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Essay Behaviour and Mind Psychology
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Six short answer style essays, well written as part of end of semester assignment, module Behaviour and Mind, course Psychology. The essay was grated 2:1 (A).
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Essay Questions Preparation1 Differentiate between positive and negative reinforcement, giving examples of each. Explain
how they differ from positive and negative punishment.
According to Operant conditioning, behaviour can be influenced by the result following it therefore
it can be said that depending on the consequences behaviour can be or not be displayed again. Two
are the established consequences– reinforcement and punishment. Reinforcement makes it more
likely to see this behaviour again in the future (McLeod, 2007). An easy example of everyday life for
this could be given with a dog, if an individual has a dog and provides a little piece of the food on the
dinner table to the dog, the next day the dog would come to the dinner table again expecting to be
given food same as the day before. In this case, the individual has reinforced or strengthened the
response in the dog. Punishment, however, weakens a response, making it less likely this response
to happen again in the future. An example of this can be given with a similar scenario where the dog
comes to the dinner table but the owner refuses to provide any food, therefore, the dog goes away
from the table. Next time the dog would know that the owner will not give any food, so the response
has been weakened by the owner. The consequences that immediately follow a behaviour are very
important for shaping it (Cherry, 2019).
Reinforcement can be positive and negative. When a pleasant result is the outcome of a response,
making that same response likely to repeat that is classified as positive reinforcement. Negative
reinforcement then represents an unpleasant result being removed as a consequence of a response,
making the response more likely to recur (Cherry, 2019).
Punishment could also be positive or negative. Positive punishment is when a result is less likely to
recur due to an unpleasant consequence following it. Negative punishment is described as a
response which less likely to be repeated due to a pleasant consequence being removed (Cherry,
2019).
The difference between positive and negative reinforcement and positive and negative punishment
is to identify the goal to be achieved in a particular behaviour. If the goal is increasing certain
behaviour a reinforcement can be determined. If the goal is decreasing a punishment can be
determined. Depending on the goal being increasing or decreasing certain behaviour a
reinforcement or punishment can be determined (Staddon et al., 2003).
2 Describe how both the capacity and duration of iconic memory was measured in the Sperling
1960 experiment.
When information is consumed the first step of the process is going to sensory memory, followed by
short-term memory and eventually some of it can enter and remain saved in long-term memory.
Sensory memory allows a person to save an idea of the information after the original stimulus has
ended. The purpose is to save the information only long enough in order to be then recognised and
then passed on to the short-term memory. There are three types of sensory memory – iconic,
echoic, and haptic. Iconic memory is also known as visual sensory memory and includes a very short
image, it typically lasts for milliseconds. Although sensory memory is very short it plays a critical role
in the attention and memory processes (Di Lollo, 1977).
There are a couple of variations of Sperling’s experiment where he briefly flashed a series of letters
for milliseconds which was not long enough for the viewer to actually reproduce them. After the
exposure time, a blank screen was shown and in the case of the experiment where the viewer was
required to report all of the letters, most of them could only report between three and five letters
, which on average is around 35% of the actual letters. So, it is been concluded that iconic memory
has a duration of 0.5 to 1 second (Di Lollo, 1977).
Iconic memory is being established usually during the first seconds of exposure to any visual images
and once the process is completed the duration of exposure to the image is irrelevant. Iconic
memory can store an unlimited quantity of visual information for 0.3 seconds which explains
recollection of images (Coltheart, 1983).
3 Discuss the role that top-down processing plays in solving the inverse problem of visual
perception.
Perception is an interpretation of how an individual sees and experiences the world around them.
Often something that is the same would be perceived differently by two people. Perception usually
comes from beliefs, knowledge and experiences. (Schneck, 2013)
An image on the retina can be caused by an infinite number of objects. The brain has access to the
effects but not the cause of the sensory activity. The illumination, reflectance and transmittance
form a retinal stimulus and the process goes one way and cannot be reversed by any sort of logical
means. They are all entangled and cannot be logically disentangled, and this is the inverse problem.
The general statement about this rule specifically in vision is that there is no way of getting back to
luminance from the stimulus that is on the retina (Pizlo, 2001).
Top-down processing is an identification of objects using existing knowledge, expectations and
assumptions. It states that humans’ behaviour is influenced by conceptual data. Perception and
behaviour are not just led by visual data but also by expectations. Top-down processing states that
perception is constructed by cognition. It also uses background knowledge to influence perception.
(Gilbert et.al., 2013)
The brain uses an individual’s past experiences and emotions but sometimes the balance between
new information and old information gets upset. Scientists came up with an idea called the Bayesian
brain. The Bayesian brain uses a mathematical model to describe how the brain works, researchers
think that it can help us understand how each person’s brain is influenced by their past experiences,
their mood and all sorts of other factors. Since everyone has lived a different life, everyone’s brain is
different. (Pizlo, 2001)
4 Discuss and briefly evaluate the evidence that contributed to our understanding of the factors
that affect eyewitness testimony.
Confidence in judgment is poorly correlated with accuracy in eyewitness statements. An incorrect
assumption is made that people are capable remember certain event and then recreated it precisely
as it had happened. Both new information and recalling old information are active processes and
therefore are never exactly accurate. In the circumstances of a courtroom, these natural human
fallibilities can have disastrous consequences if left unchecked. For that reason, eyewitness
statements have been superseded in the hierarchy of evidence by more objective measures such as
forensics (Loftus, 2019). Bartlett (1932) argued that memories are not precise reflection of events
but are instead ‘reconstructions’ of events. These reconstructions are influenced by individuals’
personal attitudes and the stereotypes they hold. If recalling, however, is not objective, then it is a
problem for eyewitness testimony. When an individual recalls a memory that memory is influenced
by schema, memories change to fit with the individual pre-existing bias. Memory is not an accurate
recording of events. It is reconstructed in recalling and may produce errors (Wells et. al., 2003).
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