Research Investigation

A few of you have been asking about the Research Investigation (or 'RI'). This is a task which we will start in December and will be completed some time in March. It will involve you running an experiment in a group, and then writing an extended lab report individually. These reports are submitted to the SQA, and count for 20% of your overall grade in the course.

The topics are set by the SQA, though the details of how the experiments are carried out are up to you. I like this year's topics - one is on the use of images to help with memory, and the other is on the effects of a 'stressor' on a bodily response such as heart rate. Both should be pretty straightforward to carry out and write up. Usually students find this part of the course enjoyable, so I hope it will be again this year.

Past Papers; textbooks

Some of you have been asking about Past Papers. I'm sorry to have to tell you that Psychology past papers are currently not published, despite it being a larger Higher than some other subjects that are. To look on the bright side, we can photocopy them for you in the school, and save you £7.50.

As for textbooks, please do your best to get hold of a textbook, preferably 'Higher Psychology', the one on your S6 reading list. I am going to put a few more copies into the library, but it will be easiest for you if you can get a copy to use for homework and revision. I have no doubt that you will be able to sell it on at the end of the year. Apparently it is not available in Borders at the moment, but it is available from John Smith's and Amazon.

Working Memory

I know that the Working Memory model can be hard to understand - here is a quick run through of the key points. I am also going to email you a sample essay answer on the models of memory.

1) The model was proposed by Baddeley and Hitch in 1974
2) It is an alternative view of STM, which emphasises active processing (i.e. it doesn't see STM as a passive store of info).
3) WM is the part of our mind that we use for day-to-day tasks and problem solving
4) WM can achieve more than one task at once
5) The Central Executive is a system based on attention, and how your attention can be divided between tasks. It controls the other parts, which are known as 'slave systems'.
6) The Central Executive is modality-free, has a limited capacity, and is necessary for creative and non-routine processes.
7) Sound and language are mainly processed in the Phonological Loop, which has two parts...
8) The Articulatory Process or 'Inner Voice' is responsible for rehearsing words or numbers inside your head. It has a capacity of around two seconds. The Phonological Store is sometimes called the 'Inner Ear'.
9) The Visuo-spatial Sketchpad does routine visual processing, but is less well-researched. It is sometimes known as the 'Inner Eye'.
10) Recently, a new slave system, the Episodic Buffer, has been proposed. This is similar to Episodic LTM, except that it is temporary.

IRP again; memory

Hi all,

We're well underway with the topic of memory now - nearly finished it in fact. Well done on all the hard work, good homework tasks and practical work too. Next week we'll be looking at the last sub-topic, memory improvement strategies and mnemonics, which is always good fun.

I had mentioned before that your presentation topics could make IRP topics. It is worth noting that a topic such as 'schizophrenia' would lend itself to purely reading-based type of research. In contrast, some of the memory tasks we have done recently might give you an idea of how you could do an IRP based around a psychology experiment.

If you have a vague idea of something you'd like to do along these lines but haven't yet got a specific topic, why not email me about it.

Atypical Behaviour again; IRP

Well done on all today's presentations - there really has been some excellent work done on these topics - good research, and good quality of presentation too.

I will keep the posters to display in the future, but it occurred to me that the PPTs don't benefit from this. For this reason I intend to gather together as many as possible, and put them into a shared network folder for other students to view at their leisure.

I mentioned in the previous post that some aspect of the Atypical Behaviour topics could give rise to an IRP topic. Another possibility to bear in mind for the IRP could be doing something more experimental, along the lines of some of the memory experiments we have done so far, followed by a write-up.

Atypical Behaviour

Well done on all the good work so far on your 'Atypical Behaviour' projects. I hope these will be more or less complete by Friday/Monday, and we will soon schedule in time for presentations, perhaps at the end of next week.

As I said before, it would be great if you could take your research further - many of the topics would make excellent starting points for the IRP.

Another illusion

Here's another one - shows it works in colour too! The 'yellow' square in the middle of the front face and the 'brown' one in the middle of the top face are the same colour. They are. They really are.

In some ways, examples of how our visual perception can be mislead are simple enough to get your head around. Perhaps it makes you wonder, though, how much of your other perceptions are distorted. Can you think of an argument, for example, when you and another were both convinced that you were right about something, even though you disagreed?

Illusions

Hi,

Talking about illusions in class today - this is one of my favourite ones, and I think it works better on the screen than on paper:

Yes - believe it or not, squares 'A' and 'B' are exactly the same shade of grey.

Illusions like this help us to understand a key idea of the 'cognitive perspective' - the world that we percieve is to a large extent constructed by our mental processes. How we respond to objects and events can depend on our expectations and thought processes.

In this example, we expect square 'A' to be black and square 'B' to be white - so that is what we see!

Welcome!

To all my new students this year, welcome to the course! Good luck with Higher Psychology, I hope you enjoy it, and end up with a good result.

Good luck!

Just wanted to say that I have had a really good time with Psych classes this year, you were a really interesting and memorable group to teach, and I wish you all well for next year. It's an exciting time for you all.

Maybe see you at yearbook signing,

J Firth

The Higher Psychology exam 2008

Well, at least it's over! (For you, anyway!)

I thought the exam paper was pretty reasonable. Section A was pretty good - nice chunky areas of the topics to talk about. Section B was an experiment which was great, especially as we had practice of answering similar Qs in your 2nd Prelim.

The section that stood out as most problematic was Conformity & Obedience. The first Q ('What is meant by conformity and obedience') was ok, but the other two were harder. For (b), 'consider factors which affect conformity...refer to relevant research evidence', I hope you thought to include situational factors such as group size, and individual factors such as age and gender. Certainly not an easy one. (C), on the ethical issues with obedience research, is perhaps more straightforward, but not something that many people would have prioritised in revision. However, bear in mind that pupils throughout the country would have the same problems with these questions!

The essay Q on Intelligence was always going to be a bit tough, but the topic was fairly predictable - theories of intelligence (aspect 1) - this hadn't come up as an essay Q before.

All in all, I thought it was as good as could be expected, and I hope you gave a good account of yourselves!!!!

A couple of links

A couple of links that may be useful for your future studies:

For examples of popular note taking formats, see Note taking Systems at http://www.sas.calpoly.edu/asc/ssl/notetaking.systems.html

For additional techniques for study and exam preparation, go to Tips for Effective Study at http://www.cod.edu/people/faculty/fancher/STUDY.HTM

Methods mnemonics

Here is a reminder (ironic?) of the some of the mnemonics for RMs. Bear in mind that these are only triggers/cues to the memory, and don't cover all aspects of the course, but will hopefully help a bit in the exam:

Experiment - features: CROC

(Control, replication, operationalisation of variables, cause&effect)

Observation - PONDS

(Participant observation, naturalistic, disclosed, structured)

Survey - Interview SOD - Questionnaire MOD
(Structured/unstructured, Open/closed Qs, Disguise of aims. Method of admin, Open/close Qs. Design principles)

Case study - QILT
(Qualitative, In-depth, Longitundinal, Techniques for data gathering)

Ethics: BITCH

(Briefing, Informed consent, Treatment of children & animals, Confidentiality, Harm)

Multiple intelligences

Multiple intelligences is a popular area of the topic intelligence, but there tend to be a lot of misunderstandings. Hope I can clarify a little:

The theory was proposed as a reaction against the idea of unitary intelligence, and the importance of IQ scores.

Gardiner (1983) felt that IQ was too simply defined and measured - short answers on a test could not accoutn for all types of intelligent behaviour.

If you compare two people, one might be less able in one area than the other, but the other might be stronger in another are of cognition.

Gardiner believes that everyone has a unique pattern of intelligences, a unique 'cognitive profile'.

Gardiner set out eight criteria for whether an ability or capacity should be defined as an intelligence, including:

• There are case studies of individuals exhibiting unusual talents in the capacity
• There is neurological evidence of areas of the brain specialized for the capacity
• The capacity has clear evolutionary relevance
• There exists a symbolic notation (e.g. written language, musical notation, choreography).

Seven intelligences were originally set out. An eigth, naturalistic intelligence, was added in 1999. Discussions are ongoing as to whether a ninth, existential intelligence, should be included in the theory.

Here's a more colourful version of the image from your booklet!

Explanation: Reliability v's validity

As promised:

Reliability and validity can be confusing. I will try to clarify.

Any kind of test or measure - IQ tests, exams, langauge tests - should be both reliable and valid.

Being reliable means that it gets consistent results. Two people with the same ability should get the same result. The same person tested on more than one occasion should get the same result.

The problem with making an IQ test reliable is that it is hard to know someone's intelligence level without testing them, and if you then test them again on the same test, they will do better because of practice. Test can be made more reliable by reducing elements of chance or guesswork.

Being valid means that it measures what it aims to measure. Surprisingly often, this is not the case. For example, you might fail a memory test because you ran out of time. However, it was supposed to be a test of memory, not a test of speed. An IQ test is supposed to measure intelligence. You could not give someone a science test and say that it measured their intelligence, because knowledge of science is (in principle) separate from intelligence.

The problem with making an IQ test valid is that nobody seems to agree what exactly intelligence is. This makes it hard to know what kind of questions to include. For example, some people would include verbal questions such as:

What is the odd one out - hat, coat, scarf, shelf

Other people might say that language ability is separate from intelligence. Also, the question above could be accused of being culturally biased, as not all cultures wear hats etc.

Culture

'Cultural factors' is a term that appears in many topics, and I thought it could use a bit of explanation.

Most psychological research is done in North America and Europe, and theories are sometimes criticised for this - do the conclusions apply to other cultures around the world?

It used to be the case that in the unit 1 topics, you could get a tricky little 4 or 6-mark question on culture. However, the new format seems to make that less likely - I can't see a ten mark question on this coming up.

However, it would still be useful to know at least one piece of info or research for each topic that will allow you to show an awareness of cross-cultural issues. This will help you pick up extra marks, especially A&E marks, and give that 'WOW' factor to the examiner by knowing things that most candidates don't know!

Here are some possibilities:

Memory: a lot of our long-term memories form culture-based bundles of knowledge called schemas. Bartlett (1932) showed how people tend to distort info from other cultures. Any good theory of LTM must take culture into account.

Early Socialisation: Morelli & Tronick (1992) gave evidence that 'stages of attachment' apply to an African hunter-gatherer tribe, despite differences in child-rearing. A strength of Ainsworth's theory of attachment types (secure, avoidant, resistant) is that she studied Ugandan children as well as American.

Stress: Social support is one of the strategies for reducing stress. Kim & McKenry (1998) studied social support in the USA, and found that ethnic minorities (e.g. black, hispanic) tended to have better support from their parents/children than the white majority.

Conf & Obed: There have been various cross-cultural studies based on the Asch and Milgram paradigms. Smith & Bond (1998) looked at 31 studies of conformity, and found that people from 'collectivist' cultures (primarily African and Asian countries) tended to show higher levels of conformity than people from 'individualist' cultures (e.g. North America, Western Europe).

Intelligence: The main issue to be aware of is cultural bias in IQ testing. Gould (1982) disputed evidence of racial differences in IQ, as cultural background and knowledge of English were confounding variables.

Textbooks

Could I please have all texbooks back please (after the exam is fine!).

I don't mind people borrowing them, but there are quite a few missing, and obviously I do need them for next year. Please pass them back when you can, you won't get into trouble.

Thank you!

Explanation - sensory memory

In the first sub-topic of memory - 'the nature of memory' - you need to know about all three memory 'stores', so you should know about SM (sensory memory), as well as STM and LTM. Here's a quick summary:

Sensory memory (SM) is the mind's ability to store information from the senses for very brief periods before it is processed.

Most of this information fades, but if you pay attention to it, it is processed and passes to STM.

Each sense is thought to have a separate 'sensory store', but the most well-known are the vision-based store, 'iconic memory', and the hearing-based store, 'echoic memory'.

Iconic memory lasts for 0.5 seconds, and echoic memory lasts for 2 seconds.

We often experience this, when somebody speaks to us & we are not paying attention. If we then focus on what they said, we can still hear a kind of shadow of what they said ringing in our ears, and are able to process it. This can be very useful!

Sperling (1960) studied the capacity of iconic memory by presenting visual items very briefly. The capacity initially appeared small, less than that of STM, but he later found using a 'cued recall' technique that a lot of information is taken in, but it fades too fast for people to be able to report it all. By the time they have recalled the first three or four items, the rest has faded from their 'mind's eye'. By cuing Ps to recall just one line from a three line display, recall rose to 75% from a 12 item display.

A&E marks again

I've already posted on this topic, but just to highlight again, underline, circle in red pen and otherwise draw to your attention, two especially important points:

1) You can get A&E marks for giving real-world examples.

2) If you are short of evaluative points (e.g. criticisms of a research study or theory) you can get two marks rather than one for expanding a simple point. So, a comment such as "This study lacks ecological validity, as it is not like real life" (1 mark), becomes "This study lacks ecological validity, because the task would never occur in ordinary life. This makes the results hard to interpret, and conclusions may only apply to the lab setting." (2 marks). Get it?

2nd Prelim (again)

Of course all the papers are marked now, and well done to most of you who have achieved excellent results. To anyone for whom it didn't go well, I hope it was a useful process anyway, if only to highlight areas of difficulty in need of revision.

If you haven't seen me and want to know how you did, send me an email and I'll reply with your grade, although I'd rather see you in person and go over it.

Explanation: Decay theory of forgetting

Decay theory of forgetting is one which seems to cause confusion, perhaps because I presented it to you as a theory of forgetting in STM, but it has also been researched as a theory of forgetting in LTM.

The basic idea of decay is that when we encode a memory, a structural change takes place in the brain. Hebb (1949) argued that this trace (sometimes called an 'engram') is delicate, and liable to disruption over time unless further learning takes place. So, in short, if we don't practice/rehease learning, then it will fade and be forgotten. Decay means fading/crumbling of memories over a period of time.

However, research shows that procedural LTMs - skills such as driving a car - are not forgotten even if not used for many years. Additionally, memories sometimes spontaneously reappear, in dreams or if you have a bump on the head. This phenomenon suggests that the engram has not actually decayed, but some other process has caused forgetting.

An early piece of research by Jenkins & Dallenbach (1924) gave participants ten nonsense syllables to learn. Some participants went to sleep (this is a 'do nothing - no interference' condition) and others carried on with normal activities. The period spent asleep didn't result in greater forgetting, leading them to conclude that forgetting in LTM is not due to decay but due to interference of new information.

Similarly, Baddeley & Hitch looked at forgetting in rugby players. Some participants had played a large number of games over a season, and others had played fewer due to injury or suspension. The researchers found that the key variable affecting recall was the number of games played - again supporting the idea that memories suffer from interference rather than decay.

Evidence for decay in STM is better - Peterson & Peterson (1959) found that forgetting in STM was a function of time, with recall falling sharply over the course of 30 seconds. However, even this kind of research does not prove the role of decay. This is because to allow for other factors (especially displacement/interference), the participants would have to be doing nothing during the time period. In fact, they were doing a distraction task (counting backwards) to prevent them from rehearsing the items.

Early socialisation vids

Still on Early Socialisation, here are a couple of youtube video clips related to the topic:

Harlow's monkeys:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLrBrk9DXVk
Great illustration of how the monkey goes to the wire surrogate to feed, but is comforted by the cloth one.

Separation anxiety:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6QtuU1L_A8&feature=related
Similar to the 'strange situation', this shows an approx 1 year old child upset with a stranger, but easily comforted by an attachment figure (his dad, we assume). I agree with scantysanwiches, it seems to be a secure attachment!

Parenting styles - website

Most of you seem to have a good grasp of what the three main parenting styles involve, and I've seen good discussion in prelim answers of aspects like control, nurturance, communication, parental expectations.

A bit weaker is most people's ability to discuss the impact of the different styles on children. If you're doing this topic, the following article is definitely worth a look:

http://www.athealth.com/Practitioner/ceduc/parentingstyles.html

Like with other areas, an answer is going to be much stronger if you can accurately refer to a research finding.

2nd Prelim

I'm marking the 2nd Prelim at the moment.  I've only marked less than half of the scripts so far, but I'm pleased to say that results so far are very good.

One slight problem that arises is that a lot of people left half an hour early or more, and where there are poor answers at all, it is generally because they are a bit short.  In preparation for the final exam, think about fleshing out answers, ideally with research evidence, and making full use of the available time if possible.

We'll go over the exam on Thursday, so I hope to see most of you there.

Explanation: Factor models & information-processing models of intelligence

A question which arose from todays revision class:

What is the difference between 'factor' & 'information-processing' models of intelligence? Which group does Gardiner's model go in?

Bear in mind that people do not universally agree what intelligence is. Some people decided that the best approach would be to give people ability tests, and use statistics to see what patterns emerge. The theory can then built from that information. This is the case with factor models. The main statistical test used is Spearman's 'factor analysis', and the term factor models derives from this test.

One problem with this is that it can depend on what tests you give to your research participants. Spearman (1904) found a single 'g' (general) factor, but Thurstone (1938) found 7 factors. Also, it only shows that certain factors exist, it doesn't tell us anything about how these processes work, or how performance could be improved.

Information-processing (or 'cognitive') models are not based on testing - instead they make models of how people process information & solve problems.

Cognitive psychologists have looked into various abilities such as reaction time, working memory, ability to retrive words from LTM, and ability to make accurate comaprisons. Rather like models of memory that we have studied, models of intelligence in this approach are built up, and include various elements that link together.

Gardiner's model of multiple intelligences doesn't fit neatly into either group. Gardiner places a lot of emphasis on neuroscience - studies of the brain and brain damage. He is also very interested in 'savants' - profoundly retarded people who have one special ability e.g. drawing or mathematics. Many people in psychology are sceptical of Gardiner's approach, which seems to rely a lot on assumptions rather than research.

If you have to place it in a category, then call it an information-processing theory, because it has developed as part of contemporary cognitive psychology. Besides, it's definitely not a factor model, as it doesn't use ability testing or factor analysis.

Exam info: A&E marks

One of you has been asking how to pick up A&E marks on questions where you are not evaluating a theory or research study.

I thought it would be useful to copy from the course arrangement document the SQA's description of what these marks should be awarded for, and this is in italics below. Three of the main points which you may not have realised:

You can get A&E marks for giving real-world examples
You can get A&E marks for explaining parts of a model and how they work together
You can get A&E marks for comparing and contrasting

Remember that A%E makes up 40% of the exam marks overall, but check carefully the mark allocation for each question before you answer it.


Analysis will involve, for example:
♦ explanation of components of a behaviour or mental process and the relationship between
these
♦ description of factors affecting behaviours and mental processes
♦ discussion of origins and development of behaviours and mental processes
♦ interpretation of research findings and conclusions in relation to relevant theory
♦ the ability to discuss psychological phenomena from alternative theoretical perspectives
♦ comparison of evidence from different cultural contexts
♦ integration of knowledge from different psychological areas, and of new information with
already-existing knowledge
♦ identification of common underlying themes, such as nature/nurture interaction; application
of knowledge in a new context, or in a situation in everyday life

Evaluation may include aspects of analysis as well as the ability:
♦ to weigh up the strengths and weaknesses of psychological theories, concepts, research
evidence, research methodology, and psychological applications
♦ to compare and contrast theories
♦ to discuss ethical issues in psychological research and applications

Explanation: Transactional model of stress

Probably the most common area of misunderstanding in the Higher!

The transactional model is, nowadays, the most popular way of viewing stress.  They key idea is that the level of stress a person experiences depends on their view of themselves and the world.

The model has one major similarity to Selye's G.A.S., which is that anything that causes a bodily response is defined as a stressor.  However there is also a major difference, in that it is not how many stressors we experience that is seen as important - instead our perception of stressors is seen as critical.

The importance placed on perceptions of stress means that this theory is more cognitive than the G.A.S.  As you may realise, a positive aspect of the transactional model is that it helps explains individual differences - for example, why one person gets stressed by a traffic jam, and another doesn't.

It was first described by Lazarus (1966) who set out a series of stages, the most important of which are:

Primary appraisal: The person assesses the threat posed by the stimulus

Secondary appraisal: The person assesses their own coping ability.

One other thing: the transactional model is closely linked to stress management, especially cognitive strategies such as stress inoculation therapy (S.I.T.)

Hope this helps!

Lazarus, R.S. (1966).  Psychological Stress and the Coping Process.  New York: McGraw-Hill.

Future posts

Over the next couple of weeks I intend to post about areas of the course that usually cause difficulty/confusion, e.g. reliability & validity in IQ tests, working memory, transactional model of stress, confounding variables... If you have any areas you'd like me to include, please let me know.

Revision classes

As the exam is still three weeks away, I'm hoping to see you fairly regularly for revision classes in the meantime.

I know most of you would rather avoid anything too early, too late, or too often, so can I suggest we go for a once a week, 10.30 to 12.30 session? As follows:

Thursday 15th May, 10.30, Room B43 (day before the 2nd Prelim)
Thursday 22nd May, 10.30, Room B43 (to return 2nd prelim scripts)
Thursday 29th May, 10.30, Room B43
Monday 2nd June, 10.30, Room B43 (2 days before exam)

Obviously if you have an exam to go to the same day then that comes first, but otherwise I do expect people to turn up for these sessions. In the past I have found it makes a big difference, with people who regularly attend May revision classes doing well in the exam.

2nd Prelim

Reminder: the second prelim will take place on Friday 16th May, from 9.00am to 11.30 am, in room B38. Sorry I couldn't make it a bit later in the morning, but this was the only way to avoid displacing another class.

Previous exam questions will be included in prelims, so it's worth going through the past papers as preparation.

Just to make it completely clear, the 2nd prelim is the one and only piece of evidence I will submit as appeals evidence, so it is extremely important that you make it on Friday and give a good account of yourselves. Without a good pass in the 2nd prelim, no appeal can be submitted.

Past papers

A lot of people have been asking me about past papers for Higher Psychology.

The situation is that the past papers are not currently published by Leckie and Leckie, mainly because the revised version of the course has not been running for long enough. What I can do instead is photocopy my copies of these papers for you. Also, the marking schemes are available for free on the SQA website, and I have saved these onto the the school network.

I also have an updated version of the Specimen Question Paper for Higher Psychology available for you, and again the marking scheme is on the network. This is the only publiched paper which has the new-format Section A. Take note that the past papers from 2005-2007 contain old-format Section A, with only 2 of the 3 topics included. From 2008 onwards, this section will contain all three topics, from which you can choose 2 to answer. Also, these questions will all be either 10+10 marks, or 8+12 marks.

What to use this blog for?

Any suggestions for what you'd like to see on the Psych department blog, just let me know.