Princples
Biological Factors that affect Memory
Schema Theory
How Emotion Effects Memory
Factors that affect Emotion
100
What is the fundamental princple of the cogntive level of analysis?
Human beings are information processors and that mental processes guide behavior.
100
Give an example of one study that shows how biological factors may affect one cognitive process
HM Case study, Acetylcholine experiment, Alzheimer’s disease
100
What is memory?
Memories are “imaginative reconstructions” of the original information in light of each individual’s past experiences and expectations
100
What are flashbulb memories?
A special kind of emotional memory, which refers to vivid and detailed memories of highly emotional events recorded in the brain.
100
What are emotions?
An emotion involves physiological arousal, expressive behavior and conscious experience
200
What are the steps of cognitive processing?
1. Information is acquired from the world 2. The information is stored 3. Stored information is represented in the mind 4. Internal representations direct behavior
200
Where is the Hippocampus and what is its role?
The Hippocampus is located limbic system in the brain and it has the role for formation and retrieval of memories.
200
What are schemas and what are they used for ?
Schemas are cognitive structures (mental templates or frames) that represent a person’s knowledge about objects, people or situations that are deprived from prior experience and knowledge. They are used to organize knowledge, assist recall, guide our behavior, predict likely happenings, help us make sense of current experiences
200
Why and how are flashbulb memories created?
Flashbulb memories are triggered by unforgettable , important event including central event and the circumstances in which one learned of the event. It is created by special neural mechanism which triggers an emotional arousal because the event is unexpected and extremely important.
200
Describe the James-Lange's and Cannon-Bard's Theories of Emotion.
James-Lange: Physiology produces emotion and cognition Environment triggers physiology, then emotional/cognitive response to physiology Cannon-Bard: Emotion and physiology occur simultaneously Environment triggers emotion and physiology together
300
How can you study mind or mental processing scientifically?
Through experimental methods, and researches methods like experiments, verbal protocols, and case studies.
300
How does the case study of HM prove the role of the hippocampus?
HM had an operation to treat epilepsy in which the hippocampus and an adjacent area in his brain was removed. After the surgery, his memory was affected, whereas he was unable to recall events up to 11 years prior and acquire new long term memories. As a result, we could see that the hippocampus is related to memory retrival and formation.
300
Describe the method used in "War of the Ghost" study by Barlett in 1932
1.Subjects were asked to read the unfamiliar North American Folk story 2. Subjects were asked to recall and reproduce the story at different time interval 3.They were believed the experiment was for memory recall 4. Each participant was required to retell the story on a number of different occasions 5. Reproductions took pace hours, days and months after the original reading
300
State a supporting experiment of the Flashbulb Memory theory.
The flashbulb event of the news of Margaret Thatcher’s resignation was used. In the experiment, participants had to complete initial assessments within 14 days after the resignation, and reports were collected one year later The results showed that high levels of consistency from the participants to recall the exact information one year after the event.
300
What is the Schachter theory? (Provide 1 example)
The Schachter theory states that physiology and cognitions create emotions. Emotions have two factors–physical arousal and cognitive label. For example, our mind first witness a coming car as the stimulus. Then your arousal will increase with the heart pumping faster, and the cognitive level of "I'm afraid" will be sent to the brain. With these two explanations, the emotion fear is finally released.
400
What types of modern technology does psychologists use to research on how the brain processes cognitive and result in behavior?
Neuro-imaging, MRI scanners, PET
400
What are the causes of Alzhemier's disease?
1.Accumulation of amyloid plaques (protein fragments) between nerve cells (neurons) in the brain and form hard, insoluble plaques which results in memory impairment 2.Neurofibrillary tangles (insoluble twisted fibers found in brain’s nerve cells) causes microtubules (proteins that transport nutrients from one part of the nerve to another) to collapse
400
What was the result of the "War of the Ghost" study? (Give some specific examples)
Subjects recall were distorted by their culture (they omitted unfamiliar details and rationalized the story to specific Native American Culture. THe story became more anglicized and came to resemble more English story. For example, “Boat” became canoe, "hunting seals” changed into Fishing and the supernatural element of ghost disappeared.
400
Describe how Neisser and Harsch's study contradicts with the Flashbulb Memory Theory
The tragic accident of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986 was used as the Flashbulb event. Whereas the Neisser and Harsch questioned a group of participants on how they were informed about the news on the morning the space shuttle exploded. After two years, the participants were asked again to recall their place of presence during the event The results showed that a large proportion of the participants forgot major details such as informant, location or ongoing activity. This doesn’t support the Flashbulb Theory, as participants’ wasn’t able to recall much accurate details about the emotional event.
400
What is the Cognitive Appraisal Model by Lazarus ?
Cognitive appraisal of the situation determines the level of physiological arousal and the specific type of emotion to be experienced . We learn what to expect from stimuli from previous experience with it. A support for this theory comes from research conducted by Speisman et al (1964).
500
Give an example on how the cognitive processes are influenced social and cultural factors
This principle is clearly proved by Bartlett who proposed the Schema Theory in the “War of the Ghosts” study. The schema theory suggests that we interpret our experiences by using relevant social and cultural knowledge. Participants were British and they were given a Native American Folk story to remember, and asked to recall after different time intervals. The result of the experiment showed that participants distorted the original story with their schema and eliminated cultural differences to adapt the story to their perspective of knowledge. The study proved that memorization involves distorting the original information and reconstructing it to adapt to our schemas. This means, cultural differences would be eliminated to make sense to our schemas during remembering, therefore the story would be changed to an adapted version depending on the person’s culture.
500
How does the neurotransmitter Acetylcholine affect memory formation? (Give evidence through an experiment)
Acetylcholine is in charge of the development of memory formation in hippocampus. In Martinez and Kesner's research, rats were trained to go through a maze to get to the end where they received food. Once they can do this, one group of rats are injected with a substance (which decreased available acetylcholine). Second group of rats are injected with another substance (decreased available acetylcholine) , controlled group with no injections. The result of the experiment shows that rats with less available acetylcholine were slower at finding their way around the maze, more errors were made. The rats with more available acetylcholine ran through the maze and found food more quickly than controlled group. As a result, we could see that Acetylcholine played an important role of memory formation.  
500
What was the conclusion for Barlett's experiment? What do we find out about reconstructive memory?
We can only reconstruct memories in this way if we have fixed understanding of the world, in which we each have schema for every a aspect of our world. When we reconstruct memories, our schemas are activated which makes use of information in our mind. The received information that didn't fit to our schemas are eliminated. As a result, the experiment helped researchers to understand how people categorize information, interpret stories, make inference.
500
With reference to a study, state the flaw of the Flashbulb Theory by Barlett
In Jennifer Talrico and David Rubin's study, they gave 52 volunteers a questionnaire with ratings by a 7-point scale, to question them about their memorization right after the tragedy of the Terrorist attack of the Twin Towers on September 11th 2001. The student volunteers were also required to fill in a questionnaire about their memory of an ordinary event from the proceeding few days.The total number of participants was then split into 3 group. They had to return for a follow-up questionnaire session asking the same questions about their memories about the ordinary event and the flashbulb memory after 3 different time slots elapsed- 7 days, 42 days and 224 days Results: Participants believed their memories of September 11th to be more accurate but te number of details remembered about September 11 compared to the ordinary event, was statistically indistinguishable. As a result, the flaw in flashbulb theory is that participants believed that flashbulb memories are more accurate than ordinary memories, but when accuracy of memories is checked, it turns out flashbulb memories may be no different than ordinary memories.
500
Describe the "Love on the Bridge" study in relation to the misattribution of arousal pardigm.
In this experiment, Dutton and Aron had an attractive female experimenter stand at the end of either a scary bridge, this increased participant's arousal (So they'll never end) After male participants walked across either bridge, the female experimenter asked them to fill out a survey and gave them her phone number to call if they had any further questions. The dependent variable was to see which group of men was more likely to call the woman. The men who walked across the scary (and arousing) bridge were more likely to call the woman, most likely because they misattributed their arousal from the bridge for arousal (and attraction) for the woman (Dutton & Aron, 1974). This study provides support for the two factor theory of arousal.
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