Paper One Material

 Mental representations (images, words, and concepts)  We are information processors (bottom up and top down) with mental processes that guide behavior.  Mind can be studied scientifically.  Cognitive processes are influenced by social and cultural factors.  Stereotyping, memory reconstructions, false memories, schemas, distortions, encoding, storage, retrieval, sensory, STM, LTM, neural networks …

 Aim: investigate if schemas affect both encoding and retrieval. Procedure: Controlled lab exp. Participants heard a story about two boys who skipped school and spent the day in an isolated house -home of one of the boys. Some details of the house were given. Condition one heard the story from the perspective of a potential housebuyer (e.g. leaking roof, attractive grounds). Condition two from the perspective of a potential burglar (e.g. coin collection, nobody home on Thursdays). Then the participants performed a distraction task for 12 minutes. Then all were asked to recall. In a second trial, half of the participants were given the opposite schema (either burglar or house buyer) and asked to recall details of the house. Half were asked to recall with the original schema. Results: the changed schema group recalled more details (10%) but 7% of the original was recalled as well in the group who changed schema. Schema processing seems to affect both encoding and recall.  1 st recall task after 12 minutes and 2 nd after five minutes  215 public high school students in small, mid-western town Found at: htmlhttp:// html

 Asked participants to read prose and understand it, while at the same time remembering sequences of numbers—they found that in dual-task experiments there was an increase in reasoning time if people had to undertake a memory dependent task at the same time. Task was also impaired if the participants had to learn sequences of six numbers, but that they could manage to learn sequences of three numbers, do impairment with concurrent task but not catastrophic breakdown.  All undergrads

 John Darley and Paget Gross showed similar effects when they varied whether a young girl, Hannah, seemed poor or wealthy. College students watched a video of Hannah playing in her neighborhood, and read a brief fact sheet that described her background. Some of the students watched Hannah playing in a low-income housing estate, and her parents were described as high school graduates with blue collar jobs; the remaining students watched Hannah behaving similarly, but this time she was filmed playing in a tree-lined middle-class neighborhood, and her parents were described as college-educated professionals. The students were asked to assess Hannah's academic ability after watching her respond to a series of achievement-test questions. In the video, Hannah responded inconsistently sometimes answering difficult questions correctly and sometimes answering simpler questions incorrectly. Hannah's academic ability remained difficult to discern, but that didn't stop the students from using her socioeconomic status as a proxy for academic ability. When Hannah was labeled "middle-class," the students believed she performed close to a fifth-grade level, but when she was labeled "poor," they believed she performed below a fourth-grade level. Rating scale of 1-9parents  neighborhood and background—4 minutes, Intelligence test video--12 minutes answering 25 questions ranging from 2 nd to 6 th grade levels  Another experimental level (answering questions or not); control level—only saw the performance tape and given basic information—address and school  Another DV of evaluating how well she would do in math, science, writing, history, baseline skills (responsibility, organization)  Participants also asked to comment on difficulty of test (if middle-class Hannah, test was difficult)  Self-selected, paid ($2.50/hour) sample, 70 Princeton undergrads—30 male and 40 female; 3 participants’ data not used; Hannah was a 4 th grader; face not clearly shown; “Teacher evaluation for placement purposes”  Random assignment, matched pairs Found at: peoplehttp:// people

 Jennifer Eberhardt, a social psychologist at Stanford, and her colleagues showed white college students a pictures of a man who was racially ambiguous--he could have plausibly fallen into the "white" category or the "black" category. For half the students, the face was described as belonging to a white man, and for the other half it was described as belonging to a black man. In one task, the experimenter asked the students to spend four minutes drawing the face as it sat on the screen in front of them. Although all the students were looking at the same face, those who tended to believe that race is an entrenched human characteristic drew faces that matched the stereotype associated with the label (see a sample below). The racial labels formed a lens through with the students saw the man, and they were incapable of perceiving him independently of that label.stereotype  2 factors—implicit theory (entity and incremental) and racial labels (black and white)  42 white, Stanford students for drawing phase  41 pictures in order to get composite face  Ambiguous face—50% saw white and 50% saw black; black—80% labeled as white or black  Before they drew picture, had to recall the demographic information.  Traits always constant (entity) or traits changing (incremental); entity minded stereotyped.  -1 To + 1 black to white scale, 1-7 certainty scale via NY residents  Found at: its-dangerous-label-peoplehttp:// its-dangerous-label-people

 240 Army enlisted men  In lab, participants hear a list of items and then immediately recalled them in any order.  Participants recalled words from the beginning and the end of the list best—u shaped curve. If given a filler/distracter task after hearing last words, primacy effect disappeared but recency effect remained.  1 st phase--Words at a two or three second rate  2 nd phase—count out loud for 10 or 30 seconds, 10 second group recalled better  Count it right of homonym, same word, or recognizable misspelling

 Participants asked to read prose and understand it while remembering number sequences. Found in dual-task experiment that there was a clear and systematic increase in reasoning time but that task was impaired, although not entirely catastrophic, if the participants had to learn sequences of six rather than three numbers.  Conclusion: more than one unitary store

 Participants either asked to learn word list by either imagery or rehearsal, on own or in presence of concurrent visual noise (changing dot pattern—visual feed) or concurrent verbal noise (foreign language speech—verbal feed).  36 undergrads  Possible practice effects—imagery or vocal rehearsing  Further segmentation of visuo-spatial  Conclusion: Imagery group not affected by verbal but disturbed by visual. Rehearsal group was not disturbed by visual but was by verbal.

 Working Memory Test Battery for Children—9 subtests that measured 3 central executive, 4 phonological loop, and 2 visuo-spatial sketchpad—recall, block, maze tasks, great variance in recall tasks  750 children ages 4 to 15; 100 identified as special education  Improvement in performance in working memory capacity from the age of 5 until 15 years  Varies widely across individuals of same age, up to 4 to 5 years  Problems of working memory are associated with problem in academic performance.

 Word recall task in US and among the Kpelle people of rural Liberia. Memory strategies…  TWO STUDIES  Researchers observed everyday cognitive activities to develop relevant and familiar recall tasks.  Children from different age groups asked to recall as many items as possible from four categories: utensils, clothes, tools, and vegetables.  The non-schooled children did not improve on free recall task after the age of 10. After 15 practice trials, they remembered only two more items to the average of 10 recalled. School attending children learned the lists just as rapidly as children in the US and used same strategy of categorical similarity to recall.  Illiterate children did not use chunking and did not have serial position effect. When given the list in meaningful narrative, the illiterate children recalled the objects easily and chunked them.  plate cutlass  calabash hoe  pot knife  pan file  cup hammer  potato trousers  onion singlet  banana head tie  orange shirt  coconut hat

 30 Mayan and 30 Salt Lake City children, around 9 y.o.  Mayan children did better in a memory task if they were given one that was meaningful to them in local terms. Researchers made a mini model of Mayan village like the children’s own. 20 miniature objects a set of 80 (cars, animals, furniture, etc.) were placed in the model. Then the 20 were removed, and the experimenter asked the children to reconstruct the shown scene—lake and mountain diorama.  Results: the Mayan children did slightly better than the US children.

 150 participants in three independent groups  All saw car accident film.  Hit, smashed, and no question  Did you see broken glass? (week later)  32% of smashed group reported yes as compared to 14% of hit group and 6% of control group.

 PET scan of reduced metabolic activity in hippocampus during early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.  Longitudinal study of 53 normal, healthy participants—some for nine years and others for up to 24 years.  Early signs were associated with later Alzheimer’s development.

 Emotions are physiological signals in reaction to external stimuli, and feelings (conscious interpretation of the emotion) arise when the brain interprets the stimuli.

 Emotional reactions are flexible due to evolution. 1. short route—amygdala reacts and activates response system 2. long route—sensory input goes via sensory cortex to hippocampus, involves evaluation of stimulus and consideration of an appropriate response  Certain memories have emotional significance that might explain why memories based on emotional events are remembered better, as well as why PTSD patients have problems forgetting.  Studies on rats, shocking, fear inducing, brain lesioning…

 Appraisal of threat and appraisal of one’s resources  Problem focused coping—aimed to change the problematic situation that causes stress  Emotion focused coping—handle the emotions rather than changing the situation, ex. Escape, self control, social support, positive reappraisal  Lazarus 1975 Appraisal theory—cognitive factors can modulate stress responses

 42 midlevel airline executives, 56 undergrads????  Participants viewed film about aboriginal initiation ceremonial genital cutting.  Experimental levels of three different soundtracks (trauma condition—emphasized the pain and mutilation, denial condition— willing and happy, intellectualization condition—anthropological interpretation)  Participants reacted more emotionally to the trauma condition (heart rate and galvanic skin response). Questionnaire, too

 Prolonged stress can damage neurons in the hippocampus but this can be reversed if normal levels of cortisol are restored.  Baboons and humans and rats—blood pressure, stress hormone levels, cholesterol levels, and ability to heal; cortisol, epinephrine, glucocorticoids

 51 elderly participants to study for three to six years the role of cortisol on memory (convenience sample via ad)  Cortisol secretion was too high in 30% of population.  Excessive cortisol secretion participants showed memory impairment and atrophy of the hippocampus.  2002 follow-up study—two groups (moderate level and high level/impairment), both given anti-cortisol secretion drug metyrapone, then memory test, then hydrocortisone to restore cortisol levels, compared to placebo group; found that moderate group had no problem restoring normal memory function; high level had no memory improvement, hydrocortisone caused even greater memory loss. MRIs, too  Baseline and increased comparisons  Placebo group  Once annual test, 30 days out of the year  Regulation and increase

 Data from EEG and MEG to identify interactive patterns of neurons in cerebral cortex during visual tasks.  Frontal and parietal in coordinating attention and action; occipital lobe in handling and maintaining sensory information about visual stimuli.  Supports Baddeley’s model of working memory

 Original flashbulb memory study—followed by Neisser and Harsch and Talarico and Rubin  80 participant questionnaires—where they had learned shocking events  40 white and 40 black Americans  Reported vivid memories of where, what, and feelings about shocking public event like assassination of John F. Kennedy  Flashbulb memories, too, of personal or shocking events.  FM caused by the physiological arousal arousal (amygdala).  JFK assassination most recalled.  10 total—last being a self-selected event—most recalled shocking event, like the death of a parent  African American participants recalled more civil rights associated events.