UNIT 1 PSYCHOLOGY

Question	Answer
Outlines Miller's Study	• Lab study testing capacity of short term memory through use of digit span, which tests how many digits one can recall. • Found that on average participants could remember 7 +/- 2 digits.
Outline Peterson and Peterson's study.	• Lab study which presented participants with a series of trigrams, and asked to recall it in time intervals of 3,6,9,12,15 or 18 seconds. Participants had to countdown backwards in threes to prevent rehearsal. • 80% of trigrams recalled after 3 seconds • 10% recalled after 18 seconds
Outline Baddeley's study (STM)	• Lab study which found that participants found it more difficult to recall acoustically different words i.e try and pig than acoustically similar words such as map and cap. • Encoding is done acoustically.
Case Study of Clive Wearing	• Research suggests there are many aspects of long term memory: declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge and episodic knowledge. • Clive although no new short term memories were being transferred to long term memory could still play piano highlighting procedural knowledge and unlimited capacity.
Outline Bahrick's Study	• 392 graduates were shown photographs from their high school yearbook. Participants were either given a photo and asked to select the name that matched the person (recognition group) or given a photo and asked to simply name the person (recall group) • In the recognition condition 90% were accurate after 14 years and 60% accurate after 47 years. • In the recall condition 60% accurate after 7 years and less than 20% accurate after 47 years. • Shows memories in LTM can last a life time.
Outline Baddeley's Study	Found that when participants were recalling from LTM, semantically similar words were recalled with 55% accuracy and semantically dissimilar words were recalled with 85% accuracy.
Outline the Multi Store Model of memory	• Three Stores: sensory memory, short term memory, long term memory. • Information processing approach. • Capacity and Duration limitations at each stage. • Sensory store constantly receives information, most receives no attention and decays, and if attention is given then data is transferred to short term memory. • Memory traces in STM are fragile and unless rehearsed can be lost in under 30 seconds by displacement. • Memory traces in LTM can be retained for a life time but may be subject to loss through decay, retrieval failure (available but not accessible, cue may be needed to trigger memory) or interference (confusion with other memory traces)
What is the primacy effect?	Demonstrates existence of LTM. Words at the beginning are rehearsed and transferred to the LTM.
What is the recency effect?	Demonstrates existence of STM. Words remain in STM prior to recall.
What is the role of the central executive?	responsible for problem solving, controls attention, planning and processing information from slave systems. VAGUE, NO PROPER EVIDENCE.
What is the phonological loop and what is in it?	• Phonological Loop: deals with speech based information. • Phonological Loop – Phonological Store: Inner ear stores acoustically coded items. • Phonological Loop – Articulatory Control Process: Allows sub vocal repetition (rehearsal) of items stored in phonological store.
What is the visuo-spatial scratchpad and what is in it?	• Visuo-Spatial Scratchpad: Stores visual and spatial information. • Visuo-Spatial Scratchpad – Visual Cache: Manipulates mental images • Visuo- Spatial Scratchpad – Inner Scribe: Acts as a rehearsal mechanism for the visuo-spatial information e.g thinking about eye witnessed event.
What is the role of the episodic buffer?	• Episodic Buffer: Binds together information from different components. • Explains why it is difficult to do two physical or two verbal tasks at once but you can do one of each.
Outline the loftus and palmer study.	• 45 students were shown 7 films of different road traffic accidents, and asked a series of questions about what they had seen in films. • How fast were the cars when they ........ each other. • Misleading questions have an impact on the memory. When the word smashed was used the average speed was 41 mph, when the word contacted was used the main estimate was 31 mph.
Outline Lofus et al's study.	• Participants overheard a discussion about the equipment breaking and a man emerged from the door holding a pen. • Over set of participants overheard a heated argument, sound of breaking glass and a man emerged from the door with a knife covered in blood. • 49% successfully identified man holding pen. • 33% identified man holding bloodstained paper knife.
Outline Yuille and Cutshall's Study	• Interviewed 13 witnesses to a real life shooting • Witnesses gave impressively accurate accounts, those closest provided most detail, misleading questions had no effect and those most stressed gave most accurate 5 months later.
Outline Christianison and Hubinette's study.	• Questioned 110 witnesses who had witnessed a total of 22 genuine bank robberies, some who had been directly threatened-victims. • Victims were more accurate in their recall and remembered more details about what the robbers wore their behaviour and weapon than bystanders. • Superior recall continued to be evident even after 15 months since the event.
Outline Geiselman and Padilla's Study	Children aged 7 to 12 were less accurate than adults when it came to recalling details of a filmed robbery.
Factors affecting child's eyewitness testimony,	• Interviewer Bias – interviewer has a fixed idea of what has happened. • Repeated Question – Child may think they were wrong the first time. • Stereotype Induction – Child may come to report negative things about someone they have overheard as bad. • Encouragement to imagine and visualise – the child may start to think of things that may not have happened. • Peer Pressure • Authority Figures
Outline the stages of the cognitive interview.	• Interviewer Bias – interviewer has a fixed idea of what has happened. • Repeated Question – Child may think they were wrong the first time. • Stereotype Induction – Child may come to report negative things about someone they have overheard as bad. • Encouragement to imagine and visualise – the child may start to think of things that may not have happened. • Peer Pressure • Authority Figures
Outline memory improvement strategies.	• Visual: Method of Loci – when the learner associates parts of the material to be recalled with different places e.g if the word to remember was cat they would remember a cat in their kitchen. • Acronyms: Abbreviated form of word, such as NHS. • Acrostics certain letters in each line form a word.
How do mnemonic techniques work?	Role of organisation, role of elaborative rehearsal and dual coding hypothesis
What is a hypothesis?	• Hypothesis is a precise and testable statement of a relationship between two variables.
What is a directional hypothesis?	Directional hypothesis predicts outcome. Men will take ‘significantly more’ risks than females whilst driving under the influence of alcohol.
What is a non-directional hypothesis?	Non-directional hypothesis does not predict outcome of results. There will be a ‘significant difference’ in the number of risks taken by males and females whilst driving under the influence of alcohol.
What is a lab study?	• Lab Study :) highly controlled, lack of extraneous variables, easy to replicate. :( High control makes it difficult to generalise to everyday life – lower ecological validity. Higher risk of demand characteristics, people trying to make sense of study.
What is a field study?	Carried out in natural environment, i.e hoffling. :) Improved ecological validity, reduction of demand characteristics. :( Less control over extraneous variables, potentially more time consuming and expensive.
What is a natural study?	. Makes note of natural differences in IV. :) allows research where IV cannot be manipulated as unpractical/unethical. Enables psychologists to study ‘real’ problems. :( Loss of control, likelihood of desired behaviour being shown.
Name the ethical issues and a few ways to treat them.	Deception - Debriefing, Informed consents - prior general consent (warned they may be mislead), Protection of participants (same psychological wellbeing), right to withdraw and confidentiality and anonymity.
What is independent groups design?	Participants only take part in one condition.
What is repeated measures design?	Same participants tested in each condition.
What is matched participants/pairs design?	Use of independent groups but participants are matched on variables such as IQ, Memory Ability and Gender.
What are order effects?	The order effects refer to the order of the conditions having an effect on the participants behaviour. (Type of extraneous variables)
What are boredom/practice effects?	Participants improve each time, or become bored and therefore do not perform as well.
What is internal validity?	The extent to which the study is testing what it intends to test.
What is social desirability bias?	Participants wish to present themselves in the best possible way and therefore may not behave as they would do normally.
What are investigator effects?	Where the behaviour of the investigator may affect the participant and thus affect the DV.
What is a single blind design?	the participant does not know the true aims of the experiment or is unaware they are involved.
What is a double blind design?	Both the participant and the person conducting the study are blind to the design/threats.
How do you improve internal validity?	Split Half Method: Splitting a test into two and have the same participant do both halves of the text if the two halves provide similar results it would suggest the test has internal reliability.
How do you improve external validity?	Test-retest method: Testing the same participant twice over a period of time on the same taste. Replication: Repeating to see if you get similar findings.
What are the three sampling methods?	Oppurtunity sampling, random sampling and volunteer sampling.
What is oppurtunity sampling?	Selecting those readily available, e.g going into a uni to select students and approach them.
What is random sampling?	Every member of target population has an equal chance of being selected.
What is Volunteer Sampling?	Participants put themselves forward to participate in study. E.g advert in the newspaper.
What is standard deviation?	This is the spread of the data around the mean, higher value greater spread of data, sensitive measure of dispersion.
Outline Bowlby's Theory of Attachment.	• Infants born with an innate drive to form an attachment to enhance survival rates, adults also though to be biologically programmed to attach their infants. • Social Releasers that encourage caregiving i.e crying, smiling. • Monotropy – infants form one special relationship with primary caregiver. Supported by Harlows Monkeys. • Internal working model is like a schema, attachment is the basis of all future relationships. • Continuity Hypothesis, those with securely attached infants are more likely to grow into securely attached adults. Temperament hypothesis challenges this. • Attachment must form in the critical period, within 2 months and a sensitive period of up to five years old.
Outline the learning theory.	• Classical Conditioning: Learning through association. • Food (Unconditioned stimulus) causes pleasure (unconditioned response.) • Care Giver (conditioned stimulus) gives food (unconditioned stimulus) and causes pleasure (unconditioned response.) • Results in care giver (conditioned stimulus) causing pleasure (conditioned response) • Operant Conditioning: Learning through rewards and Reinforcement. • Hunger (discomfort), drive to reduce discomfort(crying) infant is feed, drive is reduced produces sense of reward. Pleasure from food reinforces attachment bond.
Outline Ainsworth and Bell's Study	• Aimed to test child’s (9-18 months) stranger anxiety, separation protest, secure base concept and reunion behaviour. 8 Episodes. • Looked for social releasers such as crying, smiling, proximity seeking. • Observations taken every 15 seconds. • Maternal Sensitivity and Maternal responsive would constitute to good mothering. • 66% of children were classified as securely attached TYPE B. High willingness to explore using mother as a safe base, high stranger anxiety, easy to soothe, greets mother positively, care giver described as sensitive. • 22% of children were classified as insecure avoidant TYPE A. Did not orientate to mother whilst exploring, low stranger anxiety, not concerned by mothers absence, avoids contact with mother, caregiver often ignored the infant. • 12% of children were classified as insecure resistant TYPE C. They were not willing to explore, in intense stress with strangers and separation from mother. Rejected her when she returned and the caregiver often had mixed behaviour.
What is a collectivist culture?	Looks at the group culture as whole, common goals.
What is an individualistic culture?	Independent, working towards each individual goal.
Outline Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg's Study.	• Meta Analysis (analysed data from other studies) • Secure attachment was the most common type of attachment. • Lowest percentage of secure attachment was China, highest UK. • Individualistic cultures such as Germany have high levels of insecure avoidant (35%) Collectivist cultures such as Japan had high levels of insecure resistant (27%)
Outline Takahashi's Study	• 60 middle class Japanese infants aged 1. • 68% securely attached, 32% insecure resistant, 0% insecure avoidant. • Children were much more disturbed about being left alone, the infant alone stage was stopped for more than 90% as the infants were getting so distressed. • If the infants had not been so distressed more than 80% could have been classed as securely attached.
Definition of seperation?	Short term disruption to the attachment bond, i.e mum goes to hospital.
Definition of Privation	Failure to form an attachment in early life.
Definition of Institutionalisation.	Describes result of institutional care. An institution is put into place looking after children awaiting adoption. Provides limited emotional care.
Outline Robertson and Bowlby's theory of effects of disruption.	PDD MODEL • P – protest, child experiences distress from separation with the caregiver. • D – despair, child becomes apathetic/loss interest in surroundings. • D – detachment, no visible signs of distress, avoids contact with mother on reunion.
Outline Robertson and Robertson's Research.	• John spent 9 days in a residential nursery. • First he was overwhelmed by the strange environment and clung to a teddy for comfort, he became increasingly more withdrawn to the point of despair. When he was reunited with his mother he rejected her and continued to punish her with outbursts of anger for several months – long term effects. • Other children which maintained emotional bonds with home, i.e visiting mother in hospital whilst Robertson acted as a foster mother, these children were far more settled during separation and responded well when reunited with parents.
Explain Bowlby's study into disruption of attachment - long term effects.	• Bowlby interviewed 88 children, ages 5-16 and their families. He compared the background of 44 Juvenile Thieves with the background of other non-delinquent children, all emotionally maladjusted in some way. • 16 of the 44 thieves were classed as ‘affectionless psychopaths’ lack of morals. • Bowlby found 86% of the affectionless psychopaths had experienced early and prolonged separation from their mothers. • Only 17% of those not classed as affectionless psychopaths had experienced separation. • Fewer than 4% of the control group non thieves had experienced early separations.
Outline Hodges and Tizards Study	• 65 children who were placed in institution at less than 4 months, natural and longitudinal study, IV- attachment experiences, children assessed at 4,8 and 16 years. • Institution provided good quality care, but caregivers discouraged from forming attachments with children. By age 4, 24 were adopted, 15 returned home, rest stayed in care. Control group used, matched sibling numbers, home location, parents occupation etc. • By 8 those who were adopted seem to have formed good attachment and some social and intellectual development better than those who returned home who were also showing weaker attachment and behaviour problems at home and with peers.
Describe the case of Genie.	Discovered at 13 confined to a small room with a potty, little human contact. Couldn't walk or talk, straighten legs or chew. There was slight language development but it stopped at a certain level.
What is day care?	Form of temporary care, usually takes place away from the home and by someone not connected to the family/child. Usually in forms such as nursery/kindergarten/childminder. Allows child to make new friends learn social and conversational skills, however may be less attached to mother - distressing, expensive, may experience bullying, may not receive full attention and risk of antisocial behaviour for example not sharing.
What is meant by social development?	Changes that take place throughout one's life with respect to social behaviour, such as relationships with friends and family, ability to negotiate with peers without aggressiveness.
Outline Sylva et al's study.	• 3000 children from 141 pre-school centres in urban and rural areas of UK studied. • Different social and ethnic backgrounds, different types of centres studied, playgroups, local authority day nurseries, private day nurseries. Sample of ‘home’ children taken as a control. • Intellectual and social/behavioural development was assessed. Children were assessed at entry to primary school. • Compared to the home group preschool often improved cognitive development for all children better intellectual and social, aggression reduced by high quality preschool care. • Disadvantaged children benefitted from mixing with children from different backgrounds. • High quality care includes workers focus on child care not just physically but emotionally.
Factor's influencing a child's development at day care.	• Individual differences: background – does the child have a disruptive home life? Temperament of child, some children unfriendly. Type of attachment with primary caregiver. • Child’s age when they start day care and number of hours spent in day care each week: 20<hours 3X more likely to develop behavioural problems, as well as children who are placed in care at less than 1 year old. • Quality of day care: High staff to child ratio i.e 1:3. Low staff turnover – continuity allows child to from attachment. Qualified and experienced staff, responsive careers, stimulating environment (Educational toys, engaging activities etc) and types of children recruited (if there are all aggressive children recruited you are less likely to choose them.

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	Created by Robyn Brayley over 9 years ago