IB Psychology 3.4.2 Cognitive Processes Notes

Martinez & Kesner (1991)

Aim

to see what role ACh played in spatial memory

Method

Injected rats with 3 types of injections:

• Scopolamine, to stop ACh (antagonist)
• Physostigmine, which increases ACh because it blocks production of cholinesterase which cleans up ACh from synapses (agonist)
• Third group was a placebo.

All rats underwent a maze.

Results

• Rats injected with scopolamine made more mistakes, whereas rats with physostigmine made fewer mistakes
• Therefore, ACh is a neurotransmitter that boosts spatial memory.

Glanzer & Cunitz (1966)

Aim

To test their hypothesis that there are 2 distinct storage mechanisms, LTM and STM

Method

• 2 repeated measures experiments
• Participants presented with lists of 20 1 syllable nouns, but the time in between saying each word varied from 3 to 6 to 9.
• Experiment 2 asked participants to recall 15 1 syllable nouns, and asked to recall them immediately or after 10 or 30 seconds.

Results

• Middle words were often forgotten.
• This may be due to it being stored in the STM but getting lost due to interference.
• The ability to recall first few words is called the primary effect, and the ability to recall the last few words is called the recency effect.

Robbins et al. (1996)

Aim

To demonstrate the working memory model

Method

• Asked participants to play chess (visuospatial sketchpad)
• Also asked to either repeat words (phonological loop) or type on a keyboard (visuospatial sketchpad)

Results

• Playing chess involves visuospatial sketchpad, so repeating words, which uses the phonological loop, did not affect the playing.
• Typing on a keyboard also uses visuospatial sketchpad so it hindered the performance
• Overall, this demonstrates WMM.

Cole & Scribner (1974)

Aim

To see what strategies children from the USA and Kpelle children use to remember things.

Method

• Worked with local researchers to create a list of words children would encounter in daily life.
• They asked participants to try and remember the list of words.

Results

• Formally schooled Kpelle children performed as well as children in the USA and used similar strategies.
• Children who were not formally schooled underperformed but when encouraged to use storytelling as a strategy to remember, their performance drastically increased.
• Memory capacity may be similar, but strategies may vary across culture.

Cohen (1985)

Aim

To determine whether stereotypes affect memory.

Method

• Participants watched a video, were told the woman was either a waitress or a librarian.
• Then they were asked questions about the video.

Results

• Answers were more consistent with stereotypes surrounding the jobs, eg the librarian wore glasses or the waitress drank alcohol.
• Therefore, stereotypes can affect information we focus on and remember.

Blacker et al. (2014)

Aim

To see if video games could expand capacity of visual working memory (VWM)

Method

• Action game group played things like call of duty.
• Control group played sims
• Both played their games for 1 hour every day for 30 days. A
• Before and after training, VWM was tested.

Results

• People who played action games (rich visual environment) had better measures of VWM capacity than control group
• Therefore, engaging with rich visual environments may increase VWM capacity.