Unit 4: Cognitive Level of analysis

1. Unit 4: Cognitive Level of analysis Day 3: Cultural Factors, Technology, Eye Witness Testimony, Consciousness

2. Outcome(s): • Evaluate the extent to which a cognitive process (memory) is reliable • Discuss the use of technology in investigating the relationship between cognitive factors and behavior • (possible SAQ)

3. Agenda: • IA Check Up – see new handout with check lists • Cultural factors • Eye Witness testimony • Cognitive LOA technology • Levels of consciousness

4. Do you remember? Do you forget?

5. Cultural Factors in Cognition • Cognitive abilities (memory, thinking, problem-solving) largely influenced by social and cultural context • Humans face different challenges in order to survive • After industrialization – need for people with specialized education • Jermone Bruner – children of any culture learn basics of culture in which they live through schooling and interaction with members of that culture

6. Cross-cultural Research • Cole and Scribner (1974) • Aim: investigate memory strategies in different cultures • Method: compared recall of a series of words in the US and among the Kpelle people of rural Liberia – could not use same list, so they started by observing cognitive activities in Liberia • Words used were familiar to participants • Asked children from different age groups to recall as many items as possible from four categories: utensils, clothes, tools, vegetables • Non-schooled children did not improve performance on free-recall tasks after age of 10 • Illiterate children did not use strategies like chunking

7. Chunking Example

8. Chunking: grouping bits of information into larger units to help remember it • Narrative: parts of a story • In a later trial, researchers presented words in meaningful way as part of a story • Illiterate children recalled the objects easily and actually chunked them according to roles played in the story • Rogoff & Wadell (1982): also found that Mayan children could easily recall objects if related in meaningful way to local scenery

9. Ways to remember things in STM… so they go to LTM • Chunking • Mnemonic devices • My very excellent mother just served us nine pizzas • Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally • Rehearsal

10. Reliability of one cognitive process: memory • Reconstructive nature – the brain’s active processing of information to make sense of the world • Are recovered memories accurate? • Freud (1875-1935): people who experience intense emotional and anxiety-provoking events may use defence mechanisms such as repression, to protect conscious self from things they cannot cope with • Ex: victims of child abuse • False memories? • False Memory Syndrome Foundation, 1992 • some recovered memories may simply be created by post-event information during therapy • Elizabeth Loftus • 2002, Washington Sniper – “white van” myth – false memory

11. Serial Reproduction activity • In 1994 a cop flashed its lights to pull me over, but I got scared and put the pedal to the floor. After a little bit, I realize I have money to pay the speeding ticket so I pull over. The police man asked to search the car but I told him he needed a warrant. He asked if I was a layer, I told him I haven’t passed the bar but I know a little bit of law. He told me he’ll see how smart I am when the K9 comes. I told him I have almost 100 problems, but this isn’t one.

12. Testing the reliability of memory • Frederic Bartlett (1932) • Memory is reconstruction, and schemas influence recall • Role of culture in schema processing • Serial reproduction • One person reproduces original story, a second person has ot reproduce the first reproduction, and so on, until six or seven reproductions have been created • Duplicate the process by which rumors and gossip are spread, or legends are passed from generation to generation • Bartlett’s study based on Native American legend – read through the story twice, after 15 minutes, they were asked to reproduce the story from memory. The War of Ghosts was difficult for people from Western cultures. • Some characteristic changes in reproduction of the story: • Story became shorter • Remained a coherent story • More conventional - retained details that could be shared with the participants

13. Spacing Effect • Do not cram! • Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve

14. Eyewitness testimony • Loftus & Palmer (1974) • Supports Bartlett’s idea of memory as reconstructive • Nature of questions influences witness’ memory • Leading questions and post-event information • Designed an experiment to investigate the role of leading questions in recall – 45 students, traffic accidents with different leading questions (IV) while measuring the estimation of speed (DV) • “About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?  replacing “hit” with another word – smashed, collided, etc • Smashed = more severe, faster (~41 mph); contacted, slower accident (~32 mph) • Second experiment – 150 students • 3 groups, film of a car accident – last group did not have questions on speed estimates, tested again a week later • Different words have an effect on the estimation of speed as well as perception of consequences

15. YuilleandCutshall (1986) • Critized Loftus’ research for lack of ecological validity • Argues that memory in laboratory does not reflect how/what people remember in real life

16. Be a communicator • Eye witness testimony accuracy • http://eyewitness.innocenceproject.org/take-the-quiz/ • DNA exoneration • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-SBTRLoPuo • Article writing activity • IB Outcome – evaluate the extent to which a cognitive process is reliable (memory). If this was a ERQ – what studies would you include?

17. Use of technology • PET • Scanning method that measures glucose consumption and blood flow • Can detect tumors or memory disorders due to Alzheimer’s • Use of this technology has helped early detection signs of Alzheimer’s • NYU School of Medicine – brain-scan-based program that measures metabolic activity in the hippocampus—brain structure used for memory processing • 53 normal and healthy participants for 9 years, others for as long as 24 years • Findings: individuals who showed early signed of reduced metabolism in the hippocampus associated with later development of Alzheimer’s • Limitations: Mosconi (2005) – needs to be replicated, but could be useful in screening • MRI • 3-D picture of brain structures • When an area is more active, it uses more oxygen – used to see what areas are active when people can perform cognitive tasks (reading, problem solving) • What areas are active when looking at a picture of your favorite brand • Possible to observe brain damage • Cognitive functioning such as memory • Detects early stages of Alzheimer’s • Cannot establish cause-effect relationships yet because the brain is not fully understood yet

18. Consciousness & Cognitive LOA • An alternate view on consciousness is the cognitive/functional/ phenomenal one. This view holds that consciousness always is a representation of something else. This representation can be either conscious or unconscious. So, for instance, if I am feeling an itch, I am actually perceiving a representation of some disturbance in my body. Or if I am thinking on my last vacation in Paris, I am experiencing a mental representation or memory of my vacation in Paris. From this light, higher order thinking, so called metacognition, are actually higher order representations of thoughts. A representations of a representation of a representation, so to speak. Some philosophers even believe that consciousness emerged with the development of human culture; once we learned to represent the world in images and stories we also became conscious beings. Schema theory is related to the cognitive perspective.

19. Freud – Iceberg Metaphor • Preconscious is the level of consciousness that is outside of awareness but contains feelings and memories that you can easily bring into conscious awareness. For example, if asked what you ate for dinner last night, you could easily remember and tell • Nonconsciousis the level of consciousness devoted to processes completely inaccessible to conscious awareness, such as blood flow, filtering of blood by kidneys, secretion of hormones, and lower level processing of sensations, such as detecting edges, estimating size and distance of objects, recognizing patterns, etc • Unconscious, sometimes called the subconscious, is the level of consciousness that includes often unacceptable feelings, wishes, and thoughts not directly available to conscious awareness • Unconsciousness is characterized by loss of responsiveness to the environment resulting from disease, trauma, or anesthesia

20. Closure: Understanding Consciousness • http://www.ted.com/talks/antonio_damasio_the_quest_to_understand_consciousness.html • http://www.ted.com/talks/john_searle_our_shared_condition_consciousness.html • Biological factors? Biological phenomenon?