Psychology Report

Contents Page2 Abstract Page3 Introduction, Experimental Hypothesis and Null hypothesis Page 4 Method: Design Page 5 Ethical considerations, Participants, Materials and Procedure Page 6 Results Page 7 Discussion and references Page 8 Appendix 1, Appendix 2 and Appendix 3 Page 9 Appendix 4 and Appendix 5 Page 10 Appendix 6 Page 11 Appendix 7 Page 12 Appendix 8 Abstract Glanzer and Cunitz concluded that the existence of a distracter task, affects the accurate recall of words on the Short-term memory from the end of the list of words. The aim of the study is to investigate the effect of a distracter task from the recall of a list of words on the STM, of a selection of students. A repeated measures design was used and counterbalancing was carried out to control for any order effects. The participants were a sample of 14-15 year old students at a grammar school in Birmingham. Without a distracter task, participants recalled 0.8 more words on average than participants with a distracter task. I conclude that a distracter task affects the recall of a list of words on the STM. It is easier to recall when a distracter task is not present because rehearsal is not prevented. This study lacks ecological validity due to the fact that remembering of word lists are not true to everyday situations. Introduction Memory is the normal function of retaining data. It is a

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  • Subject: Psychology
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To What Extent Is motivated Forgetting Produced By Failure Feedback?

To What Extent Is motivated Forgetting Produced By Failure Feedback? INTRODUCTION Background Research Freud believes that you never lose anything from memory. The information is stored on an unconscious level. He says that we protect ourselves from memories that cause us distress or anxiety, by repressing them in our unconscious so we don't consciously experience the feelings. However it is not believed to be very psychologically healthy and if prolonged, could cause mental disorder. There is some evidence that could prove that Freud's theory is correct. Parkin (1993) found people who are suffering from post - traumatic stress disorder, repression of traumatic events does often occur in them. However, even though this does seem to fit in with Freud's theory and motivated forgetting did occur, it had a more positive effect on the individual because they had adjusted much better to their traumatic experiences compared to those who kept recalling the details of their traumatic events. Similarly, Kaminer and Lavie (1991) found that the survivors of the Holocaust were often judged to be better adjusted when they didn't recall the traumatic events they had experienced compared to those who did recall them. They did not recall them in order to protect themselves from the trauma. In some other cases, Herman and Schatzow (1987) found 28% females who were victims of incest said

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What role does evolution play in the development of phobias?

What role does evolution play in the development of phobias? Throughout time the survival of humankind has been threatened by the continual inventions by human which have threatened everyday existence with inventions like guns and bombs thus in the 21st century humans are faced with a huge amount of everyday dangers regarding these threatening stimuli. However, it seems that humans generally, still feel more threatened by threatening stimuli experienced by our ancestors like spiders and snakes, even though these are of a less of a threat to human survival in the 21st century. Indeed the stimuli experienced by our evolutionary ancestors still appear in the top ten phobias experienced in the 21st century, (Stillwell 2004). Such findings can be explained by analysing Seligman's theory. Seligman's theory (1971) proposed that humans have an evolutionary pre-dispositional preparedness to fear certain stimuli more than others, i.e. spiders and snakes. Our ancestors who had fears of such stimuli were likely to be more successful through natural selection. Seligman went to point out that an organism can be: Prepared - i.e. people will fear stimuli which signalled danger in ancestral environments but not necessarily our current environment. Non-prepared - i.e. people don't fear stimuli which do not signal danger in ancestral or our current environment. Contra-prepared - i.e. people

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Social Cognitive Theory

Social Cognitive Theory vs. Behaviorism EDUC 501 Abstract This paper will attempt to draft differences between social cognitive theory and behaviorism. I will summarize each theory in the opening section of this paper, and then offer a final conclusion that will offer my personal opinion. I must admit by saying I wasn't aware of the various learning models are theories associated with learning or human development. I found the readings at some points confusing, fascinating and thought provoking. The fundamental challenge in this assignment, I believe, was to determine the difference or differences between the social cognitive theory and the theory of behaviorism. In order for any difference to be determined, one must first present the current theories. The social cognitive theory, according to my readings, is an extension of behaviorism. But, before I explain the extension portion of this statement, please allow me to offer a summary of the social cognitive theory. Social cognitive theory is a learning theory that is based upon the notion that people learn by watching other people and that the human thought process is essential to understanding our personalities. Moreover, it juxtaposes that people behave in a specific way to achieve goals. In this model behavior is self-directed and is not directed by any other factors. Central to this theory is the fact that the mind

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THE HUMAN MEMORY

THE HUMAN MEMORY Many people don't know it but the memory of a human is more complex than thought to be. The memory can be divided into three stores which are Sensory, Short term and Long term. There are also two processes which are Attention and Rehearsal. I will be looking at these sections closely to help explain the human memory. I will also be looking at past experiments which will help me support my theory. The Sensory stores are made up of three parts- Visual sensory memory, Acoustic sensory memory, touch, smell and motor information. If the information is not attended to then it can decay. The sensory information is the environmental input which is kept for two seconds in the sensory store. One of the other stores is the short term memory store which is used to hold information which is passed in by the sensory stores and that is where the information can be held for seven seconds with out rehearsal or repetition. The short term memory has very limited capacity and duration and also rehearses information acoustically (acoustic encoding). If this did not take place then we could not place the information into the long term memory after the rehearsal of the word or the digit. With all this there is a bad point to the short term memory which is that the information can be lost through interference, displacement and distraction. All this information is only forgotten in

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Describe the Processes Underlying the Human Memory

Describe the Processes Underlying the Human Memory The processes underlying the human memory are extremely complicated and to this day relatively little is known about it. The memory is in actual fact one of our most important functions, without our memory we would not be able to learn, associate or improve. There are two types of memory storage, the long-term memory (for anything more than a few seconds) and the short-term memory. Both these functions are accessed in different ways by our brain and interpreted into meaningful data. The short-term memory can hold a small amount of information, approximately 5-9 characters such as a telephone number (this is called "The Magic Number Seven plus or minus two), for a matter of seconds. A short-term memory model by Atkinson and Shiffrin in 1968 cited by Russell (1979) states that the short term memory functions by accepting information constantly into 7 slots, this information is then rehearsed until more information enters the slots and it is displaced. To use a telephone number as an example, we will most probably repeat a number to ourselves in order to remember it, the longer we repeat the number, the longer it will stay in our memory. If we repeat the number for more than 30 seconds it is likely that it will transfer into our long-term memory. When we introduce information into our short-term memory it is called encoding,

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Psychology OCR Coursework

Title: Concrete and abstract words, and their effect on memory. Candidate name: Candidate number: Thomas Rotherham College Centre Number: Word count: 1401(max 1400) Abstract I aimed to find out whether participants recall concrete or abstract words more easily. I used 20 participants in a lab experiment, giving each participant a word list with 10 concrete words and 10 abstract words. After recording which words the participant recalled correctly, I found that 4.65 participants remembered abstract words more effectively than the 4.15 who remembered concrete more effectively. The inferential analysis using Wilcoxon T established that my results were not significant. From this I can conclude that the use of abstract or concrete words has no real effect on the participants memory. Background Bower (1972) investigated using imagery to assist memorisation. Participants in the experiment were asked to memorise pairs of unrelated words. The experimental group was asked to visualise an image of the pair of words they were trying to memorise - whereas the control group was just asked to memorise the words. The results showed that the experimental group showed significantly better recall of the of words and that the more unusual the images were, the better the recall. The reason Bower's experiment was chosen as the background study is because it shows that words which

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What experimental evidence is there for the existence of multiple memory systems?

What experimental evidence is there for the existence of multiple memory systems? Memory forms an important part of cognitive psychology and has been of interest to numerous psychologists. This essay is going to refer specifically to the information-processing model of memory and will discuss the experimental evidence that exists for multiple memory systems. The multi-store model of memory was first developed by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) and Waugh and Norman (1965).1 It comprises sensory stores, short term-store and long-term store to form a model of memory and information processing. One component of the system is the sensory register, where our feature detection and pattern recognition processes produce a cognitive code that can be stored for a brief period. The sensory storage does not depend on resource allocation, so the person does not need to pay attention to the stimuli, and the coding happens automatically. The sensory register is thought to be modality specific, that is, part of the storage is auditory, part of the storage is devoted to visual stimuli, and other parts devoted to the other senses. Sperling (1960) conducted many studies in the area of memory, specifically sensory storage.2 Sperling's main contribution has been to find a technique which has been called the partial report procedure. In one experiment he presented a matrix of 3 lines of four

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Reflective Practice in a Teachign context

Reflective Practice in a Teaching Context The purpose of this essay is to look at reflective practice and what skills are needed for teaching. The essay will also outside my experience of working as a teacher at my placement. Reflective practice is a concept that is used in education studies; it involves the learner considering incidents from their life experiences and thinking about what they are learning. As defined by Schon (The Reflective Practitioner in 1983), reflective practice involves thoughtfully considering one's own experiences in applying knowledge to practice while being coached by professionals in the discipline. Schon (1983) suggested that the ability to reflect on action as a process of learning was one of the most important factors in a professional practice. Reflective practice is applied in a cyclical or spiraling process where teachers monitor their own teaching continuously which clearly requires a good attitude of open-mindedness and responsibility. It is also enhanced through communication and feedback from colleagues. Learning is all about change which we see through experience by reflecting on what we have learnt and how we have changed, as defined by Kolb (1984). The importance of reflecting on what you are doing, as part of the learning process, has been emphasised by many theorists. Reflective Observation is the second stage by Kolb (1984).

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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a therapy that is involved with the Cognitive approach to Psychology.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a therapy that is involved with the Cognitive approach to Psychology. It is a specific method that involves speaking about how a person is feeling about him or herself, the world around them and also other people. It also takes in to account how the person's actions can change their own thoughts and feelings. The use of this manner of therapy can also aid someone in changing the ways in which they think and what they actually do. The cause of abnormal behavior is caused by maladaptive thought processes that we may undergo. Maladaptive behavior is behavior that does not allow a person to lead a normal life. When speaking of it in a biological sense, it is animal behavior that prevents breeding. The use of CBT can alter the thinking patterns of a person which will ultimately let them behave more normally. The thinking part of this process is otherwise known as the 'Cognitive' part and what the person does is know as their 'Behavior'. By making these changes to a person's life, they are able to feel better about themselves. Although other therapies are known to look at the problems a person may have had in the past, CBT tends to look more at the present problems that the person has to face and ways of advancing their state of mind. There are a number of illnesses that CBT has been proven to work effectively

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