Designing Investigations
Describe the difference between an IV and a DV using an example.
IV: variable being manipulated/variable causing an impact (e.g. caffeine), DV: variable being measured (e.g. reaction time)
What ethical principle is this? Whether participants knew the purpose, procedure and potential risk of the investigation
Informed consent
How do you know whether something is a psychological factor?
If it is a mental process e.g. thoughts, attention span, emotions
What is Miller's magic number?
7 piece of info can be held in STM at one time
You conduct a simple reaction time test and then you write your reaction time into the class data set. What is the data type?
Objective quantitative
In an investigation on memory recall, the participants were tired due to an assignment being due at midnight the night before. What does this negatively impact?
Internal validity - tiredness has become a confounding variable
What are two biological factors that impact daytime wakefulness?
Quality of sleep, energy levels, caffeine intake, exposure to light
What are the different types of LTM?
Procedural - doing, Semantic - facts, Episodic - events
What are 3 features of an experimental design?
Random allocation, manipulation of an IV, controlled environment
Describe external validity and explain why it's important for investigations.
External validity - how well the sample used represents the target population. Important for generalisability of results, a poorly represented sample means the results cannot be generalised beyond the investigation.
What are 3 social factors that could influence the prevalence of anxiety?
Socio economic status, traumatic experiences, education levels
What are the 5 types of sensory memory? (use their correct names)
Iconic, echoic, gustatory, haptic, olfactory
What are 3 features of an observational design?
Pre-existing groups, no manipulation of variables, natural setting
What are some potential issues for validity in a qualitative investigation?
No way of verifying information as 'true', participants withholding information due to the group environment, participants conforming to each other, participants not willing to talk about sensitive topics - limiting the data collection
Describe one example of how a biological factor impacts someone's psychological and social experience.
Many examples possible e.g. If I have too much caffeine (biological), I will feel more alert (psychological) and therefore be more willing to talk to people (social)
Describe one elaboration rehearsal strategy
Many strategies possible e.g. using acronyms, method of loci
Describe the purpose of having controlled variables
So that the only factor that varies between the groups is the IV, to help determine a cause-and-effect relationship
Explain why statistical analysis is more reliable than content analysis
Statistical analysis is not open to researcher interpretation, all researchers will conducts the stats tests in the same ways. Researchers would likely read qualitative data impacted by their own bias, the analysis would be quite different with differing interpretations, themes and frequencies across different researchers.
What is a biological, psychological and social treatment for depression? (3 treatments)
Bio - medication that increases serotonin, Psycho - cognitive therapy, Social - increasing connections with others
Describe how a memory is made using the multistore model
Stimuli enter sensory memory - information paid attention to enters STM, other info is forgotten - if this information is rehearsed enough or important enough, it enters LTM where it can stay forever - if not, it is forgotten