The power of cognitive psychology lies in the promise of cognitive technology.
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The power of cognitive psychology lies in the promise of cognitive technology.
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Abstracts - Fall 2002
THEORETICAL AND RESEARCH ARTICLES 4 Public Education Against False Memories: A Modest Proposal 8 Use of Memory Aids as Cognitive Prostheses in Schizophrenia: An Untapped Potential? 13 Bartlett's Cognitive Technology 23 The Effects of Story Affect and Story Role on Participants' Memory for Character Sex in News Stories 34 Memory Failures in Supermarket Shoppers: Evidence for Age and Gender Differences 39 Up to Forty: Lineup Size, the Modified Sequential Lineup, and the Sequential Lineup Public Education Against False Memories: A Modest Proposal Memory is prone to systematic biases and errors. The present work outlines a proposal for educating the public about memory's fallibility. We discuss the formation of false memories and possible theoretical mechanisms responsible for such errors. We also present some memory concepts that might prove useful to educators and the public alike. We conclude by presenting several ways to teach people to be more skeptical about their own memories.
Use of Memory Aids as Cognitive Prostheses in Schizophrenia: An Untapped Potential? A considerable body of research has indicated that impairments in the ability to store and retrieve verbal information are common features of schizophrenia. The current paper seeks to discuss how strategies developed for other groups with significant memory loss might be applied to help persons with schizophrenia. In particular we concentrate on strategies yet to be applied to schizophrenia which focus on compensating for memory loss through the use of technologies or external aids. These approaches, in contrast to remediation approaches that are already starting to be applied to schizophrenia, do not aim to repair memory loss but instead seek to help persons live with their deficits by providing them with devices that function conceptually as cognitive prostheses. We propose that such devices, if appropriately configured, could be used to increase medication adherence, reduce behavioral disturbances, assist with cognitive self-monitoring and facilitate work function in schizophrenia. Implications for future research are discussed.
Bartlett's Cognitive Technology While Bartlett's Remembering (1932) is well known, his books entitled The Mind at Work and Play (1951) and Thinking (1958) have received little publicity. It is shown that, if the three books are considered as a series, a general overview of cognitive psychology emerges that, even though it is not mathematical, is both comprehensive and applicable in practice to tasks ranging in difficulty from simple sensorimotor skills to the solution of major scientific problems.
The Effects of Story Affect and Story Role on Participants' Memory for Character Sex in News Stories The current study examined the effect of story affect and story role on participants' memory for characters' sex in news stories. In Experiment 1, participants viewed four nurturing TV news stories, which crossed the sex of the lead character with story affect, where the lead character acted positively or negatively. An opposite-sex supporting character accompanied each lead character. Participants remembered lead and supporting characters' sex best when female lead characters acted negatively. Experiments 2 and 3 replicated the procedure in Experiment 1 using written vignettes with gender-neutral roles. Experiment 2 used a 2-minute retention interval to assess memory and Experiment 3 used a 1-week retention interval to assess schemas. Participants remembered characters' sex best when male lead characters acted positively. Overall, story affect powerfully guided participants' memory for the sex of characters, suggesting a virtuous man gender schema.
Memory Failures in Supermarket Shoppers: Evidence for Age and Gender Differences Memory failures are a pervasive aspect of everyday experience. Recently Hermann and Gruneberg (1999) advocated a recall-reasons approach to studying memory failures on the grounds that this approach was more likely to capture the range of reasons that individuals experienced in their memory failures. This approach is used in the present study to examine the pattern of memory failures found in shoppers. Shoppers at two different supermarkets were questioned on the number and extent of their shopping memory failures. In both stores it was found that males over 50 years of age reported significantly fewer memory failures than females of all ages and males under 50 years of age. This paper looks for possible reasons for this age-gender interaction.
Up to Forty: Lineup Size, the Modified Sequential Lineup, and the Sequential Lineup Witnesses were recruited by the author and one of seven confederates, the "culprit" in a target-present or target-absent lineup. The 40-person lineup conditions included a MSL lineup (Multiple-choice, Sequential, Large) with the culprit in the 10th, 20th, or 40th position, and a single-choice sequential lineup. The number of identifications of the culprit in the MSL lineup was unaffected by lineup size and culprit position. While mistaken choices in culprit-absent lineups increased with lineup size, the probability of mistaken identification decreased. Thus, lineups of at least size 40 should be used with the MSL. The number of mistaken choices in culprit-absent single-choice sequential lineups was, however, affected by lineup size. Reasons for the results are discussed.
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