Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience INSTRUCTORS' MANUAL

Instructor’s Manual

Cognitive Psychology 4th Edition E. Bruce Goldstein

Chapter 1: Introduction to Cognitive Psychology Chapter Outline 1. COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY: STUDYING THE MIND a. What Is the Mind? b. Studying the Mind: Early Work in Cognitive Psychology i. Donders’s Pioneering Experiment: How Long Does It Take to Make a Decision? ii. Wundt’s Psychology Laboratory: Structuralism and Analytic Introspection iii. Ebbinghaus’s Memory Experiment: What Is the Time-Course of Forgetting?William James’s Principles of Psychology 2. ABANDONING THE STUDY OF THE MIND a. Watson Founds Behaviorism b. Skinner’s Operant Conditioning c. Setting the Stage for the Reemergence of the Mind in Psychology 3. THE REBIRTH OF THE STUDY OF THE MIND a. Introduction of the Digital Computer i. Flow Diagrams for Computers ii. Flow Diagrams for the Mind b. Conferences on Artificial Intelligence and Information Theory c. The Cognitive "Revolution" Took a While d. Looking Ahead 4. MODERN RESEARCH IN COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY a. Following a Trail: How Research Progresses From One Question to Another b. The Role of Models in Cognitive Psychology i. Structural Models ii. Process Models 5. SOMETHING TO CONSIDER: LEARNING FROM THIS BOOK TEST YOURSELF 1.1 CogLabs: Simple Detection

Web Links The History of Cognitive Psychology Chronological history of cognitive psychology organized around schools of thought and famous psychologists. http://muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/cognitiv.htm Today in the History of Psychology Searchable historical database organized by date or keywords. http://www.cwu.edu/~warren/today.html History of Psychology Calendar Students can click on any day of the year to learn about historical facts related to psychology. http://www.cwu.edu/~warren/calendar/datepick.html Encyclopedia of Psychology Interactive encyclopedia of topics related to the history of psychology. http://www.psychology.org/links/People_and_History/ Classics in the History of Psychology Resource for students interested in the history of psychology. http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/ The History of Psychology by Dr. C. George Boeree E-text about the historical and philosophical background of psychology. http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/historyofpsych.html Cognitive Science Dictionary A site available for those who may be unfamiliar with the many unique terms found in the related fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science, and cognitive neuroscience. http://www.bcp.psych.ualberta.ca/~mike/Pearl_Street/Dictionary/dictionary.html Cognitive Science Celebrities Links to numerous discussions about cognitive science as well as writings by and about leading thinkers in cognitive science. http://carbon.ucdenver.edu/~mryder/itc/cogsci.html A roster and pictures of some of the most famous Cognitive Psychology contributors. http://www.bcp.psych.ualberta.ca/~mike/Pearl_Street/Gallery/index.html Videos History of Cognitive Psychology (via Google Search Story) (Time: 0:35) A quick snapshot video (35 seconds) over the history of cognitive psychology from the Greeks (Plato) to the recent past (Donders, Skinner, and the first computers) to the present (Pinker and brain scanning technology) to the future (wherever that may be). The video could be used as a very quick introduction to chapter 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PYrem2LpL0

Structuralism v. Functionalism (Time: 5:11) An exploration of Wundt’s Structuralism and Introspection as contrasted to James’s Functionalism (with a little Evolutionary Psychology at the end). Also included are a quiz over the video as well as a transcript of the video. http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/two-early-approaches-functionalism-andstructuralism.html#lesson Early Reaction Time Research in Psychology (Time: 5:48) Exploring the history of reaction time experiments and different methods and instruments used to measure time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UhQoYBPfpQ Noam Chomsky v. B. F. Skinner (Time: 58:04) A compilation of short video segments of Chomsky and Skinner and their thoughts on psychology. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlyU_M20hMk Reaction Time Experiment (Time: 2:24) This video shows a possible method to compute reaction times using playing cards (stimuli) and phones (reaction time measuring devices). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ufrEAJDsNs&feature=youtu.be Apps and/or Software Reaction Test Pro (Free) A simple reaction time App with timing to the millionths of a second. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reaction-test-pro/id493360516?mt=8%20reaction%20time Dual Music ($0.99) Though a little different than the experiment of Cherry (1953) cited in the text, the following app allows for simultaneous playing of non-DRM (Digital Rights Management) protected files which can give the listener some insights into the difficulty of processing simultaneous signals from different sources. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dual-music-listening-background/id658408034?mt=8 PsychGuide (Free) An app designed for psychology students to easily access information about their discipline from history, to jobs, to classic studies. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/psychguide/id440790994?mt=8

Discussion Questions 1. To introduce the nature of the course, ask students to answer a simple question that the instructor writes on the board. (Many general knowledge questions will work well. An example might be, “What is the capital of Vermont?”)

Ask students to indicate what cognitive/mental processes are necessary to answer the question. They will likely overlook many processes. The instructor can outline a variety of the processes, both explicit and implicit, including perception of “lines” into familiar patterns/letters, memory and language comprehension processes, and judgment making (including ideas relevant to the context but beyond the answer we seek, such as “Why is the instructor asking us this silly question in a cognition course?”). Point out to students some of the ways in which our knowledge guides us effortlessly toward the answers we seek, even when the information we’re working with could be considered ambiguous (e.g., a possible answer to the sample question above is “the letter V!”).

The instructor can highlight how unconscious and complex so much of cognition is and ask students to discuss the challenges these aspects of cognition pose for cognitive researchers.

How can cognition be studied “indirectly”?

2. To reinforce the impact of the invention of the computer on the start of the “Cognitive Revolution,” have students generate/diagram ideas about a human/computer analogy in terms of information processing. Ask students to generate ideas about how humans and computers are both similar and different in how they process information. How does the analogy suggest ways for cognitive psychologists to study the mind? What are the limitations of this analogy and, thus, the challenges that will be faced when studying cognition of the mind?

3. Discuss the concept that mental responses cannot be measured directly but rather must be inferred from behavioral measures. Briefly discuss Donders’s decision-making experiment.

Ask students to generate basic ideas about how humans read letters or familiar words. Ask students to extrapolate from Donders’s methodology to design a simple experiment to study the time course of reading.

4. Along the way in this book students will encounter many different theoretical models used to help simplify complex concepts and phenomenon. Ask students to create a model of a complex concept (e.g., an automobile) that emphasizes either the structural aspects (e.g., the different parts of the automobile) or process aspects (e.g., what processes occur to actually make the car move) of the model. Then lead the discussion to preview some of the models found in the textbook.

Demonstrations 1. Ask students to identify one cognitive activity they engage in during the day (e.g., studying for a test; using various apps on their phone; navigating using a GPS system; driving a car) and them have them identify the different processes (e.g., pattern identification, shortterm/working memory, attention) that must occur for them to successfully engage in that process. Suggest for them to use the different chapters to identify possible processes they may use.

2. Develop an analytical introspection experiment to be conducted by the students. Give students a paired-associate learning task. Instruct students that they will learn words in pairs (e.g., tree – boat). During the recall portion of the experiment, they will be presented with one of the words from each pair, and they will be asked to report the other word of each pair.

Then, have students perform their own individual “analytical introspection experiment” in which they each describe their experiences and thought processes about how they tried to remember the word pairs. Discuss the students’ results from this introspection procedure.

Highlight major points of introspection obtained, such as how self-report experiments generate variable results from one person to another.

3. Describe a simple semantic priming experiment to demonstrate mental chronometry.

Describe mental chronometry and reaction time measures. Explain how showing one word can facilitate the processing of another associated word. Explain the concepts of prime stimulus (e.g., “dog”) and the target stimulus (e.g., “cat”). Explain how the participant in a priming experiment makes some response to the target stimulus (you might introduce either naming or lexical decision here). Explain that, to measure the time course of the priming effect, we use a comparative (subtraction) technique. You could present (or ask students to predict) sample reaction times across “related” (e.g., dog-cat) and “unrelated” (e.g., fog-cat) trials and show that people typically respond faster on related trials, relative to unrelated trials. Finally, you can ask students to generate cognitive explanations for why the priming effect occurs.

4. Using the Reaction Time Experiment as the foundation for the activity, create some stimuli using a presentation software (e.g., Power Point) and have students use the “stopwatch” function on their phones to measure their reaction times to the stimuli you present.

Alternatively, students could download the Reaction Time Pro App and you could have a contest as to who has the quickest reaction time.

5. Students are often surprised at how much information about human cognition is determined by using very “simple” tasks. Demonstrate a simple memory experiment such as a delayed recognition task. At the beginning of class, present to the class a series of 20 common nouns (e.g., pot, bike). Tell the class that you will explain the “experiment” further at a later point in the lecture. Sometime later during the class, distribute a recognition test of 40 words (20 that had been presented earlier and 20 that had not). Instruct students to circle only the words they remember as having been presented earlier. Then, present students with an answer key showing the 20 words that should have been circled and ask them to score their tests. You can calculate a mean accuracy for the class. Discuss how accuracy, in addition to reaction time, is used as a measure of cognition.

(Note: You have a great deal of flexibility in what specific properties of memory to incorporate into your demo. For instance, you might create a recognition test where some of the distracters are synonyms of words that were actually presented (e.g., pan included in recognition test, instead of pot) to show how recognition errors are more likely to occur with “associated” items.)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Simple Detection Introduction One of the most basic processes in cognitive psychology is the ability of a subject to detect a stimulus and execute a response. In the simplest detection paradigm, like the one in the Simple Detection CogLab, participants are presented a simple stimulus and must respond when the stimulus is detected. Reaction time for detecting the stimulus and responding is generally the dependent variable with responses ranging between 200-300 milliseconds (ms).

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) As a critical thinking project, have students design their own simple detection experiment where the type of the stimulus (e.g., other modalities like taste, hearing, touch, and smell) and response (e.g., different types of manual responses, vocal response, etc). a. Students could perform mini-experiments using other members of the class as participants. Students could record the speed of responding for different pairings of stimulus and response and discuss why different pairings produced differential results. b. Results could be calculated and compared for fun or as an intro to an APAformatted paper. Students could use 1-2 articles as references for their paper.

2) For a critical research topic, have students look through the literature on how simple detection may influence game playing. Students could explore how practice might influence the speed of responding not only in a simple detection task, but also in more complex tasks (e.g., complex decisions in video games). a. Have students write a short APA-formatted paper on this topic or another example (e.g., driving a car and braking or other complex decisions in driving).

3) Have students write a paper or at least think about and discuss how manipulating stimulus characteristics (e.g., size, shape, location, or intensity of the stimulus) may affect detection. a. Have students think about how other variables outside of the stimulus might affect performance. For example, what if the subject needed to complete 100 trials versus 1000 trials? Or, how would the natural arousal levels affect performance?

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) What is simple about simple detection?

Answer: In a simple detection paradigm the simple denotes that there is only a single stimulus that must be detected and responded to. The subject does not need to decide which of multiple stimuli were presented.

2) If a subject responds slowly in a standard simple detection task like that found in CogLab, is it possible to distinguish whether the slowed response is related to detection of the stimulus or related to the response.

Answer: In a standard simple detection task like that found in CogLab, it is NOT possible to distinguish whether the slowed response is related to detection of the stimulus or related to the response. One would need to have additional conditions or stimuli to start to be able to distinguish between slowed responses due to detection versus responding.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) The dependent measure in the simple detection experiment was reaction time to respond.

What other dependent variable could be measured?

Answer: Another possible measure could be the number of trials on which the subject responded prior to presentation of the stimulus.

2) What might happen to reaction times on trials following a trial that the subject had responded prior to the stimulus being presented?

Answer: If the subject is truly engaged in the task, it may be that they become more conservative on the following trial and therefore their reaction time might slow down.

Advanced Questions 1) In major league baseball, the pitcher may throw the ball at 95 mph. This means that it takes about 400 milliseconds for the ball to leave the pitcher’s hand and arrive at the plate. Given what you know about response times from this lab, speculate on how a major league hitter might be able to hit the ball.

Answer: The lab indicates that often it takes around 250 milliseconds to make a simple detection response. To swing a bat at a particular place must take at least this long, so the hitter must start the swing when the ball is no further than half way to the plate. An effective hitter must be able to read the pitcher’s wind up and release and know where the ball is going to be before they see it.

Discussion Questions 1) If one were to compare simple detection performance in college-age and elderly subjects, one would likely find that responses for elderly subjects are slower than the college-age subjects in the detection task. Discuss some of the possible reasons why such a pattern of results would obtain.

Answer: It is likely that the elderly subjects are slower at both detection of the stimulus (i.e., decreased visual processing) and executing the motor response. One possible method would be to create comparable conditions by creating age-equivalent (and visual system equivalent) visual stimuli (e.g., degrading the stimulus for college-age students to make it similar to what an elderly person may see). By using age-equivalent stimuli, one could then see whether there are any response differences.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Have your students consider specific situations or occupations where having a quick simple detection time would be an (dis)advantage (e.g., drag racer, waiting too long after the traffic light turns green, video games, detecting warning light on automobile dashboard). a. This can be done in groups in the classroom or as an online discussion assignment.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) Imagine a simple detection study where on 90% of the trials the stimulus is presented at the fixation point, but on 10% of the trials the stimulus would appear in one of the four corners of the screen. What result would you expect on those 10% of the trials relative to the other 90% of trials? a. Reaction times would likely be faster on the 10% trials than the 90% trials. b. Reaction times would likely be slower on the 10% trials than the 90% trials. c. Reaction times would likely be the same on the 10% trials as on the 90% trials. d. Reaction time would likely be the same on the first 10% trial as on the 90% trials. (b) 2) Student A has an average reaction time of 450 ms in the simple detection study. Which conclusion is most likely? a. The student’s reaction times appear to be much faster than one would expect in such a simple detection task. b. The student’s reaction times appear to be much slower than one would expect in such a simple detection task. c. The student’s reaction times appear to be about the average of what one would expect in such a simple detection task d. All of the above (b)

3) In a simple detection study, a participant must a. detect and respond to a single stimulus. b. detect which of several stimuli were presented on a single trial. c. make either a simple or complex response. d. detect a single stimulus, but make a complex response. (a)

Chapter 2: Cognitive Neuroscience Chapter Outline 1. WHY STUDY COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE? 2. NEURONS: COMMUNICATION AND REPRESENTATION a. The Microstructure of the Brain: Neurons b. The Signals that Travel in Neurons Method: Recording From a Neuron c. The Principle of Neural Representation 3. REPRESENTATION BY NEURONS a. Representation by Single Neurons b. Sensory Coding TEST YOURSELF 2.1 4. ORGANIZATION: NEUROPSYCHOLOGY AND RECORDING FROM NEURONS a. Localization Demonstrated by Neuropsychology Method: Demonstrating a Double Dissociation b. Localization Demonstrated by Recording From Neurons 5. ORGANIZATION: BRAIN IMAGING a. Brain Imaging Evidence for Localization of Function b. Distributed Representation Across the Brain 6. ALL TOGETHER NOW: NEURAL NETWORKS 7. SOMETHING TO CONSIDER: WHAT NEUROSCIENCE TELLS US ABOUT COGNITION TEST YOURSELF 2.2 CogLabs: Brain Asymmetry

Web Links Websites Literature, Cognition, & the Brain Research at the intersection of literary studies, cognitive theory, and neuroscience. The webpage includes abstracts, reviews, accounts of work forthcoming or in progress, links to related websites, and a regularly updated annotated bibliography. http://www2.bc.edu/~richarad/lcb/home.html Philosophy of Science and Physiological Psychology A worldview of physiological psychology that contains many valuable citations of articles and books. http://www.circadian.org/PPP/ppp.html

Animations: How Drugs Work An excellent set of demonstrations showing how drugs work in the body and in the brain. An animation shows how brain cells communicate, with demonstrations depicting the effects of alcohol, cocaine, and opiates in the brain. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/closetohome/science/html/animations.html Brain and Behavior Links to interactive exhibits about various brain phenomena and to other sites containing information about the brain. http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/ Probe the Brain A website that lets you probe the brain to discover what area controls which part of the body.

You could use it to ask students to explore the notion of localization of function versus distributed processing. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/tryit/brain/# Event-Related Potentials and Lie Detection An abstract from a paper by Farwell and Donchin that investigates the usefulness of ERP techniques in lie detection (as an alternative to the technique of polygraphs). Students may find this application of ERPs compelling and intriguing. The full paper citation is also provided below. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8986.1991.tb01990.x/abstract Farwell, L.A. & Donchin, E. (1991). The truth will out: Interrogative polygraphy (“lie detection”) and with event-related brain potentials. Psychophysiology, 28(5), 531-547.

Association for Psychological Science, Biological A website on the Association for Psychological Science's webpage that contains an extensive list of links related to physiological psychology. http://psych.hanover.edu/APS/teaching.html#biological Videos What is so Special About the Human Brain (Time: 13:31) Professor Herculano-Houzel walks the viewer through the relationship between human brain size and neuronal density and how those characteristics are related to humans’ ability to think http://www.ted.com/talks/suzana_herculano_houzel_what_is_so_special_about_the_hum an_brain How a Neuron Fires (Times: 4:13 and 2:27, respectively) A couple of different short overviews of neurons and how they fire. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4Gt322-XxI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haNoq8UbSyc

A Humorous Overview of the Brain (Time: 1:20) The Brain sings its way through the different parts of the brain. Other brain related information including Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas is presented. http://psychospaces.wikispaces.com/Explain+one+study+related+to+localisation+of+fun ction+in+the+brain.

Neurons and Grandmother Cells (Time: 0:40) A short video introducing the concept that there are unlikely individual grandmother cells, but rather that a pattern of neural activity is needed in representing a concept. http://www.dnalc.org/view/1190-Neurons-and-Perception.html Recording Electrical Activity in Brain Slices (Time: a series of 8 videos @ ≈ 1:00 min/each) A set of 8 short videos showing the procedures involved in recording electrical activity seen in a brain slice of the hippocampus including changes in responding based on “learning”. http://www.g2conline.org/#Neuroimaging?aid=928&cid=266 PET Scans (Time: 4:00) An overview on PET (Positron Emissions Tomography) scans including a discussion of why PET would be used in lieu of other scans, as well as footage of an actual scan. http://www.g2conline.org/#Neuroimaging?aid=2278&cid=782 fMRI Scan (Times: 4:15 and 2:37, respectively) Short segments explaining fMRI and a short experiment conducted exploring object and face recognition while fMRIs are being collected. http://www.g2conline.org/#Neuroimaging?aid=2276&cid=780 http://youtu.be/mQE9EyM_W8Y Comparison of Imaging Techniques (Time: 1:44) A video comparing different imaging techniques based on the type of research question being asked. http://www.g2conline.org/#Neuroimaging?aid=2089&cid=699 Neuroimaging – Notes of Caution (Time: 1:50) Dr. Insel cautions against viewing imaging techniques as the end all. http://www.g2conline.org/#Neuroimaging?aid=2004&cid=20 Apps and/or Software 3D Neuron Anatomy ($0.99) An interactive 3D model of a neuron that can be manipulated including parts, functions, activities, types, etc. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/3d-neuron-anatomy/id510522114?mt=8 3D Interactive Brain (Free) An interactive brain that can be rotated for different views. Ability to add labels and see specific parts of the brain (including Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas) is included. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/3d-brain/id331399332?mt=8 or the online/website version available at http://www.g2conline.org/

Brain and Nervous System Pro III ($9.99) For those instructors (or students) wanting an app to not only provide the basics of Cognitive Neuroscience in the current course but also in more advanced courses. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/brain-nervous-system-pro-iii/id451427448?mt=8

Discussion Questions 1. Students can be intimidated by the intricacy of the nervous system and sometimes insist that psychologists need not be biologists, too. Guide a discussion to convince them that any useful model/theory about cognition must be neurally plausible. Ask them to generate reasons why an understanding of the brain is an important component toward appreciating human cognition.

To drive these points home, you might supplement the text’s ideas with additional descriptions of neuropsychological patient data (as students often find such cases of unique behaviors and dissociations fascinating). Ask them to draw conclusions about cognition from your supplemental examples (patient data, other types of physiological studies, etc.) to show that understanding neuroscience is an essential component to cognitive psychology.

2. Discuss the organization of the brain. Provide pictorial representations of the brain and have students locate and recognize a variety of structures, including the cerebral cortex and the lobes of the brain. Consider using the 3D Brain app (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/3dbrain/id331399332?mt=8) or website as a tool (http://www.g2conline.org/). Have students identify the cognitive processes associated with each area. Ask students to generate sample stimuli that might activate each of the areas. If possible, graphically link the stimuli to the associated area to provide visual memory cues for the students to assist in their learning.

3. Guide students in a discussion of how localization of function might create a disadvantage if the brain were solely organized around that principle. How might cognition be more fragile if important specific functions were located solely in one area? How does distributed processing create greater opportunities for protecting cognitive function and allowing for restoration of cognitive function in the event of a loss related to brain damage?

Demonstrations 1. Demonstrate the nature of the images obtained with the PET procedure and the subtraction technique. Explain the PET procedure. Provide a visual example of a PET scan. Explicate baseline activity (control task) and stimulation activity (target task). Explain that the brain activity associated with the target task is calculated by subtracting the baseline activity from the stimulation activity. Ask students to generate ideas for what may be the advantages and drawbacks of this brain-imaging tool.

2. If you have the ability to project the Internet to the class on a large screen, consider using http://www.testmybrain.org/ to demonstrate how researchers might measure one’s ability to recognize faces. There are two tests that measure ability to recognize faces, and one is much longer than the other, so you might screen both to determine which will work best as a demonstration for your class. Once you have had a student perform the task, you might ask students how this sort of assessment differs from the brain-imaging techniques discussed in the text that might be used to assess the physiological reasons underlying prosopagnosia.

3. Similar to #2 and using the 3D Brain app (or website) described above, there are several activities designed specifically for the instructor (http://www.g2conline.org/#Teacher Feature). One exercise that students may find interesting is the exercise in Reading Faces (http://www.g2conline.org/#Teacher Feature?aid=867&cid=1343) or the Dissect a Face activity (http://www.g2conline.org/#Teacher Feature?aid=866&cid=1343).

4. Illustrate how learning and practice can impact the speed of neural transmission using a simple “squeeze chain” demonstration that will get students out of their seats. Have the students create a human chain by standing in a line around the perimeter of the room with their hands on the shoulders of the person in front of them. Have them close their eyes and then squeeze the shoulder of the person in front of them. At the same time, start a stop watch.

Each student should squeeze the shoulder of the person in front of them when they feel the squeeze. Time how long it takes the squeeze chain to make it to the last person. Post the time where all students can see it and ask them to repeat this task a few more times (at least two).

Most groups will show an increase in the speed of the chain with practice. This illustrates to them how neural activity, which is discussed on a very abstract level in the text, benefits from practice effects.

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Brain Asymmetry Introduction The brain is separated into two halves: the right and the left. This hemispheric division of the brain has strong implications for cognitive behaviors. It is believed that the left hemisphere deals with language and analytical thought, while the right side deals with spatial relations and creativity. Visual stimuli, like most sensory information, is processed contralateral to the visual field. That is, information from the left visual field is processed in the right hemisphere of the brain and information from the right visual field is processed in the left hemisphere of the brain.

If you pair contralateral processing with hemispheric specialization, you may find some interesting results. Shapes presented in the right visual field (left hemisphere) may take longer to identify than shapes presented to the left visual field (right hemisphere), while words presented on the left visual field (right hemisphere) may take longer to process than those presented to the right visual field (left hemisphere). The last two results are relevant for the results in the Brain Asymmetry lab.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) The CogLab description suggests that results of brain asymmetry will be stronger for right-handed males and weaker for females and left-handed individuals. Have students review the literature for possible explanations for this phenomenon. a. Have them write an APA formatted paper summarizing their findings and explanations. b. You can also have them find a well-supported answer and then discuss the answers as a class.

2) After completing the lab, ask students to write an APA formatted research paper, as if they were the researcher. a. Students could include a title page, introduction, method section, results, discussion, and references. b. As a next step, suggest creative writing and testing. For example, students may want to consider the effects of type of stimulus, gender, handedness, or age.

3) Have students explore the historical contributions or antecedents to neurocognition. a. Students could write a paper on an important contributing person or a series of events that led up to the present findings. b. This can be done in groups or individually.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) What is meant by brain asymmetry? Give examples to support your answer.

Answer: Asymmetry suggests a difference in processing within the brain. The left hemisphere is said to process verbal and analytical information, while the right hemisphere processes spatial and geometrical information and appears to play a role in creativity.

2) In the lab experiment accuracy performance was obtained. If instead of accuracy, reaction time was measured, which of the four scenarios should show faster reaction times when presented to an individual’s visual field: words presented to the left visual field; words presented to the right visual field; shapes presented to the left visual field; or shapes presented to the right fields? Why? Answer: Words presented to the right visual field (left hemisphere) and shapes presented to the left visual field (right hemisphere) should have the faster reactions times. Since these stimuli are processed by the opposite side of the brain, it suggests that words are processed in the left hemisphere and shapes processed by the right hemisphere. Thus, the pattern of results for word stimuli described above should obtain in the current laboratory exercise.

3) If you were reading through a word-math problem that had geometrical shapes as well as a verbal description to critically think about, which hemisphere would process the words and which hemisphere would process the formula?

Answer: The verbal material would be processed by the left hemisphere and the non-verbal geometrical information would be processed by the right hemisphere.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) Name the independent variables in this study. Include the levels of the independent variable. What was the dependent variable? How was it measured?

Answer: One of the two independent variables was side of presentation. The left or right sides were the two. The other (quasi) independent variable was the handedness of the participant. The participant selected either right handed or left handed. The dependent measure was accuracy of responding where “hits” (the proportion of times an “old” response was made and it was the correct response) and “false alarms” (the proportion of times a “new” response was made and it was incorrect) were measured.

2) What kind of statistics would you perform on the results if you were going to examine the effect of handedness and visual field on “hits” (or “false alarms”)?

Answer: Since handedness has two levels (left or right) and visual field has two levels (left or right) one would perform a perform a 2 x 2 mixed or split-plot ANOVA on accuracies.

Moreover, one could simultaneously analyze the effects of handedness and visual field for both “hits” and “false alarms” using a 2 x 2 MANOVA. Finally, another method to analyze the results would be to use a signal detection analysis (including d’ and )

3) How could you redesign this study from a mixed or split-plot design to a betweensubjects design? When would you want to do this?

Answer: A between-subjects design could be done if the participant completed the study with stimuli being presented to only one visual field. A between-subjects design might be more appropriate if you wanted to not have any carryover effects between visual fields.

Advanced Questions 1) Why might it be advantageous for us to have a brain in which some processes are specific to one hemisphere?

Answer: One possibility is that since the brain has a lot of responsibilities, it seems reasonable that using a division of labor strategy, at least in some cases, would be beneficial. This type of organization might allow the brain to process more information and/or process information more fully.

It is not clear why the brain is set up in an asymmetrical way, so a broad array of student responses could be appropriate here. This question can be used as a creative thinking exercise.

2) Explain why a split brain patient would have trouble saying a word that was flashed to his left visual field but not his right visual field.

Answer: The word presented to the right hemisphere would be processed in the left hemisphere, which is the verbal center, so he could say that word. When a word flashes to the left visual field, it is processed by the right hemisphere; the severed corpus callosum impairs any message going from the right hemisphere to the left or the language center, so he could not say that word.

Discussion Questions 1) Besides observing split brain patients, discuss other research techniques that are used to study brain function and localization.

Answer: Other means of studying brain function are with brain-imaging techniques, like measuring electrical activity of a single cell, fMRI, and PET scans. Post-mortem studies are used as well; for example, Paul Broca used this to determine Broca’s area. Comparing normal functioning individuals with patients with brain damage helps examine limitations or increased functions related to that specific brain damage.

2) Discuss the implications of the Brain Asymmetry CogLab. Answer: Results of the lab on brain asymmetry give support to brain hemispheric laterality. As scientists continue to research specific brain functions, they can learn to predict impairments with stroke or tumor patients or determine where a tumor is located depending on the outward behaviors displayed. It also suggests that even though the hemispheres have different functions, it is the communication between the two sides that enables certain behaviors.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Contralateral processing of sensory information occurs in all senses, except smell. Have the students explore why this occurs. a. Classes can be broken down into groups to explore this subject and write a summary paper. b. Groups could also design an experiment that would test the processing pathway of odor or search through the literature for previously used methodologies that they could replicate. c. This could be posted as an online discussion point that students have to research and then respond to.

2) It has been said that the brain is like a Swiss Army knife. Have students review the literature for examples that support and contradict this simile. a. Break the class into smaller groups or post this as a discussion question for the students to think about and post the results from their searches. Have them think about how this lab supports this idea. b. You can ask them to write a paper using this concept as a thesis statement.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) Right brain/left brain differences are strongest in a. right-handed males. b. right-handed females. c. left-handed males. d. left-handed females. (a) 2) Information presented in the far left visual field arrives first in a. the left hemisphere. b. both hemispheres simultaneously. c. the right hemisphere. d. none of the above (c) 3) If the left hemisphere is specialized for verbal information and the right hemisphere is specialized for spatial information, what should be true about the accuracy performance when shapes are presented to the right hemisphere and words are presented to the left hemisphere in a classification task? a. They should be low and about the same b. They should be high and about the same c. They should be low and very different d. They should be high and very different e. It’s not possible to predict what would happen (a)

Chapter 3: Perception Chapter Outline 1. THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION a. Some Basic Characteristics of Perception b. Perceiving a Scene Demonstration: Perceptual Puzzles in a Scene 2. WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO DESIGN A PERCEIVING MACHINE? c. The Stimulus on the Receptors is Ambiguous d. Objects Can Be Hidden or Blurred e. Objects Look Different From Different Viewpoints 3. INFORMATION FOR HUMAN PERCEPTION f. Perceiving Objects Demonstration: Finding Faces in a Landscape g. Hearing Words in a Sentence h. Experiencing Pain TEST YOURSELF 3.1 4. CONCEPTIONS OF OJECT PERCEPTION i. Helmholtz’s Theory of Unconscious Inference j. The Gestalt Principles of Organization k. Taking Regularities of the Environment Into Account Demonstration: Visualizing Scenes and Objects l. Bayesian Inference m. Comparing the Four Approaches TEST YOURSELF 3.2 5. NEURONS AND KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT n. Neurons That Respond to Horizontals and Verticals o. Experience-Dependent Plasticity 6. THE INTERACTION BETWEEN PERCEIVING AND TAKING ACTION p. Movement Facilitates Perception q. The Interaction of Perception and Action r. The Physiology of Perception and Action Method: Brain Ablation s. Picking Up a Coffee Cup and Other Behaviors 7. SOMETHING TO CONSIDER: WHERE PERCEPTION MEETS MEMORY Method: Recording From Single Neurons in Humans TEST YOURSELF 3.3 CogLabs: Signal Detection; Apparent Motion; Garner Interference: Integral Dimensions; Garner Interference: Separable Dimensions; Müller-Lyer Illusion; Blind Spot; Metacontrast Masking; Categorical Perception: Discrimination; Categorical Perception: Identification; Statistical Learning

Web Links Websites Gallery of Illusions The first site contains over 25 classic illusions and psychological explanations. The second site is much more extensive with over 100 illusions and visual phenomena. http://dragon.uml.edu/psych/illusion.html http://michaelbach.de/ot/ Psychology Demonstrations, Tutorials & Other Neat Stuff Interactive demonstrations related to sensation and perception, with more illusions and explanations. http://www.uni.edu/walsh/tutor.html The Computational Neuroscience Laboratory Opportunities to participate in original research studies conducted at the Computational Neuroscience Laboratory, the Mind/Brain Institute, and Johns Hopkins University. http://cnslab.mb.jhu.edu/experiments/ Differences in Darkness Students can participate in a study on brightness perception. http://psych.fullerton.edu/mbirnbaum/web/dots_diffs.htm Ratios of Darkness A different version of the “Differences in Darkness” demonstration above. http://psych.fullerton.edu/mbirnbaum/web/dots_ratios.htm Perception and Interaction E-chapter that discusses and provides examples for the Gestalt laws. http://www.ship.edu/%7Ecgboeree/genpsyperception.html Gestalt Psychology Demonstrations Some basic principles of Gestalt psychology. http://homepages.ius.edu/RALLMAN/gestalt.html The History of Gestalt Psychology The contributions of famous Gestalt psychologists. http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/gestalt.html Müeller-Lyer Illusion Website devoted to one of the most famous of the perceptional illusions. Students can participate in a multi-trial demonstration of this illusion. http://psych.fullerton.edu/mbirnbaum/web/muellerlyer/MLframe.htm

Simulated Motion Perception Students can participate in an original study on motion perception. http://www.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/ags/wbski/DSD/blink/eStart.html Studies in Perception of Progress Students can participate in a study of perception or use the Perception Laboratory's “Face Transformer” to change the age, race, or sex of a facial image to transform it to the style of a famous artist, make an exaggerated caricature, or even make an ape of themselves! http://www.perceptionlab.com/morph/Transformer/ Videos Gestalt Psychology examples.

A variety of videos exploring Gestalt principle of perception. http://youtu.be/Vx3pxdzWg3Y (Psychology Perception Video, Time: 1:45) http://youtu.be/nxKcpfFvuf8 (Gestalt Principles of Perception, Time: 4:13) http://youtu.be/m8OBqPwgtYU (Law of Pragnanz, Time: 2:05) Apparent Motion of the Sun (Time: 4:25) Though a little different than the traditional examples of apparent motion and the definition presented in the text, this video provides a different type of apparent motion with regard to the movement of the earth, sun, and stars. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U46xCJlOSis Mind Blowing Optical Illusion – Is the Rubik’s Cube Real (Time: 1:13) The following is a video regarding a visual illusion of a Rubik’s Cube. http://youtu.be/IfCCUd8mFtg What Is the Ames Illusion? (Time: 2:55) A video showing the Ames room along with an explanation of why we perceive what we do in an Ames room. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJhyu6nlGt8 Pain Perception and Human Brain (Time: 1:55) Brief overview of pain perception and the associated brain structures http://youtu.be/kNnL6Clpe08 Nociceptors - An Introduction to Pain (Time: 12:16) A thorough overview of pain perception including neurological structures involved. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUKlpuz2VTs Apps and/or Software Face Transformer – Art Edition ($0.99) Allows the user to upload a picture and transform it into one of 5 historic artists. Other editions are available. The second site is a website with broader transformational capabilities. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/facetransformer-art-edition/id442729566?mt=8 http://www.perceptionlab.com/morph/fof/index.html

Animated Optical Illusions (Free) Just as the name suggests, an app that allows users to view optical illusions (broadly defined).

The first site is a video showing some of the “illusions”. The second site is for downloading the free app. http://youtu.be/R3qmDpw0iBk https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.AnimatedOpticalIllusionfree iReverseSpeech (Basic version is Free) An app “designed to record and analyze audio in order to find hidden messages.” The first URL is for the website and the second is to download the app. See the Demonstration section below for an example using the App. http://www.ireversespeech.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reverse-speech/id753357884?ls=1&mt=8

Discussion Questions 1. Ask students to look around the classroom and identify examples of the Gestalt laws of perceptual organization in real-world objects (e.g., being able to recognize a blackboard partially obscured by a podium would represent good continuation).

2. Collect some objects with strong odors ahead of time to explore perceptions of odor intensity. Some possible good examples might be fresh basil or mint, Pine-Sol, or a carbonated beverage. Try to collect odors that might range in intensity. Then have either a few students (or if your class is small, all of them) participate in some of the critical elements of that study. Be sure to have a manipulation for sniff intensity and a way to measure odor intensity reports. This might also be a good opportunity to review the ideas of an independent versus dependent variable in experimental design.

3. The following website has a great deal of information available on research related to mirror neurons: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3204/01.html. There is a brief video that you could show to facilitate a discussion of advances in this area. In particular, sample videos illustrate some of Daniel Glaser’s latest work in this area. There is also a teacher link at which you can purchase additional demonstration materials if you want to go beyond the free resources available on the site.

4. Spend a few minutes in class exploring the ideas associated with the “what and where streams” and the “perception and action pathways” in the cortex. Pair students together and have each student generate some action (e.g., pressing a button on a vending machine) that the other partner will describe/explain using “streams” or “pathways”.

Demonstrations 1. The process of perception depends both on the incoming sensory stimulation as well as the knowledge the perceiver brings to the situation. Ask students to begin by discussing how expectancies or prior knowledge can lead us to view our world accurately at times yet inaccurately at other times. What novel examples from the real world can they generate to support these ideas? Discuss how prior knowledge or expectancies affect our interaction with ambiguous stimuli. What novel examples can your students generate to show this? Also consider how different people (thus, assuming different available knowledge/experience) might interpret the same stimulus differently (e.g., a small, thin, circular-shaped, metal object might likely be determined as foreign money by a coin collector but as a choking hazard by a new, protective mother).

2. The text discusses what is involved in designing a perceiving machine and the human “perceiving machine.” How is human perception superior? What advantages do humans have? Use this information to have students discuss the uniqueness of human cognition.

What do they find most remarkable about human perception? What is the significance of such “perceptual intelligence” in how we navigate the world?

3. To demonstrate the influence of “bottom-up” and “top-down” processing visit the website http://reversespeech.com/reversals/ to find alleged messages in audio segments played in reverse. The site is updated frequently with current audio played both forward and backward.

In the demonstration play the audio both forward and backward (which is usually the default) and have students write down what they heard for both directions. You may want to play it a few times for them depending on the length of the audio. After they have written down what they heard, ask students to share what was heard. In most cases students will correctly hear the forward message, but they may only “hear” a word or two of the message when the audio is played backward. Then share with the students the alleged message from the audio when played in reverse. Replay the audio and again have students write down what they “heard”.

After hearing the backward audio AFTER hearing what the supposed message is supposed to say, most students will accurately write down what is heard. This can then lead to a discussion of “bottom-up” and “top-down” processing.

Another variation of the demonstration is to divide the class in half and only tell one half of the class the supposed backwards message. Such a variation will control for practice effects.

See also the ReverseSpeech App above.

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Signal Detection Introduction An important part of cognitive processing is the ability to perceive whether a stimulus is present or not, so we can react accordingly. There are four scenarios in signal detection theory: hits, misses, false alarms, and correct rejections. A hit occurs when we say a stimulus is present when it is present; a miss is when the stimulus is present but we do not perceive it; a false alarm is when we think a stimulus is present that is not, and a correct rejection occurs when we correctly perceive a stimulus to be absent. Sensitivity is related to the rate of occurrence for each of the four scenarios. External psychological factors like motivation, stress, and boredom can affect the rate of correct detection.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) As a critical thinking project, have students design their own signal detection experiment with other modalities like taste, hearing, touch, and smell. This could be used to test for cross-modality effects of signal detection theory. a. Students could perform mini-experiments using other members of the class as participants. Before testing, have each student write down his or her hypotheses for each sense modality and why. b. Results could be calculated and compared for fun or as an intro to an APAformatted paper. Students could use 1-2 articles as references for their paper.

2) For a critical research topic, have students look through the research literature on how signal detection is used in clinical or applied settings. For example, there is an interesting line of research that suggests a subtype of higher-functioning autistic children have enhanced pitch sensitivity (music savants). a. Have students write a short APA-formatted paper on this topic or another example of a clinical situation, where signal detection could be used to test performance or distinguish cognitive functioning.

3) Have students write a paper or at least think about and discuss some external factors that may influence signal detection ability as well as the probability of making an error. a. As a critical thinking exercise, have students relate signal detection errors to social or economic problems in Western society. One example that could be introduced to them could be failure to recycle or pick up litter. If people do not see littering as a problem, they may litter themselves or they may not pick up trash in their neighborhood. Lack of education or ignorance may be one problem or lack of motivation may be another. b. Have students think about how signal detection theory could explain their behavior related to receiving text messages on their phone. How would turning down the ring volume affect detectability? How would their expectations regarding who is texting affect their bias to think they have received a message?

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) According to the signal detection theory, what is it called if you respond that you did not see the target in the experiment and it was not there?

Answer: This is called a correct rejection.

2) If your grandfather has to get a hearing aid, what signal detection error is happening to him?

Answer: If he is having a hard time hearing sounds, he is “missing” the stimuli.

3) You are driving home from work when an ambulance suddenly comes up behind you, startling you. You had the music turned up so loud that you did not hear the siren. What kind of signal detection error did you commit?

Answer: Since you did not detect a stimulus that was present, you committed a miss.

4) Your mother makes chicken noodle soup and puts the pot on the stove for lunch. As you taste the soup, you tell your mother that she put too much black pepper in it. She argues that she didn’t put any pepper in it. According to the signal detection theory, how could you explain what has happened?

Answer: You thought there was pepper in the soup, but there wasn’t, so you made a false alarm for pepper. This may have occurred because you are sensitive to pepper.

5) Explain how an automatic door, like the ones at a grocery store, uses signal detection in determining when to open. Have you ever seen one open when a person wasn’t there?

How do you think this happens (besides an electrical malfunction)?

Answer: It is a simple process of whether or not there is an object present (yes or no). Grocery stores often have automatic door openers that broadcast a sonar beam and use the reflected signal to decide when to open the doors. If it detects an object, it opens; if it doesn’t detect anything, it does not open. Sometimes the door opens when someone walks past or perhaps an insect flying by sets it off.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) The dependent measure in the signal detection experiment was the number of hits, misses, correct rejections, and false alarms. What other dependent variable could be measured?

Answer: Reaction time could also be used as a dependent measure in signal detection.

2) One problem with cognitive testing occurs when a participant rushes through an experiment just trying to get finished instead of doing the task at hand. How does this lab have a built-in measure for this?

Answer: The d’ measure is calculated. Large negative sensitivity scores will be calculated if a person misunderstands the instructions or rushes through it without thinking. If the person answers just answers present or absent all of the time, their bias will be shown in the C measure.

Advanced Questions 1) What does a liberal bias mean in signal detection perception? What does it mean in terms of false alarms?

Answer: A liberal bias means that you would say “present” more than you would say “absent” so you would have more false alarms than misses.

2) Why is a sensitivity measure calculated for the signal detection lab? How is it related to hits and false alarms? Provide an example in support of your answer.

Answer: The sensitivity measure is calculated so that comparisons can be made between people’s performances. For example, if the target was shown 50 times, and person A saw it 30 times and person B saw it 15 times, it does not mean that person A is more sensitive to the stimuli. Person A could have also had more false alarms, meaning the person has a more liberal response bias. The sensitivity measure is not affected by a liberal response bias or a conservative response bias.

3) In terms of signal detection errors, what are some of the dangers or problems for factory workers on assembly lines who may be doing the same job over and over?

Answer: If a person is doing the same job over and over, she can become bored with and lose interest in her repetitious job, meaning that her attention to detail may also decrease. For example, she might not detect a faulty item that comes to her for repair or may not secure a part on well. If she is making unimportant items, a product error may not cause serious harm, but if she is producing an important part for a potentially dangerous object, like a car, gun, or other heavy machinery, an error could cost someone their life. Also, if a product has to be recalled, it could cost the company millions of dollars to fix after the fact instead of much less had the person been vigilant in their job.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss some of the external factors that might affect a person’s ability to detect a signal and how these external factors would affect detection rates. Use the terms hits, misses, false alarms, and correct rejections to explain your answer.

Answer: An external factor may include motivation to detect the signal. If a person was motivated to detect a stimulus, for monetary or safety reasons, then he would make more false alarms and perhaps more hits, too. However, if a person were not motivated to detect a stimulus, perhaps because of boredom or lack of ability, he would make more misses or correct rejections.

2) Discuss how signal detection scenarios can be applied when a health professional is trying to determine if his patient has a tumor or not, while looking at a CT scan. Discuss the outcomes of the different medical diagnoses.

Answer: If there is a tumor present and the health professional says you have a tumor (hit), early intervention is possible; if it is a false alarm, the patient may be stressed out for no reason.

If the tumor is missed, that is it is present but undetected, its growth will continue and likely lead to significant health issues. Misses and false alarms are not good, hits and correct rejections are good.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Have your students consider specific occupations (e.g., TSA employees viewing baggage scans) and situations where vigilance would be a highly desirable, if not required, characteristic. a. This can be done in groups in the classroom or as an online discussion assignment. b. Have them think about and share what some of the positive and negative effects might be for having high vigilance. Tell them to keep the lab in mind and use the four signal detection terms.

2) Either as an online discussion or in groups, have students discuss the number of different ways that use signal detection in our world. You can break them up into topic subgroups, for example, relationships, the workplace, the medical field, education, industry, government, and military. a. Have each group come up with three good examples where the ability to detect a signal is very important or has negative consequences attached to a failure to detect it. b. Bring the groups together, if in class, and have each one give its best example and discuss it as a group.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) In a signal detection experiment, when a participant correctly says that the target was not present, this is a a. hit. b. miss. c. false alarm. d. correct rejection. (d) 2) In a signal detection experiment, what is a measure of response bias? a. d’ b. log(alpha) c. C d. All of the above (c) 3) In a signal detection experiment, C greater than zero indicates a. a conservative bias. b. a liberal bias. c. a tendency to say “present” more than “absent.” d. no bias. (a)

4) In a signal detection experiment, the larger d’, a. the lesser the sensitivity. b. the greater the sensitivity. c. the greater the response bias. d. the lesser the response bias. (b) 5) In a signal detection experiment, when a participant incorrectly says that the target was not present, this is a a. hit. b. miss. c. false alarm. d. correct rejection. (b)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Apparent Motion Introduction The perception of movement between a set of stimuli can sometimes be an illusory effect. If two stimuli are briefly flashed in rapid succession with the right amount of time lapse in between, motion of the stimuli may be perceived. Korte’s law suggests that the farther apart two stimuli are, the longer the interstimulus interval (ISI) must be for a good motion percept to be formed.

This lab will help students understand how computer animation and television uses this cognitive phenomenon to give the illusion of movement to a set of still images.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Max Wertheimer’s work on the Phi Phenomenon was a seminal contribution to visual motion perception. Have your students review the literature on Wertheimer or other individuals who played a key role in visual motion research. a. You can have your students write a paper on a person’s contribution or do a time series review of the events that led up to our present knowledge of visual motion. b. Students can discuss their findings of people and events. Have them critically think about the level of importance for some of the events.

2) As a critical thinking exercise, ask students to develop an apparent motion experiment that is different from the current one (maybe in a different modality). a. You can assign them to do a methodological proposal for an experiment or have them design an experiment that they can test on other classmates. b. Have them work in groups or as individuals. Encourage creativity for their methodology.

3) Have students explore the idea of relating this lab to the concept of the apparent motion of planets. Get them to review the literature for evidence supporting or refuting the relationship. Students can work in a group or alone. a. Tell the students to make a hypothesis first before searching through the literature.

After they find the evidence, they can determine if their hypotheses were correct or not, and why.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) According to Korte’s law, before apparent motion will be detected, what has to occur to the interstimulus interval as the distance between flashing lights increases?

Answer: The interstimulus interval needs to be increased as the distance between the flashing lights increases in order for apparent motion to be perceived.

2) How could the Apparent Motion CogLab be used to explain movement in television and computer animation?

Answer: Movement in television and computer animation is an illusion created by using a succession of still images that are perceived by the viewer as motion.

3) If the interstimulus interval is too short in an apparent motion demonstration, what is perceived?

Answer: Two simultaneously presented lights would be perceived in this case.

4) What is one way of explaining the role the visual system plays in the apparent motion phenomenon?

Answer: One theory that helps to explain the perception of motion is that our visual system builds a motion precept if the conditions are right.

5) As you are driving home from school, you notice a restaurant sign with a neon dancing bear eating a hamburger. How would the Apparent Motion Lab help explain why it looks like it is dancing and eating a hamburger when it obviously is not?

Answer: The neon light sign is an example of apparent motion. The lights turn on and off in a certain pattern, so the bear looks like it is dancing and lifting a hamburger up to its mouth. (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCDtVbldKHs for an example of a lime falling into a bottle of Corona beer).

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) How could you calculate the average interstimulus interval that was required by the class to perceive apparent motion for each of the five distances?

Answer: To calculate the average interstimulus interval, you would need to record the class data for each of the five distances. The intervals would be added together and divided by the number of observations.

2) How could you test for significant differences between the average interstimulus intervals for each of the five distances?

Answer: Since there is one independent variable distance with five levels, you could perform a one-way within-subjects ANOVA on the five levels to see if there are significant differences between them.

Advanced Questions 1) How is the length of the interstimulus interval related to one’s perception of a presented series of dots?

Answer: If the interstimulus interval is very short, observers simply see two dots presented nearly simultaneously. If the ISI is very long, observers see one dot flash on and off and then the other flash on and off. For intermediate ISIs, the first dot seems to turn off, move through the space between the dots, and appear at the position of the second dot.

2) Explain why the phenomenon of apparent motion can be called an illusion? Think in terms of sensations and perceptions.

Answer: An illusion occurs when the sensations and perceptions do not match. The dots appeared to be moving, but this was not what really happened.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss what might be perceived if two stimuli were far apart and the interstimulus interval was quite short.

Answer: If two distant stimuli had a short interstimulus interval, apparent motion would not be perceived. One would probably see two separate stimuli presented at the same time or very close in time.

2) Your little brother takes several sheets of paper and draws a circle on the bottom of each one. When he draws the ball on each piece of paper, he moves it a little more to the right each time. Discuss how you could trick him into thinking that the circle he drew moves.

Answer: Each piece of paper can be arranged so that the circle varies slightly each time. You could put the stack of papers in your hand and flip the pages at the right speed, so that the circle looks like a ball moving across the paper. (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UocF4ycBnYE for an example of a flipbook where frames per second is varied resulting in differences in the perception and fluidity of motion)

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) As a group project, have students investigate some of the techniques behind computer animation as it relates to the Apparent Motion CogLab. a. Have them investigate movie techniques as well as computer programs to see if there are any similarities. b. For online students, have them paste in websites with interesting graphics or articles that explain some of the innovative apparent motion techniques. c. Have them investigate or think about changes that have come about in the past 1020 years in terms of animation.

2) When investigating the neurological processes related to apparent motion, one question that researchers have is whether similar brain activation occurs for real motion compared to apparent motion. Ask students to review the literature for evidence and arguments. a. Students can work in groups or contribute through an online discussion or report.

If they are doing an online discussion, have them paste in websites from the sources found, so others can use them.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) Korte noted that in order for apparent motion to be perceived, a. as the distance between flashing lights increases, the interstimulus interval needs to be decreased. b. as the distance between flashing lights increases, the interstimulus interval needs to be increased. c. as the distance between flashing lights decreases, the interstimulus interval needs to be increased. d. no relationship can be described between interstimulus intervals and distance between flashing lights.

(b) 2) One way of explaining apparent motion is to hypothesize that a. we know what we are expected to see and so we see it. b. it is easy to fool the brain. c. eye movements used in following the flashes of light get interpreted as movement of the lights themselves. d. the visual system builds a motion precept. (d) 3) The interstimulus interval (ISI) is a. the time between the onset of a first stimulus and the onset of a second stimulus. b. the time between the offset of a first stimulus and the offset of a second stimulus. c. the time between the offset of a first stimulus and the onset of a second stimulus. d. the time between the onset of a first stimulus and the offset of a second stimulus. (c) 4) If the interstimulus interval in an apparent motion demonstration is too short what is perceived? a. Two simultaneously presented lights b. One light flashes on and then another light flashes on c. Erratic motion of a single light d. None of the above (a)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Garner Interference: Integral Dimensions Introduction In perceptual tasks, people are asked to judge a stimulus on one dimension while it varies along a second dimension. Stimuli can vary along integral dimensions or dimensions that a person cannot separate for processing (e.g., stimulus saturation and brightness) or the stimuli can vary along separate dimensions which, as the name suggests, are dimensions that a person can separate for processing (e.g., stimulus brightness and size).

In this version of the Garner Interference lab, stimuli varied along the integral dimensions of brightness (light or dark) and saturation (low and high). Stimuli that vary along two integral dimensions usually cause interference since people process them as a single dimension. Results of the experiment generally show that responses on correlated trials (i.e., where values on the different dimensions are correlated) are shorter than on filtering trials, where stimuli vary simultaneously on both dimensions.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) The CogLab introduced the Garner task as it occurs with visually presented stimuli that vary along integral dimensions. Have students review the literature for evidence of this effect in other modalities, like sounds, smells, or tastes. a. Another good website for scholarly information is www.scholar.google.com.

2) In the Garner task students viewed stimuli that varied along the integral dimensions of brightness and saturation. Have students identify other integral dimensions on which stimuli could vary and then have students develop a hypothesis that could be tested. a. Have students develop a research proposal to test their hypothesis. Have them be creative in their ideas. You can share the most interesting idea with the class. If the stimuli are easily incorporated into a display, consider having students create, display and explain their stimuli in class.

3) As a critical thinking exercise, have students consider how the Garner interference effect may obtain when trying to select matching socks from their sock drawer when the socks are either dark blue or black and they are made of silk or polyester. a. Have them consider possible ways to minimize mismatching.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) What was the difference between the correlated condition and the filtering condition in the CogLab? Answer: In the correlated condition, the stimuli varied in both saturation and brightness, but in such a way that the lighter stimulus is associated with one saturation level and the darker stimulus with a different one. In the filtering condition, the stimuli simultaneously varied in both saturation and brightness, but this time the light stimulus could be of either saturation level and the dark stimulus could be of either saturation level.

2) How should performance compare on the correlated condition with the baseline condition?

Answer: Shorter reaction times should be seen in the correlated condition compared to the baseline condition because either dimension could be used to make your decision.

3) How should performance compare in the filtering condition compared to the baseline condition?

Answer: Longer reaction times should be seen in the filtering condition than in the baseline condition since the one dimension (saturation level) interfered with your ability to perform the task.

4) What are the three physical properties of color? How is each property related to our perception of that color?

Answer: The three properties of color are saturation which is how "pure" the color is; brightness which is how strong the color is; and hue (not discussed in the CogLab), which is what most people think of as color (e.g., red, green, blue, etc).

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) How was speed of processing related to whether there was interference?

Answer: If an individual’s reaction time did not get slower when making the decisions, we can say that there was little or no interference. In the correlated condition, the stimuli varied on both saturation and brightness, but in such a way that the lighter stimulus was associated with one saturation level, and the darker stimulus with a different saturation level. Since we could judge two dimensions as two dimensions, there was no interference and speed of processing did not increase.

2) In the Garner task, why is an individual’s performance compared to a baseline condition?

Answer: The baseline conditions allow the individual to serve as her own control. In order to determine if there was interference between the dimensions in the filtering condition or the correlated condition, a comparison is needed when there is only variation on one dimension. A baseline also provides an indication that the individual understands what the task is asking.

3) In which of the experimental conditions would one expect to observe a benefit from using stimuli which have dimensions that vary systematically (what is sometimes referred to as a redundancy gain)?

Answer: In the correlated condition, the stimuli vary in both hue and brightness, but in such a way that the lighter stimulus was associated with one saturation level and the darker stimulus with a different one. Since saturation and brightness are integral dimensions, performance should be faster in the correlated condition compared to the baseline. This better performance is called a redundancy gain.

Advanced Questions 1) Do you think practice would have reduced the inference effect? Explain your answer.

Answer: Practice probably would not have reduced the interference effect significantly. When two dimensions are integral, processing them as one dimension seems to be an automatic behavior, hence the increased time in the filtering condition. Inhibiting a response that seems to be automatic is a difficult process.

2) How does the Garner interference task support the idea that sometimes we cannot selectively focus on one dimension of an item while making a judgment about another dimension?

Answer: Since it takes longer to make a judgment about one dimension when there are at least two varying dimensions in each trial, we say there is interference. Such a pattern of interference suggests that we fail to selectively focus on one dimension, like saturation, when brightness varies.

3) How might you explain Garner interference in terms of inhibition rather than a failure to selectively focus on dimensions separately?

Answer: The interference could come from a difficulty to inhibit responding to the irrelevant dimensions. This difficulty to inhibit your response is translated into a slower processing speed.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss how to test for the Garner effect in an ecologically valid study.

Answer: An ecologically valid study would mean taking a concept for the lab to the real world.

To test for processing interference within the real world you would use stimuli that we already use to make judgments on group membership, like voice and face recognition. The researcher could measure the integral and separable dimensions present.

2) Discuss why this task might be considered an interference task.

Answer: The stimuli presented in this CogLab varied along two dimensions, saturation and brightness. These two dimensions are considered integral, and people tend to process two integral dimensions as one dimension, hence the interference.

3) Discuss the role that selective attention has in Garner interference.

Answer: One is not able to attend to one dimension because of interference. Such a lack of attention is reflected in the longer processing times. If one could attend to one dimension, then processing times would be shorter.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Put students in groups and have them discuss other factors that might influence speed of processing in a Garner task, such as mood, drugs, and motivation. If they are not sure of the answer, have them find some research that addresses this question and bring it back to the class for discussion. This can also be done online by providing links to articles and then discussing them. a. Have students think about specific examples and the rationale behind their argument. They can look to other perceptual tasks or interference tasks to find parallels to consider.

2) The Garner task is a form of speeded classification task, meaning that perceptual reaction time is recorded. The task has been used for a number of different perceptual tasks and some attentional ones. Have students discuss some perceptual decisions that could be tested using this task. a. Have them keep in mind that varying dimensions can be used, not just two. Also have them consider different modalities, like speech or voice recognition.

3) The interference that is found with the Garner task is just one of the many types of interference studied in cognitive psychology. Put students in small groups and have them discuss the other specific interference tasks that may have already been covered in class. a. When they come up with examples, have them think about how each are similar and different. For example, one may interfere with semantic ability, while another may interfere with linguistic ability.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) When does the Garner interference occur? a. Correlated condition b. Filtering condition c. Baseline condition d. Both the filtering and baseline condition, but not the correlated condition (b)

2) What are integral dimensions? a. Dimensions where there is interference in processing them b. Dimensions where there is no interference processing them c. Dimensions where there is interference when they are not very strong d. Dimensions where there is no interference when the person can attend to one or the other (a) 3) When did the redundancy gain occur during the Garner task? a. When comparing the correlated condition to the baseline b. When comparing the filtering condition to the baseline c. When comparing the correlated condition to the filtering d. When comparing the correlated condition to the baseline and then subtracting the filtering condition (a)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Garner Interference: Separable Dimensions Introduction In perceptual tasks, people are asked to judge a stimulus on one dimension while it varies along a second dimension. Stimuli can vary along integral dimensions or dimensions that a person cannot separate for processing (e.g., stimulus saturation and brightness) or the stimuli can vary along separate dimensions which, as the name suggests, are dimensions that a person can separate for processing (e.g., stimulus brightness and size).

In this version of the Garner Interference lab, stimuli varied along the separable dimensions of brightness (light or dark) and size (small and large). Stimuli that vary along two separable dimensions usually do not cause interference since people process them as separate dimensions.

That is, the size of the stimulus is irrelevant, only the brightness matters. Results of the experiment generally show if the dimensions are separable, then processing is quick and accurate and does not vary across pairing type (i.e., correlated or filtering) Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) The CogLab introduced the Garner task as it occurs with visually presented stimuli which vary across the dimensions of brightness and size. Have students review the literature for evidence of this effect in other modalities, like sounds, smells, or tastes. a. Another good website for scholarly information is www.scholar.google.com.

2) The Garner classification task has been used to study the perception of facial expressions on different faces. Have students review the literature in this area and develop a hypothesis that could be tested. a. Have students develop a research proposal to test their hypothesis. Have them be creative in their ideas. You can share the most interesting idea with the class. If they are easy to conduct, perhaps you can conduct them in class.

3) As a critical thinking exercise, have students apply the Garner interference effect in a social cognition context. Have them consider social perceptions that are made and whether separate dimensions (e.g., skin color, gender, age, or other characteristics) affect processing. a. Have them think of specific stereotypes and whether different dimensions are separate from or integral to perceptions. b. You could put them in groups and ask them to come up with the concept of stereotyping on their own. If they are having trouble doing this, give them an example or two.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) If the dimensions of brightness and size are seen as separable, what pattern of results should be obtained when comparing reaction times in the correlated and the filtering conditions?

Answer: If participants view the dimensions of brightness and size as separable, then performance across correlated and the filtering conditions should be similar.

2) How should performance compare on the correlated condition with the baseline conditions?

Answer: Reaction times should show no difference between the baseline and the correlated condition since dimensions are separable.

3) How should performance compare in the filtering condition compared to the baseline conditions?

Answer: Reaction times should show no difference between the filtering condition and the baseline condition since dimensions are separable.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) How was speed of processing related to whether there was interference?

Answer: If an individual’s reaction time did not get slower when making the decisions, we can say that there was little or no interference. Since the dimensions of brightness and size are separable dimensions, whether or not the dimensions were correlated or filtering should not affect processing because we process the two dimensions separately.

2) In the Garner task, why is an individual’s performance compared to a baseline condition?

Answer: The baseline conditions allow the individual to serve as her own control. In order to determine if there was interference between the dimensions in the filtering condition or the correlated condition, a comparison is needed when there is only variation on one dimension. A baseline also provides an indication that the individual understands what the task is asking.

3) Why is there no advantage in processing for the correlated condition relative to the filtering condition?

Answer: In both conditions the participant is able to easily distinguish between the two dimensions of brightness and size. That is, the two dimensions do not interfere with each other in the filtering condition. Hence, no differences in processing time should be found.

Advanced Questions 1) Do you think practice would have reduced the inference effect? Explain your answer.

Answer: Practice probably would not have reduced the interference effect significantly. Given the participant can easily distinguish between the two dimensions, there would be no differential advantage of practice for any of the three conditions (e.g., baseline, correlated, or filtering).

2) How does the Garner interference task support the idea that sometimes we can selectively focus on one dimension of an item while making a judgment about another dimension?

Answer: If the experimental stimuli vary on separable dimensions (e.g., brightness and size), we are able to selectively focus on the relevant dimension while ignoring the irrelevant dimension and the result is no interference. If no interference is occurring, there should be no differences in the processing of the stimuli across the conditions (e.g., baseline, correlated, or filtering).

3) How might you change the stimuli in this version of the Garner task to create some interference?

Answer: Changing one of the dimensions could make the dimensions less separable and more integral. For example, one could change the variable of brightness to shape and test for the dimensions of shape and size. Alternatively, the variable of size could be changed to hue and test for the dimensions of hue and brightness.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss how to test for the Garner effect in an ecologically valid study.

Answer: An ecologically valid study would mean taking a concept from the lab to the real world. To test for processing interference within the real world you would use stimuli that we already use to make judgments on group membership, like voice and face recognition. The researcher could measure the integral and separable dimensions present.

2) Discuss why the current task using the stimuli that varied on brightness and size would not be considered an interference task.

Answer: The stimuli presented in this CogLab varied along two dimensions, brightness and size.

These two dimensions are considered separable, and people tend to have no problems processing two separable dimensions as two dimensions. That is, processing of the one dimension does not interfere with processing of the other dimension.

3) Discuss the role that selective attention may play in Garner interference.

Answer: Selectively attending to one dimension is easy when the two dimensions are separable.

Thus, processing times do not vary across conditions (e.g., baseline, correlated, or filtering).

As seen in the other Garner task with integral dimensions, longer processing times obtain when people cannot selectively attend to one of the dimensions and interference occurs.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Put students in groups and have them discuss other factors that might influence speed of processing in a Garner task, such as mood, drugs, and motivation. If they are not sure of the answer, have them find some research that addresses this question and bring it back to the class for discussion. This can also be done online by providing links to articles and then discussing them. a. Have students think about specific examples and the rationale behind their argument. They can look to other perceptual tasks or interference tasks to find parallels to consider.

2) The Garner task is a form of speeded classification task, meaning that perceptual reaction time is recorded. The task has been used for a number of different perceptual tasks and some attentional ones. Have students discuss some perceptual decisions that could be tested using this task. a. Have them keep in mind that varying dimensions can be used, not just two. Also have them consider different modalities, like speech or voice recognition.

3) The interference that is found with the Garner task is just one of the many types of interference studied in cognitive psychology. Put students in small groups and have them discuss the other specific interference tasks that may have already been covered in class. a. When they come up with examples, have them think about how each are similar and different. For example, one may interfere with semantic ability, while another may interfere with linguistic ability.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) When dimensions are separable, when does the Garner interference occur? a. Correlated condition b. Filtering condition c. Baseline condition d. None of the above (d) 2) What are separable dimensions? a. Dimensions where there is interference in processing them b. Dimensions where there is no interference processing them c. Dimensions where there is interference when they are not very strong d. Dimensions where there is no interference when the person can attend to one or the other (b) 3) Below are stimuli to be used in different versions of the Garner task. Which of the conditions would likely produce NO interference? a. Stimuli that varied in size and saturation. b. Stimuli that varied in shape and hue. c. Stimuli that varied in shape and saturation. d. All of the above. (d)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Müller-Lyer Illusion Introduction An illusion occurs when one’s perception of the world and the actual physical world do not agree. The Müller-Lyer Illusion is an example of this sensation/perception discrepancy. The size of a line may be perceived differently under different conditions. Not only does this lab demonstrate the Müller-Lyer Illusion, it also produces a psychometric function or a set of values that describes the probability of a certain response as a physical characteristic like line length varies.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) To expand on the Müller-Lyer illusion, have students investigate properties of the lines that may alter response rate, for example, fin-length, having fins on only the top/bottom or left/right, fin color, or the effect of the presence or absence of the shaft. a. You can have classmates draw out new line stimuli and test them out on each other. Before testing, have students hypothesize how altering the line characteristics may affect the illusionary effect.

2) Have students explore the topic of how the Müller-Lyer Illusion can be explained by depth perception theories. When they are researching depth perception theories, have them think about some applications of creating a false sense of depth or size and why this may be of value to certain groups, like artists, architects, or researchers. a. They can write a short paper of how the illusion is explained by depth perception or the application of this knowledge to specific groups of people. b. Give students extra points for creativity in terms of application and any examples they can provide.

3) Some classic research suggests that the Müller-Lyer Illusion is not present in all cultures.

Have students review the literature for explanations and examples of this suggestion. a. Have them critically think about specific cultural influences that may be related to a group’s susceptibility to the illusion. b. Students could write a paper on one specific cultural example, providing examples or support for why the illusion is not observed in that group. c. This topic could lead to class discussion on cultural influence on cognitive abilities or strategies.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) Why is it hard to measure perceptions in a cognitive lab, for example, in the Müller-Lyer experiment?

Answer: Perceptions are subjective experiences and are hard to measure because they are subjective information. Asking a person to tell you if a line is long or not is a personal judgment, not an objective one.

2) What was the goal of the Müller-Lyer Illusion CogLab? Answer: The goal was not to determine if there was an illusion or not but to quantitatively determine the probability of obtaining a specific answer when the stimuli varied; also, to determine the magnitude of effect for an individual.

3) Describe the psychophysical method of constant stimuli used in the Müller-Lyer Illusion.

Make sure to indicate what was kept constant throughout the experiment.

Answer: One of the popular methods of measuring psychophysical phenomenon is through the method of constant stimuli. The target line that was used for length comparisons was held constant, meaning it did not change in length. The lines that were to be judged on length changed.

4) In the Müller-Lyer Illusion CogLab, what was the contextual stimulus that altered an individual’s perception of the length of the line? Think about the difference between the two lines.

Answer: The presence of fins would be considered as the contextual stimulus or noise that influenced an individual’s judgment of line length.

5) Give one example of how perceptual distortions are used by fashion designers. In particular, think about how vertical and horizontal stripes can be used effectively.

Answer: When a designer wants to give the illusion of height over width, stripes can be used.

Vertical stripes can make a person seem taller, while horizontal stripes can make a person seem wider.

Research/Cognition Based Questions 1) Your professor says, “Knowing that they are illusions does not make them go away.” Do you agree with your professor or not? How could this be tested?

Answer: If you read the description of this illusion, you knew before completing the experiment that you would likely perceive some of the stimuli inaccurately. However, even knowing what to expect does not help accuracy rates. Illusions are fascinating because practice does not significantly change one’s perception of a stimulus. You should agree with this; it can be easily tested by simply telling people what should happen and looking at their results. Replications would add support for this statement.

2) What kind of statistical tests could be used to explore possible gender differences in the magnitude of effect for the Müller-Lyer Illusion? Be specific in your answer.

Answer: Since gender has two levels, an independent sample t-test could be performed.

Advanced Questions 1) Define the magnitude of an illusory effect and how you might calculate it.

Answer: The greater the physical difference between the actual lengths of the lines when they appear equal, the greater the illusion. If the two lines look to be the same length, but one line is actually 3 inches and the target line is actually 3.5 inches, the magnitude of effect is 3.5 - 3.0 or 0.5. This could be a negative number if the target line is smaller than the line of comparison.

2) What is psychophysics? How does the Müller-Lyer Illusion CogLab demonstrate this phenomenon?

Answer: Psychophysics attempts to relate reported subjective characteristics of perception to objective physical properties. Varying the length of the line without wings and keeping the line with wings constant is a psychophysical comparative technique called the method of constant stimuli. The physical length of the matching line without wings can be compared to the target line, and the measure of the strength or magnitude of the Müller -Lyer Illusion can be calculated and plotted as a function.

Discussion Questions 1) The philosopher Aristotle believed truth was found in observation and empiricism.

Discuss how illusions are good examples of why Aristotle’s scientific ideals were not always correct.

Answer: The basis for a perceptual illusion is that the observations or one’s perceptions of reality do not match reality. So in this lab, truth is not found in our perceptions of the illusion because they are false.

2) Discuss how bottom-up (“perceptual”) and top-down (“theory driven”) processing help explain perceptual phenomenon like the Müller-Lyer Illusion.

Answer: Top-down processing of a perceptual illusion is driven by theoretical constructs, so it is called theory-driven perception. Bottom-up processing is driven by data and observations. In respect to illusions, bottom-up processing would lead to a number of perceptual errors, like we see in illusions. Both top-down and bottom-up processing are used to explain illusions and their magnitude of effect.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) This project may take some artistic skills, but they could work in groups if they are more comfortable. Open a competition to design a special room on campus that uses the Müller-Lyer Illusion. This room should be an illustration of how to make a room seem larger than it actually is. a. Students can choose different media for the project as some may be more computer literate than others. b. The groups can bring in their projects to share with classmates. Set up a place where some of the more creative ideas can be displayed.

2) As an online or group project, have students discuss everyday examples of how illusions are used to alter perceptions. a. If they are stuck, have them think about fashion designers making people look thinner or taller, or hiding undesirable parts. b. Another example may be using illusions to make a room more comfortable or more pleasing, for example, through Feng Shui.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) Psychophysics a. relates the mind to the brain. b. relies on physics to describe the mind. c. relates perception to physical properties of stimuli. d. is no longer used in modern psychology. (c) 2) In the Müller-Lyer Illusion, a. the outward-pointing wings make the line look shorter than it is. b. the outward-pointing wings make the line look longer than it is. c. the inward-pointing wings make the line look longer than it is. d. the inward- and outward-pointing wings make the line look the same length. (b) 3) In the method of constant stimuli, a. the observer varies a comparison stimulus so that it appears the same as a standard stimulus. b. the observer is allowed to respond “greater than,” “less than,” and “equal to.” c. the study of visual illusions is difficult to apply. d. the observer makes judgments about the relation between a standard and comparison stimulus. (d) 4) A psychometric function a. relates a physical characteristic of a stimulus to perception. b. can be generated from the method of constant stimuli. c. can be used to study illusions. d. all of the above (d)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Blind Spot Introduction When information enters the eye, receptors on the retina that are sensitive to light transfer converted energy into the brain. While there are areas where color vision is best (the fovea), there is also an area where vision is non-existent: the blind spot or optic disk. It is here that the optic nerve exits the eye, so there are no visual receptors. Under normal conditions, most individuals are not aware of their blind spots. This lab will help students understand how large this area is and where it is located.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) There are several ways to map the blind spot, besides this CogLab. Have students design a method of testing the blind spot and have them try it out on several people to see if it works (e.g., Using a piece of paper, make a + and 0 on the same line but separated by a couple of inches. Have the student close one eye and focus on the + while moving the paper slowly from arm’s length towards their nose. See at what point the 0 disappears.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ8nHvb-GJk for another similar version of the activity above.) a. You may want to address reliability of the measure and how they can achieve this through testing and retesting several times on one person. b. This could be done in groups or as an individual project. Results can be brought into the classroom for a final test.

2) As a critical thinking project, have students answer the question of why a blind spot may increase with age. a. They can formulate a hypothesis at the beginning and then review the literature to look for evidence of why it occurs. b. Hypotheses can be shared as a class before students review the literature.

3) Some animals have very similar visual systems to us. As a critical thinking project, have students look through the literature for potential examples that other visual phenomena like the blind spot exist in other animals. a. Students could write a paper on their findings or discuss it in the classroom. This could also be done as a group.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) What is physiologically different about the fovea and the blind spot?

Answer: The fovea has the greatest number of light-sensitive receptors, while the blind spot does not have any receptors. At the blind spot, the optic nerve exits into the brain.

2) When looking at your individual CogLab results, in terms of your blind spot, what do the red areas in the results represent? What does it mean if your results indicate two locations of red areas?

Answer: The red area(s) represent the blind spot and where it is. The area should be located in the middle of the matrix of green. More than one red patch represents more than one blind spot.

3) Why do you think that most people do not know that they have a blind spot?

Answer: Most people do not know they have a blind spot in each eye because the other eye takes over the visual processes and our brain “fills-in” the blind spot.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) What could be a dependent variable in the blind spot lab?

Answer: Depending on what you want to measure, the dependent variables could either be size of blind spot or the number of blind spots.

2) How could you determine if the CogLab was a reliable measure for mapping the blind spot?

Answer: The best way to see if this measure was reliable is through test-retest measures. Have each person take the CogLab twice. If they get similar results both times, it would suggest measurement reliability.

Advanced Questions 1) How could you test what the brain processes when an object comes into your blind spot?

Answer: You could stare at an object on the computer screen, cover your left eye, and move your head forward and backward. There will be a time when the object is in your blind spot and disappears. Now vary the properties of the stimuli, like color, background color, lines or dots, etc.

2) Why is the blind spot CogLab found in the neurocognition subgroup and not perception?

Answer: The blind spot phenomenon could be a perception question if you expanded on the experiment to see how the stimuli could be changed to affect one’s perception. Since this CogLab simply identifies the area of the blind spot, it fits better in the neurocognition subgroup since the task includes neurological processing and cognition.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss why one eye compensating for the other eye’s blind spot displays is a positive trait for humans’ visual system.

Answer: In our complex society, an inability to see stimuli if it is in a specific position would not be adaptive for our survival. Humans do not rely on a good sense of smell or hearing, like other animals; we rely a great deal on the visual system. This visual flexibility allows us to participate in complex activities and process our environment quickly and accurately.

2) Discuss how visual information is relayed into the eye and then the brain for further processing.

Answer: The receptors in the back of the eye, on the retina, are sensitive to light energy. Special receptors for color stimuli and processing in daylight are called cones. These are densely packed at the fovea, so color vision is best here. These receptors convert light energy into electrical energy, which is transferred into the central nervous system through the optic nerve. Where the optic nerve goes into the brain, there are no receptors: the blind spot.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) A number of experiments help examine and map the blind spot. Have students look on the Internet to find examples of blind-spot tests. a. If it is an online class, have students paste in websites so other students can see them. b. You can have students write a paper on some of the findings and situations that may alter or affect the blind spot. c. The following website offers examples: http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/chvision.html 2) Some of the more recent research on blind spots suggesting that the brain “fills in” the visual gaps with information from the surrounding area may not always be correct (e.g., see Chapter 3 in http://books.google.com/books?id=9nqEgmtNI40C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_g e_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false). Have students review the literature for evidence of this debate. a. Online students can find a number of online articles on this subject. b. Have students write a paper or discuss it in class or as an online discussion post.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) What structure on the retina contains no light-sensitive receptors? a. The fovea b. The aqueous humor c. The optic disk d. The lens (c) 2) Damaged spots on the retina that cause blindness are called a. optic disks. b. blind spots. c. foveas. d. scotomas. (d) 3) Why do we usually not notice our blind spots? a. We think about how an object should look, then we fill in what is missing b. What falls on the blind spot of one eye does not normally fall on the blind spot of the other eye c. Blind spots are not located in the same place on the retina in both eyes d. All of the above (b)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Metacontrast Masking Introduction Masking in cognitive research occurs when the presentation of one stimulus (mask) can impair the performance on some task that requires judgment about another stimulus (target). When the mask and the target have no overlapping contours and the mask follows the target in time, it is called metacontrast masking. By studying the relationship between the mask and the target, researchers can investigate properties of the visual system and processing abilities. This lab will allow students to understand how the masking technique influences visual processing.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Have students participate in the lab and then write up their results as an APA-formatted lab report. Have them include an introduction, abstract, methods section, results, discussion, and reference page. a. There are some references included with the CogLab. Students can be asked to seek out additional references. b. This is a great tool for teaching APA formatting and searching for sources in the library.

2) Metacontrast masking is a phenomenon that addresses issues in sensory storage in our memory processes. Have students either review the literature or write a paper on issues of visual perception and the memory system. a. You can direct them to Atkinson & Schiffrin’s model of memory systems, Sperling’s sensory memory research, or Baddeley’s working memory theory. b. They can write a paper relating masking to one of these theories or models.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) What is masking? What is metacontrast masking?

Answer: Masking refers to a class of phenomena where presentation of one stimulus (the mask) can impair performance on some task that requires judgment about another stimulus (the target).

Metacontrast masking occurs when the target and the mask have no overlapping contours and the mask follows the target in time.

2) Some people’s results do not match the inverted U-shaped curve hypothesis. Why might this happen?

Answer: Since this CogLab is related to attention, any deviations from the hypothetical curves could be due to a participant’s level of boredom, fatigue, lack of attention, distractions in the environment, or a number of other related factors that might reduce attention.

3) In a metacontrast demonstration, at what interstimulus interval range should performance be the poorest?

Answer: Performance on a metacontrast task should be poorest at the intermediate interstimulus intervals, around 60-100 ms.

4) How could guessing inflate your percent of correct identification?

Answer: Since there are four choices, when you are not sure of the answer or just did not see the target, you will guess. When guessing there is a 25% of being correct, which could inflate the percentage correct.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) If you weren’t paying attention to the lab and just pressed buttons without thinking about it, what would the probability be for guessing on each trial?

Answer: Since there are four options, guessing rate would be 25% or ¼.

2) Which variable is plotted on the Y-axis of your results graph? What kind of variable is this, independent or dependent?

Answer: The percentage correct is on the Y-axis. This is the dependent variable.

Advanced Questions 1) What is the role of visual masking in cognitive science?

Answer: First, masking is used to investigate properties of the visual system. By identifying the way in which the target and mask stimuli influence each other, vision scientists are able to deduce details about the underlying mechanisms involved in visual perception. Second, visual masking is used to indirectly restrict systems and processes involved in information processing of visual stimuli.

2) How can masking be used as a psychological screening process for some cognitive disorders?

Answer: There is evidence that people with various types of cognitive disorders may respond differently than normal people under some masking conditions. Thus, masking has been proposed as a simple method for detecting some disorders and as a means of specifying the underlying mechanisms for those disorders.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss the role that iconic storage (a brief visual image) plays in the visual system.

Answer: Iconic storage is important for storing briefly presented stimuli. It acts as an input buffer, giving the perceptual system time to process the stimulus. This explains why there is no trace for long stimuli. Iconic storage also helps fill in the gaps between eye fixations during reading. There is no blur between the saccades because of iconic storage.

2) Discuss how the interstimulus interval is related to sensory memory performance.

Answer: When the mask immediately follows the target, accuracy rates are high, meaning that the memory for the target is not impaired. However, at the interstimulus interval of 60-100 ms, accuracy decreases and participants report not seeing the target at all. This indicates that the visual icon has disappeared from the sensory store. There is a sensitive relationship between length of the interstimulus interval and memory accuracy.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) As a group or online project, have students review the literature for other phenomena that seem to address the same cognitive mechanism of sensory memory. a. Direct them to review the literature for examples. If they are having trouble, direct them to the example of change blindness. b. As a group report, have each member identify a related phenomenon and then report back to the group or as an online discussion contributions.

2) Metacontrast masking is just one example of masking a target. Have students find other examples of masking and how results of those studies compare to results found with this CogLab. a. If it is an online group, have students look for online demonstrations and then share the sites with the class. If one or two good demonstrations exist, have students talk about the similarities and differences with this CogLab.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) A masking stimulus interferes with the perception of a. a stimulus that follows it. b. a stimulus that precedes it. c. a stimulus presented simultaneously. d. all of the above (b) 2) In a metaconstrast experiment, at what interstimulus interval is performance poorest? a. 0-60 milliseconds b. 60-100 milliseconds c. 100-200 milliseconds d. Over 200 milliseconds (b) 3) What type of graph relates performance in identifying a target to the interstimulus interval of a mask? a. A straight line b. A U-shaped curve c. An upside down U-shaped curve d. An S-shaped curve (b) 4) Masking has been used to investigate a. underlying mechanisms in visual perception. b. underlying mechanisms of cognitive disorders. c. selective attention. d. both a and b (d)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Categorical Perception—Discrimination Introduction Perceptual discrimination of categories is one way of determining how small a physical difference (just noticeable) in a stimulus a person can reliably label. This is related to one’s heightened sensitivity to incoming physical stimuli. In this lab you were to identify or discriminate whether two stimuli (i.e., ba or pa) which varied across a continuum were similar or different. Research suggests that people are able to easily categorize items at the ends of the continuum but have trouble discriminating between those ambiguous stimuli in the middle of the continuum.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) The phi phenomenon works on the premise that a series of lights can take on the illusion of solitary movement if presented at a rapid speed. As you slow down the presentation of a series of stimuli, the perception changes from movement of one object to the detection of separate lights being turned off and on in succession. Have students use this example to discuss how one could determine this abrupt shift from moving light to separate light.

When these individual lights are presented continuously at 30 msec intervals, it will look like the arrow is flashing and pointing in that direction a. They can work individually or in groups to answer this question. b. Have them develop research proposals for testing categorical discrimination using the phi phenomenon. (Remind them of the methodology in this lab in judgments of same or different.) c. Have them be specific in their methods of determining the JND (just noticeable difference) in the stimuli changes. d. Promote creative methodologies.

2) Researchers have used sets of twins as stimuli in discrimination tasks. Have your students design a study using sets of twins that would address the issue of perceptual discrimination. a. Have them indicate proposed hypotheses and a specific method section. (Do not forget things like how many sets of twins would you use, what gender would you include, how would you present the stimuli, and how would you have participants make their judgments.) b. You can have them present it in an APA-formatted paper or as a general methodological design.

3) As a group project, have students come up with 2-3 examples of when perceptual discrimination errors could be fatal or cost someone their life. This could be used to show them that although the ability to categorize may be innate, it does not mean that we are always correct or good at it. Also, in rushed situations, discrimination abilities can be strongly affected. a. Examples could come from the medical community, firefighter, police officers, or military personnel. b. After they have come up with their examples, ask them if practice may improve these abilities or not.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) If you were lifting weights at the gym, do you think it would be easier to tell the difference between 10 and 15 pounds or between 100 and 105 pounds? Both are a difference of 5 pounds.

Answer: It would be harder to tell the difference between 100 and 105 pounds because the amount of added stimuli needed to tell the difference (JND) is proportional to the original stimuli (so 5 and 100).

2) Why would it make more sense to do the identification lab first followed by the discrimination lab?

Answer: When testing cognitive processes, like with signal detection, one first needs to test whether the person can detect changes taking place. If a person does not detect changes, then asking about where discrimination points fall on a continuum is not meaningful.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) When you go to the optometrist to have your eyes checked, she shows you a line of letters and then a second set of the same letters and asks you which are better. Using the information that you learned in this lab, explain what the optometrist might be doing.

Answer: The optometrist is testing to see what magnification of stimuli is needed for you to tell the difference between them. This is related to your visual perception and is necessary to determine when calculating the power of your vision.

2) How does the ability to discriminate categories of stimuli relate to the concept of signal detection theory? Use the nomenclature of signal detection theory to describe the possible outcomes when discriminating between ba and pa.

Answer: In signal detection theory if it is ba and you label it as ba, it is a hit. However, if it is a distorted sound close to ba and you label it as ba, it is a false alarm, or if it is ba and you label it as pa, then you have missed the detection. The ability to correctly detect a stimulus is related to absolute threshold and sensitivity to sensations.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) In groups or through online discussions, have students explore different occupations where categorical discrimination is important. If they are not sure, drop these hints: a. Sport referees and umpires have to make subjective calls about whether something is a strike or a ball, whether penalties occur, or if a penalty was intentional or not. b. When coming up with their examples, have students list the different discriminations in detail and potential decision-making processes. Also have them consider the challenges associated with instant replay for decisions in those sports that employ such technology.

2) To test for categorical discrimination, researchers have used stimuli morphs, for example, male and female faces, going from prototypically male to prototypically female. Have your students discuss potential research methodologies where morphological stimuli could be used. These could be faces or other objects. One could use the Face Transformer app or software to create stimuli for such an exercise. a. Have them consider how to test for category discrimination and how to determine the just noticeable differences necessary to change one’s perception.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) What happens to your ability to discriminate between two different stimuli falling near the categorical boundaries? a. Your ability to discriminate increases b. Your ability to discriminate decreases c. Your ability to discriminate is the same at the boundaries as the ends d. Your ability to discriminate is not affected (b) 2) Why do some people have a hard time discriminating between the different shades of red, but they can tell the distinct difference between red and blue? a. They do not like red, so they do not pay attention to all the different shades. b. Blue is more pleasing to the eye compared to red. c. They may be more familiar with blue than red. d. Red and blue are two distinct categories so it is easier to discriminate between them than between shades of red, which are within the same category. (d) 3) In the Discrimination CogLab, what could be inferred when a person rates the stimuli as different? a. That they had trouble hearing one of them b. That the sound they heard was in between the two sounds c. That sound one came from a different category than sound two d. That they made a mistake in their discrimination (c)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Categorical Perception—Identification Introduction The perception and identification of various categories is an essential starting point for many cognitive processes like memory, visual and auditory perception, and thinking and language. The purpose of the lab was to demonstrate how to identify the border between two categories of stimuli. This category boundary is where the identification of stimuli on a continuum is labeled one way on one side of the boundary (e.g., ba) and another way (e.g., pa) on the other side of the same boundary. In a perceptual task such as this one, identification of categories should be greatest at the endpoints of a continuum and have a sharp boundary region of abrupt change in categorical perception around the midpoint. This is considered to be an example of bottom-up processing, where one goes from physical stimuli to the psychological perception (however, learned categories can also be explained with top-down processing or that experience can influence our perceptual abilities).

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Have students write a research paper or just have them research if and how animals (human and non-human) form categories through learning or by innate capabilities. Have them think about the following issues: a. What kinds of categories have been found to be innate in humans? Are these purely innate, or is a cultural influence present? b. Look into animal and infant research concerning categorical perception. What does it mean if animals and babies can identify different categories of stimuli? c. Why would it be adaptive to be able to learn categories quickly or to have the innate ability to form them? d. Give examples of categories that are directly related to culture (indicating learned perceptions).

2) Besides colors and sounds, where else can categorical perception, specifically identification of distinct categories be seen, even when the stimulus changes continuously (gradually)? a. Have students evaluate the usefulness of this perceptual phenomenon for each example. (Not every example of categorical perception is a good thing: sometimes elevated errors arise that could be costly.) b. Have them think about non-human examples and evaluate them. (The chinchilla is a unique animal because it has a similar auditory system to humans and it can perceive and react to several categories; it is thus a good animal to research.)

3) Have the students pretend they are psychologists trying to identify a patient’s disorder from a range of symptoms. According to the DSM, there are two possible disorders, but further tests need to be done. How could categorical perception play a role in their ability to identify which disorder their patient may have? a. Have them think about whether or not the nature of the two disorders could play a role in their decision. (Would their ability to identify be related to the seriousness of the disorder?) b. What if these two disorders demanded two different types of drugs to alleviate the symptoms – would this affect their decision?

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) Why do we identify objects and ideas as belonging to different categories?

Answer: It allows for simplification of our environment and reduces the amount of information to be processed. This can help speed up reaction and processing speeds.

2) What parts of a continuum are easiest to identify and why?

Answer: The endpoints are easiest to identify, meaning we make fewer errors and take less time to do so because the endpoints are the most salient members (the central prototypes) of the category.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) Describe the difference between top-down and bottom-up processing in terms of categorical perception.

Answer: Top-down refers to experience-driven or theoretically driven perceptions, and bottomup refers to data-driven perceptions. Both methods of processing are used in identification, meaning that we develop categories through culture and learning, but we have innate capabilities to form categories.

2) Using time as the continuous stimuli and AM and PM as the categories, where does the boundary of categorical perception fall? Be specific.

Answer: In the morning, the time before 11:59 and 59 seconds is considered AM and until it reaches 12:00 (noon), then everything is PM until 11:59 and 59 seconds, when it shifts to AM again. The boundary would fall between 11:59 and 59 seconds and 12:00.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Categorical perception in phonemes (smallest unit of sound) is an interesting phenomenon because language is such an important part of culture. Have students write a paper or discuss the topic of categorical perception in language. A number of theories account for speech categorical perception for them to critique or research (e.g., motor theory, hypothesis of innate sensitivity, or the label-learning hypothesis). a. Students can find articles in online journals or search engines using the keywords “categorical perception and “language,” “categorical perception” and “identification,” or “categorical perception”. b. The paper could cover a wide range of topics, including present research or studies in the area, examples found in different dialects, or specific identification problems in bilinguals. c. If you want to incorporate an online discussion concerning the theories of categorical perception, post an opening theoretical premise and have students evaluate its strengths or weaknesses.

1. For example, the motor theory explains that speech is special and that phonemes are processed by auditory receptors in a manner that is related to how one would pronounce them. The initial hypothesis of the motor theory then was that language production was a learned ability.

2) Another online discussion could be directed toward the ongoing debate of nature vs. nurture of categories and categorical perception. a. Research can be found with preverbal infants in an attempt to answer the question of when it develops. b. There is also the debate of whether categorical perception is regarded as a universal (where nature intended) or if it is relative to where an animal wants to place a category (Whorfian).

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) Categorical perception of the color black and white involves identifying a. some black and white objects. b. several categories with a shade of either black or white. c. black, white, and everything in between. d. two distinct categories, one black and one white. (d) 2) The time between the release of the air and the beginning of the vibration is called the a. voice onset time. b. voice distribution time. c. voice ongoing timing. d. voice distribution timing. (a) 3) When identifying the categories for ba and pa, your results should show a change in your response from ba to pa at a. the end of the continuum. b. the beginning of the continuum. c. the middle or midpoint of the continuum. d. different places. (c)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Statistical Learning Introduction Statistical learning is demonstrated when participants are able to “learn” information even though they are not asked explicitly instructed to “learn” the information. In such a study, participants are asked to pay attention to a stream of stimuli (e.g., verbal or visual) presented over a period of time (e.g., 5 minutes). Embedded within the stream are stimulus patterns (i.e., triplets) that participants process.

In the current study, following presentation of the stream of stimuli, participants were instructed to select which of two sequences of stimuli was most familiar. Each sequence contained three stimuli. The order of the three stimuli was categorized as “Always” (A), “Impossible” (I) and “Possible” (P). “Always” stimuli were those 3 stimuli that always appeared in succession.

“Impossible” stimuli were those 3 stimuli that never appeared in succession. “Possible” stimuli were those 3 stimuli that could have appeared in succession but were not designed to do so.

Results suggest that participants appear to learn the patterns even though participants were not explicitly instructed to learn such information.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Assign this lab to be written up in APA format after completion. Results can be taken from one participant or group data. a. Have students include a title page, introduction, method section, results, discussion, and a reference page. b. Tell them to focus more attention on the discussion section and the application of the CogLab in everyday situations.

2) Have students explore how statistical learning has been shown with a variety of stimuli and in a variety of participants (e.g., non-human primates, babies, adults, etc). a. Ask students to explore other possible stimulus characteristics (e.g., length of sequence; increasing number of stimuli from a triplet to a quartet; other types of stimuli (e.g., sounds, pictures, tastes, smells)) and participant variables that might affect such statistical learning. b. Ask students to generate possible applications for such statistical learning, maybe for studying for their courses.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) What is Statistical Learning?

Answer: Statistical learning is indicated when a participant is more accurate in identifying one pattern of stimuli more than another pattern of stimuli, indicating learning has occurred.

However, participants show increased accuracy even though the participant is never explicitly told to learn the patterns.

2) A triplet in statistical learning represents what?

Answer: A triplet represents three stimuli in a statistical learning task.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) What are the three possible categories of a triplet that could be used to test for statistical learning?

Answer: The three categories the triplet could be labeled include “Always” when the same three shapes always appeared in succession; “Impossible” when the three shapes never appeared in succession, and “Possible” when the three shapes could have appeared in succession but were not always intended to appear in succession.

2) What pattern of accuracy is found for the “Always”, “Impossible” and “Possible” sequences when statistical learning has occurred?

Answer: Participants usually are most accurate when comparing “Always” with “Impossible, followed by “Always” versus “Possible” which, in turn, is more accurate than the condition of “Possible” versus “Impossible”.

Advanced Questions 1) Previous research shows that statistical learning can obtain with a variety of types of stimuli. What might be predicted if color was simultaneously varied with the shape of the stimuli?

Answer: Depending on the other characteristic varied, it may be the case that varying another characteristic might produce a greater effect than the other characteristic. For example, imagine a condition where in addition to the order in which a triplet is presented, the color order of the stimuli is also varied in an orthogonal fashion. It may be the case that a more familiar characteristic like color would be attended to more than the unfamiliar shapes of the stimuli such that the color order might be show greater statistical learning than that observed for the original characteristic.

2) How might one explain Statistical Learning using concepts from Helmholtz’s Theory of Unconscious Inference?

Answer: Though not specifically designed to explain Statistical Learning, the concepts of likelihood principle and unconscious inference from Helmholtz’s theory could explain the pattern of statistical learning. In Phase 1 of the lab the different shapes and their order are perceived and over time unconscious (or even conscious) inferences about the stimuli may develop. We may note specific patterns, develop expectations, or predict what stimulus might come next based on some inferences (e.g., downward arrow followed by “3 ball triangle”). We then use our inferential information to make our familiarity judgments in Phase 2. Alternatively, one might suggest a Bayesian calculation of likelihood and respond accordingly.

Discussion Questions 1) What can we conclude from the research showing that both human babies as well as other non-human primates show signs of statistical learning?

Answer: Given the research on babies, one could conclude that the demonstrated statistical learning being observed is the result of some innate process and not based on some high order learning that the babies were taught. The evidence showing non-human primates are capable of statistical learning suggests that learning is not something limited to humans, but may be a learning principle that other non-human primates use to survive.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) As a research project, have students create their own variation of the Statistical Learning CogLab based on their review of the literature. a. Have students exchange with one other student the proposed study and have each student predict the pattern for the comparisons of “Always” and “Impossible”, “Always” and “Possible” and “Possible” and “Impossible”. b. Return the predicted results to the original student and see whether they agree or disagree with the results predicted by the other student.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) What is an “Impossible” triplet? a. A 3 word sequence which does not make grammatical sense. b. The three word sequence of “the slithy toves” as part of a more formal sentence. c. Three letters that were never presented in succession during the learning phase. d. The letters CBA that were always presented in succession. (c) 2) Statistical learning has been observed in which groups of participants? a. Human babies b. Adult humans c. Non-human primates d. All of the above (b) 3) Which of the following would be evidence that statistical learning has not occurred in a statistical learning task? a. Accuracy in the “Always” condition was greater than that observed in the “Impossible” condition. b. Accuracy in the “Always” condition was greater than that observed in the “Possible” condition. c. Accuracy in the “Possible” condition was equal to that observed in the “Impossible” condition. d. None of the above (c)

Chapter 4: Attention Chapter Outline 1. ATTENTION AS INFORMATION PROCESSING a. Broadbent’s Filter Model of Attention Demonstration: Focusing on One Message b. Modifying Broadbent’s Model: Early Selection Models c. A Late Selection Model 2. PROCESSING CAPACITY AND PERCEPTUAL LOAD Demonstration: The Stroop Effect TEST YOURSELF 4.1 3. ATTENTION AS SELECTION: OVERT AND COVERT ATTENTION a. Overt Attention: Scanning a Scene With Eye Movements Demonstration: Looking for a Face in a Crowd Demonstration: Looking Off to the Side b. Covert Attention: Directing Attention Without Eye Movements Method: Precueing 4. DIVIDED ATTENTION: CAN WE ATTEND TO MORE THAN ONE THING AT A TIME? a. Divided Attention Can Be Achieved with Practice: Automatic Processing b. Divided Attention Becomes More Difficult When Tasks Are Harder c. Distractions While Driving TEST YOURSELF 4.2 5. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DON’T ATTEND? a. Inattentional Blindness b. Change Detection Demonstration: Change Detection c. What About Everyday Experience?

6. ATTENTION AND EXPERIENCING A COHERENT WORLD a. Why is Binding Necessary? b. Feature Integration Theory Demonstration: Searching for Conjunctions 7. SOMETHING TO CONSIDER: TAKING POSSESSION BY THE BRAIN TEST YOURSELF 4.2 CogLabs: Visual Search; Attentional Blink; Change Detection; Simon Effect; Spatial Cueing; Stroop Effect; Von Restorff Effect

Web Links Websites Attention, Interactive Chapter Interactive demonstrations in the study of attention with textual explanations of the effects. http://www.chsbs.cmich.edu/richard%5Fbacks/cogneuro/Chapter%207/ Defining Attention Cognitive definition of attention with hyperlinks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention Selective Attention and Arousal Basic concepts in the study of selective attention, such as Broadbent's filter theory. http://www.csun.edu/~vcpsy00h/students/arousal.htm Dyslexia and the Cocktail Party Effect The brain mechanisms underlying the cocktail party effect, and how this knowledge might be applied to train individuals with dyslexia. http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2009/11/dyslexia_cocktail_party_effect.php Interactive Stroop Effect Experiment In this experiment, you are required to say the color of the word, not what the word says. http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/java/ready.html Unconstrained Color Naming Experiment Students can participate and provide original data for the study. http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Nathan_Moroney/color-name-hpl.html Confusing Colors Another interactive demonstration of the Stroop effect. http://dcity.org/component/content/article?id=113&Itemid=819 Videos Big Bang Theory – Undivided Attention (Time: 1:53) A humorous clip that can be used to introduce the topic of attention and its colloquial use. http://youtu.be/LBipF-65GfE Models of Attention Used During Car Selection (Time: 2:13) A light approach to demonstrating some of the attention models via the car buying process. http://youtu.be/pN2SsXVOZ5Y Broadbent’s Filter Model – The Great Distraction (Time: 2:09) Exploring Broadbent’s model of attention and how distractions can influence performance. http://youtu.be/pbTLuxg1n7o

Dichotic Listening (Time: 7:05) A dichotic listening stimulus, best used with headphones but can be used without. http://youtu.be/8B1NqyB_h5E Inside NOVA: Change Blindness (Time: 4:07) Change blindness and inattentional blindness defined and explained. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkrrVozZR2c Selective Attention Test (Time: 1:21) A classic example of Simons and Chabris (1999) study on change blindness. See Demonstrations for use of the segment. http://youtu.be/vJG698U2Mvo Pay Attention - Psychology Film (Time: 2:13) Another similar example, though not as dramatic as the Simons and Chabris example. http://youtu.be/jiOwNRiIg-Q The Binding Problem (Time: 3:25) A student presentation covering two Binding Problem models. http://youtu.be/HmIjIqpZmTw Balint Syndrome (Time: 1:29) Explores visual attention deficits of a patient who has Balint Syndrome. http://youtu.be/4odhSq46vtU Gestalt PsychologyEexamples A variety of videos exploring Gestalt principle of perception. http://youtu.be/Vx3pxdzWg3Y (Psychology Perception Video, Time: 1:45) http://youtu.be/nxKcpfFvuf8 (Gestalt Principles of Perception, Time: 4:13) http://youtu.be/m8OBqPwgtYU (Law of Pragnanz, Time: 2:05) Apparent Motion of the Sun (Time: 4:25) Though a little different than the traditional examples of apparent motion and the definition presented in the text, this video provides a different type of apparent motion with regard to the movement of the earth, sun, and stars. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U46xCJlOSis Apps and/or Software Visual Attention TherAppy Lite (Free) An app that explores the assessment of attention. Students can also practice on some of the tasks.

Students should be cautious regarding the veracity of the vendor’s claims. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/visual-attention-therappy/id554546572?mt=8

Boost Your Attention ($0.99) An app designed to “determine the intensity, stability, selectiveness, and multitasking ability of your attention!” Customers completing all of the tasks will obtain an attention assessment.

Students should be cautious regarding the veracity of the vendor’s claims. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.creatstudios.boostyourattention Strooper Trooper (Free) A highly rated app designed to mimic the Stroop task. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mrm.rainbu The Idiot Test (Software) Although it does not have the most sensitive name, this website provides an environment that tests participants’ ability to focus and sustain their attention. Failures to focus attention result in errors, sending a participant back to the beginning to start again. See also Demonstration below. http://www.idiottest.net/theidiottest.html

Discussion Questions 1. Attention appears to play a very important role in our survival. Physiological and behavior research cited throughout the chapter supports a thesis that our attentional system has evolved over time into a robust overall system that is good with the overall picture, but may falter in attending to specific details. Such a system likely evolved much later than language used to describe the phenomenological experiences that derive as a result of the system. However, now that language has also evolved, there are many phrases used in colloquial ways to describe our attentional system. Ask students to provide examples of how we colloquially use the term “attention” and then relate these examples to ideas found in the text.

Below are possible responses of what students may generate: pay attention, undivided attention, focused attention, are you listening to me?, attention seeking, draw attention, attention (as a command, e.g., like the military), catching and keeping an audience's attention, grabbing attention, get someone's attention, turned my attention, particular attention, attention seeking, needs attention, calling attention to oneself, capture attention, and requires attention to name a few.

2. Have students analyze driving behavior in terms of attention. Many aspects of attention can be discussed here.

Students can a. reflect back on learning to drive and discuss how it "feels" for tasks to move from "controlled" to "automatic." b. explain what aspects of driving remain “controlled” and why. c. describe what tasks or activities interfere more with driving ability and when. d. interpret the results of the cell phone studies from the text and the results’ significance regarding their own driving behaviors. e. discuss their own experiences with driving that might provide insights about attentional processes (e.g., the common experience of driving a familiar route and arriving at the destination without awareness of the journey).

3. Discuss the differences between early- and late-selection models of attention. Mention the role that task load plays in determining which model is supported. Have students identify the following tasks as low- or high-load tasks: a. A dichotic listening task in which different passages are presented to each ear and participants shadow the passage presented to the right ear. b. A dichotic listening task in which a passage is presented to the right ear and a single word is presented intermittently to the left ear. Participants shadow the message presented to the right ear. c. A split-scan experiment in which letters are presented to the left and right ears in pairs.

Participants report the pairs of letters in the order each pair is presented.

Have students explain why early- or late-selection would be supported in each of these scenarios.

4. Students are often fascinated by the Stroop effect. Prepare a variety of Stroop stimuli and ask volunteers in the class to respond to them. Then, ask the students to share examples from their own real-world behaviors that show how automatic processes might interfere with intended processing. Share a few of your own to get the discussion started. One example that most people can relate to is driving all the way home on “automatic pilot” before realizing you were supposed to stop somewhere else (e.g., the drycleaners) on the way home.

Demonstrations 1. Demonstrate a dichotic listening experiment (text reference: Cherry, 1954). Ask a student volunteer to sit in a chair in front of the class. The dichotic stimuli can come from either two students (one standing to either side of the volunteer) reading two different messages (provided by you) to the volunteer at the same time or by using a portion (maybe a minute or so) of the following audio clip http://youtu.be/8B1NqyB_h5E with the volunteer wearing headphones.

Ask the volunteer to shadow one of the two messages. Then, ask the volunteer to report what he or she remembered from each message. If you can identify the volunteer prior to the demo, or you can involve graduate student confederates as the “readers,” it might be interesting to have the “ignored reader” say the name of the volunteer a few times to observe whether or not the cocktail party phenomenon occurs.

2. Demonstrate the precueing procedure (text reference: Posner et al., 1980). In the no-cue condition, use a projector to present students with a detailed picture (e.g., a jumble of many objects) for less than one second. Instruct the class to write down what they saw. Then, present a visual precue to focus students’ attention to a certain section of the projection screen.

Immediately present a second detailed picture briefly and again have students record what they saw. Compare the “whole report” vs. precued results by listing the students’ observations for

both conditions. Discuss how selective attention applies, presenting the pictures for reference during your discussion.

3. To introduce the idea of automatic processing, have students describe, in their own words, how to perform an already automatic task. For instance, you might tell them to imagine that you have never seen a button-down sweater before and you want them to (verbally!) explain to you how to put one on. Drop the sweater on the floor and let them guide you. Be sure that you take advantage of the likely ambiguous nature of their descriptions (e.g., putting the sweater on backwards, putting your arm through the sleeve from the wrong end). You can then highlight the characteristics of automatic processes (e.g., they occur without our intention, we lose awareness of how they are done or how to describe them easily once they become overlearned).

4. To demonstrate the idea of change blindness, show the following YouTube video: http://youtu.be/vJG698U2Mvo The clip asks the students to count the number of passes a team dressed in white makes during a basketball game. Most students will be able to accurately count these, but will miss the gorilla that moves through the game. You may have to play this clip a second time for them to believe they really missed something so obvious.

5. Using the Idiot Test above (http://www.idiottest.net/theidiottest.html) ask for volunteers to see who can get the furthest through the focused attention task. Determine beforehand the number of attempts each participant will receive. Have a volunteer keep track of how far through the tasks each participant gets. You will likely find that the first volunteer will not do well on the task and that the other participants will state some level of disbelief because the tasks seem “so easy”.

This task can be used to introduce how simple and yet how complex attention can be. You can also try out the task beforehand to get a feel for the level of difficulty.

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Visual Search Introduction Visual search has been used to explain the differences between serial and parallel processing in the area of vision. In simple feature searches, it may seem that the stimulus seems to “pop out” automatically, no matter how many distractors are present, so reaction times are fast and invariant to the number of distractors. Another type of search requires more controlled attentional processes, including a more careful examination of the distractors. The latter is an example of a conjunctive search, where features of the target item are combinations of the distractor features. This type of search is usually slower and depends on the number of distractors, the number of combined features, and whether the target is present or absent.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Assign this lab to be written up in APA format after completion. Results can be taken from one participant or group data. a. Have students include a title page, introduction, method section, results, discussion, and a reference page. b. Tell them to focus more attention on the discussion section and the application of the CogLab in everyday situations.

2) Have students design their own experiment where the reaction time of the visual search can be compared and measured. a. They could vary one of the variables from the CogLab, including number of features (one or more than one) or number of distractors. b. They could design the proposal to be submitted, with the best one performed in the classroom, or they could share their ideas with the class.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) What happens to the “pop-out” effect as the number of distractors increase?

Answer: The number of distractors does not directly affect the speed at which the target “pops out” or the speed at which the participant subsequently responds. Since the target and distractor vary on one feature, the target is easy to identify.

2) What is a conjunctive search? What were the conjunctive features in the Visual Search CogLab? Answer: A conjunctive search is when the items to be searched vary on more than one feature.

For this lab, color and shape were both being varied in one phase.

3) When doing a conjunctive search, how does the number of distractors relate to reaction time?

Answer: There is a positive correlation between the number of distractors and response times.

As the number of distractors increases, the reaction time also increases, meaning that processing is slower.

4) Your roommate talks you into going to an Elvis Presley convention to see all the people dressed up as Elvis. Somehow, you get separated from your roommate and are looking through the crowd to see if you can spot him. If your roommate is 6’8” and everyone in the room is dressed in a white jumper and has black hair, do you think it will be easy or hard to spot him? Why? Answer: If all other characteristics of the crowd are similar, then height is the only feature you will have to search for. Since he is very tall, your search should not take long (unless of course there are dozens of 6’8” Elvis look-a-likes).

5) How do you think the addition of red circles and squares into the visual search area would affect the reaction time compared to a feature search?

Answer: The addition of another color and another shape would be an example of a conjunctive search; therefore reaction time would be slower with the addition of the red circles and squares.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) What were the four groups being compared on reaction time? Which of the groups had the longest reaction time?

Answer: The four groups were feature search with target absent, feature search with target present, conjunctive search with target absent, and conjunctive search with target present. The conjunctive search with target absent should have the slowest reaction time.

2) If the results showed that the conjunctive search with target absent only had the longest reaction time when there were 64 distractors present, would this be an example of a main effect or an interaction? Why? Answer: This is an example of an interaction because performance at one level of one independent variable (group) changed across the levels of another independent variable (number of distractors).

Advanced Questions 1) How can the Visual Search CogLab results be explained using serial and parallel processing?

Answer: Parallel processing means scanning features of all items to find possible targets while serial processing means to evaluate each item one at a time. Parallel processing can be done quickly and can be found in feature searches (green versus blue), while serial processing takes longer as in conjunctive searches (varying green/blue and circle/square simultaneously).

2) What specific actions are occurring during a conjunctive search compared to a feature search?

Answer: In a conjunctive search, the participant is visually analyzing the shape and color of each individual stimulus to determine if the target (a circle that is green) is present. This takes longer if the target is present because all the stimuli will be analyzed. In a feature search, the target varies on only one feature (color), making its detection automatic and quick.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss the difference between parallel and serial processing as it relates to the visual search paradigm.

Answer: When searching through a number of stimuli for a specific target, parallel processing is simultaneous and quick. Such a search usually occurs when items vary on one feature. If the items vary on more than one feature, serial processing of individual items may need to be done to determine if that object is the target item or not. Serial processing takes longer to do than parallel processing.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Have students think about everyday situations where visual searches are occupational necessities. When thinking of the jobs, have them give examples and whether or not the searches are complex or simple to do. a. Post this as a discussion question for an online class. You can give an example to start them off if they are having trouble thinking of one. For example, a police officer may have to visually search a crowd for a perpetrator. b. As a group project, have students think of the consequences when visual search abilities decrease or slow down over time. c. When they are thinking about occupations, have them rank order the ones that require more visual searching and then have them think about mandatory retirement as abilities decrease and if this would be a beneficial thing to do.

2) As a research project, have students review the literature on theoretical explanations for searching techniques (integrated feature theory, similarity theory, and guided search theory). a. If they are not sure what the theories are, assign one theory to each group or person. b. They should explain the theory and then determine if that theory explained the results of the CogLab.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) What is easiest to search for in a visual search task? a. A banana among oranges b. A green circle among green squares and blue circles c. A blue square among blue circles and green squares d. All are equally easy (a) 2) What is true about visual search tasks? a. A feature search is easier than a conjunctive search b. A conjunctive search is easier than a feature search c. Green circles “pop out” of green squares and blue circles d. None of the above (a) 3) In a visual search task, what requires attention? a. Feature and conjunctive searches b. Only feature searches c. Only conjunctive searches d. None of the above (c) 4) In a visual search task, under what condition does search time increase with number of distractor items? a. Feature and conjunctive searches b. Only feature searches c. Only conjunctive searches d. None of the above (c)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Attentional Blink Introduction The mental resources that we use to switch our attention from one stimulus to another have been the focus of many cognitive studies. When we change our attention from one stimulus to another quickly, we often have trouble focusing because there is a brief amount of time that is needed to refocus on the new stimulus. Such a process is like mentally blinking and not being able to take in any new information until you open your eyes again. This CogLab shows that a certain amount of time has to elapse between presenting two stimuli in order to perceive both.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) The theoretical explanations for the attentional blink have changed and developed with new supporting research over the last few years. Have students review the current literature to see how theoretical explanations have changed. a. You could limit students to finding three different theories for explaining the phenomena and write a review article of the theories.

2) Cognitive processes tend to be interrelated and rely on one another for quick and effective performance. Attention is an ability that is highly correlated with a number of other abilities, like memory, perception, and language. Have your students write a critical thinking paper on the relationship between attention and other cognitive processes. a. The scope and focus of the paper can be decided upon by the students and how creative they want to be.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) As the time between the presentation of the letters increases, how does the probability of detecting the second target letter change?

Answer: There is a direct relationship between increases in time between letters and the probability of detecting the second target letter. As the time between the letters increases, so does the probability of detecting the second one.

2) What is attention?

Answer: It is the ability to choose some stimuli for processing while ignoring other stimuli.

3) How might the results of the attentional blink differ if a student did the CogLab when sleep deprived and stressed out about exams?

Answer: If a person’s attention levels were low or divided on other tasks while participating in the CogLab, performance would be impaired.

4) You are watching videos on MTV when a VJ announces a new contest. For the contest, she flashes bits of music videos for people to guess the artist and the name of the song.

After showing the video collage, the VJ says there are 10 videos in the contest, but you only saw eight. How could you have missed two of the videos?

Answer: If the videos were flashed for short periods of time and very close to each another, you could have experienced an attentional blink, where your processing ability of all of the videos was impaired.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) How could a researcher test for an auditory attentional blink effect?

Answer: This CogLab was designed for visually presented stimuli, but the method of presentation could be changed to auditory. Participants could wear headphones, and different sounds could be presented with varying durations between presentations. If the ability to detect the sounds decreased when presented close in time, we could say that an auditory attentional blink occurred.

2) How could a researcher test if attentional blink occurred with words instead of just letters?

Answer: Researchers could repeat the same experiment but instead of using letters, use a string of words as the stimuli. The words should be the same length and preferably be monosyllabic (or at least no more than 2 syllables in length).

Advanced Questions 1) How is this lab similar to the results you find when attempting to process two items presented at the same time?

Answer: Both research areas indicate problems in processing incoming stimuli. Difficulties in processing simultaneously presented stimuli can be explained by a bottleneck competition, which may also apply to the attentional blink. Both may be due to a limitation in processing.

2) Why is the detection of the first target relatively unaffected by separation?

Answer: This finding supports the hypothesis that bringing attention to the first target interferes with detection of the second, but not vice versa.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss how the failure to detect a second target letter, when it is presented in temporal proximity to the first letter, can be explained through a bottleneck model of attention.

Answer: It may be explained through a bottleneck model as follows. Stimulus 1 is presented first, meaning it goes through the bottleneck. Processing of stimulus 2 does not occur if it is presented close in time to stimulus 1 because it cannot get through the bottleneck. This is comparable to an information-processing traffic jam. If this second stimulus is not processed immediately, it will decay or disappear.

2) Discuss how the attentional blink effect might be altered if the second target stimulus were a negative word versus a positive word.

Answer: If reaction times were measured as a dependent variable, an aversive stimulus might impair or slow down a person’s response rate to the target word. Another issue to consider may be incongruency. For example, if a participant is in a bad mood, a positive stimulus may take longer to process than a negative stimulus because it is incongruent with the person’s mood.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) The CogLab gave a couple of examples of occupations that deal with a number of stimuli at one time, like an air traffic controller. Have students think of other occupations or scenarios where the ability to process visual information rapidly and accurately is an important factor. a. This can be done in a classroom or as an online discussion group. b. When students are sharing their examples, have them give examples for support and ask them what the consequences might be if they miss a stimulus.

2) Sometimes when one student does the CogLab, the results do not turn out as expected because it is an n = 1 study. Put students in groups of 4-5, either in the classroom or online. Have each student in the group complete the Attentional Blink CogLab and combine their results. Data can be saved easily and transferred into SPSS or Excel for analyses. a. Instruct the group members to designate one person to combine the results into a statistics program. b. Have students run the appropriate analyses on their data and pass the information on to their group. c. You can have the groups write an APA-formatted paper on their findings or share their results with their classmates through discussions.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) In an attentional blink experiment, as the separation between the letters decreases, the probability of detecting the second target a. increases. b. decreases. c. stays the same. d. becomes unreliable. (b) 2) The ability to selectively choose some stimuli for processing while ignoring others is a. selective processing. b. attentional blink. c. stimulus selection. d. attention. (d) 3) Attentional blink is a. a period of time. b. a probability of correctly identifying a target. c. a set of stimuli. d. all of the above (a)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Change Detection Introduction It can be very difficult to detect changes that take place in our environment. People do not store many details of a scene in memory, so in order to see an object change, it is necessary to attend to the object. By using Rensink's (2000) flicker paradigm, where an original image is followed by a blank image (a mask) and then a changed image (another mask). The blank image swamps the local motion signal that would ordinarily be caused by a change in an object, so attention is not drawn to the change. The presence of the mask prevents automatic detection of change; change must now be detected by a slower, higher-level process. Basically, you have to search the scene, object by object, until you happen to find the changed object. Failing to detect that an object has changed has been called change blindness.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) As a writing project, have students review the neurological literature on change detection and change blindness. Have them explore the possibility of specific attention-governing modules for detecting changes in stimuli or whether this occurs throughout the brain between interacting systems. Have them write an APA-formatted literature review of 3-5 pages. a. If they are having trouble, direct them to Posner’s neuroscientific work with attentional processes. b. If they find conflicting evidence, have them develop a research proposal that addresses the conflict. c. Have them consider other factors, like the type of stimuli and its modality of presentation.

2) Change detection is just one process that relies on attention. As a critical thinking project, have students research other behaviors related to visual attention. Some examples might be selective attention, divided attention, spotlight effect, flanker task effect, habituation, vigilance, dishabituation, signal detection, and visual search. a. Have them write about how the different concepts rely on attention or how performance changes with one’s attentional resources. b. You can have them write a paper or research the topic to discuss in class.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) What is the flicker paradigm and how is it used in the Change Detection CogLab? Answer: The flicker paradigm is produced when an original image is followed by a blank image (a mask) and then a changed image (and another mask). The blank image swamps the local motion signal that would ordinarily be caused by a change in an object, so attention is not drawn to the change. The presence of the mask prevents automatic detection of change; change must now be detected by a slower, higher-level process. Basically, you have to search the scene, object by object, until you happen to find the changed object.

2) What is change blindness?

Answer: Failing to detect that an object has changed is change blindness.

3) While watching an action movie, you notice that during a car stunt, the actor seems different. Your roommate tells you it is most likely a stunt double. How is this an example of change detection?

Answer: You noticed the change from one actor to the stunt double, although it was supposed to be done so subtly that you were not supposed to notice. The timing may have been off or the mask was not long enough.

4) You are driving in your car, singing along with the radio, when your cell phone rings.

Since you are driving, you do not answer it and continue to sing along, except the song on the radio changed and you did not notice. Why did you have trouble detecting the song change?

Answer: When your phone rang, your attention shifted slightly to it from the song. Even if you had been singing along all the time to the song, the distraction was related to your change blindness.

5) You take your dog, a black Labrador, down to the dog park and let him off his leash to run around and play. You watch him play with two other dogs, including another black Lab. When it is time to go, you put the leash on your dog and start for home. A woman comes running up to you and tells you that you have the wrong dog. When you look down, you notice she is right because your dog is taller. Explain what might have happened using a change blindness framework.

Answer: When your black Lab was playing with the other Lab, you might have confused the two dogs and kept your eye on the wrong one. When you went to leave, you failed to recognize the subtle differences between your dog and the other one. Thus, you experienced change blindness.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) How do you think automaticity might increase the probability for change blindness to occur?

Answer: When a behavior or environment becomes automatic, we often spend less time and fewer resources processing information, unless something novel occurs or appears. As automaticity increases, so would the likelihood of experiencing change blindness unless the change was dramatic.

2) How could change detection be related to divided and selective attention?

Answer: Divided attention is the ability to attend to more than one thing at a time. If you could divide your attention, you might be better at detecting changes within your environment, depending on the number of items you are attending to. Selective attention suggests that you are attending to one thing, very intensely, while at the same time ignoring other things in the environment. If a change were to occur with the thing you are attending to, you would be able to detect this, but if the change occurred elsewhere in the environment, you would probably miss it.

Advanced Questions 1) How might change detection ability vary from the two-dimensional world to the threedimensional world? Explain your answer.

Answer: Detecting changes in a three-dimensional world would be harder to do and one would likely lead to more errors. The added complexity of a third dimension would require more time to attend to everything.

2) How could change blindness be a good thing for Hollywood?

Answer: Many actors have doubles that stand in for an actor during a dangerous stunt or for upclose nude shots. The film is similar to the flicker paradigm used in this CogLab: it is hard to detect subtle differences between similar stimuli. Thus, if the double looks like the actor, then it is unlikely the viewer will identify the double in the scene rather than the actor.

3) How could habituation be related to increased change blindness?

Answer: After we habituate, or become accustomed to a stimulus, we often pay less attention to it. With the decreased attention, one’s ability to detect changes decreases until there is an increase of attentional resources toward that stimulus.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss how change blindness could be related to traffic accidents.

Answer: Accidents can occur because a driver may fail to see a light change from green to red and go through the intersection. Other things in the environment may also go unnoticed, like a stop sign or a turning car. When this happens, accidents can occur.

2) Discuss why the Change Detection CogLab is found under the Attention subheading.

Answer: Change detection is related to the ability to attend to details within a scene or a picture.

If we are distracted or do not pay attention to these details, we may fail to detect changes within our environment. Sometimes our attention gets divided into too many things in our environment and that is why we fail to detect changes.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Change detection is related to attention and the ability to allocate available attentional resources to more than one task at one time. Divide the class into groups or have an online discussion on possible gender differences and attention. Have them think about which gender may be better at multitasking or dividing their attention. They can share examples to support their answer. a. You could also have them research this topic to see if the science supports their anecdotal stories, but have them make a decision before reviewing the literature. b. When they find an answer, have them speculate why the gender differences occur.

2) Detecting changes in a three-dimensional world have been found to be more complicated than in a two-dimensional world. Have students work in groups to develop a research proposal for a study on change detection in the real world rather than on paper or on a computer screen. a. One study done at Cornell University had an individual with a door come between the subject and a confederate having a conversation. The intrusion of the door allows the confederate to change in mid conversation and the response is recorded of whether or not the subject noticed the difference. See similar situations in the Videos section above. b. Have students consider other factors, like age and sex of the confederate, as well as attention span of the participant. c. The proposals can be discussed in class or as an online discussion.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) What is it called when you fail to detect a changed scene or object? a. Change detection b. Flicker paradigm c. Change blindness d. Detection blindness (c) 2) What specific type of paradigm was used to illustrate change detection? a. Flutter b. Flicker c. Flitter d. Fluter (b) 3) What is the specific role of the mask within the change detection CogLab? a. The presence of the mask prevents automatic detection of change b. The presence of the mask prevents encoding of information c. The presence of the mask improves memory for the picture d. The presence of the mask increases processing speed (a)

CogLab Instructor’s Materials:

Simon Effect Introduction A widely accepted explanation for the Simon effect is that a spatial code is generated for the irrelevant stimulus location attribute, which provides interference at the response-selection stage.

The interference can account for the increased reaction time (RT) and error rate for the response to the opposite side stimuli. The effect is said to be robust and relatively impermeable to practice or other cognitive strategies.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) After completing the lab, have students think about applied examples of the Simon effect in their environment. This can be done individually or in small groups. Have them a. come up with three examples (hints: driving behaviors, sports, machine-human interfaces, or reaching for something). b. think about why it is hard to come up with possible examples. c. analyze when these Simon effects become noticeable. (Because there is a reaction time component, they become noticeable in emergencies or when there is little time to think.)

2) Have students consider the following scenario: a. What do you think would happen if you did this lab again and crossed your hands and put them on the “z” and “m” keys to respond? b. Would there be an interference effect or not? (Studies show there is still a Simon effect.)

3) Discuss overall performance on the lab. Did everyone have a slower reaction time to the incongruent trial compared to the congruent trial? If someone had opposite results, discuss some possible reasons why this could have happened (may want to address individual factors, like lack of attention or distractions in the lab or methodological issues, like computer problems or failure to understand the instructions, or different strategies employed, like saying the labels of green and red during the trial). Other things to discuss include the following: a. Talk about situations when reaction times can be affected. Try to lead the students into a discussion about set switching or switch costs. Give them the following two trial scenarios and ask which one would produce the slowest overall reaction time (trial i would). Then ask them to graph the reaction time curve for the second scenario. Where is the switch cost in that scenario? (See Figure 1: Note the switch cost after trial 5, going from incongruent to congruent.) i. Congruent, congruent, incongruent, congruent, incongruent, incongruent, congruent, incongruent, incongruent, congruent ii. Incongruent, incongruent, incongruent, incongruent, incongruent, congruent, congruent, congruent, congruent, congruent

Figure 1: Mean reaction time in seconds for scenario 2

Reaction time (sec)

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1.4 1.1 0.8 0.5 0.2 1

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Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) Two sets of traffic lights provide left and right turn information to drivers. Light A has the right hand turn signal on the left side and the left hand turn signal on the right side.

Light B has the left hand turn signal on the left side and the right hand turn signal on the right side. Although both sets of lights provide the same turning information, which set would be best for communicating to drivers the correct turning information? Why? Answer: In terms of making a decision about turning, it would likely take you longer to decide if you could turn or not if the lights were configured as described in Light A versus Light B. Even though the arrows for each type of turn are consistent with the correct direction, since the turn arrow on the left in Light A requires a turn against the direction of the turn arrow on the right, such a configuration might cause some hesitation. However, in Light B, the arrows for each turn are not only consistent with the direction of the turn, but they also do not require a turn against the direction of the other turn. Thus, one might observe more hesitation turning in Light A than in Light B. 2) How important do you think attention is when trying to make the correct responses in ambiguous (unclear) situations?

Answer: Since the Simon effect is due to an executive control process, it takes on more of the qualities of a controlled process than an automatic cognitive reflex. Attention is key to making the right decisions. When people respond to location instead of giving a correct answer, they are not paying attention and are following a reflexive action.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) Research with the Simon effect shows that there is still an interference effect if you repeat this experiment but use only the left finger to respond while the right finger is left resting on the “m” key. This suggests that there is still interference due to a possible alternate response. How could this apply to a person who has switched from driving a

standard vehicle to driving an automatic, considering that people initially tend to rest their right hand in the middle where the gearshift is?

Answer: This would suggest that reaction time (perhaps quickly turning the steering wheel) in potential emergency situations might be slowed because the person has to think about inhibiting right hand movements. This potential alternate response may produce reaction time interference.

2) In terms of cognitive processes, how does this lab on the Simon effect relate to the following classroom situation?

Your best friend walks into class late because the person she has had a crush on since the beginning of the new term has just asked her out. She is excited and proceeds to tell you all about it while the professor is telling you exactly what to study for the midterm. You are not doing well in this class and have to get a B- on the midterm to keep your scholarship, so every little hint will help. You try to focus your attention on your professor while listening and responding every so often to your friend’s story.

Answer: This scenario deals with the concept of attention. Your attention is focused on your professor (as it should be), and you are writing down the hints given, trying to inhibit responding to your friend (turning your head toward or talking to her). The concept of bottleneck theories suggests that you have to select what you attend to or filter out. This brings up the question of concentration or the mental effort one spends on a task. Like the cocktail party effect, you may be listening to what the professor is saying and responding appropriately by writing down notes, but your friend may say something novel, like a comment about her sex life, and your concentration may shift. Since neither listening to your friend’s conversation nor taking notes about the midterm are novel tasks, effort is needed to focus on the tasks, and attention may shift back and forth to respond appropriately to each channel.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) There is some disagreement about whether the Simon effect is an automatic process or if it is an effortful (controlled) process. In a group or online, have students discuss the different types of processing (automatic and effortful) to see where the Simon effect fits.

You could give them the following information about each process or have them look it up independently.

Table 1: Effects for automatic versus effortful processing Possible Effect Intentional versus incidental learning Effect of instructions & practice Task interference Depression or high arousal Developmental trends

Automatic Processing No difference No effects No interference No effects None

Effortful Processing Intentional better Both improve performance Interference Decreased performance Decreased performance young & old

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) The Simon effect is due to conflict at which stage? a. Response selection b. Stimulus selection c. Stimulus identification d. Response composition (a) 2) Which situation would produce the Simon effect? a. Pressing a button on your right to respond to a stimulus on your right b. Pressing a button on your left to respond to a stimulus on your left c. Pressing a button on your right to respond to a stimulus on our left d. None of the above (c) 3) The Simon effect a. is hard to demonstrate in the laboratory. b. must be taken into account when designing cockpit layouts. c. was first demonstrated in the 19th century. d. all of the above (b)

CogLab Instructor’s Materials:

Spatial Cueing Introduction Spatial cueing provides insights into how expectations influence the allocation of attention.

Results of the lab suggest that responses to visual events at expected locations are faster than events at unexpected locations. These performance advantages are present when these events are not only expected to be there, but also if attention is reflexively drawn there, as demonstrated by this lab.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Before doing the lab, have the students think about their own ability to focus their attention in their environment and react to incoming stimuli. Have them consider the following issues: a. Do they have the ability to focus their attention easily on one thing or does the focus of their attention shift rapidly? Are they easily distracted? b. Think about whether or not spatial location is an important cue when it comes to being able to focus attention and react quickly to an event in the environment. (Is it important to know where an event will occur or where it is coming from?) c. In society today, is it more beneficial to be able to attend to many things at one time (wider spatial perception) or be able to focus on important stimuli (zoom lens ability). i. If they are not sure, have them consider different practical examples and analyze whether a narrow or wide attention “spotlight” would be more beneficial.

2) After the students know what the results of the study should be, faster reaction time to valid over invalid cues, have them discuss possible ways of improving the reaction time to the invalid cues. (They may discuss practice, increased overall vigilance, consuming more coffee, etc.)

3) Spatial cueing also works with auditory information. Use an example of a bicycle messenger in a big city as an example to discuss possible problems and issues for consideration. a. Would reaction times be faster if there were valid cues present (you perceive a horn to the right, and it is to the right) compared to a situation where there are invalid cues, for example, going through a tunnel and having trouble localizing where sounds are coming from? b. If there are too many auditory cues or too many invalid cues present, how could you compensate? (Maybe students can address possible responses like slowing down, pairing auditory with visual, increased vigilance, rearview mirrors, or avoiding tunnels.) c. In the example of the bicycle messenger in a large city, would error rate or reaction time be more important as a dependent variable? Why?

4) Have students pretend to play a video game where they are pilots tracking targets to shoot down. Their radar system works on a spatial location cueing system; sometimes the radar is correct about location and sometimes not. Have them think about the following problems and how each situation may affect performance. a. Knowing that the radar system is sometimes incorrect in the spatial location of the target; would you still direct your attention according to the radar reading? (If you look at your results, you will see that we do focus our attention accordingly in response to the cues given.) b. Which targets would you be faster at shooting, those directed by valid cues (correct area cued) or with invalid cues (incorrect area cued)? c. What if this was not a video game but a real-life situation, and you were shooting at targets that shoot back? Do you think that this increased threat of risk would improve the ability to focus or diversify attention? Would overall vigilance increase?

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) Which of the three reaction times was faster: no cue, valid cue, or invalid cue?

Answer: Valid cue.

2) Do you think attention would still be directed at a cued spatial location if 10 invalid cues were presented prior to the trial? Why? Answer: Even after being incorrectly primed by invalid cues in a number of trials, we still focus our attention to the cued location. This seems to be an automatic behavior. If we have been misled on a number of trials, our attention would not be focused as long as if we had been previously given valid cues.

3) What is the spotlight metaphor of visual attention addressed in the Spatial Cueing CogLab? Answer: The attention beam moves spatially, may not be divided, and tends to enhance the detection of events falling within it.

4) How is an attention cost (decreased performance) represented in the Spatial Cueing CogLab? Answer: It is represented with the invalid condition, where the arrow cue pointed to the wrong location and performance decreases as indicated by longer reaction times.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) The length of time between the cue and the target varied across trials. Why do you think the positive priming effect disappears if the time delay between the cue and the appearance of the target is too long?

Answer: Think of our complex environment and all of the things that we have to attend to simultaneously. If we are cued to a spatial location and an event does not occur, we become susceptible to having our attention drawn elsewhere. Perhaps we get bored or impatient waiting for something to occur that does not occur.

2) Why do you think that a neutral cue that signals an event will occur with equal probability to the right or to the left was included in this experiment?

Answer: A neutral cue was added as the control measure of attention. If our attention is not directed to the right or to the left, the question is, where is it held? We can quantify the focus by measuring the reaction time in the neutral condition.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) The concept of spatial cueing has been incorporated into a number of video games where reaction times or error rates are important. Have each group develop an idea for a video game that involves spatial cueing or where participants receive invalid and valid spatial cues in game scenario. a. You could grade them on creativity and the degree of spatial cueing involved.

They could incorporate auditory and visual cues or a mixture of the two. (Good ones might be driving games, shooting, and virtual environments where they have to maneuver around in or flying games.) b. Students should include a dependent measure, for example, overall score, time of play or targets destroyed, and time to destroy. c. Each group could have some time to work on their game and then give a small presentation of it. d. Students could do online posting to share ideas or ask questions.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) Spatial cueing best illustrates which view of attention? a. Bottleneck b. Filter c. Attenuation d. Spotlight (d) 2) Spatial cueing centers around what attribute of attention? a. It is divisible b. It filters out unimportant stimuli c. It can be deployed in various spatial locations d. It is limited in capacity (c) 3) In a spatial cueing demonstration, an invalid trial is one in which a. attention is focused in an incorrect location. b. attention is focused in a correct location. c. attention is focused in a neutral location. d. attention is not focused. (a)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Stroop Effect Introduction Sometimes we are put into situations where automatic responses are in conflict with our desired behaviors. When we have to inhibit or override these automatic responses, it takes energy and time, so we are slower at reacting. Such a pattern of interference is called the Stroop effect. If someone wants to know what color marker a word is written in, and we are shown the word RED in red marker, we might quickly say the word red. However, when the word RED is in blue marker, we have to inhibit saying “red” in order to say “blue”.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Have students look through the research to see how many different ways the Stroop effect has been used to test cognitive functioning. a. Have students explore this topic and write a review paper. b. You can have them discuss it in small groups and come up with several examples of where it would be useful.

2) As a critical thinking project, have students design a research methodology based on a different Stroop effect scenario (not words and ink as incongruent). Have them think about the general concept of automatic and controlled processes as their model when they are trying to think of new stimuli. a. Suggest different modalities of presentation, like auditory, gustatory, or tactile. b. If they want to use visual presentation, suggest different variables besides reading and color, like numbers and counting.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) According to the Stroop effect, which would take longer to say, the color that a word is written in if it were different from the word (the word green written in blue marker) or the same color as the word (the word green written in green)?

Answer: According to the Stroop effect, an incongruent situation would take you longer to say (the word green written in blue marker).

2) Can a controlled behavior become an automatic behavior? For example, in this lab, could color naming become automatic?

Answer: With extensive practice, a controlled behavior can become an automatic behavior.

Extensive practice with color naming could make this an automatic behavior.

3) Your mother insists on talking on the phone while she is driving and tries to convince you that she can do both at the same time equally well. What kind of behavioral processes does she think talking on the phone and driving are for her, automatic or controlled?

Answer: She is convinced that both are automatic and she can thus do both at the same time without degradation in performance on either task.

4) Why does your mother, who usually talks on the phone and drives at the same time in her automatic car, find it very hard to do the same thing while driving your father’s vehicle, which is a standard (stick shift or manual)?

Answer: Since she is not used to driving a standard, this will not be an automatic behavior for her, so she needs her attentional resources focused on driving and changing gears. This may not leave enough resources to talk on the phone at the same time without degradation in her ability to focus on her phone conversation. (This is probably a good thing.)

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) What was the independent variable in the Stroop effect experiment? What were the specific levels of the IV? What was the dependent variable?

Answer: The IV for the Stroop effect experiment was the congruency of the color name and color in which the word was presented. The two levels were congruent (e.g., GREEN) and incongruent (e.g., GREEN). The dependent variable was the reaction time or the time it took to get a correctly answer.

2) In an experimental design, a control group is generally desirable, so comparisons can be made and the inferences we make about cause and effect are reliable. Does this experiment have a control group? If so, what is it? If not, how could one be added?

Answer: The experiment did not have a “true” control group. However, in the experiment the congruent situation (word and color of word matches) is considered the control group. The other level of the independent variable, incongruent word and color, would be the experimental group.

Comparisons would be made between the two groups.

Advanced Questions 1) In the Stroop experiment, which task is automatic and which one is controlled?

Answer: The automatic task is the one that requires little attention and effort. In the Stroop experiment the task would be reading the word. The controlled task is naming the color the word is printed in and requires attention. In the Stroop experiment the automatic task of reading interferes with the controlled task of naming the color the word is printed in for the incongruent condition. No such interference is observed in the congruent condition.

2) How could you use the results from the Stroop effect experiment to effectively teach your younger sister her primary colors? Would it matter if her reading skill level was not that good?

Answer: A good way to teach her the colors is to write each one in the appropriate marker (red in a red marker). If her reading has not become automatic, it will not have to be inhibited, thus it would not slow her down like it would for a fluent reader if the color of the marker was not red.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss why the Stroop effect experiment was found under the Attention section of the CogLabs.

Answer: The basis for the Stroop effect is the idea of automatic versus controlled attention or processing. We have limited attention resources, so with practice, some actions become automatic. With automaticity comes faster processing, enabling us to perform more tasks at one time. Reading represents an action that is automatic for most individuals and the color naming is a controlled process since we do not perform that task often. When the color and word are incongruent, we have to inhibit the automatic reading behavior so we can process and respond to the color of the ink.

2) Discuss why the Stroop task may be harder for impulsive children or those with ADHD. Answer: ADHD and impulsive children have trouble with central executive functioning, like response inhibition, attention, and self-regulation. The Stroop task demands that one inhibits an overlearned behavior when there is conflicting information (incongruent task). Some research suggests that this ability has been localized to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate gyrus. Research has also supported the finding that individuals with ADHD were affected on the Stroop test.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Have students discuss how the strength of the Stroop effect might change as people get older. Have them start from the very young and work up to the elderly. Suggest examples to help them formulate their rationale. a. Have them examine what behaviors are automatic, if any, at certain ages. b. Remind them to discuss the changes in attention that may contribute to a stronger or weaker Stroop effect. c. For elderly participants, have students consider the effects of decreased visual acuity as well as more years of experience reading.

2) As a research project or group project, have students explore the Stroop test as a measure for cognitive functioning. There are a number of articles available in the literature on using the Stroop test in applied settings. d. If you use an online discussion board, introduce the question of applicability of the Stroop effect in the clinical setting. e. In a classroom setting, have students write a review paper on the application of the Stroop test.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) In the Stroop effect, what task is automatized? a. Naming colors b. Naming shapes c. Reading d. All of the above (c) 2) What is the most difficult to do? a. Name the ink color of the word “blue” printed in blue ink b. Name the ink color of the word “red” printed in red ink c. Name the ink color of the word “red” printed in blue ink d. Both a and b (c) 3) What measure of performance is used most often in Stroop effect experiments? a. Numbers of errors b. Reaction time c. Number correct d. All of the above (b)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Von Restorff Effect Introduction Although the phenomenon may be referred to as the isolation effect, the novel “pop-out” effect, the distinctiveness principle, or the prominence effect, the general idea of this phenomenon is that memory is better for an item that stands out from its background. The effect is robust but does diminish if there is more than one novel item since distinctiveness is diminished.

Advertisers can take advantage of this effect and increase the memory for their product by incorporating a distinctive characteristic.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) As a critical thinking project, direct students to review the literature for explanations for this isolation effect and write an APA-formatted literature review or a research proposal for testing any two competing hypotheses. The research proposal could be a laboratory design or one with ecological validity. Encourage creativity in an applied setting. a. The project can also be done in groups and discussed in class after proposals are completed. This is a great way to teach APA format, research methodology, and improving writing skills. i. Critiques can be sent online or by email or paper. Replace student names with numbers and keep a record of which student gets which paper. Excel is a great tool for recording this information. ii. Give students a mark for their critique, and they will do a more thorough job.

2) Have students think about possible behaviors that humans pursue to make themselves more attractive or to draw attention to themselves. a. If they are having trouble coming up with examples, you can give the students some obvious examples, like dyeing one’s hair, drawing on birthmarks or moles, wearing certain jewelry, wearing one pant leg rolled up, wearing a bowtie, or wearing neon-colored shoelaces. b. This can be done individually or in groups, and the examples can be shared with the class. c. Discuss developmental or categorical correlations with distinct looks. Who in society tries to set themselves apart from others and at what age do we notice that people try to be noticeable?

3) Have students pretend that they are television producers creating a virtual reality show where eight people have to live in a house together and cannot leave for six months (sound familiar?). Their goal is to make each character as distinct and memorable as possible. Have them think back to a class where they were exposed to a cognitive lab about the Von Restorff effect. a. Tell them to explain how they could use this effect to their advantage. b. Develop eight character profiles that they would like to incorporate into the television program and why they chose them. c. How will their ratings be affected by their research?

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) While waiting for your friend Stacey to get out of class, you are snacking on some Skittles. Another friend comes along and sits with you. You hold out a handful of Skittles and your friend happily takes the only red one left. Why is it really your fault that they took the only red one?

Answer: After doing this lab, you realize that the red one stood out among the other colors since it was the only one. If there were two red ones left, your friend may not have selected the red ones since they were not as distinctive. Thus, if you wanted keep your red skittle, you should have taken the solitary red one out before offering some to your friend.

2) You notice that your younger sister is going to school wearing one earring, so you tell her she forgot the other one. She promptly tells you that this is in fashion now and walks out the door. How could you rationalize this trendy behavior using an explanation based on the Von Restorff effect?

Answer: The fashion statement could be explained by the desire to be distinct or to stand out.

The Von Restorff effect implies greater attention and better memory for a solitary salient feature, such as one earring, so youths believe this makes them stand out in a group and could be a way of gaining some sense of independence. Ironically, if it is true that wearing one earring “is in fashion now”, then your sister’s distinctiveness might actually be lower since many others are also following the fashion.

3) You try to tell your friends about a cute guy named Daniel in your biology class. There are four guys named Daniel in that class, so you try to physically describe him. You finally say that he is the one with the shaved head and everyone immediately knows who you are talking about. How could this be explained in terms of the Von Restorff effect?

Answer: The distinctive shaved head creates a salient feature that sticks out in one’s memory, therefore making it easier to remember both the feature and the person. This effect would decrease if there were more than one boy with a shaved head in that class.

Research/Cognitive-Based Questions 1) It is your job to do laundry, so you go to your sister’s room, which has clothes everywhere, some of which she has not worn yet or has only worn once. After completing this lab, you think you can reduce the amount of laundry by altering the number of articles of clothing already on her floor. Design a simple experiment that explores this effect to see if it may help you alter her behavior.

Answer: The results of this lab would suggest that she would decrease her littering behavior if there was one piece of clothing on the floor, but it should increase if there is zero or more than one piece of clothing on the floor. To see if this is true, manipulate or record the initial number of clothes on her floor, ranging from 0-10 (or any number as long as there is a represented range of number of clothes). You could record the time it takes for her to put clothes on the floor in each scenario or count the number of clothes found on the floor after each manipulation. If it takes longer for her to throw clothes on the floor when there is just one piece there, or she picks her clothes up more often when there is just one piece to start with, then you know that her behavior could be altered, and she is not just lazy.

2) You and your friends are talking about the nutritional concerns that female fashion models must face and are trying to think of some examples of famous models. You notice that all of your friends mention Cindy Crawford first, the famous model with the noticeable mole on the left side of her face. How could you explain this unanimous memory for Cindy Crawford?

Answer: The mole represents a distinct characteristic that increases memory. This is an example of the Von Restorff effect.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Another area where the Von Restorff effect can be found is in advertising. To grab the attention of consumers, companies will design packaging or commercials with catchy pictures or unique colors. a. As a group project, have students find good examples of this through advertising in magazines, TV, Internet, or even radio. Have students give a presentation or paper about their findings. i. For a class discussion, rate the effectiveness of the advertising or possible changes that would make it more effective using the isolation effect. b. As an online discussion, have students find examples and share them. As well as the product examples, have them talk about what makes a product distinct in a commercial and whether or not it is effective. Other contributions to the discussion could include the familiarity of these products (awareness) and whether people in the discussion use the product in their household.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) What is another name for the von Restorff effect? a. Pop-out effect b. Isolation effect c. Solitary letter effect d. Individual letter effect (b) 2) In the following series, BGNT8TWLS, what item of the list should be best remembered? a. 8 b. T c. B d. S (a) 3) Items are remembered best according to the von Restorff effect because they are a. repeated often. b. easy to remember. c. distinctive from other items. d. similar to other items. (c)

Chapter 5: Short-Term Memory and Working Memory Chapter Outline 1. THE MODAL MODEL OF MEMORY 2. SENSORY MEMORY a. The Sparkler’s Trail and the Projector’s Shutter b. Sperling’s Experiment: Measuring the Capacity and Duration of the Sensory Store 3. SHORT-TERM MEMORY Method: Recall a. What is the Duration of Short-Term Memory?

Demonstration: Remembering Three Letters b. How Many Items Can Be Held in Short-Term Memory?

Demonstration: Digit Span Method: Change Detection Demonstration: Remembering Letters c. How Much Information Can Be Held in Short-Term Memory?

TEST YOURSELF 5.1 4. WORKING MEMORY Demonstration: Reading Text and Remembering Numbers a. The Phonological Loop Demonstration: Word Length Effect Demonstration: Articulatory Suppression b. The Visuospatial Sketch Pad Demonstration: Comparing Objects Demonstration: Recalling Visual Patterns Demonstration: Holding a Spatial Stimulus in the Mind c. The Central Executive Method: Event-Related Potential d. The Episodic Buffer 5. WORKING MEMORY AND THE BRAIN a. The Effect of Damage to the Prefrontal Cortex b. Prefrontal Neurons That Hold Information c. Holding Information in the Visual Cortex Method: Neural Mind Reading 6. SOMETHING TO CONSIDER: MATH PERFORMANCE AND WORKING MEMORY TEST YOURSELF 5.2

CogLabs: Modality Effect; Partial Report; Brown-Peterson; Position Error; Sternberg Search; Irrelevant Speech Effect; Memory Span; Operation Span; Phonological Similarity Effect; Word Length Effect; Von Restorff Effect (See Chapter 4); Neighborhood Size Effect

Web Links Websites Educational Psychology Interactive: The Information-Processing Approach An interactive chapter dealing with the information-processing approach that contains many good definitions of terms related to cognitive psychology. http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cognition/infoproc.html Echoes Discovered in Early Visual Brain Areas Play Role in Working Memory Electronic article that reports research on visual memory coding using fMRI brain images. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090218135036.htm Short-Term (Working) Memory An article exploring the process of chunking as presented in a contemporary popular book (The Ravenous Brain:…). http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/09/04/the-ravenous-brain-daniel-bor/ Models of Working Memory Systematic comparisons of existing models and theories of working memory. http://www.cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/Miyake_Shah_99.html Reading Span Task A demonstration of the reading span task. http://cognitivefun.net/test/21 Videos How Your Working Memory Makes Sense of the World (Time: 9:29) A funny TED talk by psychologist Peter Doolittle detailing "working memory" that allows us to make sense of what's happening right now. https://www.ted.com/talks/peter_doolittle_how_your_working_memory_makes_sense_of _the_world NCF Part 8- Attention Working Memory: Digit Span (Time: 1:57) A short demonstration of Digit Span both forward and backward. http://youtu.be/R-SXoKR8klA Sensory Memory Demo (Time: 0:47) Although the title suggests a sensory memory demo, the video really shows change blindness. http://youtu.be/qcPx9bi9d0c Persistence of Vision (Time: 2:48) An interesting demonstration of how the sensory memory for a color can influence the colors that we see. http://youtu.be/bcstc1ozczQ

alan baddeley: introduction of the phonological loop (Time: 4:56) and episodic buffer (Time: 2:29) Baddeley explains the phonological loop and its role in his working memory model including some discussion of word length effects and cultural differences. The second video is similar except it explores the episodic buffer. http://youtu.be/2zF15C3vnIw Apps and/or Software Iconic Memory App (Free) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.linuxuser.android.iconic Sensory Storage (Software) Excellent interactive demonstrations of the whole and partial report techniques. http://www.willamette.edu/~mstewart/nwacc/modules/sperling.htm Sensory Storage (Software) A fun game that illustrates iconic memory. http://playwithyourmind.com/memory-workout-program/iconic-memory-game/ Short-Term Memory (Software) An interactive memory test so that students can measure their short-term memory spans. http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/stm0.html Working Memory (Software) A variety of fun tests of your working memory. http://brainconnection.positscience.com/games/?main=cow/cow

Discussion Questions 1. Discuss “chunking” and its impact on the capacity of short-term memory. Ask students to develop various sequences of information (numbers, letters, words, etc.) that differ in how conducive they are to being chunked. Have them use a digit-span procedure to measure each other’s short-term memory capacity. Students should report and discuss the significance of their findings.

Suggestions for stimuli development: be sure to develop stimuli that are equal in length but differ in their ability to be chunked. For example, seven-letter stimuli might include the sequences C M B F R G N (difficult to chunk) vs. B R O T H E R (can be chunked into one word).

2. Discuss coding (visual, acoustic, and semantic). Have students develop examples of each kind of coding for a given stimulus, such as a concept they are learning in class or about a person in the news. Discuss the most common types of coding for short-term memory. Ask students to generate likely errors for the stimulus based on the different types of coding. An example might be people misidentifying a picture of former president Ronald Reagan as Donald Regan (an acoustic error) or as George Bush (a semantic error).

3. Discuss how working memory is a limited capacity system. Discuss the three components of working memory (phonological loop, visuospatial sketch pad, and the central executive). Explain that verbal tasks depend on the phonological loop and spatial tasks depend on the visuospatial sketch pad. Have students consider overload problems when two tasks are done at once (comparing two verbal tasks vs. two visual tasks vs. one verbal and one visual task). Ask students to generate everyday tasks that might exemplify overload problems.

4. Start a discussion about sensory memory via the visual and auditory senses. Then have students consider the other senses of touch, taste, and smell and whether or not these senses would have a sensory memory and how the properties (capacity and duration) of the senses could be explored.

Demonstrations 1. Have students explore the components of working memory. Find a volunteer in the class and write the sentence “She sells seashells by the sea shore” on the board. Ask the volunteer to memorize it and consider each word in order, saying “yes” to each word that is a noun and “no” to each word that is not. Then, have the volunteer memorize the sentence “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.” Again, have the volunteer remember each word in order, but this time pointing to a “Y” for each word that is a noun and an “N” for each word that is not a noun. Ask the volunteer to explain which task was easier. Ask students to discuss these findings and to identify which components of working memory are involved in saying “yes” and “no” and which is involved in the pointing task. Discuss how the phonological loop is overloaded in the first task, but in the second task, the work is distributed across the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketch pad. [ADAPTED FROM TEXT] 2. Conduct a “release from proactive interference” experiment (following Wickens et al., 1976).

A minimum of two student volunteers is necessary, each of whom will complete four trials.

During the trials, a student will be presented with three words and instructed to remember them.

For each trial, present the word triad, followed by a three-digit number, and then have the students count backwards by threes for 30 seconds before trying to recall the three words. On the board, keep track of the accuracy of recall for each of the trials. The difference between the two students should be that one student has words from the same category for all four trials (build-up of PI condition) while the other has words from the same category for trials 1-3 but from a new category for trial 4 (the release from PI condition). [ADAPTED FROM TEXT] 3. Demonstrate the “phonological similarity effect” (Conrad, 1964). This demo can be done using a minimum of one or two student volunteers or as an entire class with students recording their individual answers. There will be two trials. For each one, instruct students that they will hear a series of words to be remembered. On each trial, present the words followed by a 15second distracter task (e.g., counting backwards by threes). The difference in stimuli between the trials should be that one set of words is phonologically similar (e.g., “cot, top, con, pot, not, cop”) while the other shares no such similarities (“dig, man, sew, tar, lid, cup”). Results should show that the dissimilar set is easier to remember because there is less phonological confusion between the words. [ADAPTED FROM TEXT] 4. Have students consider some simple everyday tasks and explore how short-term or working memory might play a role. Have them articulate how deficits in short-term or working memory would impact the results. Some of the tasks they may want to consider include: using a recipe to make a dish; carrying on a conversation with a friend; reading a newspaper while riding on public transportation; using a GPS to navigate while driving.

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Modality Effect Introduction Researchers have studied the idea that the presentation modality of a “to be remembered” list of items seems to have an effect on memory recall. When the list is presented verbally, compared to visually, memory for the last items is better. When considering the sensory memory, this seems to suggest that more information is obtained when read aloud or mouthed silently if not obtained with visual presentation.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) A number of studies examine how the modality effect can be used in multimedia or instructional technology. a. Have students explore this topic and write a paper. b. You can have them discuss it in small groups and come up with several examples of where it would be useful.

2) As a critical thinking project, have students research the topic of cognitive load and how it is correlated with modality effect. a. They can address issues like the effect on the working memory load, learning capabilities, and memory recall abilities b. You can also have them design a research paradigm that tests cognitive load relative to modality.

3) Have students design a research design that tests the modality effect in a classroom or an academic setting. This can be done individually or in groups. a. Make sure they have a control group, a visual presentation group, an auditory presentation group, and maybe a combined visual/auditory group. b. You can also have them address concepts like randomization, between groups design, within groups design, and sample size. c. Have them present it to the class as a demonstration or as a presentation.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) Which would you expect to have a higher rate of recall, your professor listing all of the chapters that you need to study for the final exam on the board or verbally telling you the chapters that you have to study? Why? Answer: According to the modality effect, you will have a better recall of the last chapters if they are spoken compared to written.

2) If you have the choice of going to a class and hearing the professor lecture or simply getting the notes from someone else and reading them for yourself, which method may increase your memory for the material, according to the modality effect?

Answer: It is better to go and hear the lecture rather than just get the notes, according to the modality effect. Moreover, since the auditory message will persist, the quality of notes may be better as you can augment the enhanced notes that you take.

Research or Methodology Questions 1) What is the independent variable(s) in this experiment? What is the dependent variable(s)?

Answer: The IV for this study was the method of presentation (visual, auditory), and the dependent measure was the correct percentage recalled. One could also consider serial position as an IV, thereby creating a 2x9 (within-subjects) factorial design.

2) How could you redesign this experiment to compare the correct recall of visual, auditory, and combined visual and auditory lists?

Answer: You would have to add one more method of presentation, which would be a list of nine letters presented visually and auditorily.

Advanced Questions 1) If you were designing your webpage, what could you do to make it stand out and be more memorable from other ones? Frame this in terms of the modality effect.

Answer: If you have a number of items listed on your homepage, include some .wav files or sounds to improve the memory of your page, especially for the items at the bottom of it. These are generally the items that are glanced over or forgotten.

2) How can the modality effect explain why memory recall for items that are silently mouthed is greater than with visually presented material?

Answer: The item list does not have to be verbally presented but also works with silently mouthed presentation, which suggests that it is not simply correlated with the auditory modality; perhaps just the visual presentation of how the item sounds provides enough information to improve sensory memory traces.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss how the results of this lab relate to the idea of iconic and echoic memory and the serial position curve.

Answer: Memory for lists seems to be better at the beginning (primacy effect) and at the end (recency effect) but poor in the middle, signifying a serial position effect and that the iconic and echoic traces are of equal strength. At around 5 or 6, iconic memory seems to wear off faster than echoic storage. When we examine the end items, the memory for verbally presented letters is greater than for visually presented items, which may signify that the echoic trace decays more slowly than iconic trace.

2) What does the modality effect suggest about the nature of the sensory store?

Answer: Sensory registers are supposed to be for initial, unanalyzed information that we are exposed to. The modality effect may suggest that the sensory stores are more modality specific (iconic and echoic stores) and that visual presentation is not the most useful method of storage for sensory memory. It may also suggest that more information may be provided by the verbal material compared to the visual list.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Have students discuss how the modality effect is related to advertising. You can give them the topic in advance so they can do some research and come back with good examples. a. Research comparing an all-visual commercial to an all-verbal commercial (e.g., radio type commercial) and what our perceptions are of them. b. You can provide them with an example to get them started. c. If this is online, examples can come from websites (if sound is available) or if this is in class, have students find a series of commercials on YouTube and explain how the modality effect is used to increase the ability to remember them.

2) As a research or group project, have students explore the possible effect of modal presentation when trying to learn a new language. a. They can explore whether there is a modality effect on the memory of a language that one is trying to learn. b. If silent mouthing also improves memory, would watching television programs in the new language help, compared to reading books?

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) According to the modality effect, which items should be best remembered? a. The middle items in a verbally presented list b. The middle items in a visually presented list c. The end items of a verbally presented list b. The end items of a visually presented list (c) 2) What kind of memory task requires the recall of items in the order in which they were presented? a. Free recall task b. Self-terminating recall task c. Serial recall task d. Exhaustive recall task (c) 3) If you were not going to attend the test review tutorial, which of the following would be the best thing to do, so you would not miss anything? a. Have someone take notes for you b. Send a tape recorder with a friend c. Read over the textbook chapters d. Look over your class notes (b)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Partial Report Introduction The partial report paradigm was introduced by George Sperling (1960) to test the duration and capacity of the sensory store. Earlier theories indicated the sensory store held 4-5 items, however, the capacity of 4-5 items was being confused with the number of items that could be remembered. Sperling’s partial report methodology suggested that the perceptual span was not limited but included all items in the visual field. Sperling’s results also suggested that information in the sensory store fades after about 1 second.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) This lab focuses on visually presented information. Have students look through the literature for other modality effects, like echoic storage and auditory information. Have them compare modality effects. a. Have students write a paper or make a presentation on the comparisons. b. Have students address questions like duration and storage capacity.

2) Have students review the literature for methodological variations in studying iconic memory or sensory store since Sperling’s classic study in 1960. a. This can be done as a critical thinking paper or reaction paper. Have students think about the implications of these variations on our knowledge of our memory systems in the real world.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) In a brief nine-letter display matrix, how many letters are stored in the iconic store?

Answer: All nine letters are stored in the iconic store.

2) According to Sperling’s research, what is the approximate duration of the sensory store before information starts to fade from it?

Answer: Approximately ¼ to 1/3 seconds. After 1 second, the sensory store is gone.

3) How does the sensory store help us with complex cognitive behaviors, like reading?

Answer: During reading, our eyes take “snapshots” of words and letters that we are to process.

Sensory memory gives our eyes more time to see what is in these brief “snapshots.”

4) What do you think you could do to increase your sensory store duration so you could remember the letters after a longer pause?

Answer: Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do to increase your sensory store duration.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) How did the experimental methodology of varying the elapsed time between the presentation of the stimulus and the tone allow for a fairly exact indication of the duration of the iconic store?

Answer: By varying the amount of time and looking at the accuracy rates for each time interval, one can determine the exact length of time that can lapse before recall performance decreases, indicating the duration of the sensory store.

2) What happens to an individual’s sensory memory when the tone is delayed by 1 second?

Answer: After a 1-second delay, the number of items in the sensory store would decrease to about 4.5 items or the same number of items reported in the whole report.

Advanced Questions 1) Do you think there would be a confound effect if the trigram row spelled a word, like DOG, compared to a trigram, KYP? Answer: Since all stimuli in the visual field are stored in the sensory stores, a trigram that spells a word would not have greater recall than a trigram that did not spell word. It may be a factor in a short-term memory task because DOG makes sense when it can be rehearsed for further processing.

2) What theory of forgetting does this CogLab support? Explain your answer.

Answer: Since the information from the sensory stores fades quickly, it supports the decay theory of forgetting, albeit before short-term memory has time to process the information.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss why the partial report paradigm is comparable to visual imagery.

Answer: The nine-letter matrix is put into the sensory store as an image, so placement in the matrix is maintained. The visual image disappears very quickly, like an afterimage. “Icon” is actually Greek for image.

2) How does this lab, and others, support the idea, “the brain sees more than it remembers”?

Answer: This CogLab, along with others, supports the idea that the brain sees more than it remembers, because as Sperling found in his partial report paradigm, everything in the visual field is stored as an image for a very brief amount of time. Since our environment is complex, we can’t possibly process everything in it, meaning that our brain can hold it for a brief duration, but our memory system needs more time and practice.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) As a project on memory processes, have students write a paper on the memory models and the research that supports or does not support that phenomenon. a. As a group project, students can write a brief synopsis of 2-3 memory models.

Have the group write it up as an APA-formatted paper or for presentation in class. b. As an online project, students can write a paper to be submitted electronically or participate in a discussion posting that you put up. Grade them on the brevity and clarity of their comments.

2) This CogLab examines one small part of human memory capacities and systems. As a group or online project, have students research another area of memory. For their project, instruct them to think of the theoretical applications to the real world. For example, if they wanted to explore short-term memory, have them address it from a critical perspective, explaining why it is a flexible system or not, any possible drawbacks to its capacity or duration, etc. a. You can have students hand in a paper or have a discussion on their findings and speculations. b. If you want to assign this as a group project, divide the different areas of memory to the groups or have them choose one.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) In a brief nine-letter display, how many letters are stored in the iconic store? a. 4.5 b. 3 c. 5 d. 9 (d) 2) George Sperling showed that the perceptual span of 4.5 items was really a limit on a. perception. b. memory. c. processing. d. attention. (b) 3) How long does the visual sensory store last? a. A few seconds b. A few minutes c. Up to a day d. Less than a second (d)

4) In the partial report experiment, as the tone indicating what row to report is delayed, what happens to the percentage of correct letters reported? a. It goes up b. It goes down c. It stays the same d. It goes up and down (b) 5) In the partial report experiment, the perceptual span is equal to the number of letters available in a brief visual display at what cue delay? a. 1 second b. 2 seconds c. 500 milliseconds d. None of the above (a)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Brown-Peterson Task Introduction The Brown-Peterson task was originally designed to test the duration of short-term memory. It also helped explain how information is lost from memory because of interference. In order to test short-term memory exclusively and not long-term memory, it was important to keep participants from rehearsing the material. Rehearsal was prevented by introducing a distractor task in between learning and recall. By varying the duration of the distractor task, researchers calculated that information in the short-term memory lasted for only a few seconds. With rehearsal, information can be transferred from short- to long-term storage and last for a long time.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Initially, it was thought that the trigrams were forgotten because the information decayed from the short-term memory. Other researchers found evidence of interference theory.

Have students review the literature to find evidence for both sides. a. Students can critically analyze the different arguments for why information is lost in a Brown-Peterson task and write a paper outlining the arguments and their conclusion. b. As a research project, students can design a Brown-Peterson model that addresses whether information cannot be retrieved because of loss or interference.

2) Some students may find that their recall for some of the distractor durations was 100%.

Ask them to develop a methodology that uses different distractor tasks in order to reduce the likelihood of achieving 100% on some trials. a. Students can either write a paper of their proposal and hand it in or discuss it as a class. Encourage creativity. b. This activity could lead to a class discussion of some potential methodological issues related to this CogLab. Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) What kind of specific memory task was used in the Brown-Peterson CogLab? Answer: The Brown-Peterson task researched short-term memory recall.

2) What was the purpose of repeatedly subtracting 3 from the 3-digit number provided?

Answer: This was the distractor task. Its purpose was to keep the person from rehearsing the trigram. This study was supposed to examine short-term memory. If rehearsal had been allowed, information would have transferred to long-term memory and performance would have been at nearly 100% for all of the conditions.

3) What should have happened to memory for the trigrams as the distractor task duration increased?

Answer: As the duration of the distractor task increased, the percentage of correctly recalled trigrams should have decreased. Students can look at the “Global Data” and see such a pattern.

4) Your grandmother asks you to bring some things out of the attic for her yard sale. She lists off about 10 items that you are supposed to find and bring down. As you turn to go upstairs to the attic, your brother asks you to explain his history homework to him. When you finish explaining his homework to him, you have forgotten what your grandmother wanted from the attic. Why? Answer: You forgot what your grandmother wanted from the attic because your brother’s homework interfered with your ability to rehearse the items. This is called retroactive interference. Interference is just one way that forgetting occurs.

5) You are learning the 12 different cranial nerves in neuropsychology class. The teacher writes a nerve on the board and then talks about its function. You have a terrible headache, so you close your eyes while she is speaking. At the end of class, she asks everyone to pull out a piece of paper and write down the 12 cranial nerves and hand it in for a mark. Since you have not been paying attention, you cannot remember any of them.

Besides not feeling well, why could you not remember the nerves?

Answer: The information went into the short-term memory initially, but you did not rehearse the information nor pay attention to her lecture, so the information was not processed into the longterm memory.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) If the percent recalled increased as the duration of the distractor task (used in the BrownPeterson task) decreased, what kind of correlation is indicated?

Answer: If one variable increased while the other variable decreased, a negative correlation is present.

2) If the proportion recalled on the memory task was the dependent variable, what was the independent variable in the Brown-Peterson task? What are the specific levels of the independent variable?

Answer: The duration of the distractor was the independent variable. The three levels were 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15 seconds.

Advanced Questions 1) If your results from the lab indicated a perfect memory recall percentage for all five intervals, what might this suggest about the methodology?

Answer: Such results might suggest several things about the methodological design. First, the trigrams may have been familiar to some people because they were acronyms, like GST (Canadian Goods and services tax). Second, the distractor task of repeatedly subtracting three from a 3-digit number may have been easy or automatic, therefore requiring few resources.

Rehearsal still could have been possible. Third, the distractor duration may not have been long enough to keep rehearsal to a minimum.

2) How do the results of the Brown-Peterson CogLab support the retroactive interference theory of forgetting?

Answer: Retroactive interference happens when an event occurs after we learn something but before we can recall it. Repeatedly subtracting three from a 3-digit number occurred after the presentation of the trigrams. The subtraction process interfered with the recall of the trigrams.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss how the Brown-Peterson paradigm helps explain that there is a short-term memory store.

Answer: An important part of the Brown-Peterson paradigm comes after presenting participants with several trigrams. The varying duration of the distraction helps explain that short-term memory is separate from long-term memory and that unless information is rehearsed, it cannot get processed into long-term memory.

2) Discuss the importance of the distractor task in the Brown-Peterson CogLab. Answer: The distractor task was key in keeping the participant from rehearsing the trigrams.

Once the participant is able to rehearse the information, the information can be transferred into the long-term memory stores. Initially, when Brown-Peterson ran their experiments, they did not consider that the distractor task may possibly interfere with the memory for the trigrams.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Memory is quite an extensive research area in cognitive psychology. In a group or as an online project, have students explore the methodological changes that a specific topic in memory has gone through. Have students pick a topic, like short-term memory, and follow it from early research to recent research. a. If this is a classroom project, have them write a paper or a summary for a class discussion. b. If you assign a topic, have each student or group share their findings with the class.

2) Recent movies have used memory deficits as a central theme to their storyline, like Momento and 50 First Dates. Ask your students to come up with an interesting storyline for a movie that has the theme of poor memory. At least one character should have a noticeable memory problem, for example, someone who has trouble with long-term memory consolidation or anterograde amnesia. a. After they develop their theme, have them think about their characters and what their behavior would be like. For example, if their movie is about a spy with poor long-term memory, he may forget where he parks his car or forgets who he is supposed to be chasing. b. Also have them think about techniques their characters could develop to help them with their memory deficits. c. Students can share their ideas with the class or get ideas when stuck with character portrayals.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) In the Brown-Peterson experiment, what is the purpose of the distractor task? a. To aid memory b. To prevent interference c. To prevent fading away of the memory d. To prevent active rehearsal (d) 2) In the Brown-Peterson experiment, as the duration of the distractor task increases, what happens to the percentage of correctly recalled trigrams? a. It increases b. It decreases c. It stays the same d. It becomes erratic (b) 3) In the Brown-Peterson experiment, what counts as a correctly recalled trigram? a. At least two correct letters in the order presented b. All three correct letters in the order presented c. All three correct letters in any order d. At least two correct letters in any order (b)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Position Error Introduction When we are presented with a list of items that needs to be recalled in a specific order, we sometimes make systematic errors. The position errors usually involve adjacent items in that list, so item 3 gets mixed up with item 2 or 4, but not item 1 or 7. Researchers have explored the errors that we make and suggest that the errors are not due to forgotten material, just mixed up information.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) If the recall errors we make are systematic and not random, what could this possibly suggest about our memory system? Have students explore this idea and come up with possible suggestions or theories. a. If we do remember the items, just not in the right order, then perhaps it is the order cues that we are using. Have them explore this topic. b. They can explore the group data to see specific examples of the errors made.

2) When analyzing how we store the position of items in a serial list, three theories have been developed: ordinal theory, positioning theory, and chaining theory. Have students explore each of the theories and analyze the data for and against each one. a. You can assign this as a paper or as a project that they have to present in class or as an online discussion.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) Why does it make sense that you get many calls on your cell phone for a pizza parlor in your town with the phone number of 648-5321 when your number is 648-3521?

Answer: Callers mix up the adjacent number, which is a common mistake.

2) You know it is your Uncle Pat’s birthday today, but you are not sure if he is 47 or 42.

This is understandable, considering that you have seven uncles and you get them confused. The eldest is Tom, who is 55, the next oldest is 52, then 47, 42, 35, 31, and 30.

According to the results of this lab, why would this mistake be understandable?

Answer: When you put names to the ages of your uncles, it is understandable that you might confuse the ones in the middle of the age ranges.

Research or Methodology Questions 1) What would you infer if the results obtained by a participant indicated that the errors were not for the adjacent letters, but for any one of the other letters in the list? If you were the researcher, what would you suggest happened?

Answer: This might suggest that the participant’s concentration was off, she was having a bad day, something was wrong with the computer equipment, or there was noise in the lab, all of which distracted the participant. You should suggest that she completes the task again at another time while you check the equipment.

2) How could you test if serial errors occur with lists of letters of varying lengths?

Answer: By increasing the number of levels of the IV of list length, we could test the position error effect on varying list lengths, for example, you could have a list of 5, 7, 9, 13, 15, or larger.

Advanced Questions 1) What could be said about the position error effect if errors shift when items in the “to be remembered” list are chunked together in groups of three? Instead of the middle items being mixed up, now the middle number in one chunk is swapped for the middle number of an adjacent chunk.

Answer: This may suggest that we store items in terms of absolute position from the beginning of the chunk, instead of relative to the list length.

2) Before doing the experiment, participants knew how long the list was going to be. What if we run this experiment again and participants are not told how long the letter string is going to be? If the errors were consistent in the second experiment with the first experiment, what might this suggest in terms of position memory?

Answer: If the errors were consistent in both experiments, this could reflect the limited abilities of the human memory span and thus the predictability of errors made in a continuous list of items.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss how attention could be related to position error, since this is a short-term memory phenomenon. What would it say if one of the instructions for this lab were to pay close attention to the middle letters because they are generally the ones that are more poorly recalled, but results indicated that the errors were in adjacent letters in the middle?

Answer: Usually in short-term memory tasks, if you focus attention to a particular stimulus, the memory recall for that item improves and increases its probability of getting put into long-term storage. If attention is focused on the middle items, but the errors still occur for adjacent letters, it may suggest that there is more to these errors than just attention, like storage capacity or interference effects.

2) A popular children’s game called Simon Says tested pattern memory of four colors. The battery-operated game flashed a color, and you had to press that colored button immediately afterwards. After you had one correct, Simon flashed two, then three, four, and so on. Explain how this game could be used as a research tool to test the position error effect.

Answer: Participants could be instructed to follow Simon’s instructions and recall the color immediately after. The number of colors in the continuous string would be noted as well as the right answer and what the participant responded. Adjacent errors could be yellow mixed up with blue or yellow but not red.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Either in groups or as an online project, have students explore different methods of improving the memory recall of a serial list. a. You can have them find links to articles or have them post their suggestions to a discussion group. b. If they are doing this as a group, have them pick one method for improving serial memory and demonstrate it in class. c. As a group discussion, have them critically analyze the applicability of their suggestions in the classroom, workplace, or real world.

2) Have students research serial memory and the neuropsychological components of learning a serial list and making mistakes. a. When researching the topic, have them note the methodology for testing the neuropsychological components, who was being tested, and the stimulus presentation being used in presentation of the list to be remembered. b. If a student finds a good article, have him or her post it for others to examine or share it within their group.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) According to the position error, if you made a mistake in recalling the letters, what kind of error would you most likely make? a. You would forget the last items b. You would forget the items at the beginning of the list c. You would mix up the first and last items d. You would mix up adjacent items (d) 2) In the following list of items, PTVKJSRB, which letter would you most likely confuse the letter J with? a. P b. K c. B d. Either P or B (b) 3) When would an order error occur? e. When doing a free recall memory task f. When remembering an autobiographical story g. When performing a serial recall task h. When recalling a procedural task (c)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Sternberg Search Introduction In 1966, Saul Sternberg developed an experimental approach to explore how information was retrieved from short-term memory. By varying the amount of information given to his participants to store in short-term memory and then comparing the reaction times to answer whether a probe was present or absent, he concluded people performed serial, exhaustive searches of the stored information. He also found that for every additional item stored, it took an extra 38 milliseconds to search short-term memory stores.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Some researchers believe that a serial exhaustive search cannot be used every time we search our short-term memories, so it is suggested that by altering Sternberg’s methodology, results differ and serial exhaustive searches are not supported. After completing the CogLab, have students explore other studies that use Sternberg-like designs and compare the results. a. Have them look up at least three other studies with different results and think about why these differences occurred. b. If you have them write a paper, get them to include a reference section of their sources used.

2) There is a suggestion that Sternberg was really testing working memory instead of shortterm memory, although some researchers believe these words are interchangeable. a. Have students review the short-term and working memory literature to see if they can come up with a comprehensive comparison between the two. b. Ask them to take a side after their research, either agreeing that they are the same thing or they definitely are different.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) In your results graph, what should your lines look like if your data agreed with Sternberg’s general findings regarding set size for probe present and absent conditions?

Answer: The slopes for the two lines, probe present and absent, should be parallel and increasing across set size, if your data supported Sternberg’s general findings about the influence of set size.

2) If you repeated the string of numbers after they were presented to you until the time you were asked if a specific number was present or absent, what are you doing? Could this action be a confound?

Answer: You are rehearsing the information, which helps consolidate information from short- to long-term memory. This could have been a confound if you were testing the long-term and not short-term memory abilities.

3) Did Sternberg’s data support the idea of parallel or serial processing?

Answer: His data supported serial or successive processing since reaction time increased with each additional stimulus added to the set size.

4) If your psychology professor offered a $50 reward to the student who had the fastest reaction times in the CogLab, do you think this would affect your results graph? (Assume that the results supported Sternberg’s theory.)

Answer: Motivation would play a role in how fast a student would perform the CogLab. The results graph should show that the present and absent curves almost superimposed and increased as set size increases.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) If you wanted to keep participants from rehearsing the string of numbers to ensure that short-term memory is used, what could you change or add to the design?

Answer: You could add a distractor task in between the presentation and memory task. This could include counting backwards by threes from a certain number.

2) As a researcher, you want to examine a possible position effect to see if reaction times increase for numbers at the end of a string compared to numbers at the beginning of the string. How could a variable be added to the design to help answer that question?

Answer: You could add the independent variable of the position, which will have a maximum of five levels. For set sizes of only one number, the stimulus would be coded as position one.

Advanced Questions 1) Before doing the Sternberg Search CogLab, would you think that determining whether a probe number was present in a memory set should have been faster than saying it was absent? Why? Answer: When searching through a memory set for a probe digit, it would be expected that when the probe was found, an answer could be given immediately and the search would end. On average, the participant would only need to search half of the stimuli. However, when trying to determine if the probe were absent, one would have to search through the entire memory set to make sure the probe was not there. With that in mind, it would be common sense (but incorrect) to expect that the probe present condition would have a faster reaction time than probe absent.

2) What is the difference between an exhaustive search and a self-terminating search of the short-term memory?

Answer: An exhaustive search occurs when one searches through the entire short-term memory for a piece of information. A self-terminating search occurs when the search stops when you find the information you were looking for.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss how the Sternberg search is related to the Brown-Peterson CogLab and what the two labs tell us about short-term memory.

Answer: Both of these CogLabs study aspects of the short-term memory system. Sternberg’s work concentrated more on how we search through short-term memory storage and extract information. His results supported a serial but exhaustive search over a parallel, self-terminating search. Results from the Brown-Peterson CogLab suggested that short-term memory did exist and lasted for a few seconds, giving some insight into memory loss and forgetting.

2) Discuss how the speed of presentation or the amount of delay between presentation and the memory task might be related to the search technique.

Answer: Sternberg’s results supported a serial exhaustive search and showed no serial position curve effect, suggesting that there may be something specific about Sternberg’s methodology. If the numbers were presented at a faster rate and with more of a delay until the memory task, the slope of the lines may not increase by 38-40 milliseconds with every additional number. Also, there may be evidence for serial position effect if the delay increases.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) After your students complete the Sternberg Search CogLab, have them draw or save the graph of what their results looked like. Divide them into groups and have them find the original Sternberg article so they can compare their results to the original graph. You could scan the original article and make it accessible to an online class. a. Each person in the group should compare their results to the originals and then speculate. If any differences exist, ask them to think about what the differences suggest in terms of short-term memories. b. As a group, students can discuss any difficulties or confounds when they did the lab and whether these influenced the results.

2) Having knowledge about one’s memory abilities is an important part of learning. As a group, direct students to discuss their memory abilities, short as well as long term.

Results from other CogLabs may help students realize the limitations of their memories. a. Within their groups, students could discuss things like duration and capacity of short-term memories and how they retrieve information. b. After they discuss their limitations, they could discuss ways of improving or increasing their efficiency. Results from the Imagery category of CogLabs could help. c. Direct them to use information from their textbook or lecture notes in their discussions.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) A search of memory in which all items are accessed simultaneously is called a. parallel. a. serial. b. exhaustive. c. self-terminating. (a) 2) A search of memory in which items are accessed one at a time is called a. parallel. b. serial. c. exhaustive. d. self-terminating. (b)

3) What did Sternberg find was true about retrieving items from short-term memory? a. Probe “present” and probe “absent” trials took different amounts of time b. Reaction times stayed the same as memory set size increased c. Search was self-terminating d. Search was exhaustive (d) 4) In Sternberg’s short-term memory search task, how much extra time was required to search for each letter added to the memory set? a. 10 milliseconds b. 11-20 milliseconds c. 21-30 milliseconds d. 31-40 milliseconds e. 1 second f. None of the above (d)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Irrelevant Speech Effect Introduction One's ability to remember visually presented material can be affected by what is going on in the background. Usually, recall is worse when the presentation of a list to be remembered is accompanied by irrelevant speech. The speech does not need to be in a language that the subject knows and does not even have to be real speech. This memory phenomenon is not seen with tones or sounds, but rather signifies something unique about speech in working memory.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Three competitive theories explain the irrelevant speech effect (Neath, 2000). One theory attributes the disruption to interference in working memory. The visual items are translated into a phonological code that is stored in the same part of memory (the phonological store) as the irrelevant speech. Another theory attributes the effect to a disruption of order information. You remember the items, but it is information about the order that is lost. A third theory attributes the effect to a combination of two factors, an attentional component and an interference component. This can be seen as combining elements of the first two theories. a) Have students read through the recent literature and write a paper on the three theories, how each has been tested, and what the results are.

2) Laboratory results are not necessarily the same as what happens in the real world. Have students develop an ecologically valid experimental research design to examine if the irrelevant speech effect is a phenomenon that can be found in society. a) Have them design their methodology as an APA-formatted paper, complete with literature review or simply as a proposed methodology. b) Have them consider the variables they wish to test as well as any confounds they should control a priori.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) How could you change the methodology of this lab to study which specific kind of stimuli produced greater memory interference effects, irrelevant noise, or irrelevant speech?

Answer: By adding one more condition that included tones instead of speech, you could compare the two experimental groups (tones and irrelevant speech) to the control group to see which impaired memory the most.

2) If you found that irrelevant speech interfered with your memory for visually presented material over irrelevant tones, what might this suggest about the kind of background music you should listen to while studying?

Answer: If noise did not interfere like speech, then instrumental or nature sounds could be used as background music or anything else without words. If interference did obtain with noise stimuli, the obvious solution is to study in a quiet environment.

3) You are trying to study in the library, but people beside you are whispering and talking.

Could this situation affect your studying performance? Why or why not?

Answer: The noises and whispers of their conversations will impair your memory for the material you are reading. It would be best to find a quiet place to study or tell them to keep it down. Even in quiet environments like a library there are still some ambient noises (e.g., heating or air conditioning, elevator noise, people paging through books etc) so you may want to wear earplugs or noise cancelling headphones in order to make the environment even MORE quiet.

4) You are trying to watch an intense psychological thriller on television as an assignment in your psychology class so you need to follow the main characters' actions very closely to understand what is going on. Your roommate, however, is walking around the apartment muttering into his cell phone. How is he affecting your ability to follow the characters in the movie?

Answer: The periodic mutterings of your roommate may be enough to interfere with your ability to focus on the characters and remember specific facts about the movie.

5) If you were studying for a final exam in biology and you have not done well so far this term and need an “A” to pass the course, how could this lab help structure your studying environment?

Answer: To increase your memory for the material to be learned, you should study or try to memorize the material in a quiet room, free of distractions. By distraction, this lab specifically addresses background speech or voices.

Advanced Questions 1) One theory used to explain the results of this lab is that there may be a disruption of the order of the to-be-remembered information. How could you add or re-examine the dependent measures of this lab so that you could address this theory?

Answer: The only dependent measure examined was errors. You could break those errors into specific types of errors, including mistakes in the order of memory recall. Numerical scores could be given to the place differences for order. For example, if a word were in position 1 and you recalled it as position 3, you would get an error score of 2 for that word. If you had the number in the correct order, your score would be 0 for that word. Other more elaborate measures could be employed.

2) You are trying to find your way to a friend’s house for a party. You have been there once before, but that was a long time ago. As you find yourself getting lost and driving in circles, you immediately turn your music down. After doing this lab, explain why turning down your music might make sense.

Answer: If you are trying to remember landmarks such as houses or street signs, the music in the background may interfere with this. By turning the music down, you do not overload the working memory, specifically the phonological loop.

3) You work in a call center for an international company on the weekends for extra money.

Everyone sits in a large warehouse behind small cubicles while dealing with customers on the phone. What kind of problems could you have in this kind of work environment that takes the irrelevant speech effect into consideration?

Answer: If the operators are too close to one another, other people’s conversations could become distracting for some workers. Workers may forget information or have to ask people to repeat their information. Since this is an international company, there will be many different languages, perhaps adding to the memory interferences.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss others areas in society, besides school, where you might find examples of the irrelevant speech effect. Be specific about the place and possible problems this effect might cause.

Answer: Students will probably talk about workplaces, like call centers, Wall Street, large corporations, phone operators, and air traffic controllers (many more, too). They may also talk about specific places like offices that play radios or TVs in their waiting rooms or in their main working areas (like in a dentist’s office) or even music in some operating rooms. Some overall effects may include memory interference, which may lead to slower performance, instructions needing to be repeated, or incorrect procedures being done. They may also address problems at the airport or where there is an overhead intercom system and sporting events, especially when speakers or announcers are present.

2) From a methodological viewpoint, other factors may affect the degree of memory loss in the irrelevant speech effect. Some factors include things like loudness of speech (reference provided), gender of speech, different languages, or the number of different stimuli presented (more than one speech at the same time). Hypothesize how these and other factors you can think of may influence the overall effect. You can refer to the specific parts of the working memory, phonological loop, visuospatial pad, and the executive control or other knowledge you have about memory when formulating your hypothesis.

Answer: For this question, the answers about whether or not factors like gender or loudness are not as important as their rationale and support. For example, if students hypothesize that a louder voice would have a greater impairment on memory for visual information, then they have to logically support it. They may talk about an increased strength in connections or an increased saliency for a louder speech in the phonological loop.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Have students think about and discuss different examples of the irrelevant speech effect they have experienced in their lives. Have them include examples from school, work, home, or during social activities. a. When they think of examples, have them consider what the potential effects have been on their performance, if any.

2) Using what they learned from this lab, have students work together to design optimal workplace environments for different types of companies. Tell them to keep in mind they are trying to create a stress-free, high-performance environment. a. You can have them write their proposals up and present their best ideas in class or in a report. If this is for an online discussion, pose the question to the students and then ask them to contribute one good suggestion and why it is appropriate. b. Have the other students build on each other's ideas and analyze other people's ideas.

3) As an online discussion, have students share their study habits when it comes to background noises, music, or other sounds. Some will say that they study with the television (or radio) playing in the background. a. It would be interesting to know if any of these students change their habits or not.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) Which of the following is not a possible explanation for the irrelevant speech effect? a. Interference in working memory b. Disruption of order information c. A combination of two factors, a disruption of order component and an interference component d. Poor short-term memory abilities (d) 2) How does irrelevant speech during a learning task affect memory recall ability? a. It decreases memory recall b. It increases memory recall c. It could either increase or decrease memory recall, depending on how loud the speech is d. It has no noticeable effect (a) 3) In order for the irrelevant speech effect to occur, the speech can be a. regular speech. b. a foreign language. c. made up of nonsense words. d. all of the above (d)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Memory Span Introduction The short-term, or working, memory system, is able to hold a limited amount of information for a short period of time. The memory span experiment allows students to measure their working memory capacity. Past research suggests that the memory span holds about seven (± 2) items. It has also been demonstrated that memory span can be systematically influenced by stimulus characteristics such as how the stimuli sounds as well as the length of the item to be remembered. Memory spans tend to be smaller for words than letters and smaller for letters than digits.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Memory can be improved by using several methods called mnemonics. Have students find examples of mnemonics and design a proposal for a memory study comparing the effectiveness of at least two different memory tricks. a. Have them consider what kind of data they will use and whether it will be numbers, letters, or words. b. Stress the importance of developing at least one hypothesis and supporting it with past research. c. Their proposals can be submitted through a written report or as discussion in class.

2) Since memory span is related to cognitive ability, developmental changes would be expected. Have students explore the question of memory span in children (or the elderly) and how it changes at different stages of brain development. a. Students may want to introduce factors like developmental delays, which affect memory span, such as language development. b. Have them write a paper on the topic or bring their information to class for comparison.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1 What would it mean if you had a memory span of 10 for short words?

Answer: Since the average memory span is seven (± 2), this would indicate that you have an excellent short-term memory.

2) What does it suggest if your memory span is lower for words than letters?

Answer: Given that words are more complex (e.g., have meanings, multiple letters, multiple syllables) it is not surprising that memory would be lower than for letters.

3) Your cognitive psychology professor is giving out the CogLabs that you have to know for the lab midterm. You have already put your pen away, so you sit and listen to the list.

When you find your pen, you write down the labs that you remember, but you can only remember five of the seven labs that the professor read out to the class. Since you could not remember all seven, does this mean that you have a bad memory?

Answer: Since the CogLabs are longer words, remembering five is good. If the labs were shorter in length, then you would likely be able to remember more.

4) How do you think your memory span results might be affected if your roommate was talking on her cell phone when you were doing the CogLab? Answer: If your roommate was talking in the background, your ability to attend to the CogLab task may have been impaired. Your results may show a lower memory span than you may have had with complete concentration.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) What was the independent variable in the Memory Span CogLab? What were the levels of the independent variable?

Answer: The independent variable was a type of stimulus. The levels were numbers, letters, and long.

2) If the dependent variable was simply the number of items remembered from each condition, what kind of statistical analysis could be performed on the data? Explain your answer.

Answer: Since you have one independent variable with five levels and one dependent variable, you could do a one-way (within-subjects) ANOVA, comparing the mean number of items recalled for each condition.

Advanced Questions 1) If a researcher wanted to see the kind of errors an individual made, how could the results from the Position Error CogLab help?

Answer: The Position Error CogLab suggests that an individual may make recall errors with stimuli that are adjacent to one another, so items at position 2 and 3 will get confused with one another more than items at position 2 and 5.

2) You have just started taking an aerobics class during your lunch hour, but you are really frustrated with it. The teacher introduces several new moves each class, and you cannot remember them all. How can you take the results of the Memory Span CogLab and tell your instructor to slow down a bit?

Answer: Your memory span for the aerobics moves may not be getting consolidated into your long-term memory, so you have to rely on your short-term memory, which is relatively small.

You should be able to remember 5-9 moves, so if she introduces more than that, one move may disappear while you are making room for a new one. You may not have a very good short-term memory either, so you have to figure out another way to remember the moves.

Discussion Questions 1) Mnemonics are tricks that can help you improve your memory. Discuss how mnemonics could be used to increase your memory span.

Answer: Mnemonics can help you improve your memory for novel stimuli, large pieces of information, or anything that needs to get into short-term memory. You can increase the memory span, but generally it can hold 5-9 items. Some mnemonics that may help you increase your memory span include interactive visual imagery, the pegword method, the keyword method, the method of loci, and the acrostic method.

2) Discuss why memory span might be related to reading and problem-solving.

Answer: Reading and problem-solving both require that we hold sequences of information “in our mind” for short periods of time in order to relate what we are reading or doing right now to what we were reading or doing a brief moment ago. If one has a good memory span, it will be easier to hold information in storage while working on a problem or reading through a story.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Have students test their digit span or memory for a string of numbers on the class or on their family and friends to see who has a large memory span for numbers. Students can design an experiment where they read digits out loud to someone and that person has to repeat them back in the right order. Remind them to start out at one digit and then go until they make errors on two consecutive strings of numbers. a. Ask the students to make comparisons between groups, such as old vs. young, male vs. female, and distracted vs. relaxed, to see how these factors are related to memory span. b. This task can be made difficult by having the participants recite the numbers back in reverse order, for example, 3-4-1-9-2, would be 2-9-1-4-3. Again, have students make comparisons between individuals and groups.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) For which type of item is memory span the longest? a. Letters b. Words c. Sentences d. Numbers (d) 2) For which type of item is memory span the shortest? a. Letters b. Words c. Numbers d. All of the above are the same. (b)

3) In a memory span experiment, what counts as correct? a. Recognized items in the sequence presented b. Recalled items in any sequence c. Recalled items in the sequence presented d. Recognized items in any sequence (c)

CogLab Instructor’s Materials:

Operation Span Introduction Operation span (OSPAN) measures an individual’s capacity to allocate resources within working memory. Individuals who have a high OSPAN tend to better control their working memory resources and are less affected by interference, while those with a low OSPAN are not able to allocate resources across tasks or have fewer resources to allocate to the tasks. Since OSPAN involves two tasks it is sometimes referred to as a complex span task, whereas memory span with its one task would be a simple task. Performance on complex span tasks often correlates with a wider variety of tasks, including those that require attention.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Before the students do this lab, have them think or talk about the ability to focus attention, even in distracting situations (you can use distractions they face in the classroom or while studying). a. Have them rate their own ability to control their span (they can compare this to results of the memory span lab). Discuss the idea that those with low OSPANs may be easily distracted and those with high OSPANs are less affected by distractions. See if they agree or disagree, and why. b. Discuss several factors that they might think interfere with a person’s ability to concentrate or to switch resources from one task to another. You could address the question of age, mood, stress (ask them if answers pop into their head after they finish writing a test), or other individual differences.

2) When they complete the lab, have them think about their results compared to what their belief was about their ability to focus on the given task (from question 1). If there was a discrepancy, have them think about some possible explanations (the testing conditions, mood, anxiety level, energy levels, or comprehension of the lab). You can also talk about the importance of metacognition (knowledge about one’s own cognitive abilities).

3) After doing the lab, have students talk about possible strategies they used, if any, to attend to the words long enough to recall their order of presentation. For example, repeat the words to themselves, make a song or rhyme with them, or create visual pictures for the words. a. This could lead into a discussion about some of the study techniques they use on a regular basis (including memory, concentrating on study or classroom materials, and classroom behavior). This can be done individually or in groups. b. After a discussion, have the students evaluate the strategies as useful or not useful, or simple and complex.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) What type of study environment should an individual with a low OSPAN adopt if he wants to do well in a class? Do you think he could use a study group effectively?

Answer: He should adopt an environment with few distractions, in terms of noise, people, or electronics (including TV, stereos, and computers). Most likely, he would not be able to work efficiently in groups, especially if his friends or other easily distractible people were members.

2) Why do you think that an operation span is known as an active cognitive process?

Answer: The ability to shift one’s resources or focus from one task to another or to filter out distractions from the environment takes a controlled effort by the individual. This is unlike a passive process that occurs with little or no effort.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) Why do you think that researchers had participants perform a mathematical problem and verbally describe it as they were solving it?

Answer: Students should discuss the idea that most of the studies on the capacity of working memory have used verbal materials only. By including the mathematical equation, researchers are able to further explore the question of whether different resources are used for different tasks or if there is a single resource used across different tasks.

2) Why do you think the first three trials were considered practice and not included in the calculation of your accuracy score?

Answer: When conducting research, participants need to be familiar with the equipment, computer commands, and general instructions or their results may not reflect their ability. If the initial responses were included, the respondent may not have completely understood what to do and scores may have been deflated. Practice sessions are a methodologically sound principle especially for naïve research participants.

3) If the OSPAN supported the general capacity view or a general intelligence, do you think it would make a difference to vary the degree of difficulty of the mathematical problems?

Answer: It should not make a difference if the mathematical questions varied in difficulty if it is related to a general ability. Conway and Engle (1996) examined this problem and found that OSPAN still predicted VSAT scores, thus supporting the hypothesis that operation span is related to a general capacity view.

4) If the researchers concluded that the differences in operation span were related to one’s ability to allocate resources back and forth from one task to another, what other CogLabs or cognitive tasks would high OSPANs differ from low OSPANs in terms of performance or reaction time?

Answer: The answer should include tasks with higher levels of interference or attentional control. Some examples may include dichotic listening (cocktail party effect), the Stroop task, visual orienting, and the Simon effect.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Divide students into small groups and have them discuss possible benefits and drawbacks of performing a number of tasks at one time. What do they think about people driving a car and talking on a cell phone, or surfing the Internet while eating and talking on the phone, or chatting on instant messenger? a. If you are using a course management system (e.g., Blackboard, D2L, Moodle, etc) or if this is an online course, post the idea of multi-tasking as a discussion topic. Individuals can give examples and opinions (either supported or not supported in the literature). b. Have them discuss when it is okay or not okay to multi-task. Have them give several examples for both scenarios and consider costs of switching (for example, slowed reaction time to an animal on the highway when talking on a cell phone).

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) Operation span can help predict a. verbal abilities. b. reading comprehension. c. working memory capacity. d. all of the above (d) 2) What would a person’s operation span be if he recalled a list of six items correctly? a. 4 b. 6 c. 8 d. (6*1) – incorrect items (b) 3)

How was operation span calculated in the CogLab? a. The sum of the sequence lengths recalled correctly b. The sum of the math problems answered correctly c. The sum of the sequence lengths recalled correctly minus the number of errors made on the math problems d. None of the above

(a) 4) What would it say about your ability to block out distractions if you had a high operation span? a. Higher operation spans are related to a poorer ability in blocking out distractions b. Higher operation spans are related to a better ability in blocking out distractions c. Higher operation spans are related to an average ability in blocking out distractions d. You cannot conclude ability to block out distraction from one’s operation span alone (b)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Phonological Similarity Effect Introduction Memory recall for stimuli that sound alike tends to be lower compared to items that do not sound alike, even when the stimuli are visually presented. Two parts of working memory that help explain this phenomenon include the phonological store and the articulatory control process. The articulatory control process translates visual information into a speech-based code and deposits it in the phonological store, and it refreshes a trace in the phonological store. The phonological store can hold a small amount of information for about 2 seconds before it is lost, so it needs constant refreshing. If the articulatory control process is prevented from converting the visual information into phonological form, then less interference based on similarity of sound should obtain.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Many factors influence verbal working memory, including phonological similarities. For background information, have students research the working memory model. Because it has changed since the original works, ask them to compare Baddeley’s original work to present findings. a. Have them review the literature on working memory, concentrating on the phonological loop model.

2) There is debate over the basis of the phonological similarity effect. Some researchers suggest that no research has yet carefully explored exactly which phonetic or phonological features might make words phonologically similar. a. Have students explore the research on phonological similarity. b. Have them examine the different theories and explanations for phonological similarity. c. They can write a short paper exposing some of the critical issues that still need examinations and further research.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) What is the phonological store? How long does it last?

Answer: The phonological store is a memory store that can retain speech-based (phonological) information for a short period of time. Unless rehearsed, the traces within the phonological store are assumed to fade and decay within about 2 seconds, after which they are no longer usable.

2) What is the role of the articulatory control process?

Answer: It is responsible for two different functions: translating visual information into a speech-based code and depositing it in the phonological store; and refreshing a trace in the phonological store, offsetting the decay process.

3) What would your recall in this lab be like if the phonological similarity effect was evident?

Answer: If phonological similarity effect was evident, your recall should be lower for words that sound alike compared to when they sound different.

4) Since you had to remember the sequence of letters in the order they were presented, what specific kind of recall task was the Phonological Similarity CogLab? What kind of recall task would it have been if you just had to recall the letters in any order?

Answer: Since you had to recall them in the same order, it was a serial recall task. A free recall task would have been simply remembering the letters but not in a special order or presentation.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) In the Phonological Similarity CogLab, the dependent variable was either getting the recall task right or wrong. What would be another dependent variable that may tell us more about working memory?

Answer: Another way to measure working memory would have been to calculate the errors made in the recall of the letters, for example, calculating the position error. Perhaps two or three letters were more commonly mistaken because they sounded and looked alike. Reaction time could also be measured in a recall task, assuming that a faster reaction time means better recall performance.

2) How could a researcher test to see if there is a cross-modality phonological similarity effect?

Answer: In the present CogLab, the stimuli are visually presented, but a researcher could change the mode of presentation. If the items were presented verbally, one could compare recall for stimuli that sounded similar to those that were dissimilar. If there is a cross-modality effect, recall should be poorer for stimuli that sound alike.

Advanced Questions 1) How is articulatory suppression similar to distractor tasks performed in other CogLabs?

Answer: Articulatory suppression was used to prevent the articulatory control process from recoding the visual information into phonological information as a way of exploring if phonological similarity does affect performance. Distractor tasks have been used in other labs to prevent encoding from working memory to long-term memory, so that characteristics of the working memory can be examined.

2) How is the phonological similarity effect related to memory span?

Answer: These two concepts are directly related. Memory span is a direct reflection of working memory capacity or how many items one can keep in working memory before suffering from memory impairment. Memory span decreases when the stimuli to be remembered are phonologically similar, suggesting that working memory is controlled by auditory processes.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss how visually presented stimuli show the presence of phonological similarity.

Answer: What is most surprising about the phonological similarity effect is that it occurs even when there is no auditory input, such as when you read something silently to yourself. This result has been interpreted to suggest that people recode the information. According to the phonological loop model, the reason that you get a phonological similarity effect when there is no auditory input is that the articulatory control process has converted the visual information into a phonological form.

2) Discuss what should happen when a person says “one, two, three, four” out loud during the presentation of the items.

Answer: When the person is asked to perform the distractor task out loud, it should prevent the articulatory control process from recoding the visual information into phonological information, as a way of exploring if phonological similarity does occur. The logic is that if the visually presented stimulus is not recoded, then the phonological similarity effect should not occur.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) There are a number of areas where increased errors for items that sound alike could be very dangerous, including healthcare. A number of drugs sound alike but would be dangerous if mixed up, like Zantac and Xanax. Have students think of other areas in the real world where phonological similarity might be present (e.g., speaking another language – in Italian the word for driving is guidare (gwee dare) and the word for looking is guardare (gwar dare) and the word for fording/wading is guadare (gua dare). a. When they are thinking of examples, ask them to consider the effects of making phonological errors or having a decreased memory span for items that sound alike. b. Make this a class or online discussion. Use the medical example if they are having trouble coming up with examples.

2) Phonological similarity addresses one aspect of how information is coded, stored, and processed by our working memories. As a comprehensive assignment, have students think about the complexities of the working memory systems. As an online discussion or in-class project, have students explore working memory. a. This project could start with a definition of working memory, including the suggested systems and slave systems. b. Students can expand on this initial idea by incorporating other CogLabs and research findings that support specific claims about working memory. c. Have them also think about the importance of working memory and why it is as complex as it seems.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) What is another term for phonological similarity that may be better at describing what it is? a. Auditory likeness effect b. Auditory similarity effect c. Phonological likeness effect d. Acoustic similarity effect (d) 2) What does it suggest if the phonological similarity effect occurs even when there is no auditory input, such as when you read something silently to yourself? a. That it is a large effect b. That our visual and verbal processing centers are highly related c. That we recode visual information into phonological form d. None of the above (c) 3) What are the two parts of the phonological loop? a. The phonological store and the articulatory control process b. The phonological control process and the articulatory store c. The phonological center and the articulatory loop d. The phonological processing center and the articulatory store (a) 4) Unless rehearsed, information stored in the phonological loop fades and decays after a. 1 second b. 2 seconds c. 10 seconds d. 30 seconds (b) 5) How was the articulatory control process prevented from recoding information? a. An articulatory prevention task b. An articulatory discouragement task c. An articulatory suppression task d. An articulatory distraction task (c)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Word Length Effect Introduction Working memory has been shown to be limited. At question is whether working memory’s limitation is based on the number of items in it or the rehearsal rate of it as influenced by the type (or length) of the information to be remembered. If working memory’s limitation is based on number of items, then recall should be equivalent for an equal number of long and short words even though word lengths vary. However, if working memory’s limitation is based on a constant rehearsal rate, then short words should be rehearsed more than long words which would produce different recall rates. Results showed lists of short words were recalled more accurately than lists of long words.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Many stimulus properties influence working memory, including word length. For background information, have students explore more contemporary research on the influence of word length on memory. a. Have them review the literature on working memory, concentrating on the research related to list composition and how the word length effect can be attenuated. b. Have students find research either supporting or refuting the idea of word length effects. c. Students can use their research findings to either develop a short paper to support their position or separate students into two opposing groups and have an in class debate regarding word length effects.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) What is the word length effect?

Answer: The word length effect is seen when recall rates for short words is higher than for long words.

2) What would your recall in this lab be like if the word length effect was evident?

Answer: If word length effect was evident, your recall should be highest in the 1-syllable words and decrease as the number of syllables in a word increased.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) In the Word Length CogLab, the dependent variable was either getting the recall task right or wrong for each word in a list. What would be another dependent variable that may tell us more about working memory?

Answer: Another way to measure working memory would have been to measure recall using free recall instead of serial recall. Reaction time could also be measured in a recall task, assuming that a faster reaction time means better recall performance.

2) How could a researcher test to see if there is a cross-modality phonological similarity effect?

Answer: In the present CogLab, the stimuli are visually presented, but a researcher could change the mode of presentation. If the items were presented verbally, one could compare recall for the stimuli of differing syllabic length. If there is a cross-modality effect, recall should be higher for shorter words as compared to longer words. One may want to equate stimulus duration for the words of different length.

Advanced Question 1) Based on the information from the lab, why does the word length effect obtain?

Answer: The word length effect likely obtains due to additional rehearsal of the shorter words than the longer words. Two assumptions must be made. First, a constant rehearsal rate occurs within the experiment and is invariant to the length of the word. Second, multisyllabic words require more time to rehearse because of their length. If these two assumptions are made, then one could conclude that the number of times that short words are rehearsed will be greater than the number of times long words are rehearsed. Additional rehearsal results in better recall.

Discussion Question 1) What effect do you think would be found if the length of the list was not always five?

Answer: If the number of words in a list was varied, then it is likely that no word length effect would obtain with very short lists (e.g. 1 or 2 words). Word length effects would likely increase with each additional stimulus added to the list. It is likely that the magnitude of the effect would be compounded with each additional stimulus.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Students likely employed a variety of strategies designed to overcome the word length effect. a. Ask students to share any strategies (e.g., visualization, only using the first letter or two of the multisyllabic words, etc) they used during the lab. Have them discuss whether their strategies were effective or not. Also have them identify any literature in which different strategies were encouraged or prohibited. b. Make this a class or online discussion.

2) Students can develop a lab report on their results on the Word Length lab. They should not only include their individual results, but also compare their results to the global data. a. Students should determine if they showed a Word Length effect and provide a rationale for their answer. b. Students should compare their individual results to the global results and discuss the magnitude of the effect from their individual data and the global data. c. The lab report can be submitted online.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) Which pattern of recall rates would indicate the presence of a word length effect? a. Recall is better for 2 syllable words than 1 syllable words. b. Recall is better for 3 syllable words than 1 syllable words. c. Recall is better for 4 syllable words than 1 syllable words. d. Recall is better for 1 syllable words than 4 syllable words. (d) 2) A 4th grader is presented briefly a subset of state names to learn? Which list would likely be best remembered? a. Texas, Iowa, Ohio, Utah, Maine b. Washington, Wisconsin, Tennessee, West Virginia, Georgia c. North Dakota, South Dakota, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia d. New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada (a)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Von Restorff Effect See Chapter 4.

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Neighborhood Size Effect Introduction Short term memory has been shown to be limited and the capacity of it is influenced by many factors. One factor that influences short term memory is the size of a neighborhood for a stimulus. Neighbor size is obtained by counting the number of stimuli that can be created by changing one letter in a stimulus (orthographic neighborhood) or by changing one phoneme in a stimulus (phonological neighborhood). Research shows higher recall for large neighborhood stimuli as compared to small neighborhood stimuli. These results suggest that long term memory (given the effect is based on number of neighbors which are not part of the stimulus set) can influence short term memory capacity estimates.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Many stimulus properties influence short term memory, including neighborhood size. For background information, have students explore more contemporary research on the influence of neighborhood size on short term memory. a. Have them review the literature on short term memory, concentrating on the research related to list composition and how the neighborhood size effect can be manipulated. b. Have students find research either supporting or refuting the idea of neighborhood size effects. c. Students can use their research findings to either develop a short paper to support their position or separate students into two opposing groups and have an in class debate regarding neighborhood size effects.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) What is the neighborhood size effect?

Answer: The neighborhood size effect is seen when recall rates for words with many neighbors is higher than for words with fewer neighbors.

2) What would your recall in this lab be like if the neighborhood size effect was evident?

Answer: If word length effect was evident, your recall should be highest for the large neighborhood words and lowest for the small neighborhood words.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) In the Neighborhood Size CogLab, the dependent variable was either getting the recall task right or wrong for each word in a list. What would be another dependent variable that may tell us more about working memory?

Answer: Another way to measure short term memory would have been to measure recall using free recall instead of serial recall. Reaction time could also be measured in a recall task, with an expectation that you would respond faster for the large neighborhood words than for the small neighborhood words.

2) How could a researcher test to see if there is a cross-modality phonological similarity effect?

Answer: In the present CogLab, the stimuli are visually presented, but a researcher could change the mode of presentation. If the items were presented verbally, one could compare recall for the stimuli as a function of neighborhood size. If there is a cross-modality effect, recall should be higher for large neighborhood words as compared to small neighborhood words. One may want to equate stimulus duration/stimulus length for the words from each of the different neighborhoods.

Advanced Question 1) Based on your knowledge of cognitive psychology, how could you explain the neighborhood size effect?

Answer: As indicated in the CogLab introduction, Roodenrys et al. (2002) found that people recall more large neighborhood words than small neighborhood words. One possible explanation is that the more neighbors there are, the more activation there is during the learning phase, which subsequently facilitates recall. Similarly, the number of neighbors that could be used as retrieval cues is also greater for large neighborhood words, which increases the likelihood of recall.

Discussion Question 1) What effect do you think would be found if the person was first asked to generate neighbors for each of the stimuli and then was tested?

Answer: Short term memory is influenced by many variables that people are unaware of. Even making people aware of the fact that the number of neighbors was more for some words and less for others, it would be unlikely that such knowledge would influence the overall pattern of results. That is, a neighborhood size effect would likely obtain, but could be reduced due to the neighborhood member generation task the participants performed.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Provide students a short list of large and small neighborhood words. a. In one condition have students generate a list of all of the neighbors they can for each word. Have them time how long they take to generate the neighbors for each word. Have them discuss both their time results as well as the number of neighbors generated. Or, present each stimulus word and its neighbors in a word matrix and have students go through the matrix indicating which words are part of the neighborhood. Again, have students time themselves on each matrix and indicate the number correctly identified. b. Make this a class or online discussion.

2) Students can develop a lab report on their results on the Neighborhood Size lab. They should not only include their individual results, but also compare their results to the global data. a. Students should determine if they showed a Neighborhood Size effect and provide a rationale for their answer. b. Students should compare their individual results to the global results and discuss the magnitude of the effect from their individual data and the global data. c. The lab report can be submitted online.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) Which pattern of recall rates would indicate the presence of a Neighborhood Size effect? a. Recall is better for large neighborhood words than small neighborhood words. b. Recall is worse for large neighborhood words than small neighborhood words. c. Recall is not different for large and small neighborhood words. d. Only small neighborhood words showed increase recall rates. (a) 2) Which of the following stimuli would likely show the highest recall rate based on a Neighborhood Size effect? a. pyx b. cat c. job d. leave (b)

Chapter 6: Long-Term Memory—Structure Chapter Outline 1. COMPARING SHORT-TERM AND LONG-TERM MEMORY PROCESSES Method: Measuring a Serial Position Curve a. Serial Position Curve b. Coding in Short-Term and Long-Term Memory Method: Measuring Recognition Memory Demonstration: Reading a Passage c. Comparing Coding in Short-Term and Long-Term Memory d. Locating Memory in Your Brain TEST YOURSELF 6.1 2. EPISODIC AND SEMANTIC MEMORY a. Distinctions Between Episodic and Semantic Memory b. Interactions Between Episodic and Semantic Memory c. What Happens to Episodic and Semantic Memories as Time Passes?

Method: Remember/Know Procedure 3. IMAGINING THE FUTURE TEST YOURSELF 6.2 4. PROCEDURAL MEMORY, PRIMING, AND CONDITIONING a. Procedural Memory Demonstration: Mirror Drawing b. Priming Method: Avoiding Explicit Remembering In a Priming Experiment c. Classical Conditioning 5. SOMETHING TO CONSIDER: MEMORY LOSS IN THE MOVIES TEST YOURSELF 6.3 CogLabs: Suffix Effect; Serial Position; Remember-Know; Implicit Learning;

Web Links Websites Long-Term Memory Basic phenomena related to long-term memory and schema theory. http://www.web-us.com/memory/generic_ltm_memory.htm Lecture 12: Memory Links to a comprehensive overview of memory including the various types of long-term memory and physiological structures involved in memory. http://www.tutis.ca/Senses/L12Memory/L12Memory.pdf Declarative (Explicit) & Procedural (Implicit) Memory An overview of both declarative and procedural memory. Additional long-term memory information is also easily available at the site. http://www.human-memory.net/types_declarative.html Videos Glass Head Revealing Long Term Memory Use (Time: 0:52) A short video showing 3D digitalization, via fMRI, of LTM use in a savant. http://www.thevisualmd.com/read_videoguide/?idu=13425&q=%20structure Hippocampus- How the Brain Saves Memory 113 (Time: 2:24) Exploring the role of the hippocampus in memory. http://youtu.be/Mg1cAnMY8nc Clive Wearing – The Man with No Short-Term Memory (Time: 3:04) As described in the text, the video explores the memory of Clive Wearing. http://youtu.be/Vwigmktix2Y The Man With No Past (Time: 4:22) An example of the rare condition “psychogenic fugue” similar to that described in the text when discussing memory in the movies and Jason Bourne In this video David Fitzpatrick is profiled.

Although he is 25 years old, his first memory is from December 4, 2005 when he found himself standing outside a hospital not knowing why he was there. http://youtu.be/QajubDsCcrw The Woman Who Could Not Forget (Time: 8:59) The life experiences of a woman who appears to remember an extraordinary amount of information, especially episodic/autobiographical information. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoxsMMV538U Your-bleeped-up-brain; Memory (Time: 3:00) See how people cannot identify the details of a penny, though they probably see it every day. http://www.history.com/shows/your-bleeped-up-brain/videos/memory

Apps and/or Software Memory Trainer (Android, FREE) The app contains a variety of tasks designed to exercise memory. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.urbian.android.games.memorytrainer Serial Position Demonstration (Software) Demonstrations relevant to this chapter—in particular, one on serial position curve as well as one on priming. http://courses.missouristate.edu/TimothyBender/mem/mydemos.html Priming Demonstration (Software) An explanation and demonstration of a masked priming task. http://www.u.arizona.edu/~kforster/priming/index.htm Mirror Drawings (Software) An online psychology laboratory that explains and demonstrates the mirror drawing task. http://opl.apa.org/Experiments/About/AboutMirrorDrawing.aspx

Discussion Questions 1. Discuss distinction between episodic and semantic memory and the evidence for it. Ask students to explain what benefit there is in making such a distinction. Point to case studies involving dissociations in which the distinction might prove important to helping the patient in question.

2. Discuss the implications of semantic coding being the dominant form of coding in LTM. Ask students to think through what this might mean for the kinds of studying they might engage in.

This discussion should set up nicely a later discussion of research on the levels-of-processing model.

3. Throughout the chapter there are multiple examples given of persons who have suffered various memory losses (also see some of the videos above). Ask students to consider the possible ramifications of losing each type of memory and have them select a specific type of memory that they would least (or most) like to lose, if they were presented with the hypothetical situation of having to select one.

4. Describe the propaganda effect and explain implicit memory. Ask students to explain how the propaganda effect qualifies as implicit learning (i.e., it demonstrates how events outside of our awareness can influence our behavior). Ask the class to speculate about the use of these findings in retail advertising as well as political advertising. You might supplement their ideas with examples of your own.

Demonstrations 1. Conduct a “serial position curve” experiment (based on Murdoch, 1962). Present students with 20-30 common nouns, instructing them that they will be asked to freely recall all the words following the presentation of the list. After recall, ask students to raise their hands for each word they remembered. Graph on the board the results (with the x axis representing “word position in list, 1 – 30," and the y axis representing the “number of students who remembered each word”).

You can then have students discuss the U-shaped curve, highlighting the primacy and recency effects, the modal model, etc. Finally, you could also split the class in half and have half of the class delay responding to see what happens to the Recency effect. [ADAPTED FROM TEXT] 2. To show the importance of semantic coding in LTM, do a demonstration in which you present three slides and test student memory for them. First, present a slide in which you have 15 threeletter nonsense syllables for 1 minute. Then give the students 1 minute to recall as many of those syllables as they can and generate a score for their performance. Second, present a slide on which you have 15 three-letter words that are relatively unrelated to each other for 1 minute and then test their recall in the same way. Finally, present a slide on which you have 15 three-letter words that are all related to each other for a minute and then test recall. Typically, students will do the best on the third task and the worst on the first, in part because of the meaningful connections between all the words on the slide.

3. To illustrate the “skill” element of procedural memory, ask students to write a paragraph explaining to someone how to tie their shoes. Most students will find this very difficult to do.

Use this demonstration as a springboard to discuss the difference between procedural memory and other forms of LTM. 4. A Release from Proactive Interference is a robust effect that is easily demonstrated in the classroom. After initially splitting the class in half, use the stimuli from the chapter (i.e., professions and fruits found in Figure 6.6 or create your own simply using numbers and letters) and see whether the results are similar to those shown in Figure 6.7. In most cases the “Release from PI” will obtain. [ADAPTED FROM TEXT]

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Suffix Effect Introduction When results are compared for the two lists (added suffix tone vs. added suffix number), it is noted that the error rate is much higher for the last digit when “0” was presented at the end.

According to CogLab, that is because the suffix “0” is perceived as speech whereas the tone is not. The reason for the decrease has been suggested to be the fact that a “0” suffix functionally becomes part of the list, making the list longer by one stimulus and thus resulting in a decline in performance.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Before doing the lab, discuss the basic memory stores to ensure that students know the difference between sensory store, short-term (working) memory, and long-term memory.

This lab will touch on the sensory store of auditory information, or echoic store. You can also talk about the serial position effect in memory (or wait until the Serial Position Coglab is completed), specifically the recency effect. a. Discuss George Sperling’s classic study on sensory memory or run one in class.

The goal here is for students to realize that sensory memory fades quickly. b. Demonstrate the serial position effect if students do not understand it. c. Consider discussing the modality effect, where there is superior recall of the end of a list when an auditory mode is used rather than visual.

2) When everyone has completed the lab, discuss some possible techniques individuals tried to use to increase their memory for the serial order of the numbers. Have them discuss these in groups. a. Have students list any possible strategies they used or could have used (chunking, visual spatial cues, imagery). b. Ask them to analyze whether these cues helped or did not help them and why.

(Cues would have been hard to use because the numbers were being presented at a continuous rate. Strategies may have helped for the first couple of numbers, but then people may have found themselves lost or confused at times.)

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) To improve our memory, we may be able to chunk information together. According to George Miller’s magic number seven (plus or minus two), we can chunk 5-9 items together. Using this rationale, why might it be hard to remember eight numbers when the suffix “0” is added rather than with the addition of the tone?

Answer: Since the numbers are presented continuously, we do not have time to chunk them together, so our resources are strained at trying to remember nine individual items. When the tone is presented, there are still the nine numbers, not ten.

2) Why is the auditorily presented list of nine numbers considered to form memory (echoic) traces in sensory memory and not short-term memory?

Answer: Since the list is presented by auditory means, one is prohibited from rehearsing the numbers (articulatory suppression) or chunking them together like a phone number to make it easier to remember. This is comparable to the distracter task Sperling used in his classic sensory memory store.

3) Do you think the effect would be smaller or larger if the suffix were a word rather than a number?

Answer: The irrelevant speech effect increases when the irrelevant stimulus (suffix) is similar to the to-be-remembered items, so the effect would likely be smaller in that case.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) Do you think that a suffix effect would still be present if the nine letters were visually presented on the computer screen (instead of presented verbally) and the instructions were to read them out loud to yourself?

Answer: The effect is modality dependent, so there would still be a moderate effect. It would not be as large as compared to an auditory presentation, but larger than if the stimuli and the suffix were just presented visually.

2) Since this is an effect observed even when we are aware that it is going to occur and even when the same suffix is used (as in this lab), what might this suggest about this phenomenon?

Answer: This may suggest that this is an automatic process perhaps due to a lack of resources in the sensory store. Practice on this task increases memory for pre-terminal item memory but not for terminal memory. This suggests that the suffix interference may be an automatic process.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Have students discuss the practical reasons why we have a sensory store for incoming information. You can start them off by discussing the adaptive nature of being able to have access to a large amount of information and then selectively attending to the important information. a. If you use learning management system (e.g., Blackboard, Moodle, D2L, etc.) that allows for discussions, post the following question (if this is done in class, break them into small groups and then pose this question). Is it better (more adaptive) to be able to filter incoming information early (only the important stuff is used) or late (take it all in and then decide what is necessary)? i. If they want to say both, have them give examples when each system works best for us. ii. Chances are the students will talk about external factors. If so, lead them into thinking about internal factors (stress, moods, health, or intrinsic motivation). iii. Ask them to analyze which filtering system they use more often (early or late).

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) The serial recall of a list of items can be impaired if a. the list is followed by speech. b. the list is followed by a tone. c. the list is read too slowly. d. the list is visually presented. (a) 2) The best explanation for the suffix effect is a. interference theory. b. decay theory. c. long term memory overload. d. lack of attention. (a) 3) At which serial positions is recall accuracy most likely to be the same in the two suffix conditions (i.e., “0” and tone)? a. Serial Position 1 b. Serial Position 5 c. Serial Position 9 d. None of the above as presenting any suffix affects performance across serial positions. (a)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Serial Position Introduction When given the opportunity to freely recall a list of items, like groceries or names, you may find that your recall for the items at the beginning and the end are good, but you have trouble remembering the middle items. Such a pattern of results would indicate both a Primacy (better recall of the first few stimuli) and a Recency (better recall of the last few stimuli) effect. This Ushaped recall pattern is a common memory phenomenon that may be explained by proactive and retroactive interference. Items at the beginning of a list are subject to primarily retroactive interference and items at the end of the list are subject to primarily proactive interference, but the middle items are subject to both types of interference. Thus, memory recall rates at either end of the U-shaped function are generally better than recall rates for the middle items.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) As an experimental critical thinking project, have students develop a research proposal that investigates the serial position effect in different scenarios or using various types of memory tasks. a. You can suggest using different modalities, numbers, letters, or words (short and long). b. The proposals can be written up as an APA paper or can be discussed in the classroom.

2) The serial position effect has led to the development of many other memory theories and concepts. Have students critically think about other theories that could be developed out of this CogLab. You can limit them to two or three different theories. a. Have them make comparisons and answer the following: What other theory helped explain phenomena that serial position did not? b. You could make this an extensive review paper or a one-page exercise outlining the key differences and similarities.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) Was the Serial Position CogLab a demonstration of free recall or serial recall? What is the difference between them?

Answer: The Serial Position CogLab used free recall, meaning that items just had to be remembered. Serial recall would demand that the items be recalled in the order of their presentation.

2) Are your results supported by the serial position effect? Which items should be best remembered? Which items would have the lowest recall?

Answer: Items at the beginning and end of the list would be best remembered, while items in the middle of the list would have the poorest recall.

3) What theory of forgetting does the Serial Position CogLab best support?

Answer: Serial position best supports interference theory, not decay theory of forgetting.

4) You are at a friend’s party, but you do not know too many people. She tries to introduce you to her friends, but you can only remember the first person she introduced you to.

How can the Serial Position CogLab help you explain your behavior?

Answer: According to the Serial Position CogLab, the ability to remember the first person and not the other friend is called the primacy effect. This occurred because there was little retroactive interference.

5) You are taking tai chi as an elective at school. You have to learn the short form, which is a set of intricate movements linked together like a dance, and perform the movements in front of your classmates for your mid-term. Your performance goes well for the first couple of minutes and then you draw a blank, so you make up the moves until you remember them. What happened to your memory?

Answer: You had good memory for the beginning and end moves, but trouble with the moves in the middle of the short form. This is an example of the primacy and recency effect and the serial position effect.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) How might the results of the Serial Position CogLab change if the time between learning and recall increased significantly?

Answer: The amount of proactive interference increases as the duration between learning and recall increases. The proactive interference will decrease the number of items recalled at the end of the list.

2) How would you test the hypothesis that the serial position effect is also related to speed of recall?

Answer: Instead of measuring the number of items recalled, you could change the dependent variable to reaction time. If the hypothesis is correct, the items at the beginning and end of the list would have the fastest recall reaction time, while the middle items would have a slower reaction time.

Advanced Questions 1) How does retroactive interference help explain why you forgot some items at the beginning? What interfered with the recall of these items?

Answer: Retroactive interference occurs when the recall task does not immediately follow the learning stage. The items in the middle of the list interfered with the items at the beginning of the list.

2) If this were a serial recall task, how could the Position Error CogLab be used in conjunction with serial position to describe the errors or mistakes that you might make?

Answer: The Serial Position CogLab suggests that information at the beginning and end of the list are remembered better, but the Position Error CogLab suggests what kind of errors you might make. If items had to be recalled in order, adjacent items would be mixed up more often.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss how interference might be used to explain the Serial Position Curve.

Answer: With several stimuli presented, the stimuli themselves will likely interfere with the recall of other stimuli in the list. Retroactive interference, or inhibition, occurs when an activity occurs after learning something but before getting the chance to recall it. Proactive interference occurs when interfering activities occur before learning something. Thus, the Recency Effect obtains since the last few letters are not influenced by additional items. Similarly, the Primacy effect obtains since there are few to none previous letters that interfere with the first few letters.

Such a pattern of interference would explain the Primacy and Recency effects in the Serial Position Curve.

2) Discuss some ways that students can improve their memory for material presented in the middle of the semester.

Answer: Since material in the middle of the class may not be remembered as well, students could focus their studying efforts on this material. Mnemonics help get information into storage so it can be retrieved more easily at test time. These tricks include interactive imagery, method of loci, pegword method, keyword method, acrostic method, or acronyms. A number of these strategies try to make associations between abstract and concrete ideas using visual imagery.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Have students think about and give examples of the practical places where the serial position effect could be found in the real world, like remembering the words to a song or remembering or studying for a test. Putting students in groups may help them brainstorm their ideas. a. If it is a classroom setting, you can break students into groups for about 15 minutes to discuss it. b. If it is an online class, introduce this as a discussion question where they have to contribute one example.

2) Ask students to pretend they are the executive in charge of scheduling commercials to be aired during the Super Bowl. Have them think about which companies or groups would want their commercials to air at the beginning, middle, and end of the commercial break.

For example, beer companies want their commercials aired at the end of the commercial break, but Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) may want them aired in the middle, so they are not remembered very well. Students could also think about the group that the commercial appeals to, like males for beer commercials and females for diet pills. a. Diet pill commercials b. Fast food commercials (McDonalds, Wendy’s, or Subway) c. Sports car commercials d. Holiday or vacation commercials (Disneyworld, American Airlines, or cruise lines) e. Candy commercials (chocolate bars or soda) f. Adult diaper commercials (Depends undergarments) g. Feminine product commercials h. Condom commercials

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) In a free recall task, the first few items in a list are remembered particularly well. This is known as the a. rehearsal effect. b. primacy effect. c. recency effect. d. distractor effect. (b) 2) In a free recall task, the last few items in a list are remembered particularly well. This is known as the a. rehearsal effect. b. primacy effect. c. recency effect. d. distractor effect. (c) 3) What is the serial position effect? a. The last few items in a list are remembered particularly well in a free recall task b. The first few items in a list are remembered particularly well in a free recall task c. The middle items in a list are remembered particularly poorly in a free recall task d. All of the above (d)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Remember/Know Introduction When you try to recall a memory of something, there is a point where you think you might be correct or you know with certainty that you are correct. If you are consciously aware of where you first learned something, then you would remember this information in the remember/know sense. If you were not aware of where you learned something, you would just know it. Obviously if you neither remember the information nor know it, then you would indicate it did not appear on the list.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Have students think about how the idea of remember/know could be imperative for a lawyer questioning a witness or to a doctor performing an emergency medical procedure that is not his specialty. a. You can direct students to think of other examples of where the remember/know effect might be a problem for someone.

2) Have students research the literature for three good applied examples of how the remember/know phenomenon has been used. a. You can have them write up a one-page report, complete with an APA-formatted reference section.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) Why do you think “remembering” was related to the synonym condition and rhyming was related to “knowing?

Answer: Creating a rhyming word does not require a deep level of processing. When you process at this level, you know you saw the word before, but you don’t why. If you have to come up with a synonym, you first have to comprehend the word’s meaning, which is a deeper level of processing, so the memory created may be longer lasting.

2) When doing the Remember/Know CogLab, which task took a longer time to do, on average, coming up with a synonym or a rhyme?

Answer: On average, the synonym should have taken you longer to do than the rhyming because such a task requires more or deeper processing and the increased work that your brain had to do.

3) Your friend just got a new sports car for his birthday and said you could test drive it. All excited, you jump into the driver’s seat and notice that it is a standard. It has been a long time since you drove one. If you find yourself talking through the steps necessary to drive the standard as your father once told you, what kind of memory are you displaying and why?

Answer: Since you are replaying the scene in your head of when your father walked you through driving a standard, you are “remembering.” If you jumped in and just started to drive without these recollections, you would be “knowing.”

4) During your psychology final exam, you find you are not really thinking very hard and get through the multiple choice questions very quickly. You are the first one finished and although this worries you, you decide to leave to study for another final you have that afternoon. When you get your grade back for that test, you see that you received a 90%.

What kind of recognition memory helped you through the test that quickly?

Answer: It seems that you did not have to work to remember specific theories or class lectures; you seemed to “know” the answers. When this happens, performance tends to occur rapidly, with some errors. If you had checked your answers over and tried to recall the lectures or the parts of the textbook where the answers were, you would have been “remembering.”

5) While you were at the mall, you see someone you recognize, although you cannot place her. As she gets closer, you hear her talking to a friend about playing in a band and you realize that she works at a music store near your house. How did knowing change to remembering?

Answer: When the mention of the band triggered a music store, it turned a memory from just knowing without knowing why, to remembering and knowing why.

Advanced Questions 1) You go into your favorite restaurant and before you sit down, the waiter brings you an iced tea, your usual. How could you test what kind of recognition memory the waiter was using when he brought you the tea?

Answer: By simply asking the waiter how he remembered that you always drink iced tea, you can assess how he remembered it. If the waiter gave you a specific personal story, then he “remembered” it; if he said he could not remember exactly why he knew but that he thought it was your usual, then he just “knew.”

2) Exams are over, and you and your roommates decide to rent a movie to unwind. They pick out a movie that you are positive you have not seen. As you start to watch the movie, something happens and suddenly you get excited: you know what this movie is all about.

What has just happened to you?

Answer: There was a scene in the movie that triggered a memory for you. Initially you did not remember the movie because you could not recall watching it. The trigger acted on your recognition memory and you now “know” the plot of the movie. If you could remember where you were and specifics about the movie, then “remembering” would be triggered.

3) Your roommate always sings in the shower and in the car on the way to school. In the shower, he just sings songs from memory (no radio playing), but in the car, he sings along with the radio, even with those he is not too familiar with. Although he knows the words, he rarely knows what the words mean. Sometimes he makes more errors when he is familiar with the song. In terms of his memory, what could be happening?

Answer: When singing along with songs, even those he is not familiar with, he may “know” what the words are but does not comprehend what they are, what they mean, or where he learned them. He has an automatic memory or he knows which words rhyme, but he has not processed the words at a deeper level or for comprehension, which would reflect a poorer ability at remembering a song. He may even make more errors to a song that he comprehends because he may be processing the meanings as he is singing, which spreads his resources out.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss any possible effects that level of concreteness or abstractness may play in your ability to “remember” or “know” a concept. Talk about why this makes sense and use examples to support your answer.

Answer: In their answers, students should be able to tell the difference and give some examples of what a concrete and an abstract concept is. Concrete ideas, like nouns, can readily produce a mental image, whereas abstract ideas are harder if not impossible to mentally represent directly (they can perhaps be represented indirectly, like heart for love). Students should discuss the idea that concrete items may be more easily remembered because of the increased visualization for words (they can picture themselves sitting on a chair). It may take longer to think up scenarios for abstract ideas or terms.

2) One area of interest to memory researchers is the ability to manipulate memories through priming or leading. Discuss how this lab could contribute to the manipulation of “remembering” and “knowing” a memory. One of the references provided includes a study of manipulations of autobiographical memories.

Answer: Students may include discussions about the creation of false memories by a therapist, where suggestions can get incorporated into a person’s memory system. Leading witnesses toward a certain line of thinking and memory recollection could also be introduced. After viewing a car accident, when people talk about the incident, their memories can get mixed up as to what they saw or what they think they saw.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Have students think about and discuss the results of this lab and what they mean in terms of our memory accuracy and overall ability to remember events, people, and places. a) Ask them to think about how this knowledge could be used to improve their study habits or test-taking abilities.

2) Break the class into groups and have each one think about specific examples of when people "remember" something as opposed to when they "know" something in different settings, like sitting in a court room, taking a psychology test, attending a class reunion, or socializing with friends. a) Have them give specific examples for each of those four situations, for example, how one could be misled by a lawyer questioning a witness or how someone else’s memories affect their memories.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) If the participant decides that an old test item was on the list, it is called a ______; if the participant decides that a new test item was on the list, that is called a _________. a. false alarm; hit b. hit; false alarm c. correct rejection; hit d. correct rejection; false alarm (b) 2) Remembering an item in a recognition memory task involves a. a conscious awareness of some aspects of the original episode. b. an unconscious awareness of some aspect of the original episode. c. a conscious awareness of the recognition task. d. none of the above. (a) 3) Knowing an item in a recognition task involves a. a conscious awareness of some aspects of the original episode. b. an unconscious awareness of some aspect of the original episode. c. a conscious awareness of the recognition task. d. none of the above. (b)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Implicit Learning Introduction Not all learning is obvious: some of it occurs automatically. Testing of implicitly learned information is harder to do than testing for explicit or conscious learning because it has to be done by indirect means. Some researchers argue that implicit memory does not reflect different memory stores but very different aspects of the same memory store. Evolutionary psychologists believe that implicit learning is possibly an evolved mechanism for the purpose of adapting to environmental pressures.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Have students explore one of the following questions, “Why do amnesia patients retain implicit memory but lose their explicit memory?” or “While under an anesthetic, patients do not have explicit memory for events, but show implicit learning if tested indirectly.” a. Direct them toward the Internet or library for updated neuropsychological, biological, or cognitive research. b. They can write an APA literature review paper on some aspect of implicit memory and amnesia or a research proposal to test for implicit memory, with amnesia patients in mind. (www.apa.org for APA formatting hints) c. You can also have a group discussion after the students research the topic. While each group presents its material, have the other students come up with possible test questions to be collected. Select a random set of questions for testing purposes.

2) For a long-term project (for a couple of days to one week), have students make a learning journal. Direct students to think about 3-4 behaviors every day and write down some possible implicit cognitive mechanisms (memory and learning) that may have contributed to their adopted behavior. This may help them gain insight into the complexities of our learning processes. You may need to explain to them, however, that once they think directly about their learning processes, it becomes explicit. a. If they need examples, talk about eating habits, driving routes to school, classroom behaviors of both students (Professor X does not tolerate talking in class and after seeing a classmate get kicked out of class for talking, you know to be quiet in Professor X’s class) and/or professors (Professor Y is always use the phrase “ok, then” or maybe professor Y is always rubbing his nose after writing on the whiteboard).

b. You can design a journal format for them with the days of the week at the top of the page or have them design their own and incorporate creativity into the grade. i. After the exercise is over, take class time to discuss the different behavioral patterns or put them into groups so they can make a summary table of the different observations. Each group could share the best example or the most common one with the rest of the class. You can also incorporate this information into a test if you talk about it in class. ii. Ask them if it was difficult. This may spark a discussion on the fine line between explicit and implicit learning.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) Before going in to write the final exam, you make sure you have three sharpened pencils for the test. You remember from the mid-term that there is no pencil sharpener in the exam room, and Professor Frodul does not bring extras if you forget your pencil. What have you implicitly learned about Professor Frodul and the testing situation?

Answer: Although you have not been directly tested on this, you remembered that Professor Frodul did not bring pencils to the mid-term, so you adapted your behavior to this by making sure you brought enough. You also remembered that the room has no pencil sharpener, so you ensure your pencils are sharp.

2) You are shopping for a breakfast cereal and notice a box of “Super Crunches”; although you have never tried it before, you buy a box. When you get home, your roommate makes a comment of recognition because the commercials for this cereal have been playing continuously for the last week. Explain how implicit learning may have affected your shopping behavior?

Answer: This is a case of classical conditioning that advertisers depend on. Your positive emotions from the commercial have been associated with the cereal, so you change your behavior from buying your favorite brand to buying this new cereal. You may not remember much about the cereal, only that you thought the commercial was great or made you feel good.

That is, your behavior has changed implicitly.

3) It is Friday night and you are going out with your friends to a concert. You ask your roommate John to call your friend Scott to pick you up. When John asks you for Scott’s number, you cannot remember it, which troubles you because you call him all the time.

As you think about it, you come to the phone and without thinking, you dial his number.

How could you explain this phenomenon?

Answer: Although you forgot the phone number (an explicit memory task), you remembered the pattern for dialing the number because of implicit learning.

Research/ Cognitive-Based questions 1) What is one way to test for implicit memory?

Answer: Unlike explicit memory, you must test indirectly, as in this lab, for pattern recognition, fill in the blank, or through priming exercises. Because this is similar to procedural memory, observing a person’s behavior can also indicate whether or not someone has learned an association or pattern of behavior.

2) You are a researcher in the area of subliminal awareness. You are curious to know if the incorporation of brand-name products into Hollywood movies influences consumers’ shopping behaviors. Your hypothesis is that repeated exposure of a brand-name product in a movie significantly increases the probability of purchase by viewers. Design a simple experiment that would allow this hypothesis to be tested.

Answer: The important components are a control group (no brand-name products) and at least one experimental group for viewing brand-name products (e.g., Pepsi, Dodge, or Lifesavers) and at least two levels of exposure time (0, 2, 4, 6, 10, etc.). For a true experimental design, participants need to be randomly assigned to each operationally defined independent variable (product and number of exposures). Students should also come up with the dependent measure or how to measure increased frequency. Will participants have to keep a log of their grocery or product purchases for one week (this would be an observational measure), or will they receive a questionnaire with a list of products on it for ticking off what they would purchase? Or, will participants select between two similar products (e.g., Pepsi and Coke) to see whether there is a preference (students could also rate each of the two products to see which one is liked most).

Perhaps a pretest measure might determine what they purchased before and after the movie to see if there was a direct effect. Include marks for creativity.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1. One example of implicit learning is the impact that advertising has on society (more than just the consumer does). As an online discussion or a group project, have students research and provide a number of examples of this phenomenon. a. Have them think about this on a deeper level than just purchasing a product. For example, one sees advertising for organic products to sell a healthier lifestyle. Not only do you buy that product, but you also think about this lifestyle, which will affect other aspects of your life. If you adopted this idea of a healthy lifestyle, you may buy books about it, exercise more, eat a nutritious diet, stop smoking, and walk to work. b. You can direct an online discussion if students are not getting deep enough into it by introducing some of these indirect factors and behaviors. c. In terms of a group project, have students work with a line of advertising, for example, “healthy lifestyle,” and create a network of potential behavioral changes. This can get quite involved, so set a limit or a goal of X different behaviors and reactions.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) Implicit learning is a(n) _______________ experience. a. conscious b. unconscious c. introverted d. extroverted (b) 2) The form of implicit learning seen in this lab involves a. serial recall memory tests. b. free recall memory tests. c. serial pattern learning. d. free pattern learning. (c) 3) What happens to reaction time in the implicit learning task when a pattern changes? a. Increases b. Decreases c. Stays the same d. Fluctuates up and down (a)

Chapter 7: Long-Term Memory—Encoding, Retrieval, and Consolidation Chapter Outline 1. ENCODING: GETTING INFORMATION INTO LONG-TERM MEMORY a. Levels-of-Processing Theory b. Forming Visual Images c. Linking Words to Yourself d. Generating Information e. Organizing Information Demonstration: Reading a List f. Relating Words to Survival Value Demonstration: Remembering Lists g. Retrieval Practice TEST YOURSELF 7.1 2. RETRIEVAL: GETTING INFORMATION OUT OF MEMORY a. Retrieval Cues Method: Cued Recall b. Matching Conditions of Encoding and Retrieval TEST YOURSELF 7.2 3. CONSOLIDATION: THE LIFE HISOTRY OF MEMORIES a. Synaptic Consolidation: Experience Causes Changes at the Synapse b. Systems Consolidation: The Hippocampus and the Cortex c. Consolidation and Sleep: Enhancing Memory d. Consolidation and Retrieval: Reconsolidation 4. SOMETHING TO CONSIDER: EFFECTIVE STUDYING TEST YOURSELF 7.3

CogLabs: Encoding Specificity; Levels of Processing; Production Effect; Von Restorff Effect (see Chapter 4)

Web Links Websites Levels of Processing A website providing an introduction to the ideas related to Levels of Processing. http://www.simplypsychology.org/levelsofprocessing.html Study Strategies A multitude of study strategies; could promote a discussion evaluating the merits of the site based on the research in this chapter. http://www.studygs.net/ Dissecting H.M.’s Brain An article about scientists dissecting H.M.’s brain to learn more about how memory works. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/health/22brain.html Memory and PTSD Recent work linking memory consolidation to treatment of PTSD. http://www.nature-nurture.org/index.php/ptsd/applications-to-traumaticrecall/consolidation-and-extinction/ Videos Levels of Processing (Time: 4:38) and Craik and Tulving's (1975) Levels of Processing St. (Time: 4:19) A nice overview of several concepts found in the chapter including Levels of Processing, type of tasks participants perform and the results based on the type of processing done. Though the first video is rather “texty” and the second video is an animated overview which contains some annoying synthesized speech, both videos might be useful for students to have as reviews. http://youtu.be/ykD4APOVLB4 http://youtu.be/cVRb8nAvEHE State-Dependent Learning (Time: 1:52) A video exploring state-dependent learning as a result of alcohol consumption including a description of what state-dependent learning is and how it affects our memories. http://vimeo.com/66872838 Hebb Theory (Time: 2:24) An interesting video with Donald Hebb reflecting on his own (and his son’s) memory and memories. http://youtu.be/ZbwFq0M802g Sleep-Dependent Consolidation of Memory Consolidation (Time: 9:57) Video describing research strategies for studying the impact of sleep on memory consolidation using starlings. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJWxALeKHXc

Sleep and Memory Consolidation (Time: 7:42) Another video exploring sleep and memory consolidation. A basic video that students could use as an introduction or a review. http://youtu.be/bwhdvGAib6k Temporal Error Detection Triggers Memory Reconsolidation (Time: 4:52) The retrieval of a previously formed memory triggers the lability of that memory for a short time and its reconsolidation. However, what exactly triggers memory reconsolidation is not known.

The study is similar to the one described in the text. http://youtu.be/USlu6XYvWH0 Apps and/or Software Concentration with Friends (iPad, FREE) A version of the game show "Classic Concentration". https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/concentration-friends-for/id503951989?mt=8

Discussion Questions 1. Students are often fascinated by the way mood and emotions influence memory. Explore this topic in greater detail. Some possibilities include the following: - Students might report specific instances where a certain memory “evokes” a strong feeling of the mood in which it was encoded. Can they find common threads between memories that are mood-dependent? What is the significance of their ideas on an understanding of human memory?

- Students might consider the kinds of experiences or stimuli that more easily include mood as part of memory (e.g., a song from a particular time or place in their lives). What is learned about memory from a consideration of these kinds of memories?

- Have students consider instances where emotion is likely to be present (e.g., witnessing a crime) and how memory is likely to be influenced by such emotions. How should such memories be interpreted?

2. Students often depend heavily on text ancillaries or instructors to give them their study strategies, hints to help them remember material, and so forth. Ask students to think about what research on the generation effect and Mantyla’s work (1986) on retrieval cues suggests about this dependency. How should instructors try to discourage it? Can students think of reasons why instructors might be reluctant to give less assistance?

3. The text builds a strong connection between the lessons of memory research and developing successful learning strategies. Students often find it helpful to share specific successes and frustrations about failures in their studying habits. Have students report individual experiences.

Focus the discussion on having them apply what they have learned from the text toward improving their study habits.

This activity could be significantly expanded where students are asked to reflect on their performance on a recent exam (not necessarily from your course) and to apply their new knowledge of memory to potentially avoid some kinds of memory failures in the future. Ask students to reflect on the following: What were they thinking at the time of the exam? Is there an identifiable memory failure that occurred? Is that failure a result of a less than optimal study habit? What insights are provided by having an understanding of memory?

4. As indicated in the chapter, one important brain structure involved in memory is the hippocampus. Have students discuss the roles of the hippocampus in the wide variety of memory processes. Also have them consider how such memory research could play a role in the debate and lawsuits associated with the National Football League concussion situation.

Demonstrations 1. To show the failure of maintenance rehearsal in transferring information into long-term memory, ask several students (at one time) to volunteer to draw the face of a U.S. penny from memory on the board. The resulting variety in their depictions nicely illustrates the ineffectiveness of remembering information that you can argue has had an enormous amount of repeated perceptions but, unless a person is a coin collector, most people do not elaboratively process. (Reference: Rubin, D.C., & Contis, T.C. (1983). A schema for common cents. Memory and Cognition, 11, 335-341.) (See also http://www.exploratorium.edu/exhibits/common_cents/ for stimuli) 2. Discuss how the memory system uses organization to access information.

Read the following list of items to the class: bus, pear, car, fox, cherry, taxi, bear, orange, truck, lion, grape, sheep, van, apple, ape, plum, hen, boat Ask students to immediately write down as many of the items as possible. Following recall, read the list again and ask students to report if they remembered the words in the same order they were initially presented. Many students may notice that similar items (category members) are grouped together when remembered. Discuss this mechanism of “spontaneous organization” and what is learned about memory.

3. Conduct a levels-of-processing experiment. The text describes processing levels including shallow (e.g., counting the number of vowels in words) and deep (e.g., naming antonyms of words). Develop two lists of 20 common words for which students can conduct shallow and deep levels of encoding. Give different encoding instructions for each list and ask them to recall the words following the presentation of each of the lists. Have students compare memory performance for the two types of encoding, and discuss the results in light of the levels-ofprocessing theory.

4. Given Gais and colleagues’ research showing a benefit for memory consolidation when people sleep soon after learning information; use some of the terms from the chapter (or better yet a future chapter) and have students learn the definitions of these terms. Instruct half of the class to learn them within 3 hours of going to bed and the other half of the class can learn them at least 8 hours before going to bed. Give an “extra credit” quiz to test the memories of the two groups to determine what results were similar or different than Gais, et al.

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Encoding Specificity Introduction The encoding specificity principle addresses the interaction between the cue or properties of the environment during encoding, with the cue or properties of the environment present during memory retrieval. Memory can be enhanced if the cue during encoding matches the cue during retrieval. Knowing this about our memory systems may help a student’s studying and test-taking habits.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) During class, have your students use objects around the classroom as cues for specific words to be remembered. Have a list of 10 words ready to read to them. After reading one word, have them pick a cue object in the room that will help them remember the word. For example, if the word is "secretary," they may look at the desk at the front of the room as a cue to remember "secretary." a. They could write down their cue object to help them remember what their cue is.

Go through the list twice so they can practice. You can test their memory for the list of words periodically. b. Have them record the number of words that they remember at each retrieval session. After testing their memory a couple of times, move to another classroom, if possible (if that is not possible, try removing the cue items or moving them around). Have them compare their memory for the list of words while in the classroom that those words were encoded in to the novel environment.

2) Encoding specificity can be more than just a physical cue triggering memories but can include feeling and mood. Have students design an experimental methodology or research proposal that would be able to test the effects of mood on memory recall. a. Give them the example that when people are suffering from a migraine headache, they tend to remember the negative aspects of an autobiographical memory but recall more positive aspects of that same event when they are not in pain. b. Have them think about applications for these differences in memory recall.

3) Odor cues can play a powerful part in remembering specific people, places, feelings or events. Have students think about ways that smells are used to influence behaviors. a. This critical thinking exercise can include influences on humans or other animals (for example, using treats to train your dog to perform tricks, smelling your girlfriend's cologne may trigger positive feelings).

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) Why do you think that having a weak cue at the test phase improves the memory for a word that had a weak cue during study compared to a strong cue?

Answer: The idea behind encoding specificity is that when the cue at encoding matches the cue at retrieval, memory is enhanced. Although strong cues may seem to trigger a word more readily, if the cues do not match, then memory is impaired.

2) You are having trouble remembering your high school prom from only 2 years ago, although you know that you had a good time. What could you do to try to facilitate remembering more information from your prom night?

Answer: One way of sparking memories of events in your past is to go to the place where they occurred. To remember prom night, go back where it was held. In this way, encoding of the memories matches the retrieval of them.

3) While walking your dog, you see a strange dog running around. You think you remember seeing this dog before, but you are not sure. As you round the corner, you run into a woman from your neighborhood looking for her dog. You suddenly remember that you saw that woman walking the strange dog you saw earlier in the week. What was missing when you were trying to remember whether or not you recognized the stray dog?

Answer: The woman acted as a cue for you for the dog. When she was absent, you were not able to remember where you saw the dog, but seeing her triggered the memory of her walking the strange dog earlier.

4) While shopping for new cologne for your father for Christmas, you smell something that you recognize but you cannot quite place. You find that you are having memory flashbacks of sitting around a fire and drinking apple cider with friends. As you look around, you notice a candle burning and recognize it as the smell you detected. Explain how a candle that you have never seen before could be related to the memory flashbacks with your friends.

Answer: The smell of the candle triggered these memories because of its relationship with the encoded environment that the memories were formed in. Maybe a similar candle was burning when you were with your friends, so it is related with the coding of the memory. Being exposed to the same or similar smell triggered your memory of that night.

5) You are at a huge fraternity party and you see a girl playing beach volleyball that you think you recognize. You are not able to talk to her, but it bugs you that you cannot remember where you know her from. On Monday morning, as you walk into biology class, you see the same girl sitting in front of you. You feel a bit stupid that you did not remember her at the party because she has sat in front of you for two months. Now that you have done this lab, how would you explain your memory problem?

Answer: Your memory of the girl was closely related to a specific environment of the classroom, and although she seemed familiar, you had trouble recognizing her because your memory retrieval was not tested in the classroom. That is, you were tested in an environment (retrieval cue) which was different than the classroom (i.e., encoding cue).

Advanced Questions 1) While taking your psychology test, you notice that the girl beside you is singing a song about the different brain parts. After doing this lab, what could you infer about her encoding methods during her studying?

Answer: You could infer that she encoded the information about the different brain areas through a song, so she is trying to match the retrieval style with that to improve her memory. The song acts as a strong cue for the memories of the brain areas.

2) You find the morning of test day that the classroom has been changed from your regular classroom to one that you have never been in. How do you think this may affect your test performance?

Answer: Since your learning of class material happened in a specific room, a number of cues around the room may trigger memories. If you move rooms for a test, unless you have overlearned the material, such a move may have an effect on your ability to retrieve memories.

For best assessment of performance, the encoding environment should match the retrieval environment.

3) Your mother is making your favorite pie for dessert, but she ran out of ingredients and asks you to go to the store for her. She only needs eggs, milk, white sugar, and cinnamon, so you do not write the items down. When you get to the store, you remember the milk, cinnamon, and sugar but cannot remember what the last thing was. Just then, a woman walks in wearing the same shirt that your mother was wearing, and you suddenly remember the eggs.

Answer: The shirt acted as a cue for your mother, which triggered the memory of the eggs because the retrieval environment seemed closer to the encoding environment where the list was learned. Perhaps the shirt cued a picture of your mother telling you what she needed, which improved your memory for eggs.

Discussion Questions 1) Now that you know that the environment and conditions where information is learned plays an important role on memory recall or recognition, discuss some of the important factors to keep in mind to study more effectively for a test.

Answer: When coming up with answers, students have to be aware that that the encoding conditions and retrieval conditions should be similar. This can include the following: environment (classroom), study habits (drinking a coffee or eating food), mood, cues or examples encoded, or people present.

2) Discuss how encoding specificity could be used to explain why using self-referent examples improves memory for to-be-learned material. Discuss any possible drawbacks with using your own examples over ones that teachers provide for you.

Answer: Researchers suggest that when people make up examples that mean something to their own experiences and knowledge, they tend to be stronger cues. If the goal was to make stronger cues during studying so that retrieval would be easier, then using personal examples would be a good technique. Students, however, may discuss some problems such as not being able to come up with a strong example, which may be worse than not having a cue at all. If the teacher provides the example, one might be more confident that it is a good one. They may also discuss the importance of the strength of the cue at the time of testing.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Break students into small groups or as an online discussion and have them think about and discuss their ideas about how memory is relied upon in the legal system, from the initial stage of identification to the prosecution of a criminal. a. Have them think about the possible problems and errors made in respect to encoding specificity as well as the end results of these errors (potentially an innocent person being put into jail). If we know that there is an emphasis placed on memory in some areas of our society, what restrictions or guidelines could be used to emphasize or increase accuracy?

2) Have students think about and discuss different examples when the encoding specificity principle affected their memory recollection. Have them discuss the impact of these errors and how they could have prevented them from happening. a. If they cannot come up with an example immediately, give them hints about studying, recalling autobiographical memories, or remembering people in different contexts.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) According to the encoding specificity effect, memory recall is best when a. encoding context matches retrieval context. b. encoding context is completely different compared to retrieval context. c. encoding context is slightly different to retrieval context. d. none of the above is correct (a) 2) What specific kind of memory task does the encoding specificity effect work best with? a. Recognition memory tests b. Matching c. True or false d. Recall memory tests (d)

3) While studying for a biology test, you make up a rhyme to remember taxonomical information. What should you do when you are taking the test? a. Try to remember what you read while studying b. Silently sing the song to yourself that you studied with c. Take your time taking the test d. Nothing will help you when you take the test (b)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Levels of Processing Introduction In the 1970s, Craik and Lockhart expanded on the area of memory with their levels-ofprocessing framework. They believed that the type of processing of information was related to one’s ability to remember information. According to them, memory was a result of a successive series of analyses, each at a deeper level than the previous one. A shallow level of processing could focus on the structure of the word (e.g., if it was presented in all capital letters). A deeper level of processing may focus on how a word sounds. An even deeper level of processing would focus on the meaning of the word. Craik and Lockhart assumed that the deeper the level of processing, the more durable the resulting memory, hence rehearsal was unimportant. If processing occurs at different levels, testing may be best through incidental learning rather than intentional learning.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) According to Alan Baddeley, the levels-of-processing framework is an extension of his working memory model. Have students review the literature on both Baddeley’s working memory model and levels of processing to see how they are similar and how they are different. a. Students can critically analyze the idea that Baddeley’s model is an integrative memory model and write a paper summarizing their findings. This could be an APA-formatted paper.

2) Brain imaging research suggests that different brain areas may be activated during different types of tasks, suggesting localization of function. Have students review the literature for evidence of localization of function during levels-of-processing tasks. a. Have them consider other potentially important factors, like modality (does visually presented material get processed in different areas than verbally presented stimuli?), speed of processing (if the task is automatic, does it get processed in a different area as a controlled task?), or possible developmental changes across the lifespan.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1. How did the three different learning tasks represent the three levels of processing?

Answer: Determining whether the stimulus was presented in all upper case letters represented the shallowest level of processing, rhyming represented medium level of processing, and utilizing the meaning of the word to make a decision about the question being asked required the deepest level of processing.

2. On average, which of the three tasks should have taken you longer to respond to?

Answer: It should have taken you longer to process the deepest (meaning) level questions, compared to rhyming or determining if the word was presented in all upper case letters.

3. According to the results of this study, which of the three sets of words should you have had the best memory for? Why? Answer: Memory should have been best for the words where you processed the meaning to answer the question asked. Such processing would have occurred at the deepest level of processing.

4. In your neuropsychology class, you are struggling with the multiple choice exams your professor gives. You are used to factual questions, but Dr. Brown is giving applied questions. Why might you have trouble with an applied exam when you have been memorizing definitions?

Answer: Factual multiple choice questions take a more shallow level of processing than applied questions because in the applied questions you have to understand the theory or concept and then apply it to a situation. Factual questions are simple memorization of a definition.

5. When you get your test results back from your first psychology exam, you almost start to cry because you thought you aced that exam. You go to the professor and tell him that you studied for over 10 hours, going over and over the definitions, but you still did so poorly. Use the results of this lab to explain what might have happened.

Answer: Going over definitions within a textbook is a shallow method of studying, and the test may have asked for deeper processing, like critical thinking and application. Even with the rehearsal, you were not able to increase your memory for the material.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1. What would be the independent variable in this CogLab? What are the levels of the independent variable? What is the dependent variable?

Answer: The independent variable is the type of task. There are three levels to this independent variable: determining whether the word was presented in upper case letters; whether the word rhymed with another word; or the processing of the word’s meaning to answer the question posed. The dependent variable is the number of words remembered.

2. Both rehearsal and levels of processing are examples of elaboration models. How are they similar and how are they different?

Answer: Both the elaboration model and levels-of-processing framework explain ways to improve memory. They are different in that one can rehearse at a shallow level, but memory is not improved, suggesting that levels of processing may be more important than rehearsal for improving memory.

Advanced Questions 1. How is the level-of-processing framework related to the elaboration model?

Answer: Elaboration is a memory mnemonic related to improved performance. With elaboration, there is a deeper level of processing for a word, concept, or idea. The level-ofprocessing framework is an example of an elaboration model.

2. You are taking a sociology class but are not doing well in it. There are so many long words that you find it hard to read and comprehend the text. How could you use the results of this study to improve your performance in your sociology class?

Answer: You might be skimming over the long words when you should look them up in the dictionary as you are reading. By looking up their definitions, it improves your comprehension of the material and your memory should be better for the information.

Discussion Questions 1. Discuss some of the occupations that could benefit from the results of this experiment?

Think about professions where memory is a key part of job responsibility or livelihood.

Answer: Some of the professions where a better memory might help could be waiter/waitress, university professor (student names), lawyer (remembering case precedence and facts), doctor, salesperson, and many more.

2. Discuss how the self-reference effect could be an expansion of the levels-of-processing framework.

Answer: If we are asked to remember a set of items, recall is higher when we process them as they relate to ourselves. Since our self-schema is an elaborate and organized system, we can encode information related to ourselves much more than information about other topics. Hence, relating items to ourselves is a deeper level of processing.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1. An interesting thing about experiments performed in a laboratory is that sometimes they do not have ecological validity or value in the real world. As a group, have students test this cognitive concept in a real-world setting or discuss experiences they have had with better memory and deeper processing of information. a. Have them think about how rehearsal is related to levels of processing. b. If you are doing this in a classroom, you might have the groups think about a way they could test this concept within the classroom or on campus.

2. In the 1960s, the most common view of memory was that there were different memory stores. The levels-of-processing framework suggested that the type of processing might be more important than the hypothetical store that retained the information. Have students get into classroom or online groups and review this transition from memory stores to levels of processing. a. Have them think about the studies that were being conducted and what the results were. Also, when there is a shift in the literature, one model can’t always explain some anomalies—is that true in this shift? b. They could discuss it in class or online and come to an acceptable conclusion.

You could have them hypothesize about it before researching it.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) Which of the following is an example of deep processing used in the Levels of Processing CogLab? a. Rhyming two words together b. Determining if the letters were consonants or vowels c. Determining if the words were synonyms d. Determining if the word was written in uppercase or lowercase letters (c)

2) Which of the three levels of processing should produce the best memory for the words? a. Shallow level b. Medium level c. Deep level d. Shallow and deep should be the same (c) 3) Which of the three tasks took longer to perform in the Levels of Processing CogLab? a. Rhyming two words together b. Determining if the letters were consonants or vowels c. Determining if the words were synonyms d. Determining if the word was written in uppercase or lowercase letters (c)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Production Effect Introduction The production effect obtains for participants who are required to produce some response (e.g., say the stimulus aloud) at encoding as compared to those participants who made no response.

Recognition rates are higher for stimuli requiring a response at encoding as compared to those stimuli for which no response was required at encoding. The increased recognition rate could be due to increased distinctiveness for stimuli requiring an additional response. Such distinctiveness can serve as an additional cue during recall.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) MacLeod, Gopie, Hourihan, Neary, and Ozubko (2010) present eight experiments exploring the production effect (available at http://psycnet.apa.org/?&fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/a0018785) for single words.

More recent research by Putnam, Ozubko, MacLeod and Roedinger (2014) has shown production effects for paired-associates. a. Students can critically analyze the production effect using the two papers cited above as a starting point and write a paper summarizing their findings. This could be done as an APA-formatted paper.

2) The production effect has been extensively studied over the last several years. One interesting study examined how the ability to generate distinctive cues during encoding was different for younger and older adults (see Lin and MacLeod (2012)). Lin and MacLeod found that the production effect was smaller for older adults than younger adults. Given these results: a. Have students consider variables (besides age) that may make the stimuli more or less distinctive (e.g., using foreign words, using difficult to pronounce words, using nonsense syllables, varying word length, etc). Students could discuss their thoughts and provide a rationale for the variables identified.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1. How did saying the word aloud affect its ability to be recognized?

Answer: By having participants say aloud half of the stimuli, participants can use this experience to distinguish between those stimuli and the other stimuli which were read silently.

The increased ability to distinguish leads to better recognition rates.

2. If the production effect obtains, what should be the pattern of recognition results for the read aloud and read silently conditions?

Answer: A production effect would be demonstrated if recognition rates were higher in the read aloud condition as compared to the read silently condition.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1. What would be the independent variable in this CogLab? What are the levels of the independent variable? What is the dependent variable?

Answer: The independent variable is the type of reading. There are two levels of the independent variable: reading aloud or reading silently. The dependent variable is recognition rates defined as hits (i.e., the proportion of Yes responses) in each condition.

Advanced Questions 1. How can distinctiveness be used to explain the results of the study?

Answer: The additional processing of the stimuli in the read aloud condition created another cue that could be used to distinguish the words during the recognition phase. Increased distinctiveness in the read aloud condition results in increased recognition rates.

Discussion Questions 1. Given the results of the study, how can they be applied to enhancing your memory of information in your classes?

Answer: Results of the study support the conclusion that additional processing of information can result in more robust recognition memory. Thus, instead of just reading over the information from a class, better recognition memory will obtain if additional processing (e.g., saying the information aloud; creating a mental image; linking the information with other information) is performed.

2. You are having a telephone conversation with your mom while you are driving home when she asks you if you could pick up a few items at the grocery store. Since you are driving there is no safe way for you to write down the list of items she wants. She reads off the items she needs for you to purchase. How could you use the results of the study to increase the likelihood you return with the items your mom needs?

Answer: Since you are unable to write down the list of items to purchase, when your mom starts listing the items you should say them aloud versus just thinking about them. You could even do additional processing by thinking about where the items are in the store and then creating a mental map to navigate to each item. With such additional processing it is more likely you will end up with all of the items on your mom’s list.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1. The addition of a response at encoding has been shown to enhance recognition of the stimuli. Students may consider how manipulating the type of response could affect the robustness of the finding. As a group, have students: a. think about the types of additional responses that could be done at encoding and how such responses may affect the results. b. consider what performance would obtain by adding a non-verbal response (e.g., press a key if the color of the word is blue) to the reading aloud and reading silently responses. c. consider what performance would obtain if instead of reading the actual word aloud, participants just said “Word”. Have students also consider what effect may obtain by having participants say “Word” aloud for the read silent condition.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) Which of the following is most likely to result in a production effect? a. Saying versus signing a word aloud. b. Counting the number of letters in a word. c. Reading a word aloud versus reading it silently. d. All of the above. (c) 2) Suppose you are introduced to some new people at a party. You say aloud the names of half the people and silently say to yourself the other half of the names. A week later at another party you see many of the people from the first party and this time they are wearing name tags. Given what was shown in the production effect CogLab, which names should you be more likely to recall even before you see the name tag to check your memory? a. Most likely those names you said silently to yourself at the first party. b. Most likely those names you said aloud at the first party. c. All of the names, regardless of whether you said them aloud or silently to yourself at the first party. d. Most likely names that you were familiar with prior to the first party. (b)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Von Restorff Effect See Chapter 4.

Chapter 8: Everyday Memory and Memory Errors Chapter Outline 1. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY: WHAT HAS HAPPENED IN MY LIFE a. The Multidimensional Nature of AM b. Memories Over the Life Span 2. MEMORY FOR “EXCEPTIONAL” EVENTS a. Memory and Emotion b. Flashbulb Memories Method: Repeated Recall TEST YOURSELF 8.1 3. THE CONSTRUCTIVE NATURE OF MEMORY a. Bartlett’s “War of the Ghosts” Experiment b. Source Monitoring and Source Monitoring Errors Method: Testing for Source Monitoring c. How Real-World Knowledge Affects Memory Demonstration: Reading Sentences Demonstration: Memory for a List d. Taking Stock: The Pluses and Minuses of Construction TEST YOURSELF 8.2 4. MEMORY CAN BE MODIFIED OR CREATED BY SUGGESTION a. The Misinformation Effect Method: Presenting Misleading Postevent Information b. Creating False Memories for Early Events in People’s Lives 5. WHY DO PEOPLE MAKE ERRORS IN EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY? a. Errors of Eyewitness Identification b. Errors Associated with Perception and Attention c. Misidentification Due to Familiarity d. Errors Due to Suggestion e. What Is Being Done?

6. SOMETHING TO CONSIDER: THE POWER OF PICTURES TEST YOURSELF 8.3 CogLabs: False Memory; Forgot It All Along; Memory Judgment

Web Links Websites Flashbulb Memories and Emotions The Kennedy assassination and how people reported having "flashbulb memories.” http://www.brainchannels.com/Memory/emotion/emotion.html Flashbulb Memories A Far Side© cartoon illustrating the principle of flashbulb memories. Flashbulb memories typically are remarkably vivid and seemingly permanent. (see entry for October 17, 2011) http://blog.lib.umn.edu/paldr001/myblog/2011/10/ Flashbulb Memories September 11 renewed interest in the phenomenon of flashbulb memories. http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~kihlstrm/flashbulb.htm F.C. Bartlett's War of the Ghosts Read variations of Bartlett’s War of the Ghosts as well as some recall attempts of the narrative (slides 6 – 15). http://mechanism.ucsd.edu/teaching/philpsych.w03/memory4class.pdf The Misinformation Effect and the Creation of Memories A paper by Elizabeth Loftus and her colleagues. http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/hoff.htm Advertising's Misinformation Effect A description of Elizabeth Loftus's views on the misinformation effect. She also makes suggestions for social policy. http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/braun.htm False and Repressed Memory Connections A description of Elizabeth Loftus’s views on false and repressed memories http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/sciam.htm Cognitive Interview Techniques An interview with Ron Fisher, one of the early developers of the cognitive interviewing technique described in this chapter. http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/gov/ntsb_cognitive_interview.pdf Videos Scientists Study First Child with Super Memory (Time: 1:33) A 60 Minutes story on people with super memories including a 10-year-old boy. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/scientists-study-first-child-with-super-memory/

Elizabeth Loftus: The Fiction of Memory (Time: 17:36) Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus studies when people either remember things that did not happen or remember them differently from the way they really were. Such memories are sometimes called false memories. In her TED Talk, Loftus shares stories, statistics, and raises some important ethical questions about memory and its potential impact. https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_loftus_the_fiction_of_memory When Eyes Deceive- Eyewitness Testimony (Time: 4:34) An exploration of memory’s role in eyewitness testimony. http://youtu.be/rSzPn9rsPcY Criminal Minds: The Fallen (Cognitive-interview) (Time: 4:58) A popular media representation of a cognitive interview used to recall additional details of a crime. The level of embellishment may be a little over the top. http://www.movieweb.com/tv/TELXn9qQxKWsPS/cognitive-interview What Makes Us Who We Are? (Time: 3:04) Explores how we may adapt a memory to match those of our peers and in doing so we may also change brain signals. http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/through-the-wormhole/videos/what-makes-uswho-we-are.htm When do Memories Lose Importance? (Time: 0:36) Researchers at the University of New Hampshire and the University of Aarhus explore the concept of the Reminiscence Bump. http://www.redorbit.com/news/video/science_2/1113076368/memory-life-cyclereminiscence-bump-022014/ The Amygdala in 5 Minutes (Time: 5:37) A short primer on the brain's emotional processor, the amygdala. Not much related explicitly to memory. http://youtu.be/fDD5wvFMH6U Enhancing Memory- The Role of Emotion (Time: 7:50) In this episode of Scientific American, the roles of emotion and the amygdala in memory are explored. http://youtu.be/dZxGi8eMaw0 Flashbulb Memory (Time: 1:41) A neurologically based examination of flashbulb memories and how the proximity to the event (i.e., World Trade Center on 9/11) affects the brains activity. http://youtu.be/evj6q0eCdd8

Apps and/or Software Day Journal – Private Diary (Android, FREE) Have students download a journal or diary app (there are many available for both Apple and Android operating systems) and have them keep a journal for a week. After a week, have students recall all of the events from the week for which they kept a journal and compare their memories to their journal entries. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.theappspod.dayjournal The False Memory Experiment (Software) A short experiment that students can complete for some insights into false memory. http://psych.hanover.edu/javatest/cle/cognition/cognition/falsememory_instructions.html

Discussion Questions 1. Now that students have completed an in-depth study of memory, devote some class time to discussing the broad implications of memory research. Because “errors” are so informative to researchers and are necessarily a central feature of the presentation of cognitive research, students are often left with a sense that memory is largely a flawed system. Help them understand that humans do not just make any and all kinds of memory errors, but that the errors are systematic and reveal the intricate design of memory. A discussion that focuses positively on memory as a largely adaptive system where the “flaws” are by-products of a well-designed system is useful. This discussion is often particularly enlightening for students who, by definition in the role of student, demand so much from their memories and can pay high prices for forgetting, especially during finals week! Such a discussion can be accomplished in a variety of ways. For instance, direct students toward developing examples of why verbatim or “perfect” memory would not be beneficial (e.g., imagine remembering what color socks you wore on February 23, 2004; imagine remembering every time exactly what a friend or family member said to you that [unintentionally] hurt your feelings).

2. Provide for students an account of a court case that relied heavily on eyewitness testimony.

(Since such examples crop up in the news frequently, a variety of timely sources should be available. A good example will report some excerpts from the actual testimony.) Ask students to evaluate this testimony given their new understanding of memory and to argue why we should be cautious with eyewitness testimony. What do they notice about the testimony that may raise red flags about how the eyewitness’s memory may have changed since the initial event?

NOTE: If a recent example is difficult to find, a great example of suggestive questioning can be found in Daniel Schacter's The Seven Sins of Memory, 2001, Houghton Mifflin, p. 133.

3. The chapters on memory highlight the idea that “memory is life.” Students should now have a deeper appreciation of how far-reaching this idea is. Focus a “thought experiment” discussion to explore this issue. Topics here are limited only by your own and your students’ imaginations.

Just to cite a few examples, consider the following ideas: - How do the operating characteristics of memory design determine our personalities or provide a window into showing who we are as people? Why do people sharing an experience come away with such different memories about an event?

- What if the patients described in the memory chapters (choose any disorder) were more common? How could/would the world have to change to accommodate them?

- Explore the significance of the design of memory by considering how things would change for us if memory had been designed another way. What if LTM was limited or some information “expired” after a few years?

- Ask students how they could help an elderly person now complaining of more frequent memory failures. Have students brainstorm likely failures and ways of solving them, based on what they now know. Additionally, you could ask students to consider how the U.S. will change as the country’s population continues to “age” (given the mean age of the population is rising). What new memory aids will be developed?

4. Memory researchers examining memory over the lifespan have found evidence for a Reminiscence Bump as indicated by an increase in recall of memories from about 10 to 30 years of age for middle-aged people. Based on additional research, three hypotheses have been proposed to account for the bump. Have students discuss the three hypotheses (i.e., self-image; cognitive; and cultural life script). Ask students to consider whether there are other theories they may propose that could possibly explain the bump.

Demonstrations 1. Demonstrate the occurrence of false memories. The demonstration can easily be designed from the “memory for a list” demo that appears in Chapter 8. Students usually find this simple demo fascinating because a common first impression of false memories is of a complicated process that happens to "other people" or only to gullible people. Discuss how certain types of false memories are natural for the design of the system.

2. Demonstrate the constructive nature of memory. This is the idea that what people report as memories are "constructed" by the person based on what actually happened plus additional influences such as other knowledge, experiences, and expectations. Select a passage from a recent newspaper article regarding an issue that has been covered in the news over a period of time (the last few months). (It would be best to choose one of the initial articles about this ongoing story. The idea is to increase the likelihood that students will report information about the story that is not reported in the one article you’ve selected. This would likely happen if you can allow for additional information presented in later stories.) After reading the article to the class, ask them to recall it as accurately as possible. (It works well to present the article during one class and have them perform the recall on the next class day.) After recall, present a written version of the passage and have students compare the actual story to their memory accounts of it.

Analyze the accounts in terms of creations, omissions, and inaccuracies.

3. Revisit the propaganda effect from Chapter 6 to discuss and elaborate on the idea of sourcemonitoring errors. Discuss how the memory cue of familiarity can lead to source misattributions.

Have students develop examples where source misattributions are likely to occur. An example you might present to direct their thinking could be a pharmaceutical ad including a male in a white lab coat, his testimonial account that supports the efficacy of the product, and small print stating “not an actual doctor.”

4. Following up on the discussion question above regarding the Reminiscence Bump, have students recall their “significant” memories throughout their lifetime. Have them record their memories in 5 year periods (0-4; 5-9; 10-14; 14-19; 20-24….). Ask them to also rate the “strength” of each memory (1 – Very Strong; 2 – Strong; 3 – Neutral; 4 – Weak; and 5 – Very Weak). You can also consider having them graph the frequency of their memories similar to what is done in Figure 8.3.

Based on the data collected and the ages of the students, you can discuss how the Reminiscence Bump is different as a function of “age”; Is there any type of bump for those who are in the traditional college age range (i.e., 18 – 23)?; Are there any trends in students memories (e.g., mostly “firsts” – first time kissed; first time drinking alcohol; first time away from parents for more than a week; or maybe emotionally driven memories; or maybe memories consistent with the hypotheses discussed above). You can also discuss any patterns in the strengths of the memory (e.g., the latter memories being stronger than the older ones).

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

False Memories Introduction An important issue in metamemory is realizing that we do make mistakes and we have limitations. These falsehoods are not necessarily intentional but may occur because of manipulations by external sources. Examples of false memories can be found in people undergoing therapy who incorporate suggestions from clinicians that may not be correct.

Research shows that errors in memory recall tend to be for related ideas and not just random mistakes. Again, this suggests that there is something special about memory storage and retrieval. In this CogLab experiment the phenomenon of False Memories is demonstrated even though only six trials are used.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) The False Memory CogLab suggests that we may store memories as meaningful items, like a semantic network, rather than individual items. Introduce the idea of semantic networks and have students design one. Ask a student to say the first word that comes to her mind and have everyone design this network. a. Give students a set time to design one. Ask some students to read some of their networks and nodes. Alternatively, have students create a semantic network using the stimuli from one or more of the CogLab trials. b. Discuss association strengths and ask which nodes have the strongest activation for them. Ask students if the strongest association is more personal to them. c. When this task is over, have them think about how this may be related to false memories.

2) As a metacognitive task, have students think about the stories they tell people that are a reflection of their memory. For example, you tell your roommate about your day and about the hard test or boring lecture you had. a. When they are thinking about memories, have students reflect on the accuracy of their recall. Is what they are telling their roommate a concise memory, or did they go over the general meaning of their day? b. Ask students to change their style the following day on the same person, telling them every detail they can remember about their day. Report how the other person reacts to these memories. c. Have them reflect on why we generally tell overall stories, instead of going into details.

3) There is a misperception that hypnosis can help a person release repressed memories.

Have your students research hypnosis and its reliability for memory recall. They can look through literature as well as popular media. a. Ask them to find out who can legally use hypnosis and what it has been reliably used to do. b. They can write an APA literature review paper or a critical analysis.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) For the three types of words—present in list, unrelated lure, and related lure—which group is expected to have the best recall rate, either correctly or incorrectly? Which of the three should have the lowest recall rate?

Answer: The words that were present in the list should have the highest recall rate. The recall rate for the related lures should be less than that observed for words present in the list, but greater than the rate for the unrelated lure conditions.

2) What are related lures?

Answer: The related lures are special because they are related to words that were on the original list.

3) Why are related lures picked more often as being on the original list than unrelated lures?

What does this suggest about memory storage?

Answer: The related lures are picked more often because they are semantically related to words that were on the original list, suggesting that we store the meaning of a word and not the word itself.

4) You work at a popular retail store and a customer brings something back for a refund.

The customer has a long story about why she wants to return the piece of clothing. When you look at the receipt, you see that she bought this a long time ago, so you point out to her that refunds have to be done within 14 days of purchase. The woman explains how the original salesclerk told her she could return it anytime and no one would give her trouble. She even picks out a salesclerk who sold it to her. You do not tell her that she picked out a girl who was hired last week, and you do the refund for her before she gets irate. Is it possible for you to tell if she was lying or just having a false memory about the incident?

Answer: You could not objectively tell if she was lying or not, since memory recall is a subjective experience. Even lie detection tests are not perfect at detecting liars from truth tellers.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) What were the levels of your independent variable in the False Memory CogLab? What was the dependent variable? What test would you run on your levels to see if there were significant differences between the recall rates in the different conditions?

Answer: The three levels were words in the list, related lures, and unrelated lures. The dependent variable was recall rate. Since you have one dependent variable and one independent variable with three levels, you could run the appropriate one-way ANOVA on the mean recall rates for each condition.

2) What would be the null hypothesis for the False Memory CogLab? What would be an alternate hypothesis? What would you predict for the pattern of recall rates for the three conditions? (Hint: Which group would you expect to have the greater percentage of recalled words?)

Answer: The null hypothesis would be that there are no mean differences in the recall rates for the three levels. The alternate hypothesis would be that there are differences between the mean percentages recalled for the three levels. Specifically, one might hypothesize that the recall rate for the words in the list would be the highest, followed by the related lures and then the unrelated lures.

Advanced Questions 1) What do the results, obtained or expected, suggest about the storage of information?

Answer: Since the special semantically related lures were selected more often than the unrelated lures, it suggests that we may store memory meanings, or gists, rather than specific details.

2) What do the results of the False Memory CogLab suggest about how we should study for a recall test?

Answer: If the results of the lab are correct and we do store items semantically, we should understand the meanings when we are studying and not engage in only memorization of a word or concept. If we study by understanding the meaning, even if we forget what a word is, we might be able to recall something semantically similar to it.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss how lawyers could implant false memories in an unsure witness.

Answer: A lawyer could ask a leading question, which makes a suggestion that a behavior occurred when it may not have. This is one reason the opposing lawyer will object to leading questions that may plant a false memory in the witness.

2) Discuss how suggestibility might be related to percentage of false memories an individual may have.

Answer: If an individual had a poor memory and were highly suggestible, it may be easier to plant false memories (suggestions) into his or her memory. It may also be that someone who was highly suggestible may not only incorporate memory suggestions but also doubt his or her own memories and rely on others to fill them in.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) As a group or as an online project, have students read Bartlett’s “War of the Ghosts” one week, with the intent to recall the story after a period of time. After a specified time instruct the students to recall the story. You can do this a number of times over the remainder of the semester to compare their stories. a. If you let them see their story after writing them, have them think about words they used that were semantically related to the ones in the original story. b. Also, have students consider the reasons why they omitted or forgot certain parts. c. If you do this several times over the semester, have students compare their memories and distortions each time they recall the story.

2) False memories implanted by therapists, counselors, and psychiatrists are not that uncommon, but the effects of these false memories can be disturbing and mentally damaging. Have students investigate cases of false memory syndrome in the popular

media. For example, some movie stars have publicly shared their experiences with false memories. a. If you are doing this as a group project, divide the students up into groups of 4-5 and have them concentrate on 1-2 stories. You can have them write a paper or share their findings to the class in an informal discussion session. Ask them to think about the likelihood that a false memory can be implanted into someone’s memory. Ask them if they think they have ever had a false memory incorporated into their own memory systems. b. While they are investigating the stories, have them think about the psychological effect of false memories on the person as well as the other people in their lives. c. As an online assignment, have students contribute their findings as an online discussion. If they find a good website, have them send the link or attach news stories about the events.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) Which statement is true about memory? a. There is a strong relation between how confident we are about a memory and the memory’s accuracy. b. Memory is like a tape recording. c. Memory is like a video recording. d. None of the above (d) 2) In the false memory experiment, which items should be selected most often? a. Correct items from the list b. Related lures c. Unrelated lures d. All of the above will be recalled equally. (a) 3) In the false memory experiment, which items should be selected LEAST often? a. Correct items from the list b. Related lures c. Unrelated lures d. All of the above will be recalled equally. (c)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Forgot It All Along Introduction An interesting memory phenomenon examined here is the idea that we sometimes experience a real event, then we forget that event for a period of time and then suddenly we remember it again under certain circumstances (triggers). In the real world, this can be seen in people who have "discovered" memories of abuse but did not talk about it with others before the time of recovery.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) As a critical thinking exercise, have students think about potential factors that may influence one's ability to remember events from the past. Things like motivation, age (as related to amount of interference), environment, or mood may be presented. a. You can direct them to think of examples from their own lives first and then think of the situational or internal factors that influenced their poor recall.

2) Have students consider how the encoding specificity principle, a contextual factor in memory recall, can be compared to the “forgot it all along" memory phenomenon. Have them be specific in their answers. a. You can have them write an APA-formatted paper outlining their comparisons. b. When they consider this question, ask them to also consider other influences on poor memory recall.

3) Some of the researchers of repressed memories believe that some memories are "discovered" and not "recovered." Have students think about what the difference might be between these two ideas and then have them explore the latest research on repressed memories to test the idea that some memories may not be recovered but discovered.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) In Phase II of the lab, you had to fill in the missing two letters of the target word, which required <recall or recognition (select one)> memory. Then in Phase III, you had to respond with either yes or no for each word shown as to whether you remembered the target word from Phase II, which is <recall or recognition (select one)> memory. Of the two specific types of memory, which is usually easier to do (greater accuracy)?

Answer: Recall; recognition. Of the two types of memory, recognition is usually easier.

2) Think back to Phase II and the amount of time it took to fill in the missing letters of the target word and then to Phase III to the amount of time it took to say yes or no for each word. Which words feel as if they took the greater amount of time to respond to? (Think in terms of the cue word that was paired with the target word.)

Answer: The words that felt as if they took the longest amount of time to decide what the letters were or if the target word was present were the words that had the different or irrelevant cue paired with it.

3) After getting your mark for your philosophy test, you learn that most of the class failed.

Your professor tells you not to worry and that he will give you a second test; you can take the better of the two grades. However, your performance on the second test was even worse than the first. As you look through your test, you find that you got things right the first time but wrong on the second test. How does this compare to the lab you just did?

Answer: This is similar because you forgot that you remembered the items on the first test. The results from this lab also showed poorer memory performance the second time around compared to the first testing session.

4) Your best friend comes to you in a panic and tells you about a guy who has been following her around campus all day trying to talk to her. As she relays her story, you suddenly have a flashback to your first year on campus, when some guy jumped out of the bushes at you as you were going to your car. Why did you think you suddenly remembered the incident from your first year on campus?

Answer: When your friend was telling you about her incident, it triggered your own personal memory of feeling vulnerable. This may have been the first time that you thought about the incident since it occurred.

5)

While going downtown with your roommate, you find yourselves driving over a long bridge with water far below. When you look out of the window and down at the water you suddenly experience a weird feeling followed by a bout of panic. You have never experienced a fear of heights or bridges before, so you mention this to your brother later.

He proceeds to tell a story of when the two of you were young and he pushed you off a log that ran over a creek in your backyard and you could not swim. Luckily, your father pulled you out of the water before you drowned. How could your sudden feeling of panic be explained?

Answer: The height of the bridge or the appearance of water triggered a memory from your childhood. This memory may have been suppressed because you nearly died and it was a very negative experience for you.

Advanced Questions 1) The “forgot it all along” cognitive effect is similar to the physiological “opponentprocess” effect. The opponent process occurs when your body learns the environment.

Drugs like cocaine put the body in an imbalanced state, so your body learns to counteract this effect beforehand (hence the name opponent). When you change environments but still take high levels of a drug (due to tolerance for the effect), the body is not able to counter the effects, and overdoses are common. Discuss how the opponent process is similar to “forgot it all along.”

Answer: The one key thing between these two concepts is that context is very important in determining the response of the body (whether memory or the autonomic system). In one context, where the body (or mind) has learned to deal with the negative effects of incoming stimuli (memories or drugs), there is a balance or equilibrium and we are able to cope. If we change the environment even slightly, the body’s coping mechanisms are not able to work quickly enough, so a trigger brings forth a rush of potentially bad memories, causing a break down, or the sympathetic system gets aroused beyond its capacities and a heart attack could occur.

2) When people get into serious accidents that involve traumatic head injuries, they can have problems remembering what happened to them before the accident. How might this be comparable to the repressed memories from bad childhood experiences?

Answer: The brain may have an evolved mechanism for protecting itself from extremely negative experiences. There may also be a physiological connection, where long-term memory storage is impeded at the hippocampus because of intense emotional or physical trauma.

Discussion Questions 1) We depend on our memories for a number of reasons in our society. Discuss some of the problems that affect our memories. Start with the major issues mentioned in this lab (e.g., recovered/discovered memories) and then consider other memory labs or information that you have learned from class. Be specific in your answers.

Answer: This lab showed that sometimes we remember information but then forget it shortly afterwards and context is important. You may also discuss the idea of repressed memories that may help protect us psychologically or that we can be misled by incoming information so that we form new memories for events that never happened to us. We lose details from memories over time and “fill in” specifics when we need to. Memories decay, get interfered with, or follow a pattern (serial position curve). We also have a number of different memory stores, implicit and explicit, semantic and episodic, and procedural and declarative.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Discuss the idea that forgetting is an important part of human memory. Why might it be "adaptive" for humans to forget some memories? a. Think about some of the past research on forgetting and researchers who were interested in the information that we tended to forget.

2) Have students discuss how the results of this lab could be important to a clinical psychologist. a. What key things should be kept in mind when people remember certain events that they are positive happened in their lives?

3) As a group project, have students design a way to test the concept of “false memory syndrome." a. If they are not sure what false memory syndrome is, this would be the first step of the project. Encourage creativity.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) Which of the following is not a stage of the “forgot it all along” effect? a. The event that is remembered is a real event b. The event was forgotten for a period of time c. The event is suddenly remembered d. The event was not important to the person (d) 2) The “forgot it all along” effect is very similar to which other memory CogLab? a. Serial Position b. Encoding Specificity c. Operation Span d. Memory Span (b) 3) One way that the “forgot it all along” phenomenon can be applied to the real word is through the study of a. repressed memories. b. eyewitness testimony. c. forgetting rates. d. tip of the tongue phenomenon. (a) 4) If there was a “forgot it all along” effect present, what would your results be when the context word presented during the memory judgment task (Phase III) was the same as during the cued-recall test (Phase II)? a. You should have remembered that you forgot the target word more often in the different context condition. b. You should have forgotten that you remembered the target word more often in the different context condition. c. You should have forgotten that you remembered the target word more often in the similar context condition. d. You should have remembered that you forgot the target word more often in the similar context condition. (b)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Memory Judgment Introduction Overall people are not very good in judging the accuracy of their memory abilities. In this metamemory lab, participants estimate the likelihood they will remember word stimuli. Varied in the lab are both the font size (large or small) and the number of presentations (1 or 2) for each stimulus. Overall, participants generally underestimate their ability to recognize a target.

Participants generally overestimate the effect of font size and underestimate the effect of number of presentations.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Students will likely be surprised at the inaccuracy of their estimates relative to performance. If the group results match the global results, what students may find most interesting is how much they underestimate (around 40 – 60%) their memory relative to their actual performance (80 – 90%). a. Have students discuss why they appear to significantly underestimate their performance. Also, have them consider how knowing the results of the current experiment might influence their memory estimates if they were to conduct a similar type of experiment. b. As part of the discussion you may want to point out that the data generally show that students overestimate the effect of font size (predicted is usually over 10%; actual is around 2–3%) and underestimate the effect of number of presentations (predicted is around 4–5%; actual is around 10%) 2) As a critical thinking exercise, have students consider the roles of font size and number of presentations on recognition memory. a. Part of their consideration may include having students consider how additional insights into these two variables may be obtained by creating additional levels for each of the variables. For example, students might suggest that the font size be varied systematically as a function of “point” size. Number of presentations could also be varied systematically. b. In an advanced course, you could introduce the idea of “trend analyses” if the selection of the levels of each of the quantitative variables above complied with the assumptions of the analysis. c. Students could complete an APA-formatted paper with predictions of what results may be found.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) What is metamemory and why is it important?

Answer: Metamemory refers to people's judgments and beliefs about their own memory performance. Over the course of their lives, people generally develop some insights into their abilities in different memory domains and can use these insights when attempting to estimate how likely it is they will remember different types of information.

2) Students appear to underestimate the effect of number of presentations on memory and overestimate the effect of font size. Provide some reasons for such a pattern of estimates.

Answer: Students likely underestimate the effect of number of presentations since the stimuli are only presented once or twice and students might not believe such a small difference could possibly affect recognition memory. However, if some of the stimuli were going to be present multiple times (e.g., 4 or 5), the effect on students’ estimates may be more pronounced. Students likely overestimate the effect of font size as it is a structural characteristic which students erroneously believe will help them during the recognition phase.

Research/Cognition-Based Question 1) What were the levels of the independent variables in the Memory Judgment CogLab? What were the dependent variables? Discuss some possible statistical analyses to examine the possible effects in the experiment.

Answer: The two independent variables in the study were font size and number of presentations.

Each of these two variables contained two levels. The two dependent variables in the study were predicted memory accuracy (obtained in Phase I) and recognition accuracy (obtained in Phase II). There are several different analyses that could be conducted including a simple 2x2 withinsubjects ANOVA on just the recognition accuracy measure. A similar analysis could be conducted on predicted memory accuracy. More advance analyses could include a 2x2 withinsubject MANOVA (using the two dependent variables) or even possibly first subtracting the predicted accuracy measures from the obtained measures and then conducting a 2x2 withinsubject ANOVA on the difference scores.

Advanced Question 1) One outcome related to this lab is that people significantly underestimate the effect of number of presentations on memory. Overall, the effect of one additional presentation is around a 10% increase in recognition memory. Based on this information, how should you adjust your study habits as it relates to “how much” or “how many times” you should study the information?

Answer: Global results for the study demonstrate about a 10% increase in recognition memory for stimuli with two presentations as compared to stimuli with only a single presentation. While studying, students often believe they really “know” the information after studying the new information once or twice. Since they “know” the information they may believe that additional studying would not be beneficial. Unfortunately, the students’ perception that they “know” the information is usually erroneous and much more robust or stable memories could be created with additional studying.

Discussion Question 1) Discuss the role of metamemories as it affects the confidence of our memories. Also discuss how we can deal with our perceived memory strengths and weaknesses.

Answer: Our metamemories play an important role in our daily lives. If we believe we have a good memory for some type of information (e.g., faces) we might be overconfident in our estimate in being able to remember such information. Similarly, people with a “bad” memory for some type of information may underestimate the likelihood of remembering the information. In our daily lives we might take inventory of our memory strengths and weaknesses when considering the amount of effort necessary to remember different types of information. That is, if we believe we have a good memory for some information we may not commit many resources to “remembering” the information; whereas if we believe we have a bad memory for some information we may commit many resources to “remember” the information because we know if we do not commit those resources the information will not be remembered.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Discuss the idea of metamemory and how metamemory varies across person and domains. Have students use their metamemories to identify their top and bottom 3-5 memory areas. Once students have created their lists, the individual lists can be compiled into a master list showing the best and worst areas for the class. a. You might need to provide some example memory areas for students to consider.

For example, students might consider their memories for faces, names, locations, math, foreign words, passwords, PINs, APPs, websites, history, classmates, etc. b. Students can also share with each other any strategies they use to enhance their memories in any of the areas.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) In the Memory Judgment CogLab, people generally predict that words are more likely to be recognized when a. shown in a larger font. b. shown in a smaller font. c. the word has been generated by the participant and not the experimenter. d. the words are concrete. (a) 2) When studying for an exam, what should your study strategy be when you first feel you “know” the information and will remember it for the test? a. It is likely that your metamemory of the situation is accurate and you should stop studying immediately and avoid thinking about the information until the time of the exam. b. It is likely that your metamemory of the situation is inaccurate and you should continue studying. c. It is likely that your metamemory of the situation is accurate and you should immediately switch to doing something unrelated to the information like checking your Facebook status. d. It is likely that your metamemory of the situation is inaccurate and you should immediately switch to doing something unrelated to the information like checking your Facebook status. (b) 3) Which of the following is supported by the concept of metamemory? a. Memories that are shared by a large group of people. b. Memories that are at least 50 years old. c. The belief about one’s own memory. d. The process of creating a permanent memory. (c)

Chapter 9: Knowledge Chapter Outline 1. HOW ARE OBJECTS PLACED INTO CATEGORIES? a. Why Definitions Don’t Work for Categories b. The Prototype Approach: Finding the Average Case Demonstration: Family Resemblance Method: Sentence Verification Technique c. The Exemplar Approach: Thinking About Examples d. Which Approach Works Better: Prototypes or Exemplars?

2. IS THERE A PSYCHOLOGICALLY “PRIVILEGED” LEVEL OF CATEGORIES? a. Rosch’s Approach: What’s Special About Basic Level Categories?

Demonstration: Listing Common Features Demonstration: Naming Things b. How Knowledge Can Affect Categorization TEST YOURSELF 9.1 3. REPRESENTING RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CATEGORIES: SEMANTIC NETWORKS a. Introduction to Semantic Networks: Collins and Quillian’s Hierarchical Model Method: Lexical Decision Task b. Criticism of the Collins and Quillian Model 4. REPRESENTING CONCEPTS IN NETWORKS: THE CONNECTIONIST APPROACH a. What Is a Connectionist Model? b. How Are Concepts Represented in a Connectionist Network?

5. THE REPRESENTATION OF CONCEPTS IN THE BRAIN a. The Sensory-Functional Hypothesis b. The Semantic Category Approach c. The Multiple-Factor Approach d. The Embodied Approach e. Sorting Out the Approaches 6. SOMETHING TO CONSIDER: THE HUB AND SPOKE MODEL Method: Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) TEST YOURSELF 9.2 CogLabs: Lexical Decision; Absolute Identification; Prototypes

Web Links Websites Prototype Theory Explanation of some basic concepts in the study of categorization. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prototype_Theory Semantic Networks A site to help students better understand the history of semantic networks. http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/poplog/computers-andthought/chap6/node5.html Building a Semantic Network. http://people.umass.edu/trehub/thecognitivebrain/chapter6.pdf Efforts to produce artificial intelligence and marketing tools through semantic networks. http://www.duke.edu/~mccann/mwb/15semnet.htm Connectionism A movement in cognitive science that hopes to explain human intellectual abilities. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/connectionism/ Connectionism and Philosophy A site to help students better understand the complex and technical topic of connectionism. http://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/connectionism-1 Neural Networks An overview of neural networks with a downloadable presentation. http://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/soco/projects/2000-01/neuralnetworks/index.html Representation of Concepts in the Brain In their paper, Mahon and Caramazza explore how concepts and categories may be represented in the brain. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2908258/ Videos Developmental Psychology: Categorization Inability (Time: 2:28) A demonstration of a 4-year old’s inability to categorize complex stimuli even though he is able to identify the individual stimuli. Very reminiscent of the Sesame Street activity of “One these things is not like the other” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WhuikFY1Pg). http://youtu.be/tYtNk0BotRE Semantic Networks and Spreading Activation (Time: 3:38) A basic and simple overview of semantic networks and spreading activation. http://youtu.be/0RSMKyRVuV8

Parallel Distributed Processing (Time: 1:03) A short overview of PDP. http://youtu.be/MjubRN6yL_g Intro to Neural Networks (Time: 7:48) A student produced introduction to neural networks that students may find useful. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG5-UyRBQD4 The Neurons that Shaped Civilization (Time: 7:40) Neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran outlines the fascinating functions of mirror neurons. http://www.ted.com/talks/vs_ramachandran_the_neurons_that_shaped_civilization A more comprehensive examination (Time: 1:08:18) of the mirror neurons by Vittorio Gallese (noted in the text) in his talk “From Mirror Neurons to Embodied Simulation” is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlV7F3MHuEk Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (Time: 1:42) A transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment is simulated. Although not exploring the “Hub and Spoke” model discussed in the text, it does provide some insights into the use and process of TMS. http://youtu.be/FiUL7pm4w3A Apps and/or Software Neural Network Simulator (Free, Android) An app that allows you to “build a brain” using this neural network simulator. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.EthanHeming.NeuralNetworkSimulat or Neuro Net ($3.99, Apple) A more fully developed app with numerous features intended for exploration of neural networks. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/neuro-net/id571408140?mt=8

Discussion Questions 1. Have students define “prototypes” for a variety of natural categories. First, have them consider their own prototypes for such categories. Then, have them consider how prototypes might be influenced by a number of factors. For example, consider how prototypes would vary across cultures or world region (e.g., how prototypical residences or occupations may change), experience (e.g., prototypical meals for a mother of six children vs. a famous French chef), or age (e.g., prototypical music for your students vs. their grandparents). What is learned about categorization, given this analysis of prototypes?

2. Develop a discussion of the importance of priming in our everyday lives. Provide a few realworld examples to stimulate their thinking (e.g., suggest how watching a horror movie can later make an unexplained “creaky” noise in the house seem ominous or how we have certain expectations about teacher and student behavior when we enter a classroom). How do expectations that we bring to contexts or situations benefit us, facilitating perception and memory? How are we hindered when our expectations are violated? What does the pervasiveness of priming tell us about human cognition?

3. Ask students to discuss how false memories (as demonstrated and discussed in Chapter 8) can be explained by the concepts of semantic networks, spreading activation, and priming/association between concepts.

4. Research on motor neurons shows similar patterns of brain activation when performing an action as is found when reading words about the action. Ask students to discuss how such results could be incorporated into their lives (e.g., motor skills like typing or running, studying, or stereotyping).

Demonstrations 1. To show how the definitional approach to categorization fails, have students try to define a simple concept (e.g., bathing suit, wine, pie, door, car). They should discover many difficulties with this approach, including - exceptions to major features that seem necessary (e.g., doors usually have knobs but revolving doors do not).

- finding that a single concept can fit into multiple categories (e.g., wine could be categorized as a member of “beverages,” “alcoholic spirits,” or “romantic items”).

- noting that some examples seem to be “better” examples than others (e.g., “apple” is a “better” pie than is “steak and kidney”).

2. Have each student produce a list of examples for a category you select (e.g., fruit, games, flowers). Distinguish the three levels (superordinate, basic, and subordinate) of the hierarchical organization tree and have students place each item into the tree. Ask students to speculate about how the hierarchical tree of an expert would differ from that of a novice. You might want to be creative with the idea of “experts” here. For example, with the category “games,” students could develop organization trees for the typical college student vs. a young child (with lots of toys) vs. a serious card player vs. an Olympic athlete.

3. Using the stimuli generated in #2, there are several related tasks students could perform. First, have students review their top 5 responses for the category and see if there are any patterns as to what level their responses fall in the hierarchical organization tree. Second, create some statements (e.g., A bird is a bird; A robin is a bird; A robin is an animal) based on the stimuli and have students perform a semantic verification task on the statements. Note whether the students’ general pattern of responding corresponds with Rosch’s research. Finally, compile a master list of responses to determine whether the frequency of a term is related to the speed of responding in the semantic verification task.

4. Prototypicality can be quantified and ranked. Provide students with a class demonstration to show how researchers accomplish this. Provide beforehand a prototype-rating handout.

Design of handout: Include as stimuli a category: for example, birds or furniture. You can either generate your own examples or use a preexisting list. Using one of these categories will allow the class to compare the data they generate to “normed” data. Have students use a seven-point scale to rate the extent to which each member represents the category title. On the scale, “1” means the member is a “poor example” through “7,” which means the member is a “good” example of the category.

Have students calculate their data (mean ratings and rankings of all members) and compare the class results with those in Figure 9.4 for the similar stimuli.

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Lexical Decision Introduction Theories of human language propose the existence of a mental lexicon that is semantically organized. In testing the idea of a semantic lexicon, researchers hypothesized that words that are related to each other (i.e., chair, seat, and table) would be close in the lexicon, while words that are unrelated to each other (i.e. chair, dinosaur, and broccoli) would be far apart. If the lexicon follows this organizational pattern, reaction times for related words should be faster than for unrelated words. Evidence suggests that this is the case, suggesting that a lexicon is organized as a semantic network.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Lexical decision tasks have been used with clinical populations to test affective inhibition through reaction time comparisons. Have students design a research methodology that could be used on patients to determine affective or processing differences. Testing has been done with patients with affective or anxiety disorders, although results are inconclusive. a. When designing their methodology, have students think about what kind of stimuli would work best with their specific clinical populations. b. Students should develop hypotheses as to which group will perform fastest on which types of stimuli.

2) As an exploratory project, have students research the area of language development and how it is related to lexical information. They could research several areas, including learning a second language or lexical changes in children as their vocabulary increases. a. This is an extensive area of research, so request that students pick a specific area of language development to research, like neuropsychological evidence or reading studies. b. Since this is an area where advances are continuous, have students focus on recent research articles and methodologies.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) Using your experience with the lexical decision demonstration, rate these three verbal items on their ability to facilitate recognition of “nurse” as a word. That is, imagine these three different items occurring as first items, and in each case “nurse” follows. Your job is to decide as quickly as possible that “nurse” is a word: question – nurse doctor – nurse plat – nurse Answer: “Doctor” would facilitate recognition the best, followed by “question,” followed by “plat.”

2) How is the lexical decision task similar to a clinical free association task?

Answer: In a clinical free association task, a word is said by the therapist and the client says the first word that comes to mind. This task has similar connectionist (associative) properties to the lexical decision task: both measure the activation strength of specific words or types of words that are stored in the mental lexicon.

3) Which pair of words should have a stronger activation strength, “desk-book” or “deskcar”?

Answer: The “desk-book” pairing should have the stronger activation strength compared to “desk-car.” Activation strength is related to semantics of nodes.

4) Why might seeing the word “parlor” make you hungry for pizza? (Hint: think of spreading activation of related nodes).

Answer: Seeing the word “parlor” might make you hungry for pizza because another name for a pizza restaurant is a pizza parlor. These words might be semantically related in your network.

5) You are watching a classic game show called Matchgame, where contestants have to match the same words as celebrities for money. In the final segment of the show, the contestant picks three stars and asks them to supply an answer to a question. The larger amount of money is given to the most popular answer with the studio audience. The blank that the person has to match is “Foot _____.” Her three choices are football, foot rub, and “Footloose,” and she chooses football and wins the greatest amount of money.

What might the results suggest about the composition or experiences of the studio audience?

Answer: When football was the most popular answer, it might suggest that the studio audience is made up of more males than females or perhaps the Super Bowl was recently on and they were primed to think about football.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) How could you set up a lexical decision task to find out if “sheep” is more or less related to “lamb” compared to “wool”?

Answer: You could use a set up similar to what the demonstration uses, making certain that “sheep” occurs in a second position both for “wool” in a first position and “lamb” in a first position. Whichever first position word gives the shortest reaction time is the one that is more closely related to “sheep.”

2) How could you test for a lexical decision effect using an auditorily presented stimuli?

Answer: When comparing modalities, you could use auditorily presented stimuli instead of the visually presented material but under the same conditions as the present CogLab. You would have associated, unassociated, and non-word pairings. If a lexical decision effect were present for auditorily presented stimuli, then reaction times would still be fastest for associated, followed by unassociated, and non-word pairings.

Advanced Questions 1) How is the lexical decision task directly related to cognitive load?

Answer: Reaction times to a lexical decision task have been shown to vary with variables assumed to mediate cognitive load; for example, stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) and semantic relatedness to a previously presented prime. This further suggests that performance on the task may be mediated by semantic characteristics of stimuli.

2) How could the Lexical Decision CogLab be ecologically valid?

Answer: Ecological validity assumes that one could generalize a basic design in the laboratory to a real-world problem. The lexical information being examined in this CogLab can apply to several concepts in the real world, including reading, language development, and learning a second language.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss lexical neighborhood size (see Chapter 5) and how it is related to the lexical decision task.

Answer: Neighborhood size is a measure of the orthographic similarity between words. If a target word is orthographically similar to many words, then the target word is said to have a large neighborhood (e.g the word sell has many neighbors such as tell, well, bell, yell, and sill). A target word that is orthographically similar to few words is described as having a small neighborhood (e.g. deny only has the neighbors defy and dent).

2) Discuss the internal mental lexicon and the specific information that it contains.

Answer: The internal lexicon contains many different items including long-term store of words; semantic information or word meanings; syntactic information or how words are used in a language; phonological information or how words sound; and orthographic information or how words appear.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Have students break into groups of three and investigate the lexical performance abilities of people with three specific reading and semantic disorders, including deep dyslexia, Wernicke’s Aphasia, and progressive semantic dementia. Have them explore specific areas, like verbal fluency and reading performance. Also, if they can explore neurological evidence to suggest brain regions involved, this would help provide a comparative basis for the disorders. a. Have the groups compare their findings when they complete their research. You can do this in the classroom or as an online forum.

2) Ask students to take what they have learned about the lexicon and apply it to learning important information for a class. Have them incorporate ideas about activation strength, nodes, and storage. a. You can have them think about other memory techniques, like mnemonics, and how that is related to semantic networks and lexical information. b. They can also address other issues, like comprehension, familiarity with the material, and other top-down processes.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) If you were asked to judge whether “leg” was a word, what item presented just before “leg” would most facilitate this judgment? a. City b. Chair c. Rotate d. Question (b) 2) What is a lexicon? a. The memory for your name b. A concept c. A mental dictionary d. A distractor item (c) 3) In a lexical decision task, what should take the shortest amount of time? a. Judging a non-word after the presentation of a non-word b. Judging a word after the presentation of a non-related word c. Judging a word after the presentation of a related word d. Judging a non-word after the presentation of a word (c)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Absolute Identification Introduction Errors on an absolute identification task occur when the stimuli presented vary on one dimension, like length, brightness, loudness, or duration, but not with complex stimuli that vary on more than one dimension. Complex data is represented in multidimensional psychological space. These errors increase dramatically as the number of unidimensional stimuli that needs to be identified increases. A major finding indicates, however, an inability to identify more than seven or so unidimensional stimuli at one time, depending on the type of stimuli. It seems to be an expected outcome that error rates increase as the number of possible identification choices increases, perhaps due to the capacity limits of information processing.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) After doing the lab, have your students come up with applied examples of absolute identification in stimuli. Remind them that this works with unidimensional stimuli but not complex items. Also keep in mind that identification errors increase as the number of items to be identified increases. a. Remind them that length is just one dimension, as is loudness, duration, weight, area, and volume. b. Mark them on creativity. They could come up with an example of being a shoe salesperson at Wal-Mart, where they place the same shoe on one shelf arranged from the smallest size (2) to the largest (12). If asked to get out a size 7 for a client, they may make a mistake and grab a 6 or 8, but they would make fewer errors if they had to get a size 11 or 12.

2) Let’s say that you are a manager in a nuclear power plant. In the last year, there have been a number of costly accidents that could have been prevented with an adequate forewarning system. Your safety engineers excitedly tell you that they have designed a new alarm system for the plant. When an emergency situation occurs, a specific alarm will be sounded depending on the course of action needed to be taken (i.e., leave the building, shut down all machinery, or put on a ventilator). A total of 11 emergency action options would each be coded with an alarm bell, differing only in duration (ranging from 10 seconds to 32). a. Discuss some possible problems that might arise with this alarm system. b. Come up with an alternative alarm system using the basic concepts learned from this lab.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) You are trying to study for a big psychology test in your room and your roommate insists on having the volume turned up high, making it hard for you to study. If you ask him to turn it down, how many notches should you ask him to turn it down for you to be able to notice a difference and so that you can study if the volume knob ranges from 1-9 and he is playing it on 7 now?

Answer: As with the identification task, you have trouble distinguishing the middle ranges of sound. You should ask him to turn it down to about 2 or 3. That way, you will notice that it is lower and then you will be able to study.

2) What is it called when you are able to identify the beginning stimuli and the end stimuli in a data set, but the information in the middle is confused or lost?

Answer: This is the serial position effect, or more specifically the primacy and recency effect seen in memory recall.

3) Why do you think that identification errors do not occur as readily with complex stimuli as with simple stimuli?

Answer: In terms of identification, for complex stimuli there are multiple dimensions available for recognition and so fewer errors are made. With simple stimuli that differ on one or two dimensions, there are no other cues to fall back on or to put into context to aid with identification.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) Do you think that a person, for example, a musician, could be trained to increase his capacity to identify more than seven different tones or pitch?

Answer: It has been shown that with practice, one can increase one’s information capacity for specific information. However, error rates would still increase as the number of items to be identified increased.

2) Why do you think that tone 2 was not mistaken for tone 8 or 9?

Answer: Pairs of stimuli that are separated by relatively small distances on the dimension are easily confused, but stimuli pairs that are relatively far apart on the dimension are not.

3) If we know that our capacity for incoming information is limited, how can we recognize and identify the 26 letters of the alphabet, but we have trouble identifying nine tone lengths from one another?

Answer: The letters of the alphabet are complex stimuli and vary on more than one dimension, like height, width, and curvature. We are given more cues to use in our identification of the letters over the lines.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Break into smaller groups or discuss the following scenario online.

Pretend that you live on a small island called the Isle of Maratino. Your island has recently been declared as independent, and you have to develop your own currency. The mayor has devised a system that he thinks will work, but you know there will be big problems. The mayor has proposed that all of the coins will be the same size, but the less valuable ones will be lighter, weighing 5 ounces, the next valuable will be 7 ounces, and so on. There will be nine coins in total. a. Discuss the problem that will arise if your island adopts this coin. b. Come up with possible solutions to this problem. (Here, they could say fewer coins or coins and paper money together. Maybe varying coins on more than one dimension, like color and weight.) c. How do other countries combat the problem of quick identification of their coins?

(Ridges on some coins, different shapes, and colors.) d. Can you think of other countries where the money may get mixed up because of the limited stimuli variation? (American money is the same color, and visitors may have trouble telling one bill apart from another. Canadian money has different colors representing different values: fives are blue, tens are purple, twenties are green, and fifties are red.) e. Have the class do research on the different monies used in other countries and ask them to evaluate the monetary scheme based on this study.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) Most people find it hard to identify objects if they differ on a. one quality. b. two qualities. c. three qualities. d. more than three qualities. (a) 2) When identifying items on a continuum, which stimuli are easily identified? a. Middle b. First and middle c. Middle and last d. First and last (d) 3) If you had to identify individual lines that varied in length from one inch to nine inches, which two lines would you be most likely to confuse with one another? a. The 1 and 8 inch lines b. The 2 and 9 inch lines c. The 4 and 5 inch lines d. The 3 and 9 inch lines (c)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Prototypes Introduction The prototype theory suggests that categories are formed on the basis of characteristic features that are typical of members within that group. The most typical member in which the category is formed is called the prototype. Variations of the prototype often take longer to categorize because of the time that it takes to examine the features of the prototype and the variation.

Although categorizing objects is a natural thing to do, specific categories change regularly with learning and new experiences.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Have students think about stereotypes and why they exist. When doing this exercise, ask them to explore the benefits as well as the costs to having stereotypes. a. Also ask them to think about how their personal experiences strengthened or minimized the stereotypical thoughts. b. This could be used as a class discussion topic as well as a paper.

2) As a critical thinking exercise, have students think about how our personal experiences alter category boundaries and prototypes that define the groups. They can use examples to support their answer. Ask them to think about several concepts, including a. The costs and benefits associated with having flexible categories that change with experience. b. The importance of being able to alter category boundaries in our technologically advanced world. c. The relationship between cultural norms and category formation.

3) Cognitive flexibility is a more valuable feature for animals that live in changing environments, compared to those that live in constant environments. Humans have several techniques that lend to their increased flexibility and variability, including sexual reproduction. Have students discuss the importance of cognitive flexibility for humans compared to other animals. a. In the discussion, ask students for more examples of behaviors or characteristics that humans possess that allow for increased cognitive flexibility and the costs of not being flexible. b. This could lead to a conversation about evolutionary adaptations to selective pressures.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) Would you expect the reaction time for the prototype patterns or the new variants to be faster?

Answer: The reaction time to the prototype patterns should be faster than the reaction time to the new variants, if participants do in fact abstract the prototype from the old variants presented.

2) What might it suggest if you were trying to decide what the rules were for classifying the patterns as As or Bs during the training phase?

Answer: This might suggest that feedback allows us to monitor our ability to categorize and classify information. Since this was an abstract task, not a concrete one, it was harder to determine the defining features of pattern A compared to pattern B. 3) How would our ability to form prototypes be affected if we had multiple options to choose from rather than two?

Answer: Having multiple options and not just two would make it more difficult to determine the group membership for each pattern. This may have led to closer analysis of the patterns, therefore increasing the overall reaction times, but the prototypical patterns still should have had the faster reaction times.

4) What was the purpose of the initial training phase in the Prototype CogLab? Answer: The initial training phase gave the participant feedback as to what was categorized as an A pattern or a B pattern. If there was no feedback correct or incorrect, each trial would have been a random guess, and reaction times would not have differed.

5) How might a medical doctor use prototypes when making a speedy diagnosis?

Answer: When a doctor is trying to decide what illness a person has, she asks about the presence or absence of symptoms. She may want to decide if an infection is viral or bacterial because the treatment is very different for the two categories of infections. There are typical symptoms for each illness and the closer a person’s symptoms are to the prototypical ones, the faster a diagnosis can be made.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) Try to extend the idea of prototype to an everyday concept such as “college or university student.” What might characterize the prototypical college or university student?

Answer: Some characteristics might be young or in early to late 20s, wears jeans, carries backpack and books, does not have much money, and likes to listens to popular music.

2) How is the Prototype CogLab related to the Categorical Perception - Identification CogLab? Answer: The endpoints of a continuum are easiest to identify, meaning we make fewer errors and take less time to do so because these endpoints are the central prototypes or the most salient member of the category.

Advanced Questions 1) What kinds of cognitive work might prototypes be useful for?

Answer: Prototypes might aid in classifying newly encountered objects, for example, if it looks like a variant of a prototype, it probably belongs to that prototype’s class. Prototypes might also be used to make judgments about how good of an example a particular object is. Objects that do not resemble the prototype very much are poor examples, and objects that do are good examples.

2) Discuss what might it suggest if small children and babies form categories?

Answer: If small children and babies form categories, it might suggest an innate ability to form categories. This further suggests that forming categories allows for quick or important decisions, like safe or unsafe, poisonous or not poisonous, or other decisions that might affect our survival rates.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss some of the dangers of using prototypes in social situations.

Answer: Prototypes can be seen as stereotypes in the social environment. Stereotypes can help or hinder our ability to make cognitive decisions. They may allow us to make a quick decision about what to do when we are in social situations, but we could also make more errors. Errors in a cognitive task may not matter, but errors in social situations might hurt someone’s feelings or put us in dangerous situations that we might not have expected.

2) Discuss how we classify objects or events according to the main models (prototype and exemplar) discussed in the text.

Answer: The main models are prototype and exemplar. The prototype model suggests we find the most typical member of a group and then compare further observations to that member. The prototype may also be an overall average for the group’s observations. The exemplar model suggests comparing the new item with several examples of each category to see where it might fit best.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Classification of objects is a complex, but vital part of our everyday lives. Its complexity lends to the fact that some people, because of organic or inorganic brain damage, have trouble categorizing objects, like familiar faces or objects. Ask students to research some of the classification errors related to brain damage. a. Have students get into groups or discuss this phenomenon as an online discussion. b. When they are researching their examples, have them think about the importance of being able to classify objects or events and how it could affect one’s life if they could not do it.

2) As a group project, have students design a social cognition research proposal or design a test for stereotyping. When they are designing their proposals, have them consider a social situation where categorizations might have to be done quickly or based on little information. a. The proposals can be written up and submitted as a paper or discussed in the classroom or online forum. b. It is important that students formulate hypotheses from theoretical constructs that already exist.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) What characterizes a prototype? a. It has critical properties of a concept b. It is used to identify new objects c. It is a mental construct d. all of the above (d) 2) Posner and Keele found it easiest for participants to classify a. new variants of a prototype. b. previously seen variants of a prototype. c. new variants of a prototype. d. previously seen and new variants of a prototype. (b) 3) In Posner and Keele’s experiment on prototypes, what is the likely process participants used to classify never-before-seen variants of a concept? a. By examining all previously seen variants stored in memory b. By guessing c. By comparing them to constructed prototypes d. By using template matching (c)

Chapter 10: Visual Imagery Chapter Outline Demonstration: Experiencing Imagery 1. IMAGERY IN THE HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY a. Early Ideas about Imagery b. Imagery and the Cognitive Revolution Method: Paired-Associate Learning 2. IMAGERY AND PERCEPTION: DO THEY SHARE THE SAME MECHANISMS? a. Kosslyn’s Mental Scanning Experiments Method/Demonstration: Mental Scanning b. The Imagery Debate: Is Imagery Spatial or Propositional? c. Comparing Imagery and Perception d. Is There a Way to Resolve the Imagery Debate?

TEST YOURSELF 10.1 3. IMAGERY AND THE BRAIN a. Imagery Neurons in the Brain b. Brain Imaging c. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation d. Neuropsychological Case Studies e. Conclusions From the Imagery Debate 4. USING IMAGERY TO IMPROVE MEMORY a. Placing Images at Locations Demonstration: Method of Loci b. Associating Images With Words 5. SOMETHING TO CONSIDER: IMAGERY AND FOOD CRAVING TEST YOURSELF 10.2 CogLabs: Link Word; Mental Rotation

Web Links Websites Introduction to Mental Images An overview of imagery and some research and examples. http://oldwww.cs.umu.se/tdb/kurser/TDBC12/HT-97/LABBAR/6-LABGRP/menta.doc.

An Introduction to the Science and Philosophy of Mental Imagery Mental imagery discussed from a broader perspective. Topics such as fantasy and the imaginary are explained in terms of memory, perception, and thought. http://www.imagery-imagination.com/mipia.htm Visual Spatial Test A test designed to assess your ability to manipulate objects in your head. http://www.queendom.com/tests/access_page/index.htm?idRegTest=1118 Mental Imagery A chapter detailing the history of research on mental imagery. Has an excellent bibliography at the end. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-imagery/ The Physiological Basis of Visual Imagery A journal article giving a detailed description of the physiological processes involved in visual imagery and visual perception. http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~kwn/Kosslyn_pdfs/2004Ganis_CogBrainRes20_BrainArea s.pdf Mental Imagery: Theories and Experiments Dozens of links to research on mental imagery. http://www.imagery-imagination.com The Effects of Mental Imagery on Athletic Performance A review of research supporting the role of mental imagery in improving athletic performance. http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/psychology/health_psychology/mentalimagery.html Method of Loci How to perform the method of loci to improve your memory. http://www.studygs.net/memory/memloci.htm Pegword Technique How to use the pegword technique. http://www.memory-improvement-tips.com/remembering-lists.html

Videos Alan Baddeley: Visual Imagery (Time: 4:50) Baddlely discusses his experiences and ideas of visual imagery. http://youtu.be/XRma8PPD1oE Mental Imagery, Cognitive Science, Lund University (Time: 4:59) A brief overview of the use of mental imagery including an interesting eye tracking experiment to explore imagery. Also included are possible applications. http://youtu.be/DOLO0TmdhnQ Hemispatial/Visual Neglect Patients A couple of segments exploring hemispatial/visual neglect in patients. http://youtu.be/ymKvS0XsM4w (Time: 3:18) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4FhZs-m7hA (Time: 5:48) Peg Word Mnemonic (Time: 2:37) Gordon Bower of Stanford University discusses the peg word mnemonic. http://youtu.be/ObE3h8ICXOQ How to Improve your Memory with the Memory Palace Technique (Time: 1:26) A repackaging of the Method of Loci into the Memory Palace Technique. http://youtu.be/PIg73ppoVZw Apps and/or Software rOtal (Free, Android) Practice your mental rotation skills using this app. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=binaura.bnc.rOtal Mirror read (Free, Apple) An app that allows you to explore reading and processing mirror images. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mirror-read/id394381695?mt=8 Guided Imagery ($1.99, Apple) An interesting use of “imagery” that is usually not discussed within a cognitive psychology course, but fits with the ideas associated with mental images. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/guided-imagery/id384322790?mt=8

Discussion Questions 1. After a review of the chapter material, have students report similarities and differences between imagery and perception. Develop separate lists for the similarities and differences to allow for a comprehensive visual comparison.

Ask students the following questions: - Can we develop a comprehensive theory, model, or statement to encompass both the overlap and separation between imagery and perception?

- What is learned about the importance of imagery in human cognition?

- How would our thinking change if we could not form mental pictures?

- Would our perception change if we could not form mental pictures?

2. This chapter introduces organizational techniques (method of loci, pegword) to illustrate how imagery enhances memory. Begin by having students extract the basic principles of why these techniques work (e.g., how they encourage organization of the information to be remembered, how they rely on memorable rhymes or distinctive images and associations, etc.). Then, guide them toward creating a “new technique” of their own.

You could extend this discussion question into an application project where students are asked to try out the technique or teach it to someone else and assess its effectiveness for enhancing memory for some information.

3. Have students describe the findings of Paivio’s work on memory of concrete nouns (such as “hotel” or “garden”) and abstract nouns (such as “honor” and “knowledge”). Have students analyze these findings in terms of the dual coding theory (the idea that concrete nouns can be represented in memory both pictorially and verbally, while abstract nouns possess only a verbal representation). How does coding in terms of verbal and visual representations explain differences in abstract vs. concrete noun recall?

4. Remind students of the research findings that show the exceptional memory we have for pictures. Then have students reflect on and discuss why our memory for visual details might be poor even though, overall, our memory for images/pictures is very good.

Demonstrations 1. Demonstrate the mental-scanning task. Have students imagine a map of the U.S. and then ask them to mentally focus on the locations of Pennsylvania, Florida, and California. Ask them to imagine a dot moving from Pennsylvania to Florida. Note how long it takes to imagine this movement. Next, imagine the dot moving from Pennsylvania to California. Again, note how long it takes to imagine the movement. Present an actual map of the U.S. and discuss the concept that there is a spatial correspondence between imagery and perception.

2. Have students take a separate piece of paper and instruct them to write a description of an object (without naming it). Have them trade descriptions with a neighbor to see if the other student can identify the object. Return the descriptions to their writers, and then instruct students to create a visual representation of the object below the written description of it. Discuss how these representations differ in terms of the information they contain. Have students explain how the concepts of propositional representations and depictive representations apply to this demonstration.

3. Demonstrate how imagery is affected by the size of an object in a person’s visual field (text reference: Kosslyn, 1978). Following Kosslyn’s procedure, have them imagine two animals of different sizes standing next to each other for each trial (e.g., an elephant and a cat, a rabbit and a ladybug, a whale and a monkey). Ask students to answer a question about one of the animals (e.g., “Does the cat have whiskers?”) on each trial, sometimes about the small animal and other times the large animal. Ask students to estimate the time it takes to answer each question or have them make reaction time judgments between two questions (e.g., which took longer to answer?).

Graph the data. A pattern should emerge from the data that questions about the larger animals are answered faster. Discuss the significance of these results.

4. Research shows that when using cognitive maps we generally make some consistent errors.

These errors include aligning information North-South and East-West, making right angle alignments, and misestimating distance between two locations based on the number of intervening points.

In the first part of this demonstration, have students “draw” the United States (just the contiguous lower 48 states). Collect the maps and note some general results you might see. First, students will generally be more accurate and detailed in drawing their home state (and neighboring states) than more distant states. Second, students generally will annex a substantial portion of Canada between Michigan and New York as many will draw a “straight line” across the northern border from Washington to New York. Such a pattern is consistent with students’ misperception that all parts of Canada are north of the United States. Many states may also have right angled borders which are not consistent with the actual borders.

Another question you can ask students shows how we misestimate distance between two locations based on the number of intervening points. Ask students which distance is farther Texarkana, TX to El Paso TX (≈ 813 miles) or Texarkana, TX to Albert Lea, MN (≈ 809) or Chicago, IL (≈ 791 miles). Most students will probably answer that Texarkana, TX to Albert Lea, MN or Chicago, IL is farther because to get to either of the northern cities must pass through a few states whereas from Texarkana to El Paso one never leaves the state of Texas.

Finally, to demonstrate a north-south alignment, ask students to guess the first foreign city south of Detroit, MI? Many students will answer with cities in the Caribbean, South America, etc.

Most will not correctly guess Windsor, Ontario, Canada demonstrating again the alignment of locations north-south.

Other examples can also be created for east-west alignment. For example, ask students what city is further east: Miami on the Atlantic Ocean coast or Lima, Peru on the Pacific Ocean coast? The correct answer is Lima.

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Link Word Introduction The link word method is a mnemonic device that aids memory by linking two words together through visual imagery. It is based on the finding that when people form an interactive image between two concepts, the one item becomes an excellent cue for retrieving the second item. It is a popular technique that can be used when learning a new language. When using the link word technique, it is best to use concrete words, like nouns, in an association, and the images should be interactive and not solitary in your mind. The more novel an interactive image, the more likely you will remember the association.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Link word is a type of mnemonic that uses imagery to aid memory for specific items, like learning a language. Other types of mnemonics also use organization to help remember the serial order of things, like the colors in a rainbow. Have students explore different types of mnemonics and decide which technique is best suited for specific memory tasks. a. Have them think about whether personal variables might be related to a mnemonic preference. For example, visual learners use more interactive imagery than organization mnemonics. b. Ask them to provide examples for each mnemonic technique they explore.

2) Have students design a research proposal to test which mnemonic technique leads to a greater accuracy rate for remembering items in a serial order. Have them compare a visual technique, like method of loci, to an organization technique, like the acrostic or first letter. a. You can have them write up their proposal in an APA-formatted paper or discuss it in class. b. If the methodology is simple enough, you can take a class period and test the students in the class.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) What kind of new information would the link word method help you remember?

Answer: Link word helps you learn foreign language vocabulary.

2) If you were trying to remember the Turkish word for “very” was “chok,” how could you use the link word method to help you?

Answer: Since the word “chok” sounds like “choke” in English, you could make a link between “choke” and “very.” For example, if I were choking, I might turn very red.

3) How could you remember the word link associating the Spanish word “carta” and its English translation “letter”?

Answer: If you were trying to remember what the Spanish word for letter was, you would first retrieve the interactive image (“letter in cart,” from “letter”), then use the image to derive the keyword (“cart,” from “letter in cart”). You can use the keyword to derive the foreign word (“carta” from “cart”).

4) Do you think that providing the participant with the visual link might have affected the results of the experiment?

Answer: Providing the participants the visual imagery link could have positively skewed the results. It saved the person from having to think up images for all 50 words, and it provided a suitable image that some people might have had trouble doing. A bad visual image would not aid memory, but it might detract from it.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) Give an example of a major confound or extraneous variable in the Link Word CogLab. Answer: A major confound is one’s ability to speak French. If you already know the language, you would not have to form links to the French words to be remembered.

2) Why do imagery mnemonics use concrete items as visual images, like a goat on a truck?

Answer: Concrete items, like nouns, are easier to visualize compared to abstract ideas so they are used in interactive mnemonic strategies. One suggestion when forming an image is to make it novel or unique, so that it stands out in the memory stores. For example, if the goat you pictured was pink and the Chevy truck was all dented, the image would be more novel, increasing your ability to remember the word “chevre.”

Advanced Questions 1) What do visual mnemonic strategies, like link word, suggest about memory storage?

Answer: The link word strategy is based on theories of information storage and retrieval developed by cognitive psychologists. Mnemonics create associations between items to be remembered and visual cues to improve the ability to store new material. When it comes to the retrieval of information, the visual associations are the cues that allow for easy access.

2) What kind of mnemonic or memory trick is the link word method similar to?

Answer: It is similar to the method of loci, only the association is between a location and the item to be remembered. Another technique that it is similar to might be the pegword method, where there is an association between visual images that rhyme with one another. The rhyming part is the, “one is a bun, two is a shoe, and three is a tree.” The words to be remembered are connected to the rhyming parts with visual images. For example, if you are remembering a grocery list, “one is a bun is milk” might create an image in your head of your mother pouring milk over a hamburger bun.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss how mnemonics help aid memory.

Answer: Mnemonics are strategies that help improve memory through associations and improved organization. Some use visual imagery to associate a new concept with a familiar concept. Mnemonics are more effective when the images are seen as interacting with one another, as in the link word method. Organizational strategies help store the information until it is retrieved for a task. The better organized the memories are, the easier it is to retrieve the information.

2) Discuss possible criticisms of the use of mnemonics to aid memory.

Answer: Some researchers complain that the traditional approach to improving memory is too simplistic and suggests that there is a single solution for everyone. Improving one’s memory is a more complex task and needs a more holistic approach. Situational factors, like mood, fatigue, and attention span, also play major roles in our ability to remember items on demand.

Mnemonics do not consider these factors.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Before discussing the Link Word CogLab as a whole class, put students in groups of 5-6.

Ask each group of students to share their results with the rest of the group and discuss how their performance was related to using the link word method. a. Group members should discuss things like initial knowledge of French and ability to focus their attention on the lab, as well add other confounds. b. Also have each student talk about his or her experience with using the mnemonic, if it was easy or hard to do, if they thought it helped them remember the English words, or if they would use it again.

2) Some students already use mnemonic devices to help them remember class material. For the different mnemonic devices, have students share some of their memory tricks that have been unsuccessful as well as unsuccessful. Here is a common one that you can introduce them to: Ken Put Chicken On Four Garlic Sandwiches for Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species. a. You can do this in the classroom or as an online discussion. You may want to give the students a chance to think of some of their techniques over a couple of days. Putting them on the spot may not produce the results.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) What kind of image is most effective to use in the link word? a. A large image b. An interactive image c. A colorful image d. A pleasant image (b) 2) If you were trying to remember that “cheval” was the French word for “horse,” what image would help you the most? a. A shovel (sounds like cheval) b. A horse and a shovel c. A horse digging a hole with the shovel d. Any of these images will help (c) 3) Link word is a good tool when you are trying to remember a. a list of items. b. a second language. c. information in your short-term memory. d. information in your sensory memory. (b)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Mental Rotation Introduction Every day, we have to map, orient around, and recognize objects in our environment quickly and efficiently. When asked to recognize objects that have been rotated from the normal or usual view, our reaction time increases with the angle of rotation. This suggests that it takes time to mentally rotate an image and implies that mental images are much like real images, inferring an analog mental representation code. The Mental Rotation CogLab allows students to get hands-on experience with the concept of mental rotation.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Have students look through the research and pick a topic related to mental rotation or spatial processing. a. Have your students write a short APA-formatted paper on their topic. b. If their topic is large enough (like gender differences), have them go through a metaanalysis and write a summary paper on the overall findings.

2) As a critical thinking project, have students design their own mental rotation experiment using behavioral analysis instead of paper/pencil tests. This can be done in groups or as individual projects. a. You can have your students write an informal proposal of their design or have them collect data from the class if the project is not too intensive. b. If a student is knowledgeable about computer games and simulations, he or she could incorporate that into the design.

3) The mental rotation experiment used 3D block stimuli. Ask your students to think about 2D vs. 3D mental rotation. Pose the question that since we live in a 3D world, perhaps we are better at manipulating objects in 3D views. a. You can turn this into a paper assignment if you have them look to the literature for possible theories and explanations.

4) Most students will have had experience with GPS (Global Positioning Systems) units.

Some units allow for different perspectives which may be in a different orientation than the direction being travelled.

Have students discuss their experiences with GPS and some of the issues they may have experienced. They can also explore the literature on GPS use and discuss their experiences relative to the literature as well as the general results of the CogLab study.

5) Making mental maps of important places like our home or our workplace is something that we appear to do automatically. Have students draw a map of a room in their house, such as the kitchen. Ask them to put in the appliances: fridge, stove, microwave, or toaster. After they have finished their drawings, have them discuss the exercise. This can be done as a class or in groups. a. Have them discuss how they determined where things were in their maps, for example, did they find themselves mentally walking through the room or making a mental picture of one thing at a time? b. You can have them take the picture home before you start discussing them, so they can determine which things they got wrong or out of place. Ask them about the kinds of errors they made and why they made them. c. This could lead into a paper about mental representation of images.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) When doing the mental rotations experiment, which rotation degree should have been easier or faster to answer? (You may want to provide the rotation degrees in case they have forgotten them: 0, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100, and 120).

Answer: For both the same and mirror images, the 0 degree rotation should have been the easiest, meaning it had the lowest reaction time while the objects that rotated 120 degrees should take the longest processing time.

2) Do you think it would be a good idea for a person who is just starting to lift free weights in the gym to have their partners watch for proper form by standing in front of them or beside them? Use the results from the Mental Rotation CogLab to explain your answer.

Answer: According to the Mental Rotation CogLab, it may take longer to spot errors in form if your partner were standing in front of you (180 degrees) compared to standing beside you (0 degrees).

3) Your best friend emails you some of her vacation pictures from Egypt. You are looking through a couple of them when you get to one that seems odd. As you stare at it, it takes you a couple of seconds to figure out that the picture needs to be rotated. Once you rotate the picture, you recognize your friend standing in front of a building immediately. Why did it take you time to recognize your friend’s picture?

Answer: When the picture was rotated, your reaction time was slowed down because of the way we mentally represent images. You were rotating it in your mind, which took some time. When the picture was put upright again, your reaction time was quick for recognition.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) What was (were) the independent variable(s) in the mental rotation experiment? Name the levels of the IV(s). What was the dependent variable?

Answer: One independent variable is the degree of rotation (the levels are 0, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100, and120). Another independent variable is categorization of the shapes as same or different. The dependent variable is reaction time, measured in milliseconds.

2) If a researcher wanted to see if reaction times were significantly different from one another when the rotation degree changed, what specific analysis could be performed?

Answer: There are several possible analyses that could be performed. The first analysis might be a 7 x 2 within-subject ANOVA with the variables of degree of rotation (0, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100, and 120 degree rotations) and categorization (same and different). One could also examine trend for the variable of degree of rotation.

3) Why is the dependent measure in this experiment reaction time and not the number correct?

Answer: Usually memory experiments use the dependent measure of number correct, but other cognitive experiments use reaction time as a correlate for complexity or processing. The longer it takes to reach the correct answer, the more processing our brains have to do. This is also why some experiments do not allow you to continue unless a criterion has been set at the beginning.

Advanced Questions 1) Why might individuals who are fluent in American Sign Language have lower reaction times in this experiment, even when the shapes are rotated?

Answer: Individuals who are fluent in ASL read the hand motions of others from a 180 degree rotation. This practice effect would lead to faster reaction times in recognizing objects or hand gestures.

2) After doing this lab, what suggestions would you have for someone who was learning how to line dance? Would you suggest she buy a tape or go to a class with a real instructor?

Answer: The first suggestion would be to go to a real person, so he could move slowly enough for her to copy. Another suggestion would be to have the instructor turn around, so he is not facing her when they go through the motions of the dance moves.

Discussion Questions 1) Laboratory experiments, like the CogLabs, are usually considered basic designs in which to test and develop theoretical constructs. Discuss how a researcher could apply the results of this mental rotation study to real-world situations.

Answer: Basic designs usually use paper/pencil or computer testing scenarios, whereas applied studies use real-life situations, like trying to find a specific car in a crowded parking lot when you view it from different angles or orientation in a mall or set of woods when you get turned around and have to find your way out to a certain exit point. Basic and applied designs work together.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) As a research project or group project, have students look through the mental rotation literature to see what other variables are being explored in relation to mental rotation, like practice effects, specific types of mental rotation, or age related effects. a. Have them go into a PsychInfo or PsychArticles search engine (or something similar) and type in “mental rotation” as a search term. A number of articles explore mental rotation and spatial ability. b. If this is an online course or you use an online discussion board, have students look on the Internet for mental rotation tasks and games that others can try out. c. As a group project, have the group write an APA-formatted paper on a specific topic with mental rotation as the general theme.

2) As an online project or in classroom groups, have students discuss specific jobs or situations when superior mental rotation abilities are required or good to have. a. Have them think about occupations first, like surgeon, race car driver, pilot, scuba, or commercial diver. b. If they get stuck with situations, have them think about orientation in novel environments, like hunting, driving in a big city for the first time, or having to take a new route home because of construction.

1.

You can also have them think about what kinds of cues they use when orienting themselves, like landmarks (buildings, street signs, stores, the sun, etc.) or distance measures (blocks or miles).

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) What amount of time did Shepard and Metzler find was necessary to mentally rotate a figure through 50 degrees? a. Less than a second b. More than a second c. A second d. None of the above (c) 2) As the number of degrees rotation goes up in the Shepard and Metzler experiment, what happens to the amount of time to look for a match? a. It goes up b. It stays the same c. I goes down d. It goes up, then down. (a) 3) How is mental rotation studied? a. By asking participants to report on their mental experiences b. With experiments c. Using introspection d. It cannot be studied objectively (b)

Chapter 11: Language Chapter Outline 1. WHAT IS LANGUAGE? a. The Creativity of Human Language b. The Universal Need to Communicate With Language c. Studying Language 2. PERCEIVING PHONEMES, WORDS, AND LETTERS a. Components of Words b. How Perceiving Sound and Letters Is Affected by Meaning Method: The Word Superiority Effect 3. UNDERSTANDING WORDS a. The Word Frequency Effect Demonstration: The Lexical Decision Task Method: Eye Movements in Reading b. Lexical Ambiguity TEST YOURSELF 11.1 4. UNDERSTANDING SENTENCES a. Semantics and Syntax Method: The Event-Related Potential and Language b. Understanding Sentences: Parsing c. The Syntax-First Approach to Parsing d. The Interactionist Approach to Parsing TEST YOURSELF 11.2 5. UNDERSTANDING TEXT AND STORIES a. Making Inferences b. Situation Models 6. PRODUCING LANUGAGE: CONVERSATIONS a. Taking the Other Person Into Account b. Syntactic Coordination Method: Syntactic Priming 7. SOMETHING TO CONSIDER: CULTURE, LANGUAGE, AND COGNITION TEST YOURSELF 11.3 CogLabs: Categorical Perception—Discrimination (See Chapter 3); Categorical Perception— Identification (See Chapter 3); Lexical Decision (see Chapter 9); Neighborhood Size Effect (See Chapter 5); Word Superiority

Web Links Websites Psychology of Language: Resources Over a dozen sources that relate to the study of psychology and language. http://www.questia.com/library/sociology-andanthropology/language/linguistics/psychology-of-language.jsp Lexical Priming An article describing mediated and three step lexical priming. http://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03195282 Parse a Sentence An interactive site that parses single sentences you submit. The parser separates phrases and labels words with parts-of-speech tags. http://www.link.cs.cmu.edu/link/submit-sentence-4.html Garden-Path Sentences Definitions as well as several examples of garden-path sentences and related principles. http://grammar.about.com/od/fh/g/gardenpathterm.htm Linguistics, Psycholinguistics, and Neurolinguistics Numerous links related to psycholinguistics, some of which in turn link to interactive applets and demonstrations. http://psych.wisc.edu/courses/language/links.html Psychology, Language, and Communication A well-organized page that contains 26 links to research and activities related to psychology and language. http://www.vanguard.edu/psychology/amoebaweb/language-and-communication/ Sentence Modeling and Parsing An in-depth resource for students doing research on psycholinguistics and sentence parsing. http://www.cslu.ogi.edu/HLTsurvey/ch3node8.html Situation Models Well-organized information about theory and research with situation models. http://www.nd.edu/~memory/

Videos Psychology and Language (Time: 2:38) “Kanzi” demonstrates his “language” with the assistance of a lexigram system. The video could be used to start a conversation regarding the language capability of other animals relative to humans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRM7vTrIIis Language: Crash Course Psychology #16 (Time: 10:01) In this episode of Crash Course Psychology, Hank explores language including many of the topics and concepts presented in the chapter, but done in a colloquial fashion that students may enjoy. http://youtu.be/s9shPouRWCs Phonemic Restoration Two videos exploring the Phonemic Restoration effect. The first one is similar to the “legislature” example discussed in the textbook. The second one is not as evident and may need to be played twice. http://youtu.be/UlJs24j3i8E (Time: 0:23 ) http://youtu.be/ZyvyGMkzNQc (Time: 0:45) The Birth of a Word (Time: 19:52) Deb Roy wired his house with videocameras to capture nearly 250,000 hours of audio (140,000) and video (90,000) from his infant son’s first 3 years of life in order to understand how his son learned language. Roy’s research presentation chronicle’s how his son’s utterance of "gaga" morphed into "water." Other interesting results are discussed including analyses of “conversations” in the media including social media. https://www.ted.com/talks/deb_roy_the_birth_of_a_word Noam Chomsky: Language's Greatest Mysteries (Time: 3:02) Chomsky contemplates and shares his thoughts on the unanswerable questions of linguistics. http://youtu.be/Zg1bHzBoggk Lexical Ambiguity and Paraprosdokians (Time: 6:47) A series of video clips from a variety of media that use lexical ambiguity and other language related effects for artistic and comedic effect. (See Demonstration #4 above regarding a possible activity associated with the video). http://youtu.be/4T6_RJ-i8pM Broca's Aphasia (Time: 2:35) A patient manifesting symptoms of Broca's aphasia. http://youtu.be/gocIUW3E-go Wernicke's Aphasia (Time: 1:57) A patient manifesting symptoms of Wernicke's aphasia. http://youtu.be/dKTdMV6cOZw

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (Time: 8:32) A look at the Spair-Whorf hypothesis exploring the diversity of language between various peoples of the world including the discussion of the identification of colors, similar to what is discussed in the textbook. http://youtu.be/NAy-qkRP-vo Apps and/or Software SmallTalk Phonemes (Free, Apple) An app showing the tongue and lip movements for different English language phonemes. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/smalltalk-phonemes/id384170714?mt=8 Word Play Jokes (Free, Android) An app containing jokes and puns based on the peculiarities of language including ambiguity. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.appfab.jokes.wordplay

Discussion Questions 1. Discuss how taking the context of a statement into account and making inferences and assumptions aids in our comprehension of indirect statements and lexically ambiguous statements.

2. Discuss how high- and low-frequency stimuli produce differential results in a lexical decision task. Ask students what they might predict of the reading rate produced when they read a text passage from a law journal, a science fiction novel, or a first-grade reading text.

3. Discuss the syntactic ambiguity present in a “garden-path” sentence. Give students an example of a garden-path sentence, such as, “Before they ate, the bread was sliced.” Discuss how the principle of late closure can lead to incorrect parsing. Ask students how understanding of this phenomenon could help improve their writing skills.

4. Homonyms are words spelled and pronounced the same, but differ in meaning (e.g., BANK or ARMS). Heterographs are words that have the same pronunciation, but have different meanings and are spelled differently (e.g., THEIR and THERE; FORE and FOUR). Heteronyms are words that are spelled similarly, but have different pronunciations and different meanings. (e.g., BASS (rhymes with gas) – 1. a fish; BASS (rhymes with ace) – 2. the sound property). Have students discuss how the properties of these different types of words may influence recognition or speed of processing. You can also refer students to the ambiguity literature for additional context and background.

Demonstrations 1. When introducing how we perceive separate words in spoken sentences, present to the class a taped sample of someone speaking a foreign language. Highlight how the speech signal is continuous with no physical breaks in the signal. Present Figure 3.13 from the textbook (reproduced below) or a similar example of physical energy produced by conversational speech.

Discuss speech segmentation. Explain how speech segmentation occurs for a familiar language but not an unfamiliar language.

Present the following example, which might represent a speech signal: didyouseethatgameontvlastnighthowtheywonitatthebuzzer Discuss that when we learn language, we learn meaning as well as rules for individual words, such as which sounds are more likely to occur at the beginning or end of words.

2. Present to the class a passage of narrative text from a novel. Discuss the concepts of text processing, including coherence, anaphoric inference, instrument inference, and causal inference.

Ask students to dissect the text for examples of each.

3. Present to the class an audio or video example of a conversation, perhaps using a segment of a popular movie. Discuss the given-new contract and syntactic priming. Replay the conversation as necessary, asking students to dissect the conversation for examples of each point.

4. Have students review news websites, newspapers or other sources to identify any headlines, advertisements, or writings that may contain unintended ambiguity or imprecision (see also the video Lexical Ambiguity and Paraprosdokians (Time: 6:47) above). Many examples can be found when the length of the writing is limited. Students should identify the possible interpretations of the writing and explain how the interpretations can be understood using the concepts found in chapter 11.

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Categorical Perception—Discrimination See Chapter 3.

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Categorical Perception—Identification See Chapter 3.

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Lexical Decision See Chapter 9.

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Neighborhood Size Effect See Chapter 5.

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Word Superiority Introduction Identifying objects without some kind of contextual information is difficult to do. When we learn to read, we often look to the other letters and words to help identify letters and the sounds they make. When letters are better recognized in the context of a word, it is called the word superiority effect. Other CogLabs suggest that our memory systems have limited resources and the recall of letters presented alone should be better than when they are presented with other letters, but this is not the case. These results suggest that context is very important for some cognitive activities, like reading.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) As a critical thinking project, have students explore the neuropsychological evidence for the word superiority effect, including lesion studies or brain imaging research. Ask them to think about the implications of finding specific brain regions related to specific letter or word recognition. a. You could give them prosopagnosia or inability to recognize familiar faces, as a comparative example.

2) McClelland and Rumelhart’s (1981) connectionist model helps explain some aspects of the word superiority effect but not all cases. Have students explore this model, including its strengths, weaknesses, and differences from other connectionist models. a. Have students write an APA-formatted paper reviewing McClelland and Rumelhart’s model. b. Also get them to explore revisions to this model and compare it with the original model.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) What might it suggest if your recall for letters within words was better than for those in isolation?

Answer: This would suggest a word superiority effect.

2) What do you think a sentence superiority effect is?

Answer: A sentence superiority effect might suggest that a word is best recognized when it is within a sentence, rather than on its own.

3) What kind of processing does the word superiority effect suggest, top-down (conceptual) or bottom-up (perceptual)?

Answer: A Word Superiority effect suggests a top-down processing of the entire word, which then helps us recognize the letters within the word. Bottom-up processing would be present if the smaller units, or letters, were better recognized when they were isolated rather than within a word.

4) How does the word superiority effect seem to contradict what you know about the constraints of human memory?

Answer: Other CogLabs suggest that the human memory is limited in resources. Short-term memory can hold approximately 5-9 items, so it would suggest that we should have better recall for a single letter rather a number of letters.

5) Using a “contextual cue” explanation, explain how the results of this lab parallel the fact that you have trouble recognizing your dentist outside of his office?

Answer: The results of the Word Superiority CogLab and the inability to recognize your dentist outside of his office both suggest that memory abilities are related to strong context cues that help us retrieve information. If there is no context or a different context, then recognition is adversely affected.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) How could you test to see if the length of the word that the letter is put into has an effect on the word superiority effect?

Answer: If you realized that short-term memory can hold about 5-9 items, then you could manipulate the length of the word. You could use five-, seven-, and nine-letter words compared to letters in isolation to see if there is a performance difference.

2) If you wanted to test for significant differences in recall rates for the above example, what kind of analyses would you perform? What would be the independent variable and the levels of that variable?

Answer: Since you had one dependent variable, number of letters recalled, and one independent variable, word length with four levels, you would run a one-way ANOVA. You would compare the mean number of letters recalled when in isolation, when in a five-letter word, a seven-letter word, and a nine-letter word.

Advanced Questions 1) Explain the differences between top-down and bottom-up recognition of objects and how this relates to the Word Superiority CogLab. Answer: Top-down recognition is theory or conceptually driven and relies on more expectations and experiences to guide our ability to recognize items. Bottom-up or perceptual recognition occurs when we observe the individual units first and then use that information to recognize the item. On a daily basis, we do both types of recognition continuously. The Word Superiority CogLab suggests that top-down processing occurs when we read.

2) Do you think that the letter “s” in isolation, or within the word “island,” would be recognized faster? Do you think it matters that the “s” in island is silent?

Answer: The “s” in island should be recognized faster, according to the Word Superiority effect.

It should not matter that the “s” is silent because recognition would be for the word, not the sound of the letters.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss how parallel distributed processing can help explain the word superiority effect.

Answer: Connectionism or PDP models suggest that cognitive processes can be explained in terms of networks that link together nodes or units. When we see features in a word, these features activate letter units. The letter units will activate a word unit, which helps one recognize individual letters quickly. Activation strength also increases for words that a person is familiar with or has experience with.

2) Discuss how overactive top-down processing might hinder the ability to learn a new language.

Answer: When you learn a new language, you are exposed to words that will not be familiar to you or seem like non-words. Overactive top-down processing may hinder your ability to read the unfamiliar words, and you may even replace an unfamiliar word with one that is more familiar to you. For example, if you were learning French, and you came across the words le livre (= the book), you may read it as liver because your top-down processing recognizes liver but not livre.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Sometimes it is hard to get the results that the CogLab hypothesizes because of the low sample size. If you have set up a group in CogLab for your course, use the group data and have students run statistical analyses, or you can run the analyses and have them address the questions. They can work in groups or have online discussions about the results. Ask the students to think about the following items: a. Did the results support the hypothesis? b. What further information could have been collected that may have been a factor in performance? These could include subject variables or performance factors, like stress or fatigue.

2) Context effect can be found in a number of areas, including social situations. Sometimes we have a bad memory for something or someone when out of context. Have students think about some funny examples where they had trouble remembering something because it was out of context. This can include people like seeing your professor dressed casually at the grocery store, bar, or a local coffee shop. The exercise can be done in small groups within the classroom or as an online discussion. a. As well as the example, have them think about how they handled the lapse in memory, especially if for a person. For example, did they ask the person questions in an attempt to figure out where they know her from?

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) In which display is it easiest to recognize the letter “S”? a. SCOPE b. SEPCO c. S d. s (a) 2) The word superiority effect illustrates the usefulness of what on letter recognition? a. Attention b. Short-term memory c. Perception d. Context (d) 3) The word superiority effect is surprising because a. more than one letter must be processed in order to recognize the target letter. b. most theories of letter recognition predict the opposite. c. the capacity of short-term memory is overloaded. d. iconic memory cannot be used. (a)

Chapter 12: Problem-Solving Chapter Outline 1. WHAT IS A PROBLEM? 2. THE GESTALT APPROACH: PROBLEM SOLVING AS REPRESENTATION AND RESTRUCTURING a. Representing A Problem In the Mind b. Restructuring and Insight Demonstration: Two Insight Problems c. Obstacles to Problem Solving Demonstration: The Candle Problem 3. MODERN RESEARCH ON PROBLEM SOLVING: THE INFORMATION-PROCESSING APPROACH a. Newell and Simon’s Approach Demonstration: Tower of Hanoi Problem b. The Importance of How a Problem Is Stated Demonstration: The Mutilated Checkerboard Problem Method: Think-Aloud Protocol TEST YOURSELF 12.1 4. USING ANALOGIES TO SOLVE PROBLEMS a. Analogical Transfer b. Analogical Problem Solving and the Duncker Radiation Problem Demonstration: Duncker’s Radiation Problem c. Analogical Encoding d. Analogy In the Real World Method: In Vivo Problem-Solving Research 5. HOW EXPERTS SOLVE PROBLEMS a. Differences Between How Experts and Novices Solve Problems b. Expertise Is Only an Advantage in the Expert’s Specialty 6. CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING a. What is Creativity? b. Practical Creativity c. Generating Ideas Demonstration: Creating an Object 7. SOMETHING TO CONSIDER: CREATIVITY, MENTAL ILLNESS, AND THE OPEN MIND TEST YOURSELF 12.2 CogLabs: None for this chapter.

Web Links Websites Problem-Solving Dozens of demonstrations and solutions to analytical problems. http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~bigopp/ProblemSolve.PDF Insight Definitions and origins of the term insight are described. http://www.ship.edu/%7Ecgboeree/insight.html The History of Gestalt Psychology Contributions of famous Gestalt psychologists. http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/gestalt.html Gestalt Psychology Dozens of links related to Gestalt psychology and problem-solving. http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~cfs/305_html/Gestalt/gestalt.html The Water-Jug Problem Students can review the rules of this puzzle, see the solution, and read a lecture about why it is important to the psychology of problem-solving. http://courses.washington.edu/basborch/mar8.pdf Information-Processing Approach An overview of the information-processing approach to the study of problem-solving that moves beyond Simon and Newell’s analysis. Additional references are provided as well. http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~segal/Information.htm Analogical Problem-Solving and Case-Based Reasoning Description of case-based reasoning, an artificial intelligence technique that solves problems based on known episodes. Limitations of the technique are included. http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/projects/HPKB/analogic.htm How Experts Differ from Novices E-chapter describing detailed research in the area of problem-solving. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=9853&page=31 Convergent and Divergent Thinking Definitions of the two terms. http://www.habermas.org/domdisc07.htm

Videos Types of Problems and Problem Solving Strategies (Time: 9:00) A video (and transcript) covering different types of problems as well as problem-solving strategies including such strategies as algorithms, heuristics, graphic representations, and the IDEAL Strategy. http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/types-of-problems-problem-solvingstrategies.html Functional Fixedness- Funny Examples (Time: 1:45) Humorous examples of overcoming functional fixedness. http://youtu.be/ksgaup4zqz0 Futurama and Keeler's Theorem (Time: 4:50) Although Keeler's theorem is not discussed in the text, it is vaguely reminiscent of the “Russian marriage problem” that is discussed. http://youtu.be/8M4dUj7vZJc How to Use Experts and When Not To (Time: 18:15) Experts are not always the best people to use to solve problems as the text suggests it is sometimes limiting and even dangerous. Noreena Hertz explores how expertise affects decision making for us all. https://www.ted.com/talks/noreena_hertz_how_to_use_experts_and_when_not_to Divergent Thinking (Time: 3:07) A short discussion of divergent thinking by Sir Ken Robinson. http://youtu.be/tnOnaKHZ3_k Removing a Cork from the Bottle Trick (Time: 1:44) Here is a video that led to the Odón’s device. http://youtu.be/uL1ovAYtKuQ Whose Line is it Anyway? Props (Time: 9:08) Comedians using props to create preinventive forms. http://youtu.be/1vAyF9VpeDo Autism- Toothpick Count (Time: 5:23) A scene from the move Rain Man depicting a person with savant syndrome. http://youtu.be/vqbXPfaN_VM

The Candle Problem (Time: 4:34) The first part of the video is a dynamic representation of Duncker’s candle problem. The latter half of the video discusses the implications on the way organizations motivate their employees and is irrelevant to the content of the chapter. http://youtu.be/PUKe55aZaYQ Two String Problem (Time: 22:08) A re-enactment of the “two string problem” experiment. http://vimeo.com/20540218 Die Hard 3: Jug Problem (Time: 1:33) Jugs Problem from the movie Die Hard 3 including problem and solution. http://youtu.be/BVtQNK_ZUJg Apps and/or Software Tower of Hanoi (0.99, Apple) An app that allows the user to solve the Tower of Hanoi Problem. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tower-of-hanoi-puzzle/id426632681?mt=8 Tower of Hanoi (Free, Android) An app that allows the user to solve the Tower of Hanoi Problem. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=es.jgames.hanoigame Jugs Problem (Free, Android) Similar to the Jugs problem discussed in the text, this app allows for many different variations and values. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sg.candyshop.game

Discussion Questions 1. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of having a novice vs. an expert redesign an everyday object. Relevant concepts and research in the text include functional fixedness, creative cognition, and surface feature vs. structural feature analysis. Discuss how the concepts of the Gestalt approach to problem-solving and analogies might apply to the experts’ problem-solving behavior.

To provide a specific context for the discussion that students might relate to, consider preparation for the SAT. High school students often take classes or multiple practice exams to help them prepare for or improve their scores on the SAT exam. Discuss how becoming an “expert” SAT test taker can enhance performance. You might select one section of the SAT test to focus on. For example, analogies are relevant to the text material, so you might provide students with a sample analogy that might appear on the SAT. Discuss how experts approach problems by looking for general principles that link one problem to another. How would this apply to practicing for the SAT? If your students are close to taking the GRE, you could modify this to focus on that instrument instead.

2. Insight (also described as the “a-ha” moment) often follows taking a break from a problem and has been experienced by most people. Ask students to share an example of how that has happened to them or someone they know. Ask them to compare the examples, looking for patterns or hints about what might be behind this process.

3. Ask students to generate solutions to a particular problem. (Many things will work here, including simple real-world problems like how to get a message to a friend across campus right away or showing students ambiguous objects, like unusual line drawings, for which they have to define possible functions.) Have students identify which of the solutions they would consider creative (you might use a continuum of creativity along which the solutions are judged). Then, using their data, ask them to look for similarities among the most creative solutions and to attempt a definition of creativity. What aspects of creativity can be defined? What aspects elude definition?

4. Everyday problem solving often times appears to be much more complex than what is sometimes examined in the laboratory. It sometimes appears that the elaborate processes described in the chapter are not necessarily those used outside of the laboratory. Often times it appears people use a more eclectic approach to problem solving by using components of the different strategies.

Similar to above, but with students identifying their own problem, have students identify and discuss a (significant) problem they have had to solve and the strategies used to solve it. They should describe in detail what the problem was, the strategies/processes used to solve the problem (incorporating the literature and ideas from the chapter) and what the solution was.

Demonstrations 1. This demonstration considers an exploration of functional fixedness, which occurs when the ideas people hold about an object’s function inhibit their ability to use the object for a different function. This suggests that “greater” fixedness will occur for objects with a familiar, welldefined function than those without a familiar function. Present students with a familiar object with a well-defined function as well as an unfamiliar (or unusual) object. Then, ask students, working individually, to write down uses for each object. After they complete this assignment, list their ideas for each object on the board. You might discuss the number of different ideas generated for each object and/or how creative the ideas are across your two lists. Do the lists reflect the idea that functional fixedness is a more influential obstacle toward generating “new uses” for the familiar object? If you are doing this demonstration prior to students having read the chapter, you could actually bring the required props (candle, box of tacks, matches, small corkboard) and have students work on the candle problem described in the text.

2. Have the class, as a group or in small groups, solve a problem through means-end analysis.

Ask students to do all of the following: - Define the problem space (including initial state, goal state, and intermediate states) and any operators.

- Create subgoals to navigate the way through the problem space.

- Discuss the efficiency of the path taken.

3. Pose the problem of being stranded on a desert island to your students. Have them generate the sorts of things they would have to do to survive in small groups. Then have the groups present their strategies to each other. In what way is convergent versus divergent thinking used in the sorts of strategies the groups described? Was one group more creative in their responses than others? What features of the group composition might have contributed to such differences (e.g., were some members more “expert” in outdoor survival in the more creative groups?)?

4. This demonstration gives students the opportunity to explore preinventive forms similar to that in the Demonstration: Creating an Object (see also Figure 12.22). For the demonstration you will need to bring to class some generic items like those found in Figure 12.22. Break the class into multiple groups and have each group use the same 3 items to see how many preinventive forms can be created. Have all of the students leave the room and then invite the first group to come in and perform the task. Give each group 5 minutes to brainstorm about possible preinventive forms they might create. Then give them 5 minutes to create the actual forms (their activity could be recorded on a cell phone). Then invite the second group into the classroom and repeat the process with the same three items. Continue the process with each of the remaining groups.

Record the number of forms each group creates. You might also want to share the following Whose Line is it Anyway? clip showing a similar process (http://youtu.be/1vAyF9VpeDo).

Chapter 13: Judgment, Decisions, and Reasoning Chapter Outline 1. MAKING JUDGMENTS a. The Nature of Inductive Reasoning b. The Availability Heuristic Demonstration: Which Is More Prevalent? c. The Representativeness Heuristic Demonstration: Judging Occupations Demonstration: Description of a Person Demonstration: Male and Female Births d. Preconceptions, Attitudes, and Judgment TEST YOURSELF 13.1 2. DECISION MAKING: CHOOSING AMONG ALTERNATIVES a. The Utility Approach to Decisions b. How Emotions Affect Decisions c. Decisions Can Depend on the Context Within Which They Are Made d. Decisions Can Depend on How Choices Are Presented Demonstration: What Would You Do? e. Neuroeconomics: The Neural Basis of Decision Making TEST YOURSELF 13.2 3. DEDUCTIVE REASONING: SYLLOGISMS AND LOGIC a. Validity and Truth in Syllogisms b. Mental Models of Deductive Reasoning c. Conditional Syllogisms d. Conditional Reasoning: The Wason Four-Card Problem Demonstration: Wason Four-Card Problem e. What Has the Wason Problem Taught Us? 4. SOMETHING TO CONSIDER: THE DUAL SYSTEMS APPROACH TO THINKING 5. POSTSCRIPT: DONDERS RETURNS TEST YOURSELF 13.3 CogLabs: Decision Making; Monty Hall; Risky Decisions; Typical Reasoning; Wason Selection Task

Web Links Websites Deductive and Inductive Reasoning Easy-to-understand examples of the types of reasoning. http://www.math.toronto.edu/mathnet/questionCorner/deductive.html Deduction and Induction The two concepts described in terms of the scientific method. http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/dedind.htm Deductive and Inductive Arguments A well-organized and comprehensive lecture that distinguishes between these two types of reasoning. Many examples are provided in support of the concepts presented. http://www.sjsu.edu/people/wendy.shimelman/courses/c2/s1/lecture 2 s 10 de & inductive logic.pdf Varieties of Deductive and Inductive Arguments Discussion of different types of deductive and inductive reasoning. http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/ded_ind.html The Availability Heuristic and Teacher Ratings Links to an article on how the availability heuristic affects student evaluations of teachers. http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~baron/journal/jdm06020.pdf The Representativeness Heuristic and Stereotypes A definition and demonstrations of the representativeness heuristic. http://www.cog.brown.edu/courses/42/lec19.htm Falsification Principle and Confirmation Bias A demonstration and explanation regarding how scientists actively seek to falsify their hypotheses. These principles are discussed in reference to confirmation bias. http://www.devpsy.org/teaching/method/confirmation_bias.html Myside Bias A two-part summary of research exploring Myside Bias. http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/09/15/only-my-opinion-counts-myside-bias/ http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/09/18/only-my-opinion-counts-myside-biaspart-2/ Emotion and Decision Making Homepage of a research center focused on emotion and decision making. http://content.ksg.harvard.edu/lernerlab/

Videos Inductive vs. Deductive Reasoning by Schmoop (Time: 3:00) A light-hearted animated video that defines and compares inductive and deductive reasoning.

The last third of the video may be irrelevant as it focuses on the use of such reasoning in writing. http://youtu.be/VXW5mLE5Y2g Types of Heuristics: Availability, Representativeness, & Base-Rate (Time: 7:05) A light-hearted animated video exploring a variety of heuristics and how such heuristics can be both beneficial as well as detrimental in the decision making process. http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/heuristics.html#lesson Which are Deadlier: Sharks or Horses? (Availability Heuristics) (Time: 2:08) A look at availability heuristics and how our “gut feelings” are usually incorrect. http://youtu.be/2_wkv1Gx2vM Confirmation Bias (Time: 1:34) Do we seek the truth, or the truth we want? The video explores Confirmation Bias and how it can affect our decisions. http://youtu.be/6xMaR8au-YU What is Confirmation Bias? (Time: 3:54) Join in a simple experiment to show just how much you focus on the small impossibilities among a sea of facts. http://youtu.be/hcucGn_X8AA Law of Large Numbers (Time: 8:59) An explanation of the Law of Large Numbers from a mathematical perspective including an explanation of the “Gambler’s Fallacy”. https://www.khanacademy.org/math/probability/random-variables-topic/expectedvalue/v/law-of-large-numbers Framing Effect (Time: 2:36) Risk-aversion and risk-taking strategies in decision making and how framing affects our choices. http://youtu.be/v-qdfG7Z9qU The Neuroeconomics Simple Choice: Antonio Rangel at TEDx (Time: 12:33) Antonio Rangel explains the basics of Neuroeconomics and what he sees for the field in the future. http://youtu.be/D6CQjaP98Ew Game Theory 101: The Ultimatum Game (Time: 2:38) A short tutorial covering The Ultimatum Game using a cookie example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpkxLKV_3d0

How to Understand Syllogisms (Time: 3:05) This video uses rainbow trout as an example of what a valid and true syllogism is. http://youtu.be/dRCS0CSwhsg The Wason Selection Task (Time: 1:02) A quick and interactive video examines the Wason selection task. http://youtu.be/qNBzwwLiOUc Why We Make Bad Decisions (Time: 33:32) A video of Dan Gilbert talking about his research on expectations and happiness. The clip is lengthy, but you could either show it in full in class (preview first!) or watch it yourself to glean some ideas about how to present information related to emotion and decision making. http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_researches_happiness.html Apps and/or Software Deal or No Deal (Free, Apple) An app based on the popular game show where contestants make decisions whether to accept the offer as a “Deal” or to decide “No Deal” and continue on for the possibility of making more (or less) money. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/deal-or-no-deal/id528829332?mt=8 Deal or No Deal (Free, Android) An app based on the popular game show where contestants make decisions whether to accept the offer as a “Deal” or to decide “No Deal” and continue on for the possibility of making more (or less) money. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.anndconsulting.dealnodeal

Discussion Questions 1. Ask the class to guess which type of motorized transportation is most popular in the U.S. Presumably a car will be favored as most frequently used. Then, ask them to predict the response for a life-long resident of Los Angeles vs. New York City (where the subway could be the likely answer). Discuss why there might be different judgments across different regions and how the availability heuristic plays a role in the judgment process.

2. Discuss how confirmation bias plays a role in perpetuating stereotypes. Discuss how selective attention causes some evidence to be overlooked. Include the concepts of base rates and illusory correlations in the discussion.

3. Discuss how the representativeness heuristic leads people to make judgments based on descriptive information while disregarding base rate information. Present to the class the following description: Mary graduated from Georgetown University. She remained in the Washington, D.C., area for employment opportunities following graduation. She reads the newspaper every day, first absorbing the political section in its entirety. Mary has voted in every election (national and local) and has worked as a political activist since she turned 18. Is Mary more likely to become an elementary school teacher or a Supreme Court clerk?

Discuss how closely the class thinks Mary’s characteristics match those of a typical court clerk vs. a typical schoolteacher. Ask the class if there is anything definitive in the descriptive information that would make them draw a conclusion that contradicts that predicted by base rates.

4. One of the biggest decisions students make is their decision of which college or university to attend. Using the models and variables discussed in the chapter, students can explore and describe their decision making process and which models and variables support how they made their decision.

Demonstrations 1. Present the following syllogism to the class: All of the mothers are caring.

Some caring people are supportive.

Some of the mothers are supportive.

Ask for a show of hands for those who think the syllogism is valid. Ask for another show of hands for those who believe the conclusion is true. Graph the results (valid response rate vs. believability) on the board. (Refer to Evans, Barston, & Pollard (1983). On the conflict between logic and belief in syllogistic reasoning. Memory and Cognition, 11, 295-306, and Figure 13.1 in text for help). Discuss the distinction between validity and truth in syllogistic reasoning.

2. This demonstration considers the following concept: people make errors in reasoning by ignoring the importance of the size of the sample on which their observations are based. Use tossing a coin for this demonstration. Ask students what is the likelihood that if you tossed the coin it would land heads? Tails? Then, conduct "experiments" based on sample sizes of 1 toss, 10 tosses, and 30 tosses. Discuss the law of large numbers.

3. Pollsters have learned that the order in which they ask respondents to answer questions can affect the results they obtain. For example, consider the following two questions: Question 1: Are you generally satisfied or dissatisfied with the education you are receiving at this institution?

Question 2: Do you think the tuition increases over the past few years at this institution are generally reasonable or unreasonable?

If the class is sufficiently large, distribute these questions on slips of paper in such a way that half the class receives the questions in the order above, while the other half receives the questions in reverse order. Tally up the answers to the “satisfaction” question (#1 above) to see if, as would be predicted, students perceive themselves as less satisfied if they read question #2 first.

Discuss how the order in which pollsters might ask questions and collect data could create a “framing effect” that could produce different results. Ask students to list a variety of characteristics of a university that factor into judgments about their satisfaction with their education (presumably this list will encompass a great many more aspects of education than just tuition). You might want to conclude this demonstration with a discussion of the importance of counterbalancing in research design.

4. Using the following website (http://www.y8.com/games/deal_or_no_deal) play a few games of Deal or No Deal with students. Although the parameters of the game are not modifiable, you can manipulate some parameters (e.g., adding money to the Banker’s Offer, not allowing the first offer to be accepted, etc.). You might want to also allow students to play the game as a team versus individually to see if the group acts more rationally than individuals. You can also ask students to articulate their thoughts as they move the process and have them review the offers ex post facto to see if there was any point at which they wish they would have taken the offer.

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Decision Making Introduction Cognitive strategies used in decision-making are not perfect and often do not yield the best choice. When given a choice of two options, one option may seem more favorable simply because of the way that it is presented to us. This occurs even when the outcomes of the two options are identical. Framing refers to how the options are presented for appraisal. If framed in terms of gains, people tend to choose the sure gain, demonstrating risk-avoiding behavior.

However, when options are framed in terms of losses, people tend to choose the probabilistic loss over the sure loss, demonstrating risk-seeking behavior.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Humans make a number of errors in judgment for a number of reasons. Sometimes we use heuristics, or shortcuts, to calculate odds of winning or for figuring out an answer.

Ask your students to research some of these errors we make on a regular basis. Also have them provide several examples of these errors. a. This could be done as a writing assignment or they could bring some of their examples back to class and ask their fellow students to share what choice they would make given the parameters. b. Some fun heuristics include base rates, hindsight bias, availability heuristics, and the representativeness heuristic.

2) Have students research the brain areas correlated to specific types of decision-making.

Some research suggests different areas of the brain are activated depending on the outcome valence (positive vs. negative). a. As a critical thinking problem, have them think about other behaviors correlated with those brain areas that they found to be active in decision-making. For example, if the limbic system is active during negative outcome valence choices, what might this suggest? b. Have them search the literature for specific examples of people who have problems making logical decisions, for example, those with impulse control disorders or traumatic brain injuries. Would they have similar outcome decisionmaking patterns seen in this CogLab? Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) What is the framing effect?

Answer: The framing effect is a tendency to present a problem in a certain way so as to increase the likelihood of one response over another. It is a context effect because it refers to the context in which the question or choice is presented.

2) Do you think you would be more likely to go out with friends to a party instead of studying if they first told you how much fun they would have and then reminded you that you have a psychology test the next day or if they reminded you of your test and then told you how much fun they were going to have?

Answer: Although you know you should stay in and study, you will be more likely to join them if they frame the scenario with the fun first and then a reminder of your test rather than vice versa.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) What was the independent variable in the Decision-Making CogLab? What was the dependent variable?

Answer: The independent variable was the problem. There were five different types of problems in each set. The dependent variable was the proportion of participants who chose the different option.

2) In Problem 1, the outcomes are the exact same for option A or B, but there is a tendency for people to pick the sure gain when the options are framed in terms of gains. What is this specific behavior called as it relates to risk? When the options are framed in such a way that the losses are emphasized, people prefer the probabilistic loss option. What is this behavior called as it relates to risk?

Answer: When options are framed in terms of gains, people tend to go with the sure gain, which is called risk-avoiding behavior. When options are framed in terms of losses, people become more risk-seeking and choose the probabilistic loss over the sure loss.

Advanced Questions 1) Which hamburger would people tend to buy in the supermarket and why, the package that advertises that it is 80% lean and 20% fat or 20% fat and 80% lean?

Answer: Most people would probably choose the one that advertises the lean first because it is a positive. This is an example of positive framing.

2) There are examples of the framing effect in the title given to certain government programs and policies, such as “Foreign Aid” and “Social Security.” How are these terms examples of the framing effect?

Answer: Both of these phrases have a positive slant to them, suggesting that the result will be to aid foreigners and not harm them and that social security will provide security for a society.

People are more receptive to these terms because they are positively framed.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss why you might drive 15 minutes to the bookstore off campus because you can save $5 on your binder, which is worth $10, but you would not drive to this same store if you found out you could save $5 on your total book purchase of $250.

Answer: When you calculate the savings ratio relative to the costs, you would calculate 10/5 – 2.0 ratio for the binder and a 250/245 = 1.02. The savings of $5 seems like a better deal when you are only purchasing a $10 binder rather than making a $250 book purchase.

3) Discuss how framing effects can be used in persuasive arguments or in debates.

Answer: When arguments are framed in terms of gains, people tend to go with the sure gain, but when talking in terms of losses, people tend to choose the probabilistic loss over the sure loss. If you want to persuade someone, keep these tendencies in mind before making your arguments.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Have your students pair up (or work in groups) or get on the online discussion board and discuss their answers on the five different questions. Framing effects are just one factor that influences our choices. Have them discuss why they made the choices they did. Also, have them think about what factors may have influenced them to go with the other option. a. If they need some direction, ask them to consider different possibilities, like how bad they need the money, the calculator, etc. b. Ask them to share whether or not they could figure out the different probabilities in each case. This is important because determining the probability of something occurring is very difficult for most of us. Just ask those people who only buy a ticket to the lottery when it jumps up to a $50 million jackpot.

2) Put students in groups and discuss two moral dilemmas known as the trolley problem and the footbridge problem. Set up the scenarios: in scenario 1, a runaway train is about to kill five people; you can throw a switch to divert the trolley to another rail, but one person will be killed (although the original five will be saved). What do you do? Scenario 2 also has a train heading toward five people, but there is no spur in which to divert the train. You and another very large bystander are on a bridge above the tracks and the only way to stop the train is to push the very large bystander in front of it, killing the one bystander but saving the five original people. What do you do? a. Ask the students why these two scenarios are different and have them think about what most people would say. People tend to say it is okay to flip the switch but not to push the bystander in front of the train. Both situations end in one person getting killed to save five, but something is different between the scenarios.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) The framing effect is an example of a(n) a. expectant effect. b. internal cue. c. context effect. d. cued effect. (c)

2)

When a person is presented with two choices, both framed in terms of gains, which choice will that person tend to make? a. The choice with the probabilistic gains b. The choice with sure gains c. The choice with probabilistic losses d. You cannot tell based on the information given

(b) 3)

(c)

When a person is presented with two choices, both framed in terms of losses, which choice will that person tend to make? a. The choice with the probabilistic gains b. The choice with sure gains c. The choice with probabilistic losses d. You cannot tell based on the information given

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Monty Hall Introduction In an ever-changing world, probabilities are hard to grasp and understand. Events usually do not occur as solitary occurrences. In reality, situations change and learning can occur, which influences one’s decision-making skills and ability to predict behaviors. Even in the real world, people make numerous errors when judging probabilities. This lab will help students see that changing a simple behavior (switching doors) affects the probability of winning.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Before your students do the lab, break them into small groups and have them discuss the rationale that “always switching” will increase their odds of winning in this scenario.

They may need a refresher on probability if they have trouble starting off. Your students may be familiar with the following clip from the film 21 that explores this problem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr_xWfThjJ0 a. If they need help, ask them if they understand the probability at the beginning (1/3) chance of winning. If they stick with their choice after the host reveals the door, this is still the probability of winning. If they do not understand this right away, the rest will not be comprehended either. Once they understand this, go to b. b. Ask the students to think about their probability of winning if they picked the wrong door to begin with. (So if they pick the wrong door to begin with and the host shows them the other door, they would win 100% if they switched. Of course, the probability of choosing the winning door the first time is low, 1/3 or 0.33.) c. If they still do not believe you, have them do the lab to see if it will work. Make sure they follow the instructions exactly and randomize their answers (50/50 chance of winning) and then switch choices (2/3). d. The following video can also be used to demonstrate the advantage of switching. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Kgud9QcZs4 2) After they do the lab, have them discuss whether they think this is a true phenomenon or a cognitive trick. a. Discuss the probabilities again to see if they truly understand it. b. The Monty Hall problem has been researched and debated for a number of years.

Have the students research the literature and the Internet for explanations and descriptions of the debate.

3) Have your students pretend they are contestants on Let’s Make a Deal and the last five people before them kept their choice and won. Have them think about and answer these questions. You can either do this in small groups or individually. a. Would this influence their decision to stay or switch? Why? b. Should this influence their decision? (Sometimes we make errors of occurrences that are in reality independent of one another, so if five people won before them by doing a certain behavior, they may feel compelled to do it too.) c. Ask the students to consider other errors they make in estimating probabilities (perhaps they may want to talk about past experiences). d. Ask them to think about stereotypes and whether or not these are probability estimates. (Some people do not consider these probabilities until we have to make a choice or decision about another person. For example, if a female is walking home at night and there is a male on one side of the street and a female on the other, she may cross over to walk on the same side as the female.)

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) What does a 0.50 probability mean?

Answer: It means that we have a 1 in 2 chance of an event occurring. We also called this a 50/50 chance, or this event could occur half of the time.

2) You are looking for your wallet that you have misplaced. You own three jackets (A, B, and C) that your wallet could be in, but you cannot remember which one you wore last.

What is the probability that your wallet is in jacket A? Answer: Without knowing which one you wore last, the probability that your wallet is in the pocket of A is 1/3 or 0.33.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) How would the probability of winning change if Monty Hall did not know which curtain or door the grand prize was behind?

Answer: Instead of switching doors for a 2/3 probability of winning, there would be a 1/2 chance of winning. So for the whole Monty Hall problem to work out, he had to know which door the grand prize was behind.

2) Pretend that you are downtown: a sidewalk conman is playing the famous shell game, and you decide to play the game. In this game, there is one pea placed under one of three shells. The man will show you where the pea is, but then he mixes the three shells up very quickly so that you cannot keep track of where the pea is. You pick one shell, and before he tells you if you are a winner or not, he turns over one shell to reveal that the pea is not there. Now he asks you if you want to stick with the shell you have or pick the remaining shell. What should you do?

Answer: After doing this lab, you should know to always switch because it increases your winning to 2/3 from the original 1/3. We also know that the conman knows where the pea is, like Monty knew where the prize was. This is a parallel for the Monty Hall problem.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) From this lab, we can see that the numbers may say one thing, but our perception of probability may be very different. Have students discuss probability in a real-world context. This can be done in class, in groups, or as an online discussion. Consider the following ideas: a. Talk about errors that we make in determining probability. Students can expand on this by considering why we make these errors (for example, memory problems, judgment problems, or an inability to assess a situation). b. When considering errors in judgment, have them think of examples (lotteries, dating, cognition, logic, or reasoning).

2) Learning changes our perception of probability. In this lab, you learn from Monty which curtain the big prize is not behind, so we have to reevaluate our perceptions. Have students discuss or write a paper on how learning information can affect our judgment of the likelihood of an event occurring. a. One example you can give them is a doctor estimating the probability of a person having a disease based on a set of symptoms. After examining test results, the probabilities may change dramatically for the likelihood for one disease over another. b. Have students think about the problems that could arise if a doctor’s diagnosis did not change, even after a number of combined events occurred, like test results, drastic change in symptoms, or medication not working. c. Have students research the topic of probability changes in scenarios where events change. There are a wide range of topics in which this is relevant, such as business forecasts, medical diagnoses, risk-taking, relationships, and decisionmaking. Some suggested keywords in the search would include probability and risk, probability learning.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) Generally speaking, which is true? a. People are very good at understanding probability b. People are very poor at understanding probability c. There are vast differences in peoples’ ability to understand probability d. None of the above (b) 2) In the Monty Hall door problem, if you switch your choice after Monty opens a door, what is the probability of being correct? a. 50% b. 33.3% c. 66.7% d. 100% (c) 3) In the Monty Hall door problem, if you stay with your original choice after Monty opens a door, what is the probability of being correct? a. 50% b. 33.3% c. 66.7% d. 100% (b)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Risky Decisions Introduction We make numerous, potentially risky, decisions every day. The decisions that we make are influenced by a variety of factors, including situation or context. By accentuating the positive or the negative, wins or losses, you have framed the situation in such a way that might influence decision-making. Many of these tendencies are called "framing effects" because the perceived context or way the choices are "framed" make a big difference, even for situations that are otherwise equivalent. Some people are more comfortable with taking risks, while others try to avoid risks.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Have your students think about how comfortable they are with taking risks. Perhaps there is a difference in what kind of risks they are taking, for example, financial vs. medical may be different issues for them. a. After they decide how comfortable they are with risk and what kind of risks they are more likely to take or not take, have them take a risk-taking test, like this shortened version of the Zuckerman’s Sensation-Seeking Scale. b. If they feel comfortable sharing their results with the class, have them say what they hypothesized and what the test found.

2) Evolutionary researchers explore risk-taking behaviors as they relate to reproduction and survival. Evidence suggests that the likelihood of performing risky behaviors may not always be a conscious decision but might be related to an animal’s increased chance of reproducing, protecting its offspring, or enhancing its survival. Have students review the literature for specific examples of risk-taking and the contexts in which they are performed. a. When looking for examples, they can look at other animals besides humans. b. When considering the contexts, have students think about specific factors, like who is taking the risks, males or females, or who cares for the offspring in that species, males or females.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) Why are framing effects considered contextual effects?

Answer: Framing effects occur when choices are worded in a particular manner so as to influence one’s decision.

2) How is a risky choice defined?

Answer: A risky choice is one where there is a probability or chance of different possibilities occurring. For example, if you decide to spend money on a lottery ticket, there is an unknown outcome. You may win a lot of money, or you may not. The final outcome is not made by your decision; your decision simply enters you into a probabilistic situation.

3) How might personality be related to a person’s comfort level with taking risks?

Answer: Different people are comfortable with different amounts of risk. Some people tend to be risk-seeking and look for situations where the ultimate outcome is unknown. Other people tend to be risk-avoiding and look for the "sure bets.”

4) One of your roommates, John, loves to downhill ski and bungee jump; his dream vacation is mountain climbing. Your other roommate, Bill, likes to watch movies and play chess; his dream vacation is going to the state park and watching birds. In terms of risk, you can say that John is a _________, while Bill is a _________.

Answer: risk-seeker; risk avoider 5) Your doctor wants you to try a new experimental drug for obesity that he tells you will increase your energy and decrease your appetite. As good as that sounds, you are skeptical, so you talk to your friend who is trying it now before deciding on whether or not to try it. She says it makes her jittery; she cannot relax, which makes her nauseous so she does not feel like eating. How is this an example of a framing effect?

Answer: Both your friend and your doctor are saying the same thing, only the doctor has a more positive slant to the effects of the drugs, while your friend has a negative but more realistic slant.

You may have tried the drug after talking to your doctor but reconsidered after talking to your friend.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) From the group mean percentage of times that the risky option B was chosen for the loss and gain questions, decide if the framing effect was confirmed.

Answer: The framing effect is confirmed if the risky option B was selected a higher percentage of the time for the loss questions than for the gain questions.

2) For the following scenarios, which option do you think more people will choose, A or B? Explain your answers.

1A. Gambling when there is a 100% chance of winning $50.

1B. Gambling when there is a 25% chance of winning $200, and a 75% chance of winning nothing.

2A. Gambling when there is 100% chance of losing $50.

2B. Gambling when there is a 25% chance of losing $200 and a 75% chance of losing nothing.

Answer: More people will choose A for the first scenario, but B in the second scenario. People try to avoid losses, so in the second scenario, even though there is small probability that their losses will be four times as large as in option 2A, there is a chance that they could avoid the loss altogether.

Advanced Questions 1) How might the end result of a risk play an important part in whether or not a person decides to take that risk or not?

Answer: A common finding in decision-making is that people tend to be risk-seeking when the options available to them involve losses. People tend to be risk-avoiding when the options available to them involve gains.

2) How could you use the framing effect to convince your parents that you need a new car when you leave to go to college?

Answer: If you want your parents to buy you a car to go to school, you will need to frame the argument so that you accentuate the positive aspects of it so they will see it as an investment without risk. This could be done by pointing out that you could charge friends to drive them home during holidays or at school to help pay for gas and insurance. When you did come home from school, you would not constantly borrow their car. It would also teach you to be more responsible when you went to a party and were driving home.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss how you might reduce the framing effect.

Answer: It might help to know about the framing effect and guarding against it when reading options expressed as losses. It might help to understand that the options are equivalent to each other as far as outcomes are concerned. It might help to rephrase loss options as gains options.

2) Discuss how framing effects support the idea that humans are not good at determining probabilities.

Answer: Framing effects suggest that humans are more risk averse when there is an absolute risk involved, but will take a risk if there is a relative chance of not losing or winning. Framing effect occurs when we use heuristics, or shortcuts, to estimate the likelihood of an event. Heuristics might help make quick decisions, but they do not always lead to the right answer or the best solution.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) There are many motivational factors related to the decision to take a risk or not, including the need for money, mood, and personal satisfaction. Have students discuss some of these motivational factors and how they might change risk-taking decisions. a. When students are discussing some of these motivational factors, ask them to share personal examples to help support their comments. b. This can be done in the classroom or as an online discussion.

2) Economists like to examine scenarios when individuals will take monetary risks or not.

Have students design a monetary research design that only looks at which situations people will show risk-seeking vs. risk-aversive behaviors. a. Gambling situations work well if you are using real money. b. Students can review the literature to explore existing research methodologies.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) For risky decisions, what is true? a. People seek risk when outcomes involve losses b. People seek risk when outcomes involve gains c. People avoid risk when outcomes involve losses d. Outcomes are more important than changes (a) 2) What is an example of a risky decision? a. Putting your money in a savings account b. Taking your umbrella every day c. Investing in the stock market d. Buying a movie ticket (c) 3) How can people be encouraged to make risky decisions? a. By emphasizing gains b. By emphasizing losses c. By emphasizing outcomes d. None of the above (b)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Typical Reasoning Introduction The results of this lab show that we make judgments about people, events, and behaviors based on what we think should happen. We may be correct in our judgments sometimes, but our decision-making strategies may be flawed by heuristics or short cuts. Some of these judgment errors occur because memories are more available (availability heuristic) or they seem more representative or typical of a population (representative heuristic). The result of these errors could be seen in the form of discrimination and stereotyping groups of individuals.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Have students think critically why we knowingly make incorrect judgments about situations and people even after doing this lab. a. Have students think about what purpose quick judgments may serve. If they do not serve a purpose and they think humans make too many errors for it to be useful, ask them to rationalize why we do it. (Maybe they think we are lazy, or it is automatic for our brains because of lack of storage space or ability to compute large amounts of information.) b. Put them in groups to discuss whether heuristics are innate or learned. (They could discuss whether children make conjunction errors and at what age they appear.) c. Have them think about whether animals make errors in judgment like humans do.

2) Tell the students to think about a time when they committed a conjunctive fallacy about a person or situation. Have them think about how they reacted to their error—were they shocked, surprised, relieved, etc.? a. Have them critically think about why they reacted the way they did. b. Thinking back on it, ask them to discuss or write about how that specific situation affected them. (They may have analyzed their experiences in such a way that they reduced their stereotypical thought about a group of individuals or about one person. Perhaps meeting a librarian who is a very social and hates to read made them think more about that person, about their knowledge of librarians, or even deeper yet, their ability to judge others.)

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) If I tell you that John is 24, outgoing, loves the snow, is very athletic, and strong, and you immediately think that John is a snowboard instructor who likes to hike instead of him just being a snowboard instructor or just a hiker, what kind of error have you committed?

Explain what this error means in terms of probability.

Answer: This is the conjunctive error. It means that you subjectively decide that the probability of two events occurring together (snowboard instructor and hikes) is greater than one event occurring (either a snowboard instructor or likes to hike) because the conjunction seems to be more typical and plausible of the scenario. Also, since the description appears to be high in typicality, it is more likely for you to make such an error.

2) What are heuristics, and why do we have them?

Answer: Heuristics are short cuts we use in decision-making to make a quicker response. We are not always guaranteed a correct answer, but we are able to process information quickly and react to it.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) If I were flipping a coin 10 times, which of these two scenarios is more likely to happen? a) H H H H H T T T T T b) H T H H T H T T H T Answer: Most people say b is more plausible, because it is randomized and more representative of a random occurrence. In fact, a and b have the same objective probability of occurring, but subjectively, we make an incorrect judgment based on the representation heuristic. Both of these scenarios have equiprobability of occurring.

2) I want to design a study to look at gender differences (males and females) in conjunction fallacies using the four levels from this lab (single low typicality, single high typicality, conjunctive low typicality, and conjunctive high typicality). If I perform a 2 x 4 ANOVA (though one may also view this design as a 2 x 2 x 2 and use a 2 x 2 x 2 ANOVA) on the repeated ratings, how many people will I have to test in order for the design to have 10 people in each cell?

Answer: There are eight cells in total gender (two levels) by scenario (four levels), so in order to have 10 people in each cell, you would need 80 participants in total, 40 males and 40 females.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) In groups or through online discussions, have students think about and list examples of conjunctions in behaviors that we see in our society, for example, doctors are rich and play golf, and professors are intelligent and absent-minded. a. After they list several examples, have them share these with the rest of the class to see if everyone agrees. b. Have students think about these stereotypical beliefs and how they perpetuate throughout our culture (other cultures will make different errors in judgment because of different religions, experiences, and cultural beliefs). c. After the students think about how these potential errors get perpetuated, have them think about ways of reducing errors and quick judgments about people (some of them may say that knowledge and increased exposure would help, however, these may help to perpetuate the errors). (Making well thought out decisions may be another suggestion, but have them think of those times when speed is a necessity.)

2) Start an online discussion about what students think about judging others and what the outcome may be if they are wrong or even if they are correct. a. Ask your students to discuss whether judging others allows them to be judged by others. b. Ask students to discuss how they might feel if others were incorrect about their judgments of them. If it has happened to them, have them share their experience if they feel comfortable doing so. c. Another topic you can direct students to discuss is the potential effects of being continuously misjudged by peers or society. Teenagers love to say, “Nobody understands me.” Do they mean that this misunderstanding leads to misjudgments or misjudging leads to misunderstanding?

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) Heuristics help a. increase the speed of processing. b. reach a more accurate answer. c. exhaust all possible answers. d. both a and b. (a) 2) When an individual thinks that the likelihood of A and B occurring at the same time is more likely than A or B occurring, it is called a a. conjugated fallacy. b. conjunction fallacy. c. conjucatypical fallacy. d. convoluted fallacy. (b) 3) People are more likely to judge other people as belonging to a group when they portray __________ traits. a. extroverted personality b. introverted personality c. atypical d. typical (d)

CogLab Instructor’s Material:

Wason Selection Task Introduction The Wason selection task (WST) was originally invented by Wason in 1968 to study deductive reasoning. The conditional rule was expressed as “if p, then q,” and four cards were given that either represented p, not-p, q, and not-q. Participants were instructed to turn over only the cards that would prove the statement to be either true or false. The typical response was either just the p card (best performance) or the p and the q card, both of which were logically incorrect. This abstract style question was then compared to questions of a concrete nature, where reasoning may reflect utility. For example, participants may be instructed to imagine they are bartenders and “if someone in the bar is drinking beer, then they must be 21 years old.” Now when four cards are presented with p, not-p, q, and not-q statements, logical performance improves.

Part I Student Projects and Critical Thinking Exercises 1) Evolutionary psychologists have used the Wason selection task to explore the idea of social contract within a group or between two friends. Cohesive groups have rules with which contributing members will comply or else they may be punished by the group.

Explore how a group could use the Wason selection task to detect cheaters or noncontributing members. Have students look for articles on the Internet to help them think critically about this. a. You can discuss this in class or have them write a short paper reviewing their ideas. b. Ask them to come up with examples of social rules that we are asked to follow, like drinking and driving, robbing people, etc.

2) As a critical thinking project, have students review the literature on conditional logical reasoning and the key themes that influence a person’s logical abilities. Some of the issues are addressed in this CogLab, but other concepts are pertinent to the question of logical processing. a. Have students write an APA-formatted paper addressing the issues related to conditional logic. b. Before doing the research for the paper, have students think about what some of the limitations could be. Have them think about personal experiences or limitations that they have.

Part II Possible Test Questions Basic or Introductory Questions 1) Imagine you were given the conditional rule, “If there is a vowel on one side, then there is a picture of a giraffe on the other side,” and there are four cards present: one with the letter E, one with the letter Q, one with a picture of a horse, and the last with a picture of a giraffe. After completing this lab, determine the following: a. Which of the four cards do you think most people would turn over first? b. Which is the next card that people may turn over but is considered logically incorrect (illicit conversion)? c. What is the second logically correct card to turn over?

Answer: Most people would turn over the E first or the vowel because this is affirming the antecedent. The next card most people would turn over is the giraffe, but this is not logically correct. The second correct card would be the horse (or not giraffe).

2) What type of problem is generally solved more quickly—abstract or thematic—and why?

Answer: Usually thematic problems are solved more quickly because they allow for more mental imagery and experiential learning, whereas abstract problems, using numbers or letters, rely solely on logic.

3) Which task is harder to perform, confirming the rule or falsifying it? What evidence supports this?

Answer: It is harder to falsify the rule. The support is found with the increased number of illicit conversions or reversing the rule. For example, if p, then q is often reversed (if q, then p) and thought to be logical, which it is not.

4) After completing this lab, can you say that logical reasoning is a difficult task? What specific support do you have for your answer?

Answer: Since the abstract questions required more logical deductive reasoning, but performance on these questions was impaired compared to the thematic questions, it is fair to say that inferences made through pure logical deductions are harder. More errors also occur when inferences are made on abstract concepts compared to thematic and concrete ideas.

Research/Cognition-Based Questions 1) What are the dependent and independent variables in this experiment?

Answer: The IV is the type of problem, abstract or thematic. The DV is the card chosen (p, notp, q, not-q) that will result in a logically correct or logically incorrect answer.

2) If the dependent variable were changed in the lab from the card chosen as the dependent variable to decision time (as measured in seconds), which card do you think would be picked in the fastest amount of time?

Answer: Generally, affirming the antecedent takes the shortest amount of time, so the p card would take the least amount of time to analyze.

Advanced Questions 1) You have dated your significant other for six months when she cheats on you with your best friend. After a lot of fighting, you decide to give the relationship a second try, but you tell your partner, “If you cheat on me again, I will leave you!” Three months later, you tell your partner that you are leaving her. Did she cheat on you?

Answer: She may have cheated on you, but it is not necessarily true for you to leave her. The rule was, “If you cheat on me again, I will leave you,” which does not mean the same as, “I left you, therefore you cheated on me!” This is an error in logical thinking (illicit conversion). You may have been bored with her or found someone new yourself.

2) Give the logically incorrect deduction or illicit conversion, for the following premises, for example, a university professor might say, “If you do not attend all lectures, you will fail the class.” An illogical deduction a student may make when they fail the class is to complain about the grade using the premise that they attended all classes to support their complaint. a. Doctor: If you do not stop smoking, you will get lung cancer! b. Lawyer: If the criminal pleads guilty, he will get 3-5 years! c. Firefighter: If you smoke in bed, you will set your bed on fire! d. Judge: If you lie in court, I will find you in contempt!

Answer: Doctor: a person gets lung cancer although he stopped smoking. Lawyer: the criminal got three years, but did not plead guilty. Firefighter: your bed catches on fire, but you weren’t smoking in bed. Judge: the judge finds you in contempt for another reason.

Discussion Questions 1) Discuss why, to an engineer in a nuclear power station, a conditional rule, like, “If the tank has a leak in it, then the whole system will shut down” is not the same as, “If there is a large man, then he must play football” although they may both be thematic.

Answer: The first rule has more utility or use in the real world for the engineer. Although the second rule may be thematic, it does not have as much contextual meaning to the engineer. If an engineer in a nuclear power station were faced with the rule about a leak in the tank, this holds more contextual meaning and potential danger to society. Also, if the whole system shut down, it would not make logical sense to look just for a leak in the tank.

2) Discuss the difference between the top-down and bottom-up processes involved in the Wason selection task. Think about the differences between abstract and thematic examples.

Answer: Thematic examples are different from abstract examples in that we can use top-down processing or our expectations and experiences to solve the problem. These problems are not really relying on strictly logical abilities, but rather on experiences and expectations. Abstract problems have to be solved using pure logic, or bottom-up processing, and not expectations or experiences, so they are harder to process and tend to involve more errors.

Part III Group or Online Projects 1) Have the students read the following scenario. You notice that a new person just moved onto your floor (apartment building or residence hall). He is your age and seems friendly enough.

You ask him to hang out with you and your friends, and everyone seems to like him. You have met people in the past who you thought were your friends, but they lied to you, stole from you, and took advantage of you, so you want to make sure this person will not do the same. a. Have students think about some conditional rules that could be tested to see if this person will be a true friend. b. Have them determine how these rules will be tested and proven true or false. c. Discuss this problem either online or in small groups in class.

3) Some researchers think the idea that performance on the Wason selection task may be more than just comparing concrete or abstract ideas have included the ideas of themes or utility. If you were in a job that depends on getting the task correct, there would be more pressure on you compared to just being wrong in a laboratory exercise. a. Have students write an APA-formatted paper outlining the possible variations of the Wason selection task for different occupations. b. As part of their critical analyses, have them think about the consequences of being wrong in that occupation. For example, if the president of the U.S. makes a tactical military decision based on illogical assumptions, then the consequences may be more drastic than if a mail carrier delivers a package to the wrong address.

Part IV Multiple Choice Questions 1) The logical problem of if p, then q is considered a(n) _________ problem. a. difficult b. illogical c. easy d. abstract (d) 2) To test the condition “if a card has a vowel on one side, then it has an even number on the other side,” there are four cards showing an A, 7, 6, and B on them. Most people would make what decision first? a. Turn over the 6 card b. Turn over the 7 card c. Turn over the A card d. Turn over the B card (c) 3) To test the condition, “if a card has a vowel on one side, then it has an even number on the other side,” there are four cards showing an A, 7, 6, and B on them. Most people would make what decision second? a. Turn over the 6 card b. Turn over the 7 card c. Turn over the A card d. Turn over the B card (a)