Biology & Cognition

 - Explain how biological factors affect one cognitive process- 

 

Biological factors as for example Alzheimerdisease, Superior Autobiographical memory and Post Traumatic Stressdisorder do affect our memory in many ways.

Alzheimerdisease is a serious degenerative brain disease. The main symptoms of Alzheimer's disease relate to memory impairment. Some symptoms that lead to this disease are for example, difficulty in speaking and understanding language, problems with focusing attention and impaired movement.Alzheimer's disease is basically a loss of memory. People with this disease also experience confusion,depression,hallucinations,sleeplessness and loss of appetite. Alzheimer occurs in about 10% of the population and mostly by old people that are from 65-80 years old. Episodic memory is most affected and studies show that AD was primarily a disorder of episodic memory. This disease also affect semantic memory,and people are not able to name pictures of objects or picking the appropriate picture given it's name. The procedural memory is less affected. Alzheimer disease patients show decreased activation of the medial temporal lobe. At first the hippocampus is affected,then the parietal lobes and other brain regions. AD causes loss of brain cells and the deterioration of neurons involved in the production of acetylcholine. 

The Post Traumatic Stressdisorder, is basically remembering situations that happend to you and were traumatic for you. Once you survive this trauma ,you will never forget it. People who have Post Traumatic Stressdisorder may feel stressed or frightened even when they are no longer in danger. One part of the brain, where PTSD occuses ,is amygdala. Amygdala appears to be active in fear situations and it's known for its role in emotions,learning and memory. The hippocampus makes new memories,without it you could not live in the present and you would be stuck in the past. This is what sometimes happens to people with PTSD. Amygdala mediates emotional content and it integrates information from external events,  it attaches the emotions and decides an action,which is in this case, the post traumatic disorder. Trauma is danger and the amygdala determines that danger exists.

Schema's on eyewitness testimony

                                    - Discuss,with reference to relevant research studies,                                        the extent to which one cognitive process is reliable-

Eyewitness testimony is a theory that shows that not every eyewitness is true about his saying.  In many situations,they are not right about who the criminal,the saw,was.

Loftus and Palmers (1974) theorized,it could be information supplied after the event activates our schema.Thereby we are inducing an altered memory of what actually occurred. For this study they used 45 participants where each was shown several videos of car accidents and they were questioned after each video. Each participant received one of the questionnaires. The questionnaires differ only on one word from the question. The question was : " About how fast were the cars going when they 1. contacted, 2. hint, 3. bumped, 4. collided, and 5. smashed.  The results were different, even though they watched the same video. There were two interpretations of the result. The stronger the verb was,the higher they guessed the speed, and the second was that theirs memories were influenced by the strenght of the verb.

Eysenck and Keane (2010), discussed the differences between eyewitness reports obtained in laboratory and those provided by eyewitnesses in real- life situations. They found out,that watching a video of an accident or crime is less stressful than observing one in real-life ,therefore this cases of mistaken eyewitness identification in real life,have often serious consequences. The results of this study,were really interesting. They theorized that eyewitness from real situation can recognize peripheral or minor details,rather than central and important aspects of the scene. Because of having such a stress,there is probability that eyewitness testimony might not be reliable. 

Some of the negative consequences of eyewitness testimony is, that students/participants are not representative of entire population and that the accidents were not "real" and so they lacked the emotional content.

Schema Theory essay

                        -Evaluate schema theory with reference to research studies -

    Gender schema theory is a theory that explains the stereotypes between men and women. We are teached to this theory from the moment we are born. Different colors of clothes,different toys and our general look,that is also different.
    Boys,for example, are mostly not playing with dolls, and girls with cars.This is an theory of Sandra Bern from the year 1981. She suggested,that a child is teached to stereotypes,from the day they are born. Why do,for example,girls have earrings and boys don't? Why are girls and women more likely interested into cooking, then boys? Simply because,the kids see it ion their childhood and when they grow up,it's typically for them to do this stereotypes. Another thing,that Sandra Bern theorized was the question of why do women have to use make up and men don't. Nowadays it'd s duty for women to use it,because like it was also 20 years ago,they are supposed to look good and pretty.  Why don't men have such a duty?  Because this is simply the stereotype that they are working and women should stay at home,carry the children and represent them. Even though the role of women changed,the duty of "looking good" stayed the same.
Bartlett (1932),theorized the effect of schema's on memory.  The main idea of this study,was to investigate how memory of a story is affected by previous knowledge. He used serial reproduction, so that the participants heard a story and then they should reproduce it,after a short time and then again & again after some period of time. As a result, it was shown,that people changed their story as they tried to remember it.       The story became shorter,because they didn't said things,unimportant to them.  The story became  more consistent with cultural expectations and they also changed the order of this story.
Some of the negative consequences of gender schema theory is,that it requires the separation of males & females into two different groups. This stereotyping can lead to generalizations about expected behaviors,like for example : " every woman is emotional and every man is aggressive" Even though this is not true,people are still having this opinion. Because of this stereotypes,people are often discriminated and that's why it's not always a good thing.