PSY 215 Exam 3
Imagine that your friend James has just taken up the habit of smoking cigars because he thinks it makes him look cool. You are concerned about the detrimental effects of smoking on his health, and you raise that concern to him. James gets a bit annoyed with your criticism and says "George Burns smoked cigars, and he lived to be 100!" Construct an argument to refute this "George Burns" logic (hint: think about sample size).
. We can understand why this result would occur by considering a statistical rule called the law of large numbers, which states that the larger the number of individuals that are randomly drawn from a population, the more representative the resulting group will be of the entire population. Conversely, samples of small numbers of individuals will be less representative of the population.
Describe the three steps involved in analogical problem solving. Which step is the most difficult to achieve? What is the evidence that this is the most difficult step?
1. Noticing that there is an analogous relationship between the source story and the target problem. This step is the most difficult to achieve. 2. Mapping the correspondence between the source story and the target problem- e.g. connection elements in one story (dictator's fortress) to elements in the target problem (tumor) 3. Applying the mapping to generate a parallel solution to the target problem- e.g. generalizing from the many small groups of soldiers approaching the fortress from different directions to the idea of using many weaker rays that would approach the tumor from different directions
What are flashbulb memories? Discuss their defining properties, how they are investigated, and what psychologists posit with respect to the narrative rehearsal process.
A person's memory for the circumstances surrounding shocking, highly charged event characteristics: highly emotional, remembered for long periods of time; vivid, but inaccurate experiment: Asked participants how they had heard about the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger; Participants filled out a questionnaire the day (changed over the years, more emotionally charged) narrative rehearsal process(¤We may remember events like those that happened on 9/11 or the Challenger disaster not because of a special mechanism but because we rehearse these events after they occur--TV)
What are the brain structures involved in emotion?
Amygdala (Linked to fear; Increased activity for fear, anger, disgust, happiness, and sadness; Also linked with arousal, positive and negative emotion (emotional valence) Limbic system Insula (Disgust) anterior cingulate cortex(Sadness) Orbitofrontal cortex(Anger;Also linked with emotional valence)
What is the analogical paradox? What does it illustrate about the nature of cognition?
Analogical paradox is that participants in lab experiments tend to focus on surface features in analogy problems whereas people in the real world focus on structural features In vivo problem-solving research: observed real world problems at play Researchers listened to molecular biologists and immunologists and found that they used analogies 3 to 15 times per hour. Engineers proposed an analogy every 5 minutes
What does the Capgras delusion reveal about the relationship between emotion and cognition?
Capgras: patients believe that their loved ones have been replaces by imposters; magnitude of responses to familia faces was not greater than for unfamiliar faces; face does not produce the typical emotional response (this absence caused the feeling that your loved ones are replacements) shows the importance of emotion for cognition (visual perception does not feel the same without the emotions that are typically attached)
What is consciousness? What are some of the historical perspectives on consciousness?
Consciousness is a feeling of an inner self that sees through its eyes and hears through its ears. - introspection -Freud focused on the unconsicius memories -behaviories rejected consicous and uncionsious mental processes
Why do we sleep? What are the primary stages of sleep? What is sleepwalking when does it occur?
Explanations for why humans sleep include the restorative powers of sleep or the fact that sleep deprivation produces unpleasant consequences;
Compare and contrast the James-Lange theory and the Two-Factor theories of emotion. Discuss supporting evidence and limitations of each.
James-lange theory: holds that the experience of an emotion follows the physiological changes associated with that state. In other words, an emotion arises from bodily feedback; there is some support for the facial feedback hypothesis, which states that feedback from the facial muscles can elicit emotion; ) had participants hold a pen in their mouths in a manner that either inhibited (pursed lips) or engaged (hold with teeth) the muscles for smiling (They found that participants reported more humor in cartoons in the 'smiling' versus 'inhibiting' conditions); made use of their participants' cosmetic use of Botox® injections to investigate what happens when the frown muscles cannot be moved (found that imitating an angry or sad expression increased bilateral activity in the amygdala, but in the women who had Botox® injections, angry expressions were associated with reduced activity in the left amygdala) limitations: parapalegics show minimal effects on emotional processing; same physiological state can be assoicated with differen tmeotinos; physiological changes that accompany an emotin can occur without an emotional experience; same bodily changes can occurr during emotin that occur in idfferne non-emotional sates two factor theory: two factors create emotion: physiological arousal and our interpretation of it (when we experience arousal, we try to work out the basis for the physiological change); injected 174 men with adrenaline (epinephrine) or saline and then placed them in social situations designed to provoke 'anger' or 'euphoria' (¤Participants injected with adrenaline who were informed as to the physiological effects did not respond to the attempt to manipulate them into feeling anger or euphoria. However, the uninformed participants demonstrated anger or euphoria on behavioral & self report measures); had an attractive female researcher or a male researcher approach 85 male participants after they had crossed one of two bridges (¨, participants who had crossed the anxiety-inducing bridge created stories with more sexual content and were more likely to contact the researcher post-study - but only if they had been approached by the female researcher) limitations: awareness of bodily arousal may play a role in the intensity of the emotional experience but it is not the cause of the emotion per se)
Review each of the major theories of consciousness posited by Damasio (2000), Tulving (1987), and Koch (2019).
Koch (conscious experiences are adaptive; part of planning or fantasizing about future activities and events); damasio (level 1: unconsiocus processes are equated with the proto-self; level 2: "core self is a second order awareness of the proto self; level 3: autobigraphical or episodic memory includes a sense of self
According to cognitive psychologists, what is a problem? Give two examples
a problem occurs when there is an obstacle between a present state and a goal, and it is not immediately obvious how to get around the obstacle (getting good grades on a test, getting from one place to another)
What is the affect heuristic? Discuss two experiments illustrating this phenomenon.
affect heuristic: which readily available feelings or affective assessments (such as like, attractive, positive vs. dislike, repellent, negative) are substituted for target attributes in order to make quick decisions -) found that if people were told about the risks of nuclear power (i.e., possible negative effects such as radiation leakage) then their assessment of its possible benefits, such as cheapness, reliability, low carbon emissions and so on, was negatively affected found that the rated benefits and risks of some 23 technologies (e.g., water fluoridation, mobile phones, microwave ovens) and activities (e.g., surfing, smoking cigarettes, eating beef) were strongly negatively correlated, especially when judgements were made under time pressure versus no time pressure
Margaret has been feeling under the weather recently. She has a mild cough, sore throat, and some congestion but no fever. She immediately rushes to her local emergency room and asks to be tested for coronavirus. The test comes back negative and her doctor diagnoses her with allergies. Which of the biases in decision making that we have discussed best explains why this might occur? Be sure to include mention of at least one psychological experiment in your answer (i.e., method, results, implications).
availability heuristic: The availability heuristic states that events that are more easily remembered are judged as being more probable than events that are less easily remembered study: Asked participants to list 2 ways in which the course could be improved (easy task!) OR list 10 ways (relatively more difficult...I hope!); Then ask for an overall rating of the class; People who had to list 10 ways gave overall higher ratings!;Once again ease of info coming to mind influenced subsequent judgments!
What is blindsight? How can it be mimicked in sighted individuals? Discuss 2 experiments?
blindsight: when patient repsond in some way to anitem displayed in thier blind area; use patients blind on one side of their visual field; patient stares at a fixed point while images are presentaed on eachh side and asked to guess what is on the blind side or to press a buttom on seeing items on sighted side (measure involuntary responses); patients shown images on thier blind side of people expressing emotions correctly guesed the emotion most of the time; found that the superior colliculus plays a critical role in blindsight (showed patients gray and purple sqaures; superior colliculus does not recieve informaiton on purple objects)
Holly was in her mother-in-law's kitchen preparing lunch for the family. When she was ready to dish up the soup, she searched all the cupboards and drawers for a ladle but couldn't find one. She decided to wait until her mother-in- law returned to ask her where the ladle was, leaving the soup in the stove pot. Her mother-in-law later explained that the ladle had been broken, so she told Holly to use a coffee mug to "spoon" the soup into bowls. Explain why Holly's was unable to solve this problem. Be sure to include mention of at least one psychological experiment in your answer (i.e., method, results, implications).
functional fixedness (the tendency to think of objects in terms of their typical or customary uses) psychological experiment (the candle problem: asked to imagine that you are in a room that contains a table with a candle, a box of matches, and a box of thumbtacks, you are asked to find a way to attach the candle to the wall of the room using no other objects than those on the table; solution is to tack the matchbox to the wall; significantly more people were able to solve the problem when the box was empty than when the box was being used as a container)
What is an emotion? What are its properties? How does it differ from mood/affect?
fundamental component of human experience (hard to define); refers to various mental states that are relatively short-loved and are associated with an eliciting event features: bounded episodes elicited when an event of relevance occurs; prepare organism to act; effect most of bodily systems for an effective response; establish precedence over behaviors mood: continuous state that is less intense and relatively non-specific compared to emotions affect: feelings of pleasure or displeasure (mood and emotion are different forms of affect)
What is the Water Jar Problem? What does it illustrate about the effect of prior experience on problem solving?
participants asked to fill the jugs to a desired quantity, but they can only subtract and add the amount contained in jugs A, B, and C; illustrates a mental set (the tendency to think of a problem in a typical or customary way when a better solution is available); the same solution works for each of the examples; significantly more people were able to figure out that there was an easier solution to two of the problems when not shown how to solve the first problem (no mental set)
What are the consequences of injuries to the orbitofrontal cortex with respect to emotion and cognition? Be able to effectively summarize one of the case studies discussed in class.
phineas gage (Gage's temperament and personality underwent considerable changes and his social behaviour was altered. His decision makingwas compromised and his conduct was in stark contrast to his behaviour before the injury, when he was noted as a reliable and conservative figure)
According to cognitive psychologists, what is the best way to enhance or improve one's ability to solve problems? Be sure to include mention of at least one psychological experiment in your answer (i.e., method, results, implications)
providing an analogus problem with suugestion that it will help solve the problem;Gave participants training problems;One group of participants told to memorize the problems, another group told to work on understanding the solution so it could be explained to someone else;Understanders" were able to solve 90% of new test problems à transferred what they had learned; "Memorizers" were only able to solve 69% of new test problems
Lydia is 48 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy as an undergraduate. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and she participated in anti- nuclear demonstrations. Which of the following alternatives is most probable? (1) Lydia is a U.S. Congresswoman OR (2) Lydia is a U.S. Congresswoman and active in the feminist movement. Why? In your answer, be sure to reference the representativeness heuristic, the conjunction rule, and base rate. Additionally, include discussion of at least one experiment in your answer (i.e., methods, results, implications).
representativeness heuristic: a cognitive bias where the outcome is predicted based on how similar that event is to a typical example of that event conjunction rule: ¤The probability of a conjunction of two events (A and B) cannot be higher than the probability of the single constituents (A alone or B alone) base rate: The base rate is the relative proportion of different classes in the population
Discuss how a person's judgments are affected by the way choices are framed. Give an example of a choice framed in terms of gains. Give another example of a choice framed in terms of losses. Which decision-making strategy is likely used in each case? Why?
the framing effect—decisions are influenced by how the choices are stated, or framed in terms of gains: The idea of saving 200 lives with certainty is more attractive than the risk that no one will be saved (risk aversion strategy according to Tversky & Kahneman) in terms of losses: The certain death of 400 people is less acceptable than a 2 in 3 chance that 600 people will die (a risk-taking strategy according to Tversky & Kahneman)
What is attentional bias? How has it been investigated?
the tendency for emotional stimuli to capture or draw attention experiments: participants with depression, anxiety or other disorders is the emotional Stroop task (¤In the emotional Stroop task, stimuli are chosen with emotional or threatening content; For example, in a study involving participants with a spider phobia words such as 'web' and 'hairy' will take attention from the primary task, disrupting performanc)
Discuss the "universal emotions" and how they influence facial expressions. Discuss supporting evidence and limitations of the biological perspective and the cultural perspective.
universal emotions Ekman (photographed emotions in different cultures) identified basic emotions as anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness and surprise, although the South Fore people did not seem to make a clear distinction between fear and surprise; Ekman suggested that in their culture, unexpected events were more likely to be negative, so that fear and surprise tended to co-occur. This research supported an innate basis to the facial expressions for anger, disgust, fear, happiness and sadness, which correspond to a set of basic or core human goals, which are consistent cross-culturally. -while a significant proportion of the Fore sample responded in a manner that was consistent with the Western sample, there was considerable variation in recognition of the emotions(25 percent of the sample mistaking fear for anger) -¨Blind adults show the same facial emotional expressions as seeing adults, demonstrating that a visual model of facial emotional expressions is not required in order to produce the same expression. -¨Adults who were blind from birth showed similar expressions to their family members, suggesting that even the more idiosyncratic aspects of emotional expressions may be inherited. -¨Common facial expressions of emotion are also found in newborn babies, with research suggesting that nature equips the newborn with a 'primal' set of expressions. -However, learning also plays a role. For example, infants of depressed mothers, who have reduced facial expressions, show different responses to facial expression than do infants of non-depressed mothers
How does general anasthesia affect consciousness? Why is this question so difficult to
•Relating these findings about anaesthesia and brains to consciousness, it has been suggested that anaesthesia works by fragmenting the self (Sleigh et al., 2018). • In this view, anaesthesia is seen to fragment the typical hierarchy of components of the self, such as awareness of existence (core self), embodied self (sentience), executive self (agency/volition) and various other higher-order cognitive processes that normally interact with one another. •States of disconnected consciousness arise as the core self is fragmented from these other aspects, until at the deepest level of anaesthesia there is only a disembodied core self that remains.
What happened to Kenneth Parks? Why was he acquitted?
•The Canadian sleepwalking killer, could not be deemed legally insane since sleepwalking is considered a sleep disorder and not a mental illness (Glancy et al., 2002); •Without executive function it is impossible to see how actions can be purposeful, knowing or reckless. In this way we can reach a verdict that agrees with the Canadian legal system
What is locked in syndrome? Why does it occur?
•conscious paralysis (damage to the anterior brain)
