IB Revision Psych

3. Assumptions behind Traditional Behaviourism

5. About Human Nature

• Emphasis on the role of environmental factors in influences behaviour, to the near exclusion of innate or inherited factors.
• However complicated animal behaviours may seem (e.g. language) this is simply a matter of learning many simple associations.
• As a result, behaviourists have concentrated on the process of learning, meaning any lasting change in behaviour that occurs as a result of experience.
• Though heredity may place some limits on what environment can accomplish, behavioural psychologists assume that what people become is largely the result of nurture (experience), not our inherited nature. However, people and animals do have ‘an innate predisposition to learning’ (neo-b) e.g. imprinting, language.
• Behaviourism offers a view of human behaviour as being infinitely malleable, fashioned and crafted by the rewards offered by the environment around us.
• Skinner thought that our basic behaviours are formed in childhood but that there is the possibility of change into adulthood. Skinner was therefore optimistic about the possibility of change and claimed that unlearning is possible. Their behaviour can be changed by the proper arrangement of environmental conditions.
• People are neither good nor evil but simply reactive to their environment.
• People are all unique since they have all been exposed to different reinforcers. However, we are all the same regarding the conditioning mechanisms that are involved in learning.
• A person’s past reinforcement history determines behaviour.
• All behaviour is rational and people are therefore fundamentally alike.

1. Other assumptions

• The use of animals for research helps to understand all behaviours including human behaviour i.e. extrapolation to humans from animals is valid. The same general laws of learning can explain the behaviour of humans and other animal species.
• Only observable, objective behaviour should be studied (traditional view)
• Learning can take place in the absence of reinforcement (neo-b)
• Animals and humans have an innate predisposition to learning (neo-b) e.g. imprinting, language.

2. Evaluation of Assumptions

1. Treats people and animals the same

• Skinner’s work exclusively with animals e.g. rats and pigeons, in simple non-social situations. Many think that the gap between human social behaviour and solitary rats is too great.
• Skinner replied by saying you need to understand basic principle first before you can understand more complex behaviour.
• The approach is de-humanising

2. Questionable validity

• Some of the assumptions behind behaviourism had questionable validity
• Leaning consists ONLY of stimulus response associations
• Heredity is largely irrelevant
• Conditioning principle can account for all learning (ignores cognitive and biological factors)
• Some of the behaviourist methods may lack validity e.g. does the frequency that a rat presses a lever really reflect the amount of learning?
• Behaviourism doesn’t explain behaviour be forming testable theories and Skinner was against theories of behaviour.

3. Summary

• Heavy reliance on stimulus response theory
• Limited acknowledgement of cognitive factors
• Over reliance on observation
• The questionable application of lab findings to everyday life
• A questionable extrapolation of animals to humans
• Does not consider motivation theory
• Ignores cross-cultural factors
• Insufficient explanation of complex behaviours e.g. language and experiences such as grief and elation.

See also BA42 about Determinism and Behaviourism

4. Theoretical Explanations of Behavioural Change

• LP psychologists are very optimistic about the possibility if behavioural change and many of their principles have been applied to real life situations, e.g. education, therapy.

3 Areas of Theory Explaining Change:

1. Reinforcement

Example: “Conditioning rat to be sick by Garcia et al. 1966”

• Gave rats neutral tasting liquid (water with sweetener).
• Then later gave them apomorphine (UCS), which induces vomiting (UCR).
• 2 conditions – short and long delay (10 minutes – 1.5 hours)
• Neutral tasting liquid became CS, and induced vomiting CR.
• Short delay resulted in faster learning than long delay
• Temporal congruity – i.e. time is important
• This is known as taste aversion
• Has to work for species survival. Physical illness that has a psychological cause is said to be psychosomatic.
• Rats conditioning could be reversed through extinction

2. Modelling – (SLT) – see earlier notes

• Bandura used modelling to cure snake phobias. Much in the same way he induced aggression, he supplied the subjects with increasingly anxiety inducing models in situations involving snakes. For example starting with toy snakes, then videos of snakes, then someone handling a snake behind a screen, then in front of it, then without gloves, and finally encouraging the subject to handle the snake.
• The treatment was allowed to go at the pace the subject felt comfortable at.
• Process of de-sensitisation.

3. Therapy (uses reinforcement and modelling) – see CE7.

• Experiment done on boy called Little Albert, by J Watson 1920 and Rayner. Little Albert was 9-months old. Little Albert enjoyed playing with white rats. He was described as ‘stolid and unemotional’.
• Every time Albert played with a white rat, they would strike a metal bar above his head, which made a loud bang and scared him.
• Eventually, he became conditioned to fear the white rat, and would cry and crawl away at the sight of one.
• His phobia of white rats generalised to anything fluffy and white – caused a full scale phobia, ethically this study is highly questionable.
• Nevertheless, if a phobia can be induced by conditioning, it suggests it can be removed by conditioning, i.e. extinction. (Systematic desensitisation – see modelling).

4. The learning set

• Gagné (1970) believed that there are eight major varieties of learning each building on earlier, simpler abilities, which act as the basis for later, more complex abilities.

1. Signal Learning – The establishment of a simple connection in which a stimulus takes on the properties of a signal (classical conditioning)
2. Stimulus-response learning – The establishment of a connection between a stimulus and a response where the response in a voluntary movement and the connection is instrumental in satisfying a need or motive (operant conditioning).
3. 1 and 2 are prerequisites for: Chaining: - The connecting of a sequence of two or more previously leaned stimulus-response connections.
4. Verbal Association: - The learning of chains that are specifically verbal, important for the acquisition and use of language. Enables a number of learned connections involving words to be emitted in a single sequence.
5. 3 and 4 are prerequisites for: Discrimination Learning: - Making different responses to similar stimuli. Involves more than simply making isolated stimulus-response connections because it is necessary to deal with the problem of interference between similar items.
6. 5 is a prerequisite for: Concept Learning: - Learning to make a common response to stimuli that form a class or category but which differ in their physical characteristics. Requires representing information in memory, classifying events and discriminating between them on basis of abstracted properties.
7. 6 is a prerequisite for: Rule learning: - A rule is a chain of two or more concepts (e.g. if A then B).
8. 7 is a prerequisite for: Problem-solving: Involves recombining old rules into new ones, making it possible to answer questions and solve new problems, especially important for real-life human problem-solving situations.

• According to Harlow (1949), S-R learning and insight learning are related. They are two different phases of the same, continuous process, with S-R learning developing into insight from prior S-R connections. He introduces the idea of a learning set (or ‘learning to learn’) which is a process between S-R and insight learning that means that the greater the number of sets, the easier it is to adapt to a changing environment and very large number of different sets ‘may supply the raw material for human thinking’.
• To investigate the theory, Harlow gave monkeys a variety of discrimination tasks. In the simplest, the monkey had to choose between two objects, one of which was designated the ‘correct one’. In a more complex task, the monkey had to find the ‘odd one out’ of three objects. In both types of task, the pair of objects or set of three was changed each time a correct discrimination was made. So, for example, the monkey might be shown a small red square and a large blue circle and would be given six trials in which to choose the ‘correct’ one, for which a food reward was given. When this had been achieved, a different pair of objects, e.g. a green triangle and a black circle, was presented and once again the monkey had six trials in which to make the correct discrimination.
• In one study, involving 344 of these two-object tasks, the results were dramatic. Learning the first few discriminations was difficult, but it gradually became easier as the number of different tasks increased, until after 300 the solution was immediate (solved on the first trial). According to Harlow, a learning set is learning a skill that can be used to solve a variety of new problems or learning a simple rule or code, based on a conceptual (not a perceptual) relationship. To this extent, Harlow demonstrated that insightful behaviour is at least partially learned and grows out of more random, trial-and-error learning.
• Wolfgang Kohler worked with chimps in 1925, specifically with a chimp called Sultan
• Chimp put behind bars, with a banana out of reach. There are two sticks. One is inside and one outside the cage. Each is too short to reach the banana. One stick is hollow so that the other can be inserted into it. Chimp succeeded after trying various combinations to get a stick long enough to get the banana.
• Another example is with Sultan put in room with banana out of reach on a wall. There are three boxes – after attempts to reach it, sudden moment of insight. It seems chimps are capable of reorganising previous experiences in a phenomena, which Kohler called ‘insight’ – it is suggestive of a cognitive element to learning. The chimps did not succeed through trial and error learning, but understood how to solve the problems.

C. Methodologies

• Difference between method and methodology – methodology is broad approach taken to investigate behaviour
• BA43 Methodologies

1. Non-experimental methodologies

1. Observations (qualitative/quantitative)

• Naturalistic observation
• Controlled observation
• Participant observation

2. Survey (qualitative)
3. Questionnaire
4. Interviews (qualitative)
5. Case Study (qualitative)
6. Correlation Study (quantitative)

2. The Experimental Methodologies

1. The laboratory experiment (quantitative)
2. The field experiment (qualitative/quantitative)
3. The Natural experiment (quasi experiment) (qualitative/quantitative)

Experiments

Definition: Must have an IV and DV and free choice of which group subjects go into.

Examples:

1. Tolman and Honseik (BA46) – rats in mazes
2. Seligmans’s dogs (BA46) – learned helplessness
3. Skinner’s rats
4. Garcia’s sick rats (BE2)
5. Bandura’s bobo doll study (BF8)
6. Zimbardo’s prison study (BF10)

Advantages and Disadvantages of the Laboratory experiment

Advantages:

• Allows precise control of variables, and gives us confidence that IV is cause of the differences found.
• More carefully observed and measured precisely compared to outside experiment.
• Easier to replicate/repeat experiment.

Disadvantages:

• Low ecological validity
• Demand characteristics (BA54) – anything might suggest to the subject that they aught to behave in certain ways as children might have thought they had to hit bobo doll – to please the scientists.
• Treatment of subjects is dehumanising
• Artificial to only vary one thing when in real life there’s complex number of variables.

See also BA54 for the difference between experiments and observations.

See also CA44 for New Developments in Psychological Research Methods

See also BE4 for Ethics of animal experimentation (CA50)

See also BA52 for Ethics issues in human experimentation

4. Applications

3. Understanding and reducing aggression (see earlier notes)
4. Work and business
5. Therapy (see dysfunctional option)
6. Education

1. Limitations of Aversive Control in Education

• Skinner says aversive control (common method in education) is bad e.g. the cane, threats; control using punishments (negative reinforcement)
• But Skinner admits obvious physical punishments are used less often but other methods now used that are subtler. E.g. students have to work hard to avoid teacher’s displeasure or low marks in a test resulting in having to stay behind after school, being sent to the headmaster’s office, intense competition for marks when they are fixed in a bell shaped curve.
• These methods are very psychologically painful for students
• These methods result in unwanted by-products
• Pupils may escape punishment by leaving school
• High proportion of students committing suicide have problems at school
• Chronic daydreaming and restlessness
• Aggression with teachers e.g. rudeness and defiance, swearing.
• Vandalism of schools is another reflection of the students desire to weaken control that school has on them.

2. Alternatives to Aversive Control – Operant conditioning

• A) Classroom management: Study done by Wheldall and Merret (1983) attempted to use some of Skinner’s principles to control disruptive classroom.
• Any signs of attentiveness shown or good behaviour was rewarded
• Before study most of time spent out of seats, misbehaving.
• Previously told off for this, with the attention acting as a reward for the misbehaviour
• Bad behaviour was ignored as much as possible.
• Amount of disruptive behaviour significantly fell and spent more time doing quiet and productive class work.
• B) Programmed Learning: Teaching machines used that were computers/self teaching unit, pen and paper based.
• Material broken down into small chunks (frames) and had to be worked through in sequence.
• Allowed to work at own pace and have to make frequent responses.
• Immediate feedback and can’t move onto the next frame until the current one is complete and correct.
• Should result in behaviour shaping – making student more adept at certain tasks.
• Programs can be either Linear sequence program (a to b) OR Branching Program that can judge ability and move at a slower or faster pace.
• Skinner surprised that its not more widely used.
• Success depends on how well program is designed and whether pupil is suited to it.
• C) Token economies: for use with children with learning disabilities
• This is an example of behaviour modification.
• Any appropriate behaviour e.g. making bed rewarded with token.
• Can then be exchanged at a shop for various things, such as sweets etc.
• Over period of time tokens can be phased out and replaced with more naturally occurring rewards.
• This method has proved to be very effective with disruptive children, brain damaged patients and autistic children – can make them speak for the first time ever.

Gender development and the LP

1. The role of sex typing: do parents raise their sons and daughters differently?

• All behaviour is shaped by reinforcement (Skinner)
• If we find differences in behaviour it is due to different histories of reinforcement.
• Claims that from birth different sexes are treated differently.
• Claims that gender differences are learned, rather than innate.
• Sears et al. (1957) found most consistent difference between boys and girls was aggression.
• Boys allowed to be much more aggressive in their relationships but discouraged in girls.
• Sometimes mothers seen to encourage boys to fight back but girls weren’t.
• Study done in early 80’s, which confirmed strong gender stereotypes did exist.
• E.g. maleness associated with aggressive and ambitious behaviour etc. and females associated with needing approval, liking children etc.

Evaluation of Behaviourist View on Gender

• Their view is consistent with observation that gender roles differ across cultures
• Genetic differences are much less across cultures than environmental differences.
• Maccoby and Jacklin (1974) found 20 years after Sears work that there are no consistent difference in extent that boys and girls were reinforced for aggression – suggests environment is changing.
• Found uniformity of socialising in the two sexes.
• Also doesn’t attempt to explain origins of gender roles.

Effects of the Media on Gender Role Stereotypes

• Not just parents who reinforce gender stereotypes but also the media.
• Study by Weber et al. 1987 – British social learning theorist.
• Asked what gender they associated with certain occupations.
• 14 jobs and great deal of gender stereotyping based on media (jobs on TV).
• Looking after patients in hospital and typing in an office were almost entirely female
• Piloting an aeroplane and being a fireman were entirely male.
• Looking after sick animals were both male and female.

Conclusion

• There is gender stereotyping in media and is perceived by children
• Highly likely to influence general role development
• Williams (1986) found that in three communities, as the amount of television exposure increased the amount of gender stereotyping increased.
• T.V. has the ability to shape children’s sex role attitude and sex role attitudes absorbed particularly by boys (SLT).

Role of Imitation

• Social Learning Theory emphasises the crucial role played by observational learning (learning from models) and reinforcement.
• Stresses environmental not biological factors.
• Bandura et al. found that boys more likely to imitate aggressive male models than girls were.

Cognitive Perspective

1. Development and Cultural Contexts

1. Historical and Cultural Conditions that gave rise to the cognitive perspective

1. Early History

• Plato and Aristotle

• The study of mental processes began with Plato and Aristotle and this was the dominant approach for around 200 years.
• This was not a scientific approach however, but a philosophical one.

• Descartes, in the 17th Century, believed that the human body was essentially and complicated machine – put things in – processed – output/response.
• John Locke, also in the 17th Century, agreed all knowledge is obtained through the sense (empiricism) i.e. the taking in and processing of information was implied.
• Wundt in 1879 set up the first ever psychology lab in Leipzig, Germany, where he studied psychology using the method of introspection.
• The early definition of psychology was: “The study of how the mind works”.

2. Introspection

• Method of studying the mind was called ‘introspection’: provide a subject with stimuli and ask him to analyse and report his own experiences.
• They studied such things as vision, hearing, perceptions of lengths of time, reaction time, and attention.
• Subjects had to do 10,000 introspections before they were used in psychological studies.
• Introspectionists said we deal with information in 3 stages:

1. Perception
2. Apperception (processing)
3. Will (response)

• In this model we see a strong suggestion of the information processing approach.
• William James published the first psychology textbook (USA) - Principles of Psychology in 1890, covering a wide range of cognitive topics e.g. memory and emotion.
• Some of his ideas still around today.

• Ebbinghaus published a paper in 1885 on human memory, and the curve of forgetting, a cognitive process:

 

3. Reaction to Behaviourism

• Behaviourism had many strong personalities and strong foundation principles, and it was adamant that psychologists should ignore the mind.
• Followed by most psychologists for 80 years.
• Memories, thoughts and feelings seen as irrelevant to science and therefore meaningless.
• However, behaviourist principles could not explain problem solving, which is a cognitive process.
• Work by Tolman allowed psychology to “regain consciousness”.
• “American Psychologist” magazine 1979 published articles called “A Call for a Return to Introspection” and “Consciousness”.
• 1976 APA President admitted psychology was changing direction and refocusing on consciousness.
• Psychology redefined to “The Science of Behaviour and Mental Processes”

4. Zeitgeist in Physics

• Physicists in the 20th century realised that physics was not always objective, since Cognitive processes were involved, through perception. Because of this change in zeitgeist, Cognitive psychologist realised that Skinner must be wrong about studying behaviour in a purely objective way. It is impossible. This opened the door to introspection and the study of the mind.

5. WWII

• WWII encouraged the development of psychometric testing (a way of quantifying mental processes)
• Army recruits were psychometrically tested to determine the best place for them in the army, e.g. measuring intelligence and attention
• Rapid growth of defence technology during the War gave the incentive for people to research cognitive processes e.g. researching vigilance (sustained attention) – testing the length of people’s attention span.
• Military personnel often turned to psychologists for help with training recruits, and teaching them how to perform well under stress.
• Also consulted for propaganda purposes.
• Gibson was asked to work on training films to describe the problems pilots experience during take off and landing.
• The film described “Optic Flow Patterns”, which is the visionary effect where the target being aimed for appears to stay stationary while everything else appears to move towards the pilot.
• This is an example of research into visual perception.

6. Recent History

• The cognitive perspective did not appear overnight to the point where no-one noticed it happening
• The cognitive perspective was encouraged by the development of psycholinguistics, artificial intelligence and mathematical models of the mind.

1. 1956 was a big date in the Cognitive Perspective – Miller’s Magic 7 was published in a paper
2. Chomsky – 1956 published theory of language
3. Newell and Simon invented “the general problem solver” – official birth of artificial intelligence (AI).

• The computer has become very important metaphor for the way the mind works

4. Bruner published a book on concept formation

• The information processing metaphor/approach offered an appealing alternative to behaviourism, and became very popular.
• In 1967 Neisser published a book “Cognitive Psychology”, which gave the cognitive perspective new legitimacy.
• In 1970, the Journal of Cognitive Psychology was started.

2. Contributions of the Cognitive Perspective 

1. Experimental Testing of Hypotheses

• The cognitive perspective adopted a much more scientific approach to research – Behaviourists didn’t do proper experiments – didn’t have IV and DV.
• Used experimental methods i.e. using IV’s and DV’s, control conditions, controlling variables.
• Forming and testing hypotheses
• Cognitive perspective used 3 different approaches:
  

1. Experimental research
2. Computer Simulations
3. Brain Damaged Patients

• Some patients have no recollection of events before the damage but can remember recent events. Some patients can remember everything from their past, but fail to remember recent events.

2. Use of both Quantitative and Qualitative Research

• Cognitive perspective introduced some qualitative methodologies that can be very helpful e.g. Case studies of brain damaged patients
• Also used quantitative results e.g. experiments
• Refer back to CA44 in LP
• See future methodology for more detail

3. Use of the Information Processing Approach and Use of Models

• Use of the information processing approach and use of the computer metaphor had greatly increased our understanding about how the mind works e.g. in areas such as attention, working memory and emotional intelligence.
• The cognitive approach emphasises the importance of “mediational processes”:

• Another major contribution is the use of models e.g. language and perception

Selective Attention (An example of the Information Processing Approach)

• We’re all continually bombarded with sensory information from our environments but we’re only capable of processing a very small amount of it at one time, so we have mechanisms that allow us to select and process information, usually based on how valuable or relevant the information is.
• Advertising and Attention
• Some things are more likely to catch our attention than others, and this principle is used by advertisers:

1. Colour
2. Intensity e.g. bright colour more than dull colour
3. Movement
4. Novelty – sudden/unexpected stimuli
5. Duration/Repetition
6. Size
7. Emotional Content
8. Contrasting Stimuli
9. Loud Noises

• Cherry’s (1953) Cocktail Party Effect
• Found in situation such as a busy room where large amounts of information is received, nearly all this information must be filtered out, but if you hear your own name from across the room, you are very likely to notice it.
• To explain the Cocktail Party Effect, a number of models have been proposed.

Principles of Auditory Attention

• Auditory attention is very difference to visual attention as it has multiple channels as opposed to one, because the ears are stationary and can’t be directed.
• Most psychologists agree that there must be the same filter function in attention.

Broadbent’s Filter Theory

• Notice the use of an “information processing” approach and the use of a model.

Evidence

• Cherry’s Binaural Tests 
• Physical stimuli of 2 voices so similar they can’t be differentiated.
• The more different physical properties, the easier it is to differentiate.
• Cherry’s dichotic (stereo) tests show it is impossible for someone to listen to two people simultaneously.
• Subjects were played two messages, one in each ear, and were asked to repeat aloud one of the messages.
• When asked questions about the shadowed story, they could answer them, but when asked about the story that was playing in their other ear, they had very little idea about its content; they could only identify some basic physical properties of the speaker e.g. male, speaking quickly.

4. Emotional Intelligence

See CA52 on Emotional Intelligence

• The know-how involved in comprehending social situations, first called social intelligence and managing oneself successful.
• A critical part of social intelligence and emotional intelligence – ability to perceive, express, understand and regulate emotions also and self-aware.
• Manage their emotions well and not overwhelmed by/with depressions, anxiety or anger.
• Can delay gratification in favour of long-term rewards rather then being overtaken by immediate impulses.
• Can read other’s emotions and know what to say to a grieving friend, how to encourage colleagues, and how to manage conflicts well.
• Therefore they are often successful in careers, marriages and parenting.

Evaluation of Cognitive Perspective → See CA11

2. Framework

See CA35 on Cognitive Perspective – Key Concepts and Linkages

Key general concepts (see earlier notes)

• No single theory because deals with so many different and independent themes.
• Have approach only in common.
• Processes not directly observable – concepts and not physical entities.
• Information is taken in through the form of symbols → then the symbols processed into a more useful form.
• Main analogy is information-processing system.
• Brain has limited capacity.
• Humans have been genetically prepared to process and organise information.

Specific Concepts:

1. Selective Attention (see earlier notes, CF1, and CF2)
2. Stages of Memory

Models of Memory

1968 – Atkinson and Shiffrin’s multistore model of memory

Sensory memory – anything that is received by the senses, goes into this store. Its encoded depending on the sense organ used (acoustically, visually etc.). Capacity is large. Duration is less than 1 second.  

Short-term memory – duration: between 18-30 seconds. Method of encoding is mainly acoustic. Capacity, discovered by Miller in 1956 is 7±2 (Miller’s Magic 7)

Long-term memory – Potential duration of long-term memory is an entire lifetime. Capacity has never been found. There is presumably a biological limit, but it is too large to test. Semantic is the main form of encoding in long-term memory, which means we are processing the meaning of things.

For example, if a person is given the following sentence: “The angry farmer threw a rock at the window”, and then asked to recall it after a long period of time, they all recall the meaning exactly, but not the exact words. This thus implies it is stored semantically and not acoustically.

Evidence for Multistore Model

• Idea of separate stores first proposed in 1890
• Amnesia.
• For example, in accidents, some patients have been known to have fine long-term memory for events that occurred before the accident, but they can no longer encode anything from short-term memory to long-term memory due to the brain damage.
• This suggests a multi-store model.
• The Serial Position Curve
• Experiment done in 1966 by Glaner and Cullits
• Subjects given a sequence of words to remember in no particular order (free recall) without delay between words and recall.
• Results:

• Primary Effect – The first words can be processed from ST to LT memory without interference
• Middle words can’t be processed into LT memory due to interference from the first words, nor can they be retained in ST memory due to the space being needed for the last words.
• Recency Effect – the last words can’t be processed into LT memory due to the first words however, when recall occurs they are still stored in ST memory. If a 50 second delay is introduced between learning and recall, the recency effect is lost.

Evidence Against Multistore

• Details of different stores vary
• Baddeley 1970 found that short-term memory capacity was 2-4 items, whereas Miller said it was 7±2. Craik claimed it was up to 20 items using sentences.
• Procedure seems to influence results
• Makes no functional sense to have two memory stores.
• Some brain-damaged patients have very poor ST memories but good LT memories. Contradicts the ‘storage and retrieval’ link between ST and LT memory.

Model 2 – Levels of Processing

• The ‘levels of processing’ model for memory was put forward by Craig and Lockhart in 1972.
• They rejected the idea of separate memory stores in exchange for different levels of processing as a result of different types of encoding.
• Most shallow level they said was physical e.g. colour, style, place of a thing
• Next level is acoustic, the sound of a word or event.
• The highest level is semantic, that is, processing the meaning of something.
• The deeper the processing of a memory, the more permanent the memory trace, and thus the longer and easier it is for the memory to be recalled.

Trusselt and Maurier 1960

• Used an independent design (different people in each group) so as to prevent interference.
• There were three groups, each given a list of words.
• Each group asked to process words at different and deeper levels.
• Tests were done individually, and the subject was told it was a performance test, not a memory test.
• Group 1 had visual processing, group 2 acoustic, and group 3 semantic.
• Results:

• Group 3 did four times better than group 1.
• Think of learning as the by-product of learning and processing
• Intentional Learning tasks (opposite of incidental) the % recall is the same – confirms that memory is the by-product of learning.

Serial Positioning

• When learning a list of words, the first few are processed semantically and the rest acoustically, which is at a shallower level. When a gap is left before the last few words are read, the curve levels out. Serial positioning can be explained by LOP as well as multistore.

Evaluation of “Levels of Processing”

• Does a good job of explaining the idea that some long-term memories are easier to recall than others.
• They distinguish between different levels of memory
• Criticism – rather oversimplified – doesn’t explain individual differences, ability to learn faces, and words to music.
• Some people say its rather descriptive than explanatory.
• It is also a circular argument:

3. Perception

Gregory’s Perceptual Inference Theory

• There is a distinction between seeing and perceiving.
• Perceiving is interpreting what you receive through your senses.
• Gregory’s theory is described as a top down theory of perception (constructivist) i.e. the theory stresses the factors in the construction of reality that go beyond information received from the senses.
• Top down means starting with past experiences and works on top of it, building up a picture.
• He uses illusions and Perceptual Constancy to help him support his theory.

1. Illusions (due to insufficient information we often infer things based on the information we do have)

1. Distortions e.g. Ponzo illusion – two lines which are the same length but top one appears longer, due to parallel lines next to them:

• Explanation: diagonal lines imply depth therefore the upper bar is perceived as further away and therefore our brain enlarges it.

2. Ambiguous Figures – if brain is given insufficient information, it will attempt to form a hypothesis to try and find the best interpretation of what is there:

• Explanation: There are two equally plausible interpretations so our brain hunts can switch easily between the two.

1. Fictions

• Sometimes information can be imaged when its not actually present e.g. the Kanizsa triangle:

2. Perceptual Constancy

• Our brain actively interprets visual information so that things which are in reality the same size, yet appear different, are perceived by our brain to be the same.

2. Size Constancy – the same sized objects seen from different distances will cast different sized images on the retina, but will be perceived to be similar sized due to the brain scaling the image. E.g. faces in the audience of a theatre.
3. Shape Constancy – an object seen from different angles will cast a different shaped image on the retina but will still be perceived to be the same e.g. window frames from different angles.
4. Location Constancy – despite head movements cause an image to pass across the retina, the image is still interpreted as being stationary.

Conclusions

• Illusions and Perceptual constancy show how the brain actively uses memory, expectation and unconscious processing to interpret environmental stimuli. Some critics say that illusions are very artificial and don’t contain the same information found in normal environments and therefore not a valid way of understanding perception.

3. Perceptual Set Theory (an extension of Gregory’s theory)

• Set theory also stresses the idea that perception is an active process involving selection, inference and interpretation.
• Perceptual Set is a bias or readiness to perceive certain aspects of available sensory data and to ignore others.
• Influenced by four main things:

1. Expectation and Context

Experiment by Minturn and Bruner 1951

A 13 C D E   

1112131415

• Two different groups are shown the two different sets. The group shown the letters said the ’13’ was a B, and the group shown the numbers said their ‘13’ was ‘13’. A tachistoscope was used to flash up the letters and numbers quickly.

2. Expectation and Past Experience

• Bruner and Postman 1949 flashed picture of playing cards tachistoscopically. The suit and colour were reversed. When they were given longer to see the cards they saw brown and purple colours – between red and brown.

3. Motivation

• 2 Groups of subjects, one deprived of food and drink, the other well fed, were shown pictures of food and asked to describe what they saw. Hungry people saw food more clearly – brighter than subjects in the non-hungry group.
• Also, pictures of money flashed up on the screen and subjects had to guess the size of the coin. The poor children described the coins as bigger than the rich children. This was because the poor people valued the coins more.

4. Emotion

• McGinnies 1949 flashed up ‘taboo’ words on a tachistoscope. Taboo words were much less frequently recognised. Thus was because their mind blocked out the taboo words for emotional reasons.

4. Theoretical Explanations of Behavioural Change

1. Perceptual Set (see earlier notes)
2. Conformity – yielding to group pressure

• Aspect of Social Cognition i.e. how we think about things socially or evaluate our social situation and how it influences our perceptions and behaviour

Experiment by Ash 1951

• He wanted to try to measure conformity under experimental conditions.
• Had a group of 6 confederates and 1 naïve subject.
• Compared the behaviour of the naïve subject with when it was alone.
• Group compared with individual – sufficiently easy that controlled subject got it right all the time.
• Confederates and subject sat in a horseshoe and were shown cards with lines.
• Naïve subject sat at the end of the horseshoe, so that it would hear the others responses.
• There were 18 trials, and the subjects involved were told it was a study investigating perception.
• Confederates consistently got 12 out of 18 wrong.
• 123 Subjects used, 32% got questions wrong, compared to only 2% when subjects were alone.
• 75% conformed at least once, 25% never did.
• 5% conformed every time.

Factors Affecting Conformity

1. No. of people in the group
2. If the person admires the group status
3. Increasing the difficulty of the task
4. How public the responses are – if answers are private, conformity drops from 32% to 5%.
5. If the person is made to feel insecure or incompetent
6. If the person has at least one ally.

Theories of Conformity

1. Informational Social Influence

• A willingness to accept other people’s opinions about reality
• Deutch and Gerrard 1955 – one motive for conformity based on everyone’s need for certainty → the need to be right.
• People look to other people’s information in an uncertain situation, thus reducing their sense of uncertainty.
• Both people’s opinions and behaviours will change during conformity.
• This explains why when the tasks get harder, people are more likely to conform.

2. Normative Social Influence

• Proposed in 1955 by Deutch and Gerrard – as ‘a desire to fit in with the group’.
• People have a need for social acceptance and approval.
• If people are placed in a potentially embarrassing situation because they disagree with a majority, there is a tendency to conform to the majority opinion.
• Change in behaviour, but not opinion.
• Backed up in Ash experiment since conformity dropped when answers were private.

Cognitive Consequences of Forced Compliance

• Festinger and Carlsmith 1959 – Cognitive Dissonance

Background

• It is part of social cognition.
• Definition of Cognitive Dissonance: “A state of psychological discomfort or tension”.
• We’re motivated to try to reduce this tension because it is unpleasant e.g. a smoker wants a cigarette but knows it is bad for him.
• We are therefore not rational be rationalising beings.

Types of Cognitive Dissonance

1. Dissonance after a difficult decision has been made e.g. choosing a car, having chosen, one will downplay the advantages of the other to reduce cognitive dissonance.
2. Dissonance after something stressful/embarrassing e.g. crying wolf when there isn’t one, one would say “better safe than sorry”.
3. Doing or saying something that contradicts with your attitudes – predicts that attitudes will change to be consistent with what you have done.

Introduction to Study

• Festinger 1957 “The greater the dissonance (disagreement) between two opinions held by the same person, the greater the pressure to reduce it by changing one of the opinions”. Two things follow from this:

1. If a person is induced to do/say something contrary to his private opinion there will be a tendency to change his opinion to bring it in line with what was said or done.
2. The larger the external reason (e.g. a big reward) to behave in a contradictory way the weaker will be the above mentioned tendency e.g. in case of bribery money provides reward for lying therefore less dissonance, less change in attitude.

Method

• 71 male American students used, young and studying psychology (i.e. very limited sample)
• 3 Conditions: Control (subjects perform task but do not have to make positive statements about task to someone else, but were interviewed)
• Low reward – ($1 to tell someone the task was enjoyable after having performed it)
• High reward – ($20 to tell someone the task was enjoyable after having performed it)
• Independent design (different subjects in each group)
• DV – how enjoyable they rated the task in the interview
• IV – size of the reward

Procedure

• All subjects had to perform 2 hours of boring tasks involving putting spuds into a tray and then emptying them out
• Turning 48 square pegs on a board 90° repeatedly for 1 hour.
• Subjects asked to tell confederates afterwards that task was fun using certain fixed statements such as “it was intriguing” and “I had a lot of fun” – and then they had to rate how much they enjoyed the task on a scale.
• 20 subjects in each condition so only 60 subjects used in total.
• Confederates were all female.

Results

• There were four questions e.g. “How enjoyable was the task?” on a scale of –5 to +5.
• $1 condition had higher mean enjoyment levels than other two conditions → due to insufficient justification, thus dissonance between what they think and what they said, so their attitude changes to state they enjoyed the task.
• $20 condition had sufficient justification, thus no dissonance, so no change in attitude, finding the task very boring.
• $1 condition actually had a positive mean enjoyment, whereas the $20 had a negative mean enjoyment.
• Other question: “How likely would you be to take part in another similar experiment”
• Same pattern of results of previous question.
• Cognitive dissonance took place in $1 group and reward was insufficient justification so to reduced dissonance they changed their opinion and believed the task was enjoyable.

Evaluation

• Positive point – well-standardised laboratory experiment e.g. time, confederates etc. discarded suspicious subjects.
• Negative point – sample was very narrow, all male psychology students
• There is also the ethical problem of deception and inducing discomfort through cognitive dissonance.

Relevance of non-human explanations of behaviour

• Largely irrelevant because it is not valid to extrapolate from animal to human cognition.
• Animals can’t speak so hard to know what they are thinking.
• Work by Tolman (latent learning), Kohler (insight) is relevant because if basic brains show this then surely humans have the same features

Freewill and Determinism

• Free/determinism is useful for understanding how we behave
• Cognitive psychologists sit on the fence, saying its not important to them
• See CA37

C. Methodologies

1. Experimental

• Favoured methodology in this perspective
• See LP for details
• E.g. Hockey 1981 – problem solving, to put letters on cards and asked subjects to transform letter by moving a certain number of letters through the alphabet

J + 4 = N

JULI + 4 = NYPM

• Predicted as number of letters increased, amount of time increased. Double the number of letters, double the time taken.
• More letters required, means much more of an increase in time taken, due to problems of short-term memory
• IV = number of letters
• DV = time taken
• Good example of a true experiment

Other examples:

2. The Serial Position Curve

• Glanzer and Cunitz 1966 (see earlier notes)

3. Trusselt and Mayzner 1960  (see earlier notes)
4. Festinger 1959 (see earlier notes)
5. Ash 1951 (see earlier notes) - conformity
6. Minturn and Bruner 1951 (see earlier notes) – perceptual set
7. Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction Loftus and Palmer 1974

Reasons for poor eye-witness memory

1. There is a tendency to fill in gaps in our memory
2. Leading questions
3. Trying to please the questioner
4. Expectations, values and cultural norms of the witness
5. More serious crimes direct attention away from scene and more on danger and escape.

Aims

• To try to find influence of leading questions on people’s ability to estimate the speed of cars involved in car crashes.

Method

• 45 subjects used
• Independent design (true lab experiment)
• IV: type of verb used in question
• DV: estimated speed of the cars
• Showed subjects seven traffic accidents, each about 30 seconds long.
• After each film, subjects had to describe what they saw and answer same questions about the crashes
• There was one key question, the others were used to hide it: “About how fast were the cars going when the ______ each other”
• 5 conditions, 9 subjects in each
• Each group was give a different word in the gap to see if it made a difference to their estimate
• Verb suggesting most serious accident should give highest speed estimate
• Used words from mild to worst: 1) Contacted 2) Hit 3) Bumped 4) Collided 5) Smashed.

Results

• 25% difference between highest and lowest verb rating.

VERB                           MEAN ESTIMATE OF SPEED (MPH)

Smashed                                      40.8

Collided                                       39.3

Bumped                                       38.1

Hit                                               34.0

Contacted                                    31.8

Theories of Explanation: - Loftus

1. People feel pressured to give an estimate that appears consistent with the verb

2. People’s memories of the crashes are genuinely changed due to verb

Part two of the experiment was designed to determine which of the two is the case:

Method

• 150 subjects, in two conditions
• 1 traffic accident with dummy questions etc.
• Critical question “About how fast were the cars going when they hit/smashed each other”. Different word used for each group, either hit, or smashed.
• Subjects were recalled after 1 week – 10 questions were asked, including a critical question (allowing time for memory to be distorted). “Did you see any broken glass?” If theory 2 is true than smashed audition should be more likely to say they saw glass, when in fact there was no smashed glass.
• In terms of theory 1, they are not going to feel pressure.

Results

Response         Smashed           Hit         Control

Yes                        16                  7                6

No                          34                 43              44

• Confirms theory 2 that leading questions can change memories.

8. Baron and Cohen 1985 “Does the autistic child have a theory of mind?” i.e. an awareness that other people might have the same thoughts and emotions as yourself – the key thing that autistics seem to lack.

• Good example of a natural experiment (not true)
• Compared down syndrome and autistic children, so you can’t choose which group the children go into.
• Aim: To find a diagnostic test for autism
• Down syndrome children have a lower IQ than autistic children.
• 3rd group a control, normal children but with low mental ages.

Method

• Two dolls with different names, on a table in front of them was a basket and a box with a hole.

Stage 1 – Sally places her marble in the basket

Stage 2 – Sally leaves the room

Stage 3 – Naughty Ann moves marble to box

Key question is “Where will Sally look for the marble?”

To be able to answer the question, the subject has to be about to understand the social situation and see it from someone else’s perspective.

Results

Failure rate in autistic group was 80%

Failure rate in Downs Syndrome group was 14%

Failure rate in young children group was 15%

Autistic children clearly have a poor theory of the mind, and this is a fairly accurate way of testing for autism.

See CA48 for evaluation of the Experimental Method. See also CA44 and CA11

2) Interviews and Questionnaires

• Refer to LP notes as well as CA44 and BA54
• Clinical interviews are often used during Cognitive Therapy
• Questionnaires are used in studies such as Baron-Cohen, Loftus and Palmer, and Festinger
• Problem: main methodologies were experimental but used questionnaires within the experimental context.

3. Observations

• The term observation can refer to a complete methodology when the will be no IV or DV or can be used within the context of an experiment e.g. Bandura and Bobo doll. Observations can be disclosed or undisclosed. I.e. subjects are aware or unaware (undisclosed experiments can have ethical problems).
• Participant observation – when the observer us participating in the activities
• Non-Participant observation – when the observer just watches and does not take part.

Examples

1. Undisclosed Participant – Festinger et al. 1956

• Scientifically interested in Mrs. Keach
• She was convinced there was going to be a flood in Salt Lake City, and she had disciples.
• She claimed she got the message from the planet Clarion.
• Festinger predicted according to dissonance theory that when the flood didn’t hit she would become more fervent in her beliefs.
• Festinger arranged for some colleagues to infiltrate the group and make observations about what she said.
• When the flood didn’t happen, her response was, “The reason that the city wasn’t destroyed was because our prayers for it to be saved were answered”.

2. Disclosed Participant – Gardner and Gardner 1969

• Teaching sign language to a chimpanzee called Wachoe (female captured from rainforests of Africa less than 1 year old).
• Taught her USA sign language using operant conditioning (rewarding her with tickling)
• Results: by the 22nd month of study she had acquired 30 different signs e.g. listen dog! And gimme tickle!

Evaluating Observational Methodologies

Pros:

• Allows an in depth understanding of the situation (more qualitative)
• High ecological validity

Cons:

• Tendency to lack objectivity e.g. observer bias
• Typically time consuming
• Sometimes ethically questionable (especially undisclosed involving deception of subjects)
• If observer becomes too involved then observations become more subjective e.g. Wachoe study, Gardner’s criticised for wanting Wachoe to perform therefore being more subjective.
• See CA44 and BA54

4. Case Studies

i.e. detailed investigation of a person may include information from records, interviews and psychometric tests

Uses and Advantages

• Useful to study individuals with rare conditions or unusual experiences
• Allows them to find the root cause of the behaviour
• Provides in depth information which could not be provided using other methods

Problems and Disadvantages

• Generalisations are difficult to make
• Many case studies are retrospective, i.e. records are incomplete and memories distorted
• Very time consuming

Examples

Thigpen and Cleckley 1953 – A Case Study of Multiple Personality Disorder

• Studied over 100 hours
• Treatment began when claimed she was having bad headaches and memory lapses.
• During an early letter received by Thigpen and Cleckley, they noticed a sudden change in handwriting and out of control mid-sentence.
• During therapy Eve White turned into Eve Black – this was the first time this had been observed by a psychologist, and it involved a trance like state for a few seconds, before resulting in a strikingly different personality.
• Eve Black was more extroverted, egocentric party girl, whereas Eve White was shy and had low self-esteem.
• Happened between the ages of 6-8 to cope with a trauma, she created a new personality (she had been forced to kiss her dead granny).
• Jane, a third personality, appeared when Eve Black was confronted with the trauma.

5. Psychometric Testing

Aim: To quantify the mind

Definition: Any test that quantifies an aspect of someone’s psychological functioning.

• Allows comparisons to be made between people
• Some are standardised with population average
• Allows predictions to be made about future behaviour and performance
• Often used in selection procedures e.g. jobs, schools, and army

5 Categories of Test

1. Ability tests e.g. intelligence, reasoning, memory, verbal, and spatial.
2. Aptitude tests – specialised skills e.g. hand to eye co-ordination
3. Personality tests – measure particular aspects of personality e.g. introversion/extroversion.
4. Motivational tests – drive and interest
5. Other tests e.g. mental disorders/learning defects.

Examples

A) Thigpen and Cleckley – multiple personality disorder

• They did two psychometric tests on Eve as part of the case study.
• 1) Wechsler – Bellerne Intelligence test
• Eve White had an IQ of 110 and Eve Black 104
• 2) Memory test by Wechsler
• Eve White’s memory ability was far above her IQ whereas Eve Black’s was the same level as her IQ.

B) Eysenck’s EPI  (personality inventory)

• This looks at different aspects of personality and rates them on a scale
• It measures a person’s level of introversion and extroversion
• E.g. do you prefer reading books or meeting people?

C) Bern’s Sex Role Inventory (BSRI)

• Founds out how masculine/feminine a person is
• Got 100 people to write down adjectives for masculinity/femininity and wrote down most commonly used adjectives.
• 20 masculine, 20 feminine 20 neutral – 60 questions.
• Made sure adjectives weren’t overly positive/negative so people were less likely to lie.
• Scored on Likert Scale of 1-7
• Independent masculine and feminine scales so person can have masculine and feminine traits at the same time.
• Adjectives were phrases such as: Aggressive, Competitive, Strong personality, (male) gullible, gentle and tender (feminine) theatrical, happy and unpredictable (neutral).

D) EQ – very hard to quantify but easily defined – hard to construct in a valid way

Evaluation

1. Advantages of psychometric testing:

• Proved to be very useful for employers, employees, education, people suffering from problems.
• If well constructed, they are more objective than interviews
• Quick, easy and cheap

2. Controversial Aspects

• Is the test fairly conducted?
• Conditions of testing – should be free from distractions and the same for everyone
• Experience of testing – does practice improve performance?
• Motivation – motivated people are more likely to perform well than unmotivated.

• Is the test fairly constructed?
• Tests must not favour one group of people over another (Gould – poor IQ tests)

• Is the test technically sound?
• Are they valid – do they measure the right things? E.g. IQ tests
• Reliability – do they measure consistently over a period of time?
• Can they discriminate between people?

• Are the test results properly used and applied?
• Shouldn’t assume the results will never change over time
• Shouldn’t assume the tests are accurately predictive of the future
• Results shouldn’t be used to label people
• Results mustn’t be used to compare people if they’re not designed to do it.
• Tests shouldn’t be used as only information about a person.

For Applications, see work on Aggression, Education and Business.

Biological Perspective

1. Development and Cultural Contexts

1. Historical and Cultural Conditions that gave rise to the Biological perspective

History of the mind-body problem

• Descartes lived in the 17th Century and believed that the body was controlled by an intangible soul – a religious idea.
• He felt the body was constructed like that of an animal → like machines, but unlike animals, we also had a soul differentiating us from animals.
• He thought the soul was connected to the body through the pineal gland in the brain.
• The French word for soul and mind is still the same: “L’ậme”
• Descartes believed in “Dualism” – meaning mind and body were separate.
• Eventually, people began to reject this idea – especially biological psychologists.
• They thought that every aspect of psychology has a physical aspect, called materialism – a philosophy, which lies right at the heart of the biological perspective.
• La Mettrie 1745 was a priest who became a doctor. He development a fever and noticed it affected both the physical and mental state.
• He write “The Natural History of the Soul” and said that the body was simply a complex machine; that the soul was not different to the mind and was part of the body.
• Paul Brocca 1861 noticed that patients lost the ability to speak clearly but otherwise normal – he waited for him to die and then dissected his brain.
• First time an aspect of mind had clear physical basis.

History of Heredity as an influence on the Biological Perspective

• Up to the 18th Century people thought all species were made separately by God → but at this time, people began to challenge this.
• Linnaeus started the debate in 1735 when he worked out a system for naming organisms and officially named 4000 of them.
• His classification suggested connections between species and implied a biological connection.
• In 1809, Lemarck was the first person to come up with the their of evolution. He believed characteristics were passed on (after being acquired during lifetime – not quite right).
• In 1859 Charles Darwin wrote the “Origin of Species”, claiming an evolutionary link between species, including humans.
• He also wrote “The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals”.
• He encouraged psychologists to look at the mind from the Biological perspective → Sigmund Freud believed we were driven by a sex instinct/drive.
• He thought behaviour could be inherited as well.
• Suggested study of animals could be useful in studying behaviour – related to animals in evolutionary sense (comparative psychology).
• Due to the emphasis placed on variation in populations, it opened the door to studying human variation, such as personality and intelligence

Conclusions

• Two foundations of the Biological Perspective are materialism and heredity.
• New approach suggested some of the new methods now used in psychology e.g. brain scanning.
• However, the biological perspective was severely undermined by experimentation done by the Nazi’s, who used it to weed out “inferior races”, called social Darwinism. This is eugenics, and it caused a massive reaction against biological psychology lasting several years.
• Eugenics – led to large number of horrific experiments for example; identical twins used to test how long each took to die in freezing water, or with an organ removed.

2. Contributions of the Biological Perspective 

Introduction

• There has been an explosion in biological understanding and technology over the last few decades.
• We have learnt more about the brain in the last 25 years than in the previous 250.
• Revealed that people with disorders had been misdiagnosed, as have a psychological problem rather than a biological one.
• Behavioural genetics is still in its infancy.
• Human genome project considered science fiction – 3 billion bases mapped out a year ago.
• Now much better appreciation of importance of biology on temperament, emotions, mental disorders, body weight, autism and anorexia.
• Psychology is moving slowly closer towards biology and neuroscience.

Rejection of Extreme Environmentalism

• In the first 50 years of the 20th century, behaviourism was very dominant, advocating the influence of culture and the environment
• The biological perspective rejected this very strongly
• It has shown that many aspects of our behaviour are genetically and not environmentally determined e.g. much easier to acquire fear of spiders than fear of butterflies.
• Spiders do this to us because we have genes, which make it easier to acquire a fear for something that can pose a threat in our evolutionary past.

An Appreciating of the role of physical health in psychological functioning

• To be psychologically healthy we need to look after our body and brain.
• Finely calibrated bodies that can easily be put into a state of disorder.

Avoid: Lack of exercise, poor diet, and irregular sleep

e.g. aerobic exercise reduces a person’s arousal to stress, anxiety, depression and irritability

• Study of nursery school children – group 1 did aerobic exercise every day for 8 weeks and group 2 did none.
• At the end, the group 1 children were fitter and had higher self-esteem.

e.g.2 ordinary food acts as a precursor to neurotransmitters (building blocks), thus a bad diet results in bad psychology

• Mental functioning and mood involves a range of neurotransmitters.
• Diets restricting certain foods are likely to restrict psychological development.
• Environmental toxins can affect mental abilities e.g. high levels of lead in early childhood can lead to poor vocabulary, slow reaction time, poor had to eye co-ordination, attention problems and aggression.

Conclusion

Biology findings have big implications in major social issues e.g. poverty (malnutrition) as these can influence whole nations’ intelligences, and behavioural problems.

A better Understanding of some mental disorders

• Recent advances in biology have shown that what used to be thought had a psychological cause, we now know to have a biological cause, specifically, genetic, neurological and biochemical causes.
• Fresh opportunities to prevent and treat disorders e.g. senility (general confusion)
• Used to think it was inevitable consequence of aging but it is now thought to be caused by certain combinations of medication, e.g. sleeping pills and antihistamine.
• Also Alzheimer’s disease (progressive memory loss) has been established to have a biological basis.
• It is cause by several genes on 3 different chromosomes.
• Biological links have also been found with schizophrenia and depression.
• This offers new hope for treatments.

2) Specific Contributions

1. Brain Research

Example:

• Carl Lashley (1929) investigated learning and memory in rats – brain ablations (slicing a chuck of the brains out), using surgery or burning electrodes.
• He found that it was the amount of brain tissue removed that affected memory and learning rather than specific tissue.
• The Law of Mass Action – the more removed, the worse memory and learning became.
• Thoughts all parts of the brain involved in all actions – controversial

Example 2:

“Hemisphere Disconnection and Unity in Conscious awareness – Sperry 1958.

Background

• The brain is divided into two hemispheres, joined by the corpus callosum (a bridge of nervous tissue).
• Speech and language are mainly located in the left hemisphere
• Right side of the body controlled by the left hemisphere and vice versa. Called contra lateral control.
• Information from the right visual field enters into the left hemisphere (and vice versa).

Aims

• To show that each hemisphere has: an independent stream of consciousness awareness.
• Its own set of memories
• Has it own specific functions e.g. speech mainly in the left.

Method

• Subject was a woman who had had her corpus callosum cut as a last resort treatment for severe epilepsy.
• Design – IV = split brain and not split brain (quasi natural experiment)
•                DV = perceptions and responses

• The subject was sat in front of a translucent screen with a dotted line going down the middle.

• Images were flashed on one side of the screen only, so that the image would be received in one hemisphere only.
• The second test was about tactile information, and involved placing objects into one of the two hands, but out of view.

Results

• If the image is shown to one visual field then the opposite hemisphere will see it – then, if the image is flashed up in the same place 5 minutes later the person will remember it. If it is flashed up on the other side, they will deny having seen it before – thus confirming that the two hemispheres have separate memories.
• If the word is flashed up to the left visual field then the right hemisphere (with no or limited verbal ability) won’t be able to say anything, whereas in the other visual field there is no problem in reading out the word. This confirms the two hemispheres have different abilities – left has the speech ability whereas the right doesn’t.
• If two images are flashed up simultaneously on the screen and then a pen place in the subjects left hand, but out of view, and asked to draw what they saw, the will draw what they saw in their left visual field (coming from right hemisphere). If they are then asked to say what they drew, they will say what they saw in their right visual field (coming from the left hemisphere).
• If an object is felt by the left hand only and then given a bag with a lot of objects, they can find it again with the left hand but not the right – suggests two hemispheres have different tactile memories also.
• Flashed up picture of naked women on the left side of screen – woman turned bright red and giggled but couldn’t say what she had seen – suggesting the right hemisphere has its own emotions.

Evaluating Sperry

• Validity is questionable → quasi, natural experiment, lacking control of variables.
• Effects may have been caused by the operation, or damage from epileptic fits.
• Evidence from other sources that back up Sperry’s theory
• People’s brains are functionally not all the same → only two people in the sample, so generalisation and extrapolation is difficult to justify.

2. Hormonal Contributions

• Example 1: Research has shown that endocrine glands are affected by the nervous system; adrenal hormones (adrenalin and cartosol) are involved in arousal, emotion and stress.
• Example 2: Brain hormone “melatonin” – involved in sleep and waking cycle, the circadian rhythms
• Example 3: Sex hormones oestrogen and testosterones – puberty etc. involved in sexual arousal and mental functioning.
• Example 4: Thyroid hormones are important in early development of nervous system including brain – insufficient thyroid secretions prevent synapses forming and can result in cretinism (being severely retarded).
• Gave rats drugs that inhibit thyroid hormones and created rat cretins, but they mad a rapid recovery in a stimulating environment.

Example 5 “Hormones and emotions”

Background –Two theories of emotion

• 1) William James Lang Theory: Stimulus → Physiological response → emotion
• 2) Stimulus → emotion → physiological response
• Cognitive labelling theory (Schachter and Singer)

See next page for diagram:

• The cognitive labelling theory states that an external emotion-arousing stimulus produces a general physiological response (no specific hormones) and simultaneously a cognitive appraisal of a particular emotional feeling. This results in the emotion experienced. It shows that the physiological arousal cannot cause an emotion by itself.
• Supporting Evidence
• Cognitive social and physiological determinate of emotional state 1962 Schachter and Singer
• Designed experiment to support theory
• Used 184 subjects, all American white male university students.
• Bribed them with higher marks in end of year exams – more chance of demand characteristics
• 4 groups: All given an injection (potential ethical issue)
• A) Informed group given adrenaline – told it was a vitamin to help eyesight and heartbeat might speed up, sweet palms and trembling.
• B) Type of control – misinformed, told was a vitamin and would cause itchy feet (didn’t say felt itchy feet).
• C) Uninformed group – told not to expect effects
• D) Given harmless saline injection.

A-C where all physiologically aroused.

• Left in a waiting room with another “subject” (a confederate).
• Two options:
• a) Confederate acted very excitedly and happily, making a game out of throwing paper balls into a bin
• b) Both subject and confederate given a questionnaire that became increasingly offensive and personal, with the confederate becoming furious and tearing up the paper.
• IV = is the arousal not arousal, 2nd IV informed not informed 3rd IV confederate happy or angry.
• DV was the emotional state of subjects measures using one-way mirrors and asked to fill in self-assessment report sheet.

Results

• A – very little/no emotion – knew about it, and were expecting an emotion, and had an explanation for their aroused state, and doesn’t need to look to the environment
• B – showed emotions – didn’t have an explanation for arousal so the looked to the environment for an explanation, attributing their arousal to the most likely cause, in this case, the confederates behaviour.
• C – showed emotions for the same reason
• D – no physiological arousal, so no possibility for emotion.

Evaluation

• Group D did feel some emotion (possible due to demand characteristics, stooges can cause subjects to generate their own adrenalin, or the injection may cause arousal.)
• They didn’t assess the emotional state of the subjects before the experiment.
• Emotions generated by adrenalin injection probably nothing like a real emotion – thus a low ecological validity
• Results not highly significant (only difference found by observers, none shown by self report sheets.)

Further evidence for cognitive labelling theory

• Falling in Love on a Suspension Bridge

Test done by Dutton and Arrow

• Used Young male subjects.
• Involved a confederate who was a attractive female.
• Men approached by the woman and asked some questions about effects of scenery and creativity.
• 2 DV’s: subjects had to invent a short story based on ambiguous picture of a woman – and this was then analysed for sexual content.
• The other DV was that the woman gave the man her telephone number and said to phone her if he had any questions about the research. The number of people who phoned was recorded.
• The IV was high/low arousal condition. High was achieved by conducting the questions on top of the Capilans Bridge in Canada (very high over canyon, rickety) and low arousal was achieved on a lower bridge, solid and didn’t sway, and over the same canyon.
• Results: High arousal wrote much more sexual imagery than low arousal. Four times as many high arousal people phoned the woman as low arousal.
• This supports cognitive labelling theory because arousal was attributed to the woman rather than to the bridge – suggesting that arousal creates a generalised opportunity for emotion, and can be explained in a biological or cognitive way.

Holimann 1966

• Showed that physiological arousal is needed for true emotion to be experienced.
• Studied 25 males all with sever spinal cord injuries, preventing feedback from the body getting to the brain – thus unaware of arousal.
• Results: emotional experiences were much less intense than with other people e.g. when they felt anger, it was more a mental anger than physical

Neuronal Discoveries

• Neurotransmitters play a major role in mood, memory and mental health e.g. abnormal levels of neurotransmitters have been found in people suffering from depression, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s.
• Endorphins have been shown to reduce pain and promote pleasure but shown to rise dramatically when someone is afraid or under stress.
• Also it has been shown to be linked with pleasures of social contact.
• The hippocampus has been shown to be involved in special memory and the formation of long term memories for facts and events.
• Taxi drivers have been shown to have an enlarged hippocampus.

Genetic Contributions to Explanations of Behaviour

Introduction

• There are many ways to find out the effects of genes on behaviour, e.g. twins studies
• The last thirty years the approach has been dominated by creating behavioural mutants.
• Involves applying a mutagen to the animal and then letting it reproduce.
• We often find that behaviours with a genetic basis are controlled by many genes. Although the mutation of one gene can have a big impact on behaviour e.g. car analogy of any part breaks down, the whole thing doesn’t work.
• Many bacteria have flagella that allows them to move – however it can be affected by bombarding it with gamma rays, e.g. the first behavioural mutant bacteria created in 1966 and downs created since – many genes used in rotating flagella.
• E.g.2, Roundworms – all have the same number of cells (959) and 302 nerve cells and have 100million base pairs. Mutants were created with different foraging behaviour, suggesting that movement and foraging are genetically controlled.
• E.g.3, Fruit flies (Drosophila) – created behavioural mutants that responded differently to light and gravity.
• Normally a fly will move towards light and away from gravity. However mutants were created that move towards gravity and away from light.
• Other species of Drosophila were also created such as “easily shocked” which have a seizure if you touch them, “paralysed” which don’t move in temperatures above 28°C, and “Dunce” that fail to learn to move away from certain smells.
• We now know all of these have a genetic basis.

• First techniques involves selective breeding: animal breeders have known behavioural traits can be inherited for centuries e.g. in dogs hunting, aggression, docility.
• However it hasn’t been done in a scientific way until recently.
• Breeding by Defroes, Gervais, and Thomas.
• The experiment was conducted with mice, which were placed in a box so their activity levels could easily be measured. They were also used because they breed quickly
• All the mice where a mixture of different activity levels.
• Activity was measure in how far they run per unit of time.
• There were three groups: one bred for high activity, one bred for low activity and one randomly → and this was repeated for thirty generations.
• Results:
• High activity increase: 150 → 600
• Low activity decrease: 150 → less than 10
• Random → stayed approximately the same
• Suggests that this behaviour is inherited.
• The difference between the high and low activity was 30 times.
• Active mice would run the length of a football pitch in 6 minutes.
• Low Activity mice would sit and quiver in a corner.
• The differences were still getting larger at the end of the experiment, which suggests that many genes are involved because all the available alleles would have occurred if there were only two.
• See later twins studies for more research into genes.

Experimental Testing of Hypotheses

See section C1 for details

• Biological psychologists have tried to use a scientific, objective and rigorous methodology, thus making psychology even more scientific.

Use of both Quantitative and qualitative methods

See section C1

• Most people accept both methods are needed for good experiments.
• It is impossible to reduce everything to numbers.
• Case studies also used.

Current Standing

• Recent advances in technology e.g. CAT’s PET’s and MRI scans gives it a very good standing in scientific circles.
• More scientific, objective and quantitative.
• Very contemporary perspective → developing rapidly and seems to be providing more and more evidence that many aspects of behaviour have a biological basis.
• Now is an emerging branch of psychology called evolutionary psychology and sociobiology.

Evolutionary Psychology

• The application of Darwinian principles to psychology.
• Behavioural features selected for by natural selection in the same way as physical features.
• Emphasises the fact that we’re just animals and primates and we have a great deal in common with the other three great apes mentally as well as physically. E.g. the way we learn (social learning theory), facial expression are the same as chimps, orang-utans and apes.
• We are on an evolutionary continuum with apes.

E.g. 1 Sex Differences

• Sex differences in humans are biologically based – with males primates larger and stronger than females.
• Due to the size differences, the males are more aggressive than females, and dominant.
• Male primates have more testosterone (linked with aggression and dominance).

E.g. 2 Mating Preferences

• A study was done in 1997 involving 100 people in 33 countries (cross-cultural).
• Results showed that women place twice as much values as a man on good financial prospects of a partner e.g. Nigeria, India, Iran and Japan where very biased, but less strong in Holland and Finland. Females chose rich men because children are expensive.
• Men have a longer reproductive life and therefore choose women younger than themselves.
• Female fertility peaks at 25, and the male preferred age is 25.
• There is an innate desire for men to choose highly fertile females.

Socio-biology

• This is a branch of evolutionary psychology which tries to use evolutionary principles to explain social behaviour
• Altruism is an example. Altruism is behaviour that benefits others and involves some cost to the individual.
• The key idea is “inclusive fitness” → that is, people behave to maximise their inclusive fitness, down through kin selection.
• A definition of kin selection is: helping to increase the number of descendents left in future generations including those of relatives as well as direct descendents.
• We try to secure the survival of genes which are in our family, thus we are much more likely to be found helping a relative to survive than a stranger.
• E.g. Bees sacrifice their lives by stinging intruders for the greater good and survival of the genes.

Biological Explanations of Aggression

• Researched by Ed Wilson – says that social behaviour is defined by the genes.
• He was trying to understand altruism – how does it help survival of the fittest?
• Selection is not at an individual level but at a gene level → inclusive fitness and kin selection (selecting relatives to ensure gene survival).
• Human example of altruism is mother sacrificing her own life for her children.
• Evolutionary psychologists do accept the influence of other factors but emphasise biology at the expense of the environment.
• The average family size in the western world has gone down in the last 100 years despite better medical care and nutrition.
• Why do we compensate by reducing family size?
• Can’t be explained by evolutionary psychologists.
• People adopting children also goes against kin selection
• Why invest resources in someone else’s genes.

2. Key Concepts

See Sheet on the Nervous and Endocrine Systems

Endocrine System

Introduction

• Hormones are chemical compounds released from the endocrine glands into the blood stream. They reach all the cells in the body but only have effects on target tissues. Messages spread slowly around the body whereas nervous system messages move specifically and rapidly. Some hormones have receptors in a wide variety of tissues whereas some hormone have receptors only in specific places. Negative feedback systems monitor and control the rate of secretions of each hormone. Many hormones are involved in homeostasis.
• Some hormonal effects are caused by more than one hormone e.g. learning and memory.
• Hormonal and neural systems interact to produce integrated responses. The endocrine system combines with the nervous system, particularly the brain e.g. flight or fight reactions: Danger sensed → cortex → interpreted → danger → sent to endocrine system → release of adrenalin to increase heart rate
• Example 2: Male doves send signals at a certain time of the year to increase production and release of testosterone in male doves → testosterone reaches cortex of brain → excites certain nerves in the brain → triggers courtship displays in the doves.
• Causes females to respond → provides new visual signals → triggers further behaviour (mating).
• See also A11, articles 7 and 8, and the Schachter and Singer Study for hormones and emotions.

Central Nervous System

• See sheet
• CNS = Brain + Spinal Cord
• Synapses connect different nerves and allow you to co-ordinate movements  (electric impulse → travels chemically → interpreted into electric impulse)
• The vast majority of drugs affect synapses e.g. blocking receptors.

Localisation of Brain Function

Explanation:

• Left hemisphere (reading a book out loud)
• Info to retina → detects lines and curves of the letters
• Information sent to angular gyrus
• Transforms visual appearance of the word into a code that can be recognised and understood by the Wernicke’s area.
• Information enter Wernicke’s area which understands the words
• Information then sent to Broca’s area which is involved in the formation of spoken words
• Covert language production into physical movement in motor cortex (speech results)

Evidence

• Main evidence comes from aphasics (people with speech problems).
• Different types of aphasia suggest different parts of the brain are involved.

E.g.1 Broca’s Aphasia

• These people can understand speech and read but can’t speak themselves.

E.g.2 Wernicke’s Aphasia

• These people can’t understand language but can speak if they learnt to speak before the brain damage occurred.

E.g. 3 PET (positron emission tomographic technique) Scans.

• These can show which parts of the brain are active during language use in language tasks. These included hearing, speaking, seeing and generating words. Proves that different areas are used for different aspects of language.

Emotion

• The right hemisphere is involved in the most intense emotions e.g. anxiety, particularly negative emotions

Memory

See articles 2 and 3 in Bio A11.

• Evidence against memory being in hippocampus especially long term memories, which are stored in the neocortex.
• Contains a mechanism for producing new long-term memories.
• Evidence comes from two similar case studies.
• Both suffered accidents in the 1950’s
• One had a chunk of brain removed to treat epilepsy cause by bike accident.
• Second was damaged when building a model and turned around quickly. Man behind him was holding a thin sword, which went up his nose and into his brain.
• Both suffer from terrible amnesia.
• They can remember childhood memories but not memories a year or two before the accident.
• They can memorise current events if not interrupted before having to recall them.

See BIOC13s “The Synapse and Neurotransmitters”.

• They cannot form new long-term memories, and can’t recognise people’s faces that they see every day.
• The first can learn to do new tasks and doesn’t forget them, however it does forget than he knows how to do them, suggesting a different sort of memory (procedural memory) for physical skills, located in a different part of the brain.
• Declarative memory is used for dates, events etc. (facts).
• Distinction has been confirmed by three other case studies

Drives

• There is good evidence that we have drives e.g. hunger and sex
• The brain is very much involved, particularly the hypothalamus, specifically two feeding centres; the hunger centre and the satiety centre.
• An experiment was conducted where the satiety centre was removed from rats. The result was that they never stopped eating. In other rats the hunger centre was removed, and the result was they never ate.

Body Rhythms

• Dement and Kleitman (1957) thought they had found a relationship between rapid eye movement (REM) and dreaming.
• They carried out a detailed scientific study to test the relationship.

3 Aims:

1. To see if there is significantly more dreaming during REM sleep compared to non-REM sleep
2. To see if there is a correlation between objective/actual amount of time spent in REM sleep and subjective duration of length of dream – are dreams running in real time?
3. Investigate relationship between specific patterns of eye movement and content of the reported dream.

Method:

• Used only 9 people; 7 males, 2 females, 5 studied in more detail than the other 4.
• Design: Procedure Study 1
• Subjects slept individually in a darkened lab.
• Allowed to do normal daytime activities.
• Not allowed alcohol or coffee.
• The had electrodes placed on their heads and near eyes connected to EEG.
• Subjects were woken up by a bell at various times in the night, some being inside REM sleep, others outside.
• If they thought they had been having a dream, they had to report it immediately into a microphone (no human contact).
• Only counted as a dream if they were clearly expressed.

Results:

• REM periods recorded at regular intervals (on average every 92 minutes)
• Significantly more dreams were reported by people woken up during REM sleep.
• 80% reported dreams during REM.
• 7% reported dreams during non-REM sleep
• All 20% not reporting a dream were woken early in the night. Possible explanation is that sleep is deeper earlier in the night, and thus harder to recall dreams.
• The 7% had just come out of REM sleep, none of them had been out of REM sleep for more the 8 minutes.

Study 2:

• People were woken up either 5 or 15 minutes into REM sleep and ask them to judge whether it was 5 minutes of 15 minutes they had been dreaming.
• 83% of people got it right.
• There was a clear correlation between actual time spent and perceived time spent in REM sleep.
• There was also a correlation between the tome spent in REM and the length of the dream story (the number of words)

Study 3:

• Experimenters watched the eye movements and looked for clear patterns e.g. vertical eye movement or horizontal, or both, a lot of movement, or only a little.
• Not many clear patterns
• Vertical movement happened three times:

1. looking up and down a cliff face
2. climbing up ladders
3. throwing basketballs into a net

• Horizontal happened once:

1. throwing tomatoes at each other

• Both: dreams when looking at things closely
• Little eye movement happened 10 times: looking at things in the distance
• A solid link between REM and dreams is seen here.

Evaluation

• Very small sample size
• Unrealistic environment (wires etc.)
• Possible people dream all through night but can’t remember dreams in very deep non-REM sleep.

Assumptions

• People are biological organisms like other animals (no soul)
• Studying animals is a valid and useful approach in helping us to evaluate useful behaviour.
• The brain determines behaviour i.e. is very reductionist and deterministic.
• All that is psychological is first physiological
• Psychology should therefore investigate:

1. The brain
2. Nervous system
3. Endocrine system
4. Neurochemistry
5. Genes

• Human genes have evolved over millions of years to adapt behaviour to the environment therefore much of behaviour will have a genetic basis → thus we are constrained by our evolutionary past.

Limitations of Neurophysiological Findings

See BIOB13a

Imprinting

See Learning Perspective Notes. Also see BIOA11 (Lorenz) and C11

• Imprinting illustrates the importance of innate factors in behaviour.

Evaluation of Assumptions

1. Reductionist Debate (see BIO B22)

This perspective is very reductionist → some people don’t like this; they think that as humans we shouldn’t be reduced in that way.

2. Free Will versus Determinism

• See photocopy at beginning of the course.
• Sociobiology and genetics are very deterministic.
• States that all aspects of human culture are determined by genes and moulded by natural selection.
• Issues of justices and morality are only relevant when there is free will (puts morality in question)
• Biological determinism removes guilt and responsibility
• Wilson and Dawkins say that we can use free will to go against our genes, e.g. creating less sexist societies (goes against male dominance).
• The conclusion is that all biological psychology approaches are highly deterministic by basing behaviour so much on our genetic basis and the neuronal pathways laid down during development.
• See “A nation of Morons” by Gould. USA misused psychometric tests so as to quota refugees, and tests where horribly flawed, using guns with missing triggers etc. (culturally biased).
• They were the forerunners of the more serious problem of eugenics.
• Claimed each race has its own unique pool of genes, therefore each race will have its own average IQ.
• True – but tests where incorrect in their measurements.
• They removed the ovaries of girls who did badly in IQ tests.

Methods used in working out the relative influence of inherited and environmental factors upon behaviour

See BIO B12s

Hormonal Correlates of Sexual Attraction (See photocopy)

Gender Differences – BP (See photocopy)

Aggression in the Biological Perspective (See photocopy)

The Nature-Nurture Debate

Introduction

• Genes only determine the potential for a characteristic.
• There is a large potential for environmental influences in behaviour e.g. intelligence, however there are other factors, non-behavioural ones that are unchangeable e.g. eye colour.
• Modern thinking says it is a combination of environment and genes.

Obesity

• Good example of how both genes and environment interact
• Initially thought obesity was die to emotional disturbance, such as hated mother, afraid of intimacy or stressed.
• Recent more scientific studies have found there is no such connection
• They also found that obesity is not always caused by over-eating.
• Most widely accepted modern theory is Set Point Theory
• Suggests there are biological mechanisms that keep their body weight at a genetically controlled set point.
• Difficult to change body weight from set point → suggests we do have a natural weight.
• Recent research into looking at specific genes for obesity → several genes involved e.g. hypothalamus, metabolic rate, and weight regulation.
• Also environmental impacts, such as McDonalds on weight.
• Rise of obese people in last 30 years cannot be explained by altering genes so must be due to the environment.
• Specific problems are:

1. abundance of high fat low cost food
2. lack of exercise due to cars
3. television and computers

• Interaction between genes environment factors combine to determine body weight.

Second example of nature-nurture debate: schizophrenia

• Involves long term thought disorders e.g. delusions, hallucinations, and disorganised speech.
• Strikes in early adulthood
• 1000000 people in the USA have schizophrenia.
• Chance of getting it is 1%.

Family Studies

• 40 family studies have found genetic link to schizophrenia.
• Chance for second degree relatives is 4% and first degree is 9%.

Twin Studies

• Confirm genetic link with schizophrenia e.g. identical twins concordance rates is 48%.
• Fraternal twins are only 17%.
• Dramatic case of genuine quadruplets and all four developed schizophrenia → supports genetic component → however there was a range of severity.
• Study done with 14 pairs of identical twins, all separated before they were 2 years old → showed a 64% concordance rate.
• Average concordance is 50% → so not completely genetic.

IQ (now accepted definition of intelligence)

• Normally concentrate on analytical aspects of intelligence.
• However, must still be measuring something so worthwhile to investigate relationship between nature and nurture.
• What is the heredity of IQ?

Type of test                                                                              % Concordance

The same person tested twice                                                       87%

Identical twins reared together                                                      86%

Identical twins reared apart                                                           76%

Fraternal twins reared together                                                      55%

Biological Siblings                                                                        47%

Parents and children living together                                              40%

Parents and children living apart                                                    31%

Adopted children living together                                                    0%

Unrelated people living apart                                                          0%

• Shows nurture has little or nothing to do with IQ
• Identical twins living apart suggests strong genetic component.
• Fraternal twins have half the same genes → dramatic drop in correlation
• Based on 10000s of individuals, so high reliability → however white middle class in the majority.

Conclusion

• Half of people’s IQ is inherited
• Less than half is due to family environment
• The rest comes from womb, school and peer group influences.

Animal Research

• See results of mouse open field experiment (strongly supports argument for activity levels in mice)
• McClearn and Postman bred dull (think mice) with dull and bright with bright for successful navigation of maze.
• Found performance over generations diverged and levelled out.

Gender development

See prep

Does nature/nurture determine adult sex role and gender identity?

• 16/18 subjects who were ambiguously raised as girls changed to a male sex role at puberty despite parental consternation, own initial shocks and peer pressure.
• One of the other two was a lesbian and the other displayed male mannerisms.
• The conclusion is that gender role development is genetic

4. Use alternative perspectives to evaluate the biological assumptions i.e. compare with other perspective e.g. the Learning Perspective focuses on the environment as opposed to the biological perspective which looks at biology.

5. Cultural Variation in the Acceptance of the Biological Perspective – rejected by Islam because there is no room for the concept of religion and soul.

6. General Evaluation Points, see BIO B13A

4. Theoretical Explanations of Behavioural Change

1. Use of Drugs – refer to photocopy of p.171
2. Surgical Procedures

• See dysfunctional option
• See Sperry experiment
• See later medical surgical technique

1. Psychological Correlates of Physiological Processes

• Such as anorexia and bulimia – BIO B24

2. Experiments and Drug Testing

• Need to carry out an experiment to test a drug to evaluate its effectiveness.
• IV is the drug and this can be varied independently of other factors e.g. age weight and personality
• Factors can be controlled for by random assignment
• Half get the real drug, ad half get a placebo with no active ingredients.
• DV is the effectiveness of the drug → important that IV and DV are fully operationalised so that the experiment is repeatable.
• E.g. dosage, ingredients etc.
• Effectiveness would be % of successful attempts of intercourse (using Viagra as an example).

Blind Trials

This is when participants don’t know which condition they’re in. Half are given the active ingredient and half inactive.

Double Blind Trials

• Experimenter doesn’t know which condition the participants are in
• Reason for double blind trials is to try and isolate the real effect of the treatment rather than people’s enthusiasm.
• Difference between two groups is the real effect → comparison must be made.

Results:

• 329 people used, all impotent.
• Placebo and Viagra condition.
• Double blind experiment
• 22% in placebo group claimed successful attempts at intercourse.
• 69% did so in the Viagra group
• Viagra works.
• Impotence sometimes has a psychological basis so might not help these people.
• Examples of experiments:

1. Schachter and Singer, Dutton and Aaron, Sperry (natural quasi experiment).

Gainotti – Emotions (1972)

• Investigated people with damage to one or the other hemispheres.
• Found people with left hemisphere damage often showed catastrophe reactions (intense negative emotions expressed) e.g. crying, anxiety and aggression.
• Suggests that reactions are coming from the health right hemisphere.
• Damage to the right hemisphere led to an increase in indifferent reactions e.g. joking.
• Can be argued that damage to LH led to damage to speech part of brain → leading to frustration → negative language.

Robinson et al.

• Used CAT scans on stroke patients
• Found people showing sever depressive symptoms had damage to the left hemisphere.
• People with stoke damage to the right hemisphere were irrationally cheerful.
• Cheerful people were also apathetic
• The expression of the emotions on the face was not symmetrical.
• Upward curve of a smiling mouth is controlled by the right and therefore, the left hand side of the smile comes up further → confirming in turn that strong emotions are coming from the right hemisphere.

Darodson et al. (1990)

• Used an EEG that monitors brain activity
• Showed subjects a film to induce strong emotions (pleasure and disgust).
• To induce pleasure, he used a film of puppies playing with flowers.
• Disgust was induced by showing close ups of surgery.
• This activated the right hemisphere.
• Pleasure linked with left temporal regions.

Final thoughts

• Amygdala linked with aggression and fear
• Research has involved removing amygdala from monkeys and aggression was dramatically reduced.
• When the amygdala is stimulated, this induces aggressive behaviour.
• Sympathetic nervous system involved in fight or flight reaction.
• Neurotransmitters linked with emotions e.g. Dopamine is linked with the emotional disturbances in schizophrenics and also the positive emotions produced by cocaine.
• Examples of neurotransmitters: endorphins play a major role in controlling pain, fear and anxiety.

See photocopy of “Training Changes Hippocampal Structure in Taxi drivers”

See photocopy of “When did you last eat? Memory as a Regulator of the Onset of Eating”