lecture 20 - individual differences

Question 1

causes of individual differences

Answer 1

neural basis (vision), cultural bias (vision, speech perception) and emotional factors

Question 2

distribution of S, M and L cones

Answer 2

there is quite a lot of variablity in the distribution of S, M and L cones between individuals, yet we all seem to be able to process the same range of colours

Question 3

colour deficiency/anomaly

Answer 3

colour deficiency occurs when the cones are not sensitive to the typical range of wavelengths. there are three types of anomaly

Question 4

what are the three types of colour anomaly

Answer 4

protanopia, deuteranopia and tritanophia

Question 5

when there is a shift in S, M and L cones sensitivities

Answer 5

the colours percieved by a person becomes distorted and some colour cannot be discriminated with others

Question 6

protanope

Answer 6

shifted L cones sensitivity

Question 7

deuteranope

Answer 7

shifted M cones sensitivity

Question 8

tritanophia

Answer 8

shifted S cones sensitivity

Question 9

Achromatopsia (colour blindness)

Answer 9

this is when you do not have colour vision and only see objects in shades of gray

Question 10

prosopagnosia

Answer 10

the difficulty with recognising faces

Question 11

Tranel and Damasio 1985

Answer 11

when occipito-temporal lobe was lesioned, the patients had difficulty recognising faces, but familiar faces produced different physiological (skin conductance) responses compared to unfamiliar faces. alternatively. when ventro-medial lobe recognise the faces, but their skin conductance did not differ between familiar and unfamiliar faces

Question 12

Prosopagnosia and Capgras syndrome - Ellis and Lewis 2001

Answer 12

rare psychiatric disorder where patients believe that someone (spouse or child) has been replaced by an imposter. Ellis suggests that this is a mirror image of prosopagnosia, in that patients recognise the face but do not get the feeling of familiarity

Question 13

akineatiosia - atypical visual conditions

Answer 13

inability to process and perceive motion

Question 14

agnosias - atypical visual conditions

Answer 14

inability to recognise objects even though vision is normal

Question 15

Eysenck 1941 - colour preference

Answer 15

suggested a universal perference of colours. blue > red > green > violet > orange > yellow

Question 16

Adams 1987

Answer 16

this pereference for blue and red extends to three-month old infants

Question 17

Well et al 2008

Answer 17

primates have a strong preference for blue over red and green

Question 18

Palmer and Schloss 2010

Answer 18

proposed and Ecological Valence Theory (EVT) that proposed colour preferences are caused by individuals’ emotional experiences with colour-associated objects

Question 19

Yokosawa et al 2016

Answer 19

examined multicultural participants who could read and speak both Japanese and English. they found there were some overlap between the preference of both cultures. also measured how much participants like objects associated with each colour (waves) and found that EVT plated less of a role in Japan compared to America. they suggest that perhaps this is because colour preference in Japanese culture is led by symbolism rather than ecology

Question 20

Oishi et al 2014 - Global vs local processing

Answer 20

conducted 3 studies to explore cultural differences in global vs local processing and their developmental trajectories. in study 1, they found that Japanese college students were less globally oriented in their processing than American or Argentinian participants. they replicated this effect in study 2 using a nationally representative sample of Japanese and American adults aged between 20-69 and found that adults in both cultures become more globally oriented with age. in the third study they found that cultural variations in global vs local processing emerge in early childhood and remain through adulthood

Question 21

Norenzay et al 2002

Answer 21

presented European American, Asian American and East Asian participants with a target object and asked them to judge which of the two groups of four objects the target object was most similar to. group 1 = members shared a large number of features with the target, although not one of these was shared by all members (group 1 was more holistically similar to the target). group 2 = members shared the same stem as the target object (group 2 shared a unidimensonal rule with the target

Question 22

Norenzayan - differences between the participants

Answer 22

European Americans percieved similarities based on the unidimensional rule much more often, whereas East Asians more frequently perceived similarities based on holistic judgements of family resemblance. Asian Americans were intermediate

Question 23

What does Norenzayan show

Answer 23

there are cultural differences in the way stimuli are compared in the process of categorisation

Question 24

Kitayama et al

Answer 24

presented participants with a square frame with a vertical line (top centre). they were then shown a new square frame of a different size and were asked to draw a line that was identical to the first line (1) in absolute length or (2) in proportion to the surrounding frame. error scores show that American participants were more accurate in the absolute task, whereas Japanese participants were more accurate in the relative task - suggests that Japanese participants were paying more attention to the frame that Americans

Question 25

critical period in speech perception

Answer 25

children have to be exposed to a rich source of language during this period of flexibility, before the brain has matured. after this period there is a systematic decline in sensitivity to non-active language stimuli

Question 26

Weker 1989

Answer 26

reported that infants show a decline in universal phonetic sensitivity during the second half of their first year

Question 27

Werker and Tees 1984

Answer 27

showed how well babies from English-speaking families can discriminate non-English syllables from Hindi and Nthlakapmx. none of the latter group was able to discriminate either of the non-english contrast but 10-12 months

Question 28

Miyawaki et al 1975

Answer 28

suggests that the effect of linguistic experience is specific to perception in the "speech mode"

Question 29

social phobias

Answer 29

there are theories that suggest social phobias are associated with hypervigilance to threat and negative emotions, which in turn can worsen social anxiety

Question 30

Horlet et al 2004

Answer 30

examined how participants with and without social phobias scan faces expressing different emotions. the results show that participants with social phobias engage in hyperscanning (hypervigilance) and eye avoidance for overt expressions of threat, particularly for angry faces. these findings were consistent with theories emphasising the role of information processing biases in social phobia

Question 31

Peters et al 2015

Answer 31

examined whether optimism is associated with an attentional bias for positive stimuli. participants performed an eye-tracking task twice, while their gazing time at faces displaying joy, anger, a pair or a neutral expression was measured. participants scoring high on optimism (responders) tended to gaze longer at joy faces compared to participants scoring lower on optimism (non-responders)