Week 8-Single case research

Question 1

What’s the historical context? Gustav Fechner
(1801-1887)

Answer 1

■ Experimental psychology.
■ Quantitative methods.
■ Linking physical sensations to the mind.
■ Large group studies impractical.
■ Psychophysics today still uses single-case designs.

Question 2

What’s the historical context? Herman
Ebbinghaus (1850-1909)

Answer 2

■ Experimental study of memory.
■ Nonsense syllables.
■ Learning curve and Forgetting curve.
■ Used only one subject – himself.

Question 3

What’s the historical context? Paul Broca (1824-1880)

Answer 3

■ Language processing, speech, comprehension.
■ Patient had loss of speech but not comprehension.
■ Identified area of the brain important for speech production.
■ Broca’s area.

Question 4

Nomothetic vs. Idiographic Research

Answer 4

■ Nomothetic:
– Groups/classes.
– Universal laws.
– Predict average behaviour.
■ Idiographic:
– The individual.
– Unique.

■ Nomothetic : The average:
– Developmental trajectories.
– E.g. Piaget.
■ Ideographic : The individual:
– Rehabilitation.
– Risk assessment.
■ Conflict:
– Mental health conditions.
– Cannabis and the treatment of pain.

Question 5

Who’s Gordon Allport?

Answer 5

■ Gordon Allport - founding figure of personality
psychology.
■ Emphasised uniqueness of the individual.
■ “If you want to know something about a person, why not first ask him?” (Allport, 1953).
■ Balance.
■ Nomothetic approach is inadequate, study of the individual is important.
■ The clinician’s goal “…. is not to predict the aggregate, but to foretell what any one man will do …… universal and group norms are useful, but they do not go the whole distance.”

Question 6

What’s Single Case Research?

Answer 6

■ Developing broad psychological theories.
■ E.g. Amnesia
■ General understanding of hippocampus function.
■ Different parts of the brain - different kinds of memories.

Question 7

What’s Amnesia?

Answer 7

■ Different kinds of memory:
– STM
– LTM
– Procedural
– Episodic
– Semantic
■ Two main types of amnesia:
– Anterograde
– Retrograde
■ Anterograde:
– Impairment of memory after trauma.
– Only LTM affected.
■ Retrograde:
– Impairment of memory prior to trauma.
– Episodic memory affected.

Question 8

Who’s H.M.?

Answer 8

■ Scoville & Milner (1957).
■ Surgical intervention for epilepsy.
■ Anterograde amnesia:
■ Intact STM .
■ LTM impairment – no new memories.
■ Memory prior to surgery normal.
■ Retained old skills and acquired new skills – but is unaware he has them.

Question 9

Who’s Clive Wearing?

Answer 9

■ Musician/conductor.
■ Total amnesia – anterograde and retrograde.
■ Some memories from before illness.
■ Unable to form new memories.
■ Memory only lasts 7 – 30 seconds.
■ Musical ability (procedural memory) remains intact.

Question 10

What are case studies?

Answer 10

■ Case studies: e.g. Freud.
■ Single case experiments: e.g. Skinner.
■ Case Studies:
– Intensive study of a unit / system.
– Richly detailed information from a variety of sources.
– Exploratory.
– Rare/unusual conditions
■ The Interpretation of Dreams (1899).
■ Self analysis of his own dreams.
■ Basis for Freudian theory.
■ 133 case studies – Phobias, anxiety disorders etc.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

Question 11

Who’s Anna O?

Answer 11

– Hysteria : physical symptoms (e.g., paralysis, convulsions, hallucinations, loss of speech) without an apparent physical cause.
– When forgotten memories of traumatic events recalled, paralysis disappeared.

Question 12

What are the impacts of Anna O?

Answer 12

■ Physical symptoms are often surface manifestations of deeply repressed conflicts.
■ Revolutionary new theory of the human psyche.
■ Led him to propose that there were at least three
levels of the mind – id, ego, superego.
■ Influenced the future direction of psychology as a
whole.

Question 13

What are other examples of Freud’s case studies?

Answer 13

Rat Man:
■ Obsessive thoughts:
– Cutting his own throat.
– Father and fiancée tortured by rats.
■ Sexual experiences in infancy.

Dora:
– Anxiety/hysteria attacks.
■ Repressed desire.
■ Manifestation of jealousy toward the relationship between Frau K and her father.

Wolf Man:
– Severe depression.
– Nightmare about white wolves.
■ Caused by seeing parents having sex.

Question 14

What are the advantages of case studies?

Answer 14

– Good source of ideas for research.
– Opportunity for innovation especially in
clinical samples.
– Rare phenomena. E.g., Luria (1968) – The Mind of a Mnemonist.

Question 15

What are the problems of case studies?

Answer 15

■ Objectivity:
– Confirmation bias.
■ Cause and effect:
– Co-variation/correlation.
– Time-order relationship.
– Eliminate possible alternative causes.
■ Generalisation:
– Representativeness?
– Is the phenomena the same in other people?
■ Low internal and external validity

Question 16

What are Single Case Experiments? B.F. Skinner (1904 -1990)

Answer 16

■ School of experimental psychological research.
■ Most influential psychologist of the 20th century.
■ Behaviourist – operant conditioning NOT classical.
■ Behaviourism evolved from single-case experimental research designs.
■ Training animals using operant reinforcement.
■ Project Pigeon.
■ Education:
– Teaching machines.

Question 17

What’s Applied behaviour analysis?

Answer 17

■ ABAB Design (Reversal):
– Baseline – intervention – baseline - intervention.
– Clear change when intervention is added or removed = effective treatment.
■ Some interventions can’t be reversed:
– E.g. Practical or ethical reasons.

Question 18

What are the key qualities of ABAB design?

Answer 18

■ Continuous assessment.
■ Baseline assessment.
– Standard for improvement.
■ Stability of performance/behaviour.
– Evaluation of change from baseline.
■ Different phases:
– High internal validity.
– Testing different interventions.
■ Data evaluation:
– Mean / average values.
– Level analysis.
– Slope / trend analysis.
– Latency.
■ Compare mean values across consecutive observation points which constitute a ‘phase’.