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Summary Edexcel A Level Psychology Notes - Cognitive Psychology
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A* notes for the Cognitive Psychology Module at A Level - the ONLY notes you need for this course!
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1Cognitive Psychology
- Studies how we process information
- Concerned with internal mental processes, such as language, memory, problem
solving and thinking
- 1 assumption is that the human mind can be seen as a system for handling
information
- Information from the environment is interpreted to make sense of it
- Thinking, perceiving, using language and memorizing are all ways of processing
information
- Information processing occurs when information is taken in by the senses (input) and
processed by the brain
- Once the brain has processed the information, there is an output in some form
- Psychologists use a computer metaphor to describe how the brain processes
information
- Like a computer the mind has an input in the form of senses, a store in the form of
memory and an output in form of behaviour
- Cognitive processes are like computer hardware
2.1 Content
Memory Definitions
- Capacity – a person’s maximum ability to perform a task
- Capacity (memory) - the size of a memory store
- Encoding – how memories are registered, breaking it down, can transfer a word from
visual to sound
- Storage – how memories remain as memories after they have been registered
- Retrieval – how we retrieve memories when the output is needed
- Duration – how long information remains in the store
2.1.1 The Working Memory Model
Baddeley and Hitch 1974
- MSM too simple - not a unitary system
- Thought memory was not a unitary store but made up of different systems for
different types of information
- Consisted of Central Executive, visual-spatial sketchpad and the phonological loop
- Separate phonological and visuospatial systems because research found out that if
participants asked to do 2 tasks simultaneously involving sound, they couldn’t do it
- Same with a visual task
- However able to carry out both a visual task and a task involving sound
- This showed that the 2 systems are separate
- Baddeley also used the dual-task paradigm - holds that different parts of the
cognitive system are involved if the task seems to interfere with one type of
processing (such as sound) but not with another type of processing (e.g. vision)
,2
Phonological Loop
- Deals with spoken and written material
- 2 parts - articulatory loop and the primary acoustic store
- Phonological store ‘inner ear’- holds auditory memory traces for 1-2 seconds, before
they decay
- Forgetting is by trace decay
- Written words must first be converted into spoken words before entering the store
directly
- Sound information goes directly into the phonological store and remembers sounds
in order
- Linked to speech perception
- Articulatory loop - revives memory traces by rehearsing them - subvocal speech
- Also converts written material into articulatory code and transfers it to the store
- ‘Inner voice’ because information is repeated in order to maintain the trace
- Circulates information round like a tape loop
- Articulatory loop is such that rehearsal refreshes memories but as there are more
items, it gets to the point where memory of the first item in the phonological store
fades before it can be rehearsed
- Can also explain the word length effect where short monosyllabic words (cat, rug)
recalled more successfully than longer polysyllabic words (intelligence, alligator)
- Because longer words filled up the limited capacity of the articulatory rehearsal
system, this results in the decay of words positioned earlier in the list
- The longer the word, the more capacity was used up and forgetting is more likely
- Also explains why there was deterioration in recall when rehearsal was prevented
through articulatory suppression (repeating words ‘the’ while learning a world list)
- Linked to speech production
- Function - learning language - evidence from people with phonological loops deficits
who cannot learn new vocab
,3
- Comes from Baddeley et al 1988 who found an Italian woman (VP) with a
phonological impairment and was unable to retain any vocab learned from a
different language
- Evidence comes from studies with sets of numbers, letters or words to see how
many can be recalled
- E.g. letters that sound alike when voiced (e.g. V and B) according to Baddeley are not
recalled as well as letters that do not sound alike
- Where - Left Hemisphere and Broca’s area is suggested to be involved in the
rehearsal side of the phonological loop
- If Broca’s Area damaged, someone might know what to say, but can’t say it, which
supports idea of it being involved in working memory
- E.g. why is it difficult to process 2 conversations simultaneously?
- Difficult because both conversations are verbal and both utilise the phonological
store
- It has limited capacity so is unable to cope with the demands of 2 tasks at once and
results in poor performance in processing
Visuospatial-Sketchpad
- Deals with visual and spatial information
- Visual - what things look like
- Spatial - keeps track of where things are in relation to other objects as we move
- Displays and manipulates visual and spatial information in the LTM, e.g. layout of
known buildings
- Function - Links to non-verbal intelligence
- Role in finding out how objects appear and adding a meaning to this
- Also helps to understand objects
- Where - Right Hemisphere
- Evidence - A visual processing task and a verbal processing task can be performed at
the same time but it is more difficult to perform two visual tasks at the same time
because they interfere with each other and performance is reduced
- The same applies to performing two verbal tasks at the same time
- This supports the view that the phonological loop and the sketch pad are separate
systems within working memory
- Visual Cache (stores information about form and color) and the Inner Scribe (deals
with retrieval and rehearsal)
- Biological evidence for this split from patients with brain damage
- E.g. in a person with right hemisphere damage, there was visuospatial difficulties
Central Executive
- Drives the whole system and controls the flow of information
- Supervisory system and controls cognitive processes
- As it is in the STM, will have limited capacity and will decline rapidly
- Directs information and gives priority to particular activities
, 4
- Also enables the working memory to selectively attend to some stimuli and ignore
some
- It is able to deal with different types of sensory information (modality free)
- Evidence from patients with lesions and PET scans have shown the central executive
is linked to the frontal lobes
- Evidence - patients with Alzheimer's have shown decrease central executive function
as the disease progressed
- Baddeley (1991) - series of dual task experiments on young, elderly and Alzheimer
patients
- The performance of the Alzheimer group did not differ significantly from the other
group when performing visual or verbal tasks but showed significant impairment
when doing them together
- According to Baddeley, the central executive is responsible for the coordination of
the subsystems
Episodic Buffer
- Argued that there must be a way for the phonological loop and the articulatory
system to interact
- Idea of an episodic buffer came around, which provides time sequencing for visual,
spatial and verbal information
- Acts as a back-up store which communicates with LTM and working memory
- Explains why we can put together longer sentences even though phonological store
has limited capacity
- Central executive controls the attention of the episodic buffer
- Also controls the flow of information
Evaluation:
Strengths
- Develops the MSM and refines the information
- Shows that STM is not a unitary store
- MSM maintains that information the STM is mainly auditory and does not last long
- WMM is an expansion of this – phonological loop stores auditory information
- Explains features of the STM
- Has generated lots of research, which is still going on
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