cognitive practical

Question 1

practical investigation

Answer 1

an experiment to look at interference tasks and the effect on short term memory

Question 2

retroactive interference theory

Answer 2

suggests information presented after the target material negatively affects recall

Question 3

what did Brophy, Jackson and Crowe investigate in study 1

Answer 3

• participants completed the immediate and delayed components of the Welscher memory scale with or without the introduction of conceptually similar memory tasks between the recall tasks

Question 4

what did Brophy Jackson and Crowe investigate in study 2

Answer 4

order of administration was reversed with the Welscher memory subtests used as interference items
- results indicated that the introdutcion of interference items during delay negatively affected delayed recall performance

Question 5

our aim

Answer 5

to test our short term memory

Question 6

independent variable

Answer 6

1 group had to complete an interference task in their break, the other group did not

Question 7

dependent variable

Answer 7

how many words are written down /10

Question 8

1 tailed hypothesis

Answer 8

participants who did not complete the interference task during their break will recall significantly more words and score higher out of 10 than the participants who did complete the interference task in their break

Question 9

null hypothesis

Answer 9

there won’t be a significant difference in the results of participants who did the interference task compared to participants who did not

Question 10

participants description

Answer 10

• psychology students from King Edwards Stourbridge college
• 12 students completed the experiment with interference task
• 10 students completed the experiment without the interference task
• selected by opportunity sampling
• 22 in total

Question 11

materials used

Answer 11

• a slide with 10 random words
• an online reaction time test (interference task)
• pens/paper to write down recalled words

Question 12

procedure

Answer 12

• all participants were shown a list of 10 words (participants from the same group were shown the same word list) for 30 seconds
• after words have been presented there will be a 1 minute break
• group A had no interference task in their break
• Group B were given a reaction time test to complete during their break
• after the 1 minute break participants were prompted to write sown as many words as they could remember in 1 minute

Question 13

Group A results

Answer 13

mean = 9.2
mode = 9
median = 9

Question 14

group B results

Answer 14

mean = 7.9
mode = 9
median = 9

Question 15

conclusion

Answer 15

an interference task does not have a significant impact on STM

Question 16

generalisability strengths

Answer 16

gender diversity = mix of males and females

Question 17

generalisability weaknesses

Answer 17

all psychology students same age same college

Question 18

reliability strengths

Answer 18

standardised test = easy to repeat

Question 19

reliability weakness

Answer 19

small sample size

Question 20

ethics

Answer 20

all kept

Question 21

validity strengths

Answer 21

well controlled lab experiment
avoided any extraneous variables keeping internal validity

Question 22

validity weaknesses

Answer 22

lacked ecological validity, as it did not reflect real life

Question 23

applications

Answer 23

dementia patients = only give them 1 thing to focus on so they do not get distracted as they will remember less
eyewitnesses = get distracted by other things, so STM isn’t always 100% accurate when they recall events

Question 24

improvements

Answer 24

• use a bigger sample size
• make sample stratified so it is more representative of the whole society and results can be generalised more