(BRB) cognitive p1 Flashcards
what is cognitive psychology
- deals with internal mental processes such as language, memory, problem-solving
what is the brain described as in cognitive psychology
a computer
what research method is used in cognitive psychology
lab experiments
what is memory
the capacity to retain and retrieve information
what are the 4 assumptions of cognitive psychology
- thoughts influence behaviour, they act as mediational processes between stimulus and behavioural response
- humans are information processors
- the mind operates in a similar way to a computer
- internal mental processes can and should be investigated
background on Henry Molaison (HM)
- born 1926
- age 7 had a bike accident
- started having epileptic seizures at age 10 and age 16 they became major
- he was monitored by a neurosurgeon called William Scoville and gave him an experimental procedure called a bilateral mesial temperal lobe resection
what was the procedure like in the case study of HM
- he was studies using various methods like observation and standardised IQ tests, MRI scans post mortem, interviews and experimental tasks
- the studies took place from 1957 to his death in 2008 at age 82
what were the results of HM case study
- his memory up to age16 was intact but he couldnt remember new info
- episodic memory was severely damaged but semantic was relatively intact
- unable to encode tempory STM into stable LTM
- he could aquire new motor skills
- intelligence levels remained the same
what are the conclusions drawn from HM case study
- memory is a distinct cerebral function and separate from other brain functions
-medial temporal lobe is the most important for memory - there are multiple memory stores - STM & LTM
- there is a distinction between declarative and non-declarative memory as he could acquire new motor skills but not facts
what are the strengths of HMs study
- applications
- validity
what are the weaknesses of HMs study
- generalisability
- reliability
- ethics
how is generalisability a weakness of HMs case study ?
- case study of one person so its not representative of target population
- only 1/100 people suffer from epilepsy
how is reliability a weakness of HMs case study ?
- carried out over 51 years so impossible to exactly replicate
- much of the data collected was qualitative from observations so it can be objective
how are applications a strength of HMs case study ?
- helps to understand amnesia
- helps to understand that STM and LTM are different stores
- excellent spring board for future research
- helped to develop strategies of how to treat/deal with people with amnesia
how is ethics a weakness of HMs case study ?
- could not give informed consent as he had no way to remember it
- never gave permission for his brain to be preserved, nor did his relatives
how is validity a strength of HMs case study ?
- internal validity is high because observations were used + other methods
- ecological validity is high as some data was used from home
how is validity a weakness of HMs case study ?
- ecological validity lowered as some data was collected from hospitals
- lack of control for extraneous variables
what are the strengths of using case studies of brain damaged patients to understand how memory works
- deliberate damage to memory is unethical
- takes a long time
- gathers rich detailed data about memory
what are the weaknesses of using case studies of brain damaged patients to understand how memory works
- case studies only based on one person/ small group
-subjective interpretation - takes along time
