CLA - outlines

So… here are a couple of outlines that I've made for the Cognitive Level of Analysis

(I feel like I should mention here, before you read any further, that this is my personal work, and is therefore imperfect, and is not certified with an 'IB approval' stamp or any such higher power's credibility. This is simply my work, which I felt like sharing - take it or leave it.)

Outline principles that define the cognitive level of analysis.

• Three principles
• Humans are information processors and mental processes guide behavior

• Human memory not infallible, due to reconstructive nature of memory, outlines stored – people end up with false memories, inability to distinguish between event and what they heard about it after – brain can construct believable illusions (ex: dreams)
• Experience and memory are subjective

• Cognitive processes influenced by social and cultural factors, experiences remembered subjectively – distortions – Bartlett suggested that mental representations (schemas) guide behavior – Schema is a mental representation of knowledge

• Mental processes can and should be studied scientifically

• 21^st century – mind is studied by developing theories and using scientific research methods to support claims – no more relying solely on introspective data (PET scans – blood flow in brain & detection of diseases, MRI scans – brain localization, detection of active portions when reading, fMRIs, etc.)
• Modern cognitive psychologists new advances vs. previous behavioral psychologists

Explain how principles that define the cognitive level of analysis may be demonstrated in research.

• Humans are information processors and mental processes guide behavior
• Mindset important when predicting behavior

• Dweck and Blackwell (2007) to discern whether intelligence is affected by a student’s mindset.
• Method
• Evaluation 

• Mental processes can and should be studied scientifically
• 21^st century – (PET scans, MRIs, fMRIs, etc.)
• Detection of tumors or memory disorders from Alzheimer’s disease possible

• Lisa Mosconi (longitudinal study 9 – 24 years/ participant) observed the relationship between people’s metabolism rate and Alzheimer’s disease.
• Method
• Evaluation

• Quick supports: (case studies) Clive Wearing and HM
• Modern cognitive psychologists new advances vs. previous behavioral psychologists
• Cognitive processes greatly influenced by social and cultural factors
• Memory is subjective – distortions – Bartlett suggested that mental representations (schemas) guide behavior – Schema is a mental representation of knowledge

• Bartlett demonstrated his principles in an experiment in 1932, investigating whether memory is reconstructive and if schemas influence the participant’s recollection of stories – an effort to deduce the effect of schemas on memory (nicknamed “War of the Ghosts” study, after the Native American legend that Bartlett had his participants reproduce
• Method
• Evaluation

• Quick support: Rosenzweig and Bennet (1972)

Evaluate schema theory with reference to research studies.

• Schema – mental representation of knowledge / use previous experience and knowledge as guidelines for present behavior / assist with recall & are a shortcut for interpreting incoming info

• Schema theory – what we know will influence our perceptions and reactions

• New info is processed using existing schemas as templates – they affect our cognitive processing

•  Multiple argument against schema theory – schema represents general knowledge not definitions, as it’s unclear how schemas are acquired in the first place / how schemas influence the schema theory is also rather vague: 1993, Cohen, “the whole idea of a schema is too vague to be useful” – felt schema theory gives no explanation for how schemas function & only reason to believe in its existence was “its coined as a term” / admittedly hard to define a schema, as there are no “true” findings of schemas in the brain

• Bartlett, views differed greatly from Cohen’s – considered memory to be an imaginative reconstruction of experience & that people try to reconstruct the past by trying to implement it into existing schemas

•  Bartlett (1932) – investigating whether memory is reconstructive & if schemas influence the participant’s recollection of stories – to deduce the effect of schemas on memory (“War of the Ghosts” study after the book based on a Native American legend that Bartlett had his participants reproduce)
• Method
• Evaluation

• Other supports: Anderson and Pichert (1978) – observe how a schema affects people’s memory skills – discovered that participants often recalled more pertinent original information on a second recall.
• Similarly: Loftus and Palmer (1974) – discovered that by changing the verb in a question effects the speed estimate of a car, and allowed a cause-and-effect relationship on how schemas affect memory processes to be established.

• Overall – there’s been enough research performed to suggest schemas do indeed affect memory processing of knowledge (good/bad)
• Schemas: your brain’s way to simplify reality to help us make sense of current experiences / Useful concepts in that under scrutiny, they can help one to understand how we organize our knowledge

Discuss, with reference to relevant research studies, the extent to which one cognitive process is reliable.

• Reliability of cog processes often disputed / memory intangible & invisible + difficult to study objectively
• Many models/ theories supporting memory – generally memory is regarded as reconstructive (Bartlett, 1932) + schemas affect recall
• Many factors affect memory, including emotion and regency

•  Human fascination with reliability – triggered by apparent existence of false memories / believed the brain makes illusions we believe as truth / Sigmund Freud (1875 – 1935): repression is the cause of forgetting – people push painful memories to subconscious, haunt them through symbolic forms (dreams) until therapists retrieve them with retrieval techniques / arguments that this leads to fake memories believed true, the false Memory Syndrome (FMS)

• Based on Schema theory – memory is an outline, filled in with recalled info = memory is merely and imaginary reconstruction of experience

• Support: Loftus and Palmer (1974) laboratory research on the investigation of the use of different verbs activating different memory schemas
• Method
• Evaluation

•  Studies that suggest culture has an enormous impact on memory

• Daniel Wright et al. (2001) – field study, with the aid of triangulation, to determine whether the ethnicity of a person affects recall, hypothesis: that it’s much easier to remember faces of own race: investigation of how Own-Race Bias (ORB) affects eyewitness testimony.
• Method
• Results later explained through the Contact Theory: People are lore likely to recall faces from their own race because they are experts at examining such faces. ORB reduces with more contact between people. Positive consequence of a globalizing society: the lessening of ORB.
• Evaluation

•  Emotion also impacts memory – over secretion of stress hormones: negative effect (exceptions) / Particular impact in hippocampus, amygdala and frontal cortex / Effects: interference with encoding and retrieval capacities

• Illustrated by Yullie and Cutshell (1986) – study to discern the reliability of eyewitness testimony
• Method
• Evaluation

• Further support: through Brown and Kulik’s theory of Flashbulb memory (1977) 
• Neisser and Harsh – Study investigating the accuracy of people’s memory of the incident where 7 astronauts were killed in a space shuttle, looking closer at the concept of FBMs
• Method
• Neisser and Harsh also thought that inaccuracy of emotional memory is common.

•  Concluded that memory can be unreliable / cultural bias / emotional memory may be inaccurate – despite some say it’s more difficult to forget. 
• Issues in court based on eyewitness testimonies

•  Memory is a reconstructive process, with near constant alterations & existing schemas appear to influence processing and retrieval / many conflicting opinions about reliability / further research necessary in this domain.