Evaluate+the+extent+to+which+a+cognitive+process+is+reliable


 * **Term ** || **Definition ** ||
 * Reconstructive || The brain’s active processing of information to make sense of the world. ||
 * False memories || People consequently believe to be true. ||
 * Serial reproduction || One person reproduces the original story, a second person has to reproduce the first reproduction, and so on, until six or seven reproductions have been created. ||
 * Leading questions || Questions that are suggestive in some way – and post-event information facilitate schema processing which may influence accuracy of recall. ||

**Reliability of one cognitive process: memory **

__How reliable is memory? __ Researchers have demonstrated that memory may not be as reliable as we think. Memories may be influenced by other factors than what was recorded in the first place, due to **reconstructive nature of memory.** ** ﻿ **



** Are recovered memories accurate? **

<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 38pt; text-indent: -18pt;">1**. Sigmund Fred (1875~1935)** <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 38pt; text-indent: -18pt;"> <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">“Forgetting was caused by repression.”

<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 38pt; text-indent: -18pt;">- People who experience intense emotional and anxiety-provoking events may use defense mechanisms, such as repression, <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 38pt; text-indent: -18pt;">to protect their conscious self from knowing things that they cannot cope with. They send the dangerous memories to the unconscious, <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 38pt; text-indent: -18pt;">which means that they will deny it ever happened. However, the memory will continue to haunt them in symbolic forms in their dreams <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 38pt; text-indent: -18pt;">until a therapist is able to retrieve the memory using specific techniques.

<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 38pt; text-indent: -18pt;">- Some researchers claim that these techniques can create false memories, which people consequently believe it be true.

<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 38pt;"> <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 38pt;">“It is possible to manipulate people’s memories.”
 * 2. Elizabeth Loftus**

<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 38pt; text-indent: -18pt;">- **Aim:** to prove that “a false memory had been created by the post-event information.” <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 38pt; text-indent: -18pt;">- **Procedure:** (2002) <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">a. The police asked people to come forward with information about Washington sniper, who killed a number of people. <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">b. Many reported having seen a white van in the vicinity of the shootings. (In fact, the sniper’s van was dark green.) <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 38pt; text-indent: -18pt;">- **Findings:** Where the myth of the white van came from? <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">a. A bystander had mentioned a white van in an interview. <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">b. After this, other people reported that they had seen a white van.

**<span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: 맑은 고딕; font-size: 12pt;">Empirical testing of reliability of memory **

<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; line-height: 0px; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; overflow: hidden;"> <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"> <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">“Memory is reconstructive and that schemas influence recall.”
 * <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Frederic Bartlett **

<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 38pt; text-indent: -18pt;">- **Aim:** to prove that people reconstruct the past by trying to fit it into existing schemas. <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕;">- **<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕;">Method: ** <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 38pt;"><Serial reproduction> <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">a. One person reproduces the original story, a second person has to reproduce the first reproduction, and so on, until six or seven reproductions <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">have been created <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">b. Duplicate the process by which ramous and gossip are spread, or legends are passed from generation to generation. <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕;">- **<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕;">Procedure: ** <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">a. Based on a Native American legend. <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">b. Bartlett asked the participants to read through the story twice. <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">c. None of the participants knew the purpose or the aim of the experiment. <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">d. After 15 minutes, Bartlett asked the participants to reproduce the story from memory. <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">e. He asked them to reproduce the story a couple times more when they had the opportunity to come into his laboratory. <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕;">- **<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕;">Findings: ** <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">a. It appeared that //The War of the Ghosts// was difficult for people from western cultures to reproduce because of its unfamiliar style and content. <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">Bartlett found some characteristic changes in the reproduction of the story.
 * <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕;">The story became shorter – for example, Bartlett found that after six or seven reproductions, it was reduced to 180 words.


 * <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕;">The story remained a coherent story no matter how distorted it was compared to the original. Bartlett said that this was because people interpreted the story as a whole, both when they were listening to it and later when they were retelling it.


 * <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕;">The story became more conventional – that is, it retained only those details that could be assimilated to the shared past experience and cultural background of the participants.

<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">b. People reconstruct the past by trying to fit it into existing schemas. <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">c. The more complicated the story, the more likely it is that elements will be forgotten or distorted. <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt;">→ //people’s efforts after meaning// : People try to find a familiar pattern in experiences past or new ones. <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">d. Memory is an imaginative reconstruction of experience.

**<span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: 맑은 고딕; font-size: 12pt;">Loftus’s research on reliability of eyewitness testimony **

<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"> <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">“The nature of questions can influence witnesses’ memory.”
 * <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Elizabeth Loftus **

- **Aim:** <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 맑은 고딕;">to see if changing one word in certain critical questions would influence speed estimates. - **<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕;">Method: ** <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 38pt;">< Leading questions > <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">a. Questions that are suggestive in some way – and post-event information facilitate schema processing which may influence accuracy of recall. <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕;">- **<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕;">Procedure: ** <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">a. Used 45 students, who first saw films of traffic accidents and then had to estimate the speed of the car in film. <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕;">- **<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕;">Variables: ** <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">a. **Independent variable:** //About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?// (“Hit” was replaced by “smashed”, ”collided”, <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">”bumped”, and ”contacted” in separate trials.) **<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕;">b. **<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕;">**Dependent Variable:** the estimation of speed (in miles/hour) <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕;">- **<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕;">Findings: ** <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 38pt; text-indent: -18pt;">a. the mean speed estimate was in fact affected by the words, so that “smashed” and ”collided” increased the estimated speed. <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 38pt; text-indent: -18pt;">b. The participant hearing the word “smashed” may actually imagine the accident as more severe than a participant hearing the word “contacted”.
 * Experiment 1 **

Experiment 2 <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 38pt; text-indent: -18pt;"> - **Aim:** to see if memory was changed when it was retrieved <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕;">- **<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕;">Procedure: ** <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">a. Used 150 students as participants. <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">b. They were divided into three groups and they all saw a film of a car accident. <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">c. Then they were asked questions about the accident, including the question on estimation of speed, but this time only including <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">“hit” or “smashed” in two of the groups. <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">d. The control group did not have questions on speed estimates. <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">e. A week later, the participants were tested again. <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">f. The participants were asked a number of questions, but the critical question was whether or not they had seen <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">broken glass in the film they had watched a week before. <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">g. This time, they simply had to answer yes or no. (In fact, there was no broken glass in the film.) <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕;">- **<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕;">Findings: **
 * = <span style="display: block; font-family: 맑은 고딕; text-align: center;">Response ||||||= <span style="display: block; font-family: 맑은 고딕; text-align: center;">Verb condition  ||
 * ^  ||= <span style="display: block; font-family: 맑은 고딕; text-align: center;">Smashed  ||= <span style="display: block; font-family: 맑은 고딕; text-align: center;">Hit  ||= <span style="display: block; font-family: 맑은 고딕; text-align: center;">Control  ||
 * = <span style="display: block; font-family: 맑은 고딕; text-align: center;">Yes ||= <span style="display: block; font-family: 맑은 고딕; text-align: center;">16  ||= <span style="display: block; font-family: 맑은 고딕; text-align: center;">7  ||= <span style="display: block; font-family: 맑은 고딕; text-align: center;">6  ||
 * = <span style="display: block; font-family: 맑은 고딕; text-align: center;">No ||= <span style="display: block; font-family: 맑은 고딕; text-align: center;">34  ||= <span style="display: block; font-family: 맑은 고딕; text-align: center;">43  ||= <span style="display: block; font-family: 맑은 고딕; text-align: center;">44  ||


 * <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">The different words had an effect on the estimation of speed as well as the perception of consequences.
 * <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">“Smashed” provides the participants with verbal information that activates schemas for a severe accident. Broken glass is in line with this, so the participant is more likely to think that there was broken glass involved.
 * <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">It is possible to create a false memory using post-event information.

<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">a. Controlled laboratory experiment - ecological validity?
 * <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">- Evaluation **

<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt;">* Yuille and Cutshall (1986) have criticized Loftus’s research for lack of ecological validity .Performing research on memory in a laboratory <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt;">does not reflect how and what people remember in real life, they argue. They used Loftus’s technique in interviewing people did not <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt;">seem to distort people’s memory.

<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 2cm; text-indent: -2cm;">* Instead, they found that the memory for details in this real-life situation was quite amazing. This was seen particularly in witnesses <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 2cm; text-indent: -2cm;">who had been close to the event. In fact, it seemed that the wording of question had no effect on recall, and those who were most <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 2cm; text-indent: -2cm;">distressed by the situation had the most accurate memories.

<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">b. A problem in suing closed questions (people have to answer yes or no) <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">c. All the research participants were US students - the sample is culturally biased. <span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">d. Begs the question of how well people are able to estimate speed. - This too may have had an influence on the results.

<span style="font-family: 맑은 고딕; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 56pt; text-indent: -18pt;">media type="youtube" key="qbP43N95MKM?fs=1" height="385" width="480"