptable’
information in order to ‘fit in’ with our existing
knowledge or schemas.
• This can, therefore, result in unreliable
eyewitness testimony.
•
Bartlett tested this theory using a variety of stories to
illustrate that memory is an active process and subject to
individual interpretation or construction.
• In his famous study 'War of the Ghosts', Bartlett (1932)
showed that memory is not just a factual recording of what
has occurred, but that we make “effort after meaning”.
• By this, Bartlett meant that we try to fir what we remember
with what we really know and understand about the world.
• As a result, we quite often change our memories so they
become more sensible to us.
•
Eyewitness testimony
• In relation to eyewitness testimony (EWT)
Loftus believed that the reconstruction of
memories was one of the reasons why EWT
was often inaccurate.
• One way that memory could reconstruct ( or
distort ) information is through misleading
questions.
Shop robbery clip
• Did the second man at the
back have a knife or a gun ?
Caravan clip
Misleading questions
• A ( mis ) leading question is one that is phrased in such a way
that it suggests a particular answer to the witness.
• After witnessing a crime or event a witness will be questioned
by the police, and by lawyers who may intentionally or
unintentionally ask a leading question such as “ how dark was
it ?” as opposed to “ was it dark?” ….. Loftus has argued that
the former question could activate schema
• which could influence accuracy of recall. The question
activates the belief it was dark when it actually it may have
only been 6pm and not dark at all.
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 ?
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
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 / Sample
• The 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)
• 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.
Results of the first experiment
Table 1. Speed estimates for the verbs used in
the estimation of speed question
VERB
MEAN ESTIMATE
OF SPEED (mph)
Smashed
40.8
Collided
39.3
Bumped
38.1
Hit
34.0
Contacted
31.8
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.
OR
• 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.
The second experiment……
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
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 yes
• hit group: 14% said yes
•
Table 2. Response to the question 'Did you see any broken glass?'
Response Smashed Hit
Control
Yes
16
7
6
No
34
43
44
• 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)
So,….
• Memories are unreliable because
they are reconstructive ( we draw
on schemas to aid our memory)
Evaluation of Loftus & Palmer
study
• A well – controlled study ( done in 2 parts)
• Control is intended to allow us to conclude that it is
the IV, and nothing else, which is influencing the DV.
• For example Loftus was 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
• Highly reliable
• Massive implications for EWT
• Lacked ecological validity – video footage of
staged car-crashes
• Unrepresentative sample – all pps were
university students
Questions on Loftus & Palmer
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
How do we know Eyewitness testimony is problematic ?
In what way was Loftus influenced by the work of Bartlett ?
Briefly outline the ‘War of the Ghosts study”
Briefly outline the procedure in the L&P study
Why did they conduct a second part to the experiment ?
In what way did the second part support their hypothesis ?
State some strengths and weakness of the study
Outline one other way in which memory is unreliable
Briefly outline why the case of Eileen Franklin supports this
False memory syndrome
• Freudian theory also argues that
memory can unreliable through the
process of ‘repression’.
• He argued that intense emotional
memories in particular activate
certain defense mechanisms.
• Repression is one defence mechanism
in which we subconsciously push
anxiety-provoking memories into our
unconscious so they will forgotten.
• However this memory may haunt the victim
in symbolic form through dreams,
• Freudian therapists seek to uncover/release
these hidden memories through
psychoanalysis.
Recovered memories
• The recovery of childhood
memories through therapy has
been highly controversial.
• In the 1980’s and 1990’s there was
widespread reports in the media
about prosecutions made towards
family members based on
recovered early memories.
• Are these accurately recovered
memories or false memories ?
• Loftus, whilst not denying that childhood
abuse occurs, has argued that as our
memories are reconsrtructive, they may be
distorted and indeed false.
• The False Memory Syndrome Foundation was
founded in the USA in 1992 by parents and
professionals to support families that had
been shattered through false allegations
based on recovered memories.
• The unreliability of Memory can also be seen in witness
recollection of the 2002 Washington DC sniper attacks.
• Witnesses reported seeing a white truck or van fleeing
several of the crime scenes.
• It seems that a white vehicle might have been near one of the
first shootings and media repetition of this information
contaminated the memories of witnesses to later attacks,
making them more likely to remember white trucks.
• When caught, the sniper suspects were driving a blue van.
• There can be many explanations for this but
Loftus has argued that post-event information
can affect our memories.
• Post event information can also activate
certain schema.
• Our schema for vans may associate vans with
being white, as that is the most common
colour.
•Research the case of
Eileen Franklin
•Discuss how social or
cultural factors affect
memory
• Are cognitive abilities universal ?
• Are cognitive skills universal ?
• Cole and Scribner (1974) argue that cognitive
abilities are universal but not cognitive
skills/tasks.
• Cognitive skills are dependent on the
environment – education, social interaction,
culture and the technologies make up the
environment.
• Cole & Scribner are famous for their
work and research with the Kpelle
people of Liberia
• The Kpelle are the largest ethnic group
in the West African nation of Liberia and
a significant group in neighboring
Guinea.
• For the 2006 PBS program `African
American Lives`, African American
television personality Oprah Winfrey
had her DNA tested.
• This genetic genealogy test showed
that her maternal line probably
originated among the Kpelle ethnic
group
• For example, Cole and his colleagues gave a
non-literate (non – schooled ) Kpelle rice
farmer in Liberia this syllogism ( problem);
All Kpelle men are rice farmers.
Mr. Smith is not a rice farmer.
Is he a Kpelle man?
• Whilst westerners are likely to answer no, the farmer
replied: “If I know him in person, I can answer that
question, but since I do not know him in person, I
cannot answer that question”.
• This is a typical response among non-schooled
people.
• The reasoning is based on knowledge and experience
rather than logical reasoning,
• Scribner argued (1974) that it is the effect of
schooling that enables the development of logical
thinking in children.
Cole and Scribner (1974)
• Studied memory skills in both American and
Liberian Kpelle children.
• They observed the effects formal schooling /
education (culture) had on memory.
• They compared recall of a series of words in the
US and amongst the Kpelle people
• The Kpelle people were children (aged 6 – 14)
and adults from rural Liberia.
• Of the Kpelle children some were in school, and
all the adults were in school.
• 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
The
researchers
asked the
Liberian
children to
recall as many
items as
possible from 4
categories –
utensils,
clothes, tools
and vegetables
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
• Although this could be interpreted as memory skills
being better amongst Americans children than Kpelle
(African) children such an interpretation would
overlook the influence of culture.
• Western schooling emphasizes certain cognitive
strategies such as clustering / categorising.
• Schooling presents children with a number of
specialized organizing tasks, such as organizing large
amounts of information in memory.
• It is unlikely such parallels exist in traditional
societies like the Kpelle
• HOWEVER Cole et al followed up this work by
testing a different hypothesis – may be
memory performance was not based on
skills/strategy but on recall tasks more
relevant to those the Kpelle ordinarily
encounter.
• They used the narrative method so that the
objects were presented in a meaningful way
as part of a story.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Bottle
Chicken feather
Box
Battery
Book
Candle
Nail
Cigarette
Stick
Grass
Knife
orange
shirt
Put as many of these
words as possible into
a story
Cole & Scribner narrative
• The narrative (story) centered on a four suitors (a man trying
to date/marry a woman) who present certain items as a
dowry (bridewealth) to the town’s chief to try to win the right
to marry his daughter.
• In the first story the first suitor offers all the clothing, the
second, all of the food, the third all of the tools and the
fourth, all of the utensils.
• In a second story the man attempts to kidnap the girl, who
drops the items along the path as she goes.
• She drops them in an order that bears no relation to category
membership but makes sense in the sequence of events.
Conclusion
• The framework of the story seemed to greatly
aid recall.
• The non-schooled children recalled the
objects easily and actually chunked them
according to the roles they played in the story.
• The conclusion is that 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.
•People’s cognitive
skills are relevant to
their culture ( their
everyday practice)
• Discuss how and why particular research methods are
used at the Cognitive level of analysis
• ( Lab experiments, Brain imaging, case studies of
patients with brain damage )
• Discuss ethical considerations related to research
studies at the cognitive level of analysis
• Discuss the use of technology in investigating memory
• ( ie…brain imaging techniques (mri, fmri, pet scans) in
investigating alzheimers disease)
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 earlyonset 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.
Why study emotions?
• 25 yrs ago emotions were ignored by
experimental psychologists
• Psychology wants to be a science,
• Emotions are too flakey
• How do you even study emotion?
• Emotional revolution (1990 – and
ongoing)
R. Zajonc: Humans have emotions!
Emotions affect thinking and behavior.
Definition of emotions
• The mainstream definition of emotion refers
to a feeling state involving thoughts,
physiological changes, and an outward
expression or 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.
Ekman's (1972) list of basic emotions:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Anger
Disgust
Fear
Happiness
Sadness
Surprise
Cross-cultural research
• He devised a list of basic
emotions from cross-cultural
research on the Fore
tribesmen of Papua New
Guinea.
• He observed that members
of an isolated culture could
reliably identify the
expressions of emotion in
photographs of people from
cultures with which the Fore
were not yet familiar.
Ekman’s (1990) extended list
• including a range of positive and negative
emotions not all of which are encoded in facial
muscles.[
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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Amusement
Contempt
Contentment
Embarrassment
Excitement
Guilt
Pride in achievement
Relief
Satisfaction
Sensory pleasure
Shame
Three ways to measure emotions
Physical
Thoughts
–
blood pressure
–
heart rate
–
adrenaline levels
–
muscle activity when
smiling, frowning, etc.
–
neural images
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posture
–
tears,
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perspiration
–
lie detector readings
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–
–
–
–
Behaviour
spoken and written
words on rating scales
-facial expressions
–
activity level
answers to open-ended
questions on surveys
and during interviews
–
alertness
–
screaming
responses to projective
instruments, sentence
stems, etc.
–
laughing
–
Smiling
self-assessments or
perceptions regarding
the behavior and
intentions of others
other cognitive
operations such as
rational/logical thinking
–
aggression
–
approach/avoidance
–
attention/distraction
–
insomnia
–
anhedonia
Issues for psychologists
Is an emotion (eg. Fear)
• Mainly physiological
• Mainly cognitive
• Which comes first ?
• How do they interact?
To answer this we will look at 3
theories (approaches)
• Schacter ( 1964 ) Two – factory theory
• Lazarus ( 1982 ) Appraisal theory
• Le Doux (1996) Biological factors
• Case of S.M ( who doesn’t experience fear)
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.
• This suggests that feelings/emotions are
meaningless in isolation, and it is our
labeling of them which helps us make
sense of them.
Schacter & Singer
summary
• Participants were give adrenaline injections
and asked to report what they were feeling
• Adrenaline causes a high state of arousal
• But how would they understand that feeling ?
• They would use the situation/context they
found themselves in to make sense of the
feeling
Effects of adrenaline
• Very similar to the effects of arousal of the
sympathetic division of the autonomic
nervous system (as in the fight or flight
syndrome) –
• Increase in;
• blood pressure,
• heart rate, respiration rate,
• blood flow to the muscles and brain
• This often experienced as palpitations,
tremors, flushing and faster breathing
• The effects begin after three minutes and last
from ten minutes to an hour.
Schacter & Singer
Aim
• If a person experiences a state of arousal for
which they have no immediate explanation,
they will describe their emotions in terms of
the cognitions(thoughts) available to them at
the time
Participants
• 184 male college students, taking classes in
introductory psychology at Minnesota
University.
• Subjects’ health records were checked to
make sure that the adrenalin would not have
an adverse effect.
Method & procedure
• Laboratory experiment with independent
measures.
• There were two independent variables
• IV1: information about the adrenalin injection
given to the subjects
• IV2: situation they are put in (happy situation
or anger situation).
Procedure
First independent variable (information about the
adrenalin injection given to the subjects) was
manipulated in the following way;
• As soon as the participant arrived, he was taken to a
private room by the experimenter
• told that the aim of the experiment was ‘to look at the
effects of vitamin injections on visual skills’,
• Was asked if he would mind having an injection of
‘Suproxin’ (made up name).
procedure
• 184 out of 195 subjects agreed to the
injection
• They were given an injection (by a doctor) of
either adrenalin (epinephrine) or a placebo,
which was actually a saline solution, which
has no side effects at all.
The subjects were then put in one of four
experimental conditions ( 2 only stated here)
• 1.Adrenalin Ignorant - subjects were given
an adrenalin injection and not told of the effects
of the drug.
• 2. Adrenalin Informed - subjects were given an
adrenalin injection and warned of the ‘side
effects’ of the drug (hand shake, heart pounding,
dry mouth etc
IV2: Situation put in
• Participants were then allocated to
either the happy condition or the
anger condition.
• In the euphoria situation a stooge in a
waiting room carried out a number of
silly tasks designed to entertain and
amuse the participant.
• In the anger situation a stooge in a
waiting room carried out tasks and
made comments designed to annoy
the participant.
Summary of 2 of the conditions
condition
Adrenaline
informed
Happy
situation
Angry
situation
Adrenaline
ignorant
Happy
situation
Angry
situation
• The researchers then made observational
measures of emotional response through a
one-way mirror, and also took self-report
measures from the participants.
results
IV
Happy) condition
Angry condition
Informed
Least emotional reaction
(happy)
Least emotional (angry)
Misinformed & ignorant
Most emotional reaction
(happiest)
Most emotional (angriest)
Explain these results ?
Conclusion
• This suggests that subjects who were informed were able to
explain their mood the physiological effects of the adrenaline.
So they didn’t report in emotional terms.
• The uninformed or misinformed groups had no explanation so
they drew on a cognitive label ( eg. Happy or angry)
Summary of Schacter & Singer
•
•
•
•
•
•
This study investigated emotional experience, and was based on testing the
theory that an emotion is made up of cognitive appraisal (labelling the
emotion) and physiological arousal (adrenaline and the physical changes it
produces).
This was done by giving 3 groups of participants an adrenaline injection
(epinephrine) and 1 group a placebo, then putting them into situations
designed to create an emotional response of anger or happiness.
Some participants were misled or given no information and the researchers
predicted that they would blame their physical state on the situation,
therefore reporting higher levels of emotion.
Other participants were told the effects of the injection and so would not
blame the situation as they already knew why they felt that way.
The results were as predicted, indicating that if someone feels
physiologically aroused and doesn't know why they will look at their situation
in order to label their emotion.
This supports the theory that emotions need both cognitive and
physiological elements
• The main strength of the method used by
Schachter and Singer is the amount of control
they had of their procedure.
• For example they were able to randomly
allocate different participants to the different
conditions,
• they were able to deceive the participants of the
real nature of the experiment and standardise
the procedure as much as possible.
• They even ensured that the stooge did not know
which condition the participant was in.
Criticisms of study
• The experiment definitely lacked ecological validity.
• We do not usually experience emotions in the way in which
Schachter and Singer induced them.
• We are often aware of events before the onset of arousal and this
gives us information we can use to interpret out physical cues.
• The sample was all male college students, taking classes in
introductory psychology at Minnesota University.
• It could be, for example that males do not always experience
emotions in the same way as females. The sample is certainly not
representative.
criticism
• The study can also be questioned on ethical grounds.
• Even though the participants were given health checks
before the experiment began, and were thoroughly
debriefed, they were considerably deceived.
• Injections and inducing anger may have been
harmful
• We can also question the assumption that all participants
would react in the same way to the adrenaline.
• Adrenalin does not affect everyone in the same way, for
example five of Schachter & Singer’s subjects were
excluded from analysis because they experienced no
physiological symptoms.
• A further problem with the procedure is that no
assessment was made of subjects’ mood before the
injection - presumably, a subject in a better mood to
begin with might respond more positively to a playful
stooge.
• Other theories have built on the work of
Schacter & Singer and current research now
focuses on cognition as a central factor of
emotion
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
stimulus
Lazarus
Primary & secondary appraisal
• 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
generates emotion/level of physical arousal
But a reppraisal may occur depending our coping
strategy for the emotion
We may aim to change the problematic situation
( problem – focused coping)
OR we may be able to handle the emotion (
emotion – focused coping )
Reappraisal may change quality and intensity of
emotion/level of
physical arousal
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.
Speisman (1964) Conditions
•
•
•
•
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.
• Physiological ( heart rate, galvanic skin tests )
and self-report measures of stress were taken.
Galvanic skin response
•
•
•
•
•
•
All tissues in the human body, including skin,
have the ability to conduct electricity.
, this is how our nerves function to relay
information from one part of the body to
another.
The skin also has electrical activity, which is in
constant, slight variation, and can be measured
and charted.
The skin's electrical conductivity fluctuates
based on certain bodily conditions, and this
fluctuation is called the galvanic skin response.
Sudden changes in emotion, such as fright, can
trigger the galvanic skin response, as can other
types of changes, such as the hot flashes that are
characteristic of menopause.
The galvanic skin response can be graphed on a
chart for observation, in the same way that heart
or brain activity is recorded.
Speiseman et al
Results
Control group
(no sound)
Trauma narrative
Denial narrative
Scientific/academic
narrative
No stress
Most stressed
(emotional
response)
Less stressed
Less stressed
• 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.
Evaluation of Speisman
+ Lab setting (high degree of controls over
variables)
+ Objective measures of fear responses (heart
rate, galvanic skin test)
- low ecological validity
- questionable ethics (participants are exposed
to discomforting material)
Le Doux (1996) Biological factors
• Joseph LeDoux, a neuroscientist at New York
University pioneered the study of emotions as
biological phenomena.
• He came to emotion research from studying
split-brain patients whose two brain
hemispheres were severed as a last resort
against epileptic seizures.
• He discovered a patient who, when presented
with stimuli to the right hemisphere, could not
describe the stimulus (a left hemispheric
function) but could describe the emotional
impact that the stimulus had on him.
• Le Doux has mapped out the
biological circuitry of emotions
through work on rats.
• In his experiments, rats are
exposed to a tone and mild electric
shock at the same time.
• Later, at the sound of the tone by
itself, they freeze, as if frightened.
They have been conditioned to fear
the noise.
• By using tracers,
chemicals that stain
neurons LeDoux
found a direct
pathway from the ear
to a two-way station
called the sensory
thalamus that led
directly to the
amygdala, an almondshaped structure in
the forebrain.
• The amygdala triggers a flight or fight physiological reaction. When
this pathway was cut, rats could not be conditioned to fear a sound.
• At the same time the sensory thalamus sends the information via the
indirect pathway (long route) to the cortex which results in an
appraisal of the stimulus and the outcome of this is sent to the
amydala.
• According to LeDoux the advantage of having a direct and indirect
route to the amygdala is flexibility in responses.
• In the case of danger the fast and direct pathway is useful because
it saves time in dangerous or emergency situations.
• On the other hand the long pathway allows for a more thorough
evaluation of a situation which can help avoid inappropriate
responses
Evaluation of Le Doux:
Supporting study case of S.M
• Homework: investigate
the case of S.M and
amygdala damage
Pop quiz
•
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•
State the 3 components of emotion
Name one IV in Schacter & Singer’s study
State the conditions of that IV
Which group experienced the highest level of emotion?
Give one criticism of the study
State the 3 stages in Lazarus’ appraisal theory
State what each stage means
State the IV and DV in Speiseman’s study
Give one criticism of Speisman’s study
State the two biological route of emotions according to Le Doux’s
theory
• How did Le Doux test this theory ?
• What is the advantage of having a direct and indirect route ?
• How does the case of S.M support Le Doux’ theory ?
•evaluate one theory
of how emotion can
affect one cognitive
process
Emotion and memory
(see youtube
When; clip)
•
•
•
•
Where you were ?
What you were doing ?
How you were informed ?
How you reacted ?
• World trade centre ( NY)
was attacked
• Micheal Jackson died
• Emotions can have a powerful effect on
memory.
• They can cause us to forget ( Freud’s theory of
repression) or cause us to have vivid and
permanent memories.
Vivid and permanent memories
• Some memories can be particularly vivid
and enduring
• Memories of surprising, important or
emotionally impacting events can be
particularly vivid and enduring
• And incredibly we don’t just remember the
emotional event but mundane information
surrounding the event.
• People can have very clear memories of
where they were, what they did, and what
they felt about the event.
Flashbul memories
• Brown and Kulik (1977) called this “Flashbulb memory.”
• Flasbulb memories include both
the central event and the
circumstances in which one
learned of the event.
Brown & Kulik (1977)
• Suggested that events with
high levels of surprise and
high levels of
consequentiality or
emotional arousal produce
a mental photograph that
preserves the scene in its
entirety.
• Examples of such notable
incidents include the
assassination of President
Kennedy, the Challenger
explosion, the death of
Princess Diana and more
recently, 9/11 and the death
of Micheal Jackson.
Brown & Kulik (1977) study
• Asked participants “ Do you
recall the circumstances in
which you first heard that…”
for 10 person-event cues
including the assassination of
John F Kennedy and Martin
Luther King.
• Participants then narrated
their personal circumstances
of hearing the news.
• Brown & Kulik found that
people had very clear
memories of the place,
ongoing event, informant, and
feelings surrounding the event
• The relevance or emotional significance
( consequentiality) of an event to a person's
life would seem to increase its likelihood of
being stored as a 'flashbulb memory'.
• Brown and Kulik found that 75% of black
people asked were able to recall the
assassination of Martin Luther King,
• Just 33% of white people asked could do the
same.
• According to Brown & Kulik a special
biological memory mechanism exists
in the brain
• When triggered by high levels of
surprise and consequentiality causes
the whole scene to be ‘printed’ onto
the memory.
• A permanent record of the contents of
awareness for the period immediately
surrounding the shocking experience
is created.
• This record is detailed, accurate,
vivid, and resistant to forgetting.
Evaluation
• Although at the time the special-mechanism
concept was just a hypothesis it has been
supported by recent findings in neuroscience
– emotional events are better remembered
than less emotional events.
Sharot et al (2006)
• Found that for individuals who were close
to the World Trade Center, the retrieval of
9/11 memories activated certain part of the
brain.
• Participants were asked to recall events
while hooked up to an fMRI scanner.
• Recall activated circuits in a part of the
brain known as the amygdala.
• The release of stress-related hormones,
signaled by the amygdala may account for
some of the power and persistence that
characterize many highly emotional or
traumatic experiences.
Do Flashbulb memories differ from
other forms of memory?"
• However Neisser has argued that the flashbulb memory
is not a special memory.
• People do not always know the consequences of an
event until later.
• Neisser argued that FMs were simply ordinary memories
made clearer and longer lasting by frequent rehearsal
after the event.
• This argument seems quite logical, as particularly in this
global age the media and society frequently replay and
retell events of extreme public attention or emotion.
• Flashbulb memories could therefore be seen as
memories that have be actively reconstructed to such an
extent that they can be clearly replayed in our minds.
Are flashbulb memories accurate ?
• This also questions the validity and accuracy
of "flashbulb memories" in that they are
memories actively reconstructed and
transformed over time in 1986.
Neisser & Harsch (1992)
• Measured flashbulb memories of the
shuttle Challenger explosion in 1986.
• They investigated people’s memory
accuracy of the event 24 hours after
the incident and again 2 years later.
• The participants were very confident
that their 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
Christianson & Loftus (1987)
• A study by Christianson & Loftus (1987)
found that emotional arousal enhanced
recall of information central to the event
that elicited the emotion, but disrupted
recall of peripheral ( surrounding)
details.
Christianson & Loftus (1987
• Participants were presented with one of
two matched slide sequences depicting
either an emotional event (a boy hit by a
car) or a neutral event (a boy walking
beside a car).
• All participants wrote down the central
feature of each slide.
• Participants who viewed the emotional
slide sequence were better able to recall
the central features than participants who
viewed the neutral sequence, but they
were less able to recognize peripheral
(surrounding) detail in the particular slides
they had seen
Strengths of the 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 which are high
in control.
• For example Loftus and Palmer were able to control the
age of the participants, the use of video, questions and
position of critical question and the location of the
experiment.
• Furthermore, such standardised experiments are easy to
test for reliability, and are usually highly replicable.
Limitations of approach
• However, as many cognitive studies are carried out in laboratory
settings they can lack ecological validity.
• When cognitive processes such as memory 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