Copy of IB Psych: Cognitive Approach

Schema Theory

Schema of a Picnic

A Schema of an Egg

Schema

• A concept or framework, built up from experience, about an object, event, person or group. Schemata influence the way we interpret, organize, communicate, and remember information.

• Basically it means that when we see something our brain connects it to other things we already know to organize the data in our brain.

Schema

Schemas are cognitive structures that are derived from prior experience and knowledge

Schema 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.
• to simplify reality, setting up expectations about what is probable in relation to particular social and textual contexts.

Schemas are culturally specific but may vary even within a single culture because of such factors as class.

• for example
• the schema for a school may change based on if you were in Afghanistan or in Korea

Scripts

Scripts are a type of schema

Scripts are schema about events in time rather than schema for objects.

• We have scripts for how to go to dinner in a restaurant, what happens on Christmas day, or what makes a romantic date;

• When events don’t follow our scripts, we can become frustrated, angry, disappointed, or simply confused
• such as if someone invited you to a party, and you go there and there are three people sitting on a couch playing video games you may be disappointed as it was not what your script of a party was having you expect

Schema Overview

Schema is simply a way to organize ideas in our head.

They let us know what to expect or imagine if a certain word is said and help us relate it to other things.

When new information is learned (say seeing a state of the art school) we now assimilate (add on) it to our schema of what a school can be. However if that information is really different we accommodate (change) our schema to what a school can be such as (online schooling)

Brewer and Treyens (1981)

Aim:

to investigate the role of schema in encoding and retrieval of episodic memory. The basic assumption of schema theory is that individual's prior experience will influence how they remember new information.

Sample:

• 86 university psychology students

Brewer and Treyens (1981)

Procedure:

• Participants were told they were to be involved in a study, however they were not ready for them yet, so they were to sit in an office room for 35 seconds while the lab assistant went to see if they were ready yet.
• The office was typical office supplies like a typewriter, papers, etc, but also had some strange items like a skull, and were missing some typical items like books
• Then they moved the participant to another room and gave them a memory test on the office.
• Participants did three random test
• written one, drawing one, and a verbal one

Brewer and Treyens (1981)

Results:

• Participants were more likely to remember things that matched their schema better than the actual office
• trapezoid desk was square
• books and other objects that would normally be in the room but wasnt were remembered
• objects that shouldn't be in the room were often forgotten except for in the verbal recall group or when given a questionnaire mentioning it

To Do

Create a Graphic Organizer

• (you can download mine from the moodle page or make your own)
• dont forget to do strengths and limitations
• you can also find this study on inthinking and I have a link to it on moodle
• submit your graphic organizer on moodle. if you did it by hand just submit a picture of it

Anderson & Pichert (1979)

Aim: To see if schema theory influences the encoding and retrieval of information

Sample: 39 Psych Students

Anderson & Pichert (1979)

Procedures:

• Participants were split into two groups and read a story.
• In one group they were told imagine they were a burglar (robber)
• In the other group imagine they were going to be house buyers
• They were read a story and then asked questions on what they remember afterward
• They were given a distraction test and waited five minutes
• They were then regiven the story, though half were told they were not the opposite role, the other half was given the same role as before
• They were then given a second memory test

Anderson & Pichert (1979)

The Story

Mark, John and Freddy have decided not to go to school today. They go to John’s house because his parents are never there on Thursdays. There are three LCD TVs in the house. One is in the large master bedroom (which has its own private bathroom with a marble tub), one is in the main floor family room, and one is in John’s bedroom. The house contains three other bedrooms in addition to the master bedroom, plus a study and two additional bathrooms. In addition to the TV, the family room contains a new home theatre, a computer, a PlayStation, and a rare coin collection. The house is a bit cool because of the air conditioning.

As the boys go through the house, they notice that John’s mom loves art. There are several paintings hanging on the wall, a Chinese vase and a bronze statue of a horse. She also loves plants. There is a large glassed in terrace with several plants. This is in addition to the large backyard that is behind the house. There is also a tool shed behind the house where John’s parents store the lawnmower and snow-blower.

The boys first go into the basement. There is a leak in the ceiling and there is mold on the wall. They also see the family’s bicycles

The boys enter the master bedroom. Beside the jewelry box on one of the shelves of the walk-in closet they find Tom's father's collection of old Star Trek videos. They select their favorite and go to the sitting room to watch it.

Anderson & Pichert (1979)

Results:

• People who received the same role twice remembered less and focused on their role.
• home buyers: mold, leaky ceiling, master bedroom
• robbers: tv, jewlery box, etc
• People who were given both roles remembered even more the second memory quiz

Implications

• Schema seems to affect what information we encode into our memory

To Do

Create a graphic organizer and submit it or a picture of it onto moodle

Write an SAQ on Schema Theory and submit it onto moodle

Thinking and decision Making

Possible Essay Questions:

Discuss one theory of thinking and decision making.

Activity Try this at home

Get out a sheet of Paper and answer the following Questions as quickly as possible

Then Check and see how you did

Estimate How many murders do you think were committed in England in 2016?

How long does it take the Earth to go around the sun?

A bat and ball cost $1.10

The bat cost $1 more than the ball.

How much does the ball cost?

Is the following argument valid?

All roses are flowers.

Some flowers don’t last long.

Therefore, some roses don’t last long.

If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets. How long will it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets? 100 minutes or 5 minutes?

Reconstructive Memories

• It is based on the idea that memories are not saved as complete, coherent whole

• Instead when we remember something we build that memory from pieces of memory and fill in the gaps with knowledge and logic

• Schema influence what we encode and what we retrieve from memory.

Other influences on our memory

Retrieval of memory is influenced by our perception, our beliefs, past experience, cultural factors and the context in which we are recalling the information.

Psychologist Barlett said that we try to make sense of our memories by adding interpretations and changing our memories to make it more logical.

Study: Loftus and Pickrell (1995)

Aim

• The aim of the study was to determine if false memories of autobiographical events can be created through the power of suggestion.

Sample

• 3 males and 21 females were the participants

Study: Loftus and Pickrell (1995)

Procedures

• Before the study, a parent or sibling of the participant was contacted and asked two questions.  First, could you retell three childhood memories of the participant?  Second, do you remember a time when the participant was lost in a mall?

• The participants then received a questionnaire in the mail. There were four memories that they were asked to write about and then mail back the questionnaire to the psychologists. Three events were real and the false one was “getting lost in the mall.” They were instructed that if they didn’t remember the event, they should simply write “I do not remember this.”  

• The participants were interviewed twice over a period of four weeks. They were asked to recall as much information as they could about the four events.  Then they were asked to rate their level of confidence about the memories on a scale of 1 - 10.  After the second interview, they were debriefed and asked if they could guess which of the memories was the false memory

Study: Loftus and Pickrell (1995)

Results

• About 25% of the participants “recalled” the false memory.
• However, they also ranked this memory as less confident than the other memories and they wrote less about the memory on their questionnaire.

Study: Loftus and Pickrell (1995)

Evaluation

• Although this is often seen as strong evidence of the power of suggestion in creating false memories, only 25% had them.  The study does not tell us why some participants were more susceptible to these memories than others.

• It was possible to verify the memories through the involvement of parents and siblings.

• Ecological validity was high as people were talking about their childhood memories.

• The research has been applied in the areas of eyewitness testimony and therapy.

• The fact that the questionnaire was filled out at home could lead to contamination - that is, they could have consulted with someone.

• There could be demand characteristics - such as social desirability effect.

Study 2: Loftus and Palmer (1974)

Aim

• The aim of the research was to investigate whether the use of leading questions would affect estimation of speed.

Sample

• 45 students participated in the experiment. They were divided into five groups of nine students.

Study 2: Loftus and Palmer (1974)

Procedures:

• Seven films of traffic accidents were shown and the length of the films ranged from 5 to 30 seconds. These films were taken from driver’s education films.

• When the participants had watched a film they were asked to give an account of the accident they and seen and then they answered a questionnaire with different questions on the accident with one question being the critical question where they were asked to estimate the speed of the cars involved in the accident

• They were asked the same question but the critical question included different words. Nine participants were asked, “About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?"

• The critical word "hit’" was replaced by ‘collided’, ‘bumped’ or ‘smashed’ or’ contacted’ in the other conditions which each had nine participants answering the question.

Study 2: Loftus and Palmer (1974)

Results:

Study 2: Loftus and Palmer (1974)

Evaluation:

• There may be a problem of low ecological validity. Lab experiment devoid of emotion unlike a real event

• Student participant who were inexperienced driving and are not representative of the general population

• Lab experiment that could control confounding experiments

How Emotion affects our Cognition?

To answer this question, we are going to examine how our emotions affect our memory. Stronger emotions should affect our memories even more. So to study this many psychologist study what happens to our memories when we are frightened or scared. Does this improve our memory? or is there no difference ?

Flashbulb Memories

Psychologist seem to believe that when we go through an experience that frightens us, it sticks in our memory stronger than other memories. Not only that but we remember more details as well. Psychologist call these flashbulb memories.

Study 1: Brown and Kulik 1977

Aim:

to investigate whether surprising and personally significant events can cause flashbulb memories

Sample:

40 black and 40 white American male participants

Brown & Kulik

Procedures:

• Fill out a questionnaire regarding the death of public figures
• ie President John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr
• & someone they personally knew.
• They were asked a series of questions about the event including:

Where were you when you heard about the event?

Who was with you when you heard about the event?

What were you doing when you heard about the event?

How did you find out about the event?

How did you feel when you heard about the event? (to indicate level of emotion)

How important was this event in your life? (to indicate personal relevance)

How often have you talked about this event? (to indicate rehearsal)

Brown & Kulik

Results:

• The researchers found that 90% of the participants recalled a significant amount of detail about the day when these events occurred.
• Most participants had very detailed memories of the death of a loved one.
• However, there was a difference in their memories of the assassination of public officials, based on the personal relevance of the event to the participant.
• 75% of black participants had flashbulb memories of the murder of Martin Luther King, compared to 33% of white participants.

Brown & Kulik

Evaluation:

Strengths

• Can be replicated, allowing us to determine if the results are reliable.

Limitations

• Self-reported data

• It is not possible to actually measure the role of rehearsal in the creation of the memories.

• The accuracy of the memories can not be measured

• The deaths of JFK and MLK were nearly a decade earlier

• The study shows sampling bias; it is difficult to generalize the findings as only American males were studied. The study had both gender and cultural bias.

Study 2: Neisser and Harsch

Psychologist Neisser and Harsch wanted to study how the explosion of the challenger affected peoples memories.

The Challenger was a Space Shuttle in 1986 that exploded after takeoff. It was a major event in the USA due to the fact that they had an open competition for teachers to be an astronaut and go to the moon. (I actually know someone who applied). One teacher won and was aboard the shuttle. It was a big event, many schools watched it live. It went then went into the air and exploded killing everyone on live tv.

In the midst of the shocking tragedy, Neisser and Harsch thought it would be a great time to study people memory of the event

Study 2: Neisser and Harsch

Aim

to determine whether flashbulb memories are susceptible to distortion

Sample

106 university psych students

Neissar and Harsch

Procedures:

On the morning after the Challenger disaster – less than 24 hours after the event students were given a questionnaire at the end of the class. They were asked to write a description of how they heard the news. On the back of the questionnaire was a set of questions:

What time was it?

How did you hear about it?

Where were you?

What were you doing?

Who told you?

Who else was there?

How did you feel about it?*

How did the person who told you seem to feel about it?*

What did you do afterwards?

Neissar and Harsch

Procedure:

• 2 ½ years later they were given the questionnaire again.

This time they were also asked for each response to rate how confident they were of the accuracy of their memory on a scale from 1 (just guessing) to 5 (absolutely certain).

• They were also asked if they had filled out a questionnaire on this subject before.
• Incredibly, only 11 participants said yes
• structured interviews were carried out a few months later in order to determine if the participants would repeat what they had written a few months earlier or revert to the original memory.
• Participants whose 1988 recall had been far off the mark were given a cue based on their original records;
• for example, the interviewer might ask someone who said they saw it on the news later on but in the original interview say they heard it from a friend

“Is it possible that you already knew about the explosion before seeing it on television?”

Neissar and Harsch

Results: Sample Responses:

24 hours after the accident:

I was in my religion class and some people walked in and started talking about it. I didn’t know any details except that it had exploded and the schoolteacher’s students had all been watching which I thought was so sad. Then after class, I went to my room and watched the TV program talking about it and I got all the details from that.

2.5 years later:

When I first heard about the explosion I was sitting I my freshman dorm room with my roommate and we were watching TV. It came on a news flash and we were both totally shocked. I was really upset and I went upstairs to talk to a friend of mine and then I called my parents.

Neissar and Harsch

Results:

How confident people were on their memories How people actually scored

Neissar and Harsch

Results:

Due to the high level of confidence in their memories, and the fact many people had vivid memories of the event, flashbulb memories seemed to have been in place

However people did score badly on the memory test, showing that flashbulb memories, like all memories are reconstructed and not reliable

Neissar and Harsch

Evaluation:

Strengths

• The study was a case study.
• The strength of this method is that it was both longitudinal and prospective.
• There was also method triangulation - both questionnaires and interviews were used.
• The study has high ecological validity.
• Reliable/Transferable as studies on 9/11 showed similar results

Neissar and Harsch

Evaluation:

Limitations

• The study was naturalistic. Although this is good for ecological validity, it is difficult to eliminate the role of confounding variables.
• There was no control over the participants behavior between the first questionnaire and the second. We have no idea how often this memory was discussed or how often the participants were exposed to media about the event.
• Not replicable
• Demand Characteristics (done with the Psychologist own students)

Final Thoughts

It seems like we do have more vivid memories when something dramatic, shocking, and different happens. Some psychologist think this is due to evolutionary psychology as a way to force us to remember something that may be a danger for us.

This also goes against Freud's idea of Repressed Memories. It seems like when something bad happens it is burned into our memory, not forgotten.

Lastly it seems flashbulb memories can easily be distorted. They actually may be more likely to be distorted as it may be something we are constantly recalling, or if other people experience to, their stories, news stories, and all can get mixed up in our mind.

Thinking and decision Making

Possible Essay Questions:

Discuss one theory of thinking and decision making.

Explain one study of rational and/or intuitive thinking.

Activity Try this at home

Get out a sheet of Paper and answer the following Questions as quickly as possible

Then Check and see how you did

Estimate How many murders do you think were committed in England in 2016?

How long does it take the Earth to go around the sun?

A bat and ball cost $1.10

The bat cost $1 more than the ball.

How much does the ball cost?

Is the following argument valid?

All roses are flowers.

Some flowers don’t last long.

Therefore, some roses don’t last long.

If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets. How long will it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets? 100 minutes or 5 minutes?

Answers

1. 571 Murders

2. One year

3. Five cents

4. No.

5. 5 minutes

6. 47 days

7. 118 Murders

How did you do?

Check out the next section to see why you may have missed some (except for 1,7 you are not expected to get those correct)

Thinking and decision Making

Possible Essay Questions:

Discuss one theory of thinking and decision making.

Explain one study of rational and/or intuitive thinking.

Dual Processing Model

This theory says that we have two ways of thinking that takes place. One is more intuitive and quick, the other is more logical and thoughtful.

You can use this theory to answer questions on thinking and decision making.

Dual Processing Model

System 1 Thinking

• Focuses on what you see, ignores absent information
• Bases decisions on schema
• Quick thinking
• Generate Impression
• Heuristics (short cuts)
• Operates Automatically

Dual Processing Model

System 2 Thinking

• Requires concentration and effort
• Works with Abstract Concepts
• Works through logic
• Uses Conscious reasoning
• More reliable, but is slow

Dual Processing Model

Dual Processing Model

Why do we use System 1 more?

• We are cognitive misers (lazy thinkers)
• Sometimes it is difficult, and we experience ego depletion
• Sometimes we gave too much going on in our heads (cognitive load)

All together this is referred to as the law of least effort

When trying to achieve a goal we will choose the way of least effort

Study 1: Wason 1968

Aim:

investigate the dual process model of thinking

Study 1: Wason 1968

Method:

- given a rule to test

- rule: "which card (s) must be turned over if a card shows an even number one side and the opposite face is red"

- shown four card = 3, 8, red, brown

- instructed to turn over cards that was necessary to discover if rule was true

Study 1: Wason 1968

Results:

• Less than 10% participants gave the correct answer showing system 2 was inactive
• People used intuition (system 1 processing) = not solving problem rationally/thoroughly

Implications

• demonstrates that our decision making can be influenced by the system we use to process information

Study 2: Griggs and Cox (1982)

Aim:

To investigate the role of the dual process model in real life scenarios

Study 2: Griggs and Cox (1982)

Aim:

To investigate the role of the dual process model in real life scenarios

Method:

Used the Wason Selection Task, but instead of abstract numbers and colors, used real life scenarios

Which cards would you have to turn over in order to prove if the following statement is true? If a person is drinking beer, then that person must be over 18 years old.

Study 2: Griggs and Cox (1982)

If you chose "drinking beer" and "16 years of age," then you are correct.

Results:

Researchers have found that when the task is not abstract, 75% of people are able to correctly answer the question.

Implications

When the task is not abstract, System 1 is less prone to errors

Evaluation of Dual Process Model

• Strengths:
• has high ecological validity
• allows psychologists to generalize findings and can be relevant to use in real-life settings
• studies reflect how behaviors actually occur in real-life settings, helps psychologists interpret how we process information
• studies are easy to replicate

Evaluation of Dual Process Model

• Strengths:
• has high ecological validity
• allows psychologists to generalize findings and can be relevant to use in real-life settings
• studies reflect how behaviors actually occur in real-life settings, helps psychologists interpret how we process information
• studies are easy to replicate

Evaluations of Dual Process Model

• Limitations:
• Definitions of system 1 and 2 are unclear
• Reductionist
• Does not explain how modes of thinking interact with decision making and how other factors may influence (emotion/environment)

Heuristics

Heuristics

• are mental short-cuts used to make decisions which usually focus on one aspect of a complex problem.
• These can count for biases in thinking in the IB Curriculum.

Biases found in Wason's Task Selection

Matching bias

• That is, in an abstract problem, we tend to be overly influenced by the wording (or context) of the question.
• In this case, the words "even number" and "red.“ are in the question so many people pick it as their answer

Confirmation Bias

• We tend to seek out evidence that confirms our already preexisting beliefs
• In other words we like to see if we were right, versus to see if something is wrong.
• In this case, the even number will be red on one side and the red card will be even on one side

Heuristics

Availability Heuristic

• mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a given person's mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method or decision. As follows, people tend to use a readily available fact to base their beliefs about a comparably distant concept

• This is one of the most common, and explains how people develop stereotypes

Anchoring Heuristic

• a cognitive bias where an individual depends too heavily on an initial piece of information offered (considered to be the "anchor") when making decisions.

Study #2: Kahneman & Tversky

Aim:

• Investigate how the availability heuristic affects judgement

Procedure

• Participants were asked, "If a random word is taken from the English language, is it more likely that the word starts with the letter K, or that K is the third letter?"

Study #2: Kahneman & Tversky

Results

• ​Over two thirds (105 out of 152 participants) thought it was more likely that words in English would begin with the letter K
• In fact, there are about twice as many words in the English language that have K as the third letter than there are words that begin with K

Implications

• This results of this study are likely due to the availability heuristic.
• It is much easier to think of words that begin with the letter K (such as kangaroo, kitchen, kidnap) than words that have K as the third letter (such as acknowledge, ask).
• Because participants find it easier to recall words that begin with K, they incorrectly assume that there are more such words

Study #2: Kahneman & Tversky

Evaluations:

• easy to replicate, and the results are highly reliable

• low ecological validity, as estimating the prevalence of words that begin with a particular letter is an artificial task that would not happen in real life

• The participants in this study were all American college students, so the results might not generalize to other cultures or age groups