Qualification > Revison Notes
OCR AS Psychology Notes- 15 Studies
Ukhti-R:
ROGER SPERRY- SPLIT-BRAIN PATIENTS
The corpus callosum is a bundle of nerve fibers that connect the two hemispheres allowing information to be transferred between them.
Left Hemisphere------> Language, and reasoning ability
Right Hemisphere-----> Spatial awareness
Aim- The aim of the study was to find out what happens when the two hemispheres cannot communicate with each other.
It was a Quasi-Experiment, as he did not manipulate the variables. He used patients that had already undergone the surgery.
Technical Equipment:
Sperry used specially designed apparatus that allowed for information to be presented to just one visual field. The individuals visual field was divided and their hands were screened from their own view. The participant had one eye covered as a control, this prevented eye movement and allowing the two hemispheres to communicate with each other.
Procedure:
-Participants had one eye covered and were told to gaze at a fixation point.
- Slides were projected onto either right or left of the screen at a ver high speed.
- One picture was shown even 0.1 second or faster.
- Below the screen there was a gap so the participant could reach the tray but could not see them or see their own hands.
Results:
-Visual material shown into the Right Visual Field goes to the Left Hemisphere --- Participants could describe this in speech and writing.
-Visual material shown into the Left Visual Field goes to the Right Hemisphere --- Participants insisted they had seen nothing, yes if the image was show again in the R.V.F the participants did not recognise having seen it before. However, they could draw it with their right hand.
-However, when participants were asked to find the object in the tray below which had matched what they has seen on the screen, they could do so.
- Sperry flashed 2 different pictures to the right and left visual field. $ to the left and ? to the right. Participants could draw only $, but reported they had drawn the ?
- Another example was the flashing of composite words like KEY-CASE. They wold produce a key from the tray with their LEFT hand (R.V.F- no lang), but spell the word CASE with their right hand (L.V.F- Controls lang.)
-Objects put in the right hand (R.H- L.V.F) could only be guessed at, even thought participants could find them in the tray.
Conclusions
-Sperry found that language is controlled by the left hemisphere, and the right hemisphere is speechless. The left hemisphere is the dominant side.
-However, right hemisphere does have some understanding. It can do simple arithmetic and it can understand spoken and written words even though they cant express it.
- Right Hemisphere can show emotion. Participants were shown nude pictures into their right hemisphere, participants blushed which shows an appropriate emotional response.
------
-Split brain patients had no IQ changes, nor were their personalities changed.
-They experienced some problems with short term memory, and got tired easily.
Ukhti-R:
LOFTUS AND PLAMER- EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY
Aim- The aim of the study was to investigate how information supplied after an event influences a witness's memory for that event.
Method- Two experiments were conducted, with an Independent Measures Design. The IV was the verb used. The DV in the 1st experiment was the participant estimate of the sleep, and the second was how many say broken glass.
Experiment 1:
Participants: 45 Students from the University of Washington.
Procedure: -Particiapnts were shown 7 film clips of automobile accidents.
-Clips were made as part of a driver safety film
-Clips ranged from 5-30 seconds in length.
-After watching, participants were asked:
a) To write an account of what they had seen
b) To answer some questions. ONE of these questions was the critical question, which was "How fast were the cars
going when they hit each other?"
There were 5 conditions in the experiment, with 9 participants being assigned in each condition.
In each condition, the verb in the critical question was changed to either:
a)Hit
b)Smashed
c)Collided
d)Bumped
e)contacted.
The experiment lasted about 90 mins and a different ordering of films was presented to each group of participants.
Results:
Estimated speed by the participants when used different verbs:
Hit - 34.0 m/s
Contacted- 31.8
Bumped- 38.1
Collided- 39.3
Smashed- 40.8
Explanation of Results:
-Results could be die to a distortion in memory of participant due to the verb used.
- Results could be die to demand characteristics, may not have been sure of the speed of the car but estimated in order to fit the expectations of the questioner.
Experiment 2
Aim- The aim of the experiment was the same as experiment 1, but with the additional aim to see if the verbal label did distort the memory, rather than demand characteristics.
Participants: 150 Students
Procedure: - 1 min film which contained 4 second multiple car accident
- Participants divided into groups of 50
GROUP 1 were asked: How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?
GROUP 2 were asked: How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?
GROUP 3 were asked no question about the speed of the vehicles.
A week later, the participants were asked further questions including the critical question. "Did you see any broken glass?"
The question was placed at random on each participant's question paper. There was in fact no broken glass.
Participants with the verb, hit- 14% said there was broken glass.
Participants with the verb, smashed- 32% said there was broken glass.
elemis:
I like reading this. Very interesting. I might learn soemthing.
Ukhti-R:
--- Quote from: Ari Ben Canaan on June 09, 2010, 12:18:48 pm ---I like reading this. Very interesting. I might learn soemthing.
--- End quote ---
You learn this, you could take the exam, and get another AS under your belt ;)
Ukhti-R:
DAVID ROSENHAN- ON BEING SANE IN INSANE PLACES
Aim- The aim of the study is to test whether sane individuals could be diagnosed as insane and be admitted to psychiatric hospitals.
First Study
Participants:
- Involved 8 sane people attemptiing to gain admission in 12 different hospitals in 5 different states in the USA.
- The sample consisted of a psychology graduate student in his 20s, 3 psychologists, a paediatrition, a painter, a housewife, and Rosenhan himself.
- 5 men and 3 women.
Procedure:
The pseudopatients telephoned for an appointment and on arrival at the admissions office they complained of hearing voices. They said the voice was unfamiliar and of the same sex as themselves, said "empty", "hollow", and "thud". Thus hearing voices is a symptom of schizophrenia.
The patients gave a false name and job, but all other details they gave were true. They were each told they would get discharged once the staff were convinced they were sane, so after being admitted they stop simulating any symptoms of abnormality. When asked how they were feeling by the staff, they said they were fine, and no longer experiencing symptoms.
The study is a field Experiment. The IV was the made up symptom, and the DV was whether they were admitted into hospital or not.
The study also included participant observation as the patients kept written records of the ward and how it was operated, as well as how they were treated.
Results:
-None of the peseudopatients were detected. They all remained in hospital for 7 to 52 days (avg. 19 days)
-Some real patients detected their sanity (35/118 patients voiced their suspicions)
-Other said things sch as " You're not crazy, you're a journalist or a professor checking up on the hospital."
Second Study
Procedure:
Rosenham created a lot of attention and as a result hospitals attempted to improve their procedures. He carried out a follow up investigation 3 years later.
In this study, The hospital staff were told that over the next 3 months one or more pseudo patients would attempt to gain admission. Staff members were told to rate on a 10 point scale each new patient as to the likelihood of them being a pseudo patient.
Rosenhan in fact sent NO pseudo patients
Results:
Number of Patients judged ------> 193
Number of patients confidently judged as pseudo patients by at least one staff member-------> 41
Number of patients suspected by pne psychiatrist ------> 23
Number of patients suspected by one psychiatrist AND one staff member ------> 19
Conclusion:
Rosenhan claims that the studies demonstrate that psychiatrists cannot reliably tell the difference between people who are sane and those who are insane. The main experiment illustrated a faluire to detect sanity, and the second experiment demonstrated failure to detect insanity.
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