CLOA STUDIES

Models of Memory 2

Schema Theory, Reliability, Reconstructive Memory 3

Thinking and Decision-Making, Biases 7

Emotion and Cognitive Process 9

Models of Memory

● Glanzer and Cunitz (1966)

○ Aim: To test the hypothesis that STM and LTM are two separate
stores in a free recall experiment
○ Methodology:
■ 46 army enlisted men, repeated measures design
■ Participants were given time to learn the procedure with 5
words
■ The researchers showed them 15 words with one syllable on
a projector
■ The word was shown for 1 second with 2-second intervals in
between
■ The experimenter read out the words
■ There were 3 conditions
■ Immediate recall
■ Delayed recall (10 seconds)
■ Delayed recall (30 seconds)
○ Results:
■ Primary and recency effects were shown in the immediate
recall condition
■ Significant reduction in recency effect in the 10-second
delayed recall condition
■ There was no trace of recency effect in the 30-second
delayed recall condition
● Landry and Bartling (2011)
○ Aim: To test the working memory model
○ Method:
■ 34 undergraduates
 ■ The researchers showed a series of 7 random letters that
didn't sound alike
■ 2 conditions
■ Control: Didn't perform an articulatory task, saw the
list for 5 seconds before answering
■ Experimental: Performed task with articulatory
suppression
■ The participants were asked to recall a list of letters on a
sheet with 7 blanks in a row
■ Accuracy of recall was scored
○ Results:
■ The experimental group scored lower than the control
group
■ The mean percent of the control group was 76% compared
to the experimental group with 45%
■ Articulatory suppression is preventing rehearsal in the
phonological loop because of overload (in-line with the
WMM), resulting in difficulty in recall

Schema Theory, Reliability, Reconstructive Memory

● Bartlett (1932)
○ Aim: To investigate how social schemas affect the recall of a story
○ Methodology:
■ 20 British participants (17 men and 3 women)
■ Participants were asked to read a Native American folktale
called “War of the Ghosts”
■ There were 2 conditions; serial and repeated reproduction,
and both conditions were asked to read the story twice
 ■ Serial Reproduction→Were asked to repeat the story to
another participant in groups of 10
■ Repeated Reproduction→Were asked to repeat the story but
couldn’t look at the original
■ The participants were asked to repeat the story at different
intervals over the course of 10 years
○ Results:
■ Participants distorted the story based on their cultural
schema
■ 3 patterns of distortion:
■ Assimilation→The story became more consistent with
the participant’s culture
■ Leveling→The story became shorter as the participant
removed parts that seemed unimportant
■ Sharpening→The order of the story changed
● Brewer and Treyens (1981)
○ Aim: To investigate the role of schema in encoding and retrieval of
episodic memory
○ Methodology:
■ 86 university psychology students
■ Participants were told to wait in a room that was set up to
look like an office
■ The room contained a few objects ⇒ objects typically seen
in an office and objects one wouldn't usually see in an office
(toy top and skull)
■ The participants were then given a questionnaire, the
important question was "Did you think that you would be
asked to remember the objects in the room?", 93% said no
■ The participants were then asked to recall the objects
 ■ There were 3 conditions:
■ Written condition ⇒ Participants were asked to write
a description of the room as if they were describing it
to someone that has never seen it
■ They were then given a booklet with a list of
objects and were asked to rate how sure they
were the object was in a room on a scale of 1-6
⇒ 61 objects were in the room and 70 were not
■ Drawing condition ⇒ Participants were given an
outline of the room and were asked to draw objects
they could remember
■ Verbal recall condition ⇒ A list of objects was read out
to the participants and they were simply asked if the
object was in the room or not
○ Results:
■ When participants were asked to recall by writing or
drawing, they were more likely to remember items that are
congruent with their schema of an office (expected items in
an office were more often recalled), while items
incongruent with their schema of an office (unexpected
items in an office) were not often recalled
■ When asked to select items on a list, they were more likely
to identify incongruent items
● Loftus and Palmer (1974)
○ Aim: To investigate whether the use of leading questions would
affect the estimation of speed
○ Method:
■ 45 participants
■ IV: the critical verb used in the question
 ■ DV: estimation of speed
■ 5 conditions; "smashed", "collided", "bumped", "hit",
"contacted"
■ Participants watched a video of a car crash and then were
asked to answer a questionnaire
○ Results:
■ Speed estimations →"smashed" 40.8mph, "collided" 39.3
mph, "bumped" 38.1 mph, "hit" 34mph, "contacted" 31.8mph
■ The critical verb in question consistently affected the
participants' answers to the question
■ The researchers believed that it was due to the response
bias, i.e. the participants didn't know the exact speed so
they used verbs like "smashed" as an indicator
■ The verb in the question changed the participant's mental
representation of the accident, i.e. the verb "smashed"
activated a cognitive schema of a severe accident
■ Distortion of memory is due to reconstruction that is
triggered by the critical verb
■ In line with Bartlett's suggestion of reconstructive memory
due to schema processing
● Loftus and Pickrell (1995)
○ Aim: To determine if false memories of autobiographical events
can be created through the power of suggestion
○ Method:
■ 31 males and 21 females
■ Before the study, a parent or sibling of the participant was
contacted and was asked "Can you tell 3 childhood
memories of the participant?" and "Do you remember a
time when the participant was lost in the mall?"
 ■ Participants then received a questionnaire with 4
memories they had to write about, if there was a memory
they didn't remember, they were simply told to write so
■ The participants were interviewed twice over 4 weeks and
were asked to recall as much as possible about the 4 events
■ They were asked to rank how confident they were about the
memories on a scale of 1-10
■ Participants were debriefed and were asked to guess which
one was the false memory
○ Results:
■ 25% recalled the false memory but were less confident
about it than about other memories

Thinking and Decision-Making, Biases

● Tversky and Kahneman (1974) - anchoring bias

○ Aim: To demonstrate how the anchoring bias affected students
when solving a math problem
○ Methodology:
■ The study was done with high school students
■ 2 conditions; ascending and descending
■ Ascending Condition→Asked to solve “1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8” in 5
seconds
■ Descending Condition→Asked to solve “8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1” in
the same amount of time
○ Results:
■ The ascending condition had a median prediction of 512
■ The descending condition had a median prediction of 2250
■ The real answer was 40320
● Kahneman (1993) - peak-end rule
○ Aim: To investigate the effect of the end of an experience on
participants' recollection of it
○ Method:
■ During the first stage, the participants placed their hands in
freezing cold water for one minute
■ After a short break, he had them do it again, but this time
after one minute he released warm water into the tank to
raise the temperature slightly
■ The researchers then asked the participants which of the
two conditions they would be most willing to do again
○ Results:
■ The majority of the participants chose the second condition
even though they had to put their hands in freezing water
for the same length of minutes in both conditions
■ The researchers suggested that this was because the
participants based their decisions on the end of the second
condition rather than reflecting on the overall experience
● Strack and Mussweiler (1997) - anchoring bias
○ Aim: To investigate how the anchoring effect could influence
guesses of Mahatma Gandhi's age when he died
○ Method:
■ 60 male and female German university students
■ They were asked either one of 2 questions → "Was Gandhi
older or younger than 9 years old when he died?" or "Was
Gandhi older or younger than 140 years old?"
■ They were then asked how old they think he was when he
died
○ Results:
 ■ Participants in the higher condition guessed an average
that he was 67 years old
■ Participants in lower conditions guessed an average that he
was 50 years old

Emotion and Cognitive Process

● Brown and Kulik (1977)

○ Aim: To investigate whether surprising and personally significant
events can cause flashbulb memories
○ Methodology:
■ 40 black and 40 white American males filled out a
questionnaire regarding the death of public figures:
■ President John F. Kennedy
■ Martin Luther King Jr.
■ Someone they personally knew
■ Some specific questions included:
■ How did you feel when you heard about the event?
(to indicate the level of emotion)
■ How important was this event in your life? (to indicate
personal relevance)
■ How often have you talked about this event? (to
indicate rehearsal)
○ Results:
■ 90% of participants had very detailed memories of the
death of a loved one
■ There was a difference in their memories of the
assassination of public officials based on the personal
relevance of the event to the participant
 ■ 75% of the black participants had flashbulb memories of
the murder of Martin Luther King Jr., someone they can
associate more with, compared to 25% of white participants
● Neisser and Harsch (1992)
○ Aim: To determine whether flashbulb memories were susceptible
to distortion
○ Method:
■ 106 university students
■ Participants were given a questionnaire regarding the
Challenger disaster 24 hours after the event
■ 2.5 years later, 44 of the students filled out the same
questionnaire and were asked how confident they are with
their memory (1-5, 1 = not confident and 5 = certain)
○ Results:
■ There were discrepancies between the original answers and
their answers 2.5 years later
■ However, most participants were confident in their memory
recall
■ Proves memory distortion