Psychology (Linear) Studies

A = To investigate how imformation supplied after an event, infleunces a witness's memory for that event.

P = Experiment 1: 45 students put into 5 groups containing 9 participants each. Experiment 2: 150 students put into 3 groups containing 50 participants each.

P = Experiment 1: All shows the same 7 film clips from driver safety videos. Then given a questionnaire to describe the accident and questions about the accident. Asked the leading question- each group had a different term (hit, smashed, collided, contacted, bumped). Experiment 2: All shows the same video followed by a questionnaire asking them to describe the accident then questions about the accident. Then they were asked the leading question with different terms used (hit, smashed or not asked the question). A week later. they'd be asked if there was any broken glass.

F = Experiment 1: Smashed produced the fastest speed estimate (40.5 mph) and contacted produced the lowest speed estimate (31.8 mph). Experiment 2: More participants in 'smashed' condition reported seeing broken glass than the 'hit' or control group. There was no broken glass in the film- majority of the participants got this correct.

C = Terms used in leading questions can influence the replies

A = To demonstrate the positive effects of context upon memory.

P = Total of 40 participants (8 stufent researchers obtaining 5 acquaintances each), but because of an outlier only 39 participants were used in the results.

P = Participants were given instructions that this was a class assignment. All participants wore headphones and those in the noisy condition listened to the same cassette of typical lunchtime at a university. They read a 2 page article once then had a reak for 2 minutes before being tested. Once the time was up, they were given comprehension questions beginning with SAQ then MCQ. When all of the participants were finished they were debriefed.

F = Silent/silent condition got a mean total of 14.3 out of 16 questions correct on the MCQ.

C = Studying and testing in the same environment increases performance levels.

A = To test Cherry's findings more rigorously and to investigate other factors that can affect attention in dichotic listening.

P = Experiment 1: No numbers given, undergraduate students, males and females. Experiment 2: Total of 12, undergraduate students or research workers, males and females. Experiment 3: Total of 28, undergraduate students or research workers, males and females.

P = Experiment 1: Lab experiment using repeated measures design. Participants heard a short list of words repeated and prose shadowing (one in each ear). Participants asked to recall as many rejected words. 30 seconds after participants completed a recognition test of 21 words. Experiment 2: Lab experiment using repeated measures design. Participants listened to two passages (one in each ear)- both passages had instruction at the start and an instruction in the passage, In 3/6 conditions instructions began with participant's name. Told their response would be recorded and should make few mistakes. Experiment 3: Lab experiment using independent measures design. Whilst hearing passages with digits either in both messages or the shadowed/ rejected message. Participants were given one of two sets of instructions: Asked questions of shadowed message, or Remember as many digits as possible.

F = Experiment 1: 4.9 out 7 words remembered in shadowed message in comparison to 1.9 in rejected message. Experiment 2: 10 times the affective message was heard in comparison to 4 times for the non-affective message. Experiment 3: Results weren't found to be significant at a 5% level of confidence.

C = It's difficult to make 'neutral' material important enough to break through the block set up in dichotic shadowing. Subjectively 'important' messages (e.g. a person's name) can penetrate the block.

A = To build on previous researhc into divided visual attention, and to investigate inattentional blindness for complex objects and events in dynamic scenes.

P = 228 participants, almost all undergraduate students, volunteer sample.

P = Lab experiment using independent measures design. A written protocal was devised and reviewed to ensure standardisation. Participant were tested individually and gave informed consent. Beofre watching the video participants were told to focus on the white team or the black team. Told to keep a silent mental count of the number of passes by their team or separate silent counts of the bounce and aerial passes to their team. After watching the video paricipants were told to immediately write down their counts. They were then asked follow up questions in relation to the unexpected event.

F = Out of all 192 participants across all conditions, 54% noticed the unexpected event and 46% failed to notice the unexpected event. More participants noticed the unexpected event in the easy (64%) than the hard (45%) condition.

C = Individuals are more likely to notice unexpected events if these events are visually similar to the events they're paying attention to.

A = To demonstrate that children imitated new learned behaviour without the adult model being present.

P = A total of 72 children from Stanford University Nursery School. Genders were equally split.

P = Phase 1: Children were individually taken into a room for 10 minutes whilst:

• AGGRESSIVE MODEL- displayed their physical and verbal aggressive behaviour to the Bobo doll.
• NON-AGGRESSIVE MODEL- ignored Bobo doll and played quietly with toys.
• CONTROL- didn't participate.

Phase 2: All children taken to a room to play. After 2 minutes toys were taken away for mild aggression arousal. Phase 3: Children taken to a third and final room containing aggressive and non-aggressive toys e.g. mallet and dolls. Observed for 20 minutes through one-way mirror whilst researchers recorded their behaviour.

F = The male aggressive model had greater influence on behaviour (160.7) than the female model (115.2).

C = Children learn behaviours through observation and imitation.

A = To test the Funhaler and seeing if it was an improvement for medical compliance for young asthmatics.

P = A total of 32 children. The children were split as 22 male and 10 female.

P = Field experiment using repeated measures design. Matched questionnaires were completed after some used of the inhalers. One questionnaire was completed before used and another completed after a 2 week use. The data collected from these self-reports related to how easy the device was to use, compliance of parent and child, and treatment attitudes.

F = 73% of parents claimed they were always successful in using the Funhaler compared to 10% with the conventional inhaler.

C = Adherence has been improved so the Funhaler may be useful for management of young asthmatics.

A = The aim was to show how, as young adolescents develop into young manhood, they move through distinct levels and stages of moral development proposed by Kohlberg in his theory.

P = 75 American boys who were aged 10-16 at the start of the study. Also, studied in boys of other cultures including Great Britain, Mexico and Turkey.

P = A longitudinal study were participants were followed for 12 years until early adulthood. Every 3 years they were interviewed individually where they were presented with a series of hypothetical moral dilemmas measured 25 moral themes. Aspects addressed included: motive for moral action, and value of human life.

Using different cultures: Taiwanese boys aged 10-13, were asked about a story involving theft of food. Yound boys in Great Britain, Canada, Mexico and Turkey.

F = Not all participants over the period of the study progressed through all the stages and reached stage 6. Participants progressed through the stages one at a time and always in the same order.

C = Each stage of moral development comes one at a time and always in the same order. There's a cultural universality of sequence of stages.

A = To test the effect of culture on children's moral evaluations of lying and truth telling by comparing the moral judgements of Canadian and Chinese children.

P =                                 7 years                  9 years                     11 years

CHINESE                     20 M / 20 F             20 M / 20 F              20 M / 20 F

CANADIAN                  20 M / 16 F              24 M / 16 F              14 M / 18 F

P = The children were randomly allocated to either the social story or the physical story condition. For each story children were first asked whether the act was 'good' or 'naughty' and whether the lie or truth was 'good' or 'naughty'. They were tested individually and the ratings chart explained before and during the study- children could use words, symbols or both in response to the questions. Children listened to 4 physical or 4 social stories presented in one of two predetermined random orders- these were counterbalanced to avoide order effects.

F = Antisocial/ truth: Children from both Chinese and Canadian cultures rated truth telling in this situation very positively. Prosocial/ truth: Chinese children became less positive about telling the truth in these scenarios as they got older, whereas Canadian children were consistently positive about truth telling.

C = Moral reasoning can be influenced by our culture and the society we live in. The influence of socio-cultural factors becomes stronger as we age.

A = To show the independent streams of conscious awareness possessed by each hemisphere and to show how each hemisphere has its own memories.

P = A quasi experiment that may also be considered as a case study. Presenting visual information: One eye covered, centres gaze on a fixed point in centre of a screen. Visual simuli projected at 1/10 of a second. Information presented to left visual field will go to the right hemisphere vice versa. Researcher then asks questions regarding the function of brain and the impact that it has. Presenting tactile information: Below the screen there's a gap where participants could reach objects but not see their hands. Objects were placed in either or both hands. Information processed by left hand goes to right hemisphere vice versa. The experimenter asks the participants a variety of questions to determine any lateralisation of function.

F = Visual test: Information presented to the right visual field could describe speech and writing with right hand. If the same information is presented to the left visual field the participants insist that they didn't see anything but could point with their left hand to matching pictures/ objects presented among a collection. Tactile tests: Objects placed in the right hand could be described in speech or writing with the right hand. If the same objects placed in the left hand participants could only make wild guesses and often seemed unaware they were holding anything.

C = People with split brains have two separate visual inner worlds, each with its own train of visula images.

A = To build upon previous research which assessed whether delay of gratification in children predicts impulse control abilities when the participants were in adulthood.

P = 1960s: 562 4 year olds from Bing Nursery school at Stanford were tested on the delay of gratification test. 2010: Experiment 1: 59 participants (23 males, 36 females). Experiment 2: 27 participants (13 males, 14 females)- one participant was excluded due to poor performance.

P = Experiment 1:

• Trial 1-  Cool GO= male neutral face, NOGO= female neutral face
• Trial 2- Cool GO= female neutral face, NOGO= male neutral face
• Trial 3- Hot GO= happy face, NOGO= fearful face
• Trial 4- Hot GO= fearful face, NOGO= happy face

Experiment 2: fMRI was used to examine neural correlaions of delay of gratification. Participants completed a 'hot' version of the go/nogo task similar to that used in experiment 1, this involved a total of 48 trials.

F = Experiment 1: The GO trials showed no significant difference between high and low delayers. Low delayers made more errors on 'hot' NOGO tasks (in particular happy face). Experiment 2: Low delayers found to have high activation in the ventral striatum (associated with rewards). High delayers found to have high activation in the inferior frontal gyrus (associated with cognitive control).

C = Low self conrol remains constant in an individual but this depends on the situation.

A = The aim was to replicate Hirsch and Spinelli's research but in an environment where the cats could freely move.

P = Kittens raised in birth and randomly allocated to one of two conditions, 2 kittens were chosen for the neurophysiological testing.

P = The kittens were housed from birth in a completely dark room. From the age of 2 weeks, the kittens were placed into a special piece of apparatus for about 5 hours per day- they were exposed to either a vertical or horizontal orientated environment. They wore a wide collar so that they couldn't see their own body giving them a 130 degree visual field due to the collar being balcked out. This had stopped once the kittend were aged 5 months old. The kittend were taken to a normal furnished, well lit room to be observed. Two kittens at 7.5 months were anaesthetised so their neurophysiology could be examined.

F = Behavioural findings: No visual placing, no startle response, frightened of edges. Neurophysiological findings: 75% of the neurons were binocular as they would be in a normal cat.

C = The environment can determine perception at both a behavioural and physicological level.

A = Aimed to show that the hippocampus in the human brain is the structure associated with spatial memory and navigation.

P = Experimental group: 16 right-handed male taxi drivers with experience in London between 1.5 and 42 years. Average time spent on 'The Knowledge' was 2 years. Matched control group: Didn't drive taxis. 50 for VBM analysis and 16 of the 50 for pixel counting. Matched on health, handedness, sex, mean age, and age range.

P = The MRI scans of all participants were analysed using: 

• VBM: Identifies differences in grey matterdensity in different regions of the brain. 16 taxi driver brains compares to 50 controls to see differences in structure.
• Pixel counting: Compared volume of anterior, body and posterior cross sections of the taxi drivers' hippocampi with a sample of 16 controls taken from the 50 used in the VBM analysis.

F = VBM: Taxi drivers had significant increase in both right and left posterior hippocampus. Taxi drivers had significant decrease in left and right anterior hippocampus. Correlational analysis: A significant positive correlation was found between the time spent working as a taxi driver and right posterior hippocampal volume.

C = It can be suggested that hte changes in the arrangement of hippocampal grey matter are acquired i.e. due to nurture.

A = To document the case of Little Hans and provide support for psychoanalytic theory.

P = A child under the pseudonym of Little Hans, aged 5 years old at the time of the study but data was obtained when Hans was 3 years old, from Vienna, Austria.

P = A longitudinal case study. Hans showed an interest in his 'widdler' and developed a phobia of white horses. Hans had a series of fantasies which Freud called the giraffe fantasy, two plumber fantasies, and the parenting fantasy. Hans' father collected the data mainly by observation and questioning Hans and then sending this data to Freud via letter. At some points, Freud did collect his own data of Little Hans.

F = Hans was considered going through the oedipus complex due to his interest in his 'widdler'. The giraffe fantasy interpreted as taking his mother away to have her for himself- evidence of experiencing the oedipus complex. The plumber fantast interpreted as Hans identifying with his father and passing through the oedipus complex.

C = This study provides support for boys experiencing the oedipus complex during the phallic stage and Freud's theory of psychosexual development.

A = (i) To find out if individuals on the autistic spectrum had deficits with theory of mind. (ii) To find out if there were gender differences in theory of mind.

P = Group 1: 16 participants (4 autism, 12 Asperger's syndrome), 13 males and 3 females, volunteer sample. Group 2: 50 'normal' participants, equal gender split, random sample. Group 3: 10 Tourette's syndrome participants, 8 males and 2 females, volunteer sample.

P = All participants experienced four tasks and were presented in a random order. Participants were individually tests in their own home, researchers; clinic or a university lab.

• The eyes task: Shown 25 black and white magazine photos of eyes and given a foil and target term of which represents the eyes emotion better.
• Strange stories: Presented with 2 examples of each of the 12 story types.
• Gender recognition: Same eye photos in eye task and were asked to identify the gender.
• Basic recognition: Shown whole faces expressing emotion and asked what feeling they're expressing.

F = Normal females (21.8) performed significantly better than normal males (18.8) on the eyes task. However, normal males (18.8) were significantly better than the autism/ AS group (16.3).

C = The results seem to provide evidence that adults with autism/AS do possess an impaired theory of mind.

A = The aim of this article was to expose the fundamental problems involved in the attempts to measure intelligence.

P = 1.75 million army recruits in the USA during WW1.

P = An intelligence test is an example of a psychometric test in that it's an instrument devised for measuring mental characteristics. Yerkes devised three types of mental tests:

• Army Alpha- written test for literate recruits, had 8 parts (includes unscrambling a sentence, filling in the missing numbers), these types of tests become common in modern IQ tests.
• Army Beta- a pictorial test for those illiterate or failed the alpha, had 7 parts (running a maze, number work).
• Individual Examination- individual spoken test for those who failed the beta test.

The alpha and beta test could be administered to large groups and took less than an hour to complete.

F = The Immigration Restriction Act was passed in 1924 by the US Congress and was shaped by Yerkes' findings.

C = IQ tests are culturally and historically biased.

A = The aim was to examine the language of psychopaths reflected, as redicted, an instrumental/ predatory world view, unique socio emotional needs and a poverty of effect.

P = 52 male murderers (14 psychopathic, 38 non-psychopathic).

P = Interested individuals underwent a psychopathy assessment measured using PCL-R by a trained prison psychologist or researcher (cut off score was 25). Participants were interviewed, but beforehand the purpose and procedure of teh study was verbally explained. It was audio taped. They were asked to descrie in as much detail about their homicide offences. Standardisation was ensured by using the Setp-wise interview. The audio taped interviews were transcribed and two text analysis was used to analyse the transcripts.

F = Psychopathic language was significantly less fluent than control. Psychopaths used more past tense verbs than controls. Psychopaths used approximately twice as many words related to basic psychological needs.

C = Psychopaths give less emotionlly intense descriptions of their crimes and use less emotionally pleasant language than non-psychopaths.

A = (i) To understand if Nazi soldiers are fundamentally different to normal people. (ii) To investigate what level of obedience would be shown when participants were told by a figure of authority to administer electric shocks to another person. (iii) To be able to quantify obedience.

P = 40 males obtained via an advert and paid $4.50 (volunteer sample).

P = Took place in a lab at Yale University. Prior to the studybehaviour was predicted on 100 hypothetical subjects. All participants were given the role as teachers and saw an actor to play the learner (who was strapped in a chair with electrodes attached). Teachers were given a trial shock of 45 volts to prove legitimacy. The teacher had to ask the learner a paired word test and if they got it wrong they'd be shocked (ranging from 15v to 450v). A tape recording of the learner screaming would be played every time they got an incorrect answer. If the teacher turned to the experimenter for advice they would urge them to continue. 

F = 100% continued to 300v. 65% continued to the maximum of 450v (26 obedient, 14 disobedient). Many participants showed signs of extreme stress where three participants had full blown uncontrollable seizures.

C = People will obey others whom they consider legitimate figures even if what they are asked to do goes against their moral beliefs.

A = (i) To study people who disobey and who blow the whistle. (ii) To understand the personal and situational factors involved in disobedience.

P = 138 comparison group from VU University in Amsterdam. 149 behavioural group (96 femal, 53 male).

P = 5 pilot tests to ensure procedure is credible. A comparison group then predicted what would happen in the procedure. Participants were told about the task and potential benefits/ risks and ethics. Each participant was greeted by a male experimenter. The experimenter asked each participant to provide a few names of who would participate in psychological research. They were then presented the highly unethical cover story. The experimenters wanted to replicate this study and asked the participant to write a positive statement and then left the room for 3 minutes. The experimenter took the participant to another room with a computer, ethics form and a postbox then left the room for 7 minutes. Afterwards, participants were taken back to the first room to take a personality test, be fully debrifed and sign a consent form.

F = Comparison group: 3.6% obey, 31.9% disobey, 64.5% whistleblow. Behavioural group: 76.5% obeyed, 14.1% disobeyed, 9.4% whistleblew. Personality test: Slight trend in those that believe in a transcendent reality are more likely to whistleblow.

C = People tend to obey authority figures, even if the authority is unjust.

A = To investigate factors affecting helping behaviour. Factors: Type of victim (drunk or ill), Race of victim (black or white), Speed of helping, Frequency of helping, Race of helper.

P = 4,450 men and women who used the New York subway on weekdays between 11am and 3pm. About 45% were black, 55% were white.

P = Field experiment on the A and D trains of the New York subway. Involved a male experimenter fake collapsing between stops. Experimenters worked in teams of four and there were four teams. 70 seconds after the train left the station the victim would stagger and fall. The conditions were: critical area/ early, critical area/ late, adjacent area/ early, adjacent area/ late.

F = Overall the cane victim received help 100% of the time compared to 81% for the drunk victim. Victims were helped much faster when there were 7 or more male passengers.

C = An individual who appears ill is more likely to receive help than one who appears drunk. People are more likely to help those of the same race as themselves.

A = To investigate the tendency of people to help in non-emergency situations.

P = Participants were individuals in the large cities of the 23 countries at the time of the experiment. Only individuals walking alone were selected. Children under the age of 17, physically disabled, the old, or those who aren' capable of helping were excluded.

P = A quasi experiment carried out in the field that used independent measures design. Used 23 large cities around the world including Rome and New York. Standardisation was inferred where experimenters were trained together and provided with detailed instructions. Three conditions:

• Dropped pen- experimenter 'accidentally' dropped their pen from their pocket about 10 to 15 feet from the participant.
• Hurt leg- experimenter ealked with a limp followed by 'accidentally' dropping and struggling to pick up a pile of magazines within 20 feet of the participant.
• Blind person- experimenter pretending to be blind and implying help when crossing the road.

F = There was no relationship between population size and helping behaviour. Simpatia countries (Brazil, Mexico and Spain) were, on average, more helpful than non-simpatia countries. Overall, a city's helping rate was relatively stable across all three measures.

C = The helping of strangers is a cross-culturally meaningful characteristic of a place. There are large cross-cultural variations in helping rates. The value of collectivism-individualism is unrelated to helping behaviour.