Research Methods: COGNITIVE PROCESSING
Quasi-Experiments - Gathercole et al (2004)
These are identical to experiments carried out in a lab or carried out in more natural
surroundings (field experiments), except that the allocation to conditions is not random: it is by
already designated categories, like age, gender, or from pre-testing on some skill or quality.
Because there is no random allocation to conditions, the results cannot be said to demonstrate
cause and effect. When investigating the structure of working memory and its development
across the childhood years in children aged 4–15 years, Gathercole et al. (2004) obviously
needed to use age as their IV and allocated the children to age bands accordingly. Experiments
that investigate the effect that age, gender, socio-economic status and other already assigned
factors have on memory or thinking and decision-making are, by their nature,
quasi-experiments.
Research Methods: RELIABILITY OF COGNITIVE
PROCESSES
Lab Experiment - Loftus and Palmer (1974)
Again, the lab experiment is one of the main research methods because of the way that
variables can then be isolated, manipulated and controlled. Tversky and Kahneman (1973),
Loftus and Palmer (1974), Loftus et al. (1987) and Tversky and Marsh (2000) all used a lab
experiment as their method to measure the effect of bias on memory or bias on thinking and
decision-making. While it could be argued that this introduces researcher bias and participant
expectations, cognitive processing, by its nature, often takes place in a classroom, at a desk or
computer, or when reading or hearing about an event, and so the artificial lab conditions may
not impose the same lack of ecological validity on the results as would be true were the
participants undertaking some more social task, such as group interactions or demonstration of
prejudice, for example.
Research Methods: EMOTION AND COGNITION
Survey/Questionnaire - Brown and Kulik (1977)
Many studies included the self-report questionnaire method. Zajonc & Rajecki (1969) conducted
a large- scale survey of 1,141 university students with a closed-ended questionnaire to
investigate the influence of mere exposure on positive affect. This was part of an approach to
research that combined a field experiment using the quasi-experimental method: the number
of times the words were presented in the newspapers (IV) was manipulated, but the
participants fell into two predetermined groups – those who had seen the words and those who
had not.
Self-report was also commonly used to investigate flashbulb memories. Brown & Kulik (1977)
used a questionnaire containing a mix of closed (“Do you remember...?’) and open (‘Write all
that you remember’) questions, while those researchers who interviewed participants also
often used questionnaires to compare memories over time (see above).
All of the research methods had the same problem in that non-probability sampling (usually
volunteer or opportunity sampling) was used and so the results cannot be generalized widely.
Ethical Considerations : COGNITIVE
PROCESSING
Informed Consent - Gathercole et al (2004)
Informed consent is defined by the APA (2010) as referring to all of the following:
§ the purpose of the research, expected duration, and procedures
§ their right to decline to participate and to withdraw from the research
§ the foreseeable consequences of declining or withdrawing
§ any potential risks, discomfort, or adverse effects
§ any prospective research benefits
§ limits of confidentiality
§ incentives for participation
§ whom to contact for questions about the research and research participants' rights.
It can be seen that this is extensive, and for children under 16 (18 in some countries) it is the
parents or guardians who give consent. This is also true for those incapacitated by cognitive
damage, and thus is particularly important in cases like K.F., where the participant may not
understand the procedures.
Psychologists should not conduct a study involving deception unless they have determined that
the use of deceptive techniques is justified by the significance of the study's value and that
effective non-deceptive alternative procedures are not feasible. There is rarely a need for
deception in cognitive studies, where participants are usually engaged in memory or other
cognitive tasks, and therefore informed consent, while important, is relatively problem-free.
Ethical Considerations : RELIABILITY OF
COGNITIVE PROCESSES
Psychological Harm/ Protection from harm - Hernandez and preston
(2013)
It is well documented that cognitive load makes strong demands on thinking, with the difficulty,
in Hernandez & Preston (2013), increased by a disfluent font. While it is possible that
participants, under time pressure or memory load conditions combined with a disfluent font,
experienced psychological stress, this is not something that is directly addressed in the
research.
Ethical Considerations : EMOTION AND
COGNITION
Debriefing - Brown and Kulik (1977)
The researcher will need to debrief participants carefully, as their discovery that their vivid
memories of where they were when they heard of an emotionally charged event are faulty
could be traumatic. Therefore they will need reassurance of the normality of this. (This links to
psychological harm, above.)