The phenomenon of mental rotation, and its effects on response time.
The phenomenon of mental rotation, and its effects on response time. Name: Mark Miller ID Number: 3330061 Course: PSYC 112 Lab Group: 125 Tutor: Susan Jay Date Due: 15 August 2002 Abstract Mental rotation is the cognitive ability of the human brain to view a stimulus of unknown rotation, and then internally rotate a mental image of that object until it is upright, and comparable with a mental perception of what it should look like (Yule, 1997). It was Burrhus Skinner (1953) that was first to come up with a primitive mental rotation test (at the time termed operant seeing) (Cohen & Blair, 1998). This involved timing a subject's response time in reorganising small, painted cubes, organised to form what is most simply described as, an unbound Rubik's cube. By viewing the subject's behaviour, Skinner was able to interpret the subject's mental behaviour, and concluded that the subject would mentally rotate the cube through its faces, and if the pattern in the subject's mind was equal to that which was desired, the subject would then manually move the block to that position. He pointed to the subject's response time increasing proportionally to the number of block stimuli present, as evidence to his theory (Cohen & Blair, 1998). This was a conclusion shared by Shepard and Metzler (1971) (as cited in Cooper and Shepard, 1973) based on their initial mental rotation
Obedience to Authority
Social Psychology - Obedience to Authority Introduction In this essay I will be talking about obedience to authority, 'doing what you are told to do'. In particular, a study that was carried out in 1963, by the Psychologist, Stanley Milgram at Yale University. Milgrams' interest in obedience stemmed from a fascination with the Holocaust and how ordinary people submitted to those they saw as being in control, by freely carrying out their orders and taking part in the atrocities. Aim The aim of this essay is to discuss the findings of and offer a conclusion to Milgrams' study of obedience and to give one criticism of this study. Method A controlled laboratory experiment was carried out. Milgram advertised for male volunteers to participate in a study of memory and learning. When the volunteers arrived at the University laboratory they were met by the researcher, who was dressed in a white lab coat, he said that they were participating in a memory project to study how people learn. They were told that one person was to act as the teacher and the other the learner and they were to draw lots to see who took on each role. This selection process was in fact rigged so that the true volunteers became the teachers and that members of Milgrams' team became the learners. The teacher then saw the learner being strapped to an 'electric chair' and was taken to an adjoining
The aim of my experiment is to prove Stroops theory, and find out if interference occurs when participant is asked to identify colour words in different coloured ink.
THE STROOP EFFECT By ashwini Aiyar Introduction The Stroop effect was discovered in the early 1900's by J. Ridley Stroop, and was used mostly to discredit the theory of controlled and automatic processing put forward by Schneider and Shiffrin in 1977. This theory was to do with controlled and automatic processing, and stated that the former was slow and the latter; fast, and thus differentiated between the two. The theory also stated that automatic processing was unaffected by capacity limitation, which means that it does not affect the performance of other tasks at the same time. Although a clear distinction can be made between controlled and automatic processing it is difficult to determine if either is influenced by the other. It seems that both types of processing are involved to a certain extent. Stroop (1935) conducted experiment, which was called the Stroop Effect. This was done by showing the participant a word and asking them to identify the colour it was written in. he found that people found it more difficult to identify say, the colour orange, if the respective word was 'red'. Thus it can be argued That the word and its meaning were processed even though it was not relevant to the task. So basically, their theory was that once a task was automated it could be done with virtually no conscious effort, and this would affect all other activities.
The Influence of Physical Attractiveness
The Influence of Physical Attractiveness Andrew Liu Candidate Number: Exam Session: May 2002 IB Psychology Standard Level Word Count: 1955 Abstract Debriefing The study that we conducted was designed to measure the affects of appearance on human behavior. We had three different papers for three different groups. All had the description of the bank robbery, but one had an attractive picture, one had an unattractive picture, and one had no picture. Our hypothesis was that the amount of years that the participant decided to sentence the defendant would depend on the attractiveness of the person, and this is what we are trying to prove with this study. Hopefully our results will show that the attractive defendant will be sentenced the least years, the unattractive defendant the most years, and the description only somewhere in the middle. If you would like to know the results of our study, you can email Andrew Liu or Kyle Webb at [email protected] , [email protected]. Contents Abstract i Introduction 1 Method 3 Design 3 Participant 3 Apparatus/Materials 3 Procedure 4 Results 5 Description of Results 5 Discussion 6 Conclusion 8 References 9 Appendices 10 Appendix i 10 Appendix ii 11 Appendix iii 12 Appendix iv 13 Introduction The original development of Social Psychology was intended to identify basic principles of behavior that affect
Does exposure to smoking in movies influences adolescent's smoking related perceptions and behaviour?
Module: Developmental Psychology Module Leader: Claire Monks Module code: PS3938 Research proposal Does exposure to smoking in movies influences adolescent's smoking related perceptions and behaviour? Introduction: The population of adolescent smokers has escalated in the recent years. Either the cause is peer pressure, social influence, image, identity or the frequent use of tobacco displayed in movies. However the notion that adolescents are being influenced to smoke (either at present or in the future) is by the use of tobacco displayed in movies, is a growing aspect by researchers. Movie stars are portrayed as glamorous and can glamorise the use of tobacco by appearing seductive and sexy while smoking. Smoking in movies often appears when the actor or actress is stress or shows anxiety. From this adolescents may be influenced to smoke by the perceptions the actor or actress is portraying to create an image similar to the movie stars to adopt ways of relieving stress and anxiety. A number of research and studies have been conducted to test the notion that exposure to smoking in movies influences adolescents smoking related perceptions and behaviour. Distefan, Gilpin, Sargent and Pierce 1999 study of do movie stars encourage adolescents to start smoking?, examined the relationship between adolescents favourite movie stars and their smoking status (Distefan et al.,
Investigating the Matching Hypothesis
A - Level Psychology Coursework Investigating the Matching Hypothesis: "Examining whether there is a correlation between the levels of physical attractiveness of both the male and female in couples." A-Level Psychology Coursework Introduction For my research I will be investigating the matching hypothesis theory, first proposed by Goffman. He suggested that people chose partners who were of a similar level of attractiveness as themselves. This was not further researched until Walster et al. in 1966 devised a 'Computer Dance'. Over 700 student participants were involved in the study. They were first rated on attractiveness by 4 independent judges and then given a questionnaire, which to their knowledge was to match them to a partner similar to them. However, it had no relevance to the study, and the participants were paired randomly, with the only exception being that no man was paired to a woman taller than them. During the dance the participants were asked to rate their date. It was found the more attractive students (according to the independent judges) were rated more favourably. This did not validly support the hypothesis as the meeting was only brief and therefore the participants could only be rated on superficial characteristics. It also gave no example of a correlation between male and female attractiveness. Therefore a follow-up study was conducted 6 months
An investigation into the coach - athlete relationship. This research looks specifically at the relationship when the coach is a family member and uses semi-structured interview technique to gather data.
Advanced Research Method Task 3 Research Topic: An investigation into the coach - athlete relationship. This research looks specifically at the relationship when the coach is a family member and uses semi-structured interview technique to gather data. Early sport psychology researchers relied mainly on traditional, scientific approaches and although a large knowledge base has been established from these studies what has been neglected is to better understand behaviours and experiences of people in sport. Even as far back as 1979 a psychologist named Raner Martens recognised the gap between laboratory and field research. (Hardy et al 2002 ) He called for research into sport-specific theories from field-based research and for a sacrifice of internal validity for more external validity. He argued that at that time there was a divide between 'academic' and 'practising' sport psychology and the reason for this divide was because positivistic research was the only accepted way to study psychological phenomenon. However, even since then there is still a shortage of qualitative research. In a recent review by Culver et al (2003) they reported that over a 10-year period, there were 706 journal articles that fitted into the 'qualitative' category, which represents about 20% of the total (p6). People who take a positivistic standpoint believe that the goal of knowledge is to
Describe Milgram's studies of obedience and discuss the ethical problems associated with them.
Describe Milgram's studies of obedience and discuss the ethical problems associated with them. Milgram's obedience studies were influenced by war crimes committed against the Jews by Nazi Germans. Milgram wanted to find out how so many 'normal' people could kill six million Jews by following orders from authority. In 1963 Milgram conducted an experiment that was designed to see whether participants would obey an experimenter when instructed to give another person potentially dangerous electric shocks with a shock generator. Before conducting his experiment Milgram conducted a survey on ordinary people and Psychology professionals asking them what their predictions were. The survey found that less than 3% of people would go all the way to 450 volts; the actual results did not reflect these survey findings. Milgram placed advertisements in a newspaper requesting people for a memory study. The participants were paid for their involvement in the experiment prior to completing it. All of the participants were male from various backgrounds and ages. This fact reflected on Milgram's original interest in the Nazi war crimes as most of the war criminals were male. Highly prestigious Yale University was the location for Milgram's original experiment. The participants were deceived into thinking that the experiment was about effects of punishment on learning. The volunteer participants
A correlational study into the effects of locus of control and perceived life stress regarding gender differences.
A correlational study into the effects of locus of control and perceived life stress regarding gender differences The purpose of present study was two fold, first to examine a correlation between perceived life stress and locus of control, a belief whether the outcomes of our actions are contingent on what we do or on events outside our personal control. (Rotter 1966) Second, an attempt was made to investigate if gender plays a role in perceived life stress level. 12 participants took part by completing two questionnaires, one for the professional life stress scale and the other for the locus of control scale. The finding of a very small and non significant correlation between stress and locus of control (p >0.01) concluded that the extent to which one felt control over important life events was unrelated to how stressed one felt casting some doubts at the learned helplessness theory of depression presented by Seligman (1975). However there was a significant difference (p<0.01) between the stress levels of males and females supporting the experimental prediction. Locus of control, a concept first introduced by Rotter(1966) refers to an individual's belief about what causes certain outcomes in life. It is generally thought of as existing on a continuum with internal at one end and external at the other. Those with an external locus of control feel that outside forces such
This investigation is testing the idea that congruity of facial expressions is related to enjoyment of social interactions.
Abstract This investigation is testing the idea that congruity of facial expressions is related to enjoyment of social interactions. An observation method was used where two participants were asked to have a conversation about a topic chosen at random whilst their expressions were being monitored. After the conversation participants self-rated their enjoyment of the conversation and the results were coded and compared. 24 undergraduates participated in this study (14 females and 10 males) and had an average age of 21.5 years. Three independent raters were used to monitor the facial expressions of the participants. This investigation showed that there was no clear evidence to suggest that congruity of facial expressions is related to enjoyment of social interactions, as there was no strong correlation between the results. However taking into account the many methodological problems of the investigation it is possible that the results of this investigation are not reliable or accurate of 'real life'. Hence further investigation, with such methodological errors resolved, needs to take place. INVESTIGATING IF CONGRUITY OF FACIAL EXPRESSIONS IS RELATED TO ENJOYMENT OF SOCIAL INTERACTIONS In this experiment it was being investigated if congruity of facial expressions is related to the enjoyment of social interactions. Facial expressions are an important tool in our ever day