cognitive- research methods

Question 1

types of experiments: laboratory

Answer 1

-IV is directly manipulated all other extraneous variables are controlled and participants are randomly allocated to conditions
+ - highly controlled- easy to control extrenuos values that can distract in memory tasks, any changes in memory are directly related to change in IV. therfore researchers are able to claim a cause and affect realationship with more confidence.
- artifical environment , people are more likley to behave as they would in an everyday setting, for example they may try harder on a memory test than they would with everyday examples of memory. therfore making the findings on memory tests from lab experiments less representative of day to day memory recall

Question 2

field experiments

Answer 2

when researcher controlls IV but experimenter cannot control other extraneous variables to the same extent than laboratory, participants arent neccisarly randomly allocated to conditions
+- natural environments, behaviours may be more representative of everyday life and therfore the findings of the study may be applied to everyday examples of such behaviour with more confidence
- difficult to control, hard to control all confounding vairiables therfore factors other than the IV may have affected DV, this menas its difficult to conclude that IV was the only factor causing the change and so may be harder to claim a cause and affect relationship.

Question 3

operanilisation of variables:

Answer 3

how we intend to measure or test variables in a study in a PRESICE way.
variables need to be operanilastonalised in oder to be objective and so the study can be manipulated.
effective operanilisation will ensure high reliability and validity.
Iv should include names of of BOTH the conditions you are comparing
DV should include exactly what you are measuring

Question 4

one tailed hypothesis

Answer 4

direction in the hymothesis such as ‘more’ or ‘less’
(eg: there will be significantly more words correctly recalled by the adults compared to the children)

Question 5

two tailed hypothesis

Answer 5

there will be a signficant difference - not directed

Question 6

experimental design:
independent groups

Answer 6

group of participants who are given the experimental treatment are referred to as the experimental group, and the group that provides the comparison and recives no experimental treatments the control group
4 do condition A 4 do condition B

Question 7

matched pairs design

Answer 7

characterisitcs by which the groups are matched are specific to the study. matching is complete before the study begins
(might match memory ability before dividing into 2 groups )

Question 8

repeated measures design

Answer 8

exposes every participant to each of the experiential conditions, participants are used as thier own controls, one of the conditions will be a control or comparrison condition.
4 ppl do both conditions A and B

Question 9

Potential issues with: tiredness in repeated measures

Answer 9

Participant tiredness- limits reliability of findings, participant had to experience multiple conditions which lead to fatigue making tiredness more responsible for the change in DV than IV

Question 10

Control for issues in independent design

Answer 10

Make sure participants are randomly allocated to conditions

Question 11

Potential issues: demand characterisitcs

Answer 11

Participants understand aims in study and act accordingly to those aims, instead of displaying truthful behaviour , to reduce risk repeated measures used less participants

Question 12

Control for issues with repeated measure :

Answer 12

Counterbalancing to avoid Oder effects : participants go through conditions in different orders, equal no of participants in each Oder

Question 13

Potential issues:
Participant variables

Answer 13

Personal characteristics of a participant can have an impact on IV instead of the DV

Question 14

Controls for matched pairs design :

Answer 14

Large group of participants to in crease suitably of matched pairs
Identical twins have close participant variables and are favoured

Question 15

Potential issues: no of participants required in a sample

Answer 15

Matched pairs and independent groups , required to use double no of participants than needed in repeated measures

Question 16

Strength of repeated measures

Answer 16

It’s possible to remove participant effects. Eg if a person has 5 years driving experience in condition A (no alcohol) they also have 5 years experience in condition B( alcohol)
The participant variable is the same for both conditions so any difference in driving is further to alcohol and not experience

Question 17

Weakness for repeated measures design

Answer 17

Offer effects may occur when participants take part in more than one experimental condition. Oder effects can confound the results, either negatively though the effects of fatigue or Bordem or postivly through the effects of learning or practise

Question 18

Strength of matched pairs

Answer 18

No Oder effects as each participant only does one condition and there is a good attempt at controlling participant variables , through matching partipcantd in each condition based on factors that could effect performance

Question 19

Weakness of matched pairs

Answer 19

Can be difficult and time consuming , it depends on the use of reliable and valid procedures for pre-testing participants to identify matched pairs. Complete matching of participants on all variables that might affect performance can rarely be achieved

Question 20

Strength of independent groups design

Answer 20

Avoids Oder effects all together and participants are less likely to gird aims of the study and show demand characteristics as they only take part in one condition

Question 21

Weakness of independent groups design

Answer 21

Has no control for participant variables which could influence experiments results .

Question 22

What’s an extraneous variable

Answer 22

Factors that may have an unwanted effect on the DV

Question 23

What’s a confounding variable

Answer 23

Can influence the DV and make it look as though the effect was coming from the IV

Question 24

Situational variables

Answer 24

Variables connected with the research situation , controlled through standardisation

Question 25

Participant variables

Answer 25

Any characteristic of individual participants which may affect findings Such as : Age/ experience Gender - women more obedient as they are focused on group goals over individual ones (Eagly 1978) Irrelevant participant variables such as noise and liking of spicy food

Question 26

Demand characteristics

Answer 26

Occur when participants try to make sense of the research situation, and act accordingly

Question 27

experimenter effects

Answer 27

investigator effects result from the effects of a researchers behaviour and characteristics on an investigation expectation effects- researcher deeply commied to achiving a particular outcome, can be a problem when observing events that can be interpreted more than one way, the presence of an observer can cause participants to behave in ways different to normal behaviour the investigators : age,gender, race, facial expressions and communication style can also influence findings.

Question 28

how to control situational variables

Answer 28

stadardisation of procedure and instructions, (same environment )

Question 29

how control issues with participant variables

Answer 29

change expreimental design

Question 30

how control issues with demand characteristics

Answer 30

single blind procedure distractor task

Question 31

how to control issues with investigator effects

Answer 31

double blind procedure

Question 32

effects of extreneous variables

Answer 32

- objectivity, risk bias from researcher and participant, based on personal feelings which can impact collection of data or interpretation - reliability , extreneous variables will impact the researchers abillity to get consistent data meaning it will be more difficult to confidently compare performance on tasks - validity, accuracy which data was collected represents behaviour of intrest in the study as well as the behaviour of everyday life

Question 33

internal validity

Answer 33

extent at which a study can establish a casual relationship between independent and dependent variables free from confounding factors

Question 34

external validity

Answer 34

extent research and findings can be genralised to other situatuins, people, settings and measueres

Question 35

predicitive validity

Answer 35

the ability to use the results f the study to accuratly predict how that behaviour may be seen in the future/ how that behaviour may change

Question 36

ecological vaalidity

Answer 36

ability to use results of the study to accurately explain how that behaviour will be seen in day to day situations

Question 37

case studies

Answer 37

in depth investigation of individual/ small groups, often investigate unsusual/ atypical individuals data gathered can be quanatative or qualatiative info can be gathered from: - person of intrest - family/freinds/doctors typically a longitudinal study ( researcher examins same individual to detect changes often over long period of time) studies gather info abt individuals past and present

Question 38

case study of HM

Answer 38

his hippocampus was removed from his brain to reduce severe seizures observed by Brenda Milna after surgery family and freinds noticed he was suffering from anterogate amnesia (inability to form new memories), for example he was unable to recall his new adress and couldnt find his home alone HM could retain info to finish a sentence, he could rember a number for 15 mins by repeating it constantly but after 5 minutes he forogt the test had taken place, he retained a number of shulls such as tracing a star This SHOWS that STM and LTM are different and use differnet brain regions. the hippocampus plays a vital role in stroing LTM there are diferent types of LTM : episodic, semantic, procedural .

Question 39

strength of case studies

Answer 39

- can be used to study rare or atypical behaviour, gaining in-depth insights into how memory works. for example, some types of brain damage are specific to a particular individual such as HM who had his hippocampus removed and was unable to transfer info from STm to make new LTM memories. - this makes case studies particua=larly useful for investifating brain damage as it gives info about how diff parts brain are responsible for diff types of memory

Question 40

another strength for case studies

Answer 40

investigate memory in an ethical way - studying a particular indiviudal with brain damge is neither etheically nor pratcially possible to recreate in lab conditions this makes case studies particualrly useful for investigating brain damge as it gives a rich and detialed insight into how memory works

Question 41

weakness of case studies

Answer 41

can be difficult to genralise due uniquness of indiviudals involved for example when looking at individuals with dange to specific areas of brain, damge is rarley completly localised there may be other damage not taken into account (for example, results from HM about STM- LTM are unlikley to be representitive of memory issues within a wider population) this makes it difficult to assume others even with similar brain damage will have similar memory imparments

Question 42

what is error type 1

Answer 42

when the researcher rejects a null hypothesis that is true (false positive)

Question 43

what is error type 2

Answer 43

researcher rejects a null hypothesis that is not true (false negative) - the true result is a significant difference

Question 44

significance level of 5%

Answer 44

propability only 0.05 of distribution of results would have occured even if null hypothesis was true 5% is a good comparimise between to lienent and too stringent and type 1 and ttype 2 errors

Question 45

signifiance level 0.01 or 1%

Answer 45

if researcher wants to be more certain, often aboided as its to stringent and increases chance of falsley accepting null hypothesis (type 2)

Question 46

0.1 or 10% significance level

Answer 46

if researchers are content to be less certain like when conducting an intial investigation, typically avoided as too lenient and invreases risk of type 1 error

Question 47

data distribution- posotive skew

Answer 47

more scores on left side of graph, few extreme on right draging graph to right tail points in posotive direction (right) mode

Question 48

data distribution- negative skew

Answer 48

more socres on right but a few extreme on left making tail drag left, tail points in negative direction mode>median>mean