lecture 4 - self Flashcards
(30 cards)
what is the self
-the transcendental viewpoint
- The Transcendental Viewpoint
e.g., Plato, Aquinas, Descartes - the self is a supernatural entity and is not amenable to scientific scrutiny.
what is the self
-the non casual viewpoint
The Non-Causal Viewpoint
e.g., Hume, Dennett, Gazzaniga
- the self is an illusion (non-causal by-product of neural
activity)
-doesnt play a role
the ontological self
the epistemological self
- the ‘ontological’ self
the self experienced as single,
subjective, and phenomenologically
given. - the ‘epistemological’ self
features and processes of the various
systems of our bodies (the contents of
self experiences). can influence various outcomes
what is the power of self referencing
self referencing exp
memory tasks
Rogers, Kuiper, & Kirker (1977)
-gave peopple wors, varied encoding conditions
-did 4 diff things
- depth of processing approach – vary encoding conditions
- poised, manipulative, angry, mature, etc
structural (e.g., printed in capital letters?)
phonemic (e.g., rhymes with XXXX?)
semantic (e.g., means the same as XXXX?)
self-descriptiveness (e.g., describes you?) - superior (incidental) recall for for words encoded with respect to
the self (than other targets) - self-reference effect (SRE)
- robust/reliable effect
the self reference effect
-multiple demonstrations
- traits, nouns, definitions, scenes (Symons & Johnson, 1997)
- healthy individuals, mildly depressed persons (Derry & Kuiper, 1981)
- children aged 5 (Sui & Zhu, 2005)
- older adults (Gutchess, Kensinger, & Schacter, 2010
the self reference effect - interesting moderators (ca increase or decrease this bias)
target of comparison
-has to measured relative to a person
-often target of c may be a celebrity in usa studies (but not intimatley comparable)
-is no real ideal comparison
cultural factors
-initiall exps took place in west
-some of these memory biases can be different in different places, eg self is construed in other places
-eg inidvidualistic (west) vs collectivistic cultures
Mother vs. POTUS:
Maki & McCaul (1985)
-target of comparison
classic memory exp
-see a bunch of traits and say does this trait describe the following person yes or no
-afterwards there was a surprise memory test
-maki and mcaul introduced a new condition : did standrad target comparison with someome famous, and also introduced a toc , the participants mother
-proportion of traits recalled, more items were remembered for self versus famous person
-however for mother , more traits remembered rather than famous person
conclusion : can reduce memory bias by introducing a target comparison that is intimitley familar with the participant
East vs. West:
Sparks, Cunningham, & Kritikos (2016)
-cultural
collectivits vs individualistic comparison
-changed materials away from personality charecetresitics,
-you would see a bunch of items eg candle, (things you cn get in shop)
-item would appear and rectangle would appear around it
-rectangle would either be red or blue (and would either go to red basket or blue basket (owned by you or mother (intimate))
-found
-in western pps, they showed memory advantage for self owned basket compared to mother basket
-among south east asians, this effect was eliminated and reversed
Self-Referencing in the Brain:
Kelley et al. (2002)
-do these biases have a distinct neural signature ?
-lying in brain scanner
-que word appears (could be self,
-then trait word appears
-you had to report if you were dependable or not (do you have this trait
-simialrly word like bush (george bush) appears and a trait etc
-low level condition where the word case would appear followed by a word and had to say whether it was upper or lower case
findings
-standard self memory bias
-patterns of brain activity : activity for self is greated in bunch of areas : critically in medial prefrontal cortex
-some theory about this region being important to the conception of yourself
The Incidental Self:
Turk, Cunningham, Macrae (2008)
-how subtle or nuanced are the self memory effects?
-one half of this exp is like the average exp : you see a picture of either yourself or a celebrity , have to report a personlity trait
-finds memory is better for self
other half of exp, would see the same thing and word would appear above or below and they simply had to report if the word was above or below of the face
-shows that memory is lower, however the bias still remains despite not testing actual refernce
Origins of the Self-Reference Effect
- elaborative processing hypothesis
-multiple links are formed between items and other information
in memory (Kuiper & Rogers, 1979; Rogers et al., 1977) - organizational processing hypothesis
-self-relevant items are organized most effectively in memory
(Klein & Kihlstrom, 1986) - self-relevance enhances memory performance
Self and Attention:
The Power of Stimulus Relevance
-own name effect
-suggests the self influences attention
-used 3 stimuli , some exp would use your name and compare to others names , some would use your face and some would use geometrical shapes
- Moray (1959) presented names in the unattended ear as participants engaged in shadowing the
contents of the other ear. After carrying out the task, participants were asked whether they could
recall any stimuli on the unattended ear. Moray found that participants were better able to report words in an unattended ear when they followed the presentation of the participant’s own name, compared with the names of other people. This classic result has been taken to suggest that self- relevance can be computed even when stimuli are
unattended, and that it then modulates attention (e.g., attracting attention to the unattended ear).
That is, self-relatedness can be computed pre- attentively.
Mummy Called Me!
Imafuku et al. (2014) exp
-how early in life to these self biases emerge
-results
-mri results
-have babies as participants
-on the screen a picture will appear, orient child to screen
-then screen changes to a glove puppet at either the left or ride side of screen and the puppet says the infants name , either in mothers voice or strangers voce
-how long do the infants attend to the glove puppet ?
-they found no effect, didnt matter whos voice produced the name
-greater attention for self (for the infants name) but didnt matter whether it was mother or stranger saying the name
-however mri results showed for mother voice caused more neural activity in the brain
I, Me, Mine:
Alexopoulos et al. (2012)
-look at a fixation cross, then a name will appear either left or right, either your name or someone else, then a tareget appears either same side as name or other side
-have to identify and categorise the target
-if target appears on side where name appears on side of your name, you response is fast
own face effect
- Alongside studies of the own-name effect, there is a body of evidence examining self- related biases in face processing. Specifically, participants are faster and more accurate at making perceptual judgments about the
orientation of faces if they see their own face compared with the faces of other people
Faces and Orienting Attention:
Liu et al. (2016)
-fixate on cross
-face appears, yours or strangers
-face either looking to left or right
-target appears either left or right
-if trial valid, target should appear same side where the face is looking,
(cue either valid or invalid)
manipulation : delay between face and target , either a short delay or a long delay
-results : long delay shows it doesnt matter if your faster for valid or invalid cues, however if theres a shirt delay your much more faster on valid trials IF its your OWN face
self shape effect
(is self reference effect just due to self being familar)
-shape perception
* overcoming stimulus confounds
- phd student says you are a square, friend is circle and stranger is triangle - learn associations
-then you see a shape paired with a lable and see if it matches with what you learned
-although theres no meaning with the shape, you still respond quicker to the shape associated to you
(called self prioristation effct)
Self Attention Network (SAN):
Humphreys & Sui (2016)
-a model that shows prefrontal cortex areas is important for self
-look into it
how do people feel about themselves
-what effect does this have
- Generally speaking, people hold excessively flattering views of themselves and of things
associated with the self. - self-enhancement motivation – drive to construe oneself positively (Baumeister, 1998; James, 1890)
self-advancing bias (enhance ‘good’ stuff about ourselves )
self-protecting (diminish ‘bad’)
* raft of self-related biases
The Better-Than-Average Effect:
Illusionary Superiority
earliest and most frequently cited demonstration - 1976 College
Board Exams (SAT – 1 million students)
-if we are asked to rate ourselves, we believe ourselves to be above average on most things
what people believe (high school kids)
* above the median
leadership ability - 70%
athletic ability - 60%
getting along with others - 85%
- Cross (1977) – University of Nebraska lecturers
94% of lecturers considered themselves above average in
teaching ability (68% placed themselves in the top 25%)
Want Me to Drive You Home?
-experiment
- Preston and Harris (1965) compared 50 drivers who
had been hospitalized following car accidents (34 of whom had caused the accidents, according to police
records) with 50 matched drivers without accident histories. The results showed not only that both groups considered themselves to be above average in driving skills, but that the accident group’s evaluation of their driving abilities did not differ from those who were
uninvolved in accidents.
even tho they just crashed
worse than average effect
egocentrism (how difficult/easy is a task for me, then extrapolate to others) bicycles vs. juggling, riding a unicycle; worse- than-average effect (Kruger, 1999)
I’m Not Biased – The Bias Blind Spot: Pronin et al. (2002)
-described them different biased , eg halo effect, hostile media ,
-asked them how susceptible are you to this bias vs the avrage american
-people believe they are less susceptible to this bias than any other person
