Actual Exams

Question 1

Bruner and Minturn - aim & results

Answer 1

The aim of Bruner and Minturn’s study was to see if an ambiguous figure was seen differently if the context was changed. The study used an independent groups design, one group was presented with a sequence of letters and the other was presented with a sequence of numbers. Both of them had an ambiguous figure in the middle which could be seen as either the letter B or the number 13. The participants then had to state what they thought the figure was.

Question 2

Bruner and Minturn - results and conclusions

Answer 2

The results of the study were that the participants who were shown the sequence of letters were more likely to see the figure as the letter B, While the participants who were shown the sequence of numbers were more likely to see the figure as the number 13. This shows that expectation of what the figure represented was affected by the context that the figure was presented in.

Question 3

Bruner and Minturn - artificial task

Answer 3

One weakness of this study is that it used an artificial task. The study used an ambiguous figure which is designed to trick people into making errors. This means that the results lack validity and tell us little about everyday perception.

Question 4

Bruner and Minturn - independent groups

Answer 4

Another weakness of this study is that is used an independent groups design. This means that there may have been differences between the groups which could affect their perception, such as more people in one group having a name that begins with a ‘B’, leading to them being more likely to perceive the figure as the letter B than the other group. Therefore the results of the study may be due to participant variables rather than their expectations.

Question 5

Bruner and Minturn - real-life application

Answer 5

One strength of this study is that it has. Real-life application. Te results of the study can explain why people make errors such as misidentifying an aircraft as an enemy plane because of their expectations. Therefore, the study helps to explain why mistakes are made on certain tasks in real life.

Question 6

Gilchrist and Nesberg - aim and method

Answer 6

The aim of Gilchrist and Nesberg’s study was to find out if food deprivation affects the perception of food pictures. The study used an independent groups design, two groups of students, with one group being deprived of food for 20 hours and a control group that was not hungry. The students were shown four slides of meals that were displayed for 15 seconds. The picture was shown again wit the brightness decreased, and the participants were asked to adjust the lighting to make it look the same as before.

Question 7

Gilchrist and Nesbuerg - results and conclusion

Answer 7

The results showed that participants who were deprived of food perceived the pictures as brighter, while the control group did not. This shows that being deprived of food increases perceptual sensitivity and that hunger is a motivating factor affecting the way that food is perceived.

Question 8

Gilchrist and Nesberg - support from similar studies

Answer 8

One strength of this study is that it has support from similar studies. This is because, Sanford deprived participants of food and showed them ambiguous figures. The longer that they had been deprived of food, the more likely they were to perceive the figures as food. This increases the validity of the results of Gilchrist and Nesberg’s study.

Question 9

Gilchrist and Nesberg - ethical issues

Answer 9

One weakness of this study is that it has ethical issues. This is because, depriving participants of food and water is unethical as it could cause them to feel uncomfortable. This is an issue as it is not fair to deprive people of food for the sake of a psychological experiment.

Question 10

Gilchrist and Nesberg - not like everyday life

Answer 10

Another weakness of this study is that it was not like everyday life. This is because, the participants were asked to judge pictures of food rather than real food. Also, judging the brightness of photos is not something we do in our everyday lives. This means it is hard to apply the results to real-life situations.

Question 11

Willingham - what is it?

Answer 11

Criticises learning styles
Improve teaching and learning through cognitive psychology and neuroscience
Praise should be unexpected and deserved
If performance depends on praise you try hard for praise rather than to feel good
Key reason for forgetting is lack of cues
People should practice retrieving info from memory
Self regukation links to better school progress - marshmallow test
Brainwaves in people with dyslexia are different from people wjthout
Ppl could recieve help earlier

Question 12

Willingham - evaluation

Answer 12

Scientific evidence
Studies it was based on were well designed - greater validity

Dyslexia cant be diagnosed through brainwaves- misleading

Real world application - research with links to education and better than learning styles - explains what you learn not how you learn -real world value

Question 13

Hughes - 1st paragraph

Answer 13

The aim of Hughes’s policeman doll study was to create a test of egocentrism that would be more understandable to children younger than 7 years. To do this, Hughe’s showed children aged 3 1/2 to 5 years old a model of two intersecting walls. The children had to hide a boy doll from a police man doll. The child’s egocentrism was tested by asking the child to hide the boy doll from two policemen.

Question 14

Hughes study - 2nd paragraph

Answer 14

The results of the study were that 90% of the children could hide the boy doll from two policemen. When a more complex model was used with five or six walls, 60% of 3 year olds and 90% of 4 year olds could hide the boy doll. Hughes’ study shows that children aged 4 are mostly not egocentric be that Piaget underestimated younger children’s abilities because his task using mountains didn’t make sense to the children

Question 15

Hughes - makes more sense

Answer 15

One strength of the study is that the task made more sense to children. This is because, the task that Hughes gave the children made was easier for the children to understand than Piaget’s method of selecting a view of a mountain top.

Question 16

Hughes - effect of expectations

Answer 16

One weakness is that researchers expectations may have influenced the childrens behaviour. This is because, the researches could have unconsciously given hints to the children on how they should hide the boy doll in the task. This means that the results could lack validity.

Question 17

Hughes - challenges piaget

Answer 17

One strength of this study is that it challenges Piaget’s view. This is because, the results suggest that Piaget’s original study confused young children because the task didn’t make sense to them. Therefore, this study helped to refine this type of child development research.

Question 18

Dweck’s theory

Answer 18

Dweck’s mindset theory states that the difference between people who are successful and people who are not successful is their mindset. There are two mindsets that a person can have, a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. People with a growth mindset think that you can improve if you put in the effort and they focus on learning. On the other hand, people with a fixed mindset think that failure is due to a lack of talent and that people are born talented so trying to improve is a waste of time. In this scenario, — is showing that they have a fixed mindset because they think tha going to training is a waste of time because they can’t improve themselves, whereas — is showing that they have a growth mindset because when they get rejected, they try to improve so that next time they will be better and they can try to be selected for the team next time.

Question 19

Praise

Answer 19

Praising effort is motivating, people can always put in more effort

Praising others for performance is demotivating

Question 20

Self efficacy

Answer 20

Our beliefs in our own abilities

Affects motivation because if it is high you will put in more effort and have more resilience than if it was low

Question 21

Bartlett’s theory - first paragraph

Answer 21

Bartletts theory of reconstructive memory states that memory is an active process. Bartlett’s war of the ghosts study showed that people remember the meaning of events and then when retrieving information, they rebuild the memory like effort after meaning, which is when we focus on the meaning of events and make an effort to understand it to make sense of something unfamiliar. The study also shows that memory is inaccurate. We do not have exact recall, some elements are missing and memories are not an accurate representation of what happened.

Question 22

Bartlett’s theory - second paragraph

Answer 22

Memory is reconstructed when we record small pieces of information in the long time memory and recombine to tell the whole story during recall. Bartlett also says that the way information is stored and recalled is affected by social and cultural expectations, like when participants of the war of the ghosts study used the phrase ‘going fishing’ instead of ‘Hunting seals’.

Question 23

Bartlett’s theory - realistic research

Answer 23

One strength of the research is that it reflects how we use memory in our everyday lives. This is because the research doesn’t use any artificial word lists but it uses a story. This makes the findings more relevant because it links to a real life memory process

Question 24

Bartlett’s theory - not all memories are accurate

Answer 24

One weakness is that it not all memories are reconstructed. For example, in the study participants often recalled that ‘something black came out of his mouth’ because the phrase is distinctive. This shows that some memories can be accurate.

Question 25

Bartlett’s theory - real life application

Answer 25

Another strength is that reconstructive memory explains problems with eyewitness testimony. This is because, Bartletts research shows that memory can be affected by expectations, suggesting that peoples recall isn’t always accurate. Therefore, eyewitness testimony isn’t solely relied on as evidence in criminal investigations anymore as it can be inaccurate.

Question 26

Monocular depth cues

Answer 26

Height in plane - objects that are higher up appear further away.

Relative size - smaller objects in the visual field appear further away

Occlusion - objects that are in front of others appear closer to us while objects behind other objects seem further away

linear perspective - when parallel lines converge in the distance, the point at which they come together is percieved to he further away.

Question 27

Binocular depth cues

Answer 27

Retinal disparity - each eye sees things differently because they are positioned 6cm apart. Retinal disparity is the difference between the left and right eyes view

convergence - the eyes become closer together when objects are close to us. Muscles in the eye work harder objects are close.

Question 28

Gregory’s theory

Answer 28

It contrasts with Gibson’s theory that sensation and perception are the same things.
It proposes that we use past experience to make sense of the world around us.
The brain uses sensory information and information that we already know, perception is a construction.
The brain uses sensory information that is available and then fills in the gaps.
Past experience means we infer what should be there and draw a conclusion.
When making inference, visual cues give the brain information about depth and distance.
Gregory proposes that perception depends on experience.
The more we interact with the world, the more sophisticated our perception becomes.

Question 29

Gregory’s theory - support from other studies

Answer 29

Gregory’s theory has support from studies of cultural differences in perception.
For example, Hudson’s study showed that experience affects how visual cues are interpreted.
This means that their different experiences have affected their perception.

Question 30

Gregory’s theory - visual illusions

Answer 30

Weakness - Gregory’s use of visual illusions to support his theory.
They are artificial 2d images that are designed to fool us.
As a consequence, his theory may not tell us much about how perception works in the real world.

Question 31

Gregory’s theory - can’t explain perception

Answer 31

Weakness - can’t explain how perception gets started.
Research has shown that babies have some perceptual abilities at birth, such as hthe prefer human faces to random patterns (fantz).
Therefore not all perception is the result of experience.