Psychology AS revision cognitive

Describe reconstructive memory...

having a strong vivid memory and later you learn you were wrong

What is a leading question?

a question that forces someone to give a falsely lead answer by putting words in thier mouth or thoughts in thier head

outline the aim in the study...

to investigate the effect of leading questions on the accuracy of speed estimates in and percieved consequences

what was the IV in the first experiment?

the verd used

smashed,collided,bumped,contacted,hit

what might a problem with using an independent measures design?

individual differences can affect results

what was the critical question in the first experiment?

how fast were the cars going when they (VERB) each other?

why do u think they asked a number of questions when the researchers were only really interested in one?

to comapre the different answers given when using the verb and when not using the verb

what was the DV in the first experiment?

speed

who were the participants in the study?

45 students in the first exp

150 students in the 2nd exp

suggest 2 problems with generalising from this group of participants?

not representative of the whole society

not fair results as 2 different sizes of group

why does the first study not necessarily demonstrate that the participant's memory has been affected by leading questions?

what main change was made to the second exp to demonstrate that memory was being effected by leading questions?

control group was asked tp come back a week later and asked the critical question

what is the IV in exp 2?

the 3 different questions asked

smashed, hit and controlled quest

give 2 reasons why the experiments might not be ecologically valid...

they were in a lab and not in a real life atmosphere of a car crash

participants knew they were in experiments could have played up to demand characteristice to impress the experimenter

identify a potential confounding variable in this study and suggest how this may have affected the result?

describe the 2 main controls of the experiment

same enviroment (lab)

same questions asked to participants

suggest how a more high EV study could be carried out to investigate eye witness testimony?

instead of watching the film clip could have shown them a real car crash which was acted out by they didn't know

effect on results

higher ev response would be more emotive and real

what advice would you give to professionals such as police officers who take eye witness statements from people?

not to use leading question

define ethnocentrism

the belief that your own culture is superior

define depth perception

is the interpretation of distance from sensory information

what is a depth cue?

are things which give us an indication of how far away an image is or object

what was the aim of deregowski's study?

provide an insight into how perception works (indicate the role played by learning in perception)

investigate the possibility of a universal cross-cultural means of communication (a lingua franca)

what anecdotal evidence does deregowski come across which described how people in different cultures may have problems interpreting pictures?

a story was told about Robert Laws showing an elephant picture to african participants and they ran away

can you think of a weakness of this type of anecdotal evidence?

usually made up, second hand data, logical fallacy

in the study with the hudson picture perception test what are some of the western non tribal people unable to do?

draw split style drawings

if psychologists find some cultural universals of behaviour what does it tells us about that behaviour?

behaviour is nurture not nature

the paper by deregowski on perception describes that the trident test where children were asked to copy two figures: one was a normal picture of a trident (three pronged fork) and the other was an illusion?what was the difference in performance between the2-D percievers and 3-D percievers?

the 3-D percievers spent more time looking at the ambigious trident

the 2-D percievers didn't differ a lot in the time spent viewing the tridents

in his study deregowski considers explanations for the origins of split-style drawings. breifly describe one of these explanations and give 1 criticism...

because they belong to a mask culture and they wear masks to represent different aspects of thier drawing and a split style drawing shows all aspects of thier drawings

a criticism would be he can't generalise all cultures as african tribes doesn't represent all cultures

explain how deregowski may not have made the measurements fair fol all cultures?

he only researched studies on african tribes

are pictures a 'lingua franca for intercultural communication'?

no, as picture perception is a result of nurture not nature as some africans could see in 3D

outline the 3 main characteristics of autism?

communication- problems with language

social relationships- show emotions and feelings

flexible thoughts- can't see another's view

what is meant by theory of mind?

seeing the world from anothers perspective

describe a problem that arises if you don't have a theory of mind...

your unable to recognise that other people may have their own view of the world in their heads therefore can be confused in certain situations such as the sally-anne task

what was the aim of the baron-cohen study?

to investigate do autistic children have a theory of mind

who were the three groups of children used as participants?

autistic children

down-syndrome children

'normal' pre-schoolers children

what was the IV in the baron-cohen study?

autistic, down syndrome and normal children

what was the DV in in the baron-cohen study?

the false belief question- where will sally look for her marble?

outline the sally-anne test...

. sally has a basket, anne has a box

. sally has a marble, she puts the marble into her basket

. sally goes out for a walk

. anne takes the marble out of the basket and putts it into her box

. now sally comes back. she wants to play with her marble

. false belief question asked- where will sally look for her marble?, memory quest asked- where was the marble at the beginning?, critical quest asked- which doll is sally and which is anne?

what was the belief question?

where will sally look for her marble?

describe the other 3 questions

the other 3 questions were to ensure the validity of the belief quest

reality quest- where is the marble really?

critical quest- which dolly is sally which is anne?

memory quest- where was the marble in the beginning?

describe the results of the study...

number of correst responses:

autistic-20%

down's syndrome- 86%

normal - 85%

the majority of normal and down's syndrom children got the sally-anne question right however so did 4 autistic children showing test isn't 100% accurate.

according to baron-cohen, why were the autistic children more likely to get the belief quest wrong?

because they thought autistic children were lacking the theory of mind

outline a main strength of the experiment...

gave us a better understanding of the majority of autistic childrens theory of mind

outline one main weakness of the experiment...

the experiment was prone to demand characteristics , as the children knew they were being tested therefore may have wanted to impress the experimenter, weren't being themselves

what is the difference between language and communication?

language is dependent on structure e.g phonology- sound patterns semantics- words have meanings syntax- study of word order

whereas communication is how you put the language across, a form of passing information across

why was washoe taught sign language rather than a spoken language?

because of chimpanzee's inappropriate vocal appuratus

what was the aim of G&G's study?

was to see if a chimp can be taught american sign language as used by many deaf people in the USA

what was being measured in this study of G&G?

how many signs were being learnt by washoe and in what period of time

how was the reliability of the observation G&G standardised?

washoe was observed by 3 observers over 15 days

why did the researchers choose american signlanguage?

because it's currently used by humans and comparisons of young chimpanzee and human performance could be made

describe 2 of the training methods the researchers used to teach washoe sign language...

imitation- past researchers noted that chimpanzees naturally imitated visual behaviour,

researchers repeatedly signed in washoe's presence. washoe would readily imitate gesturesbut not always on command or in appropriate situations at first, correct and exaggerated gestures were repeatedly made as prompts.

instrumental conditioning- tickling was used as reinforcement to shape more accurate signs by withholding it until a clearer version of the sign was shown

how many signs could washoe use after 22 mnths?

30 signs

one strength of this case study method...

helps us understand behaviour over a long period of time

easier to just study one chimp

one weakness of this case study method...

time consuming and exspensive

not representative of all chimps

describe one characteristic of language washoe could use, give an example...

semantics- toothbrush sign in bathroom

describe one characteristic of language that washoe couldn't demonstrate...

structure dependence- putting the subject before the action

in what way do you think the study was unethical?

morally wrong - if something should speak it would

wasn't protected as she had the ability to escape

wasn't protected from us- mentally & physically

wasn't safe - confused could have harmed mentally

can you think of an improvement for this study?

they could have used half a dozen of chimpanzees learning together ( 2 males 2 females)

affect...

wider results, more representative, comparision of their intelligence and ability