Cognitive level of analysis

Principles of cognitive analysis

100

How many principles are in cognitive level of analysis

Four

200

Give one example for each of the cognitive principles

First principle --- Two-factor theory Second principle --- Reconstructive memory Third principle --- HM Forth principle --- War of the ghost

300

State the principles of cognitive level of analysis

The most fundamental principal of the cognitive level of analysis is that human beings are information processors and that mental processes guide behavior. Behavior change is explained as a result of cognitive processing that goes on the mind. The steps of cognitive processing are: -Information is acquired from the world -The information is stored -Stored information is represented in the mind -Internal representations direct behavior The second principle is that the mind or mental processing can be studied scientifically. The experimental method is assumed to be the most scientific method. However, the experimental tasks do not always resemble what people do in their daily lives. Therefore, cognitive psychologists study cognition in the lab as well as in a daily context. Cognitive psychologists use research methods such as: experiments, verbal protocols and case studies. The third principle is that there is an important biological basis for all human cognitive processing and its resultant behavior. Cognitive psychologists therefore focus research on how the brain translates into mind and there is an increasing focus on the use of modern technology e.g. neuro imaging The fourth principle that defines the cognitive level of analysis is that cognitive processes are influenced by social and cultural factors

400

State one principle that define the level of analysis may be demonstrated in one research

The second principle is that mental processing can be studied scientifically. Loftus and Palmer suggested that memory are being affected by leading questions and are reconstructed. An experiment was held where participants saw films of traffic accidents having duration from 5 to 30 second. After each film, subjects had to give a general account of what they had just seen and then answer more specific questions about the accident; the verb for the critical question was manipulated. The verb was “smashed”, “collided”, bumped” or contacted”. The speed estimated for the question with the verb smashed was the highest and contacted the lowest.

500

Explain how the one principle that define the level of analysis may be demonstrated in one research

The two-factor theory suggested by Schacter and singer suggests that emotion is effected by physical arousal and cognition. Experiment was held for three groups of people. The first group was injected with adrenaline but was not told about the effects, the second group was injected with adrenaline but was told about the effects and the last group was not injected with adrenaline. All groups where split and sat with two different confederates. The group that was injected with adrenaline and was untold about the effect was either very angry or very happy; the group that was injected with adrenaline but was told the effect was either angry or happy; the confederates did not affect the group that had no injection. The results suggest the information acquired from the outside world affects behavior and emotion, which are also being represented internally and stored, expresses the actions after internally represented. This explains the first principle and shows that cognition could be analyzed by research.

Level of processing

100

Who suggested the level of processing

Craik and lockhart

200

State the different depths of processing

1. Structural processing 2. Phonemic processing 3. Semantic processing

300

Briefly state Craik and Lockhart's experiment.

Craik and Tulving (1975) gave participants a list of common nouns such as shart and asked a question about the word. There were three kinds of Questions. Is the word printed in capital letters? (shallow) Does the word rhyme with "train"? (phonemic processing) Is the word a type of fruit? (deeper processing) Participants remember most words from condition 3 and least from condition 1. This suggests that deeper processing leads to enhanced memory.

400

Evaluate level of processing and approach to memory-Craik and Lockhart

Strengths- good contribution to understanding the processes that take place at the time of learning. Weaknesses- There are many problems with defining "deep" processing and why it is effective. Semantic processing does not always lead to better retrieval It describes rather than explains.

500

What modifications was done for to explain what produced deep processing?

Elaboration - Craik and Tulving found complex semantic processing produced better cued recall than simple semantic processing Distinctiveness - Eysenck and Eysenck found even words processed phonetically were better recalled if they were distinctive or unusual. Effort - Tyler et al found better recall for words presented as difficult anagrams than simple anagrams Personal relevance - Roger et al found better recall for personal relevance questions than general semantic ones.

Two-factor Theory

100

Who proposed the two-factor theory?

Schachter and singer

200

Briefly explain what the two-factory

The two-factory theory suggest that emotion is created by physical arousal and cognitive labeling.

300

How is James-Lange Theory different from Two-factor theory

The James-Lange theory of emotion states that different emotion-arousing external stimuli will produce specific physiological cause specific emotional feelings.

400

Explain the experiment done by Schachter and Singer for their two-factor theory

Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer (1962) gave 184 college students one of two types of injections: adrenaline (also called epinephrine) or saline injection (placebo). All experimental participants were told that they were given an injection of a new drug called Superoxin to test their eyesight. The adrenaline injection caused a number of effects including increased heart rate, rapid breathing, and increased blood flow to the muscles and brain. The saline injection had no such effects. Some participants were told about the expected effects of the adrenaline; two other groups were misled and told either that it would produce a dull headache and numbness, or told nothing at all. After the injections the subjects waited in a room with another participant who was actually a confederate of the experimenter. The confederate behaved one of two ways: playful (euphoric) or angry. Subjects' emotional states were inferred from both observations of the subjects and the S's responses on a self-rating of emotion scale. Those subjects who had received the adrenaline injection were more emotional by both measures, showing that the first factor in emotion, intensity, resulted from visceral arousal. Participants who were misled or naive about the injection's effects behaved similarly to the confederate, while those who were informed of the expected effects of the adrenaline showed no emotional pattern. This suggests that participants who were informed cognitively attributed their feelings to the physiological effects of the adrenaline, while the uninformed or misinformed groups could perform no such attribution and so interpreted the feelings as emotion. Schachter's cognitive labelling theory thus identifies "cognitive attribution," the mind's attempt to pair the feeling of arousal with its (inferred) causal pattern in the environment as the second factor in the Two-factor Theory of Emotion.

500

Evaluate the experiment done by Schachter and Singer for their two-factor theory

There was no assessment of the subjects' emotional state before the experiment began or the emotional effect of receiving an injection. The emotional states produced by artificial injections under laboratory conditions are probably not typical of normal emotional reactions. Significant results were only found for the behavioral changes rated by the observers-no significant differences were found in the subjects' self report of their emotions The results were not highly significant and other researchers such as Marshall and Zimbardo have not replicated Schachter and Singer's findings. Lazarus argues that cognitive processes can initiate both psychological arousal and emotion feelings, and that a cognitive appraisal of environmental stimuli at some level is a basic requirement for the elicitation of any emotion. Recent research indicates that emotional centers in the brain can receive information directly from the sensory areas.

Multi-store model

100

Who proposed the multi-store model

Atkinson and Shiffrin

200

List out the different kinds of memory that are in the multi-store model

Sensory memory Short-term memory Long-term memory

300

How long can each type of memory be stored?

It is suggested that sensory memory can be stored from a fraction of a second up to three seconds, short term memory could be stored up to 18 to 20 seconds and long term memory could be stored about forever.

400

Could memory be lost?

Sensory memory will be lost if it is not noticed, short term memory will be lost if not rehearsed and long term memory could be lost if not encoded correctly.

500

Evaluate the multi-store model.

The multi-store model is too simplistic, it under-emphasises interaction between the stores, e.g. the way information from LTM influences what is regarded as important and relevant to show attention to in sensory memory and helps the meaningful chunking of information in STM. STM and LTM are more complex and less unitary than the model assumes. Mere rehearsal is too simple. The model ignores factors such as the effort and strategy subjects may use when learning (elaborative rehearsal leads to better recall than just maintenance rehearsal) and model does not account for the type of information taken into memory e.g. some distinctive items seem to flow into LTM far more readily than others.

Reconstructive memory

100

Who suggested about reconstructive memory

Bartlett

200

What is reconstructive memory

Remembering the past occurs in the context of the present. When we try to recover a memory, we begin with information supplied by the retrieval cue, combine this with what we can recover from memory trace, and then fill in the gaps. This may involve fleshing out the details and doing anything else necessary in order to achieve a coherent narrative.

300

What was the findings of the reconstructive memory about the car crash accident

The mean speed estimates for the various verbs. Following the procedures outlined by Clark (1973), and analysis of variance was performed with verbs as a fixed effect, and subjects and films as random.In agreement with previous work, people are not very good at judging how fast a vehicle was actually traveling.

400

What did Bartlett discovered from his experiment about the war of the ghost

Participants remembered different parts of stories and that they interpreted them within their own frames of reference(cultural expectations), changing the facts to make them fit. Bartlett made several observations of the transformations that occurred. The story was shortened, mainly by omissions The phraseology was changed to language and concepts from the participant's own culture. For example using "boats" instead of "canoe" The recalled version soon became very fixed, though each time it was recalled there were slight variation. Human memory is influenced by factors that are social in origin and that may be obscured by lab methods because of artificial nature of the material used in such experiments.

500

Discuss the results Loftus and Palmer's car crash experiment

The results of this experiment indicate that the form of a question can markedly and systematically affect a witness's answer to that question. The actual speed of the vehicles controlled little variance in subject reporting, while the phrasing of the question controlled considerable variance. It is possible that the differential speed estimates results merely from response-bias factors.