IB Psychology
Mr. Detjen
Student Responses to CLoA Learning Outcomes
I. General Learning Outcomes
II. Cognitive Processes
Taylor Alexander
Schema theory is a theory in which interrelated information is stored collectively in the same general area of memory. There are five roles of schemas: to organize information into memories; can be activated in order to increase effectiveness; enables generation or creation of expectation; regulates behavior; and stabilizes and is resistant to change. A schema is a cognitive structure that organizes and stores knowledge within memory and evolves over time based on experience.
Schema as a broad category can be divided into subcategories known as scripts, self-schema, and social schemas. Script schemas are those that provide information of what is most often expected. Self-schemas are organized bits of information of ourselves that we know. Social schemas often referred to as cultural stereotypes. These subcategories enable us to create shortcuts in our memory.
Bartlett in his 1932 study of cultural schemas and their influence on memory is an example that relates to schema theory. In this 1932 study, Bartlett had twenty-four participants attempt to remember a Native
American folk song, “War of the Ghost”. Bartlett found that people had trouble recalling the story and most of the story had been reconstructed to fit their own cultural schemas that they best saw fit. Participants reconstructed the folk song into their own replicas of the song because it made the story more relatable to their culture and more comprehensive and understandable. The 1932 by Bartlett supported schema theory because it suggested that people remember information based on its level of importance and meaning; his study also supported the ideal that memory can be distorted or the wrong schemas can be activated.
Another study relevant to the schema theory is Bransford and Johnson’s study of 1972 in which the aim of their study was to contain the location of schemas as they are being introduced and manipulated. Participants were placed in one of three conditions. In condition one, participants heard a story and were not given a title for the story they had heard. In condition two, participants were told the title of the story before hearing the actual story. The third, and final group of participants (in condition three), were told the title of the speech after it had been given. Bransford and Johnson found that participants that had been in condition one and three had a more difficult time understanding the speech. This study supports the schema theory because it shows that people who received the title of the speech before hearing it could have already had an established schema for the topic of the speech.
Schemas allow us to use the shortcuts created after encountering an experience that caused us to remember the information and categorize it accordingly. Although schemas can be distorted for improved
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comprehension and understanding, these schemas could disable us from being open-minded to new perspectives due to the expectations already set in our minds.
Charles Burt
A schema theory is a cognitive theory about information processing. This theory suggests that our previous knowledge will influence the outcome of information processing. Humans interpret and integrate information in order to make sense of what is happening to them. When there is missing information in the processing, the brain uses schemas to fill in something that seems like it fits. This specific function, however, could lead to distortions or mistakes. There are many studies in support of schema theory. It has been used to support other theories about stereotyping and prejudice. It has also helped with understanding memory distortions. In Bartlett’s 1932 study,
The War of the Ghosts , participants were expected to memorize a story and recall it several times over the course of a year. As expected, the participants began to change the recalling of the story. Bartlett found that as the story changed, the information that was missing from the story was replaced with characteristics of the participant’s normal life or schemata. On the other hand, some researchers claim that there isn’t a way of knowing exactly how schemas are formed and if they are even a special part of information processing. In the 1993 study by Cohen, Cohen criticizes the schema theory saying that schemas are too vague to be useful. Even still, researchers use schema theory to help explain information processing in the brain.
Alyssa January
The schema theory is a cognitive theory about information processing. A schema is defined as a network of knowledge, beliefs, or expectations about specific aspects of the world. There are many types of schemas, some prominent schemas include cognitive schemas, social schemas, and gender schemas. The schema theory is a cognitive theory about information processing. The theory basically states that humans try to categorize new knowledge into existing schema for better understanding.
Bartlett’s
The War of the Ghosts (1932) supports the schema theory. The study was on serial reproduction. Participants were asked read a Native American story and reproduce it 15 minutes later. Then the participant reproduce it over again but they would leave of details pertaining to Native Americans and add details that where relevant to their lives. The finding s supports the schema theory because the people put the story into existing schemas, thus making it easier to reproduce.
Princess Hollins
The schema theory basically states that all of our knowledge is organized into units. Due to the schema theory, new encounters of the world are rarely completely new. This is because or schema provide a for people, events or new encounters. So, we already have an idea or perception of everything, though it may be altered when we actually encounter those events, people or things.
On example of a research study that evaluates the schema theory is the Bartlett study from 1932. The aim of this study was basically to evaluate the effect of the schema theory on memory. British English participants were given time to read a Native American folktale. Each had to individually write out the story as they recalled it, and pass their version of the story on to the next individual to read then regurgitate what they remembered the story to be, like a game of "telephone." The results showed that their memory of the story was altered due to their schema and background. Their stories were altered to be similar to some sort of story including familiar events pertaining to their culture.
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Imani Taylor
A schema is a cognitive structure that serves as a framework to organize people, objects and situations.
Schemas help and allow us to do several things. It organizes our knowledge in our memory, and it helps people to make sense of situations. Schemas are based off our experience and new experiences add to our knowledge, this is because if we come to an experience that contradicts our own personal schema then we may go to accept it which results in our schemas expanding or new schemas be created. The schema theory states that schemas and our stored knowledge influences our processing and behavior; that schemas effect how we approach the world, how we behave and how we process information. There are four interrelated functions in the schema theory, all adding to the idea that schemas are an energy saving device to help us organize our knowledge and work more efficiently because we do them automatically. The four components are that schemas organize information in our memory, that schemas can be activated to enhance/increase information processing efficiency, it enables creation/generation of expectations of objects, situations and people, and lastly the schemas regulate behavior and how we approach the world.
Three main studies that try to support the schema theory are Bartlett (1932), Bransford and Johnson
(1972), and Loftus and Palmer (1974).
Bartlett's 1932 study was trying to test schemas in memory. In the study he took several British participants and read them a Native American folk tale called Ghost, after the study they did two experiments to test the participants memory of the story, either a serial reproduction or a repeated reproduction. In the serial reproduction one participant was asked to reproduce the Native American story and then another participant read that story and was asked to reproduce the "reproduced story", next a third and fourth participant was asked to reproduce the story that was already reproduced. In the repeated reproduction the participants was asked to reproduce the story several times with different times in between, sometimes minutes up to days or years. The results were that the stories always became shorter and shorter and that the participants distorted the story so that it matched more with their culture so instead of hunting seals the people were fishing and instead of being in a canoe the people were in a boat. This research relates to schemas because it reflects the persons culture, they have an active reconstruction process so that the story matches more with what they understand.
The Bransford and Johnson 1972 study took several participants and read them instructions; the first group was given the title at the beginning of the paragraph, the second group was given the title at the end and the third group was not given a title at all. After reading the paragraphs the participant was asked how easy it was to comprehend and remember the paragraph, the subjects given the title at the beginning was able to remember more and comprehend more than the other two. Having the title therefore set off a schema to help the people remember more of the instructions and improve understanding.
The last study, the Loftus and Palmer 1974 research aim was to study schemas and eyewitness testimonies. The participants were shown the same clip of two cars crashing and then asked if the cars had been bumped, crashed, smacked or hit and then later asked how bad was the accident and what speed the cars had been going. Those with words such as smacked had a higher speed than those that heard the word bumped and reported a more violent accident. This experiment showed that word usage effects retrieval and shows that the word schema are associated with different situations.
Dominique Price
A schema is a cognitive device that organizes information in the mind; it allows this information to be processed by means of prior knowledge and by memories of a situation, object, or person. In laymen’s terms, it is how the mind understands incoming information through the use of past memories and known information.
There are three types of schemas: script, self, and social. Script schemas are a pre-organized information about a object or place. Self schemas are pre-organized information about oneself whether this be pre-determined physical, emotional, and or mental information. Social schemas are pre-motioned information about other people. In reference to the top-down/down/up theory; schemas allow for the stimulus and information traveling up to the brain to be more easily understood. This theory may also alter a schema because of new incoming data about a pre-known subject.
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Sir Fredrick Bartlett’s 1932 studies on memory support the schema theory. The study
The War of the
Ghosts focused on how memory is retrieved from long or short memory; it created the theory of the seven sins of memory. The seven sins of memory are transience, absent-mindedness, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias, and persistence. Bartlett used twenty-four participants to read a native American tale and split the group into two conditions. The first group was serial reproduction which were read the tale and asked to recall the story and write it down on paper and then this story is read to the next participant; then the process was repeated. The second group was repeated reproduction in which, one participant was read the tale and was then required to write down on paper and dictate it to the rest of the conditional group. His conclusion was that both conditions produced similar results. The original story was altered as it was retold which thus supported
Bartlett’s suggestibility theory from his study
The War of the Ghosts which state that information is loss as it is passed from person to person.
Jolie Huynh
Schema theory is a cognitive theory explaining how information is process by the mind. Schemas provide the framework to organize input information and come from prior knowledge. For example, a schema for school would be the people, objects, and ideas that are often associated with school such as students, teachers, and homework. There are three types of schemas: scripts (schemas for sequence of familiar events), self-schemas
(organized information about ourselves such as our weaknesses), and social schemas (information about a group of people or stereotypes). These schemas, thus, allow the brain to use stored knowledge to process information more efficiently in a shorter amount of time and create expectations for certain aspects of the world. The schema theory is based on the idea that schemas can influence behaviors, which are any observable acts, and mental processes such as memory.
In 1932, Bartlett conducted a study to investigate whether schema can affect memory. In thestudy, he read to a group of British participants an African tale and tested their memory through serial reproduction (a participant recount the tale to a second participant who recount it to a third participant and so on) and repeated reproduction
(a participant recount the tale to several other participants). In both methods of reproduction, Bartlett found that some details in the original tale were changed to make more sense to the participants. He therefore concluded that memory can be reconstructed to better fit the one’s expectations and beliefs.
Another study by Loftus and Palmer (1974) provides further support. The researchers firstdivided the participants into five groups. All the groups watched the same seven videos of car accidents and were later asked to answer a questionnaire. One group was asked “About how fast were the cars going when they bumped into each other?” For the other four groups, “bumped” was replaced by “smashed”, “collided”, “hit”, and
“contacted”. The results showed that those with the word “smashed” reported highest speed estimate whereas those with “contacted” reported the lowest estimate. Thus, the schemas associated with each verb had influenced the participants’ memory of the cars’ speed.
Bransford and Johnson (1972) carried out a study in which a paragraph was read to the participants, who were divided into three groups: one group was given a title for the paragraph before it was read, one group was given the title after it was read, and one group was not given a title at all. The participants in all three conditions then tried to recall as much of the paragraph as possible. The results showed that the group who was given the title before the paragraph was read had the best performance on recalling because the title gave the participants an idea of what the paragraph was about and activated a schema within their mind to help them remember the paragraph better.
Bartlett (1932), Loftus and Palmer (1974), and Bransford and Johnson (1972) all supported schema theory’s idea that schemas can affect memory as their studies demonstrated that schemas can reconstruct memory leading to distortions or help one remembers better. Distortions happened when the brain tries to fill in missing information based on the existing schema and that information can sometimes be false, especially if one is in an unfamiliar setting. Schema theory, however, is limited in that it does not fully explain how schemas are attained and how they actually influence mental processes. A few psychologists believe that schemas are too vague of a
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concept to explain how the brain process information, though researchers still utilize the schema theory in their works.
Karl Wimmer
The schema theory is a cognitive theory that pertains to information processing. The theory was views organized knowledge as a network of mental structures which represent how people understand the world. This theory was developed by R.C. Anderson. The theory is very useful for understanding how people categorize, interpret and make inferences. The schema theory has also been used to explain memory processes.
Psychologists divide memory into three stages: encoding, storage and retrieval. According to the theory, schema processing can affect memory at all stages.
The schema theory has been a topic for several research studies in the field of psychology. One study was Reconstructive Memory(1932) done by Bartlett which investigated how memory is able to store meaningful information. The participants were told a story and asked to recall the story at different time intervals. Bartlett concluded that memory is reconstructive and people attempt to relate memories to any personal schemas they may have.
Another study is Peterson and Peterson (1959) where participants were given multiple trigrams and asked to recall them after 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 18 seconds, they were also being distracted. Peterson found that after 3 seconds 80% of the participants were able to recall the information, but at the 15 second interval only about
10% could remember. This shows that after longer periods of time, people tend to remember less information.
Megan Ratcliff
A schema is defined as a mental representation of knowledge. Schemas are based upon individual experiences and represent the opinions that individuals form to help them make better sense of their surrounding world. The schema theory is a cognitive theory about how information is processed and states that “new encounters in the world are rarely new; rather our actions are determined by our previous experiences”. This means that previous knowledge will influence the outcome of information processing and the theory divides memory processes into three main stages of encoding, storage, and retrieval.
Several psychologists have studied this theory; among them is the pioneer Frederick Bartlett. He was the first psychologist to coin the term schema and his 1932 study was the first of its kind. He read a Native
American folktale to a group of 24 Englishmen. He split them into two conditions; one used serial reproduction, in which each participant is read the story, reproduces the story on paper from memory, and then that story is read to the next participant and the cycle continues. The other involves one participant writing the story and reads that to the rest of the participants.
He found that both conditions were similar. In both cases, the original story became shorter and the meaning of the story was changed to make for a better understanding for the Englishmen. He concluded that the way the story was recalled was affected by schemas they had. So therefore, Bartlett suggested that schemas were most active during retrieval.
Kaliice Walker
A schema is a cognitive structure that provides a framework for how we process and organize the world around us. It is the combination on previous knowledge, expectation, and beliefs of certain aspects of the world.
Schemas have many functions. They help organize information; they increase process efficiency, regulate behavior, and enable us to have expectations. They can however, lead to distortions and mistakes. While schemas are particularly stable and resistant they can change and adapt over time.
The schema theory is a cognitive theory in that it explains how we process. It is the idea that we store new knowledge into existing schema categories that help better understand what we are trying to process. As we are processing information these schemas can lead to distortions when our assumption about the world does not
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meet out schema. There are different types of schemas. One type is scripts; this is a type of schema of a sequence of event. An example of this is the schema of what a restaurant is and what the “restaurant” experience is suppose to be like. Another type of schema is social schema. Social schema is the assumption that we have about a group of people and examples of these are stereotyping and prejudice. The last main type of schema is self schema. This is the expectation that we have about ourselves. This provides to the framework for how we organize information about ourselves. The main factor of what goes into these schemas is the culture in which a person lives in.
The schema theory is supported in the Loftus and Palmer study of 1974. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of leading questions of a person’s memory of an event. Participants in this study were showed a clip of a car crash and then asked a serious of questions. This study mainly looked at the schemas behind certain key verbs. Loftus and Palmer thought that after viewing the car crash video, participants thought they were asked “how fast the cars where going when they smashed” would report a higher speed, opposed to those asked “how fast where the cars going when they contacted each other.” The results of this study supported that the schema of the verbs could and did influence the retrieval of memory.
Jarren Gorka
Schemas, in their most basic form, are cognitive structures that provide a framework for the organization and categorization of objects, people, situations, etc. Dive into the term deeper, and you’ll find a number of types of schemas including scripts, self-schemas, and social schemas. Schemas help us to identify and evaluate issues, predict outcomes, and role play. Memory, as it is understood today, is processed first by encoding, then through storage, and, finally, through retrieval. Schemas begin to form from the start of one’s life as they begin to hear and observe the world, continuously growing and changing until one’s set of schemas become, more or less, “set” later in life. With that said, as outlined by Bartlett’s 1932 study based on cultural effects on schema and Brewer and Treyens’ 1981 study based around one’s expectations of a situation, schemas play a major role in the processing of memories.
One of the three main types of schemas, scripts, deals heavily with role playing in that it offers up a sequence of events that is familiar to an individual. This type of schema contains sets of role expectations. A very basic example of a script schema would be basic shopping for a basic person. When one goes shopping, they walk in, browse, and purchase whatever items they may have found. The big key here is to actually purchase, rather than to steal. The majority of us know not to steal because it’s ingrained in our heads from not only previous shopping experiences, but also from growing up and observing family who rightfully paid for their items.
Self-schemas, on the other hand, are specific to one’s self. These schemas are based on how we perceive ourselves as humans in terms of traits, abilities, values, etc. If a child knows that she cannot swim, the odds of her jumping into a twelve foot deep pool are highly unlikely; however, if an olympic swimmer sees a twelve foot deep pool, jumping in without any thought is likely. Both the child and olympic swimmer know of their abilities and inabilities from previous experiences. These experiences then help to build schemas which in turn helps one live his or her life in comfort.
Finally, social schemas are set ideas for certain groups of people, animals, items, etc. These schemas are very similar to self-schemas in that they are created through how one perceives traits, abilities, and values of another. Social schemas are, essentially, stereotypes that dictate how we perceive. A perfect example would be feminists in that they are stereotypically seen as a very angry, dykey, man hating lesbian; however, this schema is only in place because of the misunderstanding of what exactly feminism stands for. It is seen as anti-men and a need for women to be better, but it is instead a fight for equality between genders, not valuing one over another.
No matter the type of schema, these preset expectations, ideas, and categories affect how we process memories. Bartlett’s 1932 study on the affect of cultural schemas on recalling information showed that interpreting and recalling information has everything to do with preexisting schemas based on one’s cultural norms and expectations. This theory was demonstrated through the retelling of the Native American folk tale
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“The War of the Ghosts” by participants where, for example, recalling the use of a canoe in the tale was either omitted due to perceived irrelevancy or recalled using a different name due to cultural differences. Brewer and
Treyens’ 1981 study demonstrated something similar. Participants were asked to wait in a room openly identified as an academic’s study and then later asked to recall what they remember of the room. They found that because of the identification of the room, many people imagined items that were not actually present, such as books. This was due to preset schemas, expectations of what an academic’s study should look like.
Scripts, self-schemas, and social schemas guide our everyday interactions with the world whether it’s knowing that it’s best to pay for items rather than to steal, knowing our limits and our abilities with regards to a situation, or in our sometimes not intentional stereotyping of people. As demonstrated through Bartlett and
Brewer and Treyens, our schemas do in fact play a major role in the processing of memories.
Hannah Florence
Schemas are cognitive structures that provide a framework for the organization of objects, people, and situations; they are mental representations of an idea which is categorized. The way memory is processed includes three steps: encoding (transforming sensory information into a meaningful memory), storage (creating a biological trace of the encoded information in memory, which is either consolidated or lost), and retrieval
(using the stored information). It is currently believed that the processing of schemas can affect memory at all three of the steps in memory processing. Informally, schemas are basically shortcuts that allow us to interpret information rapidly. The formation of schemas start at a very young age and develop based on past experiences.
As children categorize objects, people, and situations by their differences, schemas begin to form. There are three main types of schemas, which include: scripts, self-schemas, and social schemas.
Scripts are a type of schema in which the order or sequence of events is familiar. Think of the times you’ve gone to a movie theater. What is the sequence of events that take place before you see the movie? First, you go to the ticket booth and purchase a ticket. Next, you may go inside and get something to eat and drink.
Then, you may go into the theater, sit down, and wait for the movie to begin. This script has been developed due to the multiple times you have gone too see a movie. Any slight deviance in the order may seem odd to you based on the schema you’ve developed.
Self-schemas develop as we learn and categorize information about ourselves such as our strengths and weaknesses. If given a choice, you may choose not to participate in an activity that you know you will not be good at based on the other times you have tried. However, you may readily accept performing a task because you consider it to be one of your “strong suits” and something you know you will prosper in doing.
It may be easy to understand the concept of social-schemas since this aspect is closely related to stereotyping. Social-schemas depend on information we know and have gathered about other people. If you picture a fireman, what do you see? You are likely to see a young, fit male with a mustache wearing turnout gear and possibly standing next to a big red truck and a spotted dog. As you have seen firemen on television and in books, you have created, in your mind, a mental representation of what firemen look like. If a fireman was to wear black cargo pants and a blue collared shirt, you may not realize that he too is a fireman. Social-schemas not only use surroundings but also incorporate race. Unfortunately, if you grew up in a secluded neighborhood, you may run into a person who does not look like the people you’ve seen your whole life, thus you may be scared of that person based solely on his or her race.
The reaction you may have to a person, object or situation is a key example of how schemas affect our behavior. Along with behavior, there are other concepts that schema theorists apply to the overall concept of schema theory. Schemas also help to increase information processing efficiency; if every time you saw a ball you had to say “Oh, it is circular, it bounces, and it can roll; therefore, it must be a ball” it would take a very long time to process information. The case may also be made that schemas are relatively stable and take some time to change. If you are raised to believe in one concept, and then suddenly a new, viable concept is introduced you may refuse to believe in the unknown. Therefore, one must remain partially open-minded in order to learn new information that may have just as much validity as what was previously known.
Comparatively, schemas may engender expectations. For example, if you were to create a schema that all four-
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legged animals are vicious, you would never go around the gentlest dog due to the fear that one may attack you.
In this case, it is also important to keep an open mind but not so open that it results in physical harm.
The research study performed by Bartlett in 1932 sought to show the effects of schemas on memory.
Participants were asked to read a story then reproduce it audibly or visually, the original story itself was told using colloquial terms and was asked to be retold by someone from a different region who used the same general language. Results found that the stories changed as they were retold in a way that was more memorable to the teller, a concept that was termed “rationalization.” Bartlett’s work was criticized due to lack of procedural strictness and lackadaisical manner in which the research was conducted. Gaule and Stephenson performed the same study with a stricter setting and ended up getting the same results supporting Bartlett’s original findings.
Results supported the schema theory and showed that participants changed the original story to fit predetermined schemas that were more relatable to the individual participants.
Bransford and Johnson (1972) involved three conditional groups in which all the participants had to listen to a speech. The speech itself listed the steps taken while doing laundry but key words were replaced with more vague terms as to not give away what the list was pertaining to. Participants in one group were told the title of the speech before it was given; the second group was the title after the speech was given; and the third group was not told the title at all. The group that was told the title before the speech was able to comprehend what was being talked about and the participants were also able to recall a large portion of the speech due to the schema they already possessed about washing clothes. The participants in the second and third groups reported having trouble recalling the steps listed in the speech as well as little to no comprehension of what the speech was about.
There are some challenges to the schema theory as a whole. There are people in the world who don’t believe in aspects that cannot be traced from their origins or cannot be directly seen as they relate to the processes that are believed to control. Some people think the concept of schemas is too vague. Also, schemas may find a pattern but that pattern may not be fully correct. All in all, the schema theory has a great deal of basis in the scientific community.
Emily Forsythe
In order to evaluate the schema theory one must first recognize what a schema is. A schema is a cognitive structure that provides the framework for organization such as objects, people, and situations.
Schemas are formed from past experiences and create shortcuts to interpret information. There are three types of schemas: scripts, self-schemas, and social schemas. Scripts are schemas that organize events in order/sequence based on familiarity. Self-schemas are schemas that organize information about us and our strengths and weaknesses. Social schemas are schemas that organize information about others such as stereotypes.
The schema theory is a cognitive theory about information processing and can be used to explain memory processes. There are several connections in the functions of the schema theory. Theorists believe that it helps organize information in memory, they can be activated to increase information processing, they engender expectations, they can help regulate behavior, and they are relatively stable.
In 1932, Bartlett studied the affect of cultural schemas on recalling information. Through the study
Bartlett was able to show that schemas that are based on social expectations and guidelines deal with recalling and interpreting information. Bartlett had people retell a Native American story, “The War of the Ghosts” and interpreted the differences in word choice as either irrelevant or a difference caused by culture.
In 1981, Brewer and Treyen asked participants to wait in a room referred to as an academic study and then were later asked to state what they remember about the room. Several participants stated that they saw things in the room that were not actually in the room such as books or pens. A preexisting schema of what an academic study is and has in it can be correlated to the responses given by participants.
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Charles Burt
Two models or theories of memory are: the multi-store model and the levels of processing model. The
Multi-store model was developed in the Atkinson and Schiffrin (1968) study. The study revealed that there are different sub-categories that memory can be broken down into. Those sub-categories are the sensory, shortterm, and long-term memory categories. The Levels of Processing Model was developed in the 1972 study by
Craik and Lockhart. This study contradicted the Atkinson study in that it stated that memory was dependent on how it was processed, not store. The Levels of Processing Model says that information is processed in a structural, phonetic and semantic sense.
The Multi-store memory model has the advantage of providing support that there is short and long term memory. The multi-store model is also supported by the HM case study. There is a difference in long and short term memory in this case study due to HM only remembering things from his short-term memory and not things that should be in his long term memory, like the death of a parent for example. On the other hand, Multi-store model’s greatest criticism is that it is too simple. The model leads you to believe that the sub-categories don’t have sub-categories. From the 1974, study of Baddeley and Hitch, it was shown that short-term memory had sub-categories of central-executive and visuo-spatial.
The Levels of Processing Model has the strengths of actually improving or making the multi-store model more complex. It showed that memory was not dumped into long, short, and sensory memory. It was first processed into structural, phonetic, and semantic memory. Although the Levels of Processing does all of this, it does not explain how the structural, phonetic, and semantic processes result in better memories and it can’t be physically observed.
Imani Taylor
Two methods of memory and memory storage are the multi-store model theory and the levels of processing theory. The multi-store model says that memory has three different "stores" and that these "stores" are in linear fashion, first the sensory story, then the short term store and then the long term store. The differences of the three stores are duration, capacity, and encoding. The sensory store has unlimited capacity because people receive tons of information constantly, we just don't pay attention to it. But this store has no duration, the memory decays rapidly; we have to pay attention to the information for it to begin to get transferred to the short term memory. The two coding systems that the sensory store has in the visual sensory store or the iconic memory, which deals with visual information and the auditory memory or the echoic memory which is based on our hearing. The iconic memory lasts about 1-2 seconds while our echoic memory lasts about
3-4 second. Next is the short term memory store which has an extremely limited capacity, about seven units, and only lasts about 30 second to one minute unless it is intentionally maintained by rehearsal where then it begins to get transferred to the long term store. The long term store has unlimited capacity along with unlimited duration, rehearsed and semantic coding is used here, which is coding based off meaning. This store model basically shows that memory is not unitary, it has three stores and that attention, rehearsal and retrieval link the three stores together.
Another theory for how memory works is the level of processing. This theory ignores the multi-store theory and focuses on the fact of depth of processing. The theory states that there are three different encoding processes: structural, phonological and semantic. The structural encoding deals with what a word looks like, physical features and how the word is presented. The second encoding is phonological: the phonetics, how we understand and process the word and how the word sounds. The last encoding is semantic encoding which is the meaning of the word. This theory deals with the depth of processing and the depth increasing from structural to phonological to semantic with semantic encoding being the deepest of the three. The criticism of the theory is that there are no convincing measurements of depth in the memory, that it is more descriptive than explanatory
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and that it do not address retrieval, just encoding. One study that tried to support this theory is the Craik and
Lockhart 1972 study. The study took a number of participants with 60 words and gave each word a question that dealt with one way to encode the word, after a distracting process the participants were asked to find the words from a larger list. The results of the study was that the words that had semantic questions asked of them were much more easily found, then the phonological words were found in more numbers than the structural words; supporting the idea that the deeper the processing of a word the deeper the word is into the memory.
Jolie Huynh
A model for memory was suggested in 1968 by Atkinsson and Shiffrin. They proposed that memory is made up of three components- sensory store, short-term store, and long-term store- and that these components work together in a linear order. Information first enters sensory memory, which is modality specific (auditory information is stored in echoic memory, and visual information is stored in iconic memory) and lasts only a few seconds. If enough attention is given, the information from sensory memory is transferred to short-term memory store, which can hold seven units of information at a time and lasts about six to twelve seconds. Rehearsal
(repeating the information over and over) transfer information from the short-term memory store to the longterm memory store, which has unlimited capacity and duration. It stores information in the form of an outline, and when the information is needed to be recalled, the mind fills in the gaps to complete the memory. This multi-store model, however, is too simplistic, and the idea that rehearsal is required to store information in longterm memory can be challenged because there is a difference in coding for long-term and short-term stores.
The working memory model is based on the multi-store model but suggests that the storage for short-term memory has more than one component. The central executive is in charge of monitoring and coordinating the other components. It operates on an automatic level, which is based on habit and controlled automatically by stimuli from the environment, and on a supervisory attentional level, which is triggered by emergencies. There is also an episodic buffer, which displays and stores the information temporarily and passively until it is later needed. The phonological loop is part of the working memory model. There are two components to the phonological loop: the articulatory system, which holds information in a verbal form and holds words ready as you prepare to speak, and the phonological store, which holds information in a phonological form and receives auditory information from sensory memory, verbal information from long-term memory, and also information from the articulatory control system. The visualspatial sketchpad, on the other hand, processes visual and spatial information from sensory information and long-term memory.
This model is supported by a study by Baddeley and Hitch in 1974. The researchers asked the participants to read and understand a prose and to memorize a list of numbers. As the participants memorized more numbers, their reasoning ability for the prose was decreased but not by a significant amount. This led the researchers to the conclusion that the participants did not have much trouble performing both cognitive tasks at the same time because short-term memory has more than one store as suggested by the multi-store model. The working memory model is accepted by psychologists for its complex rather than simplistic explanation and is used widely in many studies in learning and memory.
Taylor Alexander
A cognitive process that has references to both models and theories is memory. Memory is the ability of the mind to remember pieces of information, whether it is to be stored or recalled within moment of rehearsal.
Atkinson and Shiffrin in 1968 created the basic architecture of memory. The multi-store memory model suggests that there are three subheadings to memory: sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. In its linear form, the multi-store memory model helps organize the chronological order in which memory is stored. A model of the basic structure of memory claims that each component of memory varies in capacity, duration, and method of encoding.
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The duration of sensory memory is approximately a forth to a half a second and has an unlimited capacity level. Memories are encoded through the senses; there is a different storage area for each sense. Shortterm memory has the duration of approximately eighteen seconds, maximum, and a capacity allowing the remembrance of seven things, plus or minus two. Memories that are stored in an individual’s short-term memory are stored mostly through auditory means. Long-term memory however, has an unlimited capacity and duration and is encoded semantically. Memories stored in the long-term memory can also be encoded visually and auditory. Strength of the multi-store memory model is that it explains the primary and regency effect. One weakness is that it is too simplistic; this proposes that short-term memory and long-term memory work in an identical manner.
A research study that proposed a theory for the cognitive process of memory is Craik and Lockhart of
1972. Craik and Lockhart established a theory that focused on the levels of processing instead of the structural aspect of memory. They believed that memory is a result of the information processed. The aim of the Craik and Lockhart study of 1972 is to investigate how the depth of affects the recollection of memory. In the study participants were given a list of words and asked to pick out the original word from the list of mixed words.
Craik and Lockhart proposed that there are three different ways to process memory: structural processing, phonological processing, and semantic processing. Structural processing is when the way the word looks is encoded. Phonological processing is when the way the way the word sounds is encoded. Semantic processing is when words are processed for meaning. The results of the study showed that words were semantically processed.
Whether memory is processed through a chronological order in different depths and levels of significance, memory is a cognitive process in which can be supported by both theories and models.
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Emily Forsythe
Alzheimer’s disease is an irreversible disease that causes progressive memory loss. Alzheimer’s can also cause confusion, depression, a loss of appetite, and ultimately leads to death. In order to diagnose Alzheimers, there must be a problem in another area besides memory loss such as slowed speech.
Salthouse and Becker (1998) studied the disorder of episodic, semantic, and procedural memory.
Episodic memory is the memory of events and a disorder in this memory can cause one to misplace keys or miss appointments. Semantic memory is the memory of general knowledge of the world. Procedural memory, which is typically less affected by Alzheimer’s than semantic and episodic memory, is the memory of motor and cognitive skills. Episodic memory occurs in the medial temporal lobe (MTL) and is the first to show changes in the brain when Alzheimer’s disease is present.
Schwint and Black (2009) studied the stage developments of Alzheimer’s disease. The first stage appears in the MTL as discussed above and then in the hippocampus. Alzheimer’s patients have low concentrations of Acetylcholine in their hippocampus as well as abnormal levels of amyloid plaques. The amyloid beta protein creates amyloid plaques which are very sticky. These amyloid plaques build up in neuron spaces and damage the axons and dendrites of neurons.
Hunter
The cognitive process I will be talking about is memory and the biological factor that may affect it is
Alzheimer's Disease. AD is a degenerative brain disease much like dementia but worse. This disease generally occurs in people at the age of 65 or older. Not only does Alzheimer's affect memory, it affects other routine things humans partake in like movement and sometimes even speech. Alzheimer's starts off as simple forgetfulness but gets worse and worse as time goes on. For instance one may start off simply forgetting their keys and later on in the illness will begin questioning what their keys are for and how they got in their hands.
AD causes several things to go wrong with the brain which is what causes the memory loss. One of the key parts of the brain that involves memory is the hippocampus. In a brain with Alzheimer's disease, there is a severe shrinkage of the hippocampus which makes it really hard to form new memories. There are also abnormal levels of Amyloid plaques which deposits sticky proteins into the brain. These abnormal levels also cause tangles with the nerve cells and the proteins. The tangles and large clusters of the brain cause the signals between cells to become blocked which means synapses are never completed.
Alyssa January
Alzheimer's disease is a degenerative disease of the brain without any known cure. This disease is wellknown for causing memory loss and difficulty in understanding and speaking language. In Hodges et al. (1974) study of memory of Alzheimer patients, the semantic memory in Alzheimer patients were measured.
The researchers measured semantic memory through simple tasks such as naming pictures of animals and objects.
The researchers found Amyloid plaques, which are sticky buildup which forms outside of neurons, in the brain.
Amyloid plaques are responsible for the destruction of axons and dendrites. Neurofibrillary tangles were also present. These insoluble tangles consist of the protein Tau. The Amyloid plaques and the neurofibrillary tangles play a massive role in destroying brain cells and connections in Alzheimer’s patients. The destruction of the brain cells and important connections between neurons makes it difficult for Alzheimer’s patients to store, create, and retrieve memories. This degenerative disease affects episodic and semantic memory but not the procedural memory.
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Princess Hollins
Biological factors, like Alzheimer's Disease, can affect one cognitive process. Alzheimer's is a serious degenerative brain disease which ultimately leads to death. Victims of Alzheimer's disease have a low level of acetylcholine, whereas it's normal to have a high level. victims also experience a loss of brain cells. It takes up to twenty years for this disease to run its course.
Within the brain, the medial temporal lobe, or MTL, is the first area to show changes (hippocampus).
Amyloid plaques accumulate in the spaces between neurons. They are caused by a buildup of plaques of amyloid pro turns. Also, neurofibrillary tangles are present. These are microtubules that are tangled around each other. They primarily consist of TAU proteins, which are abnormal in Alzheimer's victims. Amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles are thought to contribute to the degradation of the neurons in the brain as well as the subsequent symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Those symptoms may include hallucinations, delusions and so on.
Cognitive processes may be affected by Alzheimer's. victims of this disease have a procedural memory that becomes less effective than usual. Procedural memory is the most basic and primitive form of memory. It is where we store procedures or basic associations between stimuli and responses.
Victims of this disease are able to retain the ability to play a piano for example. Their semantic memory is affected as well. Semantic memory is one of the three types of long-term memory in which we store general world knowledge such as facts, ideas, words, problem solving, and so on.
Karl Wimmer
Biological factors play a major role in cognitive processes and can alter how the brain carries out functions. One biological disease that has an affect on cognitive abilities is Alzheimer’s. This disease is caused by an abnormal buildup of proteins called Amyloid plaques and Neurofilbrillary tangles; these together cause brain cells to die off. The Hippocampus is severely affected by Alzheimer’s which is where memories are created and stored. Brain cells that help with memory retrieval and connection are harmed as well. The
Temporal Lobe is also damaged which is where explicit memories are held, these include episodic and semantic memory. The implicit memories; procedural and emotional are not affected by the disease. The disease causes difficulty in understanding, speaking and motor processes; some problems also pertain to the heart and breathing patterns.
One study done on Alzheimer patients was Hodges et al. where the semantic memory of the patients were tested. The participants were asked to carry out tasks including naming common images. They found a constant decline in semantic memory.
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Dominique Price
It can rightly be said that cognition is influenced, if not shaped by social and cultural factors. This can be said because of the “different challenges around the world” that create varying cognitive make-ups in the brain; different societies and the culture associated with them require certain knowledge and processes of thought.
There is also the case of the industrial revolution which, ushered in new technologies that change society as it was then known. However, some nations did not see the boom of technological innovation and some were less exposed than others which would thus create differing ways of cognition in relation to how exposed a people were to the revolution.
Proof that cognition does not always translate across culture is in the cross-cultural study conducted by
American psychologists Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole in they’re 1974 study of the memory strategies used by western American children versus eastern children from rural Liberia. The test was conducted in two trials in which they were required to memorize and then recall. In the first trial the children were asked to memorize words relevant to their culture and recall them in any order they wished; this was done because Cole and
Scribner wanted to avoid a bias toward the American children. The first trial concluded that children with schooling from both Liberia and America were able to recall more words with practice but, the Liberian children with no schooling did not improve on their memorization. However, in the second trial when asked to memorize objects the children from the U.S. and the children of Liberia, with and without school all were capable of memorization of the objects. These results can be attributed to how learning and memorization occurs in the separate cultures. Children with schooling from both countries learned to use the concept of chunking in order to memorize words; they group words that relate in order to recall them but, the children who had not attended school in Liberia did not learn this skill so memorization was significantly more difficult. In the case of memorizing the objects was generally easier for the children of Liberia and the United States to recall because the objects were presented through a story and thus were given not a meaning but, a use with which it could be associated. Association was thus found by Cole and Scribner as a viable form of memorization between the two cultures; meaning needs to be attached to a concept that is being memorized in order to be encoded in the mind.
Megan Ratcliff
One major result of the effect of social and cultural factors on cognitive processes is individualism versus collectivism based societies. Individualist countries encourage emotional expression because it promotes diversity and uniqueness within the society. Conversely, collectivist societies discourage emotional expression because emotion may be viewed as a sign of weakness or simply unimportant.
One study that demonstrates this is the Tali Sharot study on flashbulb memory on 9/11. The procedure called for 24 witnesses from different parts of Manhattan. The participants were placed in an fMRI machine and asked to recall 9/11 and asked to recall a summer holiday for control purposes. It was found that different parts of the brain were activated for each memory recollection. This supported the theory of flashbulb memory as
LTM. In relation to collectivist and individualist countries, the type of society effects how a memory is encoded. In an individualist society, since emotions are encouraged, events like 9/11 evoke strong emotions, so the memory is encoded at a deeper level. Collectivist countries, however, do not encourage emotions, so memories of traumatic events are encoded at a shallower level.
Jarren Gorka
Social and cultural factors play a heavy role in our everyday lives as proven through many research studies. In specific, it is theorized that culturally, individualistic and collectivist societies can have an impact on a citizen’s flashbulb memory.
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Before looking at individualistic and collectivist societies in relation to flashbulb memory, one must first understand the concept of flashbulb memory. In 1977, Brown and Kulik theorized that flashbulb memory is any vivid and detailed memories of highly emotional events. These memories appear to be recorded in the brain as though with the help of a camera’s flash. They suggested that there may be a special neural mechanism which triggers an emotional arousal because the event is either unexpected or extremely important. In 1982, Neisser sort of expanded on this idea of flashbulb memory by suggesting that these memories are so vivid because the event itself is rehearsed and then reconsidered afterwards.
Diving into social and cultural factors, collectivist societies, such as Japan, work as a unit. There are defined social and cultural roles that everyone follows quite rigidly. Visible emotion, for example, is looked down upon; it is not a cultural norm to openly display how one feels. This cultural norm affects flashbulb memory in that collectivist societies are more likely to suppress and and forget highly emotional events. This was proved by Basabe and Ros in 2005.
Individualistic societies, on the other hand, openly embrace emotion. Because of this, flashbulb memories are thought to be greater due to the idea that more blatant emotion means an event has more of an impact. The United States would be a perfect example of such an Individualistic society.
As with any psychological theories, flashbulb memory comes with criticism. In particular, Neisser and
Harsch (1992) showed in research that forty percent of participants showed distortion in their memories in their final report. This argument makes sense considering it is a known fact that memories can be, and are regularly, influenced by one’s current attitude, one’s past experiences, etc. With that said, flashbulb memory and its relation to individualistic and collectivist societies should be looked into a bit more.
Kaliice Walker
Cultural factors have a huge impact on the cognitive process of memory. There are different methods in which people recall memories from culture to culture. In western culture individualism is a way of life. People in theses cultures are encouraged to express emotions because they are viewed as unique individuals. In other cultures where collectivism is a way of life, people are discouraged not to express emotions. Their identity is defined by the group in which belong. The expression of emotions is thought to be dangerous, unimportant, disrespectful and often disregarded.
Since cognitive cultures do not follow universal law, different cultures do not have the same memory structures. Individualism and collectivism affects flashbulb memory. Flashbulb memory is a highly detailed, vivid “snapshot” memory of an event that is stored and retained for a lifetime. This type of memory is affected by memory impact.
Cross-cultural studies are used to see the impact that cultural have on people’s behavior. In the Wang and Aydin study of 2009, ( Culture variation in the correlates of flashbulb memories: An investigation in five countries).
They set out to test the correlation of flashbulb memory. This study had 274 participants, including
61 Chinese, 65 German, 48 Turkish, 50 British, and 50 Americans. All the participants were between the ages of 32 and 65 years old and were recruited mainly from middle-class communities.
The participants were given five minutes to recall as many memories as they could of public events.
They were asked to respond with the first memories that came to mind and write a short phrase about it, then move on to the next memory. The results showed that the participants recalled between 1 and 38 events and indicated that culture influenced the total number of events reported. British participants reported the greatest number of events, followed by Americans, Germans, Turkish and lastly Chinese. These results supported theory that culture and emotion effects the way people remember things.
.People in western would have more flashbulb memories since these memories are driven by emotional impact. The greater the emotional impact the stronger the memory. Cultures dictate the pattern in which people store memories. In cultures where emotional expression is encouraged, the people have more memories of emotional events while cultures that don’t encourage emotion do not.
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Hannah Florence
Social and cultural factors play a huge role in our everyday lives. These factors have been theorized to affect out behaviors, thought processes, and much more. Cultural and societal norms have been thought to have an influence of processes such as memory. Culturally, individualistic and collectivists societies have been studied in relation to flashbulb memory.
Brown and Kulik (1977) offer us one explanation in hope of understanding what flashbulb memory truly is. “Flashbulb memory is a special kind of emotional memory, which refers to vivid and detailed memories of highly emotional events that appear to be recorded in the brain as though with the help of a camera’s flash.”
(Crane) It has been found that highly emotional events are better remembered than emotional events that are not as significant.
Individualistic societies, such as the United States, embrace each person’s uniqueness. Citizens of individualistic societies also realize that emotions contribute to that uniqueness. These societies encourage the sharing of emotional events. On the other hand, collectivist societies, such as China and Japan, focus on emotions in a large group. In these types of societies, any expression of negative emotions is frowned upon and thus people are discouraged from sharing their emotionally provocative events.
In general, collectivists show lower levels of emotion and share emotions less. Individualists are most likely to have greater flashbulb memory recall than collectivists. Since individualists can be more blatantly emotional, traumatic events have a greater impact. Collectivists are much less likely to show raw emotion and therefore suppress their feelings and forget about the emotional experience that took place. In addition, Basabe and Ros (2005) found that collectivists show lower levels of emotion in general and share emotions less, which may also contribute to the findings that conclude less flashbulb memory recall.
The work with flashbulb memory in relation to collectivism and individualism is regarded on a scientific basis. Anything facing such a critical analysis will have some challenges. Flashbulb memory by itself is challenged. Most challenges of flashbulb memory point to the inaccuracy of the concept. Neisser and Harsch
(1992) investigated people’s flashbulb memory accuracy of an incident twenty-four hours after the accident, and then again two years later. Results found that 40% of the participants had distorted memories in the final reports they gave. Talarico and Rubin (2003) found that emotional intensity was often associated with greater memory confidences, but not will accuracy. Memories may also be influenced by current attitudes; past emotional memories are partly reconstructed based on people’s current appraisal of events. (Crane)
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Charles Burt
Having an eyewitness during a trial is usually seen as the best defense weapon a person can have. Jurors depend on the eyewitness’s memory to help guide them through the decision process, and the eyewitness is usually seen as the most reliable. However, memory is not always one-hundred percent reliable.
Confidence does not always correspond with accuracy, especially in memory. A person can think they saw a polka-dot dog, when it was really a striped zebra. Memory is an active reconstructive cognitive process. It is not just a container of accurate information. Therefore memory is not completely reliable. Stress levels also affect memory. In Deffenbacher’s 2004 study, it was shown that heightened stress or anxiety severely cause changes to a person’s ability to recall information accurately.
Loftus and Palmer’s 1974 study on eyewitness testimony reliability found that the way a question was asked also affected how a person recalled a memory. Participants were asked “About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other” after viewing a video of a car accident. The word “hit” was replaced with other trigger words like “smashed”, “collided”, or “contacted”. Although all the participants had seen the same video, as the words changed, so did the responses. This study shows that a person can unconsciously create false memories, or distorted recollections of some event.
Although memory seems like it is something that can be trusted thoroughly, there are many unconscious or unintended factors that lead to distortions in those memories. Those factors include things like stress levels and/or how the memories were asked to be recalled.
Taylor Alexander
Memory is a reconstructive process in which the mind undergoes. Due to this process, the reliability of memory is not 100% accurate. Eyewitness testimonies, for example, are not always accurate in regards to description or detail. Witnesses may approach a case with confidence but confidence does not determine accuracy. Two studies pertaining to eyewitness testimonies support this claim.
In 1987 Loftus et al conducted a study on the demonstration of a weapon effect. Participants were asked to pay attention to a crime in which two people were involved in an argument. In the more quiet altercation, a man came out with greasy hands holding a pen. In the more aggressive altercation, a man came out holding a knife with blood on it. Participants were then asked to recall the face or features of the suspect and none could do so, most accurately than others. The conclusion of Loftus’ study was that the weapon itself drew more attention than the potential suspects face.
Deffenbacher et al, in 2004, did a meta-analysis study. A meta-analysis study is when researchers use several studies relevant to the specific subject in whom they are researching in order to propose a theory or propose a claim in which the information gathered from the several research studies supports. Deffenbacher’s study focused on the role of emotions such as anxiety on eyewitness testimonies. He found that participants were less likely to recall accurate accounts of a situation because of the increased level of emotion.
Thanks to Loftus and Deffenbacher’s studies, it can be said that memory—as a cognitive process is not very reliable. The reasons being for memory’s inaccuracy is in part because memory can be distorted and all recollections of an event are not accurate due to confidence in perspective.
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Princess Hollins
There have been studies that can attest to the extent to which a cognitive process such as memory is reliable.
Studies of eyewitness testimony including the Loftus and Palmer (1974) and Deffenbacher et. al (2004) shed light on the reliability of the human memory. The Loftus and Palmer study was basically allowing participants to watch and short video of a car crash and asking them to answer a questionare in what they recalled. The catch was that different groups of people had different verbs such as hit, smashed, bumped, collided or contacted to attempt to distort their memory. Then another questionnaire was given a week later asking if they recalled seeing broken glass. The findings were that there may have been distortion of the participants memory or a result of response-bias factors. The study by Deffenbacher et. al was a series if meta-analysis. It combined the results of studies that addressed the same hypothesis. The findings of this study included that anxiety and stress both reduce reliable recall. Therefore, memory, cognitive process, is less reliable.
An evaluation of research on eyewitness testimony is illustrated by three of many studies: Ihleback et. al
(2003), Eysenck and Keane (2010), and Rinold et. al (2003). The Ihleback et. al study staged a robbery with robbers holding handguns. The participants witnessed the robbery live and some through video. The results show that when people view a video of a crime it is far less disturbing than seeing it in real- life. Eysenck and
Keane's study looked into ecological validity. This is real accident reports provided by actual victims of a crime.
The Rinold et. al study was about eyewitness testimonies of the Titanic.
Confidence has no effect on whether or not a testimony is correct or accurate. It's important to remember that memory is not a computer. Each time we use our memories, we distort them even further than before. This is because we are forced to simplify things. However, reconstruction of memory does not necessarily mean distortion will occur. Our schematic processing can lead to mistakes.
Emily Forsythe
Eyewitness testimonies are the recollections of events of people who were present for an event of some sort. In Loftus and Palmer’s study of 1974, the use of eye witness testimonies, which are heavily relied on in the justice system, are studied. Loftus and Palmer tested the weapons effect using two groups, the weapons group and the no weapons group. For the weapons group, a man walked into the room of participants with a paper knife covered in blood. For the no weapons group, a man walked into the room of participants with greasy hands a pen. Participants were better able to identify the man in the no weapons group because there was less fear and participants were better able to focus on identifying the man rather than fearing him.
The Deffen Bakner study of 2004 uses meta analysis which combines the results of several studies that have the same hypothesis. The results from this study were that anxiety and stress reduces a reliable recall of details. Increases in anxiety levels up to a certain point can improve accuracy of details.
Eysenck Keane’s study of 2010 studied the ecological validity of victims in accidents providing the reports of what happened. Watching an accident is less stressful than actually being in an accident. Sometimes victims provide mistaken testimonies in court cases but there are real consequences in court unlike in studies.
Yuille and Cutshall staged an armed robbery in Canada. Participants were asked to recall what happened and were asked leading questions and gave a response for each question. Five months later, the participants were asked again to recall what happened as well as the same leading questions and most of their answers were the same as when the robbery happened originally.
When recalling an event, many witnesses may appear to be confident about their recollection and responses regarding an event. However, confidence does not mean accurate. Memory is an active reconstructive process in which we alter stored information every time we use it. As seen in these studies, eye witness testimonies can be very reliable accounts of events but can also be very wrong and distorted.
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Karl Wimmer
The cognitive process of recall and memory can be reliable at some points but there are several situations where inaccurate recall occurs. Memory and the process of recall can be interfered with in multiple different ways, especially in cases of eyewitness testimony. The weapon condition is when there is a weapon in the scene of the crime and the witness pays more attention to the weapon than the culprit, leading to less accurate recall. The Deffenbacher et al. (2004) study evaluates the relationship between the emotions of the eyewitness and the accuracy of the testimony. The study found that if an eyewitness has high levels of stress and anxiety the testimony will therefore be less accurate.
Not all eyewitness testimonies are reliable. The Ihleback et al (2003) study researched the accuracy of memory in witnesses that experienced the crime live versus observing a video recording. The study found that the witnesses who watched the video recording had better, more accurate memory. Eyewitnesses always show high levels of confidence even when right or wrong. One must also always remember that memory is a reconstructive process the cognitive process is not always reliable.
Kaliice Walker
In order to evaluate how reliable the cognitive process of memory is you must first understand some key elements. One of the main ideas is reconstructive memory. This is the brain’s active processing of information that helps to make sense of the world. These memories are not always one hundred percent accurate and are used to help fill in the blanks that are brain is missing. In the process of retrieving them, one can have false memories. These are memories that people believe are true but are really not.
Psychologists test the reliability of memory by looking at eyewitness testimonies. There are many studies that test this and they all have different methods of doing so. The study of Loftus and Palmer of 1974 looks at eyewitness testimonies of a car crash. Participants in this study viewed a video of car crash and then were asked a series of questions regarding the video. The study sought to see if leading questions would interfere with an eyewitness’s testimony. In this study the leading questions where verbs such as, crashed, bumped, and contacted. The results of this study showed that leading questions did in fact influence the testimonies. Participants that where asked how fast the cars where going when they crashed into each other reported a faster speed that those who were asked how fast were they going when they bumped into each other.
This supported the theory that eyewitness testimonies are not always accurate.
However studies like this are challenged. One reason is for their ecological effectiveness due to the fact that they took place in a laboratory rather than in real life. Also in real life they person who would be questioned is the victim and not someone who saw it in a video. Another challenge is that in real life a mistake in an eyewitness testimony can have huge consequences. Also these laboratory experiments, participants do not have the same emotion impact that they would have in a real life situation.
Many studies have tested the reliability of memory with eyewitness testimonies. Some studies as the
Loftus and Palmer showed that these testimonies were not accurate, while others such as the Rinolo et al.
Titanic study of 2003 have showed the opposite. There are two main points to draw from these studies, confidence as no effect on the accuracy of a testimony and memory is not a computer where everything is one hundred percent.
Jarren Gorka
Memory recall is a cognitive process in which one is able to retrieve information without renewed exposure to some type of stimulus. This cognitive process is involved in our everyday lives. It is important to note that our memories are not computers, but are instead reconstructive processes. Meaning, each time we our memory, we alter what is within in some way in a way that isn’t always on purpose or conscious. Eyewitness testimony, heavily involving memory recall, is thought to be the most reliable source of accurate information for criminal court cases; however, it is often argued otherwise.
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In 1974, Loftus and Palmer created multiple studies whose results showed that reconstructed memories can in fact be inaccurate. This inaccuracy can be caused by courtroom tactics such as the use of misleading questions to obtain necessary information for a court case to win. Loftus and Palmer concluded that one’s answer will change depending on how a question is asked of them. Besides sneaky tactics, being in a courtroom can turn into a stressful situation. Deffenbacher et al. found in 2004 that anxiety and stress reduces the ability and reliability of recalled information.
When researching studies, one must take into account ecological validity. Meaning, can a study and its results be applied to a large population outside of a laboratory? In 2003, Ihleback et al. found that when shown a video of a criminal situation, in this case, a robbery, took place, rather than actually being near the robbery as it took place, participants exhibited far less stress and provided more accurate details. These findings were later refuted the same year by Riniold et al. Instead, this study found the exact opposite to be true in that those that actually witnessed the criminal activity seemed to show quite a bit of memory recall accuracy.
As briefly mentioned before, memory recall can be altered unconsciously and entirely by accident; however, there is much issue in the changing of one’s memory especially when looking at eyewitness testimonies in a courtroom. Loftus and Palmer (1974), Deffenbacher et al. (2004), Ihleback et al. (2003), and
Riniold et al. (2003) all found to varying degrees, and in varying circumstances, that reconstructed memories can be highly inaccurate.
Hannah Florence
Cognitive processes occur in the brain and are, for the most part, unobservable without proper technologies. One such cognitive process is memory recall. Remembering is a prime example of memory recall.
There are many situations in our loves that require the recall of memory. One specific time when memory recall is extremely important is during court trials. Eyewitness testimonies rely solely on memory recall to give accurate descriptions of occurrences that took place and the people involved in the occurrences.
Eyewitness testimonies are heavily relied upon in court while in the process of trying to convict or prove the innocence of an individual. A downfall to such testimonies is their possible inaccuracy. Loftus and Palmer
(1974) conducted multiple tests that showed how memories can be reconstructive and inaccurate. One tactic used in court to confuse witnesses is misleading questions. Loftus and Palmer showed that, depending on how a question is asked, answers will change. Loftus (1987) also tested a concept known as the “weapons effect.”
When testing this concept, two conditions were established. In one condition a greasy man with a pen walked out of an adjoining room, where participants were held, and was holding a pen. In the second condition a greasy man with a bloody knife walked out of the adjoining room. Participants in the first conditions were able to more accurately describe the man they saw. Participants from the second condition were more focused on the knife and not the man, this recalling less about the man appearance. Both studies show how memories can be changed or altered based on available information and focus.
Deffenbacher et al. (2004) found that anxiety and stress reduces reliable recall of important details.
These findings were challenged when someone else concluded that some anxiety increases focus and attention.
Deffenbacher responded to this challenge by saying that increases of anxiety are helpful to a certain extent before they decrease reliability.
Most studies that tested eyewitness’ reliability were performed in laboratory settings and therefore ecological validity may not have been present. One studied that aimed to find the discrepancy between results found in lab experiments and real world situations in terms of eyewitness testimonies. Ihleback et al. (2003) conducted a studied in which a robbery was staged. In the study, there were two conditions. The first was a live condition in which people were part of the robbery and thought they were in a real life or death situation. In the second condition, the participants watched a video of the robbery that took place. The participants who watched the video were able to provide closer, more accurate details. This study showed that laboratory (or video) experiments when the witnesses were not under distress seem to provide more accurate details, but that means that memories recalled are showed to be less valid.
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A challenge to Ihleback’s findings was present in a study conducted by Riniolo et al. (2003). This study looked at the memories of the survivors of the legendary Titanic accident. Riniolo found that the memories of those individuals who were actually part of the accident were quite accurate.
Although eyewitness testimonies have been used efficiently for many years, there are more than enough limitation to refute the accuracy of memory recall. Even when warned about the possibility of memory distortions, individuals are still vulnerable to the distortions themselves. Also, all eyewitnesses express a level of confidence when recalling their memory; however, a high level of confidence does not mean a high level of accuracy and vice versa. Memory as a whole is a reconstructive process. Every time we use our memory, aspects and details may, and will most likely, change. Memory itself is a framework, or outline, of the situation that actually occurred. When memory is encoded and stored, gaps are present that the individual fills in when the memory is recalled. These gaps can be filled with prior knowledge of similar events and schemas. The gaps that are filled may not be completely correct, but the individual recalling this memory may have no knowledge that the memory itself was altered.
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Hunter
Technology has played a huge role in changing the face of psychology. With the use of PET scans,
MRIs and fMRIs, psychologists can see what your brain is doing and how it reacts to whatever stimuli they give you. Before this technology nobody could see what the brain was doing throughout experiments. But due to these relatively new technological advances, psychologists can see exactly what part of the brain is working when certain things happen. PET scans and new technology has definitely paved the way for not only psychiatrists, but doctors as well, helping make major breakthroughs in diseases like Alzheimer's which affects the important cognitive process memory.
PET scans are used to measure things in the brain like blood flow and even glucose consumption
(Crane-Hannibal). PET scans see different types of changes in organs/tissues which allows it to locate tumors.
PET scans have led to several breakthroughs in the investigation of Alzheimer's disease. Since it can, in fact, see the rise or fall of metabolic changes within organs, and in this case, the brain. With the technology of a PET scan and a computer program made by researchers from the New York School of Medicine, we now know that there is an reduction in brain metabolism in the hippocampus in the earlier stages of Alzheimer's.
Imani Taylor
A modern technology machine that the field of psychology has used a lot recently is the fMRI, which stands for functional magnetic resonance imaging. An fMRI uses the change in blood flow in the brain to detect energy usage of brain cells, which shows what area of the brain is active during a certain activity.
One cognitive process that psychologist have studied with the fMRI is decision making. The results were that the prefrontal cortex and the partial cortex increase during decision making and that there are two types of decision making. The first type is called "risky decisions", and these are decisions that have several outcomes and the probabilities are known. The second type is called "ambiguous decisions", which are decisions that have several outcomes where the outcomes are unknown. One study that tried to support these ideas is the Heut et al. 2006 study which took participants and gave them pairs of decisions; containing both risky decisions and ambiguous decisions. In the study just as stated before the prefrontal cortex and the partial cortex increased in activation while the participants chose the decision. When the participant showed a preference for ambiguous type decisions the lateral prefrontal cortex activation increased, while participants who showed a preference for risky decisions showed increased activation in the posterior partial cortex. This study shows the benefits of the use of technology in studying cognitive processes.
Another cognitive process that has been studied with the fMRI is cognitive reappraisal. Cognitive reappraisal is when a person cognitively reinterprets the meaning of emotional stimuli in a way that changes the emotional value/meaning. The fMRI shows that the more active the prefrontal cortex the more active the cognitive reappraisal, and that activation decreases in the amygdale which is associated with negative emotion and increases in the nucleus accumbens which is associated with positive emotion. One study that used the fMRI investigating cognitive reappraisal is the Wager et al 2008 study. The study took participants and had them look at images during an fMRI scan. The first group of images was "neutral" images and basically no real emotion; the second group was negative images. In each group the participants were asked to think and feel those emotions that appeared in the images and how they would normally experience it. The third group consists of negative images but the participants were told to go through cognitive reappraisal, changing the negative emotions they would naturally feel into positive emotions, counteracting the negative feelings. The results showed a lower emotional impact in the third grouping and also that the prefrontal cortex was involved in emotions and activation here was increased.
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Dominique Price
While mainly being used in research for the biological level of analysis brain scanning technologies such as, the F.M.R.I., the M.R.I., or the P.E.T. scan can give insight into the cognitive level of analysis. Brain scanning technologies have shown researchers the localization of function for many cognitive processes that were; before these technological innovations unknown. In the concept of how humans make decisions psychologist researchers have found that the function is located in the pre-frontal and parietal cortexes.
This was found after a number of case studies using participants being scanned by the Functional
Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine (F.M.R.I); as they were stimulated the F.M.R.I showed that the prefrontal and parietal cortexes had an increased amount of functionality. A study that showed that cognitive activity could be scanned by the F.M.R.I. machine was the Huetterel decision making study of 2006.
Huetterel’s study of 2006 focused on the localization of function for decision making; it differentiated the localization of different types of decisions of the risky and ambiguous varieties. The experiment was conducted through three different trials in which Huetterel’s participants were shown an assortment of images while being scanned with a F.M.R.I machine. In the first trial the participants were shown neutral images which, resulted in equalized functioning in both the Parietal and pre-frontal cortexes. The images of the second trial were depicted ambiguous decisions being made to the participants and resulted in functioning of the lateral parietal cortex. In the third trial risky decisions were shown to the participants which made the postereal prefrontal cortex spark in function. The overall results of the study showed that risky decision and ambiguous decisions localized in difffere2nt place in the parietal cortex and frontal cortex respectively.
Jolie Huynh
Researchers often utilize brain imaging technologies to investigate the relationship between cognitive processes and the regions in the brain. One of the technologies used is PET or positron emission tomography, which measures the metabolic changes in the cells of an organ and can be used to detect brain tumors or the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease. Lisa Mosconi (2005) and her team conducted a longitudinal study on 53 participants for
9 to 24 years. Using PET scans, the researchers found that participants who showed a decrease in brain metabolism in the hippocampus were later associated with Alzheimer’s disease. fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) are usually used to see what brain regions are activated when people perform certain cognitive task. This brain imaging technology detects changed in the blood’s oxygen level, which increases when an area in the brain is active. A study by
Huetel (2006) used fMRI scans to see which brain regions are involved in risky and ambiguous decisionmaking. A risky decision is when a decision is made with several possible known outcomes, whereas ambiguous decision involves possible unknown outcomes. The researcher studied the brain images of participants who took part in risky and ambiguous decision-making and arrived at the conclusion that the activity in the pre-frontal and parietal cortex increases during decision making and that the pre-frontal cortex is also active when an impulsive decision is made.
MRI is used by Kilts (2003) in a study to investigate the brain regions involved in product preference. The participants were asked to rate pictures of items in terms attractiveness and were undergoing an MRI scan at the same time. The researcher found that there was a small activity in the medial pre-frontal cortex whenever the participants rated an item as attractive. This brain region is associated with our sense of self and our personality, and it is active because when the participants made a preference for a certain item, they usually identify with it.
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Alyssa January
The use of brain-imaging technology such as the PET scan and MRI is to is to obtain images of brain functioning and structure. These images help researchers examine the connection between cognitive processes and behavior.
Kilts (2003) study aimed to find out which areas of the brain were involved in forming preferences. Kilts conducted these experiments by using the Magnetic resonance imaging or MRI which provides a threedimensional picture of the brain’s structures. The MRI works by detecting changes in the use of oxygen. More oxygen is used in the blood when an area in the brain is more active.
The participants of the study were given an assortment of different consumer goods. Then the participants were asked to rate the products on a numerical scale based on appeal. After that participants were placed in an MRI scanner that measured their brain activity while they viewed same goods. Kilts found that the medial prefrontal cortex of the brain was most active because of the blood rush toward the area when a participant viewed something appealing.
Through the use of the MRI we can conclude that the medial prefrontal cortex is an area involved in selfawareness and the structure of our personality. We can also note that the use of technology is effective in investigating cognitive processes.
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III Cognition and Emotion
Alyssa January
Cognitive and biological factors both play important roles in emotion. In Lazarus’ Appraisal Theory (1975),
Lazarus stated that people asses how an imminent situation will affect them. Speisman et al. study (1964) supports Lazarus’ Appraisal Theory . In this experiment the participants were shown circumcisions. The participants were placed into three conditions the trauma condition (pain is stressed), denial condition (patient is happy to have surgery), and the intellectual condition (professional’s opinion of surgery). The results showed that the participants responded more emotionally to the trauma condition than to the others. From the results we can conclude that it is person’s interpretation of a situation that creates emotional stress. Schacter and Singer’s
Two-Factor Theory states that a situation causes physiological arousal first and then emotion is labeled last.
Emotion is label when a person puts meaning to a situation.
Karl Wimmer
Biological and cognitive factors both play major roles in emotion. Emotion consists of physiological changes, someones own feeling of emotion, and behavior associated with a certain emotion. The two factor theory of emotion proposed by Schacter and Singer(1962) states that emotion is a function of cognitive factors and physiological arousal. The theory says that people look to the environment for emotionally relevant things to interpret unexplained physiological arousal. The results of the study by Schacter and Singer show that a stimulus triggers physiological response and simultaneously the stimulus interpreted in the brain. The appraisal theory by Lazarus(1975) states that people evaluate cognitively how a situation will affect them. The cognitive appraisal of a certain event determines the amount of physiological arousal and type of emotion. The Speisman et al. (1964) study supports the theory by showing that people respond more to trauma and the effect on emotional stress.
Kaliice Walker
When discussing the extent that in which cognitive and biological factors interact with emotions, there are many theories that must be looked at.
One theory is the two-factor theory of emotion that was presented my Schacter and Singer in 1962. This theory states that two factors interact to determine emotion. One factor is the physical arousal of the emotion.
The second factor is the emotion interpretation. This theory however has a lot of criticisms. Other psychologists criticize the method they used to discover this theory my checking the emotion through needles was not neutral. Also there were a lot of replication failures that followed this study. Other critics doubt how this can be related to real life. However there is the strength that this study opened the door to other studies like these.
The appraisal of emotion is another theory about interaction of emotion. This theory states that emotion helps determine how we feel in a situation and was presented in Lazarus work in 1982 and 1991. In this theory there are two types of appraisal. There is primary appraisal which helps decided if a situation is personally relevant. The parts primary appraisal is motivation relevance, motivation congruence and accountability. The other type is secondary appraisal, this provides coping options in a situation. The parts of this consist of problem focus coping, motion focus coping, and future expectancy. This theory has very little criticisms with many following studies supporting it.
The last theory has to do with conscious and unconscious appraisal and the body. This questions if appraisal are always conscious things or can they happen unconsciously. In a study done by Ohman in 2000, he aimed to test if appraisal could happen unconsciously. He had participants that were both afraid and not afraid of snakes. He showed the participants pictures of a snake in a snapshot so fast that their conscious mind would
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not catch it, and also when they were consciously aware. The results supported the theory that appraisals could happen unconsciously, because even when the participant where not consciously aware of the snake photo the participants with a phobia of them showed fear.
Princess Hollins
The two-factor theory of emotion states that there are two factors interact with each other to determine an emotion. Both physical arousal and emotional interpretation and labeling of that arousal. A study study from
1962 by Schacter and Singer illustrates this. The critics of this study doubt the ecological validity.
The appraisal theory of emotion is an evaluation of situations according to the significance that it has to us.
There are six components of this theory. The Lazarus studies of 1982 and 1991 used the core relational theme.
Primary appraisal is deciding whether a situation is personally relevant. It involves determining the relevance to a goal, the motivational relevance and countability, meaning who is responsible. Secondary appraisal provides information about individuals' coping options in a situation. It involves problem focused coping, emotion focused coping and future expectancy.
Conscious and unconscious appraisals are related to the body. There are studies that help describe this. The
Speisman et. al study of 1964 used different confirms including : silent, trauma, intellectualization and denial.
The conclusion was that physiological reaction was affected by the various conditions. The Ottoman study from the year 2000 presented pictures of spiders and snakes to both a group of participants who had a fear of them and who did not. The findings indicate that that appraisal can occur unconsciously. This is how we get the concept of subliminal messages.
Jolie Huynh
The two-factor theory established by Schachter and Singer (1962) proposes that emotion is the result of physiological arousal and the emotional interpretation and labeling of that arousal. In their study, the researchers divided the participants into three groups and injected all of the participants with a dose of adrenaline. In one group, the researchers informed the participants of the injection’s possible side effects such as increased heart rate. In another group, the researchers did not inform the participants about any of the side effects. In the last group, the researchers misinformed the participants about the side effects. Afterward, an actor would come and perform in front of the participants acts that were supposed to produce either euphoria or anger. The researchers found that the participants who were misinformed or uninformed about the effects of adrenaline attributed their physiological arousal to the euphoric or angry acts from the actor whereas the informed group was rather unaffected by the acts. Schachter and Singer explained that the informed group knew the cause for their arousal and thus did not look for external factors to explain their arousal. The misinformed and uninformed groups, however, were manipulated into thinking they were euphoric or angry to explain the arousal.
The cognitive process of appraisal or interpreting how a situation will be significant to one’s well-being also influences behavior. According the Lazarus, people evaluate a situation based on motivational relevance (how it related to their goals), motivational congruence (whether it is favorable to their goals), and accountability (who is responsible). If the situation is assessed to be beneficial, it will result in positive emotion. On the other hand, if the situation seems to be harmful, it will lead to negative emotion. Appraisal can also influence how people cope with emotional arousal such as stress. They usually approach stress with problem-focus coping, which involved changing the situation that causes stress, or emotion-focused coping, which involved changing the emotion toward stress rather than the situation.
Speisman (1964) supported this theory through his study on the effects of appraisal on emotional response. In the study, the participants were shown a video of circumcision as a ritual and were divided into three groups with different soundtrack: traumatic (emphasizing pain), denial (anticipation for circumcision), and intellectual
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(ignoring the emotional aspect). The results showed that emotional response was highest for the group with a traumatic soundtrack and lowest for the one with intellectual soundtrack. Speisman thus arrived at the conclusion that the participants’ emotional responses to the video were not the result of the content but was the result of how the video was interpreted.
Colin Kehoe
Learning Outcomes: Appraisal Theory
The appraisal theory is meant to explain the origins of our emotions. The theory states that an emotional response indirectly comes from reactions to situations. That we appraise certain events and depending on how we evaluate that stimuli depends on how we perceive it. Richard Lazarus broke this process down into two categories: primary appraisal and secondary appraisal.
Primary appraisal is personal, in that an individual looks at the stimuli from a point of view of how it relates to them. Primary appraisal itself can be broken into three categories. These are motivational relevance, motivational congruence, and motivational avoidance. Motivational relevance refers to how a stimuli affects that person's drives. For example, "is this going to satisfy my hunger or thirst?" Motivational congruence asks whether or not a situation is congruent with one's goals. Motivational avoidance asks whether or not the situation is one that is too risky to even be in.
Secondary appraisal involves the evaluating of how one can cope with a situation. Problem-focused coping refers to one altering a situation in order to make it congruent with one's goals. Emotion-based coping refers to one's ability to emotionally adapt to the results of a situation. Therefore appraisal itself does not produce a singular emotion. Appraisal only views a situation negatively or positively based on whether or not that situation will be beneficial or harmful.
In a study by Ohman, one group of subjects were shown things they were afraid of. In the second group the disturbing images flashed for only long enough to be subliminal. The reactions were the same. This supports the idea that appraisal occurs both on a conscious and unconscious level.
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Hannah Florence
Our thoughts on a situation have an effect on how memorable the situation becomes. Memory is a cognitive process in which the details of an event are recorded and stored for later use. One theory of emotion is that the more intense the emotional response, the greater ability for us to remember details of that event.
Flashbulb memories are memories associated with the remembrance of highly emotional events. According to this term, more emotion means more memory.
Brown and Kulik (1977) defined flashbulb memories as memories of the circumstances in which one first learned of an emotional event. These memories occur when we encounter emotionally stimulating occurrences. Brown and Kulik claimed that these memories are maintained by means of rehearsal and covert rehearsal – thinking over the details of an event in your head instead of out loud to other people. Flashbulb memories are more vivid, last longer, and are more consistently accurate when compared to normal memories.
These researchers said that flashbulb memories require the involvement of a neuro-mechanism in which information is stored permanently in a designated mental store. Brown and Kulik conducted a study to support their claims. Participants of their study, eighty Americans, were asked to recall the circumstances they were in when ten events happened. Nine of the ten events asked for were famous assassinations, the other events was some kind of personal experience. The participants were also asked to tell how much they rehearsed the memory. Results found that the John F. Kennedy assassination was the famous event that people were able to provide the most details for. African American participants were able to recall their reaction to civil rights activists better, as opposed to Caucasians. These results support the claims made by Brown and Kulik that define flashbulb memories. Some aspects of Brown and Kulik’s research have been criticized. For instance, the memories recalled may not be accurate or pertinent and little work has been done to support the theory of the neuro-mechanism and its designated store.
Neisser and Harsch (1992) asked participants to recall memories about the Challenger Space Shuttle accident. These participants were asked to tell their story on two occasions. The first occasion was the day after the accident and more accurate descriptions were recalled. The second time the story was told was two and a half years after the accident originally occurred. The details recorded from this telling were less accurate and it was believed that the memories may have deteriorated. This study refuted the reliability of flashbulb memories and claimed that they may just be simple, everyday memories.
Talarico and Rubin (2003) wanted to see if there was even a difference between flashbulb memories and normal memories. Participants of this study were asked to recall the events they remember surrounding the
September 11 th
terrorists attack on the World Trade Center complex in New York City. Participants were asked to tell their stories 1 day, 7 days, 42 days, and 224 days after the attack. The researchers also asked the participants to recall something they remember, unrelated to the attack, that occurred around the same time.
Once again they had to tell their stories on four occasions: 1, 7,42, and 224 days after it happened. Results found that flashbulb memories were more intact and vivid as opposed to any other memory.
In general, flashbulb memories have some specific aspects that have been supported on numerous occasions. Flashbulb memories are long lasting but not necessarily permanent in an individual’s memory.
However, they might last just as long as normal memories. These memories have been known to be more vivid and are recalled with a higher degree of confidence.
Imani Taylor
One theory that may affect one cognitive process is the theory of flashbulb memory. Flashbulb memory according to the Brown and Kulik 1977 study on assassinations are the memories of the circumstances in which we first learn of a surprising, consequential and emotional arousing event. This theory says that it’s mainly about the reception context and not the actually event but the circumstances surrounding it. The memory forms when the situation is surprising and highly emotional; these memories form from talking about the event and from privately thinking about it. Brown and Kulik also say that these flashbulb memories are more vivid, longer
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lasting, more consistent and more accurate than regular memories. The last component of the theory states that there is an involvement in a special neural mechanism that stores the memories permanently in a unique memory system. The study took participants and gave them ten events, the first nine were assassinations and the last memory was a memory that the participants chose on their own; this personal memory was usually the death of a parent. In the study some of the results were that African Americans had more details and flashbulb memories for civil rights leaders than non-African American participants. The criticism of this study was that flashbulb memories are not always accurate and that the special neural mechanism they spoke of they did not have enough evidence on.
Another study that dealt with the theory of flashbulb memory was the 1992 Neisser and Harsch study for how people remember what they were doing on the day of the Challenger Space Shuttle. They took participants and asked them how they had heard the news, 20% said they heard it on the television, but yet two years later when the same participants were asked the same question 45% said they had seen it on the television. This simple study shows that the memory deteriorates and that flashbulb memories are no different from regular memories in reliability.
The Talarico and Rubin 2003 study for flashbulb memories was similar to the Neisser and Harsch 1992 study because it asked participants several times about an event, this event was the 9/11 attack. First the participants were asked details about their circumstances on the day of, 7 days later, 42 days later and then 224 days later. Along with questions about 9/11 the participants were also asked questions about an everyday event near the attack on the day of, 7 days later, 42 days later and 224 days later. Their results and conclusion stated that flashbulb memories were more vivid than every day memories, that each time the participant had high confidence in what they were saying was accurate, and that the memory was longer lasting but not permanent
(possibly no longer than everyday memories). So in this study Neisser and Harsch showed that Brown and
Kulik overestimated the durability and consistency of flashbulb memories and there was still no solid evidence on the special neural mechanism they stated.
Jarren Gorka
Memory is a cognitive process in which information is recorded and then stored for use at a later time.
Flashbulb memory, on the other hand, is an emotional theory in which highly emotional events are thought to be more intense for an individual and therefore it thought to leave a longer lasting impression and is easier to recall later on.
Flashbulb memory was first suggested by Brown and Kulik in 1977. They claimed that these special types of memory are maintained through covert and overt rehearsal in which one replays an event either within or out loud. It is thought that these memories are stored in a different part of the brain than regular memories through a neuro-mechanism and are considered more vivid, more consistent/accurate, and is remembered far longer than other types of memories. Brown and Kulik tested their theory in which eighty Americans were asked to recall major historical events along with more personal events. The study found that more details were provided for the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King.
One major criticism for Brown and Kulik’s work is that their study/theory did not take into account whether or not recalled flashbulb memories are accurate. In 1992, Neisser and Harsch had participants report on how they first heard about the Challenger space shuttle disaster on two separate occasions, one day after the occurrence and two and half years after. Their results showed a deterioration of memory and suggests that flashbulb memories might just be regular memories. Years later, Talarico and Rubin (2003) created a similar study in which they had participants report on how they first heard about 9/11; however, they also had participants report on one everyday event that happened around the same time. Participants were tested a total of four times, one day, seven days, forty two days, and two hundred forty two days after the occurrence. Their findings also seemed to disprove Brown and Kulik in that no large difference was found between the recollection of supposed flashbulb memories and everyday events.
Brown and Kulik’s initial suggestion of flashbulb memory has faced major criticism. At the basis of the
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concept, flashbulb memories are considered to last far longer than regular memories; however, they aren’t necessarily permanent. Such memories are also considered to be more vivid and recalled with a higher amount of confidence than its counterpart.
Chuck Burt
One theory of emotion that may have an effect on a cognitive process such as memory, is the flashbulb theory.
The flashbulb theory of emotion was suggested by Brown and Kulik (1977). The theory says that a flashbulb memory is one that can be remembered vividly and detailed. Brown and Kulik researched the flashbulb theory in a study by asking participants to recall many big events. Some were recalled more vividly than others. In
Brown and Kulik’s opinion, memories were recalled more vividly than others because they were more significant emotionally. On the other hand, Neisser (1982) suggested that there is no way of knowing that a memory is important at that very moment, therefore how would a person know to make it a flashbulb memory.
Neisser believed that these flashbulb memories occur because they have been rehearsed over and over. Neisser called it a narrative convention. He tested the flashbulb theory when studied participants who were recalling the
1986 Challenger space shuttle accident. Even though the participants had great confidence in their recollections, many were still wrong. All in all this shows that flashbulb theory can effect memory, but it is not always accurate.
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