IB Psych SL Master Study List

Rosenweig et al (1972)

(Lab experiment) AIM To investigate how poverty affects the brain METHODS 2 groups of rats: Enriched condition and Impoverished conditions. 10-12 rats from each group. • Enriched condition->A range of toys the rats could play with and "Maze training" • Impoverished condition->No toys and smaller cage than in the EC and no training and the cage was isolated. They each had adequate food and water, 4-10 weeks, rats were autopsied. • Blind procedure - the scientist doing the autopsy on the rats did not know which type of cage they had been in. Rats' brains were dissected -> amount of cell growth (cortex weight) and levels of neurotransmitter activity (acetylcholine, which is an important neurotransmitter for learning and memory) RESULTS The rats in the enriched condition developed heavier and thicker frontal lobes and had developed significantly greater activity in the neurons in the cerebral cortex associated with transmission of acetylcholine, demonstrating the effects of plasticity with stimulating environments CONCLUSION The enriched condition had been socially interacting with other rats (playing, bonding, smelling, etc.) ->several areas of the brain were required to function • Playing with toys, running wheels and receiving maze training would have also required plenty areas of brain to activate and communicate with one another ->rats' neurons would need to make connections, resulting in growth in those areas ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS AND LIMITATIONS ->using animals and killing them ->The experiment used animals so it may be difficult to generalize to humans unless research with humans provides the same results.

Tajfel and Turner (1971)

48 teenage boys rated various abstract paintings from painters Klee and Kandinsky, and then the researchers put the boys in 2 groups at random but told them that their group favored one painter over the other--this created two minimal groups with no real cohesion; then the boys had to play a point allocation game with the purpose of gaining as many points as possible. Each boy would get the option of 1) giving a lot of points to their in-group but even more to the out-group, 2) giving medium points to both groups, or 3) giving low points to their in-group but no points to the out-group; even though the boys could have gotten a lot of points with the 1st option, most chose the final option as if they were against the out-group in a competition; demonstrates how easily out-group discrimination can develop based on SIT

Porges et al. (2017)

94 elder adults with no history of dementia were studied to observe the relationship between GABA (an inhibitory neurotransmitter in the frontal lobe and hippocampus) and cognitive function; their GABA concentrations were measured and they took the veritable Montreal Cognitive Assessment, and a negative correlation between GABA concentrations and cognitive scores was found, indicating that GABA plays a role in one's cognitive functionality; can help with dementia treatment in the future because dementia is associated with increased concentrations of GABA

Loftus and Palmer (1974)

A: Find out if questions asked subsequent to an event can cause a reconstruction in one's memory P: 7 films showed, P's filled out questionnaire after each and gave an account of each. 1 Q. asked about the vehicle's speed using one of these words: hit, smashed, collided, bumped, contacted F: smashed had an avg. speed estimate of 40.8 and contacted 31.8 (lowest) C: Form of a question can markedly and systematically affect a witness' answer to the Q. - causes a change in the subject's memory representation of the accident E: large sample size, BUT students used (non-representative), Lab, non-traumatic, non-generalisable, easy to replicate SO: suggests memory from traumatic events is unreliable and can be altered by misleading info.

Bartlett (1932)

A: See how memory of a story is affected by previous knowledge (i.e. schema) P: Used serial production by telling British participants an unfamiliar story- War of Ghosts- R: P's changed story as they tried to remember it: distortion (assimilation, leveling and sharpening), but participants did remember the overall theme C: Remembering is an active process, where information is retrieved and changed to fit into existing schemas to create meaning in the information- supports the reconstructive theory of memory and schema theory E: Lab study (eco. validity), non-rigorous methodology

Hamilton and Gifford (1976)

Aim- To determine effect of group size on the formation of stereotypes Method- participants were asked to read a list of facts about two fictitious Groups- Group A and Group B. There were 26 statements made about Group A, and 13 made about Group B. Of the statements made about both groups, 50% held positive connotations and 50% held negative connotations. Participants were then asked to complete memory and evaluative judgment tasks about both groups. Results- participants over-estimated the frequency of undesirable behaviours belonging to the minority Group B, despite the desirable and undesirable traits being even across both groups. Conclusion- Stereotypes are more likely to be formed against minorities--illusory correlations result in the formation of stereotypes.

Anderson and Pichert (1978)

Aim- To determine the influence of schema processing on both encoding and retrieval. Method- Participants heard a story that contained information about a house. Half of the participants were asked to adopt a home-buyer schema when hearing the story, and the other half, a typical burglar schema. A distracting task was performed for 12 minutes before testing recall. After a further 5-minute delay, half the participants were then given the alternative schema (i.e. home-buyers were given burglar schemas and vice versa), and the other half were asked to retain their original schema, and recall was retested. Results- Points directly linking to alternative schemas increased by 10%, whilst those relating to previous schemas declined. Suggests that our schema and expectations influence our memory encoding.

Landry and Bartling (2011)

Aim: Landry and Bartling (2011) conducted an experiment using articulatory suppression to test the Working Memory Model. The aim was to investigate if articulatory suppression would influence recall of a written list of phonologically dissimilar letters in serial recall. Design: The experiment used independent designs with two groups: a control group that performed no concurrent task while memorizing a list and an experimental group, which performed the concurrent task of articulatory suppression while memorizing a list. The participants were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions. Population/Sampling: The participants consisted of thirty-four undergraduate psychology students. Procedure: The participants were tested individually. In the experimental group, participants first saw a list of letters that they had to recall while saying the numbers '1' and '2' at a rate of two numbers per second (the articulatory suppression task). The control group saw the list of letters but did not engage in an articulatory suppression task. There were ten lists each consisting of a series of 7 letters randomly constructed from the letters F, K, L, M, R, X, and Q. These letters were chosen because they don't sound similar. Results/Conclusion: The results showed that the scores from the experimental group were much lower than the scores from the control group. The mean percent of accurate recall in the control group was 76% compared to a mean of 45% in the experimental group.

Kearins (1981)

Aim: Why do Aborigines tend to score low on Western verbal intelligence tests Procedure: Sample of forty-four adolescents aged 12 - 16 years (27 boys, 17 girls) of desert Aboriginal origin and 44 adolescents (28 boys, 16 girls) of white Australian origin. Researchers placed 20 objects on a board divided into 20 squares. Aborigine and white Australian children were told to study the board for 30 seconds. Then the objects were gathered together and placed in a pile in the center of the board and the children were asked to place the objects on the board in the same arrangement. Results: The results showed that the Aboriginal correctly relocated more objects than did white Australian children. It appears that their way of life has a significant impact on how and what they remember. this study can be used with culture and cognition OR as a limitation to the extent to which acetylcholine accounts for spatial memory ability

Tversky and Kahneman (1974)

Anchoring bias was seen in the quick estimates of two number problems (8x7x6...x1 v. 1x2x3...x8). The initial number influenced the size of the estimated product, even though the actual products of the two series are exactly the same. A low initial number led to a low estimate, and a larger initial number led to a larger estimate. This is an example of system 1 thinking and the bias of cognitive processes.

potential working memory model studies for an ERQ

Baddeley and Hitch (1974) Landry and Bartling (2011) Warrington and Shallice (1970) Atkinson and Shiffrin (1964) (compare to MSM) Kearins (1981) (limitation)

potential SCT studies for an ERQ

Bandura, Ross, and Ross (1961) Odden and Rochat (2004) Williams (1981) Huesmann and Eron (1986) Skinner (operant conditioning--this is a limitation of SCT because SCT is reductionist in how it explains learning)

potential schema theory studies for an ERQ

Bartlett (1932) Bergman (1999) Brewer and Treyens (1981) Loftus and Palmer (1974) (limitation of schema theory to explain memory distortion) Anderson and Pichert (1974) (memory encoding)

Sharot et al. (2007)

Biological support for flashbulb memories. Activation of the amygdala was measured using fMRI imaging in participants who recalled memories of 9/11 attacks in Sep 2001, which they had witnessed. The measurements were taken years after the actual events, but amygdala activation was still seen when the researchers flashed the word "September" instead of something more generic like "summer." This suggests that the amygdala is involved in the formation of flashbulb memories (localized function) and supports the special-mechanism hypothesis.

potential flashbulb memory studies for an ERQ

Brown and Kulik (1977) (proposal) Sharot et al. (2007) (biological support) Cahill and McGaugh (1995) (biological support) Pitman et al. (2002) (application to abnormal psych and adrenaline) Neisser and Harsch (1992) (low accuracy) Speisman et al. (1964) (appraisal) Kulkofsky et al. (2011) (sociocultural nuance) Quervain et al. (2007) (genetic nuance)

potential evolutionary psychology studies for an ERQ

Fessler (2006) (BP 1) Curtis et al. (2004) (BP 1) Kupfer et al. (2021) (BP 2) Schaller et al. (2010) (BP 2) BP 1 - natural selection of those with proper immune responses may explain why disgust lasted so long BP 2 - disgust can also be a response to external threats, not just microbial ones, but they must be shaped by evolution (i.e. a modern threat does not produce the same immune response)

potential cognitive bias studies for an ERQ

Festinger et al. (1956) Neisser and Harsch (1992) Tversky & Kahneman (1974) Tversky & Kahneman (1986)

Campbell (1967)

Grain of Truth Hypothesis (1) Stereotypes are formed by personal and social experience (2) Gatekeepers such as media may act as "personal" experience (3) Stereotypes hold some truth as an individual is generalized to an entire group

potential stereotype studies for an ERQ

Hamilton and Gifford (1976) Campbell (1967) Steele and Aronson (1995) Spencer et al. (1999) Shewach (2019) Martin and Halverson (1983)

potential cultural dimensions studies for an ERQ

Hofstede (basis, equal environment fallacy, social relationships, and work dynamics) Berry (1967) (conformity) Kulkofsky et al. (2011) (FBMs)

Kupfer et al. (2021)

In a series of 3 studies with over 1000 participants, people were shown various clips of ectoparasites and infectious pathogens and their responses to these stimuli were observed and assessed. The results showed that, although participants generally described feeling disgust towards both kinds of stimuli, they felt external sensations to guard their body when seeing the ectoparasites and felt internal sensations with their immune system and "nauseous" state, which implies two distinct defense systems designed to protect the human body via defense. Similar to the conjectures about the disgust response to pathogens, the researchers assert that this external response is also a result of evolutionary natural selection that favored the survival of those who experience the disgust response, as they would be more aware of avoiding these threats. Findings corroborate that disgust responses are designed to protect us in more than one way

potential culture and cognition studies for an ERQ

Kearins (1981) Ross and Millson (1970) Cole et al. (1971) Martin and Halverson (1983) Martinez and Kesner (1991) (limitation of using culture to explain spatial memory abilities)

potential genetic similarity studies for an ERQ

Kendler et al. (2006) Weissman (2005) Caspi et al. (2003) Dunn et al. (2016) (potential limitation of genetic studies)

potential reconstructive memory studies for an ERQ

Loftus and Palmer (1974) Loftus and Pickrell (1995) Yuille and Cutshall (1984) Brown and Kulik (1977) Neisser and Harsch (1992) Kulkofsky et al. (2011)

Huesmann and Eron (1986)

Longitudinal study, following children over a 15-year period. A correlation was found between the violence the children exhibited as teens and the amount of time they spent watching violence (TV) in elementary school. Found that children that watched a lot of TV violence were more likely to later become aggressive adults. Corroborated by Williams (1981)

potential brain imaging studies for an ERQ

Maguire et al. (2000) Draganski (2004) Antonova et al. (2011) Vogel and Machizawa (2004) Wang et al. (2010) (limitation of brain imaging--it cannot detect the effects of culture)

potential neuroplasticity studies for an ERQ

Maguire et al. (2000) Rosenweig et al. (1972) Bremner (2003) Draganski (2004) use evolutionary rationale as well

potential neurotransmitters studies for an ERQ

Martinez and Kesner, 1991 (ACh and spatial memory in rats) Antonova et al., 2011 (ACh and spatial memory in humans) Porges et al., 2017 (GABA and cognitive functioning in the elderly) Kearins, 1981 (limitation of neurotransmitters for studying behavior)

Williams (1981)

Notel study; in a small town previously with no TV, most homes received TV and after 2 years, the children began to exhibit more aggressive behaviors and had stronger notion of gender roles and schema, displaying the effect of media in enculturation and modeling behavior (experiment)

potential enculturation studies for an ERQ

Odden and Rochat (2004) Fagot (1978) Smith and Lloyd (1978) Williams (1981) Huesmann and Eron (1986)

Brewer and Treyens (1981)

Office Schema: students asked to wait in an office room for 35 seconds with various objects, some consistent with office schema and some not, then they were given surprise memory test looked to see if what they remembered was consistent with office schema, or inconsistent, but with one of three memory tasks: free recall, drawing recall, or verbal recognition the free recall and drawing recall groups remembered more of the schema-congruent items, but the verbal recognition group did roughly the same with both types (and better than the other 2 groups), suggesting that when we have to remember the details of something for ourselves, our schemas shape our memories by fitting our expectations, but if we are reminded of incongruencies we can recall them accurately ethics: example of deception in research

Yang and Schank (2006)

Opposes McClintock by failing to find any evidence of menstrual synchronicity (brief example to be a limitation of McClintock)

potential multi-store model studies for an ERQ

Scoville and Milner (1957) (HM) Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) (basis of the MSM) Miller (1956) Cowan (2010) Vogel and Machizawa (2004) Glanzer and Cunitz (1966) (complexity; because this is about SPE you can also bring in Cole and Scribner) Logie (1999) (limitation of simplicity) Kearins (1981) (limitation of reductionism)

potential localization of function studies for an ERQ

Scoville and Milner (1957) (Patient HM) Cahill and McGaugh (1995) Squire et al. (1992) (Patient EP) Sharot et al. (2007) Kearins (1981) (LIM)

potential thinking and decision-making studies for an ERQ

Stanovich and West (2000) Tversky and Kahneman (1974) Tversky and Kahneman (1986) Hofstede (uncertainty avoidance cultural dimension)

potential SIT studies for an ERQ

Tajfel and Turner (1971) Drury et al. (2009) Berry (1967) Yuki (2003) Abrams et al. (1990)

Rogers and Kesner (2003)

These researchers injected mice with either scopolamine (which blocked acetylcholine receptor sites) or a saline solution and found that mice with excess ACh remembered a previously completed T-maze faster than mice with the scopolamine injection, suggesting that ACh is essential to spatial memory.

Warrington and Shallice (1970)

They did a test on patient KF who had suffered from brain damage after a motorcycle accident. KF quickly forgets numbers and words that were presented to him orally, but he remembers these words when presented visually. KF is only capable of obtaining visual information--he would instantly forget verbal information. This supports Baddeley and Hitch's theory that there is more than one component when it comes to working memory that distinguishes between visual and verbal information (phonological loop); memory is more complex than the MSM.

Steele and Aronson (1995)

They gave a 30-minute verbal test, made up of very difficult multiple-choice questions. When one group was told it was a genuine test of their verbal abilities, African American participants scored significantly lower than European American participants. In another group that was presented with the same test but told that it was not diagnostic of their ability, African American students scored higher than the first group, and their performance was not significantly different from the European American students. However, it was not possible to argue that awareness of racial stereotyping was the actual cause of the difference, so they did one more version of the experiment where the participants had to fill in a personal information questionnaire. Half of the questionnaires asked the participants to identify their race. African Americans who had to identify their race did poorly; those that did not, did just as well as their European American peers.

McClintock (1971)

This study found that menstrual synchronization occurred between women and close friends in a college dormitory. However, the results were not statistically significant and attempts by other researchers to replicate the results were not successful.

Wedekind (1995)

This study found that women prefer the smell of t-shirts worn by men with dissimilar MHC (Major Histocompatibility Complex). The dissimilar immune system genes would theoretically produce offspring better able to fend off more illnesses than if the MHC genes matched. This provided support for the existence of androstadienone as a human pheromone...but a limitation is that olfactory perception and pheromones are different. There is low construct validity.

Doucet et al (2009)

This study investigated the role of areolar secretions in suckling patterns of 3-day old infants. Researchers found that infants only began suckling when exposed to the areolar gland secretions (of any woman) and also exhibited in increase in breathing rate, suggesting a potential human pheromone.

Odden and Rochat (2004)

This study investigated the role of social cognitive theory on the development of cultural norms in Samoa. It found that boys learn to fish primarily through observation and experimentation at a young age, rather than direct instruction. Other cultural norms, such as how to behave with people of higher rank, appear to also be learned this way, showing that behaviors are learnt through models and enculturation is a passive process in this culture.

Martinez and Kesner (1991)

Three groups of rats were put into a maze: one with scopolamine to decrease levels of acetylcholine, one with nothing (control group) and another with physostigmine to increase acetylcholine levels. They found that the group with physostigmine ran through the maze much faster and made less errors than the other two, while the scopolamine group did the worst. They concluded that acetylcholine is linked to spatial memory.

Kendler et al. (2006)

Twin study of tens of thousand of pairs in Sweden, some MZ and DZ; studied the heritability of depression and if there is a genetic predisposition; the concordance rate for MZ twins was far above the concordance rate for DZ twins (about triple), but were well below 100%, suggesting that although MDD is genetically predisposed, the environment definitely plays a role in if it is expressed or not, which aligns with the diathesis-stress model

Maguire (2000)

Used MRI to compare the size of one's hippocampus in 16 right-handed male taxi drivers compared to 50 right handed males who didn't drive taxis -posterior hippocampus (stores memories of environment) was much larger in cab drivers (bigger because they know the streets of London better), suggesting that neural connections can be made based on experiences and usage (long-term potentiation)

Glanzer and Cunitz (1966)

Used free recall (recalling the to-be remembered items in any order) of a list of 20 items combined with an interference task to show the primacy-recency effect; there were 3 groups, either 1) immediate recall with no interference, 2) 10 second interference by counting backwards, or 3) 30 second interference by counting backwards; all groups were able to remember the first 5 or so words relatively well, which showcases the primacy effect as being a result of LTM consolidation, but only group 1 did well on remembering the last 3 or so words, which showcases the recency effect as being a result of STM that was lost during the interference task, thus supporting the notion of separate stores and the serial position effect, but this is a conflicting study with Logie (1999)

potential acculturation studies for an ERQ

Wang et al. (2010) Miranda and Matheny (2000) Lueck and Wilson (2010) Hofstede's cultural dimensions (nuance of explaining acculturation and sources of stress)

potential pheromones studies for an ERQ

Wedekind (1995) McClintock (1971) Wang and Schank (2006) Doucet et al. (2009)

Festinger et al. (1956)

When Prophecy Fails Aim: to investigate the existence of cognitive dissonance Festinger joined a doomsday cult (The Seekers led by Dorothy Martin) to see what would happen when the world didn't end - followers left jobs and spouses and all possessions to leave Earth on a flying saucer Cult needs to justify -why- spaceship didn't come down (to protect self-esteem) - decided that their prayers kept the disaster from occurring Cognitive dissonance became apparent when believers made up reasons when their belief did not come true

Smith and Lloyd (1978)

a sample of new mothers were to play with a baby, but what they did not know is that the baby was cross-dressed, so although the mother would perceive the child as a female or male, it would actually be the opposite; the mothers were told to play with the child and had a wide array of toys, both socially "for boys" and "for girls," filming their interaction; the researchers found that the mothers, whether consciously or unconsciously, treated the baby a certain way depending on their sex, being more active with the boys and give the baby gender consistent toys, suggesting that enculturation starts very early on and affects how we interact with even children

Wang et al. (2010)

about 100 Cuban-Americans with at least one Cuban parent were surveyed online to study acculturative stress and positive psychological functioning with respect to the original culture, the foreign culture, and ethnic identification; the researchers found that biculturalism/integration was associated with positive psychological functioning, disproving other studies saying otherwise because of their unidimensional nature; this shows how complex studying acculturation is because a bidimensional approach is necessary

Curtis et al. (2004)

aimed to observe potential patterns in the disgust response. Using an online survey with 20 potentially "disgusting" images of which some showed an item that was indicative of being infectious or harmful to the immune system, the researchers observed that participants reported the highest levels of disgust towards the aforementioned infectious images. Additionally, on average, women reported higher levels of disgust than men, and younger people reported higher levels of disgust than older people. this study is consistent with Fessler's findings - depictions of items that may threaten the immune system prompted a stronger feeling of disgust, which could also be explained by the phenomenon of natural selection - those who experienced these stronger feelings of disgust in ancient times were probably more likely to avoid such threats and therefore live a long life and reproduce, thus making this behavior more prominent in the gene pool over time. Disgust would have been key to successful reproduction over numerous generations - a lack thereof could have gradually resulted in the decline of those without the disgust response to these kinds of items. Further, because women reported more disgust than men, and younger people reported more disgust than older people, this evolutionary explanation is corroborated. Young women are the ones who are reproducing and need to stay away from pathogens the most, so the fact that they exhibited the greatest disgust response makes sense in terms of natural selection theory

Schaller et al. (2010)

aimed to see if the disgust defense response is truly evolutionary by showing participants images of people exhibiting symptoms of infectious diseases and then images of guns and firearms. Sample size of 28, independent samples design (guns vs. infections). To measure the immune response to these defense sensations, the researchers drew 10 mL of blood before and after the slideshows of images. In these samples, the researchers measured the concentration of IL-6, a substance that defends the body from microbial threats. The results indicated that those who viewed the infections experienced a greater increase in IL-6 after viewing the slideshow, while those who viewed the guns experienced no statistically significant increase in IL-6 - the white blood cells reacted more aggressively to the infection-based stimuli. The researchers propose that this immune response is a result of evolution and natural selection, since guns are a more modern threat that cannot be a result of evolution.

Pitman et al. (2002)

carried out an experimental study where patients coming into emergency rooms after a traumatic injury were given either beta-blockers (propranolol) or a placebo. One month after the traumatic event, people who had received the beta-blockers showed fewer symptoms of PTSD than those that had received no beta-blockers or a placebo

Squire et al. (1992)

case study of Eugene Pauly; amygdala and hippocampus were completely destroyed, but basal ganglia was undamaged according to an MRI scan; he could not learn new skills or adapt to unique situations because this required new cognitive thinking; he COULD however do associative tasks or habits like taking a walk, which leads one to believe that the basal ganglia is responsible for carrying out associative tasks; triangulation with surveys, interviews, and observation

Ross and Millson (1970)

compared the ability of American and Ghanaian college students by having them remember oral studies, finding that the Ghanaians tended to recall more of the details with greater accuracy after some time had passed (correlational)

Cohen (1993)

criticized schema theory saying that the concept of schemas is too vague to be useful or applicable

Feldman (2010)

dads and their infant babies were brought in to play and do the still face paradigm where the father stares at the child emotionlessly; some fathers received a nasal spray of oxytocin and some a placebo spray, and all fathers and babies had their oxytocin levels measured before and after starting the paradigm; babies were more responsive in playing and in the paradigm with the oxytocin-supplemented fathers, suggesting that oxytocin is key to forging interpersonal relationships and low oxytocin could be linked to neglect

Yuille and Cutshall (1986)

examined eyewitnesses of a real life crime scene where a thief robbed a store and stole the money, then shot the store owner when he went outside; using a voluntary sample of 13/21 of the witnesses 4 months after the incident, the participants accounted the details of the crime but the researchers asked some of them a leading question ("did the getaway car have a broken headlight?" versus "did the car have a yellow panel?"), but unlike Loftus and Palmer (1974), the accounts were largely accurate and unaffected by the leading question; weak because the study has low internal validity, cannot be replicated, and uses a voluntary sample (those who volunteered were probably more hung on the incident and thus remembered it better), but it does have higher ecological validity than Loftus and Palmer

Quervain et al. (2007)

explored a genetic link to the ability to form FBMs; in a Ugandan refugee camp, the researchers worked with refugees of the Rwandan genocide and measured how many times they experienced emotional flashbacks and nightmares and correlated those results according to the variant of the α2b-adrenoceptor (2 possible variants); they found that one variant of the gene was more associated with FBMs and flashbacks, indicating that the ability to form FBMs may be partially genetic or epigenetic

Kulkofsky et al. (2011)

explored the effect of the cultural dimension of individualism and collectivism on what constitutes a FBM for someone; participants recalled all major public events from their lifetime and then received a questionnaire asking about the circumstances of each event (both personal and about the event), then were interviewed to determine if a FBM existed, how strong it was, and how personally important it was; in collectivistic cultures, personal importance and emotions are less influential in predicting the formation of a FBM, whereas emotion is more important in individualistic cultures because the personal experience is emphasized and thus rehearsed often to develop a FBM, but national importance was a roughly equally good predictor for both dimensions; demonstrates that FBMs can exist across cultures but are developed for different reasons

Cowan (2010)

follow-up study to Miller's Magic Number 7 due to its low ecological validity; he used a similar experiment in which participants were still memorizing strings of random numbers, but they did not know the length of the number before it was read aloud, which is more indicative of the memorization scenarios we encounter in life; with this procedure, the researcher found that people usually remembered 3-5 digits instead of 5-9, which is actually supported by biological evidence from Vogel and Machizawa (2004)

Cole et al. (1971)

found that African nonliterate and American literate subjects performed roughly equally when they had to actively recall a list of disconnected letters without meaning, eliminating the possible effect of combining the letters into cohesive parts; when taking Ross and Millson (1970) into account, it seems that culture has an effect on memory for oral traditions, but the memories must carry meaning for culture to have its effect

Griggs and Cox (1982)

gave participants 4 cards saying "drinking a beer" "drinking a coke" "22 years old" and "16 years old" and asked them what 2 cards would need to be flipped over to determine that if someone is drinking beer, they are 18 or older, assuming the opposite type of info is on the back; the participants would correctly say "drinking beer" and "16 years old" 75% of the time by deducing that the 22 year old card would not provide any valuable info since they can drink either beverage, but the 16 year old card can since they should not be able to drink beer; this shows how system 2 thinking is more accurate in concrete contexts because in Wason's (1968) similar trials in abstract problems, participants do worse with system 2 thinking--our rational thinking is aided by familiar contexts

Loftus and Pickrell (1995)

iconically known as the "Lost in the Mall Study," the researchers wanted to determine if suggestion of fabricated events is powerful enough to create false autobiographical events; of the small sample of participants, their friends and relatives were surveyed by mail to learn about major childhood events of the participant and if they had ever been lost in a mall as a child (only included if the answer to the second question was "no"); next, the participants were mailed questionnaires to describe the details surrounding 4 childhood memories, 3 being real and 1 being the fake "lost in the mall" memory and had to rate their confidence in the details; although only 25% of the participants recalled false memories and with relatively low confidence, it still suggests that false memories are possible; high ecological validity because we often recall memories, but the construct validity and internal validity are threatened because we must rely on the relative or friend's memory being accurate (i.e. some of the "lost in the mall" memories might not be false) and there could be demand characteristics

Neisser and Harsch (1992)

in 1986, the Challenger disaster occurred in which several astronauts were killed in an accident, and the researcher had his undergraduate students fill out a questionnaire 24 hours after the incident about what happened, what they were doing, who they were with, how they found out, and how confident they were in their memories; 2.5 years later, the senior students were given the same questionnaire and had their new results compared to their answers before; almost one half of the participants displayed memory distortion but were still highly confident in their FBMs, suggesting

Lueck and Wilson (2010)

interviewed Asian-Americans who were first-gen and children of first-gen to study factors of acculturative stress, with all interviewers sharing a cultural and linguistic background with the participant, and some interviews being done online and face-to-face; the researchers measured acculturative stress, linguistic proficiency, language preference, discrimination, and family cohesion; 70% of the sample experienced this stress, and it was correlated with monolingualism (for either language) or poor skills in English, negative social treatment, and poor family cohesion, indicating that assimilation is harmful to migrants experiencing acculturative stress

Fagot (1978)

observations and interviews of parents interacting with their toddlers and young kids, finding that when the children engaged in gender inconsistent behaviors, the parents would actively disapprove and discourage the behavior while encouraging gender consistent behavior, but the parents did not admit or realize they were doing this in interviews, indicating that enculturation is not necessarily conscious

Stanovich and West (2000)

organized and proposed the Dual Process Model of thinking, which has a System 1 of intuitive, heuristic-based thinking and a System 2 of reasoned, logical thinking that takes longer; we rely on System 1 for habits and conversations, but it is prone to errors more than System 2 is

potential hormones studies for an ERQ

oxytocin and human relationships: Feldman, Zak, Doucet et al. (pheromone study) adrenaline and emotional memory: Cahill and McGaugh, Pitman et al.; for a limiting study, use Kulkofsky et al. or Quervain et al.

Drury et al. (2009)

participants played a VR game emulating a fire in the London underground where they had to escape and reach safety, but some participants were told that the people escaping with them were fellow football fans while all other participants assumed they were strangers; when participants were told that the others were in their in-group of football fans, they were more likely to help them also escape instead of fending for themselves, demonstrating in-group bias that can develop without having to be "against" any out-group (potential demand characteristics)

Zak (2011)

participants played the "ultimatum game" where they started with some money and could send some to others to hopefully receive more back and thus profit--it was a game of trust and generosity; players that received and make donations tended to have higher oxytocin levels at the end of the game, suggesting a link to trust and charity; in a follow-up study, some participants were given oxytocin supplements and then played, and they were more likely to donate a large sum of money and trust others to send money back, further showing how oxytocin is linked to trust in relationships

Cahill and McGaugh (1995)

participants were shown either a story involving dangerous injury and stress or a boring one involving a basic visit to the hospital--the former should have produced a stress response to create an emotional memory; two weeks later, participants took a MCQ test on the details of the story, and the group with the emotional story tended to score higher, but in a follow-up study, when the emotional story group received propranolol to inhibit the secretion of adrenaline and thus amygdal activity, the groups scored roughly the same

Scoville and Milner (1957)

patient HM case study; to stop his life-threatening seizures, his hippocampus and amygdala were removed, and so he could no longer form declarative memories in LTM but could form procedural memories (think of Patient EP - procedural memories are stored in the basal ganglia, not the hippocampus); he also had access to some old memories but not all of them, especially those close to the surgery

Hofstede individualism-collectivism

posed the idea of cultural dimensions, including individualism-collectivism (Ind-Col); ind cultures tend to focus on a person's attributes and achievements as a way of interpreting the self and making priorities, while col cultures focus on the group and social harmony, interpreting the self through large group identity; Hofstede found that social relationships are more easily broken in ind cultures because harmony is not stressed as much, and work-life is seen as more competitive and not as cooperative as in col cultures

Logie (1999)

posits that the MSM's notion of a gateway from STM to LTM is too simple, asserting that STM and LTM must interact by assessing past knowledge and experience to consolidate new memories (like a work station or schema); one criticism is that this does not address how where the base knowledge comes from--this assertion cannot be universally true

Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968)

proposed the multi-store model of memory; a stimulus is sensed and goes into sensory memory, where it is either given attention to go into STM or instantly lost because it did not receive attention. in STM, the memory must go through a rehearsal loop to be transferred into LTM, where it will reside indefinitely unless the memory is not retrieved for an extended period strengths - identifies multiple stores of memory (HM), addresses memory loss limitations - does not identify memory distortion (Loftus and Palmer), does not explain why some memories can easily go into LTM without as much rehearsal (serial position effect, mnemonics, FBM)

Baddeley and Hitch (1971)

proposed the working memory model based on the finer functions and interactions within STM; STM is controlled by the central executive and is composed of 3 slave systems: the phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, and episodic buffer; all systems work to consolidate memory in LTM

Bergman (1999)

replicated Bartlett but found that when the participants had to wait 15 minutes before recalling the task instead immediately, schema-based distortion was stronger

Caspi et al. (2003)

specifically studied the 5-HTT gene with depression (5-HTT plays a role in serotonin pathways); 847 New Zealand adults were assessed for their mental health periodically for several years after being placed into one of three groups naturally (making this a natural experiment): 1) two short alleles of 5-HTT, 2) one short and one long allele of 5-HTT, and 3) two long alleles of 5-HTT; the results found that the group with two short alleles exhibited the most symptoms of depression and the group with two long alleles had the elast; to enhance construct validity, they also noted that those who reported 3 or more major stressful live events usually developed depressive symptoms, suggesting that depression is also based on the environment

Miranda and Matheny (2000)

studied Latino-Americans and the factors contributing to acculturative stress, finding 200 people to survey via social service agencies; surveyed each on family cohesion, level of acculturation, acculturation stress, and coping strategies for stress, and found that effective coping strategies, proficiency in English, a long time spent in the US, and a strong family structure all correlated with less acculturative stress; suggests that protective factors and willingness to acculturation all impact the level of stress

Shewach (2019)

studied a meta-analysis of research on stereotype threat, finding that the effects of stereotype threat are minimal in practice because a major limitation of such studies are low ecological validity--the conditions for induced stereotype threat usually are not similar to actual testing protocols

Brown and Kulik (1977)

studied people's memories of the JFK assassination, which was an emotional memory for many Americans, and also studied FBMs of "personal" events; he found that about 90% of participants still recalled many of the circumstances around the assassination such as where they were, what happened, how they heard, etc., and the same proportion of people could remember

Fessler (2006)

studied the emotion of disgust in pregnant women, organizing them into groups based on trimester; about 500 women viewed disgusting images, some related to spoiled or contaminated food, and were then assessed for symptoms of morning sickness; unsurprisingly, women in the first trimester were most commonly disgusted by the images (makes sense because women are known to have weaker immune systems during this trimester because, otherwise, the body would attack the baby by considering it foreign genetic material), but when controlling for morning sickness, first trimester women were only significantly more disgusting with the food-related images, which he proposes is because that pickiness during this first trimester was essential to surviving and keeping the baby healthy in prehistoric times, thereby supporting an evolutionary argument for the persistence of the emotion of disgust

Weissman (2005)

studied three generations of children, parents, and grandparents for 20 years to determine the inheritance of depression and anxiety (this is a prospective kinship study); depression in grandparents was a predictor of depression in grandchildren, showing how people can be genetically vulnerable to to depression

Yuki (2003)

surveyed the opinions of American and Japanese citizens on in-group and out-group associations, identities, and attitudes, finding that as societies become more collectivistic, they demonstrate weaker tendencies aligning with SIT since social harmony becomes more of a value over competition with intrasocietal groups, implying that SIT is not unilaterally cross-cultural

Spencer et al. (1999)

tested the effect of the stereotype threat on intellectual performance. The researchers gave a difficult mathematics test to students who were strong in mathematics. They predicted that women under the stereotype threat would under-perform compared to the men taking the test. The stereotype threat that women experience in mathematics-performance settings originates from a negative stereotype about women's mathematics ability, which is quite common in society. For women who are good at mathematics and see mathematics as an important part of their self-definition, such a stereotype threat may result in an interfering pressure in test situations. the researchers found that this was true: women in the experiment significantly underperformed compared with equally qualified men on the difficult mathematics tests.

Dunn et al. (2016)

this meta-analytical study and analysis drew upon 15 GWASs from other published studies (ex. Sullivan et al. in 2009) to determine the extent to which genes and inheritance impact the development of MDD. In compiling every available published GWAS, most did not show statistical significance for a genome-wide association and kept the specific genes linked to depression obscure and at least somewhat uncertain. they also noted that these GWASs did not account for the high variability in how depression is expressed in individuals, commenting on its "heterogeneity." Further, he asserted that the underwhelming results from GWASs were also because of the lack of consideration for environmental conditions. They concluded that, despite the fact that depression is known to be heritable to some degree, the extent to which genes impact its development versus the environment is uncertain and requires large-scale studies that scrutinize both nature and nurture

Bremner (2003)

three groups of women were studied: one with early childhood sexual abuse and PTSD, one with early sexual abuse and no PTSD, and one with neither; an MRI measured volume of the hippocampus and a PET scan measured hippocampal activity in a memory task; the first group had the smallest hippocampus, followed by the second and third, and the first two had the least activity, suggesting that childhood abuse and stress can inhibit plasticity and growth

Miller (1956)

to determine how many numbers an individual can store in STM for recall, he had participants remember a string of random digits starting at length 3 and increasing by one number each subsequent time, with new numbers each time as well; he found that most people remembered about 5-9 digits, hence coming up with his "Magic Number 7" for the amount of bits of info we can store in STM; this study has great limitations because of its low ecological validity and construct validity (not all bits of info are numeric), but the original MSM accepts the Magic Number 7

Tversky & Kahneman (1986)

to measure the effects of framing on quick decision-making (system 1), the researchers selected a sample of psychology undergraduates to answer a question about how to respond to a disastrous disease outbreak; the options were presented in either a negative or positive frame (conditions), so for example, the negative framing group was told "400 out of 600 people will die for option A or there is a 2/3 chance of everyone dying for option B" and the positive framing group was told "200 out of 600 people will live for option A or there is a 1/3 chance of everyone living for option B;" even though the options are effectively the same in both groups, the positive group more often chose the guaranteed 200 to live while the negative group more often took the 1/3 chance of saving everyone since their frame stressed the death and loss of the outbreak; it appears that with positive frames, maintaining certain life was more important, but with negative frames, taking an uncertain chance to avoid the disaster was more important, thus demonstrating the framing effect in system 1 thinking

Draganski et al (2004)

to observe the process of neural plasticity and pruning, 24 volunteers' neural densities/grey matter were measured before either starting juggling or doing nothing (control); the juggling group was supposed to master it completely, and upon return, all participants went thru another MRI, and then they had to drop juggling for 3 months, then get another MRI; at first there was no significant difference in grey matter, but the second scan showed that the jugglers had more neural connections, though there was no significant difference on the third scan, suggesting that the experiences led to dendritic branching and long-term potentiation, but then not practicing the skill led to those unused neural connections being pruned

Antonova et al. (2011)

to observe the relationship between ACh and spatial memory formation, 20 young, healthy male adults received either a scopolamine injection or a saline solution with a double-blind procedure to prevent bias. Then the males played an arena task game in VR that had them complete a maze, then the screen went black and they were brought to a new point in the maze to reach the same end location. Repeated again 3-4 weeks later with the opposite treatment to account for order effects. Found that in HUMANS, ACh is also key to spatial mem since the scopolamine group did worse.

Speisman et al. (1964)

to study the effect that appraisal and framing have on arousal and flashbulb memories, participants were shown a video of genital mutilation but the researchers presented it in one of three ways: trauma (stressing the pain and gore), denial (assuring that the patient is fine and that the procedure is not painful), or intellectualization (explaining the procedure in medical and academic terms with objectivity); later each participant had to recall the details and experiences of the video, and the group with the trauma condition remembered the most details followed by intellectualization and denial, because the trauma group had a stronger emotional reaction and thus formed a stable FBM, suggesting that in forming FBMs, appraising the event and framing matter more than just the content

Abrams et al. (1990)

used the Asch paradigm to study SIT's effect on conformity; the participants were first-year psychology students and were told that either the other people taking the test were history students or were fellow psych students (in-group), and some gave their responses in private or out loud; either way, the participants conformed more when they thought that the confederates were also psych students, demonstrating how we tend to conform to the opinions of the in-group

Berry (1967)

using a modified form of the Asch paradigm, the researcher studied participants from collectivistic and individualistic cultures to see if they would conform to a blatantly incorrect answer based on what the opinion of the cultural in-group is; doing the test alone, after practice tests and a few trials without any info on group opinion, the researchers would "give them a hint" by saying that most people from their culture chose a certain line before the participant gave an answer. the first time this was done, the correct answer was suggested, but the next ones suggested wrong answers; the collectivist group conformed most when they were reminded of their salient group identity more than the individualist group, showing how SIT does not occur unilaterally across cultures

Vogel and Machizawa (2004)

using an fMRI scan of the parietal lobe as people tried to memorize and recall the numbers from Cowan and Miller's procedures, they found that activity in the parietal lobe was heightened as the strings got longer, but only until the 5th digit where activity leveled out (on average); this corroborates the range of 3-5 digits that Cowan found in his study; may have low validity because an fMRI is not a familiar environment

Bandura, Ross, and Ross (1961)

young children were divided into groups, rating each for aggression based on their teachers' comments and making sure all groups had a variety of nonaggressive and aggressive children; one group watched an adult bash a Bobo doll, one watched an adult assemble toys, and one saw nothing; then the participants were brought into a room with lots of toys but were told that they could not play with them because they did not belong to the child, intending to evoke anger and frustration--the children were brought to a room with a few toys, including a Bobo doll; the first group exhibited the most aggressive behavior, especially when the model was of the same-sex, and the second group the least, suggesting that behaviors can be learned through modeling but require cognitive processing of schema to determine if the behavior deserves attention and credibility

Martin and Halverson (1983)

young children were shown 16 pictures of kids playing with toys, but half of the pictures were inconsistent with gender schema (ex. a boy playing with a "girl toy"); a week later, when the kids were supposed to try to recall each photo they saw, many recalled the gender consistent photos easily but distorted the memories of the gender inconsistent photos to fit their gender schema by changing the sex of the model; shows how stereotyping and culture influence memory by distorting it to fit our schema and expectations