PSY 2COG Lecture 1 - Introduction Unit Overview (Compatibility Mode) - Merged

PSY 2COG : Cognition
Unit Overview
Unit Coordinator : Dr Annukka Lindell, GS 408 a.lindell@latrobe.edu.au Dr Christina Nadj (Bundoora) Dr Brad Wright (Albury-Wodonga) Dr Graeme Galloway (Bendigo) Lecturer : Lectures : Tutorials : Dr Annukka Lindell Tuesday 3 - 4pm; Friday 12 - 1pm 2 hours every second week (starting Week 2) Matlin, M.W. (2009). Cognition (7th Ed). USA: John Wiley & Sons. Assistant Coordinators :
Lecture 1 Overview Introduction to Cognition
Textbook :
Copies of Matlin (2009) will be available in the closed reserve section of the libraries at Bundoora, Albury-Wodonga and Bendigo
Lecture/Tutorial Schedule
Week 1 27 Feb
Assessment
There are three pieces of assessment for PSY 2COG Cognition: 500 word tutorial assignment (Due 20/03/12) 1500 word major essay (Due 22/05/12) Topics for written assessments are made available on LMS
Lecture 1 Tuesday 3-4pm WLT1 AW Rm 6101 Be ART 403 Overview and Introduction Perception
Lecture 2 Friday 12-1pm WLT1 AW Rm 4101 Be ART 403 Perception
Tutorial Program (2 hour tutorial)
Tutorials are held in the following weeks: Week 2 Week 4 Week 7 Week 9 Week 11 Week 13 There is a 75% hurdle requirement for tutorial attendance Online tutorial sign-ups will be available from 4.30pm today
5 Mar
Perception
Perception
3 4
12 Mar 19 Mar
Memory Memory Language Language MID SEMESTER
Memory Memory Language GOOD FRIDAY BREAK Language Language Thinking & Reasoning Problem-solving & Creativity Applied Cognition: Psychology & the Law Applied Cognition: Psychology & the Law Applied Cognition: Psychology & the Law Applied Cognition: Psychology & the Law Problem-solving & Creativity Language / Major Essay Language Memory
26 Mar
2 Apr
7 8 9
16 Apr 23 Apr 30 Apr
Language Language Thinking & Reasoning Problem-solving & Creativity Applied Cognition: Psychology & the Law Applied Cognition: Psychology & the Law Applied Cognition: Psychology & the Law
10
7 May
11
14 May
12
21 May
13
28 May
http://bit.ly/tutesignup
Two hour MCQ (multiple choice 45 questions) and SAQ (short answer 2 questions) exam : the exam will assess all material covered in the lectures, tutorials, and readings
Lecture Plan
What is cognition? Brief history of cognitive psychology Aristotle Wundt James Behaviourism Mind as computer : Methods in cognitive psychology Experimental Cognitive neuropsychology Functional imaging (PET, fMRI, ERP)
What is cognition?
Cognition: Latin, cognoscere, "to know Making breakfast this morning, you were actively engaged in a number of cognitive tasks: Visual perception (checking out the cupboards for options) Auditory perception (listening out for the kettle boiling) Decision making (will I have bran flakes or froot loops?) Problem solving (flatmate finished your milk time for toast?) And so on. . .
What is cognition?
Cognition: Latin, cognoscere, "to know Pay attention! I dont know. I forget. Nope cant decide.
What is cognition?
Cognition: describes the acquisition, storage, transformation and use of knowledge Cognitive psychology: theoretical approach with the emphasis on knowledge and mental processes Why study cognition? To better understand how the mind works We use our cognitive processes constantly: thinking, perceiving, problem-solving, decision-making, reading, speaking. . ., but perhaps have given little thought to how we perform these processes
Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of knowledge : Acquisition (attention, perception) Maintenance (memory) Usage (problem solving & reasoning)
Historic roots of cognition

Psychology was not a discipline until the century, but philosophers have tried to understand how we think for millenia Aristotle (384-322 BC) wrote at length about learning and memory He explains information storage by analogy to wax seals : perception is like a picture that stamps its likeness on the soul (for Aristotle, the soul was a physical rather than supernatural concept) The imprint (memory representation) allows you to recall the percept at a later date 19th

Wilhelm Wundt (18321920): the father of scientific psychology First researcher to have a laboratory in which to study the human mind Wundt championed the use of introspection to study mental processes: observers analyse their sensations and report them as objectively as possible (sounds rather subjective to us now!) Wundt also argued for replication : is the phenomenon consistently observed with different participants/stimuli/environment?

William James (1842-1910): the other father of psychology who wrote the 1200 page book The Principles of Psychology in 1890 James was not keen on Wundts introspection technique & instead favoured theorising about everyday psychological experience (e.g., perception, attention, memory, reasoning, tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon) It is a gap that is intensely active. A sort of wraith of the name is in it, beckoning us in a given direction, making us at moments tingle with the sense of our closeness and then letting us sink back without the longed-for term."

Behaviourism : before cognitive psychology, the behaviourist approach ruled. In behaviourism (as the name implies) the focus is solely on objective, observable reactions to stimuli Behaviourists focus on behaviour and hold that thinking is purely subvocal speech rejecting the notion of mental images, ideas and thoughts This approach is completely incompatible with Wundts introspection

But behaviourism has influenced cognitive psychology, esp. psychological methods Cognitive psychologists precisely define the concept to be measured (operational definition), just as behaviourists did Cognitive psychologists focus on experimental control can also be traced back to behaviourists: behaviourists tended to study animals rather than humans as they can be reared under stricter controls
Birth of Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive Psychology was born in 1956, indexed by the publication of a mass of books/papers on attention, memory, language, etc. Within 5 years, the popularity of this new approach changed attitudes, approaches and methodologies in psychology (Mandler, 1985), culminating in the publication of Neissers seminal work Cognitive Psychology (1967) and the cognitive revolution, (Bruner, 1997) the term cognition refers to all the processes by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used. every psychological phenomenon is a cognitive phenomenon. (Neisser, 1967, p. 4)
Rise of Cognitive Psychology

The brain is the most complex organ known to man. In the history of psychology theres consequently been a tendency to propose that the brain works like the most sophisticated technology of the time Nowadays cognitive psychologists argue that the brain works like a computer, but past theorists had different ideas: Ancient Greeks Catapult Liebniz Mill Freud Steam engine Telegraph system Telephone exchange (Beynon & MacKay, 1992)
Mind as Computer
Analogy between mind and computer led cognitive psychologists to adopt an information-processing approach : A) Mental processes are best understood by comparison with the operations of a computer B) A mental process can be thought of as information progressing through the stages of a system, step by step
Atkinson & Shiffrins (1968) Multi-store model of memory.
Mind as Computer
One of the beauties of the cognitive model approach is that the explicitness of the model makes drawing testable hypotheses straightforward We can make predictions about how people will perform and test those predictions experimentally Computer instantiations of cognitive models can also be used Computer programs need to be explicitly detailed, logical and unambiguous. Cognitive models aspire to the same set of criteria, so just as the model indicates the flow of information through the brain, a computer program can be designed to test whether the theory produces data that replicate human performance
Techniques in Cog Psych

By far the most common paradigm used in cognitive psychology is the traditional, experimental approach Researchers design experiments that test their variable(s) of interest (e.g., influence of word length on memory), while controlling all other possible confounding factors Participants response times and error rates are typically measured and used as an index of processing demand: longer response time and more errors = more demanding task The types of errors committed can also be analysed

While traditionally, cognitive psychology has purely been interested in the how of information processing, and not the where, there is now increasing interest in the field of:

Cognitive Neuropsychology: examines the consequences of brain lesions on performance. Cognitive deficits observed indicate that the damaged region was involved in that cognitive process However as brain lesions are rarely precisely defined, with damage limited to a specific region, it can be difficult to associate a deficit with a specific brain structure: we need convergent evidence
Cognitive neuroscience combines traditional cognitive psychological research techniques with methods capable of assessing the structure of the brain This allows us to determine which parts of the brain are involved in specific cognitive processes
Inability to produce coherent speech

Functional Imaging : PET, fMRI, ERP PET : - Positron Emission Tomography - measures cerebral uptake of radioactively-labelled substance (typically fluorodeoxyglucose: FDG) in the bloodstream - used to measure all kinds of cognitive task, e.g., attention, memory, language - BUT takes >30secs to produce data, so images have good spatial but poor temporal resolution
Techniques in Cog Psych : PET

Functional Imaging : PET, fMRI, ERP fMRI: - functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging - measures the amount of oxygen in the blood in different brain regions (active tissue consumes lots of oxygen) - again, used for a variety of cognitive tasks - less invasive than PET - measures brain activation over 500msec periods so better temporal resolution than PET BUT still relatively slow
Techniques in Cog Psych : fMRI

Functional Imaging : PET, fMRI, ERP ERP: - Event Related Potentials - records amplified fluctuations in the brains electrical activity in response to a stimulus (event) - electrodes placed over the scalp and record electricity generated by the neurons - cannot identify the location of activation with precision (unlike PET, fMRI) - CAN identify the timecourse of activation over very brief periods
Techniques in Cog Psych : ERP
Summary
The cognitive psychological approach sees the mind as an information processor: interested in the acquisition, processing, storage and recall of information The cognitive approach sprung forth in the mid 20th century, but has its roots in earlier psychological approaches (see Wundt, James, even Aristotle!) Takes an information-processing approach: mind receives input stimuli, processes stimuli, produces output. Analogous to computers Traditional cognitive psychology relies on experimental techniques, measuring reaction time (RT) and error rates in response to stimuli Traditional approach is now being combined with neuropsychological and neuroscience techniques to shed light on where and when the cognitive processes occur
31/01/2012
Lecture Plan
Segmenting the speech stream Lack of invariance Speaker variability Segmentation problem
Categorical perception
Context Effects
Lecture 2 Perceiving Speech
Visual cues
What is speech?
The vocal cords and mouth produce a sound wave The ears receive the sound wave and translate it into a neural signal The brain translates the neural signal into phonemes, the basic components of speech PHONEME: a sound of the language PHONETICS: the acoustic detail of speech sounds and how they are articulated PHONOLOGY: the study of sounds and how they relate to languages
What is speech?
The sounds that phonemes make can vary, depending on their position in a word e.g., /p/ in PIT vs. /p/ in SPIT Phonemes vary from language to language: the two /p/ sounds are the same phoneme in English, but different phonemes in Thai /w/ /u/ /r/ /d/ Phonemes combine to form words Changing phonemes changes meaning e.g. fat cat
What is speech?
The best speech recognition system is the human brain We recognise speech fast and effortlessly (usually) We understand speech at a rate of 20 phonemes per second We can recognise spoken words in context 200 msec from their onset
Why is segmenting speech hard?
Early automated speech recognition performed well when recognising different words from one speaker, but had difficulty recognising different words produced by different speakers But by age 4, children are experts at recognising speech why was this task so hard for a computer to solve?
31/01/2012

1. Lack of invariance problem 2. Problem of speaker variability 3. Segmentation problem

1. Lack of invariance problem The acoustic signal for a phoneme varies depending on the context in which it is produced e.g., the d sound in dim, daft, duck, adder are acoustically distinct Phonemes take on some of the acoustic properties of their neighbours because the vocal tract anticipates the shape it needs to adopt for the next phoneme COARTICULATION
Coarticulation & Invariance

We rarely produce phonemes in isolation speech is based on the parallel production of phonemes which are coarticulated. Coarticulation makes speech production fast and efficient, but makes it impossible for the acoustic properties of phonemes to be identical in each instance Note how your mouth & lips change shape when saying these words: Capsicum Criminal Conker Clip Curt Crack Coach Clunk

2. Problem of speaker variability The size and shape of peoples vocal tracts are all different
no two speakers produce exactly the same sound There are obvious differences between males and females Also, there are differences between annunciations generated by the same person at different times (e.g., smiling/not smiling; happy/sad; whispering/shouting; having a cold, etc.)

3. Segmentation problem When we speak, we rarely leave clear breaks between words Speech is not easily split into easily identifiable word units, so dividing the speech signal into words (SEGMENTATION) is a necessary part of speech recognition Segmenting speech seems effortless we only become aware of the lack of physical separation between spoken words when youre listening to someone speaking a foreign language

3. Segmentation problem Hockett (1955) Easter Egg Analogy imagine a moving conveyor belt carrying raw but coloured Easter eggs. Before they get to you, the eggs are put through a wringer Your job is to: examine the passing mess and decide, on the basis of the broken and unbroken yolks, the variously spreadout albumen, and the variously coloured bits of shell, the nature of the flow of eggs which previously arrived at the wringer
31/01/2012

3. Segmentation problem Can you hear the difference between the following: The stuffy nose can lead to problems The stuff he knows can lead to problems Tell me about the night rate reduction Tell me about the nitrate reduction

We try to segment speech so that each speech segment is included in a possible word. We use our knowledge of a language to predict likely beginnings and ends of words a metrical segmentation strategy This strategy doesnt always work (Cutler & Butterfield, 1992) They presented the following words very quietly: conduct ascents uphill Participants reported hearing
I scream (for) Ice cream
The doctor sends the bill A duck descends some pill
Segmentation Depends on Native Language

In the Cutler & Butterfields (1992) study, listeners inserted word boundaries before strong syllables, and deleted word boundaries before weak syllable. This strategy is called stress-based segmentation and is characteristic of languages like English where we segment speech by identifying stressed syllables Another segmentation strategy is syllablebased segmentation which is characteristic of languages like French which have clear, unambiguous syllables (in English, syllable boundaries can be unclear) So your native language determines the segmentation strategy you use to parse speech
Categorical Perception
Despite the variation in the way phonemes can sound, we are rarely conscious of these differences. Why? Because we classify speech sounds as one phoneme or another: there is no half-way point between two phonemes, thus there is categorical perception of phonemes Liberman et al. (1957) generated a continuum of artificial syllables that differed in the place of articulation Participants divided the continuum into 3 distinct categories, beginning with /b/, /d/, /g/
Categorical Perception
Though we categorise different frequency phonemes as belonging to the same category, we can distinguish between them
Context Effects
When we hear words, they are rarely isolated: we hear them as components of sentences which establish contexts The context provides clues about the kinds of words that can be expected in a sentence e.g., I went to the zoo and saw an elephant I went to the zoo and saw a rubbish bin
Pisoni & Tash (1974) Participants had to determine whether the /b/ sound was similar in two syllables (e.g., bat, bin) Participants are faster to confirm that two syllables share the same /b/ phoneme if they are acoustically identical Participants take longer to confirm when the two syllables differ slightly Therefore, we are sensitive to within category differences
31/01/2012
Context Effects
The phoneme restoration effect (Warren & Warren, 1970) provides good evidence for the influence of context on speech recognition Participants listened to sentences in which a critical phoneme was missing the missing phoneme made a word ambiguous, but the context disambiguated the word The *eel was on the axle The *eel was on the shoe The *eel was on the table The *eel was on the orange wheel heel meal
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Context Effects
The phoneme restoration effect shows that the perception of speech is constrained by higher-level (contextual) info
But WHEN/HOW does phoneme restoration occur?
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1) Context could influence how participants perceive (actually hear) the word immediate effect 2) Context could influence decisions about the ambiguous word post perception effect
Context Effects
Samuel (1981, 1987, 1990, 1996) compared the effect of adding noise to a segment with replacing a segment with noise If phoneme restoration is a purely perceptual effect, participants should not be able to discriminate between these conditions: both should be perceived as phoneme + noise But if phoneme restoration is a post-perceptual decision effect, participants should be able to discriminate Participants could NOT discriminate between: Phoneme replaced with noise/ Phoneme with noise added Therefore, phoneme restoration is a true perceptual effect
Visual Cues & Speech Perception

When we perceive speech, we dont just rely on what we hear (auditory information) if youre chatting face to face, information from a speakers lips and face assist you in resolving ambiguity in the speech signal We hear conversations more accurately when we catch watch a speakers lips/face rather than using the telephone (Massaro & Stork, 1998) Particularly when youre in a noisy environment (e.g., a party), seeing the speakers face significantly improves the intelligibility of what you hear (Sumby & Pollack, 1954)
Speech Perception : McGurk

McGurk effect (McGurk & McDonald, 1976) demonstrates the influence of vision on audition this will be the focus of next weeks tutorial, and the 500 word tutorial assignment
Summary
Humans are exceptionally good at segmenting speech, despite the fact that this is a very difficult task. Speech segmentation is challenging because of: 1) Lack of invariance problem; 2) Problem of speaker variability; 3) Segmentation problem There is categorical perception of phonemes: we classify speech sounds as one phoneme or another: there is no half-way point between two phonemes The context in which we hear a word provides clues about the kinds of words that can be expected. This is evidenced by the phoneme restoration effect, a perceptual effect wherein context leads us to perceive an unheard phoneme McGurk effect demonstrates the influence of visual information on auditory perception: what we hear is influenced by what we see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeWoqkOvd1Y&feature=endscreen&NR=1
Lecture Plan
Recognising faces Are faces special?
Bruce & Young Model processing
of face
Familiarity and Averageness
Lecture 3 Perceiving Faces
Perceiving beauty: faces tell us?
what do
Featural vs Configural processing
Recognising Faces
Imagine youre looking at an old school photo Though all the faces look (relatively) the same, you can easily recognise yourself or your best friend, simply by scanning the faces Humans are experts at face recognition because faces are socially important stimuli We can recognise faces showing different expressions, from different angles, in different settings, and at different ages
Recognising Faces
Humans are so interested in faces, we see faces in all sorts of stimuli, even when theyre not there
Recognising Faces
From the instant were born, we pay attention to faces Goren et al. (1975) found that newborns (mean age 9 minutes!) track face-like patterns more than control patterns containing rearrangements of the same features This suggests that face processing is innate At 2 days old, newborns can discriminate between the face of their mother and the face of strangers (Bushnell et al., 1989) Given that newborns sleep roughly 85% of the time during their first few days, newborns require very little time to show a preference for their mother
Are faces special?

We recognise facial features better in the context of a whole face rather than in isolation (Tanaka & Farah, 1993) That is, were more accurate in recognising a whole face than just a nose But for other objects (e.g., houses), were just as accurate in recognising an isolated feature (e.g., door) as recognising the whole house This suggests that faces have special status in the perceptual system as adults, we perceive faces holistically
Models of face processing

Bruce & Young (1986) Model 1. Faces are processed holistically and orientationspecifically (structural encoding) 2. Familiar faces are recognised by matching with stored FRUs (face recognition units), gaining semantic information from PINs (personal identity nodes) 3. Unfamiliar faces are processed via directed visual processing
Models of face processing

Bruce & Young (1986) Model Double dissociation between recognizing familiar faces and matching unfamiliar faces across different viewing conditions (face constancy) One can often retrieve semantic facts without retrieving the name of a face, but the reverse pattern is not found (i.e., name generation depends on semantic retrieval) Double dissociation between recognizing familiar faces and recognizing emotion, age and sex
Familiarity
Familiarity
Burton et al. (1999) then showed participants 20 photos of Professors (10 from the videos), and asked them to rate each photo on a scale from 1 (certain not in video) to 7 (certain in video) Results indicated that when participants were familiar with the target, they made much more accurate seen/unseen decisions When participants were unfamiliar with the target (as is typical in everyday crimes), both students and police officers performed poorly
Burton et al. (1999) examined the effect of familiarity on face recognition They presented participants with videos of Professors walking through the front door of the psychology department Participants were a) taught by the Professors, b) not taught by the Professors, or c) police officers (not taught by the Professors!)
Averageness
Francis Galton (1878) was investigating the facial characteristics that define criminality and overlaid a series of transparencies to create an averaged face He was the first person to notice that averaged faces tend to be: "much better looking than those of the components because the averaged portrait of many persons is free from the irregularities that variously blemish the looks of each of them", (p.135) Averaged faces are often used in face perception research
Averageness
Galton was right : we perceive average faces as more attractive Perceptual processes favour the processing of prototypes we process prototypical stimuli more easily, enhancing liking
http://www.faceresearch.org/demos/average
Perceiving Beauty
Langlois et al. (1988) found that from age 3 months, babies prefer attractive faces, just like adults
Perceiving Beauty
Ghirlanda et al. (2002) found that chickens also prefer beautiful humans desirability ratings from humans and chooks did not differ
What do faces tell us?

Faces provide a reliable index of health (Kalick et al., 1998) More attractive people: live longer (Henderson & Anglin, 2003) have better physical health (Langlois et al., 2000) have better mental health (Feingold, 1992)
What do faces tell us?

Solder et al. (2003) investigated the link between attractiveness and sperm quality 66 guys gave a semen sample and had frontal & lateral photographs taken 66 women rated them Facial attractiveness ratings were significantly correlated with semen quality: the semen index increases with attractiveness, including better sperm morphology & motility Not surprisingly, more attractive people have greater mating success: Rhodes et al. (2005) found that attractive males have more short term partners, and attractive females have more long term partners
Configural vs Featural Processing

I shouldnt know you again if we did meet, Humpty Dumpty replied in a discontented tone youre so exactly like other people.the two eyes, so (marking their places in the air with his thumb) nose in the middle, mouth under. Its always the same. Now if you had the two eyes on the same side of the nose, for instance or the mouth at the top that would be some help. Carroll (1871, p.208)

All faces share some information: the same basic parts (eyes, nose, mouth) are in the same basic arrangement this similarity poses challenges to the perceptual system (Rhodes, 1995) However faces differ in their featural information: the local information contained in individual parts (e.g., shape of nose, colour of eyes) Faces also differ in the configural information: the spatial interrelationship between those parts (e.g., spacing between eyes, distance from nose to upper lip)

Configural Differences Featural Differences

All visual stimuli have both featural and configural information Research suggests that non-face objects tend to be processed feature-by-feature (Biederman, 1987; Marr, 1982) Configural processing is the hallmark of adult/expert face perception (e.g., Schwaninger et al., 2002) Younger children tend to recognise faces by focussing on individual features but as they get older, they learn to processing faces configurally (Mondloch et al., 2002)

Wilford & Wells (2010) predicted that as faces are processed holistically (i.e., configurally), people will show less change blindness for faces than houses They changed one feature in the images (nose, chin, mouth, hair, eyes; chimney, porch, window, roof, door) As predicted, results indicated that people were better able to detect changes in faces than houses (holistic procssing), but could localize the changed feature better in houses than faces (featural processing)
Face Inversion Effect

When an object is upside down (inverted), its harder to recognise Inversion has a much greater impact on face recognition (20-30% more errors) than on other object category (0-10% more errors; Yin, 1969) Inversion interferes with configural processing, as demonstrated by the Thatcher (or Obama!) illusion (Thompson, 1980)
Face Inversion Effect
Inverting the mouth and eyes looks grotesque when the image is upright, but is the grotesqueness is not perceived when the image is inverted This suggests that configural information is difficult to extract when the face is upside-down
Summary
Faces are important social stimuli, so humans pay great attention to faces from birth (face processing is innate) According to Bruce & Youngs (1986) model, familiar faces are recognised by matching with stored FRUs (face recognition units). Semantic information is then retrieved via PINs (personal identity nodes) Averaged faces appear prototypical and are perceived as more attractive; attractiveness is a reliable index of health (mental & physical) and mating success Faces differ in their featural information: the local information contained in individual parts (e.g., shape of nose, colour of eyes) Faces differ in the configural information: the spatial interrelationship between the parts Non-face objects tend to be processed feature-by-feature, whereas configural processing is the hallmark of adult face perception Inversion interferes with configural processing, and thus has a greater effect on face processing than processing of other objects (e.g., Thatcher illusion)
Lecture Plan
Deficits in face perception
Prosopagnosia
Capgras syndrome
Schizophrenia
Williams syndrome
Lecture 4 Problems in Perceiving Faces
Autism
Face Blindness
While travelling, I had a stopover at O'Hare and I was approached by a stranger It took 10-15 seconds of casual conversation before realizing who it was. It was my brother. "If you can't recognise people, you feel like you're socially inept. You're always worrying that people will think you rude or aloof I remember going to a job interview and the dark-suited man who'd been interviewing me left the room, and when he came back I picked up the conversation where we'd left it, not realising it was a completely different dark-suited man. I didn't get the job To admit you can't recognise your own husband is shameful."
Prosopagnosias
Prosopagnosia: selective inability to recognize familiar faces visually (face blindness) Recognition is instead triggered by other cues e.g., voice, clothing, hair, gait Patients other perceptual and cognitive functions are typically intact
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwCrxomPbtY
Prosopagnosic patients can see faces, but they have no meaning: cannot link the percept to semantic knowledge about the person
Prosopagnosias
Prosopagnosias
In terms of the Bruce & Young (1986) model, prosopagnosia could reflect a breakdown during structural encoding, FRUs or PINs
Prosopagnosia typically results following damage to a number of different brain regions, including: Bilateral occipitotemporal damage (incl. inferior temporo-occipital cortex, and lingual and fusiform gyri) Unilateral right hemisphere lesion in the equivalent areas
Apperceptive prosopagnosia: failure to generate a sufficiently accurate percept to allow a successful match to stores of previously seen faces Associative prosopagnosia: accurate percept, but failure to match because of loss of facial memory stores or disconnection from them
Prosopagnosias
Apperceptive prosopagnosia may reflect breakdown at the structural encoding stage e.g., Bodamers (1947) prosopagnosic patient reported that all faces looked like a flat oval white plate(s) with dark eyes
Prosopagnosias
Associative prosopagnosia reflects breakdown of FRUs, PINs or the links between them
Humphreys & Riddochs (1987) patient HJA had difficulty integrating facial features into coherent wholes : the various features seem independent of one another rather than forming a unified, whole face (Farah, 2004)
Unlike patients with apperceptive prosopagnosia, associative prosopagnosics can match faces and recognise facial emotions, however they cannot link this information to semantic knowledge about the person
Prosopagnosias
Associative prosopagnosia reflects breakdown of FRUs, PINs or the links between them e.g., Carney & Temple (1993) Patient MH exhibited difficulty linking faces to names
Capgras Syndrome
Capgras syndrome (Capgras delusion) : delusion that certain other people, usually close relatives, have been replaced by imposters (Young, 2000), e.g., secret services, Martians, robots, clones First described by French psychiatrist Joseph Capgras in his 1923 paper about "Madame M Patients often recognize their claim as difficult for others to believe, but this does not stop them believing it
Lykouras et al. (2002) describe a 36 yr old woman with Capgras syndrome: She reported auditory hallucinations of her fathers voice giving orders and insulting her. . . [she had] the delusional belief that her father had died and been replaced by a double, who had the same physical appearance as her father but he differed from him psychologically, (p.234).
According to Ellis & Young (1990), patients with delusional misidentification syndromes (e.g., Fregoli delusion, Capgras delusion) may have faulty links between structural encoding and FRUs/PINs
Capgras Syndrome
ML (Young et al., 1993) thought her son was an imposter who was trying to kill her: Theres been someone like my sons double which isnt my son at all. . . I can tell my son because my sons different. . . But youve got to be very quick to notice it you see.
Capgras Syndrome
Capgras patients report: a widespread feeling that things have changed in a way that makes them not feel quite right strange, somehow unfamiliar, almost unreal (Young, 2000, p.60)
Christodoulou (1977) describes a patient who told police that her husband was dead and had been replaced with an identical-looking man: she then wore black mourning clothes, refused to sleep with the double, and ordered him out of the house to go to your own wife de Pauw & Szuleckas (1988) patient accused his stepfather of being a robot, then decapitated him to look for batteries and microfilm in his head
Ellis et al. (1997) argue that the Capgras delusion results from a patients attempt to make sense of abnormal perceptual experiences in which things appear strange and devoid of affective significance
Capgras Syndrome
Ellis & Young (1990) argue that Capgras syndrome is the opposite of prosopagnosia
Capgras Syndrome
Ellis & Youngs (1990) thesis can account for the fact that Capgras delusion typically affects the recognition of close relatives: one would normally expect the largest autonomic response for these people The absence of an autonomic response for a familiar face would be very disconcerting, hence the feeling that things are not as they should be (Young, 2000) Hirstein & Ramachandran (1997) offer support: their patient claimed his parents were imposters when he spoke to them in person, but treated them as his real parents when he spoke to them on the telephone consistent with the delusion resulting from discrepant visual information (Young, 2000)
In prosopagnosia, overt recognition of faces is impaired but autonomic responses are spared
In Capgras syndrome, recognition is OK but autonomic responses to familiar faces are lost
Schizophrenia
Patients with schizophrenia exhibit deficits in perceiving faces (e.g., Bediou et al., 2005) Martin et al. (2005) asked patients with schizophrenia (hospitalised) and normal controls to determine whether pairs of photos were the same person or different people Results indicated that people with schizophrenia were significantly slower than control participants in making the same/different decision People with schizophrenia also made more face recognition errors than control participants
Schizophrenia
Williams et al. (1999) examined the eye gaze patterns of patients with schizophrenia when perceiving faces Patients and controls were asked to recognise normal and degraded photos of faces Unlike controls, patients with schizophrenia did not concentrate their fixations on salient features, and had a restricted scanpath This suggests that patients with schizophrenia have a specific deficit in the visual scanning of faces
Williams Syndrome
Williams syndrome (WS) is a rare genetic disorder (1/25,000) causing a variety of medical and developmental problems Associated with very low IQ (~50), with serious deficits in spatial cognition, numbers, planning, and problem-solving, but fluent and articulate language and face processing Indeed, infants with WS pay far more attention to faces than objects (Bellugi et al., 2000) Karmiloff-Smith (1997) argues that the extra attention to faces allows people with WS to attain normal face processing scores, however their strategies differ adults with WS and normal controls do not differ in measures of featural face matching, however the WS adults were significantly worse on matching tasks requiring configural processing
Williams Syndrome
Derulle et al. (1999) asked people with WS (ages 7-23) and chronological age-matched (CA) and mental age-matched (MA) controls to determine whether pairs of faces were the same or different in normal and reversed orientations They found that people with WS showed less of an inversion effect than the controls, consistent with reliance on featural rather than configural analysis
Autism
People with autism and autism spectrum disorders (AD) show marked deficits in reciprocal social interaction and communication, as well as an abnormality in face processing People with AD dont pay attention to faces This face inattention is evident from infancy Children with AD are abnormally delayed in attaining face-related social milestones (e.g., looking at anothers face to share experience/gauge reaction) Like people with Williams syndrome, people with AD are thought to process faces abnormally, having difficulty with normal holistic face processing and instead relying heavily on featural processing
Autism
Langdell (1978) first demonstrated that children with AD use featural cues to recognise faces Children with AD were significantly better than controls at recognising faces based on an isolated view of the mouth Other studies show that normal individuals are better at recognising faces from the eyes (e.g., Sergent, 1984) Langdell (1978) also reported that children with AD showed superior recognition of inverted faces compared to controls, and little difference in accuracy between normal orientation and inverted faces Again, such data appear consistent with a featural, rather than configural, face recognition strategy
Autism
Functional imaging research indicates that people with AD perceive faces using different neural systems than normal controls e.g., Pierce et al. (2001) used fMRI to compare activation during face perception for normal adults and adults with AD They found abnormally weak/no activation in the fusiform gyrus in the adults with AD, and reduced activation in the inferior occipital gyri, superior temporal sulcus and the amygdala, in comparison to the normal controls Behaviourally, there was no difference in RT or error rate between AD and control groups
Summary
Prosopagnosia (face blindness) is a selective inability to recognize familiar faces from vision, resulting from unilateral right hemisphere, or bilateral, occipito-temporal damage. Apperceptive prosopagnosics show difficulty perceiving faces (unable to put the parts together) whereas associative prosopagnosics can perceive/match faces but are unable to retrieve semantic information linked to faces Capgras syndrome is the delusion that certain other people, usually close relatives, have been replaced by imposters it results from right occipitotemporal lesions (like prosopagnosia), and appears to reflect normal recognition but abnormal autonomic response to familiar faces Patients with schizophrenia exhibit slower and less accurate face recognition than controls. Eye gaze studies indicate that patients with schizophrenia fail to fixate salient features in faces and have a restricted scanpath People with Williams syndrome and autism spectrum disorders appear to rely on different strategies from normal individuals when processing faces: they process featurally rather than configurally, and consequently show reduced/absent inversion effects
Lecture Plan
What is memory? Multi store model of memory Sensory memory Short term memory Millers magic number Serial recall Primacy effects Recency effects Rehearsal
Lecture 5 Sensory and Short Term Memory
Encoding
Memory
What do we use memory for? Making decisions (based on experience) : should I have the beef or the chicken? Remembering appointments : what time is the lecture? Remembering people : friends, family, the dentist Remembering skills : how do I boil an egg / use SPSS? Remembering preferences : do I like Depeche Mode? Justin Bieber? Remembering who I am. . .
World without memory

Imagine you had no memory: You cant recognise anyone You cant recognise anything You cant talk, read, write You cant recall what youve done at any point in your life You cant remember who you love, what you care about, who you are Youve essentially lost your sense of self
What is memory?
Everything in life is memory, save for the thin edge of the present. Gazzaniga (2000)
Processes in Memory
Encoding
Put into memory
Retrieval
Recover from memory
Memory comprises the processes involved in storing, retaining and retrieving information, after the original source of information is no longer present
Storage
Hold in memory
MultiMulti-store Model of Memory
Sensory Memory (SIS)

According to the multi-store model, there is a separate sensory memory store for each of the senses Information from the visual modality goes into the iconic store Information from the auditory modality goes into the echoic store Sparkler memories: you hold in mind a mental image of the light at each point in the path being traced. If the sparkler is twirled fast enough, individual iconic memories meld into a "memory circle," leading to the perception of a circle of sparkler
Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968) proposed the Multi-store Model of Memory. Memory is made up of a series of stores information flows through this system Information is detected by the sense organs and enters the sensory memory (SIS). If attention is directed to the information, it enters shortterm memory (STM). Information from the STM is transferred to long-term memory (LTM) if information is rehearsed With no rehearsal, information is forgotten because displacement or decay removes it from STM
Sensory Memory (SIS)

Sensory stores work as a temporary buffer that hold information from the environment very briefly (.25 3 sec)
How Long does Sensory Memory Last?

Sperling (1960) Stimulus display (50msec)
Information here is raw, unprocessed, and modality specific, but has a very large capacity
Information within sensory memory that is attended to is transferred to short term memory
F S Q L M R B T K
High tone
Mid tone
Low tone
Sensory Memory
What does this task tell us about sensory memory? According to Sperling (1960) we absorb more raw information through visual perception than we can recall in short term memory The fact that we can typically report the stimuli from any line of a briefly-presented array if explicitly asked (partial report) indicates that information is available in sensory memory that is not always recalled by STM in whole report tasks
Short Term Memory

Short term memory has three key characteristics 1. limited capacity 2. limited duration 3. encoding
Millers Magic Number

Miller (1956) speculated that the capacity of short term memory is limited to:

Digit span tests support Millers magic number and confirm the limited capacity of STM
7 +/- 2 +/7 +/- 2 refers to items of information: a piece of information can vary e.g., you can recode smaller bits of information into larger bits of information by chunking (e.g., BBC is one chunk for people who watch British TV but 3 chunks for those unfamiliar with the acronym)
e.g., Jacobs (1887) tested participants recall of strings of letters and numbers (except letter w and 7 why?)
He found that people find it easier to recall numbers (mean 9.3) than letters (mean 7.3)

But with training, STM can be improved. . . Ericsson et al. (1980) SF (student) had an initial digit span of 7 After 230 hours (!) of training, SF digit span increased to 79
Serial Recall
How? Semantic chunking strategy : 3492 was chunked into 3 minutes, 49.2 seconds, almost a world record for 1 mile
In recall tasks, participants are asked to: recall words in the order presented serial recall recall words in any order free recall The proportion of words recalled is plotted as a function of the order in which they were presented, producing a serial position curve
Serial Recall : Primacy

Typically, serial position curves show that participants recall words presented at the beginning and end of a list better than words presented in the middle Better recall at the beginning : Primacy effect Primacy effect occurs because items early in a list are sufficiently rehearsed before other items are presented to get into long term memory (LTM). Thus these items can be retrieved from LTM
Serial Recall : Recency

Better recall at the end : Recency effect Recency effect occurs because the later items in the list are still in STM, so they can be dumped straight out of STM
Items in the middle arent rehearsed long enough to get into LTM, and were not presented recently enough to remain in STM, so they are not retrieved as well as early and late items
STM Recall
Testing short term memory: Participants are given a word list to memorise, and then required to perform a distractor task to prevent rehearsal (e.g., counting backward from 400 by 3s) After a variable interval, participants are asked to recall as many items from the memorised list as possible Evidence indicates that we begin to lose material from STM within 3 seconds, and within 15-30 seconds, all material is lost
STM Recall : Rehearsal

Maintenance rehearsal (repeating the items silently) can increase the duration of retention for information in STM But as soon as rehearsal stops, information is lost Unrehearsed material disappears rapidly from STM via a process of decay (Nairne, 2002)
Fernald (1997)
Factors affecting rehearsal

In a moment you will see a list of six words read them once, look away and try to recall them:
Burma, Greece, Tibet, Iceland, Malta, Laos Switzerland, Nicaragua, Botswana, Venezuela, Philippines, Madagascar
Factors affecting rehearsal

Comparison of memory span between speakers of different languages neatly illustrates the influence of pronunciation time on STM Naveh-Benjamin & Ayres (1986) tested memory span for numbers in speakers of English, Spanish, Hebrew and Arabic
Pronunciation time has a significant effect on the number items we can store in STM (Hulme et al., 2006) Baddeley et al. (1975) found that people can typically remember 4.2 items from the list of countries with short names, but only 2.8 items from the list of countries with longer names
Encoding in STM
Encoding : process of manipulating and transforming information to mentally label it, forming a memory code. When asked to remember word lists, participants tend to use maintenance rehearsal to memorize the material. Misremembered words can give us an insight into the type of encoding a person used e.g., misremembered word might rhyme with the real stimulus (e.g., moose -> goose), suggesting the word list was phonemically encoded in STM (i.e., coded by sound). Misremembered word might be related in terms of meaning (e.g., moose - > elk), suggesting that the word list was semantically encoded in STM (this happens rarely, indicating that we dont tend to use semantic encoding)
Summary
Memory comprises the processes involved in storing, retaining and retrieving information, after the original source of information is no longer present Multi-store Model : Memory is made up of a series of stores (Sensory memory (SIS), Short-term memory (STM), Long-term memory (LTM)) We have separate sensory memory stores for each of the senses: information from the visual modality goes into the iconic store; information from the auditory modality goes into the echoic store STM has limited capacity, and limited duration Millers magic number: 7 +/- 2 items can be held in STM (chunking can increase the number of items stored, e.g., MTV) STM encoding can be enhanced by maintenance rehearsal (maintenance rehearsal is affected by pronunciation time) Serial recall tasks demonstrate the primacy and recency effects evident in material recovered from STM
PSY 2COG: Cognition
Lecture Plan
Baddeleys Working Memory Model Phonological loop Visuospatial sketchpad Central executive Episodic buffer
Individual differences Intelligence
Lecture 6 Working Memory
Depression
Working Memory vs STM

Baddley & Hitch (1974) first proposed that the purpose of STM is to hold pieces of information in mind simultaneously, so that that information can be manipulated and used as appropriate According to Baddeley (1993), "Short-term memory is not a single unitary system; rather it is an amalgam or alliance of several temporary memory systems working together" (p. 39) Baddeley and colleagues introduced the term working memory : a memory subsystem that comprises a set of mental structures and processes involved in organizing and integrating sensory and other information held in the short-term memory store Working memory is needed for a wide range of cognitive tasks, including reading, mathematics, reasoning, problem solving and language comprehension
Working Memory
He strode across the court and objected to what had just occurred because his opponent had _____.
. . . stepped over the baseline during service . . . presented speculative hearsay to the jury
Working Memory
Baddeleys Working Memory model has 3 major components:
Central executive: limited capacity processing system resembling attention. Modality-free Phonological loop: temporary storage system holding verbal information in phonological (speech sound) form Visuospatial sketchpad: temporary storage system holding spatial &/or visual information Working memory can be likened to a workbench: place for handling, manipulating and combining both new (sensory memory) and old (long term memory) material
Working Memory
Phonological Loop
The phonological loop processes a limited number of sounds for a limited period of time Research confirms that people confuse stimuli that sound similar (acoustic confusions), supporting the notion that material is stored in sound form in the phonological loop (Baddeley, 2000) Conrad & Hull (1964) demonstrated that people recall more items from lists containing stimuli that sound different than from lists containing items that sound similar e.g., C, W, Q, K, R, X C, T, D, G, V, B Similar findings have been reported for words (Kintsch & Buschke, 1969) e.g., cook, book, look, took find, hand, yuck, drip
Phonological Loop
The phonological loop plays a vital role in working memory, as well as numerous other cognitive processes e.g., silent reading, language acquisition, problem-solving, mathematics Articulatory suppression : repeating a word or syllable aloud repeatedly whilst performing another task Using articulatory suppression you can determine whether your phonological loop is necessary for a given task e.g., repeat the syllable pa aloud whilst simultaneously counting the number of words in this sentence
Phonological Loop
The phonological loop is finite : there is a limited amount of tape in the loop Therefore, one would predict that there would be a memory difference between shorter and longer words -> shorter words should use less phonological loop tape, so you should be able to store more of them Baddeley et al. (1975) confirmed that immediate memory of spoken words is affect by length Participants read and recalled serial lists Participants recalled significantly more one syllable words (e.g., sum, wit, hate) than five syllable words (e.g., university, aluminium, opportunity), offering evidence of the effects of articulatory rehearsal on the phonological loop
Phonological Loop
Functional neuroimaging research examining brain activation during tasks thought to activate the phonological loop (e.g., Baddeley, 2006; Gazzaniga et al., 2002) indicates left hemisphere activation in the: Frontal lobe Temporal lobe Thompson & Madigan (2005) also found activation in the left parietal lobe (auditory information storage) Subvocal rehearsal activates Brocas area and parts of the motor strip (Thompson & Madign, 2005)
Visuospatial Sketchpad
The visuospatial sketchpad is a memory system specialised for the storage of visual and spatial information The sketchpad does not play a significant role in language processing unless linguistic material is subsequently encoded in imagery Baddeley et al. (1975) gained support for the sketchpad using a memory task that necessitates the storage of visual info
The visuospatial sketchpad allows you to gather visual information about objects from complex scenes, allowing development of a coherent representation of the objects and their relative positions with the scene (Cornoldi & Vecchi, 2003) In addition, the sketchpad can be used to store visual information generated from the visual images evoked by verbally encoded material Though the sketchpad is used less than the phonological loop by the typical psychology student (Matlin, 2009), we all use the sketchpad as we navigate through the world e.g., if you close your eyes, you can still recall where your pen is located because the sketchpad briefly retains an image of the scene, even though your eyes are closed (Logie, 2003)
Participants are shown a blank 4 x 4 matrix Starting at the top left, participants are required to mentally fill in the square in accordance with information read aloud by the experimenter e.g., in the next square right, put a 2; in the next square down, put a 7 Participants typically report encoding the information visually, as a path through the matrix
The visuospatial sketchpad relies predominantly on a right hemisphere cortical substrate Visual working memory tasks generate initial activation in the occipital lobes (Baddeley, 2001) Activation then spreads to the right frontal region which controls spatial working memory (Smith, 2000) This region is closely located to the frontal eye fields (FEF) which control the movement of the eyes Shifts in attention linked to the visuospatial stimuli generate frontoparietal activity (Diwadkar et al., 2000)
Spatial WM FEF
Episodic Buffer
The episodic buffer was not an original part of Baddeleys working memory model, but was an addition proposed in 2000 (Baddeley, 2000) The buffer works as a temporary store where information from the phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad and LTM can be gathered and combined : the buffer allows working memory to integrate information from different modalities Information can be manipulated in the buffer, allowing you to reinterpret events, solve problems and plan for the future (Matlin, 2009) e.g., if you unintentionally insulted someone, the buffer allows you to review the event By combining knowledge from LTM about that persons behaviour/character, and your memory of whether they seemed offended, you can estimate the damage & figure out a solution
Central Executive
The visuospatial sketchpad, phonological loop and episodic buffer are slave systems to the master: the central executive The central executive works as an information integrator and behaviour coordinator, combining information from the visuospatial sketchpad, phonological loop, episodic buffer and LTM As well as determining what information to focus on, the central executive is responsible for suppressing irrelevant information As such, the central executive helps you to focus on your goal by suppressing distracting stimuli and enhancing attention to relevant aspects
Central Executive
Whereas the phonological loop, visuospatial skethpad and episodic buffer are specialised for the short term storage of information, the central executive does not store information Instead, the central executive is like a supervisor, overseeing processing and determining what is worthy of attention, what should be ignored, and what kinds of strategies should be implemented to resolve problems If a strategy is doesnt work, the central executive devises an alternate, rather than repeatedly using the failing strategy (Baddeley, 2001) The central executive has limited capacity to work on tasks simultaneously, so cannot implement multiple decisions at the same time, or work simultaneously on two competing problems
Central Executive
The central executive is thought to be represented predominantly in the prefrontal cortex (Courtney et al., 1998) This region is responsible for the ability to select actions and organise behaviour according to preferences
Working Memory Capacity

If two tasks rely on the same component of working memory, they cant be performed together (capacity limited) If two tasks rely on different components of working memory, they can be performed simultaneously Robbins et al. (1996) found that asking people to generate random numbers (central executive) OR press keys in a clockwise pattern (visuo-spatial sketchpad) BOTH interfered with chess-players ability to make good moves. Asking players to repeat the words see-saw aloud (phonological loop) did not affect performance
Patients with damage to the prefrontal cortex exhibit symptoms like goal neglect: reliance on habitual responses even if those responses do not bring you closer to your goal Prefrontal damage also leads to perseveration: tendency to produce the same response repeatedly, even when the task clearly requires a change in response (e.g., Wisconsin card sort task)
Working Memory & Intelligence

How does working memory relate to general intelligence (g)?
Kyllonen & Christal (1990) found an extremely high correlation between working memory capacity and reasoning ability (+.8 - +.9). However others have reported weaker correlations (+.65, S et al., 2002) Central executive task scores correlate highly with verbal fluency, reading comprehension and reasoning ability (Jarrold & Bayliss, 2007) Overall, this suggests that working memory capacity is very similar, if not identical to, general intelligence (Colom et al., 2004)

Barrett et al. (2004) speculated that people with large working memory capacities would have greater attentional control than those with smaller working memory capacities
Conway et al. (2001) confirmed that people with lower working memory capacities are more susceptible to the cocktail party effect Kane et al. (2001) reported that people with lower working memory capacities are more easily distracted by peripheral cues Thus the attentional control linked with working memory capacity may help explain differences in intelligence

Recent research suggests that working memory training can enhance fluid intelligence (Gf : the ability to reason and solve new problems independently of previously acquired knowledge) Jaeggi et al. (2008) trained participants using the n-back task a task with extremely high working memory demands Following the training intervention (8-19 session), participants completed a post-test measure of Gf Results indicated a transferrelated gain in post-test Gf This is important because it shows the enhancement of fluid intelligence by cognitive training different from training the test itself
Working Memory & Depression

Christopher & MacDonald (2005) compared working memory performance in people with (inpatients) and without major depression Participants were completed tests tapping the different components of working memory: Phonological loop tasks (articulatory suppression) Depressed : 3.4 letter memory span Controls : 5.3 letter memory span Visuospatial sketchpad tasks (matrix completion) Depressed : 6.7 items matched Controls : 7.8 items matched Central executive tasks (listen to letter series & repeat in reverse order) Depressed : 2.8 letter memory span Controls : 4.9 letter memory span
Working Memory & Depression

Christopher & MacDonalds (2005) findings clearly illustrate working memory deficits in people with major depression This experimental finding is consistent with reports of difficulty concentrating typical of people suffering depression These findings emphasize the profound impact that depression has on the day-to-day cognitive activity of people suffering from depression (Christopher & MacDonald, 2005, p.397) Poor cognitive performance on daily tasks is likely to increase depression levels, leading to a vicious circle
Summary
Baddeleys Working Memory model is a model of STM Working memory : set of mental structures and processes involved in organizing and integrating sensory and other information held in the shortterm store Working memory is made up of the central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad and episodic buffer Central executive is the master, coordinating and integrating information from the slave systems (phonological loop: verbal; visuospatial sketchpad: visual, spatial) Phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad & episodic buffer all have limited storage capacity: no storage in the central executive Working memory correlates highly with general intelligence People suffering depression experience deficits in working memory
Lecture Plan
Long Term Memory Implicit memory Procedural memory Explicit memory Episodic memory Semantic memory Encoding specificity
Lecture 7 Long Term Memory
Depth of processing
What is long term memory (LTM)?

Memory : the knowledge of a former state of mind after it has already once dropped from consciousness; or rather it is the knowledge of an event, or fact, of which meantime we have not been thinking, with the additional consciousness that we have thought or experienced it before, (James, 1890)
Sherlock Holmess Memory

I consider that a mans brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brainattic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it: there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones. Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle (1887)
Long term memory (LTM) houses what we typically consider to be our memory Information encoded from working memory/STM is stored in LTM Stored material can be retrieved from LTM into working memory/STM for recall
What is long term memory (LTM)?

LTM has virtually limitless in capacity and duration, limited only by encoding and retrieval Encoding is the process through which info is put into LTM Though maintenance rehearsal can keep things in STM, it is not particularly effective for getting info into LTM Instead, elaborative rehearsal (you elaborate on the material) makes the info more meaningful and more likely to be encoded into LTM Applying info to be remembered to yourself (self-reference effect) and using visual imagery can enhance encoding for LTM
Consolidation of LTM
New memories appear to be initially stored in the hippocampus, and are then slowly transferred (consolidated) across the neocortex (i.e., you do not have a memory gyrus!) Memory consolidation commences whilst you are awake, but seems to work particularly efficiently when you are asleep Marr (1971) originally proposed that LTMs were consolidated during dreaming (REM sleep), but we now believe that consolidation occurs during nonREM (or NREM) sleep (Nishida & Walker, 2007)
How is LTM organised?

A fundamental distinction exists between remembering based on knowing that and remembering arising from knowing how, (Ryle, 1949) : facts vs. skills We know that (facts): we like coffee we took the 548 bus to uni this morning Mt Everest is the highest mountain in the world We know how (skills): to drive a car to use a mobile phone to pull a pint
How is LTM organised?

1. 2. 3. When did you last ride a bicycle? What is a bicycle? How do you ride a bicycle?
These questions relate to three different types of long term memories we can access 1. Requires conscious recollection of unique, distinct past experience 2. Requires conscious recollection of knowledge, but no experience 3. Unanswerable - unconscious learning Do these different types of memories reflect the existence of different underlying memory stores? Or do they stem from different ways of accessing a single, unitary memory store?
Long Term Memory Systems

Implicit memory is split into two forms: perceptual representation and procedural memory The perceptual representation system is a collection of domainspecific modules that operate on perceptual information about the form and structure of words and objects, (Schacter et al., 2000, p.635) The perceptual priming phenomenon stems from the perceptual representation system Perceptual priming : phenomenon in which a degraded stimulus is processed better if it has been previously processed in nondegraded form
Implicit Memory: Perceptual Priming
Participants are better able to identify the degraded stimulus if they have previously been presented that intact stimulus Perceptual priming also works for word-stem completion: participants presented with _VO__D_ are more likely to respond AVOCADO if they have previously been presented with the word
Procedural Memory
Procedural memory is a form of implicit memory In procedural memory there is no conscious retrieval, and it is challenging to describe, or consciously state, what you know Procedural memory includes skills: Riding a bicycle Ironing a shirt Speaking French When you use these learned skills, you arent typically aware of having remembered them, i.e., there is no conscious retrieval process. Instead, your procedural memory is triggered when the appropriate cues are present
Implicit Memory
Implicit memory allows you to type without looking at the keyboard Yet if I were to ask you which seven keys are in the middle row of a standard keyboard, you would be unlikely to be able to recall explicitly (s d f g h j k)
This difference between implicit (procedural) memory and explicit memory sometimes helps police learn the identity of missing persons suffering amnesia Though explicitly asking who are you?, whats your name? etc may be unsuccessful, asking the person to automatically dial a number on the phone allows implicit memory to take over

Tulving (1972) first proposed that explicit memory could be split up into two parts: episodic and semantic memory Episodic memory: memory of your personal history, of when and where you met your first boyfriend/girlfriend, learned that there is no Santa Claus, etc. Semantic memory: your general knowledge, including word meaning, knowledge of history, science, maths, psychology. . .

If Tulving (1972) is correct in suggesting that explicit memory has two separate memory stores, then there should be patient evidence to support this demarkation : need a double dissociation between episodic and semantic memory to confirm. . . Spiers et al. (2001) conducted a meta-analysis of 147 cases of amnesia subsequent to hippocampal or fornix damage Episodic memory was impaired in ALL 147 cases Semantic memory was impaired in many, but by no means all, cases

Spiers et al.s (2001) results suggest that in people with amnesia, episodic memory is more vulnerable to loss than semantic memory Vargha-Khadem et al. (1997) reported two patients showing the opposing pattern of performance, confirming the double dissociation between episodic and semantic memory Patients Beth and John suffered bilateral hippocampal damage prior to age 4 Both patients exhibited poor episodic memory for daily events, but attended normal schools : speech, literacy and factual knowledge were all within normal range Thus Beth and John show poor episodic memory, but intact semantic memory (indeed, Johns IQ at age 20 was 114)

Vargha-Khadem et al. (1997) reported two patients showing the opposing pattern of performance, confirming the double dissociation between episodic and semantic memory
These memory problems led to the patients having difficulty: 1) Spatially (where?) 2) Temporally (when?) 3) Episodically (what?)
Not surprisingly, Beth and Johns memory loss is so severe that their parents cannot ever leave them alone/unsupervised

A similar dissociation between episodic and semantic memory systems is evident in retrograde amnesia Tulving (2002) reported patient KC who, following brain injury, was unable to recall any personally experienced events prior to the accident However his semantic knowledge was relatively unaffected : his performance on school subjects like maths, history and geography, and overall general knowledge, were similar to others at his level of education
Yasuda et al. (1997) report a patient who showed the opposite pattern of recall : the patient exhibited relatively intact recall for personal experiences in the period prior to the onset of amnesia However the patient had a severe deficit for the recall of public events, celebrities, and even some vocabulary from the time prior to her amnesia
Do these different types of memories reflect the existence of different underlying memory stores? Or do they stem from different ways of accessing a single, unitary memory store?
Encoding Specificity
Encoding specificity principle : recall is better when the retrieval context is similar to the encoding context (Brown & Craik, 2000) Forgetting is more likely to occur when encoding and retrieval contexts do not match Marian & Fauseys (2006) research on bilingual English/Spanish speakers supports encoding specificity Participants listened to 4 stories: 2 in English, 2 in Spanish
Long Term Memory
Explicit Memory
Implicit Memory
Episodic Memory
Semantic Memory
Procedural Memory
Perceptual Representation
After a short delay, participants were asked questions about each story : half in the language in which it was originally presented (match), half in the other language (mismatch) Participants were15-18% more accurate when answering questions in the same language in which the story was originally presented (match)
Encoding Specificity
Tulving (1983) has conducted numerous experiments showing the effects of encoding specificity using the recall paradigm Participants are given a list of words including an ambiguous term, e.g., jam Half the participants are primed to a certain interpretation of jam, by surrounding it with prime words in the list, e.g., fruit, toast, spread After a short delay, memory is tested by presenting participants with a series of items and asking whether they were on the list
Depth of Processing
Craik & Lockheart (1972) proposed that deeper, more meaningful types of information processing lead to greater retention of information than more shallow forms of processing e.g., when trying to remember words from a list, you could focus on whether the word is in capital letters, whether it rhymes with cook, or whether the word would fit in a particular sentence (meaning)
% Recall
Jam is presented, but in the context of traffic jam People typically report that jam was not present, even though their memory for the rest of the list is good
Meaning Rhyme Letters
Summary
Short term memories must be consolidated to become established in long term memory (LTM) Consolidation involves transfer of memories from the hippocampus to the neocortex and occurs during NREM sleep LTM contains two major types of memory: explicit (knowledge) and implicit (skills) Explicit memory is split into semantic and episodic memory Implicit memory is split into procedural memory and perceptual representation The encoding context influences your ability to retrieve material from LTM The more deeply you process information, the greater your retention
Lecture Plan
Memory Strategies Mnemonics Prospective memory
Metamemory Judgments of Learning Feeling of Knowing
Lecture 8 Memory Strategies & Metacognition
Tip of the Tongue
Memory Strategies
Memory strategies : mental activities performed to enhance encoding and retrieval Simple things like paying attention to the to-be-learned material during encoding will improve your later recall Processing information deeply improves memory Research on levels of processing confirms that processing information deeply results in more accurate recall of the to-be-learned material (e.g., Esgate & Groome, 2005) Deep processing involves actively engaging with the material to be learned and forming an elaborated representation; shallow processing may involve simply scanning/rereading text
Memory Strategies
Total-time hypothesis : amount learned is proportional to the time devoted to learning (Baddeley, 1997) However research suggests that in terms of study time, quality matters : US students grade point averages are best predicted by the quality of their study strategies, not the total number of hours dedicated to studying (Plant et al., 2005) Consider how you will be required to remember the to-be-learned information: will you need to recognise (e.g., in MCQs) or recall the information (e.g., SAQs, essays) If the exam involves recall, you should test your recall whilst youre studying by closing your book/notes, and working on practice questions
Memory Strategies
Mnemonics : mental strategies designed to improve memory (Hunter, 2004) Mnemosyne was the Greek goddess of memory, hence mnemonics are memory aids Visual imagery is a powerful mnemonic : research shows that generating unusual/bizarre and interacting visual images of things to be remembered enhances recall (Esgate & Groome, 2005; Davidson, 2006) e.g., if youre trying to learn vocabulary in another language : Spanish word for cow is vaca so you could create a visual image of a cow vacuuming This is called the keyword method : identify a keyword that sounds similar to the new word you wish to learn & create a visual image linking the two (Bellezza, 1996)
Memory Strategies
Method of loci : mnemonic used for recalling lists of items in which you associate the items to be learned with a series of physical locations e.g., you associate items you wish to remember later with locations of a familiar room, building, or street - to retrieve the information, you take a "stroll down memory lane The method of loci is very popular is mega-memory courses/books Research confirms the effectiveness of the method of loci Groninger (1971) found that participants using the method of loci recalled twice as many items as controls
Memory Strategies
Organizational Mnemonics : work to organise material as you learn it, slotting new information into an organised framework Chunking combines small units of information into larger units e.g., phone numbers Hierarchy Technique arranges items in a series of categories, from general to specific Bower et al. (1969) asked participants to learn a series of words that could be organised into categories: some learned the words in hierarchical format, others learned the words randomly Participants who learned via an organised structure recalled > 3 times as many items
Memory Strategies
First letter technique : organisational technique in which you take the first letter of each of the items you need to remember and create a word/sentence using those letters e.g., ROY G BIV for the rainbows colours On Old Olympus Towering Top a Famous Vocal German Viewed Some Hops for the cranial nerves Some Say Marry Money, But My Brother Says Big Boobs Matter More for whether cranial nerves are Sensory, Motor or Both
The first letter technique is typically less effective than the method of loci or the hierarchy technique for recall, but performs well for enhancing recognition (Hermann et al., 2002)
Memory Strategies
Narrative Technique : organisational technique in which you create a story (narrative) that links the items to be remembered together like the method of loci, this technique is popular in memory enhancement books / courses Bower & Clark (1969) required 2 groups of participants to learn 12 lists of words Half the participants were instructed to make up a narrative story incorporating the words e.g., There was a BREAK in the storm and the LIGHT came back on. A MOUSE came out of its hole to take a LOOK at a JAR on the TABLE. Its SPINE tingled so it ran away FAST. Narrative participants recalled 6 times as many words as the control participants
Memory Strategies
Using a combination of memory strategies appears to be the best solution if you wish to improve your memory Hermann et al.s (2002) research examining university students performance found that students with higher marks reported using more different memory strategies than students with average marks Distributing your learning trials over time will also serve to improve your performance Research confirms that we both recall and recognise more material when we engage with the material on several separate occasions (spaced learning) than when we cram in material all at one time (massed learning) (Balch, 2006) This is known as the distributed practice effect
Prospective Memory
Prospective memory refers to remembering things you need to do in the future, rather than remembering information acquired in the past Prospective memory tasks have two steps: 1) Recognition of need to do some particular thing in the future 2) At the future time, fulfil the intention e.g., feed the cat, buy milk on the way home, visit the dentist for a check-up, submit essay on time Research on prospective memory suggests that people tend to find step 2 (remembering to perform the action in the future) rather more difficult than step 1 (McDaniel & Einstein, 2007) That said, there are times when memory for the content of the action fails, producing a feeling of knowing you were meant to do something/be somewhere, but you cant remember what/where (Schaefer & Laing, 2000)
Prospective Memory
Some of the memory strategies suggested for retrospective memory can also be applied to prospective memory e.g., creating a visual image of a carton of milk to enhance memory for purchase of same on the way home (Einstein & McDaniel, 2004) Research shows that external memory aids are particularly effective for prospective memory tasks (McDaniel & Einstein, 2007) External memory aids are external devices that facilitate memory e.g., shopping list, post-it notes, string around finger, asking someone to remind you, kitchen timer, alarm clock, mobile/computer alarm etc
Prospective Memory
Harris (1978) describes three conditions that make an external memory aid maximally effective the cue should: 1) be given as close as possible to the time the action is required 2) be active (i.e., be noticeable) 3) provide a hint about what has to be done How do we move from intention to action? Reason (1983) proposes that an intention exists as a collection of active cognitive schemata which are activated by periodic reviews of the intention Unless we repeatedly remind ourselves to divert from our normal route home to buy the fish, we are liable to return fishless, (p. 126).
Metamemory
Metamemory : higher order cognitive processes involved in memory function, encapsulating beliefs, attitudes, sensations and knowledge about memory function (Flavell, 1979) Metamemory involves: the ability to monitor ones own memory performance knowledge of our individual memory skill assessment of how well we know or understand new information/knowledge predictions about future memory performance Such knowledge enables you to maximise memory performance by: selecting processing tasks deciding to stop or continue studying new material deciding to continue to search memory for an item that has not yet been activated
Judgments of Learning
Judgements of learning (JOL) are peoples estimates of how well they have learned something : they involve monitoring the quality of encoding before taking a memory test, and making explicit predictions about performance Judgements of learning are typically reasonably accurate estimates of performance However, when you make a JOL is important: delayed JOLs are more accurate than immediate JOLs (Nelson & Dunlosky, 1991) This effect if thought to reflect the fact that delayed JOLs are based on accessibility of material in LTM, whereas immediate JOLs also include access to information still held in STM
Based on our metamemory knowledge, we can : decide whether to produce a response during recall make judgments re: the likelihood that an answer is correct Metamemory knowledge is used to modify processing If you make a high estimate of JOL, you will study an item less than if you predict a low JOL score Unfortunately, we tend to underestimate the amount of study time required for items with low JOL predictions
JOLs are also influenced by whether you are estimating total or partial knowledge JOLs for total scores on tests are influenced by the foresight bias: overestimation of the number of correct answers on future tests JOLs for the number of items remembered vs forgotten are more accurate Lovelace (1984) presented participants with pairs of unrelated words & advised them that theyd be tested on their paired-associate learning At test, participants were presented with the first item in a pair and asked to estimate the likelihood they would recall the associate When the rating was 1, participants were correct 45% of the time; when the rating was 5, participants were correct 80% of the time
Metamemory & ADHD

People with ADHD (4-5% of the population) have difficulty paying close attention, whether at school, at work, or at home Difficulty paying attention affects memory: people with ADHD overestimate their performance on memory tests by 30% (people without ADHD also overestimate by 20% foresight bias! Knouse et al., 2006) Research by Knouse et al. (2006) demonstrates that although people with ADHD overestimate their overall memory performance, they do not differ from people without ADHD when estimating their performance item-by-item
Dunning et al. (2003) demonstrated that people fail to recognise their own incompetence They asked 141 students to estimate a) how well they had done on an exam, b) their performance mastery of the course material relative to other students Students in the bottom quartile overestimated their performance by over 30% : they dont know that they dont know
Feeling of Knowing (FOK)

Feeling of Knowing (FOK) : the capacity to predict recognition of a non-recallable item FOK judgments can be elicited in experimental contexts by asking general knowledge/trivia questions e.g., what is the capital of Peru? Which of the 7 dwarfs comes first alphabetically? Such judgments are typically sound predictors of future memory performance We know whether the information is in memory before we can retrieve it I Know Not : judgments about what we dont know are consequently made accurately and very quickly
Tip of the Tongue
Tip of the Tongue

The tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon (TOT) is very closely interrelated with the FOK, and its something we experience at least once per week TOT describes the experience involving an inability to recall a word, name or phrase that you know you know : a selective failure of word retrieval
"It is a gap that is intensely active. A sort of wraith of the name is in it, beckoning us in a given direction, making us at moments tingle with the sense of our closeness and then letting us sink back without the longed-for term." (James, 1893, p.251) Typically, one can recall that the word starts with a particular letter or certain sound (50-70% of the time), and give examples of words it rhymes with
Tip of the Tongue

Brown & McNeill (1966) conducted the first experimental study of the TOT phenomenon They presented participants with the definitions of uncommon words e.g., Solid, waxy substance produced in the stomach of sperm whales; Flat-bottomed Chinese wooden boat Sometimes people responded correctly immediately, or were confident they didnt know However the definitions sometimes produced a TOT state, and participants were asked to provide words that sounded like the target e.g., Saipan, Siam, Cheyenne, Sarong, Sanchang 49% matched the targets first letter; 48% matched the number of syllables
Modelling Metamemory
Summary
Various memory strategies (or mnemonics) can be used to enhance encoding and retrieval: visual imagery, keywords, method of loci, chunking, hierarchy technique, first letter technique, narrative technique Different strategies work best for different people, but employing multiple strategies has been found to be most effective at enhancing memory Prospective memory refers to the memory for turning intention into action, for which external memory aids (e.g., Blackberry, shopping list) are particularly effective Metamemory : self awareness of memory capability, processing and strategies knowing you have a poor memory can assist in implementing strategies to assist People typically make reasonably accurate judgments of learning, however they are better at delayed JOLs than immediate JOLs Feeling of knowing and TOT are both forms of retrieval failure
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Lecture Plan
Language
Language terminology
Language structure
Factors that influence comprehension Negation Passivity
Lecture 9 Language Basics
Ambiguity Nested structure
Why study language?

It is nothing other than language which makes us human. Ivan Pavlov Language allows us to revisit the past, imagine the future and deal with the present Language makes information transfer possible, allowing us to convey meaning and exchange ideas Without language, we wouldnt be who we are. . .
What do languages share?

The average uni student has a speaking vocabulary > 75,000 words! Language is creative: we can create and understand sentences we have never heard before Language allows us to create a virtually infinite number of sentences: using just 20 words, there are over 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 grammatically correct sentences (they would take 2,000 times the age of the earth to say aloud)! The rules that allow us to create these sentences are abstract and unconscious
What do languages share?

Language is present wherever there are humans There are universal aspects of language that serve as a foundation for all languages : most linguists believe that we are born with tacit knowledge (innate ideas) that form the foundation of our language
Though most of the knowledge we use to produce and comprehend language is tacit knowledge, tacit knowledge is difficult to describe If you show a 4-year old a picture of a wug and then add another and say Here is another. Now there are 2 the child will respond wugs! The child tacitly knows you form a plural noun by adding s, but cannot describe the rule it is tacit knowledge
1) Colourless green ideas sleep furiously 2) Sleep colourless furiously ideas green Though both sentences are nonsense, sentence 1) is grammatically correct even if you cant tell someone why sentence 1) is better, youll have a strong gut feeling that 1) is acceptable Syntax refers to the grammatical structure of sentences and the rules for building sentences out of words Sentence 1) is thus syntactically correct
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Though sentence 1) is syntactically correct, it has no meaning i.e., it is semantically nonsensical Semantics refers to the meanings of words, phrases, and sentences
As well see in Lecture 15, some words are semantically ambiguous (i.e., they have multiple meanings) e.g., Such was Catherine Morland at ten. At fifteen appearances were mending. She began to cut her hair and long for balls. Jane Austen Northanger Abbey
Recall that a phoneme is the basic unit of spoken language (e.g., th, s) there are 40 phonemes in English Phonology refers to the sound pattern of language, including the basic elements (phonemes) and the rules for their combination A morpheme is the basic unit of meaning e.g., the word reduplicated has 3 morphemes: re-, duplicate, -ed Each of the morphemes conveys meaning though some can work independently (e.g., dwarf), others must be attached to another morpheme to convey meaning (e.g., un-) Morphology refers to the study of morphemes
Pragmatics refers to the rules for how literal meaning is changed by social rules/context (i.e., pragmatics takes the listeners perspective into account) Pragmatics allows us to go beyond the literal meaning of words, thus pragmatics concerns things like: the choice of words (e.g., Fine) lexical meaning (e.g., whats on this weekend?, on fire, on the table, on the TV, on the blink) implications in conversation e.g., would you like to come in for coffee?)
Language structure
Language is full of tacit rules/knowledge that allow us to combine morphemes into sentences: often we obey these rules without understanding why e.g., we say Look at the big red balloon but not Look at the red big balloon
Phrase structure is used to describe the syntactic structure of sentences phrase structure uses a hierarchical structure based on the syntactic constituents Adjectives, nouns, verbs etc are examples of basic constituents They can be combined to form other constituents, e.g., a noun phrase (fat cat), or a verb phrase (sat sulkily) A sentence is created by combining a noun phrase and a verb phrase
Language structure
S NP NP D A N V VP Adv
Language Structure: Recursion

Recursion allows us to create an infinite number of sentences from a finite vocabulary Squidward hates ice cream SpongeBob heard a rumour that Jimmy hates ice cream Patrick was perplexed when I told him that my SpongeBob heard a rumour that Squidward hates ice cream I was surprised that Patrick was perplexed when I told him that SpongeBob heard a rumour that Squidward hates ice cream Dr Lindell devoted an entire slide to talking about how I was surprised that Patrick was perplexed when I told him that SpongeBob heard a rumour that Squidward hates ice cream
Phrase structures demonstrate the complicated relationships between words in sentences You cant just randomly string words together and hope to get your meaning across!
The fat cat sat sulkily
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Factors that Influence Comprehension

People are generally exceptionally good at understanding language, however there are 4 factors that make comprehension more challenging: Negation; Passivity; Nested structure; Ambiguity Negation Any sentence containing a negative word (e.g., no, not, cant , dont, wont) or an implied negative (e.g., rejected) takes longer to process than an affirmative sentence (Williams, 2005) Young children often take a long time to understand negation when they are acquiring language This is challenging as negation COMPLETELY changes the meaning

Negative sentences They did nothing to prevent it We were going nowhere That comment was inappropriate Not all of the suggestions were accepted The Dreaded Double Negative I do not disagree We don't need no education / We don't need no thought control I cant get no satisfaction

Clark & Chase (1972) demonstrated the influence of negation on performance using a simple task Participants were presented with a simple figure and one of four sentences: participants had to indicate whether the sentence was True or False 1. 2. 3. 4. Star is above plus (true affirmative) Plus is above star (false affirmative) Plus isnt above star (true negative) Star isnt above plus (false negative)

Passivity A passive sentence involves making the object of an action the subject of the sentence e.g., Why was the road crossed by the chicken? It was heard by me through the grapevine You are loved by me Sentences written in the passive voice are more complex (i.e., have more words) than sentences written in the active voice The greater complexity makes the passive voice harder to understand, especially for people with less formal education
PLUS ISNT ABOVE STAR
Results indicated that participants took longer (by 300 msec) and made more errors in response to the sentences phrased negatively (i.e., that used the word isnt) We are able to process positive info better than negative info

Street & Dabrowska (2010) compared passive sentence comprehension in high (M 17 years education) and low academic attainment groups (M 11 years education) Participants were presented with active and passive sentences and were asked to select the picture that matched the sentence

Ferreira et al. (2002) offer further evidence indicating that the active voice is much easier to understand They presented participants with a series of sentences and asked them to indicate whether the sentence was plausible (Yes/No) The man bit the dog (active) The dog was bitten by the man (passive) Results indicated that participants were highly accurate when responding to active sentences For passive sentences, accuracy fell to 75%
The soldier hit the sailor (active) The sailor was hit by the soldier (passive)
Results indicated that people in the low academic attainment group scored 97% correct (range 83-100) for active sentences; for passive sentences, the mean dropped to 88% (range 33-100)
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Nested structure A nested structure describes a phrase that is embedded within another sentence e.g., The friend that Im meeting for coffee after this lecture is a good egg Sentences containing nested structures are more structurally complex than simple sentences Consequently, sentences containing nested structures are harder to process and place greater demands on readers memories (Rayner & Clifton, 2002) Sentences containing one or more nested structures can lead to memory overload as you try to remember the parts of the sentence

Nested structure Compare the following examples: a) The scientist collaborated with the professor who had advised the student who copied the article b) The student who the professor who the scientist collaborated with had advised copied the article
In sentence b), who the scientist collaborated with is nested within the embedded clause the professorhad advised which is itself nested within the outer clause the student copied the article This mutiply nested structure makes the sentence very hard to understand

Ambiguity
When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - nothing more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

Ambiguity When sentences contain an ambiguous word, or have an ambiguous structure, they are more difficult to understand
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nude dancing took centre stage on Wednesday at the U.S. Supreme Court. March planned for Next August Lingerie Shipment Hijacked--Thief Gives Police the Slip Kids Make Nutritious Snacks Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers Safety Experts Say School Bus Passengers Should Be Belted Drunk Gets Nine Months in Violin Case Survivor of Siamese Twins Joins Parents Iraqi Head Seeks Arms Is There a Ring of Debris around Uranus? Prostitutes Appeal to Pope Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft
Many words in English have multiple meanings, i.e., theyre homonyms

We must polish the Polish furniture. The farm was used to produce produce. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse. The soldier decided to desert in the desert. This was a good time to present the present. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes. I did not object to the object. The insurance was invalid for the invalid. The bandage was wound around the wound. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

Ambiguity When we encounter an ambiguous word or sentence, we can usually understand it, but it takes longer to process We are biased toward selecting the most common meaning of the ambiguous word IF the rest of the sentence is consistent with the meaning i.e., activation builds up for the most frequent meaning, with lower levels of activation for less frequent meanings e.g., Little Jimmy removed the scales from the fish More activation for fish scales than weight scales -> ambiguity resolved
Summary
Language allows us to create an infinite number of sentences from a finite vocabulary: the rules that allow us to create these sentences are abstract and unconscious (most linguists believe that we are born with this tacit knowledge (innate ideas) that form the foundation of language) Syntax refers to the grammatical structure of sentences and the rules for building sentences out of words; Semantics refers to the meanings of words, phrases, and sentences Phonology refers to the sound pattern of language, including the basic elements (phonemes) and the rules for their combination; Morphology refers to the study of morphemes (basic units of meaning) Pragmatics refers to the rules for how literal meaning is changed by social rules/context; Phrase structure describes the syntactic structure of sentences using a hierarchical structure based on the syntactic constituents (e.g., verbs, adjectives, nouns) People are generally exceptionally good at understanding language, however there are 4 factors that make comprehension more challenging: Negation (avoid negative phrasing); Passivity (use the active voice); Nested structure (avoid complex sentence structures); Ambiguity (resolve ambiguity)
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Lecture Plan
Do other animals have language?
Animal communication Bees Parrots Primates
Critical period hypothesis Victor
Lecture 10 Language vs Communication
Genie Isabelle
Do other animals have language?

Language is argued to be a defining human attribute, i.e., it sets us apart from other animals While many other animals have rich communication systems, these systems do not meet the criteria for language A language is a system of signals, signs, and symbols, with rules that allow intelligible encoding and decoding Communication involves the transmission of a signal that conveys information the information conveyed to the recipient often benefits the sender
Animal Communication
Why do animals communicate? To share information: food enemies friends territories location mates emotions The information (signal) can be conveyed by sound, smell , or posture e.g., vervet monkeys make a different chutter sound to indicate whether an approaching predator is a snake, an eagle, or a leopard These distinct signals allow the other monkeys to respond appropriately (Struhsaker, 1967)
e.g., Meerkats have over 20 different communication sounds which can be split six groups: lost calls, alarm calls, leading the group calls, pup feeding calls, guarding calls, and foraging calls When looking for food Meerkats are constantly communicating to keep track of one another's location When on guard duty, Meerkat sentinels constantly communicate what is happening: when things are fine, the sentry emits mellow tones But when theres a predator in the distance, the sentry beeps an alert. If the predator gets closer, the sound differentiates depending on the type of predator
Bees famously perform complex dances to communicate with other members of their hive The waggle dance takes the form of a figure-of-eight: the axis of the dance signals the direction of the nectar relative the sun; the rate/time the bee waggles signals distance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7ijI-g4jHg&feature=related
Even if you rear a bee in isolation, as soon as you introduce it to a colony it can dance the waggle dance appropriately (innate) Though bees can clearly communicate a huge number of messages, those messages always concern the location of a food source
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Parrot Language?
Parrots are renowned for their ability to mimic human speech Irene Pepperberg spent 30 years training an African grey parrot called Alex to communicate This training was intense (24 hours!) but had impressive outcomes at death Alex had a vocabulary of 150 words, including nouns, adjectives, and a few verbs (no function words)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ2j1jOwAYU&feature=related
Nonhuman Primate Language

Many researchers have tried to teach nonhuman primates (e.g., chimpanzees, gorillas) language In 1933 Kellogg & Kellogg raised a chimpanzee (Gua) in the same way as their infant son (David) the Kelloggs tried to teach Gua to speak without success Whereas Donald could form words by 16 months, Gua couldnt speak no surprise as chimpanzees do not have the vocal apparatus necessary for human speech The Kelloggs stopped the experiment when Donald started copying Guas vocalisations!
Alexs use of language suggested understanding rather than just mimicking if he asked for banana (Wanna banana) but the researcher gave him something else (e.g., a nut), Alex would refuse to eat it and/or throw it at the researcher Sometimes he would purposely answer incorrectly, just like human kids

Chimpanzee Human

Many researchers have tried to teach nonhuman primates (e.g., chimpanzees, gorillas) language Hayes (1951) similarly tried to bring up a chimpanzee (Viki) as a human child (cross-rearing) and teach her to speak Again, the attempt was unsuccessful After 6 years training, Viki could only produce four poorlyarticulated words (mama, papa, up, cup) These words were formed as a guttural croak that only members of the Hayes family could understand

As chimpanzees have excellent manual dexterity, researchers then turned to sign language Gardner & Gardner (1969, 1975) cross-reared a 1 year old chimp (Washoe), teaching her ASL rather than spoken language Just like spoken language, ASL has words and syntax By the age of four, Washoe could produce 85 signs (human four year old produces 1500+ words) After much more training, Washoe peaked at 150-200 signs (Fouts et al., 1978), about the level of a 1 to 2 year old human child

Most recently, Terrace et al. (1980) have been teaching ASL to Nim Chimpsky Nim learned to use 125 signs, and could string together pairs of signs (e.g., more banana), but his average sentence length never exceeded 1.5, and he didnt show any evidence of using syntax Nims longer sentences were full of repetition Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you Terrace et al. concluded that Nims use of sign was not language; it was simply imitation of trainers in order to get reward
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Three-sign quotations Apple me eat Banana Nim eat Banana me eat Drink me Nim Eat Nim eat Eat Nim me Eat me Nim Eat me eat Finish hug Nim Give me eat Grape eat Nim Four-sign quotations Banana Nim banana Nim Banana eat me Nim Banana me Nim me Banana me eat banana Drink Nim drink Nim Drink eat drink eat Drink eat me Nim Eat Nim eat Nim Eat drink eat drink Eat grape eat Nim Eat me Nim drink

Artificial language systems offer an alternative to ASL for animal language training e.g., Savage-Rumbaugh et al. (1993) taught a chimpanzee (Matata) to use an artificial symbol system called Yerkish (lexigrams)

Matatas son Kanzi was in the lab when his mother was being trained in Yerkish Though he did not receive formal training he learned about 50 symbols by age 4, and was able to perform at about the level of a 2-year old human
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRM7vTrIIis
Critical Periods in Language Development

Critical Period Hypothesis (Lenneberg 1967) : the ability to acquire language decreases with increasing age According to the critical period hypothesis, language acquisition must occur before the onset of puberty for language to develop fully
Kanzis symbol learning is very good, but his use of the symbols differs from human language (Seidenberg & Pettito, 1987) e.g., Kanzi uses the symbol for strawberry as a name, as a request to travel to the strawberry patch, as a request to eat some strawberries, etc. Kanzi doesnt use plurals, function words, or morphology, and shows no evidence of using recursive grammar (his grammar is at 2 year old level)
The notion of a critical period comes from biology: time when organism is particularly sensitive to environmental influences e.g., imprinting in ducks, birdsong

Evidence for a Critical Period in Language Development

What happens if children arent exposed to language during the critical period?
Montaigne (1580) I believe that a child brought up in complete solitude from all intercourse (which would be a difficult experiment to carry out), would have some kind of speech to express his ideas.
In 1493 King James IV of Scotland wanted to find out whether language was learned or innate and so abandoned 2 newborns to an isolated island in the Firth of Forth the children were left in the care of a deaf and dumb woman Many years later, they were reported to have grown up spontaneously to Spak very guid Ebrew!
Behavioural evidence Language learning occurs almost exclusively in childhood
Neurological Mechanisms Before puberty: Proliferation of neurons in the cortex Increase in neurotransmitters Rapid growth of brain compared to body All these level out at puberty loss of plasticity
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Wild Boy of Aveyron (Victor) Victor was one of the first feral children ever documented. He had apparently lived his childhood alone in the woods, and emerged in 1800 (estimated age 12) Dr Jean Itard took up his case, adopting Victor into his own home Itard spent 5 years trying to civilise Victor and teach him language, without success: Victor only learned to produce two phrases (lait (milk) and Oh, Dieu (oh God)) Itard suggested that Victor was the mental and psychological equivalent of a born deaf-mute

What happens if children arent exposed to language during the critical period?
Genie (Curtiss, 1977) Confined until 13 yrs, 9 months (i.e., until after end of Lennebergs critical period) & deprived of all linguistic stimuli When found, Genie had no linguistic ability (only 2 utterances: STOPIT, NOMORE) With training, she developed a very limited vocabulary, but little syntax/grammar

Isabelle (Davis, 1947) Kept in seclusion in a darkened room with deaf-mute mother until age 6 (i.e., within the critical period), but separated from rest of family When found, Isabelle had no linguistic ability (made a croaking noise) At first, Isabelle acted like she was deaf and didnt respond to sound With exposure to spoken language, she passed through normal stages of development at accelerated rate within 18 months, was linguistically indistinguishable from other kids
Summary
Language: system of signals, signs, and symbols, with rules that allow intelligible encoding and decoding Communication: transmission of a signal that conveys information the information conveyed to the recipient often benefits the sender Whilst other animals definitely communicate (e.g., bees, meerkats), their communication is restricted in content (location of food, nature of predator), and lacks generativity and syntax Attempts to teach nonhuman primates (e.g., chimps, gorillas) language have had very limited success chimpanzee vocal tract cannot produce human language, so researchers instead rely on ASL and lexigrams. Evidence suggests that nonhuman primate language lacks syntax and is limited to the level of a 2 year old human Critical Period: lack of exposure to language prior to puberty compromises normal language development Evidence from feral/abused children suggests that if children are not exposed to language before puberty (e.g., Victor, Genie), they will fail to acquire it. However if a child is exposed to language before the onset of puberty (e.g., Isabelle), language develops to be indistinguishable from normal
Kids can recover from linguistic deprivation if they receive input early enough
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Lecture Plan
Lateralisation of language In the beginning, there was Broca. . . Left hemisphere language deficits Brocas Aphasia Wernickes Aphasia Right hemisphere language deficits Pragmatics Discourse processing Paralinguistics
Lecture 11 Neurolinguistics
Prosody
In the beginning, there was Broca Broca

Nous parlons avec lhemisphere gauche
Brocas Aphasia (pre-Broca) (preJacques Lordat (1843) was a medic who suffered a long illness and developed an articulate language deficit. Hes one of the first to report what its like to have aphasia (loss of language function). In response to an enquiry after his health: I opened my mouth to reply to this courtesy. The thought was quite ready, but the sounds which should have confided it to the intermediary were no longer at my disposal. I turned round in consternation, and I said, to myself: So it is true that I can no longer speak, (p.347).
Broca (1865) famously reported that left frontal damage was associated with productive language deficits
I no longer remembered the manner of coordination necessary for the expression of a thought, (p.347)
Language production areas

Brocas Aphasia
Posterior frontal lesion Disturbance of speech planning & production Results in agrammatic, impoverished speech Speech is slow, laborious, nonfluent
Language production areas

Wernickes Aphasia
Posterior temporal lesion Disturbance of word sound patterns Results in poor auditory comprehension, but copious, fluent speech Speech is non-laboured
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The Cookie Theft : Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination
H.W.:First of all this is falling down, just about, and is gonna fall down and they're both getting something to eat...but the trouble is this is gonna let go and they're both gonna fall down...but already then...I can't see well enough but I believe that either she or will have some food that's not good for you and she's to get some for her too...and that you get it and you shouldn't get it there because they shouldn't go up there and get it unless you tell them that they could have it. and so this is falling down and for sure there's one they're going to have for food and, and didn't come out right, the uh, the stuff that's uh, good for, it's not good for you but it, but you love it, um mum mum (smacks lips)...and that so they've...see that, I can't see whether it's in there or not. B.L.: Wife is dry dishes. Water down! Oh boy! Okay Awright. Okay ...Cookie is down...fall, and girl, okay, girl...boy...um... Examiner: What is the boy doing? B.L.:Cookie is...um...catch Examiner: Who is getting the cookies? B.L.: Girl, girl Examiner: Who is about to fall down? B.L.: Boy...fall down!
Right Hemisphere Language Speech
Does damage to the right hemisphere produce language deficits?
#*%$
Patients with LH damage are often still capable of producing nonpropositional speech automatic, context-bound utterances, e.g., nursery rhymes, counting, swearing These forms of expressive language do NOT involve the generation of new ideas or processing of such ideas into novel verbalisations
YES!
Language deficits associated with damage to the right hemisphere (RHD) are subtler than those following LHD, thus were less likely to capture clinicians attention
However, damage to the right hemisphere (RHD) can also affect language and communication, impacting daily function, social interaction, and quality of life : at least 50% of RHD patients exhibit a verbal communication deficit (Joanette & Goulet, 1994)
Right Hemisphere Damage

Language impairments following right hemisphere lesion are most likely following right middle cerebral artery infarct (Tompkins et al., 2001) Such occlusions tend to produce lesions that do not respect anatomic boundaries
Right Hemisphere Damage
55 yr old female with a history of hypertension presented with leftsided weakness and numbness MRI shows right middle cerebral artery infarct
86 yr old female found in her home with left-sided hemiplegia CT shows right middle cerebral artery infarct
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Communication following RHD

Speech of patients with RHD has been described as: excessive rambling inappropriate off colour confabulatory irrelevant literal sometimes bizarre (Gardner et al., 1975)
Discourse processing
Tompkins et al. (1999) examined the ability to revise interpretations in RHD and normal adults Participants heard two sentences: the first was ambiguous and the second resolved the ambiguity in favour of the less likely interpretation e.g., John admired the historic house. If he sold it, his commission would be very high.
Participants judged whether a target word fit with the overall meaning of the sentence pair, e.g., tourist
Nonliteral language processing

Pragmatics involves the context-appropriate social use of language The message conveyed by a sentence is more than just the sum of its parts. . .
Nonliteral language processing

Myers (1978) reported that RHD patients missed nuances and subtleties: they ignored context and could not fill in what was not present in the words Foldi et al. (1983) asked RHD patients to interpret both direct and indirect speech. They found that patients interpreted indirect speech literally, without taking contextual information into account
The ability to produce and interpret discourse relies on our ability to make cohesive and coherent ties between phrases, establishing connections within and between sentences to draw out the overall meaning conveyed
(Please) close the window. Could you close the window? Would you mind closing the window? I would like you to close the window. It would be nice if someone closed that window. It's cold in here. The window is still open! I must have asked you a hundred times to keep that window closed!
Nonliteral language Indirect requests

RHD patients have difficulties interpreting nonliteral language e.g., interpreting indirect requests (Stemmer et al., 1994)
Nonliteral language - Humour

RHD patients have difficulties interpreting nonliteral language e.g., selecting punchlines for jokes (Brownell et al., 1983)
What do engineers use for birth control? If asked could you open the window? or can you answer the phone?, a patient with RHD may simply answer yes a) Condoms b) Their personalities c) Custard pies Why did the golfer wear two sets of pants? The indicates an inability to base an interpretation on the context a) It was a very cold day b) In case he slipped on a cow pat c) He got a hole in one
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Nonliteral language - Sarcasm

RHD patients have difficulties interpreting nonliteral language e.g., recognizing irony or sarcasm (Kaplan et al., 1990) Nice hat So good of you to arrive on time I've had a perfectly wonderful evening Well, that's just great Fine
Nonliteral language - Metaphor

RHD patients have difficulties interpreting nonliteral language e.g., interpreting idioms/metaphors (Myers & Linebaugh, 1981)
Im going to hit the roof He went bananas I could eat a horse Cool it Cute as a bugs ear Dirt poor Hit the hay Ill have your head on a platter
Nonliteral Language Processing

RHD patients perform poorly on semantic judgment tasks involving metaphoric or emotional meanings, but perform as well as LHD patients for semantic judgments involving literal or affectively neutral meanings (Borod et al., 1992)
Contextual Cues
RHD patients often miss body language and facial expression cues that we use to figure out the true intention and emotional state of the people we interact with (Benowitz et al., 1983; Lundgren et al., 1983)
RHD patients may also have a flat affect and monotonous speech (Ross & Mesulam, 1979) This does not necessarily reflect depressed mood but is a specific prosodic deficit (Ross, 1985)
Prosody
Prosody is the melody of language (Monrad-Krohn, 1947). -encompasses alterations in pitch, stress and rhythm that allow us to communicate meaning, for example, emotion, extralinguistically Pell (1999) reported that patients with RHD are less proficient in conveying emphasis to listeners as such patients exploit fewer than normal cues to communicate emphasis in their utterances
Prosody
Patients with RH damage often suffer APROSODIA speak with a flattened emotional tone, even when describing personal experiences likely to elicit strong emotion e.g., describing patients liberation from German concentration camp in WWII; describing murder of patients son (Ross, 1981) Aprosodic patients also have difficulty interpreting the emotional tone in speech produced by others
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Prosody
Aprosodic patients do not lose the knowledge of how emotional representations are vocally encoded; they have difficulty in finetuning the acoustic properties of their emotional utterances This decreases distinguishability between neutral and emotive exemplars and leads to the often reported impression of reduced emotional inflection or flattened affect in patients with RH damage (Pell, 1999)
Summary
Though theres no question that the left hemisphere is the superior language processor, the right hemisphere also makes an important, though often overlooked, contribution to everyday language processing. RHD patients have difficulty with linguistic information: interpreting, integrating and organizing They deal with linguistic elements literally and analytically, and are unable to get a sense of, or make use of, the overall picture/context Beyond pragmatics, RHD patients have problems with the prosodic components of language, including both production of their own speech and interpretation of others speech (aprosodia)
Lecture Plan
Broca & Cerebral Localization Are human brains unique?
Hominid brain evolution Changes in volume Changes in structure
Lecture 12 Evolution of Cerebral Asymmetry
Selection pressures Beauty of bipedalism
Broca: Cerebral Localization

The most noble cerebral faculties, those that constitute understanding properly speaking, such as judgement, reflection, the faculties of comparison, and abstraction, have their seat in the frontal convolutions, whereas the temporal, parietal, and occipital lobe convolutions are appropriate for the feelings, penchants, and passions
Broca (1861), p.338
Importance of Language
Why was it crucial that Broca discovered the cerebral organ for speech? Because in doing so, he enriches science on a double score: he establishes the anatomical basis for the most imposing difference between man and animal, and he brings unshakeable support to the doctrine of cerebral organisation. Pruner-Bey (1865, p.558)
Broca (1824-1880)
We are family
Primates: order of species including prosimians, monkeys, apes and humans. Believed to share a common ancestor 80 million years ago
We are family
Charles Darwin (1871) made the revolutionary suggestion that humans evolved from apes Analysis of DNA indicates that humans are very closely related to chimpanzees: Goodman (1992) found that we share 99.6% of amino acid sequences and 98.4% of nucleotide sequences This suggests that humans and chimps diverged on the evolutionary tree only 5-6 million years ago
We are family
Are human brains unique?

According to Darwin (1871), the human brain evolved from the basic blueprint found in other mammals
Via natural and sexual selection, the mental faculties of the human brain have evolved from those of our hominid precursors
As such, the human mind has continuities with the faculties of mind and brain of other mammalian species: differences are matter of degree, not kind (Geary, 2005)
Brain Volume
Brain Changes in Hominids
Australopithicus afarensis Homo habilis Homo erectus Homo sapiens
400cc (3.5 million years ago) 900 1200cc (2.2 1.6 mya) 1200cc (1 mya) 1400cc
Relationship between brain weight & body weight is roughly linear across primates, but humans buck the trend. Human brain is three times the size one would anticipate for a primate our size. This is perhaps the single most important fact about mankind...
Brain Volume : EQ
Brain size alone is not an indicator of intelligence: Neanderthals had HUGE brains
Roth & Dicke (2005)
The hominid brain didnt just get bigger: it was reorganized. . .

Three major reorganizational changes during hominid brain evolution (based on Holloway, 1996)

1. Increase in posterior parietal cortex volume

1. Increase in posterior parietal cortex volume (including Wernickes area) 2. Reorganization of frontal lobe (particularly 3rd inferior frontal convolution including Brocas area) 3. Development of strong cerebral asymmetry, both functionally & in terms of torsion
1. Increase in posterior parietal cortex volume Wernickes area! 2. Reorganization of frontal lobe (particularly 3rd inferior frontal convolution)
All 3 changes are associated with language, more than just a coincidence!

1. Increase in posterior parietal cortex volume (including Wernickes area) 2. Reorganization of frontal lobe (particularly 3rd inferior frontal convolution including Brocas area) 3. Development of strong cerebral asymmetry, both functionally & in terms of torsion
1. Increase in posterior parietal cortex volume Wernickes area! 2. Reorganization of frontal lobe (particularly 3rd inferior frontal convolution) Brocas area 3. Development of strong cerebral asymmetry, both functionally & in terms of torsion
All 3 changes are associated with language, more than just a coincidence!
All 3 changes are associated with language. . .
Brain Changes : Costs

Brain changes come with an associated cost
Brain tissue is very metabolically expensive: Brain comprises approx 2% body weight but brain uses 20% of energy! Large brain size also means humans must be born premature. . .
Brain Changes : Costs
Humans
Human babies are born premature by comparison with the rest of the animal kingdom to fit the trend, we should be born 17 months after conception!
Brain Changes : Costs & Benefits

Larger brains and higher EQs are associated with:
Brain Increase : Selection Pressure

Both clever foraging and Machiavellian intelligence have been proposed to place evolutionary pressure on brain development Clever foraging : hunting/foraging for food in a strategic manner requires higher intelligence than simply grazing/finding food opportunistically
Complex social systems Long developmental period Long adult life span High parental investment Complex foraging/hunting demands
(Kaplan & Robson, 2002)
Machiavellian intelligence : animals living in large, complex social groups tend require greater intelligence to comprehend the social structure and vagaries in their society (Park et al., 2007)
Brain Increase : Selection Pressure

Fossils of H. habilis were first to demonstrate a marked increase in brain size and evidence for habitual bipedalism (walking on 2 legs) Calvin (1983) and Corballis (2003) both argue that the emergence of bipedalism is a critical factor that set us on the path to developing language
Two legs good, four legs bad.

Australopithicus afarensis (3.8-3.0 mya) was clearly bipedal, though the hands were still adapted to hook-grasp tree branches the feet were also thought to remain partially adapted to life in the trees (Susman et al., 1984)
Bipedalism freed the hands

Alemseged et al. (2006) reported their discovery of a 3.3 million year old A. afarensis skeleton from Dikika (Ethiopia) This is considered a very important find because it is a very complete skeleton of a child (3 yrs) Foot and lower limb bones provide clear evidence of bipedalism; scapula and hands are gorilla-like, supporting arboreal locomotion

Savage-Rumbaugh (1994) argues that bipedalism and knucklewalking provide independent solutions to 2 problems: locomotion and infant carrying But bipedalism provides an added bonus: as the infant must be actively carried, the parent must monitor the infant and remember to pick it up. This is more cognitively demanding that a parent relying on the infant to cling to their chest Savage-Rumbaugh argues that the extra demands of bipedalism may well have been a precursor to theory of mind and the development of language

In addition to providing an efficient form of locomotion, bipedalism freed the hands for other things, including the manufacture and use of tools (Darwin, 1871) Oldowan stone tools dating back 2.5 million years have been discovered (Semaw et al., 1997), presumably manufactured by the ancestor of Homo habilis and Homo ergaster

Later tools manufactured by H. ergaster became increasingly sophisticated, including picks, cleavers and bifacial hand axes. The symmetry and aesthetics of the latter provide evidence of deliberate planning, design and patience in the tools manufacture
Two legs Language?

Benefits of bipedalism: Leaves forearms free for other jobs: fine manipulations, carrying food, carrying children, spear throwing, gesturing More energetically economical to move on 2 legs Reduces surface area exposed directly to suns rays (important on savannah) Aids predator avoidance bipedalism enhances height Allowed restructuring of vocal tract
Summary
Human brain evolved from the basic blueprint found in other mammals: differences in faculties from other mammals are a matter of degree, not kind Human brain has a very high encephalization quotient (EQ), being roughly three times the size one would anticipate for a primate our size this means that humans must be born premature in comparison to other species According to Holloway (1996) there were 3 major reorganizational changes during hominid brain evolution: increase in posterior parietal cortex volume (Wernickes area), reorganisation of the frontal lobe (Brocas area), development of strong cerebral asymmetry Larger brains and higher EQs are associated with: complex social systems; long developmental period; long adult life span; high parental investment; complex foraging/hunting demands Clever foraging and Machiavellian intelligence have been proposed to place evolutionary pressure on brain development Development of bipedalism is a critical factor in hominid evolution because it freed the hands: extra demands of bipedalism may have been a precursor to theory of mind and the development of language
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Lecture Plan
Experimental methodologies Naming Lexical decision Visual psychophysics
Variables that influence visual word recognition Frequency Age of acquisition Lexicality
Lecture 13 Visual Word Recognition
Orthographic neighbourhood Context
How do we recognise words?

gnome GNOME

Matching a visually presented word (series of squiggles) to a memory representation involves preliminary perceptual processing
gnome
gnome
gNOMe gnome GnoMe
Recognition is not simply a matter of matching the stimulus with a visual template of the shape of the word We can recognise words in multiple formats: CAPITALS lowercase handwriting miXeD cASe
gnome

We store the basic units of words letters as abstract letter identities :
rr RrR r
all map on to the same abstract letter identity
Letter strings are transformed into a series of abstract letter identities prior to lexical access : Letter shapes are analysed on the basis of visual features e.g., vertical line (P, H, B), half circle (D, P) How do we know? Because letters with overlapping visual features are often confused in letter recognition tasks e.g., E, F R, P i, l a, e
Selfridges (1959) Pandemonium Model
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How do we study word recognition?

Many different factors can influence the ease with which we recognise words To study word recognition, we assess the speed and accuracy with which people respond to different categories of word We assume that increased cognitive demand will be reflected in slower RT (reaction time) and an increased error rate
Naming Task
Naming task participants see a series of words on a computer screen and have to name them aloud as quickly and accurately as possible Reaction time is measured from the point of stimulus presentation, to the onset of vocal response (measure with a voice key). Reaction times are typically ~ 500msec
DWARF
Lexical Decision Task

Lexical Decision Task participants see a mixed series of words and nonwords (e.g., sneef, knut) on a computer screen They must decide whether the letter string is a real word, and make a Yes/No button press response to indicate their decision as quickly and accurately as possible Reaction time is measured from the point of stimulus presentation, to initiation of the button press To ensure the orthographic lexicon is searched, nonwords must be legal, e.g., bort (not brto)
Speed vs Accuracy
Speed-accuracy trade-offs the faster participants respond, the more errors they make If you encourage participants to respond accurately, RTs will be slow. Conversely if you encourage participants to respond fast, error rate will be high
100%
Emphasis on accuracy
Accuracy
WRD Emphasis on speed

50% Fast Reaction Time Slow
Visual Psychophysics
Identification of briefly displayed words : present stimuli at a variety of very brief durations (e.g., from 10msec to 300msec) to determine the threshold at which participants can correctly identify a predefined criterion (e.g., 85%)
Measuring Reaction Time

All of these experimental methods (naming, lexical decision, visual psychophysics) produce reaction time data When interpreting, the absolute time taken to respond isnt of great interest what is crucial is the difference in RT between conditions When designing experiments, we ensure that everything, bar the experimental manipulations, remains constant we may then infer that differences observed reflect the influence of our experimental variable of interest (e.g., frequency)
85%
By comparing thresholds for different classes of words, we can determine which types of words require the greatest cognitive resources for identification
115msec
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Frequency & Familiarity

Word frequency : how often a word is used We respond more quickly to common words (e.g., cow) than to less common words (e.g., recalcitrant) Difference in RT is not purely due to word difficulty: there are RT differences between common and slightly less common words right : 613 occurrences per million never : 698 occurrences per million Kucera & Francis, 1967

Problems with measuring frequency Based on written rather than spoken word frequency (e.g., I is used 10 times more often in speech than in print, Fromkin & Rodman, 1998) So-called low frequency words may be high frequency for certain populations e.g., phlebotomy <1 occurrence per million
Some low frequency words seem more familiar than others e.g., giggle vs. cohere 1 occurrence per million

Frequency is highly correlated with age-of-acquisition (age at which you first learn a word) Kids learn common (high frequency) words first these words are recognised better throughout the lifespan in both naming and lexical decision tasks

Frequency affects our responses in experiments e.g., Goldiamond & Hawkins (1958) trained participants on nonwords, giving lots of exposure to some (high frequency) & limited exposure to others (low frequency) Participants then had to identify a degraded stimulus they had not been exposed to before
Words learned early tend to be high frequency, leading Morrison & Ellis (1995) to suggest that frequency effects are really age of acquisition effects
Participants responded with the trained nonwords, responding with high frequency trained nonwords more often!
Wordness (lexicality)
Real, familiar words are responded to faster than nonwords e.g., sneef, grug, grok Orthographically plausible nonwords (e.g., bock) take longer to reject in lexical decision tasks that orthographically illegal nonwords (e.g., bcko) the more a nonword looks like a real word, the harder it is to reject
Orthographic Neighborhood
Neighborhood : number of words that can be created by changing only one letter of a word e.g., bag fag, hag, lag, nag, rag, sag, tag, beg, big, bog, bug, bad, ban, bap, bar, bat, bay
N = 18 (Coltheart et al., 1977) e.g., abhorence N = 1 (abhorency) Large neighborhood size helps recognition of low frequency words (Andrews, 1989), e.g., mail, bail, tail, wail, sail But, frequency of words in the neighborhood is also important
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Orthographic Neighborhood
Grainger & Jacobs, 1996; Grainger & Segui, 1990 If a word has a higher frequency neighbour, that can cause interference in lexical decision tasks. e.g., bog, dog, log
Context
Expectations/associations based on preceding information can affect word recognition e.g., semantic priming Lexical decision responses are faster when the target word is semantically related to the previous word e.g., DOCTOR NURSE < ASPARAGUS NURSE BEDPAN
High frequency words : no effect of neighbourhood Thus the frequency of the word, the size of its neighbourhood and the frequency of those neighbours all impact word recognition efficiency
DOCTOR
ASPARAGUS
NURSE
Context
Context clearly affects word/nonword lexical decision tasks, with faster decisions in response to primed words: Repetition priming e.g., snow SNOW
Recording eye movements
Semantic priming e.g., mouse CHEESE But does context affect the natural reading of text? We can test this using eye movement recordings Eye movement recordings provide insight into the degree of interest and difficulty of processing by measuring direction and duration of looking time

Unless text is very difficult, we read ~ 200 words / minute Thus we encode 3 or 4 words per second! In fact, we can recognise isolated words following presentations of 50 msec
Eye movement recordings confirm that when we read, our eyes dont move smoothly: Eyes move in jumps called saccades which last 25 60 msec In between saccades, fixations occur: the eyes remain still for 200-250 msec (Rayner, 1998)

Eye movement recordings show that we tend to fixate on almost every content word, and skip over many short words & simple function words (e.g., that, so)
Most saccades are forward movements of 7-9 letters, but 1015% are regressive (backwards) movements
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During a single fixation, there is a limit to the amount of information we can recognize The perceptual span is asymmetric : we can perceive up to 15 characters to the right of fixation, & 3-4 characters to the left of fixation (Rayner et al., 1980) The perceptual span is reversed for Hebrew readers (skewed to the left) and is smaller, reflecting greater complexity For Japanese (kanji), the perceptual span is also smaller (approx 2 characters), again reflecting greater complexity
Eye movements & context

Zola (1984) examined the latency of fixations on popcorn in the following sentences: Movie theatres must have buttered popcorn to serve patrons Movie theatres must have adequate popcorn to serve patrons If context affects word recognition, should find faster fixations in response to first sentence Responses were 15 msec faster in the predictable context (buttered popcorn)
Eye movements & context

Zola (1984) demonstrated that lexical access gains help from previously activated information Morris (1994) compared fixations on moustache:
a) The friend talked as the person trimmed the moustache after lunch b) The friend talked to the barber and trimmed the moustache after lunch c) The friend talked as the barber trimmed the moustache after lunch a) Is the control sentence Fixations in b) were slightly faster (associative priming) Fixations in c) were MUCH faster (idea behind sentence is related to the target word)
Summary
Visual word recognition occurs when we access a words representation from the mental lexicon We can measure word recognition using a variety of experimental methods, including : naming, lexical decision, and visual psychophysics. All of these techniques gather RT and error data longer RTs and more errors indicate greater cognitive demand Speed of word recognition is affected by many factors: word frequency: faster responses to more frequent words age of acquisition: faster responses to words acquired earlier lexicality: faster responses to less word-like stimuli (e.g., HFQDT) orthographic neighborhood: for low frequency words, faster responses to words with a larger neighborhood containing only lower frequency neighbors context: faster responses for words that are expected/primed
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Lecture Plan
Written vs spoken language
Dual route model of reading
Reading problems Acquired dyslexias Developmental dyslexias
Lecture 14 Reading
Written vs Spoken Language

The anatomic capacity for speech evolved at least 100,000 years ago (Lieberman, 1991) Writing, however, evolved less than 10,000 (& perhaps as little as 3000) years ago no natural predisposition for writing Kids learn to speak effortlessly, but writing requires explicit instruction and modelling
Written Language
Writing emerged simultaneously & independently in Sumer (Cuneiform script, left) & Egypt (hieroglyphs, above) around 3000 BC
Written Language
Since the time of Aristotle, it has been assumed that writing is the graphic transcription of speech There is a very strong correlation between spoken and written language ability (+ 0.90; Rayner et al., 2001) Recent work indicates that learning to read requires the discovery of the structures of language (not simple transcription) In fact, it seems that via writing, we learn about the units of language involved in speaking
Written Language
Grapheme : the smallest (atomic) unit in written language, i.e., a letter In English, multiple graphemes correspond to one phoneme e.g., ship contains 4 graphemes (s h i p), 3 phonemes (sh i p) itchy contains 5 graphemes (i t c h y), 3 phonemes (i tch y)
Some languages are orthographically transparent, e.g., Italian, Finnish This means that each grapheme corresponds to one phoneme & vice versa
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Written Language
In English, the relationship between graphemes and phonemes is more complex A single phoneme can be represented by different graphemes: e.g., two, too, to, threw, through, blue A single grapheme can represent different phonemes: e.g., o in throw, ought, now, not But not all languages are alphabetic : Hebrew and Arabic are consonantal Japanese kana and Cherokee are syllabic Japanese kanji and Chinese are logographic
Consonantal Language
Hebrew and Arabic are consonantal
Syllabic Language
Japanese kana and Cherokee are syllabic
Logographic Language
Japanese kanji and Cantonese are logographic

Do you read frog, pint and nate the same way? Frog is a regular word the graphemes map onto phonemes in a regular way Pint is an irregular word the graphemes map onto phonemes in an unusual way (compare hint, mint) Nate is a very word-like nonword (pseudoword) you can create a pronunciation from the constituent graphemes

To read regular, irregular and nonwords, Coltheart et al. (1977, 1993, 2001, 2005) argue that there must be 2 different ways of assembling the phonology required to name words : hence the DUAL ROUTE MODEL of reading IndirectRoute Direct Route (Grapheme(Lexical Route) phoneme conversion Route) PRINT
LEXICON
Grapheme-Phoneme Conversion Rules
PRONUNCIATION
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Direct route (lexical route) like dictionary look up procedure MUST be used for irregular words CAN be used for regular words Indirect route (grapheme-phoneme conversion route) applies rules to convert orthography to phonology MUST be used for nonwords CAN be used for regular words GENERATES regularlization errors if used for irregular words

Dual route model thus proposes 2 coding systems to access word meaning: After the reader fixates a word, access to meaning can occur via the direct route (access whole word in the internal lexicon), or by using the indirect route (grapheme-to-phoneme conversion) which takes longer Frog (regular word) could be read with either route Pint (irregular word) must be read using the direct route, otherwise the reader will commit a regularization error Nate (nonword) must be read via the indirect route as, by definition, nonwords are not represented in the internal lexicon
Acquired dyslexias
Acquired dyslexias, resulting from head injury, stroke or other lesion, lead to a disruption of reading processes that were normal before cerebral insult Evidence from patients with acquired dyslexias supports the dual route model
Acquired dyslexias
Surface dyslexia Selective impairment in ability to read irregular words (e.g., steak vs. speak) Surface dyslexics make overregularization errors in response to irregular words Reading of regular words and nonwords is intact Phonological dyslexia Selective impairment in ability to read pronounceable nonwords (e.g., sleeb) Phonological dyslexics read irregular words correctly Reading of regular words is similarly intact
The existence of surface and phonological dyslexia provides a classic double dissociation
Acquired dyslexias : Dual route model

Direct Route Indirect route
Developmental Dyslexia
Learning to read (evolutionarily new skill) requires the translation of written symbols (graphemes) into speech forms (phonemes), using brain mechanisms specialized for other purposes Despite complexity of language, the majority of children learn to read with ease BUT a substantial minority (3-10%) have specific difficulty acquiring literacy skills, despite performing other tasks well
PRINT
LEXICON
GPC RULES
PRONUNCIATION
Which route is damaged in surface dyslexics (cant read irregular words)? Which route is damaged in phonological dyslexics (cant read nonwords)? Dyslexia : disorder manifested by difficulty in learning to read despite conventional instruction, adequate intelligence and socio-cultural opportunity. It is dependent upon fundamental cognitive disabilities
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Famous Dyslexics
Developmental Dyslexia
The causes of developmental dyslexia are not yet resolved but, the consensus view is that developmental dyslexia "is a lifelong developmental disorder with a biological origin" (Frith, 1997)
E N V I R O N M E N T
Genetic brain abnormality
BIOLOGICAL
FILM: Keanu Reeves, Tom Cruise, Orlando Bloom, Billy Bob Thornton, River Phoenix, Steven Spielberg ART: Leonardo Da Vinci, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Walt Disney SCIENCE: Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell POLITICS: Winston Churchill, John F Kennedy MISC: Agatha Christie, Jamie Oliver, Richard Branson, Cher
Poor learning of writing system Poor literacy skills
Specific deficit
COGNITIVE
Specific impairments
BEHAVIOURAL
Phonological Deficits
Dyslexia affects performance on a range of tasks that require phonological processing, suggesting that dyslexics have poorly specified phonological representations Dyslexia is associated with poor short term memory for verbal items, including digits. Why? Dyslexics have impaired representations of the phonological forms of words restricts the number of verbal items that can be retained in memory. This can affect performance on other working memory tasks too, e.g., mental arithmetic
Verbal Naming Deficits Dyslexic kids often exhibit word finding difficulties and use words inappropriately e.g., uneven pacific portulant for for for uneasy specific corpulent
In confrontation naming tasks, dyslexic kids perform poorly, particularly for low frequency and polysyllabic words, even when they could define the words correctly
Verbal Naming Deficits Snowling et al. (1988) found that dyslexic kids performed as well as controls on a receptive vocabulary test (picture-word matching), but were impaired on picture naming
Reading is an excellent example of paired associate learning Vellutino et al. (1995) showed that dyslexic readers have difficulty associating verbal labels with visual and verbal stimuli, but perform well on tasks associating visual shapes with one another Wimmer et al. (1998) found that dyslexics take longer to learn to associate nonwords with abstract shapes than younger, reading-age matched controls
This suggests that the dyslexic semantic system is AOK, but the naming (phonological) system is impaired
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Biological Bases of Dyslexia

There is a strong genetic component in dyslexia: for guys, 40% likelihood if one parent is dyslexic; for girls, 20% likelihood if one parent is dyslexic At present, the location of the affected gene(s) has not been firmly established In 30% of dyslexic families, the abnormality is associated with chromosome 15 (Smith et al., 1983) But in other families, links with chromosome 6 (Fischer et al., 1999) and chromosome 1 (Rabin et al., 1993) have been suggested
Biological Bases of Phonological Deficit

Galaburda et al. (1994; 1978) conducted post mortem examination of dyslexic brains, focussing on the perisylvian region of the left hemisphere, and the planum temporale Dyslexic brains evidenced ectopias and dysplasias (scarring) of the neurons, leading to an atypical pattern of neuronal circuitry The planum temporale was also symmetrical in normal readers, the left planum temporale is larger than the right
Biological Bases of Phonological Deficit

Larsen et al. (1990) established a direct link between symmetry of the planum temporale and phonological deficits MRI scanned 19 15-year old dyslexic kids with age, gender, IQ, SES and educational environment controls 70% of dyslexics have symmetrical planum temporale 70% of normals have asymmetrical planum temporale Larsen et al. classified the dyslexic kids into subtypes ALL with pure phonological problems were symmetrical ALL with pure orthographic problems were asymmetrical 7/9 with mixed ortho/phono problems were symmetrical
Summary
Dual route model of reading suggests we have two ways to access words: a direct route (internal lexicon) and an indirect route (grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules). Regular words can be read using either route, whereas irregular words must be read using the direct route, and nonwords must be read using the indirect route Surface dyslexia: acquired language disorder, selectively interrupting the ability to read irregular words (damage to the direct route); phonological dyslexia: acquired language disorder, selectively disrupting the ability to read nonwords (damage to the indirect route) Developmental dyslexia: difficulty learning to read despite conventional instruction, adequate intelligence and opportunity. People with developmental dyslexia exhibit phonological deficits which also results in impaired short term memory. People with dyslexia exhibit abnormalities in the perisylvian region of the left hemisphere (ectopias, dysplasias), and symmetry of the planum temporale
Lecture Plan
Semantic Games
Does Language = Thought?
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Number evidence Colour evidence
Lecture 15 Language & Thought
Can language and thought be dissociated? Thought without language
Whats in a name?
Nothing has its name by nature, but only by usage and custom.
Whats in a name?
A word is a memorized arbitrary pairing between a sound and a meaning : everyone in a language community tacitly agrees to use a particular sound to convey a particular idea Theres nothing inherently sweet smelling or thorny about the word rose As English speakers we have learned that the sound pattern rose refers to that particular flower
Plato, 360 BC Whats in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Lisa: His name doesn't matter. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet Bart: Not if you called 'em stenchblossoms Homer: Or crapweeds Marge: I'd sure hate to get a dozen crapweeds for Valentine's Day. I'd rather have candy Homer: Not if they were called scumdrops
William Shakespeare
Semantic Games. . .
I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.
Denotation vs. Connotation

Denotation:
- a words core, essential meaning e.g., PIG denotes pink, curlytailed, snouted animal
Connotation:
- secondary implications of a word, including emotional and evaluative aspects Yet Lewinsky testified to a number of acts that most people think of as sex. How did Clinton not perjure himself? Comes down to the difference between denotation and connotation - varies from person to person e.g., PIG may bring up connotations including adorable, scary, smelly, delicious People will agree on the denotation, but may differ in their connotations a fact Bill Clinton took advantage of
Language & Thought

Several theorists have proposed that written language is a form of thought (e.g., Kellogg, 1994; Oatley & Djikic, 2008)
Language & Thought

Research has shown that literacy (including writing skill) enhances thinking ability, suggesting a strong relationship between language and thought
Luria (1976) examined two groups of adults in Uzbekistan, half of whom had received limited literacy training Participants were asked a series a of questions assessing their reasoning ability:
I regard thinking and writing as twins of mental life. The study of the more expressive twin, writing, can offer insights into the psychology of thinking, the more reserved member of the pair.
Kellogg (1994), p.13
In the Far North, where there is snow, all bears are white. Novaya Zemlya is in the Far North. What colour are the bears there?
Luria (1976) found: 100% of the group with partial literacy responded accurately
Cultural differences in word meaning

Some words have different meanings in different countries pants: (n) undergarmet (UK) (n) trousers (Australia) handy: (a) useful, nifty (Australia/UK) (n) mobile phone (Germany) Some words exist in one language, but not in others schadenfreude: delight in another person's misfortune (German)
Only 27% of the illiterate group answered correctly e.g., I dont know Ive seen a black bear, but not others. Each area has its own type of animals you know
As such, these findings imply a strong link between literacy and thinking
sisu: sense of will, determination, stoic toughness in the face of adversity, having guts (Finnish) sgriob: the itchiness that overcomes the upper lip just before taking a sip of whisky (Scottish Gaelic)
Do the words you use constrain thought?
The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc [English Socialism], but to make all other modes of thought impossible...Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever. To give a single example. The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as "This dog is free from lice" or "This field is free from weeks." It could not be used in its old sense of "politically free" or "intellectually free," since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and therefore were of necessity nameless.
George Orwell believed that language is the foundation of thought: if something cant be said, it cant be thought
A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. Orwell (1945)
...A person growing up with Newspeak as his sole language would no more know that equal had once had the secondary meaning of "politically equal," or that free had once meant "intellectually free" than, for instance, a person who had never heard of chess would be aware of the secondary meanings attaching to queen and rook. There would be many crimes and errors which it would be beyond his power to commit, simply because they were nameless and therefore unimaginable." George Orwell, "1984" (1948)
SapirSapir-Whorf Hypothesis
The limits of my language indicate the limits of my world. Wittgenstein (1966)
Eskimos and words for snow

According to popular folklore, Eskimos have LOTS (up to 400 according to some!) of different words for snow, because it plays such a vital role in their world e.g., aput: snow on the ground; qana: falling snow; piqsirpoq: drifting snow; qimuqsuq snowdrift (Boas, 1911) According to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the words that you use to describe the world influence the way you perceive the world Therefore, if Eskimos have many different words for snow, they must view snow differently
According to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, we have a basic need to make sense of the world. Making sense of the world requires us to impose an order on it. The best tool we have for imposing order is language
.. the real world is to a large extent built up on the language habits of the group. We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached.
Sapir (1956)

But do Eskimos really have so many words for snow? According to Martin (1986) and Pullum (1991), NO!!!! So where did the story come from? Boas (1911) : 4 words Whorf (1940) : 7 words Adams (1984) : 9 words New York Times (1982) : 100 words New York Times (1988) : 48 words
Whorfian Hypothesis
Research in cultures with differing number systems offers support for the notion that language shapes cognition The Pirah tribe are an indigenous hunter-gatherer people living in the Brazillian Amazon Their language is fascinating to linguistics because: They have no colour terms They make virtually no use of time terms They have one/no number terms
Can we only create thoughts for words that exist?

The Pirah tribe dont ever use words equivalent to all, every or more, and according to Everett (1977) have only one word that comes close to a number term: Hoi = one (but can also be used for small, or a small amount, such as 2 small fish!) Gordon (2004) hypothesised that a people without terms for numbers doesn't develop the ability to determine exact numbers and tested this with the Pirah tribe
Gordon (2004) tested seven Pirah tribesmen on a variety of tasks e.g., laid out a random number of familiar objects (sticks, nuts, batteries) in a row the Pirah had to lay out the same number of objects from their own pile For 1-3 objects, the Pirah responded accurately, but for 4-10 objects, they could only match approximately

Gordon (2004) showed the tribesmen a box with 4 or 5 fish on the lid Less that 5 seconds later, he asked the tribesmen to indicate which box they saw they could not perform the task

Thus Gordons (2004) research appears completely consistent with Whorfs theory: people can only construct thoughts for which they possess actual words As the Pirah tribe have no words for numbers, they are unable to understand the concept of numbers and arithmetic
Gordon (2004) also asked the tribesmen to copy a series of taps For 1-3 taps they could copy successfully But for >4 taps, they were unable to mimic the pattern
SapirSapir-Whorf Hypothesis : Colour

The number and type of basic colour words in a language determine how you see a rainbow In English, blue and green are distinct colours In some other languages, there is a single word for blue/green and no distinction between the two

The Dani people of Papua New Guinea have two colour categories, labelled in English as white-warm and dark-cool: mola: WHITE/RED/YELLOW mili: BLACK/GREEN/BLUE
Berlin and Kay (1969)

Which of these colour patches is the odd one out? Why?

Gilbert et al. (2006) offered support for the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but only in one visual field Participants were asked to indicate whether the mismatching colour patch was in the left or right half of the array
For English speakers, the first stimulus is the odd one out as it is perceived as green whereas the other two are blue Tarahumara speakers (northern Mexico) dont distinguish between blue and green one word covers that part of the spectrum
The oddball patch could either be within the "same" basic colourname category (in English) or from a different category Remember that the left visual field projects to the right hemisphere, and the right visual field projects to the left (language-dominant) hemisphere
Thought without Language

Varley et al. (2005) examined mathematical reasoning ability in three severely aphasic patients. The patients had deficits in both producing and comprehending grammar: e.g., they understood the words "lion", "hunted" and "man", but could not tell the difference between "The lion hunted the man" and "The man hunted the lion". However the patients were able to successfully solve computational problems which were structured in a similar way: e.g., 52 minus 11, and 11 minus 52
Participants were faster at making between-colour-category judgments (i.e. the oddball was green and rest were blue) in the right visual field As the right visual field projects to the left hemisphere (language dominant in 95% of the population), this finding offers support for Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
Thus despite language deficits, these participants showed considerable cognitive capacity, suggesting the presence of abstract thought in the absence of language

What about birds and animals can they think?
Animals dont have language, but research clearly shows that they possess cognitive capacities, such as: Problem solving, Matching, Simple addition Chimps taught sign language can combine signs to form novel utterances, e.g., rock-berry (brazil nut) and water-bird (duck) According to Chomsky (1984), introspection indicates pretty clearly that even humans don't think in language necessarily. We also think in visual images, we think in terms of situations and events, and so on, and many times we can't the content of our thinking in words Thus it is possible to dissociate language and thought
Summary
Denotation: a words core, essential meaning; connotation: secondary implications of a word that vary from person to person Some theorists believe that language is the foundation of thought: if you cant say it, you cant think it. Research indicates that language enhances thinking/reasoning ability According to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, we use language to impose order on the world: the words we use to describe the world influence the way we perceive the world The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is supported by cross-cultural studies examining the perceptions of colour and number Though language can play an important role in thought, it is possible to think without using language (e.g., research examining aphasic patients reasoning; chimpanzee problem-solving)
Lecture Plan
Semantic Games
Does Language = Thought?
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Number evidence Colour evidence
Lecture 15 Language & Thought
Can language and thought be dissociated? Thought without language
Whats in a name?
Nothing has its name by nature, but only by usage and custom.
Whats in a name?
A word is a memorized arbitrary pairing between a sound and a meaning : everyone in a language community tacitly agrees to use a particular sound to convey a particular idea Theres nothing inherently sweet smelling or thorny about the word rose As English speakers we have learned that the sound pattern rose refers to that particular flower
Plato, 360 BC Whats in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Lisa: His name doesn't matter. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet Bart: Not if you called 'em stenchblossoms Homer: Or crapweeds Marge: I'd sure hate to get a dozen crapweeds for Valentine's Day. I'd rather have candy Homer: Not if they were called scumdrops
William Shakespeare
Semantic Games. . .
I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.
Denotation vs. Connotation

Denotation:
- a words core, essential meaning e.g., PIG denotes pink, curlytailed, snouted animal
Connotation:
- secondary implications of a word, including emotional and evaluative aspects Yet Lewinsky testified to a number of acts that most people think of as sex. How did Clinton not perjure himself? Comes down to the difference between denotation and connotation - varies from person to person e.g., PIG may bring up connotations including adorable, scary, smelly, delicious People will agree on the denotation, but may differ in their connotations a fact Bill Clinton took advantage of
Language & Thought

Several theorists have proposed that written language is a form of thought (e.g., Kellogg, 1994; Oatley & Djikic, 2008)
Language & Thought

Research has shown that literacy (including writing skill) enhances thinking ability, suggesting a strong relationship between language and thought
Luria (1976) examined two groups of adults in Uzbekistan, half of whom had received limited literacy training Participants were asked a series a of questions assessing their reasoning ability:
I regard thinking and writing as twins of mental life. The study of the more expressive twin, writing, can offer insights into the psychology of thinking, the more reserved member of the pair.
Kellogg (1994), p.13
In the Far North, where there is snow, all bears are white. Novaya Zemlya is in the Far North. What colour are the bears there?
Luria (1976) found: 100% of the group with partial literacy responded accurately
Cultural differences in word meaning

Some words have different meanings in different countries pants: (n) undergarmet (UK) (n) trousers (Australia) handy: (a) useful, nifty (Australia/UK) (n) mobile phone (Germany) Some words exist in one language, but not in others schadenfreude: delight in another person's misfortune (German)
Only 27% of the illiterate group answered correctly e.g., I dont know Ive seen a black bear, but not others. Each area has its own type of animals you know
As such, these findings imply a strong link between literacy and thinking
sisu: sense of will, determination, stoic toughness in the face of adversity, having guts (Finnish) sgriob: the itchiness that overcomes the upper lip just before taking a sip of whisky (Scottish Gaelic)
Do the words you use constrain thought?
The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc [English Socialism], but to make all other modes of thought impossible...Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever. To give a single example. The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as "This dog is free from lice" or "This field is free from weeks." It could not be used in its old sense of "politically free" or "intellectually free," since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and therefore were of necessity nameless.
George Orwell believed that language is the foundation of thought: if something cant be said, it cant be thought
A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. Orwell (1945)
...A person growing up with Newspeak as his sole language would no more know that equal had once had the secondary meaning of "politically equal," or that free had once meant "intellectually free" than, for instance, a person who had never heard of chess would be aware of the secondary meanings attaching to queen and rook. There would be many crimes and errors which it would be beyond his power to commit, simply because they were nameless and therefore unimaginable." George Orwell, "1984" (1948)
SapirSapir-Whorf Hypothesis
The limits of my language indicate the limits of my world. Wittgenstein (1966)

According to popular folklore, Eskimos have LOTS (up to 400 according to some!) of different words for snow, because it plays such a vital role in their world e.g., aput: snow on the ground; qana: falling snow; piqsirpoq: drifting snow; qimuqsuq snowdrift (Boas, 1911) According to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the words that you use to describe the world influence the way you perceive the world Therefore, if Eskimos have many different words for snow, they must view snow differently
According to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, we have a basic need to make sense of the world. Making sense of the world requires us to impose an order on it. The best tool we have for imposing order is language
.. the real world is to a large extent built up on the language habits of the group. We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached.
Sapir (1956)

But do Eskimos really have so many words for snow? According to Martin (1986) and Pullum (1991), NO!!!! So where did the story come from? Boas (1911) : 4 words Whorf (1940) : 7 words Adams (1984) : 9 words New York Times (1982) : 100 words New York Times (1988) : 48 words
Whorfian Hypothesis
Research in cultures with differing number systems offers support for the notion that language shapes cognition The Pirah tribe are an indigenous hunter-gatherer people living in the Brazillian Amazon Their language is fascinating to linguistics because: They have no colour terms They make virtually no use of time terms They have one/no number terms

The Pirah tribe dont ever use words equivalent to all, every or more, and according to Everett (1977) have only one word that comes close to a number term: Hoi = one (but can also be used for small, or a small amount, such as 2 small fish!) Gordon (2004) hypothesised that a people without terms for numbers doesn't develop the ability to determine exact numbers and tested this with the Pirah tribe
Gordon (2004) tested seven Pirah tribesmen on a variety of tasks e.g., laid out a random number of familiar objects (sticks, nuts, batteries) in a row the Pirah had to lay out the same number of objects from their own pile For 1-3 objects, the Pirah responded accurately, but for 4-10 objects, they could only match approximately

Gordon (2004) showed the tribesmen a box with 4 or 5 fish on the lid Less that 5 seconds later, he asked the tribesmen to indicate which box they saw they could not perform the task

Thus Gordons (2004) research appears completely consistent with Whorfs theory: people can only construct thoughts for which they possess actual words As the Pirah tribe have no words for numbers, they are unable to understand the concept of numbers and arithmetic
Gordon (2004) also asked the tribesmen to copy a series of taps For 1-3 taps they could copy successfully But for >4 taps, they were unable to mimic the pattern

The number and type of basic colour words in a language determine how you see a rainbow In English, blue and green are distinct colours In some other languages, there is a single word for blue/green and no distinction between the two

The Dani people of Papua New Guinea have two colour categories, labelled in English as white-warm and dark-cool: mola: WHITE/RED/YELLOW mili: BLACK/GREEN/BLUE
Berlin and Kay (1969)

Which of these colour patches is the odd one out? Why?

Gilbert et al. (2006) offered support for the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but only in one visual field Participants were asked to indicate whether the mismatching colour patch was in the left or right half of the array
For English speakers, the first stimulus is the odd one out as it is perceived as green whereas the other two are blue Tarahumara speakers (northern Mexico) dont distinguish between blue and green one word covers that part of the spectrum
The oddball patch could either be within the "same" basic colourname category (in English) or from a different category Remember that the left visual field projects to the right hemisphere, and the right visual field projects to the left (language-dominant) hemisphere

Varley et al. (2005) examined mathematical reasoning ability in three severely aphasic patients. The patients had deficits in both producing and comprehending grammar: e.g., they understood the words "lion", "hunted" and "man", but could not tell the difference between "The lion hunted the man" and "The man hunted the lion". However the patients were able to successfully solve computational problems which were structured in a similar way: e.g., 52 minus 11, and 11 minus 52
Participants were faster at making between-colour-category judgments (i.e. the oddball was green and rest were blue) in the right visual field As the right visual field projects to the left hemisphere (language dominant in 95% of the population), this finding offers support for Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
Thus despite language deficits, these participants showed considerable cognitive capacity, suggesting the presence of abstract thought in the absence of language

What about birds and animals can they think?
Animals dont have language, but research clearly shows that they possess cognitive capacities, such as: Problem solving, Matching, Simple addition Chimps taught sign language can combine signs to form novel utterances, e.g., rock-berry (brazil nut) and water-bird (duck) According to Chomsky (1984), introspection indicates pretty clearly that even humans don't think in language necessarily. We also think in visual images, we think in terms of situations and events, and so on, and many times we can't the content of our thinking in words Thus it is possible to dissociate language and thought
Summary
Denotation: a words core, essential meaning; connotation: secondary implications of a word that vary from person to person Some theorists believe that language is the foundation of thought: if you cant say it, you cant think it. Research indicates that language enhances thinking/reasoning ability According to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, we use language to impose order on the world: the words we use to describe the world influence the way we perceive the world The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is supported by cross-cultural studies examining the perceptions of colour and number Though language can play an important role in thought, it is possible to think without using language (e.g., research examining aphasic patients reasoning; chimpanzee problem-solving)
Lecture Plan
Deductive reasoning Conditional reasoning Syllogisms Propositional calculus Antecedents Consequents Belief-bias / belief perseverance
Lecture 16 Reasoning
Confirmation bias
Deductive Reasoning
We use deductive reasoning every day
e.g., the supermarkets opening hours are 7am-12 midnight. At 12.30am I fancy some ice cream and the freezer is empty. I must draw the logical conclusion that I cannot procure ice cream at the supermarket until 7am
Deductive Reasoning
Deductive reasoning : mental process of drawing logical inferences Deductive reasoning is a central cognitive process and forms a major component of intelligence Indeed, people with higher levels of intelligence make more accurate deductions (Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 2002) e.g., You know that your car needs petrol to run (premise) You discover that your cars petrol tank is empty (premise) You logically infer that the car wont work (inference)
Deductive reasoning requires us to draw a logical conclusion based on the information supplied the conclusion necessarily follows As such, deductive reasoning is a common type of thinking : we start with several pieces of information that we must mentally manipulate in order to draw a logical conclusion
The inference is logically valid: if the premises are true, the inference must also be true
Conditional Reasoning
Conditional reasoning is a common type of deductive reasoning Conditional reasoning tasks involve understanding the relationships between conditions (e.g., course prerequisites: you must complete PSY 1EFP to enrol in PSY 2COG) Researchers studying conditional reasoning ask participants to determine whether a conclusion* is valid
To drink alcohol legally in the US, you must be over 21 Little Jimmy is 18 Therefore little Jimmy is not legally permitted to drink alcohol in the US*
Syllogisms
Syllogisms are a common type of deductive reasoning task Aristotle first defined syllogisms: A deduction is speech (logos) in which, certain things having been supposed, something different from those supposed results of necessity because of their being so, (Prior Analytics I.2, 24b18-20). The things supposed are the premises of the argument The results of necessity is the conclusion (the deduction) Thus a syllogism is a logical argument in which the conclusion is drawn from the premises e.g., All men are mortal (major premise) Socrates is a man (minor premise) Socrates is mortal (conclusion)
Syllogisms
When studying reasoning using syllogisms, participants are instructed to determine whether the conclusion is: a) Valid; b) Invalid; c) Indeterminate House: Words have set meanings for a reason. If you see an animal like Bill and you try to play fetch, Bill's going to eat you, because Bill's a bear. Little Girl: Bill has fur, four legs, and a collar. He's a dog. House: You see, that's what's called a faulty syllogism; just because you call Bill a dog doesn't mean that he is . . . a dog.
Propositional Calculus
Though we encounter conditional reasoning problems on a daily basis, were not especially good at reasoning logically and can easily be tricked (Evans, 2004) Propositional calculus is a system for categorising the different types of reasoning we use
1) All dentists are mortal All sadists are mortal All dentists are sadists 2) All pugs are dogs All pugs are mammals Therefore, all mammals are dogs
Antecedent : first proposition or statement (the if part of the sentence) Consequent : second proposition (the then part of the sentence) When reasoning conditionally, we can affirm or deny parts of the sentence
Propositional Calculus
If I fall in love, then Ill be happy Antecedent : If I fall in love Consequent : Then Ill be happy
Abstract vs Concrete Reasoning

Reasoning errors are also more common if the logic problem concerns abstract, theoretical concepts rather than concrete, everyday examples this has been demonstrated using the Wason selection task (also known as the four card task)
When reasoning we can affirm or deny each part of the sentence Affirming the antecedent : Im in love, therefore Im happy (VALID) Affirming the consequent : Im happy, therefore Im in love (INVALID) Denying the antecedent : Im not in love, therefore Im not happy (INVALID) Denying the consequent : Im not happy, therefore Im not in love (VALID)
Abstract vs Concrete Reasoning

In the original Wason (1966) experiment people performed very poorly (96% incorrect!) 46% mistakenly turned over the D and 5 cards 33% only turned over the D card Only 4% of participants correctly selected the D and 2 cards Griggs & Cox (1982) found that by making the card content less abstract, people were able to reason far more logically
Negative vs Positive Information

Reasoning errors are more common if the logic problem involves negatives people experience greater difficulty processing sentences containing negative information (e.g., no, not) Consequently, reasoning for negative logic problems tasks longer (more cognitively demanding), and is more error-prone (e.g., Halpern, 2003) If a card does not have an A on the left, then it has a 3 on the right The card does not have a 3 on the right
If a person is drinking beer , then they must be over 18 years of age
Therefore, the card has an A on the left
For this version of the task 73% correctly selected Beer and 17
Belief Bias
If the object in my hand is a frog, then it is green The object in my hand is green Therefore it is a frog
Belief Bias
In everyday life we use our general knowledge about the world to guide us this background knowledge typically helps up to function more efficiently and predict likely outcomes However when reasoning logically, use of general knowledge can induce errors people tend to accept conclusions that fit their beliefs, and reject assertions that conflict with their systems of belief, irrespective of logic
Cummins et al. (1991) used the following examples: If my finger is cut, then it bleeds. My finger is bleeding. Therefore my finger is cut. If I eat candy often, then I have cavities. I have cavities. Therefore, I eat candy often.
To determine whether a statement is valid, when reasoning you can only rely on the information provided in the task : people often make errors when reasoning because they misapply their real world knowledge or make generalisations Indeed, research indicates that up to 80-90% of participants commit errors involving affirming the consequent and denying the antecedent on conditional reasoning tasks
Belief Bias
Belief bias : making judgements based on prior beliefs and general knowledge rather than the rules of logic People make reasoning errors when the logic of a reasoning problem conflicts with their background knowledge, especially when the reasoning task is difficult Belief bias is an example of top-down processing in which our expectations and prior knowledge help us organize experience and navigate the world Thus if a statement in a reasoning problem looks correct, we ignore the reasoning process that generated the statement (Stanovich, 2003)
Belief Bias
Vroling & de Jong (2009) demonstrated that people with high levels of social anxiety (i.e., fear of negative evaluation) show a particularly strong belief bias when reasoning about social anxiety content (no different to controls when reasoning about neutral content)
e.g., people with high levels of social anxiety endorse the following invalid syllogism as valid Others find person 1 less capable than person A Others find person A less capable than me Others find me less capable than person 1 But they recognise that the following invalid syllogism (neutral) is invalid A mouse is bigger than a dog A dog is bigger than an elephant An elephant is bigger than a mouse
Belief Bias
Belief bias exists because people have difficulty evaluating conclusions that conflict with their knowledge of the world To think critically, you need to be able to decouple your prior beliefs/opinions from the evidence Certain people are more susceptible to belief bias: People with lower scores on IQ tests (Macpherson & Stanovich, 2007) People who have low scores on tests of flexible thinking (Stanovich, 1999)
Confirmation Bias
Not surprisingly, people tend to believe their beliefs : were extremely confident in some of our beliefs (e.g., the sun will rise tomorrow), but less certain about others (e.g., that Tom and Kate are a good match) When testing our beliefs we can use confirming evidence (supports the belief) and/or disconfirming evidence (challenges the belief) to evaluate a belief its best to seek out both kinds of evidence However research shows that people exhibit a strong tendency to seek out and rely upon confirming evidence We show a confirmation bias : a preference to confirm a hypothesis rather than try to disprove it, and to favour confirming evidence whilst being sceptical of disconfirming evidence
Flexible thinkers tend to solve reasoning problems correctly, and are not distracted by belief-bias (Byrne et al., 2000)
Confirmation Bias
Wason (1966, 1968) provided a classic demonstration of confirmation bias Participants were presented with a trio of numbers (e.g., 2,4,6) and told that the series conformed to a rule: their job was to figure out the rule Participants could present the experimenter with their own number trio and ask whether it obeyed the rule, and the experimenter would respond Yes it does, or No it doesnt accurately Participants had to indicate when they thought theyd discovered the rule
Confirmation Bias
The confirmation bias acts like a pair of blinders: because we look for information that conforms to our hypothesis (and overlook contradictory evidence) we are not dissuaded from the view that our hypothesis is correct Lord et al. (1979) demonstrated the influence of the confirmation bias on evidence evaluation
Using a questionnaire they measured participants attitudes to capital punishment (favour/against) and then asked then to evaluate a series of research articles on capital punishment some studies indicated that capital punishment had a deterrent effect on murder, and others indicated that it had no deterrent effect Irrespective of the content of the articles, participant ratings of convincingness reflected their initial attitudes confirmation bias!
The rule was VERY simple: the numbers had to be in ascending order (e.g., both 1, 3, 5 and 25, 241, 166427 obey the rule, but 10, 8, 6 does not) Participants found it very difficult to discover the rule, partially due to the bias in their questioning: participants sought to confirm rules theyd proposed, and rarely asked for disconfirming evidence (participants who asked for disconfirming evidence were more likely to discover the rule!)
Confirmation Bias
When we encounter evidence that fits our beliefs, we accept it When we encounter evidence that conflicts with our beliefs, we approach it sceptically, seeking out flaws and looking for ways to reinterpret the evidence so that it no longer challenges our beliefs The extra mental activity involved makes people more likely to recall disconfirming evidence, but this memory is coloured by the confirmation bias
e.g., Gilovich (1983) studied people who bet on football games all believed they had good strategies for picking winners, even in the face of a series of losses Losses were remembered as flukes or coincidences (near wins) whereas wins were recalled as wins
Belief Perseverance
Even when disconfirming evidence is absolutely undeniable, sometime people dont use it : belief perseverance
Ross et al. (1975) conducted a classic study in which participants were asked to determine whether suicide notes were authentic Participants received arbitrary feedback on how they were going : half told they were above average and half told they were below average During debriefing participants were informed of the bogus feedback, and were asked to rate their actual ability Those who received above average feedback rated themselves above average; those who received below average feedback rated themselves below average Participants beliefs persevered even when the basis of the belief was discredited
Belief Perseverance
Belief perseverance is partially attributable to confirmation bias In Ross et al.s (1975) study participants were told they were good/bad at the task To evaluate this feedback you might search your memory Because of the confirmation bias, your memory search will be biased toward evidence that confirms the investigators feedback those who received good feedback will search for episodes in which they were socially perceptive, whereas those with poor feedback will search for episodes in which they were socially insensitive Thus even when the researcher tells you that the feedback was bogus, you still have the information from memory to maintain the belief
Summary
Deductive reasoning : mental process of drawing logical inferences that necessarily follow from the premises Syllogisms are a common type of deductive reasoning task in which participants are instructed to determine whether the conclusions is: a) Valid; b) Invalid; c) Indeterminate Propositional calculus is a system for categorising the different types of reasoning we use, and involves the antecedent and the consequent, each of which can be confirmed or denied errors are more common when the reasoning problem contains abstract or negative information Belief bias : making judgements based on prior beliefs and general knowledge rather than the rules of logic (top down). People with high IQs and high levels of flexible thinking are less likely to make errors based on belief biases Confirmation bias : preference to confirm a hypothesis rather than try to disprove it, and to favour confirming evidence whilst being sceptical of disconfirming evidence. Linked to belief perseverance in which beliefs persist even in the face of disconfirming evidence
Lecture Plan
Heuristics Representativeness Heuristic Sample sizes Base rates Conjunction fallacy Availability Heuristic Recency Familiarity Illusory correlation Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic
Lecture 17 Decision Making
Framing effect Overconfidence Hindsight bias
Decisions, decisions
Reasoning uses established rules to draw clear-cut, logical conclusions Decision making is less constrained there are no established rules and you may never know whether your decision was the right decision (Klein, 1997) How do you know whether you have all the necessary information? How do you know that the information you have is accurate?
Heuristics
To help us make the right decision, we rely on heuristics Heuristics are general strategies that typically produce a correct solution when faced with a difficult decision, heuristics provide a simple, easily accessible guideline Because we use only a small number of heuristics, the strategies that normally help us make a correct decision can sometimes lead us astray If we fail to recognise the limited applicability of a heuristic, we may make a poor decision i.e., the strategy that typically produces an efficient and accurate solution will lead to an error if it is applied too broadly
Decision making is an interdisciplinary field encompassing research from a broad range of fields, including psychology, economics, statistics, sociology, philosophy and law Unlike reasoning, decision making tends to rely on real-world scenarios rather than abstract situations
Representativeness Heuristic
Imagine youre playing Tattslotto. Which of the following sets of numbers is more likely to win? 3, 5, 18, 24, 29, 37 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Most people select the first set of numbers: you know that Tattslotto balls are selected randomly and the first set of numbers looks more random than the second set A sample appears representative when it shares important characteristics with the population from which it was selected a sample thats selected at random must look random to appear representative When making decisions we often use a representativeness heuristic : the strategy of relying on resemblance to a category
Kahneman & Tversky (1972) Imagine a small hospital in which 15 babies are born each day, and a large hospital in which 45 babies are born each day Which hospital would be more likely to report that more than 60% of babies born on a given day were boys? Or would they be equally likely to report more than 60% boys? Large (21), small (21), both (53)
Sample size : when making decisions we rely so heavily on the representativeness heuristic that we fail to take sample size into account However sample size is an important consideration when making decisions A large sample is statistically more likely to reflect the true proportions of the population
Tversky & Kahneman (1971) reported that people often commit the smallsample fallacy : assuming that small samples will be representative of the population from which they are selected However a small sample is more likely to exhibit an extreme proportion A large sample is more likely to be representative (law of large numbers)
Rudy, is a bit on the peculiar side. He has unusual tastes in movies and art, he is married to a performer, and he has tattoos on various parts of his body. In his spare time Rudy takes yoga classes and likes to collect 78 rpm records. An outgoing and rather boisterous person, he has been known to act on a dare on more than one occasion. What do you think Rudys occupation most likely is? (Swinkels, 2003) A) Farmer B) Librarian C) Trapeze Artist D) Surgeon E) Lawyer Because representativeness is such a compelling heuristic, we often ignore the base rate Base rates : how often an item occurs in the population When we rely on representativeness to judge category membership, we commit the base-rate fallacy, under-emphasizing base rates in the population
The small-sample fallacy leads us to draw stereotypes about people on the basis of a small number of group members (Hamilton & Sherman, 1994) Its important to remain conscious of the fact that a small sample of people may not be representative of the entire group
We commit the base rate fallacy on a very regular basis Most people are more frightened of travelling in a plane than in a car Though the odds of dying in a car accident are overwhelmingly higher than dying in a plane crash, planes crashes are highly publicized and thus appear more salient Reliance on the base-rate fallacy can lead to poor decisions Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks more people avoided flying and drove instead (Gigerenzer, 2004) the number of people killed in car accidents in the US in the 3 months after Sept 11, 2001 was higher (by 353 people) than the same 3 months the previous year
Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations. Which is more probable? 1. Linda is a bank teller 2. Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement Tversky & Kahneman (1983) found that 85% chose option 2, even though the conjunction of two evens (bank teller, feminist) CANNOT occur more often than either event by itself Conjunction rule : the probability of the conjunction of two events cannot be larger than the probability of either of the constituent events
Because representativeness is such a powerful heuristic, and they believe the option 2 is more representative of Linda, they select the option that is mathematically impossible
The conjunction fallacy has been well replicated The probability of spilling hot coffee is perceived as greater than the probability of spilling coffee (Moldoveanu & Langer, 2002) The probability of a Scandinavian having blond hair and blue eyes is perceived as greater than the probability of a Scandinavian having blond hair (Tentori et al., 2004)
Availability Heuristic
The availability heuristic is another heuristic commonly used in everyday life The availability heuristic is used when we estimate the frequency or probability of something by estimating how easily examples of the something come to mind (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973) Events or objects that are frequently encountered are likely to be easily available to memory, so availability is usually an index of frequency The availability heuristic is typically an accurate strategy if the availability is correlated with true, objective frequency this is typically the case, but not always
Are there more words with the letter R in the first position (e.g., rabbit) or the third position (e.g., throw)? Most people say first position, but there are more than twice as many words with R in the third position (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973, 1974) We make this error because we rely on availability for an index of frequency, and our memory is organised around words that share the same sound much easier to search memory for R as a starting letter Thus the organisation of our memory system leads to a bias in what sort of information is easily available The availability bias leads to an error in frequency judgment
Who does most of the housework in your house? Most of us overestimate the amount of housework we do because its easily available we were there and so are very aware of the washing up, vaccuuming, scrubbing weve done Information about housemates housework is less available because we may not be around to witness it The availability heuristic leads us to overestimate the frequency of some events that are actually quite rare e.g., winning the lottery (Powerball 1/27,489,577; Oz Lotto 1/8,145,060;
Tattslotto 1/2,036,265)
Elstein et al. (1986) found that doctors overestimate the likelihood of rare diseases and thus may fail to pursue more typical/appropriate diagnoses
Recency influences availability As memory declines with time, we recall recent events better than distant events, thus recent events are more available MacLeod & Campbell (1992) found that thinking about happy events in the past led people to predict greater likelihood of happy events in the future Similarly, thinking about sad events in the past led people to predict greater likelihood of sad events in the future
Familiarity influences availability Familiarity also affects availability when you are familiar with a particular object or event, you are able to bring it to mind more easily. E.g., if you have a lot of friends who are rubgy players, you may overestimate the popularity of the sport We are overexposed to unusual causes of death (e.g., murder) in the news, and underexposed to more common causes (e.g., diabetes), leading us to overestimate the likelihood of dying in a homicide (Slovic et al., 1982) Were 100 times more likely to die from disease than murder, but murders are reported 3 times as often as deaths from disease
Illusory Correlation and Availability Illusory correlation occurs when we believe that two variables are statistically related, despite there being no evidence for the relationship e.g., It always rains on the weekend Many stereotypes suggest incorporate illusory correlations e.g., librarians are quiet, girls are poor at maths Chapman & Chapman (1967) randomly paired symptom descriptions (e.g., suspiciousness, paranoia) with drawings (e.g., drawing of someone with HUGE eyes) Participants still reported a systematic relationship between symptoms and drawings and illusory correlation
Anchoring & Adjustment Heuristic

Sometimes we dont know the answer, but we know roughly what ballpark the answer lies in we then use this initial rough idea as an anchor, and determine the final answer by adjusting that anchor on the basis of additional information Though the anchoring and adjustment heuristic often leads to a reasonable answer, research indicates that people tend to rely far too heavily on the anchor and make insufficient adjustments e.g., Strack & Mussweiler (1997) asked people to estimate how old Ghandi was when he died People who were first asked Did he live to 140? estimated 67, whereas people asked Did he live past 9? estimated 50
Framing Effect
The decisions we make are also influenced by the framing effect Imagine theres an outbreak of a new, highly contagious disease thats expected to kill 600 people. There are 2 proposals to combat the disease: which would your select? Programme A : Programme B : 200 people will be saved 1/3 probability that 600 people will be saved, and 2/3 probability that noone will be saved
Framing Effect
Imagine theres an outbreak of a new, highly contagious disease thats expected to kill 600 people. There are 2 proposals to combat the disease: which would your select? Programme A : Programme B : 400 people will die 1/3 probability that noone will die, and a 2/3 probability that 600 people will die
Tversky & Kahneman (1987) found that now 78% select Programme B The proportions of people living/dying are identical in the two examples, however the way the problem is phrased (the framing) significantly affected choices Positive framing (lives saved) leads to an A bias; negative framing (lives lost) leads to a B bias
Tversky & Kahneman (1987) found that 72% select Programme A
Framing Effect
The way a question is framed has a major influences on decisions made: When dealing with possible gains, people tend to avoid risk When dealing with possible losses, people tend to seek risk Framing effects are evident in many realms Were more likely to buy foods that are 90% fat free than 10% fat In sports, we rate players more highly if they scored in 75% of free throws than missed 25% of free throws In medicine were more likely to favour a treatment with a 50% success rate than a 50% failure rate
Overconfidence
Our decisions are influenced by : representativeness heuristic availability heuristic anchoring & adjustment heuristic framing effect
Though all of these heuristics/effects can induce errors, leading us to make poor decisions, people are overconfident about their decision making skills (Hoffrage, 2004) Overconfidence: confidence judgements are higher than actual performance Kahneman & Tversky (1995) demonstrated that people consistently have more confidence in their own decisions than in predictions based on statistical measurements
Overconfidence
Research indicates that people are overconfident about just about everything: academic skills future performance social skills creativity leadership ability That overconfidence arises from errors committed during the decision making process As were not conscious that our decisions are based factors such as familiarity, over-generalisation, unreliable information etc., and are influenced by biases (e.g., belief bias, confirmation bias), people have difficulty accurately evaluating the correctness of their decisions and overestimate their decision making capability
Hindsight Bias
Hindsight : judgments about events that have happened Hindsight bias : after an event has occurred, the tendency to say that that event was inevitable (e.g., I knew it all along) Hindsight bias reflects peoples overconfidence in their ability to predict outcomes Carli (1999) examined the hindsight bias by asking participants to read one of two stories about a woman and man the stories were identical except for the ending (one ends in marriage, the other ends in rape) After reading the story participants completed a memory test asking questions about facts in the story, and about information not in the story (consistent with either the marriage or rape scenario)
Hindsight Bias
Carli (1999) found strong evidence for a hindsight bias : People in the marriage-ending group claimed they could have predicted that the man & woman would get married People in the rape-ending group claimed they could have predicted that the woman would get raped Moreover each groups false memories were biased toward information consistent with the ending theyd read The hindsight bias is thought to be linked to the anchoring and adjustment heuristic when you know the outcome with 100% certainty, thats a VERY strong anchor from which to adjust!
Summary
Heuristics : general strategies that typically produce a correct solution Representativeness heuristic : the strategy of relying on resemblance to a category. Both sample size and base rate fallacy (underestimating the frequency of an item or event in the population) affect use of the representativeness heuristic. Because the representativeness heuristic is so powerful, people often break the conjunction rule when making decisions (the probability of the conjunction of two events cannot be larger than the probability of either of the constituent events). The availability heuristic is used when we estimate the frequency or probability of something by estimating how easily examples of the something come to mind. The availability bias leads to an error in frequency judgment, and is affected by both recency and familiarity. The anchoring & adjustment heuristic involves using an initial rough idea as an anchor, and determining the final answer by adjusting that anchor on the basis of additional information. Framing effect : the way a problem is phrased influences our decisions Overconfidence : people believe they are better decision makers than they are Hindsight bias : tendency to believe in the inevitability of events that have occurred
Lecture Plan
What is problem-solving? Understanding the problem Representing the problem Symbols Matrices Diagrams Visual imagery Context
Lecture 18 Problem Solving
Strategies Analogy approach Means-Ends heuristic Hill-Climbing heuristic
Everyday problems
Problems are a normal part of everyday life: we are faced with, and solve, lots of problems every day e.g., will I hit the snooze button? How will I get my essay finished on time? What will I have for dinner? Problem-solving skills are needed to reach goals when the solution isnt immediately obvious (information may be missing or there may be obstacles to overcome) if the solution is immediately obvious, its not really a problem
WellWell- and Ill-Defined Problems IllWell-defined problems have a clear correct answer: if you apply the appropriate procedures, you will arrive at the correct solution (e.g., maths and physics problems) Much of the psychological research focuses on well-defined problems Ill-defined problems are more common in everyday life : they dont have one clear correct answer, and the way to arrive at a solution is unclear (e.g., health or relationship problems)
What is problem-solving? problemA problem arises when a living organism has a goal, but does not know how this goal is to be reached (Duncker, 1945)
Understanding the Problem

In the context of problem-solving, understanding refers the construction of a mental representation of the problem based on the information provided and your past experience (Robertson, 2001) Thus to understand a problem you need to construct an accurate mental representation Its important to decide which information is relevant/irrelevant to problem-solving and pay attention to that information in order to successfully understand the problem If you dont pay attention, youre unlikely to solve the problem
Problems have three crucial elements: A starting state A goal state A set of processes (operators) that can transform the starting state into the goal state
Representing the Problem : Symbols

Effective forms of representation allow you to organise information efficiently, reducing the burden on working memory, and increasing the likelihood of successful problem solving Symbols Using symbols (e.g., algebra) can be an effective method for representing abstract problems e.g., Max gives little Jimmy 6 apples. Little Jimmy now has 1/3 as many apples as Max. How many apples does Max have left? Let x = Maxs apples Let y = little Jimmys apples y = x/3, 6 = x/3 therefore Max now has 18 apples
Representing the Problem : Symbols

The problem with using symbols to solve problems is that we often make errors when translating problems into symbols e.g., Schoenfeld (1982) found that when calculus students tried to rephrase problems to make them easier to understand, 30% of the rephrased problems were inaccurate!
When translating problems into symbols we tend to oversimplify the problem and thus misrepresent the information e.g., Mayer & Hegarty (1996) found that participants misremembered algebra word problems : The steamers engine drives at a rate of 12mph in still water more than the rate in current was recalled as its engines push the boat at 12mph in still water
Representing the Problem : Matrices

Every dog at the kennel is a single colour. Each of the dogs either has long fur or does not. Of the 45 dogs in the kennel, 26 have long fur, 17 are brown, and 8 are neither long-furred nor brown. How many longfurred dogs are brown? Brown Not Brown
Representing the Problem : Diagrams

For certain types of problem (e.g., putting IKEA furniture together) diagrams are really useful forms of representation Novick & Morse (2000) found that people given a step-by-step diagram in addition to verbal instructions were better at making origami objects than people relying solely on verbal instructions Hierarchical tree diagrams, Venn diagrams and graphs are all useful forms representing problems Research shows that diagrams attract eye gaze (i.e., attention) to important information, aiding problem solving (Grant & Spivey, 2003)
Matrices are a very effective way of solving complex problems involving categorical information Matrix : chart showing all possible combinations of items
Long Fur
Schwartz and colleagues
(6)
(20)
26 research indicates that

participants who represent problems using a matrix are more likely to solve the problem than those who use other forms of problem representation
Not Long Fur
8 45
17
(28)
Representing the Problem : Visual Images

Individuals vary in their preference to represent problems visually : for some, visual imagery is key to coming up with a solution e.g., Friedrich Kekules discovery of the structure of the benzene ring: he envisioned the benzene ring as a snake biting its own tail People who use visual thinking report that it facilitates truly creative thinking, e.g., Albert Einstein was a visual thinker "The words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought, (Einstein, 1949, cited in Miller, 1992, p.409). Einsteins theory of relativity was based on visual imagery of moving boxcars and riding on light beams
Context
According to the situated-cognition approach, knowing is inseparable from doing: our ability to solve a problem is tied to the specific context in which we learned to solve that problem IQ tests, and abstract tests of intelligence, fail to assess this aspect of intelligence (Kyllonen & Lee, 2005) e.g., people can determine whether the 500g or 1kg box of breakfast cereal is better value, but would not be able to solve the same problem outside the context of the supermarket (i.e., mathematically) This suggests that ecological validity and practical examples are important when teaching problem-solving in a school setting
Strategies : Analogy Approach

One of the most common strategies used for problem-solving is the analogy approach: employing a solution used for a similar problem to help solve the new problem The analogy approach thus relies on the transfer of experience from one problem to another (analogical transfer) and can be used for a broad range of problems, from maths to design Gss & Wiley (2007) conducted a cross-cultural study of problem-solving strategies in Brazil, India and the US They found that participants were most likely to engage the analogy approach when solving problems

The trick in implementing the analogy approach is understanding the real problem People tend to focus on surface features (i.e., superficial content such as the objects/terms used in the problem) rather than the structural features (i.e., underlying core meaning of the problem) Research shows that participants often fail to notice the analogy between a problem theyve already solved and a new problem with similar structural features (e.g., Hakel, 2001) However with prompting, participants notice the connection and are able to implement the analogy approach successfully (Gick & Holyoak, 1980)

Research indicates that we use the analogy approach constantly in realworld problem solving Dunbar (1999) and Dunbar & Blanchette (2001) recorded molecular biologists and immunologists during lab meetings They found that the researchers used analogies 3-15 times per 1 hour meeting! e.g., if A. nidulans works like that, maybe your gene is doing the same thing Christensen & Schunn (2007) recorded meetings of design engineers and found they used an analogy every 5 minutes
Strategies : Means-Ends Heuristic MeansMeans-ends Heuristic : problem-solving strategy in which you identify the ends you need and figure out the means needed to reach those ends The means-ends heuristic has two subcomponents: 1) Divide the problem into subproblems 2) Reduce the distance between the initial state and goal state for each of the subproblems
For the cake: 10 tablespoons unsalted butter 3/4 cup firmly packed light-brown sugar 6 large whole eggs, separated 12 ounces chocolate, melted and cooled 1 1/2 tablespoons espresso (or vanilla) 1 1/2 tablespoons rum 1/4 teaspoon salt For the meringue: 4 ounces chocolate, roughly chopped (1 cup) 1 cup hazelnuts (about 4 ounces), toasted and skinned and roughly chopped 1 tablespoon cornflour 4 large egg whites 3/4 cup sugar
Strategies : Means-Ends Heuristic MeansResearch on the means-ends heuristic indicates that when problemsolving, we do break problems down into subproblems The means-ends heuristic can be used to solve problems like the Tower of Hanoi Subproblem 1: free up big disc Subproblem 2: free up 3rd peg Subproblem 3: move big disc to 3rd peg However we arent always able to reduce the difference between the initial state and the goal state : sometimes we need increase the difference (i.e., go backwards) in order to move forwards Not surprisingly, people are reluctant to increase the distance between the initial and goal states, leading to poorer problemsolving (e.g., Robertson, 2001)
Strategies : Hill Climbing Heuristic

Another straightforward approach to problem-solving is the hill-climbing heuristic Hill-climbing heuristic: strategy requiring that every choice point in the path between initial state and goal state, you choose the option that moves you in the direction of your goal The hill-climbing heuristic is a helpful strategy when youre trying to solve a problem based on limited information and you can only see the next step (Dunbar, 1998) However because the strategy is short-sighted, it can lead you astray this strategy requires that you always choose the option that moves you closer to goal, but doesnt allow for backwards movements thus doesnt guarantee youll end at the top (Robertson, 2001)
Strategies : Hill Climbing Heuristic

Sometimes the best way to solve a problem requires an indirect approach you need to move backward to move forward e.g., if your goal is to earn money, using the hill-climbing heuristic would encourage you to finish school as early as possible and get a (low-paying) job delaying gratification and pursuing further study will earn you more money in the long term The hill-climbing heuristic is better for achieving short term, than long term, goals
Missionaries & Cannibals Problem

3 missionaries (MMM) and 3 cannibals (CCC) are on the left bank of a river (R) A boat (B) is available which will hold two people, and which can be navigated by any combination of missionaries and cannibals involving one or two people If the missionaries on either bank of the river are outnumbered at any time by cannibals, the cannibals will indulge in their anthropophagic tendencies and do away with the missionaries who are outnumbered Find a schedule of crossings that will permit all the missionaries and cannibals to cross the river from the left bank to the right bank safely http://www.novelgames.com/flashgames/game.php?id=54&l=e
Summary
Problems have 1) a starting state; 2) a goal state; 3) a set of processes (operators) that can transform the starting state into the goal state Problems can be well-defined (clear correct answer) or ill-defined (no clear answer) the latter are more common in everyday life Understanding refers the construction of a mental representation of the problem based on the information provided and your past experience Problems can be represented using: symbols, diagrams, matrices, and visual images. Different people have differing preferences for forms of representation The analogy approach is one of the most common strategies used for problem-solving: employing a solution used for a similar problem to help solve the new problem The means-ends heuristic is another common problem-solving strategy that suggests you: 1) Divide the problem into subproblems; 2) Reduce the distance between the initial state and goal state for each of the subproblems The hill-climbing heuristic: strategy requiring that every choice point in the path between initial state and goal state, you choose the option that moves you in the direction of your goal
Lecture Plan
Factors that influence problem-solving Expertise Mental set Functional Fixedness Stereotypes Creativity Divergent production Incubation Illumination Insight vs non-insight problems
Lecture 19 Problem Solving & Creativity
Investment theory Task motivation
Influences on Problem Solving

Both bottom up (stimulus-driven) and top down (expectation &/or past experience-driven) processes influence our ability to solve problems Using your knowledge, memory, and experience can aid problem solving top down However top down processes can also impede problem solving e.g., mental set, functional fixedness To be an effective problem-solver, you need to successfully blend both bottom up and top down processes
Influences on Problem Solving : Expertise

Expertise (exceptional skill, knowledge &/or performance in a given area) has a profound impact on problem solving Experts expertise facilitates problem solving via top down processes Experts and novices, by definition, have markedly different knowledge bases : if you lack knowledge about a particular topic area (e.g., differential calculus) then you will have poorer problem solving ability in that area e.g., Chase & Simon (1973a,b) found that chess experts were better able to reproduce positions on a chess-board than novices, but only when the positions were actual game play positions (chess masters have 50,000 patterns in memory whereas a novice has few/none; Bedard & Chi, 1992)

Given their superior knowledge and memory for information within their area of expertise, experts are better able to implement appropriate problem solving strategies, and thus are more likely to find a successful solution e.g., Sternberg & Ben-Zeev (2001) found that when experts are presented with a novel problem within their area of expertise, they are more likely to use the means-ends heuristic When using the analogy approach, experts and novices tend to focus on different aspects of the problems: experts are able to focus on structural similarities, enhancing the likelihood of a good solution, whereas novices are distracted by superficial similarities (Chi, 2006)

Experts advantage for problem solving is typically restricted to problems within their field of expertise e.g., Voss et al. (1983) presented people with a problem related to Russian agriculture The participants were: Political science experts Chemistry experts Political science novices They found that the political science experts were the best problem solvers, whereas the chemistry experts and political science novices performed equally poorly -> experts are only experts in their own field
Mental Sets : Luchins (1942)

You have 3 water jars, each with the capacity to hold a different, fixed amount of water; figure out how to measure a certain amount of water using these jars.
Problem Containers given A (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) 29 21 14 18 9 20 23 15 28 18 B 3 127 163 43 42 59 49 39 76 48 C 20 100 99 5 21 31 20 18 25 22 To get
Mental Sets
Mental Set : frame of mind or fixed pattern of thinking In the context of problem solving, if you have a strong mental set you will keep trying to use the same solution youve used previously, even if there is a quicker and easier method Mental sets can thus prevent you from solving problems effectively Mental sets are an example of overactive top down processing: the influence of past experience is so strong that we fail to notice/pursue alternate possibilities
3 25 10 6 4 3 3 3 4
Functional fixedness
Dunker (1945) : Your task is to affix the candle to the wall so that the candle burns properly and does not drip wax on the table or floor Many participants tried to nail the candle to the wall with the tacks, or glue the candle to the wall with melted wax Participants fixated on the normal function of the box holding tacks and were unable to re-conceptualise its use as a candle holder Subsequent research by Adamson (1952) indicates that if participants are presented with an empty tack box they are twice as likely to solve the problem than those presented with the tack box used as a full of tacks
Functional fixedness: a cognitive bias (or mental block) that limits you to using an object in the way its traditionally used (i.e., the functions we assign an object are fixed) Five-year-old kids are not functionally fixed: theyre happy to use any object to achieve their goal. By age 7, children tend to treat the originally intended purpose of an object as special theyre now functionally fixed (German & Defeyter, 2000).
Scheerer (1963) : Draw four continuous straight lines connecting all the dots without lifting your pen from the paper Scheerer argued that most people cannot solve this problem because they assume (theyre fixated on believing) the lines must stay within the square Both functional fixedness and mental set reflect cognitive processes that are normally very rational it makes sense for us to use past experience to guide future performance Both functional fixedness and mental set involve applying a strategy/assigning a function too rigidly, thus failing to notice more efficient alternatives
Stereotype threat
Stereotypes can have a profound top down influence on problem solving. E.g., gender stereotypes: widely shared set of beliefs about the typical characteristics of males and females According to the stereotypes, guys are better at maths whilst girls have better language ability though partially accurate, these stereotypes do NOT apply to everyone! This leads to stereotype threat: if youre a member of a group associated with a negative stereotype, you subconsciously perform poorly (i.e., in line with the negative stereotype) e.g., Asian American females perform better on maths tests when reminded of their ethnicity pretest (54%) than when reminded of their gender pretest (43%) (Shih et al., 1999)
Stereotype threat
Steele & Aronson (1995) gave the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) to a group of European American and African American students at Stanford Half of each group was told that the test measured their innate intellectual ability, and the other half were told that the test was NOT an intelligence test, but was just a preparatory drill European American students performed almost equally in the two conditions of the experiment, however African Americans performed far worse when they were told their intelligence was being measured Steele & Aronson argue that when African American students are told that they are taking a test to measure their intelligence, stereotype threat brings to mind the untrue stereotype that blacks are less intelligent than whites
Creativity
Creativity : process of finding a solution (producing a product) that is novel, high quality, useful and appropriate Creativity is essentially just a form of problem solving it requires you to move from an initial state to a goal state Researchers have found that highly creative individuals (e.g., Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Dali, Bach) share certain things in common: Knowledge/skill in their domain Intellectual capacity Willingness to take risks Willingness to ignore criticism Motivated internally (pleasure rather than external reward) Right place at the right time
Creativity : Investment Theory

Sternberg & Lunart (1995, 1996) proposed the investment theory of creativity which suggests that creative thinkers are like good investors: they buy low, and sell high Creative people generate ideas that are like undervalued stocks: the ideas are often initially viewed as bizarre, useless, or foolish, and are rejected The majority generally perceives opposition to the status quo as annoying and offensive, and thus ignores innovative ideas: it does not realise that the proposed idea may represent a superior way of thinking Creative people thus need to be : intelligent, knowledgeable, motivated, willing to take risks, robust in the face of criticism
Creativity : Divergent Production

One was of measuring creativity is to assess divergent production: the number of different responses to an item (Guilford, 1967) e.g., Uses for a brick 1. Paperweight 2. Writing implement 3. Stepladder 4. Nutcracker Highly creative people are better able to find novel associations, thus tests of divergent thinking indicate reasonable correlations with other judgments of creativity (e.g., Sternberg & OHara, 1999) Being able to search memory widely and come up with novel associations allows the highly creative to come up with more original ideas than the less creative
Creativity : Incubation
Anecdotal reports suggest that some of the greatest discoveries have occurred when have given up and set the problem aside. When they return to the problem later, theyre able to solve it OR when doing something completely different, the answer pops into your head (eureka!) Setting a problem aside (but presumably still working on it unconsciously) is known as incubation Research on incubation has mixed results: some studies indicate that time away from a problem aids problem-solving, but others have found no effect (e.g., Dodds et al., 2007; Sio & Ormerod, 2009)
Illumination: Insight vs NonInsight Problems

Insight : the sudden realization of the solution to a problem (aha!) When problem-solving, sometimes the solution seems to appear suddenly you dont know the answer and then suddenly (eureka!) you do! Insight problems may initially appear impossible, but upon pondering them, a solution may suddenly appear (illumination; Davidson, 2003). Some argue that the best way to solve an insight problem is to stop thinking about it and do something else (incubation; Perkins, 2001) Noninsight problems are markedly different: you solve the problem gradually, in a step-by-step fashion, using memory, reasoning and strategy (e.g., algebra problems; Davidson, 1995)
Illumination: Insight vs NonInsight Problems

Metcalfe & Wiebe (1987) designed an experiment to demonstrate that insight and noninsight problems are distinguishable entities They asked participants to solve either an insight or a noninsight problem whilst they were working on the problem, every 15 seconds they were asked to rate how close they were to solving the problem For noninsight problems, participants gave "warm" ratings 15s but not 60s from solution For insight problems, participants gave "cool" ratings at both15s and at 60s Solvers do not have an accurate "feeling of knowing" when solving insight problems solution appear suddenly
Task Motivation & Creativity

Motivation plays a crucial role in creativity According to Schawlow (1982) (winner of the 1981 Nobel prize for physics), the thing that distinguishes creative scientists is their motivation to pursue the answers to scientific puzzles Intrinsic motivation (the motivation to work on a task for its own sake) is especially important in creativity Extrinsic motivation (the motivation to work on a task for a promised reward, NOT because the task is enjoyable, interesting, or personally challenging) can actually decrease creativity!

Research confirms that people working on tasks they enjoy (intrinsic motivation) generate more creative solutions (e.g., Runco, 2005) Ruscio et al. (1998) gave participants a standardised test of intrinsic motivation, asking them to rate their interest in writing, art, and problem-solving When participants returned to the lab several weeks later, they had to complete writing, art and problem-solving tasks Independent judges rated the participants creativity on the tasks, and Ruscio et al. reported that participants with higher intrinsic motivation ratings produced more creative projects

Extrinsic motivation has detrimental effects on creative performance Amabile (1985) asked students with previous publishing experienced in creative writing to write to poems Prior to writing the poems, they completed a questionnaire asking them about either a) their intrinsic motivations for writing, or b) their extrinsic motivations for writing
The results indicated that those writers questioned about their extrinsic motivations for writing (e.g., earning money from publication; impressing teachers; enjoying public recognition) produced less creative poems than those writers questioned about their intrinsic motivations (e.g., pleasure; fulfilment)
Summary
Expertise facilitates problem solving via top down processes, but only within the experts field of expertise Functional fixedness and mental sets can both compromise your problem-solving abilities Stereotype threat: members of a group associated with a negative stereotype, subconsciously perform poorly Good divergent thinking abilities tend to result in good creative thinking abilities Insight problems involve illumination (eureka/aha!) and often, incubation (setting the problem aside) insight problems often appear impossible initially, but after thinking (& thinking), a solution may suddenly appear Noninsight problems can be worked through step-by-step, like traditional mathematics problems Intrinsic motivation enhances creativity, whereas extrinsic motivation has detrimental effects on creative thinking
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Lecture Plan
Intro to Psychology & the Law Lecture Series Interrogation variables Retention interval Type of recall Number of recalls Post-event interference Leading questions The Cognitive Interview (CI)
Lecture 20 Interview Techniques
False Confessions
Psychology & the Law Intro

Imagine you are a juror in a murder trial and your job is to determine whether the defendant committed the crime Nearly all the evidence youve seen is indirect or circumstantial, with one clear exception: an eyewitness was present at the murder and has confidently identified the defendant as being the murderer Based on this one eyewitnesss testimony, do you find the defendant guilty of murder, for which he will be sentenced to life imprisonment (or death in some US states)? Knowledge of the cognitive factors that influence eyewitness testimony, and limit the reliability of human memory, would be very helpful in assisting you & the jury to come to a verdict
Psychology & the Law Intro

This lecture series will focus on the applications of cognitive psychological research in a forensic setting In particular, we will be looking at what cognitive psychology can tell us about: Interview techniques Detecting deception Eyewitness testimony False memory Jury decision making
Importance of Interrogation
Information is the lifeblood of criminal investigation and it is the ability of investigators to obtain useful and accurate information from witnesses and victims of crime that is crucial to effective law enforcement. Yet full and accurate recall is difficult to achieve.
James Stewart (1985) Director, US National Institute of Justice Interviewing victims and witnesses of crime is a crucial part of evidence gathering Given that human memory is far from infallible, well-informed and skilled interviewing is vital Interviewers need to obtain the maximum amount of accurate recall without contaminating the witnesss account of events
Interrogation Variables
Retention Interval : delay between the crime and the time the witness describes what happened Ranges from minutes to months/years, with clear consequences for memory In Melbourne, over half of witnesses (52%) are interviewed > 3 days after the crime was committed (Kapardis, 2003) The case of Ivan the Terrible (campguard at Treblinka concentration camp where 850,000 Jews were killed) illustrates the difficulties in prosecuting crimes following a prolonged retention interval In 1988 John Denmjanjuk was tried, convicted and sentenced to death as a Nazi war criminal Always protesting his innocence, Denmjanjuk was deported from the US after being identified as Ivan the Terrible by nine elderly witnesses Following collapse of the Soviet Union, access to wartime archives showed that the real Ivan the Terrible was Ivan Marchenko who had been killed in the 1960s Denmjanjuk was freed (though remains under investigation)
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Type of Recall : typically a witness is asked to report everything they saw during the incident, in their own words, at their own pace (free recall) This is followed by interrogative recall, where the police ask cued questions to gain further information/clarification Interrogative recall, including structured questions/interview protocols, produces a greater range of information than free recall BUT interrogative recall is less accurate than free recall, particularly when dealing with difficult information (Clifford & Scott, 1978)
Number of Recalls : witnesses are never asked to recall the incident only once they are repeatedly required to go over their account Increases in cognitive effort enhance the quality of the recall Hypermnesia (Ballard, 1913) is the phenomenon of improved recall following repeated testing Multiple eyewitness recalls can be beneficial in terms of overall recall without a severe increase in errors, (Turtle & Yuille, 1994, p.268) why? It is presumed that by repeatedly attempting to access their memory, witnesses obtain more samples from the range of information traces available for the event, increasing the availability of retrieval cues (e.g., Otani & Hodge, 1991)
Number of Recalls : however, repeatedly asking witnesses to go over the retrieved information can cause other problems Odinot et al. (2009) demonstrated that whilst repeated post-event questioning does not induce forgetting of related information, retrieval practice does enhance confidence ratings Though this sounds helpful, confidence in BOTH correct and incorrect information is enhanced by repeated questioning : an effect known as confidence inflation As such, they recommend that repeated questioning be avoided if at all possible, (p.90)
Post-event interference : after witnesses have given a verbal description of the suspect, they are often asked to help make a photofit or artists impression, to examine mugshots, and to identify the suspect in a lineup All of these activities will influence the witnesss subsequent memory of the suspect
Post-event interference : for example, planting misinformation in a police interview has been found to have a profound effect on witnesss subsequent recall Hoffman et al. (1992) examined the influence of misinformation on witness recollection Having initially seen a man with a moustache, straight hair, carrying a can of Coke and a box of cereal, misinformation led the participants to recall the man as being clean shaven with curly hair, carrying a can of peanuts and a box of eggs Clearly memory can be contaminated by using leading questions
Leading questions : people exposed to misleading post-event information report the misinformation on subsequent memory tasks with confidence e.g., Loftus & Palmer (1974) asked participants to watch film of a car accident and estimate the speed at which the car crashed Estimates of the speed varied according to the verb used to describe the accident : How fast were the cars going when they contacted each other? Speed = 31.8mph How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other? Speed = 40.8mph (& increases the likelihood of reporting of broken glass at scene where none was present!)
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Loftus & Palmer (1974)
Good Cop, Bad Cop

Techniques recommended in American interrogation manuals (e.g., Inbau et al., 1986) are often based on deception and psychological manipulation Exaggerating the evidence against the suspect Repeatedly challenging suspects claims of innocence Presenting suspect with scenarios of what the police think happened Minimising the seriousness of the offence (e.g., suggest that the suspect was only peripherally involved) The aim is to undermine the suspects confidence in their memory, and alter their perception of the position they are in
Good Cop, Bad Cop

Police interviewers have different predispositions toward using particular tactics during interviews (e.g., dominant vs. humane). Indeed, the same interviewer may prefer different tactics according to the weight of evidence in the case: a persons previous conviction increases the investigators belief in the suspects guilt (Moston & Stephenson, 1993) This may prompt the interviewer to adopt a more accusatory interviewing style to increase the likelihood of obtaining a confession (Mortimer, 1994)
Hkknen et al. (2009) quizzed experienced violent crime investigators about the tactics they would employ in a homicide case Balance of technical evidence (e.g., DNA, fingerprints) vs. soft evidence (e.g., tip offs, rumours) influenced the use of different tactics: both humane (e.g., expressing empathy/positive attitude) and dominant (e.g., being aggressive, impatient, brusque) tactics were rated as more important for cases based on soft evidence
Good Cop, Bad Cop

The interviewers style has the potential to increase witness suggestibility, especially for child witnesses During an interview, the interviewer can adopt a generally supportive style (e.g., eye contact, open body posture, building rapport), or a nonsupportive style (e.g., cold, distant, avoiding eye contact, no smiles)
Research indicates that when children are interviewed in a supportive manner, they are far more resistant to misleading questions Almerigogna et al. (2007) assessed 8-11 year old childrens susceptibility to misleading post-event information Children who were interviewed in a nonsupportive style were sig more likely to offer incorrect answers to misleading questions
Good Cop, Bad Cop

The susceptibility of child witnesses to misleading questions when interviewed in a non-supportive manner has important implications In a court of law, cross-examining lawyers are permitted to ask leading questions, despite the negative effects such questions are demonstrated to have on childrens accuracy (Ceci & Bruck, 1998) Cross-examination is, by nature, adversarial, and lawyers thus ask confrontational, credibility-challenging questions that imply the child is lying Given that childrens suggestibility increases when they perceive the interviewer as intimidating or nonsupportive (Jackson & Crockenberg, 1998), it is not surprising that childrens testimony may be distorted Research shows that they are just as likely to change correct, as incorrect, testimony (Zajac et al., 2003)
The Cognitive Interview (CI)

Prior to the development of the Cognitive Interview (CI), police officers were expected to learn interviewing techniques on the job, with varying degrees of success. The CI offers an efficient and effective technique for interviewing, and has been adopted in the US, UK, Europe and Australia (Kapardis, 2003) The CI was developed by Fisher & Geiselman (1992), based on empirical research on information retrieval : their goal was to enhance retrieval accuracy without introducing inaccuracies The four principles of the CI are: i) Reinstate the context ii) Report everything iii) Recount the event in different orders iv) Recount the event from different perspectives
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Reinstate the context (Memon et al., 1997) (a) emotional elements ("How were you feeling at the time?"), which may work via state-dependent effects (Eich, 1980) (b) perceptual features ("Put yourself back at the scene of the crime and picture the room; how did it smell, what could you hear?") (c) sequencing elements ("What were you doing at the time?")

Report everything Encouraging the witness to search for details extensively can lead to the recall of additional relevant information (Geiselman & Fisher, 1988) Recount the event in different orders Recount the event from different perspectives Encouraging the witness to recount events in a variety of orders (Loftus & Fathi, 1985) and from a variety of perspectives (e.g., the victim, the suspect, another witness) can also lead to the recall of additional information These techniques are based on the assumption that inaccessibility of the memory trace is a direct result of a limited search : information that is not available with one retrieval cue may be accessible with a different cue
The rationale for context reinstatement comes from the encoding specificity principle (e.g., Tulving & Thomson, 1973): the effectiveness of a retrieval cue is related to the amount of feature overlap with the encoded event

Types of prompt : a large body of research suggests that information retrieved from memory using free recall processes (i.e., report everything) is more likely to be accurate than information retrieved using recognition processes (e.g., yes/no, forced choice) Lamb et al. (2007) examined the information provided by victims of abuse and the perpetrators (who admitted the abuse) following free recall vs. focussed/directive questioning They found that details were significantly more likely to be confirmed when elicited using free recall prompts (tell me everything) rather than focussed prompts (what colour was the car?) Thus information provided during free recall is more likely to be accurate

Research on the effectiveness of the CI vs. standard police interviewing confirms its effectiveness: The CI produces 35-45% more accurate information without increasing inaccurate recall (Fisher et al., 1987) Khnken et al.s (1999) meta analysis of 55 CI vs standard experimental comparisons concludes that the CI generates substantially more correct details compared to a structured (or unstructured) interview. no experiment has been reported yet where a cognitive interview has resulted in fewer correct details compared to a standard interview, (p.20)
False Confessions
In the psychologically vulnerable, wrongful conviction can result from false confession (Corre, 1995)
False Confessions : Types

There are three major types of false confession (Kassin, 2008): Voluntary false: elicited without external pressure Confessor hears about a crime, goes to the police and confesses (often attributed to morbid desire for notoriety confession temporarily improves low self-esteem) Mental illness and personality disorder are common in voluntary false confessors (Gudjonsson, 1999)
A number of factors can make a confession unreliable, including: Suggestibility Compliance Acquiescence Personality disorder
Black Dahlia actress Elizabeth Short was murdered in

1947 at age 22 more than 50 people confessed According to the LAPD, the crime remains unsolved
20-25% of DNA exonerations involve innocent prisoners who confess (Kassin, 2008), and these discoveries are thought to be the tip of the iceberg (Drizin & Leo, 2004)
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Coerced-compliant: elicited during persuasive interrogation Confessor falsely confesses for immediate gain (e.g., end of interrogation) Confessor fully conscious that they did not commit the crime (Gudjonsson & MacKeith, 1990)

Coerced-internalised: elicited during persuasive questioning with psychologically manipulative techniques Confessor comes to believe they have committed a crime for which they have no memory. Alternately, they may be so confused that they do not trust their memory (Gudjonsson & MacKeith, 1982) Memory distrust syndrome is common in alcoholism, and other psychological disorders (Gudjonsson, 1995; Gudjonsson et al., 1999) After lengthy interrogations, 14 yr old Michael Crowe was misled into believing police had physical evidence that he stabbed his sister, Stephanie, to death Michael concluded that he must be the killer: Im not sure how I did it. All I know is I did it (Drizin & Colgan, 2004, p.141) The charges against Michael were dropped when a schizophrenic homeless man was found with Stephanies blood on his clothing
In the 1989 Central Park Jogger case, a woman was gang raped after lengthy interrogation, 5 teenagers confessed, believing that they would go home afterward (Kassin, 2008). The confessors were released from prison in 2002 following exoneration when the real rapists confession was supported by DNA evidence
Stephanie (left) murdered in 1998
Summary
Interviewing victims and witnesses of crime is a crucial part of evidence gathering but as human memory is fallible, skilled interviewing is needed to obtain the maximum amount of accurate recall without contamination Numerous interrogation factors influence memory accuracy, including: Retention Interval (delay between the crime and the time the witness is interviewed); Type of Recall (free recall vs. interrogative recall); Number of Recalls (repeated questioning can lead to confidence inflation); Postevent Interference (misinformation, often in the form of leading questions adversely influences recall) The Cognitive Interview (CI : Fisher & Geiselman, 1992) was developed to enhance witness retrieval accuracy without introducing inaccuracies The four principles of the CI are: i) Reinstate the context; ii) Report everything; iii) Recount the event in different orders; iv) Recount the event from different perspectives Three types of false confessions : voluntary false, coerced-compliant, coerced-internalised
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Lecture Plan
Deception Lies & why we tell them Detecting lies Truth bias Nonverbal indices Verbal indices Lie detectors Human
Lecture 21 Deception Detection
Polygraph
Deception
Deception : intentionally saying or doing something to induce false belief in another (Ekman, 1985) Deception has existed since the dawn of time and permeates human life, irrespective of context, age, gender, education or occupation (Kapardis, 2003) Lies (statements intended to deceive) form one common mode of deception that is ubiquitous in some circles (e.g., politics, advertising, law, policing; Barnes, 1994) DePaulo et al. (1996) asked people to keep a diary of their social interactions for 7 days, noting lies told They found that lying is a frequent event: 25% of participants lied in a given day, 34% over the course of the week These lies were detected only 18% of the time
What a Tangled Web we Weave

Despite the fact that people typically rank honesty as the number one trait they wish to pass on to their children (Harding & Phillips, 1986), we lie Why do we lie? To impress others/avoid embarrassment To obtain advantage To avoid punishment To benefit others To facilitate social relationships
What a Tangled Web we Weave

There are 3 major theories to account for the verbal and nonverbal behaviours characteristically associated with deception: Emotional approach (e.g., Ekman, 1992) : the guilt induced by lying increases physiological signs of stress/anxiety (increases movement) Cognitive approach (e.g., Kohnken, 1989) : the greater cognitive demand of fabricating and plausibly presenting a lie leads liars to neglect their body language (decreases movement) Attempted control approach (e.g., Depaulo, 1988) : in order to present a plausible lie, liars attempt to actively control their behaviour to avoid giving nonverbal cues to deception (decreases movement)
Lie Detection
Both experts (police, psychologists) and the general public believe that lying can be detected by examining verbal and nonverbal behaviour In their interrogation manual, Inbau et al. (1986) describe how liars behave: Gaze aversion Unnatural posture changes Self-manipulations (touching or scratching body or face, playing with their hair/objects) Placing hand over mouth or eyes when speaking
Oxford (1991) adds delayed responses, and the use of phrases such as Now let me see and If I remember correctly, as indices of deception
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Lie Detection
The Global Deception Team (2006) conducted a study to examine laypeoples beliefs about deceptive behaviours They asked 2320 people to indicate their beliefs about cues to deceit Three visual cues were mentioned by >25% of participants: Gaze aversion Nervousness Body movements
Lie Detection
Deception is not related to a unique pattern of specific behaviours Gaze aversion Unnatural posture changes Self-manipulations (touching or scratching body or face, playing with their hair/objects) Placing hand over mouth or eyes when speaking Delayed responding etc
NONE of the above are reliably related to deception (Vrij, 2001)

Indeed, people trained to use Inbau et al.s (1986) manual perform worse than nave observers in deception detection tasks (Kassin & Fong, 1999)
Lie Detection
Truth-bias: interviewers judge others as truthful more often than observers Presumably, interviewers are reluctant to accept that people are sufficiently convincing liars to be able to fool them, making it harder to detect lies And indeed, people have a grossly exaggerated belief in their ability to detect lies (Vrij, 2000) Research shows that both lying experts (i.e., police) and laypeople hold the same beliefs about nonverbal cues indexing deception (e.g., self-manipulation) : police officers have the same stereotyped and inaccurate beliefs as non-police (Vrij & Semin, 1996) However prisoners beliefs about nonverbal deception indices are significantly more accurate than those of either police or laypeople!
Practice makes Perfect?

Are criminals better at deception detection? Criminals may be exposed to higher than normal levels of deceptive behaviour, thus need to be hyper-vigilant to prevent being deceived Research shows that abused children living in care are significantly better at detecting lies (Bugental et al., 2001) Further, criminals tend to commit multiple crimes (recidivism) This provides feedback on how successful particular deceptive strategies are Inmates can rapidly produce convincing false confessions (Norwick, et al., 2002)
Non-Verbal Cues
Deception induces different feelings in different people : some will feel apprehensive, and/or guilty, where others will feel no shame Feelings of deception and guilt can undermine attempts to deceive as it produces non-verbal leakage, providing clues to deception (Ekman & Friesen, 1972)
Non-Verbal Cues
There are 3 major categories of non-verbal cues to deception (Vrij, 2000): Vocal characteristics: hesitations errors pitch rate pause frequency pause duration gaze smile blinking self-manipulations illustrators hand/foot/head/trunk movements shifts in position
No mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his finger-tips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore
Freud (1959, p.94)
Facial characteristics:
Movements:
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Non-Verbal Cues
Based on meta-analysis of 89 studies, Vrij (2000) reported that liars tend to: Have a higher pitched voice (index of stress) Pause for longer (lying is cognitively demanding) Exhibit more speech errors and hesitations (cognitive demand) Make fewer body movements (cognitive demand &/or conscious effort to avoid lying body language) As noted earlier, liars do NOT: Avert gaze Smile Self-manipulate Shift position Blink more often
Non-Verbal Cues
Strmwall et al. (2006) had university students commit mock crimes (buying/selling drugs on campus)
They were paid $30 to take part, with a further $20 if they could fool real police officers into believing they were not guilty
After committing the crime, students were interrogated for 9 minutes (av.) by real police officers who observed their verbal and nonverbal behaviours Despite having > 5 years experience as criminal investigators, the police were unable to distinguish the guilty from the not-guilty Guilty participants reported feeling more nervous and found the task more strenuous, but this was not evident in their behaviour
Non-Verbal Cues
Why are the guilty and innocent often indistinguishable, as found in Strmwall et al. (2006)s study? Perhaps this is because when we are in the position of suspect, whether guilty or innocent, we exhibit nervous behaviours Bond & Fahey (1987) demonstrated that nervous truth-tellers show the same kinds of behaviour as nervous liars Fear prompts similar patterns of behaviour, whether it is fear of not being believed (truth-tellers) or fear of being found out (liars) In Strmwall et al. (2006)s study, the not guilty participants had to convince a suspicious police officer of their innocence -> nervous behaviour
Verbal Cues
According to Vrij (2000), there is no verbal behaviour that is typical of lying However, liars who feel guilty/anxious tend to give indirect answers to questions and overgeneralise As guilt and anxiety are negative emotions, they may make more negative statements: I am not a crook vs I am honest (Kapardis, 2003) If lying about having been somewhere, the liar may avoid referring to themself Miller & Sheriff (1993) report that the most consistent verbal correlate of deception is the number of words in the statement : deceptive responses tend to be shorter, more general, contain fewer specific references about people, places & the sequence of events
Human Lie-Detectors
Research indicates that human lie-detection, even is experts, is little better than chance: mean 57% across 30+ years of research (Vrij, 2000) e.g., Ekman & OSullivan (1991) assessed the deception detection accuracy of: US secret service, CIA, FBI, armed forces, polygraph examiners, robbery investigators, judges, psychiatrists, uni students and working adults US secret service performed best (64%), but there were NO DIFFERENCES in deception detection accuracy between the other groups! DePaulo & Pfeifer (1986) found that police officers have significantly higher confidence in their lie detecting ability, but this does not translate into increased accuracy
Human Lie-Detectors
Vrij & Mann (2001) conducted a clever study involving police officers ability to detect deception in real world examples The officers watched a series of videos of real police press conferences in which people were asking the public to help find their loved one (or the murderer of their loved one) Unbeknownst to the officers, ALL of the people had lied during the press conferences, and had subsequently been found guilty of killing their relatives The officers performance was no better than chance, irrespective of their years of experience or confidence in their response
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Human Lie-Detectors
Mann et al. (2008) examined the individual and cumulative influences of visual and verbal cues on deception detection by police officers Based on previous findings that listening to liars enhances lie detection, whereas watching liars impairs lie detection (DePaulo et al., 1982), the officers observed real police interviews in one of three conditions: Vision only Sound only Control (both sound & vision) Consistent with prediction, participants who received only visual information produced significantly lower accuracy scores than those who received only auditory (or both visual and auditory) information The visual group also had a stronger lie bias focussing on nonverbal behaviour enhances the tendency to classify suspects as liars
Human Lie-Detectors
Reasoning that it may be easier to detect deception indirectly, rather then directly, Vrij et al. (2001) asked 39 police officers to watch video of people telling the truth and lying In one condition, participants were asked to indicate whether the person was lying. In another condition, participants were asked to indicate whether the person had to think hard (indirect detection of increased cognitive load associated with lying) They found that police officers could only detect the difference between truth and lying when using the indirect method This was thought to be because only the indirect method forced the officers to focus on the true indices of deceit
Micro-Expressions
They [facial expressions] reveal the thoughts and intentions of others more truly than do words, which may be falsified.
Darwin (1872, p.359)
Micro-Expressions
Micro expressions : fleeting facial expressions that occur when some people try to suppress/conceal an emotion The suppressed emotion may flash onto the face very rapidly (less than 1/25th of a second) Typically, people do not perceive micro expressions, however with training, detection can be significantly improved (see http://www.paulekman.com/micro-expressions/ for training program) After testing over 13,000 people, Ekman & OSullivan (2004) identified 31 who they classified as micro expression wizards those who had a particular facility for detecting micro expressions and consequently, for detecting lies Intriguingly, 20-30% of the micro expression wizards reported some childhood trauma (familial alcoholism, highly emotional mother) which may have led them to be more sensitive to emotional cues from an early age
muscles of the face which are least
obedient to will, will sometimes alone betray a slight and passing emotion
Darwin (1872, p.79)
Polygraph Tests
Anxiety induces a number of physiological changes: increase in heart rate, sweating, dry mouth etc. For most people, lying increases anxiety, hence lying can be betrayed by physiological changes measured using a polygraph test The essence of the test was devised by Cesare Lombroso (1895) he used a plethysmograph (instrument that measures changes in volume of organ/body) and a sphygmograph (blood pressure monitor) to examine changes during questioning of criminal suspects
Pre-Polygraph Tests
Several techniques that indirectly measure sympathetic nervous system activation have been used for centuries: In Ancient China (1000BC), the suspect was given a handful of dry rice to chew for a period and then spit out : those left with grains stuck to the roof of the mouth were deemed guilty (mouth too dry to chew rice into a bolus) In the Middle East a heated knife blade was pressed against the tongue : those who were burned immediately were deemed guilty (again, dry mouth is an index of heightened nervous system activity)
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Polygraph Tests
The polygraph used today measures changes in sympathetic nervous system activity via changes in: blood pressure galvanic skin reflex (sweating) respiration Responses are measured as the suspect is asked a series of questions: 1) Relevant : did you stab him with the kitchen knife? 2) Irrelevant : is your full name Harry Edward Scarey? 3) Control : before the age of 18, did you ever lie to anyone about anything? The control questions are included to give innocent suspect(s) an opportunity to become more concerned about questions other than the relevant questions, causing them to react more strongly to the control than the relevant questions (Raskin, 1989, p.253)
Polygraph Tests
Though there is no unique pattern of physiological symptoms associated with lying (Lykken, 1998), the innocence or guilt of the suspect can be inferred by comparing responses to the relevant, irrelevant and control questions theoretically, the guilty respond most strongly to relevant, and the innocent to irrelevant or control Field research suggests that polygraph examination accurately classifies: 83-89% of guilty suspects (10-17% innocent, 2-10% inconclusive) 53-72% of innocent suspects (12-47% guilty, 5-29% inconclusive) (Meijer & van Koppen, 2008)
Summary
Contrary to popular belief, deception is not related to a unique pattern of specific behaviours : both lying experts (i.e., police) and laypeople hold the same false beliefs about nonverbal cues indexing deception Because criminals may be exposed to higher than normal levels of deceptive behaviour, they are better at detecting deception than laypeople, and can provide believable false confessions Following meta-analysis of 89 studies, Vrij (2000) found that liars tend to: Have a higher pitched voice (index of stress); Pause for longer (lying is cognitively demanding); Exhibit more speech errors and hesitations (cognitive demand); Make fewer body movements (cognitive demand &/or conscious effort to avoid lying body language) Micro expressions : fleeting facial expressions that occur when some people try to suppress/conceal an emotion Polygraph tests measure changes in sympathetic nervous system activity via changes in blood pressure, galvanic skin reflex, and respiration whilst the suspect responds to relevant, irrelevant and control questions
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Lecture Plan
Mistaken Identifications Memory variables System vs estimator Event characteristics Passage of time Frequency Duration Lighting Physiological arousal Witness characteristics Race Age
Lecture 22 : Eyewitness Testimony
Mugshots & ID Parades
Mnsterberg : On the Witness Stand

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Validity of Eyewitnesses
Testimony to personal identity is proverbially fallacious
William James (1890)
the highly respectable, absolutely sincere, perfectly coherent and apparently convincing witness may, as experience has quite often shown, be mistaken
Mistaken Identification?
Five bank robberies were committed by the man depicted in these images Take a minute to study the pictures in order to identify the perpetrator from a lineup Who do you think committed the crimes? How confident are you about your identification? Five eyewitnesses identified suspect #4 as the perpetrator combined with the CCTV footage, prosecutors have strong evidence to prove the case
BUT the photo used for witness ID was 5 years old - #4 (Mr
Scarboro) had a full beard at the time the crimes were committed, the same time the eyewitnesses believe they saw him with only a mustache
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evif rof ti desopxe I .redro ralugerri ni detsap
Lord Devlin (1976)

Yet despite the demonstrable fallibility of eyewitness memory, it plays a key role in influencing judgements, and decisions, of police, lawyers, and juries (Brewer & Weber, 2008) Though a confident witness can sway a jury, an eyewitnesses [sic] confidence is not a good predictor of his or her identification accuracy (Kassin et al., 2001)
Mistaken Identification
Jean Charles de Menezes was a victim of mistaken identity : shot at the Stockwell tube station July 2005 Eyewitnesses described him as suspicious, as having jumped over a ticket barrier and as wearing a bulky jacket ostensibly concealing a device CCTV footage, however, indicates that he was wearing a light shirt or jacket, walked through the barriers, and only ran when he saw his train approaching (Memon, 2008) Misidentification is one of the most common causes of wrongful conviction: of the first 40 people exonerated in the US based on DNA evidence, 36 had been convicted on the basis of eyewitness testimony (Wells et al., 1998)
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Why do we Misidentify?
Witnesses to crimes are asked by lawyers and police to remember details of events, including face descriptions, assuming that human memory works like a video-recorder However the process of observing and recalling faces and events is a complex, interactive and dynamic one (Kapardis, 2003) : we construct our perceptions and memories When we remember what happened, we are simultaneously trying to make sense of what happened, using our knowledge of the world (attitudes, values, expectations, motivations)
Eyewitness Memory
Memory acquisition : witnessing the event Memory retention : time taken before giving evidence Memory retrieval : giving evidence These 3 stages are may overlap : during the retention phase a witness may talk about the crime with other witnesses, or see a photofit of the suspect the newly acquired information will become a part of the witnesss memory to be retrieved
System & Estimator Variables

If TV were to be believed, crimes are typically solved by attractive investigators and their kooky lab colleagues who conduct forensic analysis of paint/hair/skin samples, or burn/blood spatter patterns In the real world, crimes are solved by ordinary-looking police officer who ask the witnesses What happened? (Fisher & Schrieber, 2007) Estimator variables : factors over which the criminal justice system has no control, so needs to estimate the influence, e.g., witness characteristics that affect accuracy System variables : factors that the criminal justice system has some control over, e.g., methods used to obtain evidence from witnesses
Memory Variables
Hollin (1989) categorised eyewitness memory variables into the following groups: Social (attitudes, conformity, stereotypes, prejudices, status) Situational (event complexity, event duration, lighting, time delay, crime type) Individual (age, cognitive style, personality, race, sex, training) Interrogational (artists reconstruction, computer system, identification parade, mugshots, photofits) Each of these variables can affect acquisition, retention, and retrieval of memories
Event Characteristics
Crime scenes can be stressful, confusing places: various factors affect our memory Passage of time : the longer the interval between witnessing the event and being questioned about it, the poorer the recall van Koppen & Lochun (1997) examined police records and found more comprehensive and accurate descriptions when witnesses were questioned soon after the event Frequency : the greater the frequency of the event, the better people remember the detail (Powel & Thomson, 1994). If a burglar has visited the bank to carry out surveillance/plan prior to the burglary, they are more likely to be identified Time : when recalling when an event took place, witnesses tend to forward telescope (estimate events that took place long ago as being more recent; Friedman, 1993)
Event Characteristics
Duration : time taken to commit a crime ranges from seconds (e.g., assualt) to hours and even days (e.g., kidnapping) There is a strong correlation between accuracy of witness memory and crime duration time: the longer you have to observe the perpetrator and get a good look, the better your recollection (Williams et al., 1992) Lighting : witness recall is influenced by the time of day the crime took place. Kuehn (1974) found poorer recall of crimes committed at twilight, than during the day or night. However crimes rarely take place in well-illuminated situations. In moderately bright light, identifying a suspect seen from >3m away is unreliable (Wagenaar & van der Schrier, 1994)
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Event Characteristics : Arousal

Physiological Arousal : the level of physiological arousal experienced by the witness impacts their cognitive capacity (e.g., crimes involving weapons, &/or a threat to personal safety increase arousal) According to Easterbrooks (1959) cue utilisation theory, as emotional arousal increases, the range of cues you can attend to and utilise decreases Though a modest level of arousal enhances attention to surrounding cues, if arousal increases beyond an optimal level, it turns into stress which reduces the number of cues you can attend to : when stressed, we can attend to fewer cues as our energy/attention is instead focussed on our anxiety

Physiological Arousal : Valentine & Mesout (2009) examined the influence of physiological arousal on eyewitness memory in the London Dungeons Horror Labyrinth Participants wore heartrate monitors as they made their way through the labyrinth during their trip they encountered a scary man. Participants were unaware that they would later be required to pick the scary man out in an ID parade The results indicate that high levels of anxiety (indexed by increase in heart rate) correlated with fewer correct descriptors of the target, more incorrect details about the target, and consequently, fewer correct identifications of the scary man clearly indicates that high levels of physiological activation and cognitive anxiety impair eyewitness memory

Physiological Arousal : though emotional memories may be extremely vivid, they are not always accurate In 1992 an El Al cargo plane lost power to 2 engines shortly after taking off from Amsterdams Schiphol airport the plane crashed into an apartment building, killing 43 people Ten months later, Crombag et al. (1996) interviewed Dutch participants about this emotive event : 66% reported seeing TV footage of the impact and answered detailed questions about that footage However there was no TV footage : the crash was not recorded on film , and there was no re-enactment shown on TV Despite the witnesses confident and detailed memories, these memories were mistaken
Event Characteristics : Weapons

Weapon focus : when the crime involves a weapon, memory for the weapon is enhanced, however memory for other characteristics (e.g., faces) is impaired. Attention is focussed on the weapon at the expense of other details in the scene Maas & Khnken (1989) conducted a study in which participants were approached by an experimenter wielding either a syringe or a pen at hip level. Later, participants were required to pick the experimenter from a target absent lineup, and to describe the experimenters face and hand 64% of participants made a false identification in the syringe condition, almost double the number of false identifications in the pen condition (33%) The greater the participants fear of needles, the fewer facial characteristics they recalled
Event Characteristics : Stress

Stress (a form of physiological arousal) can seriously impair memory Morgan et al. (2004) examined the memory of US soldiers who were completing survival training - training involves 48 hour deprivation of food and sleep, coupled with lengthy interrogation 24 hours after interrogation, Morgan et al. asked the soldiers to identify their interrogators from a photo or live lineup Despite being required to maintain eye contact throughout their interrogation, and being only 2-5 feet away from their interrogators, only 30% of soldiers identified their interrogator in the high stress condition (62% in the low stress condition)
Witness Characteristics
Race : identification accuracy is affected by the race of both the witness and the person they are identifying Witnesses are more accurate in identifying people of their own race (Meissner & Brigham, 2001), known as the own-race bias
Age : witness age also affects accuracy When identifying unfamiliar faces, older adults (60-80yrs) make more false identifications (Bartlett et al., 1991). May result from older adults relying more on familiarity as a basis for responding, rather than conscious, effortful recognition
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Using Mugshots
Early in investigations, eyewitnesses are often asked to view a) a mugshot of the suspect, &/or b) a book of mugshot photographs (12-100s), to see if they can identify the culprit This strategy is potentially problematic as the same witness may later be asked to identify the culprit in a formal ID parade leads to 2 types of bias Source monitoring error : face appears familiar because of a prior encounter viewing mugshot may lead to familiarity which is incorrectly attributed to the crime context Commitment effect : social bias to be consistent and select the same face as chosen earlier face identified in mugshot increases the tendency to select the same face in an ID parade, even if it is not the suspect (Memon et al., 2002)
ID Parades
A traditional ID parade comprises one suspect and series of known nonsuspects (foils): the witness must decide if anyone in the lineup is the culprit The foils used in a lineup need to be carefully selected so that the lineup isnt biased against an innocent suspect Surrounding a suspect with dissimilar foils increases the likelihood that the suspect will be selected, whether innocent or guilty (Lindsay & Wells, 1980) Police instruction of witnesses has a strong influence on their behaviour Witnesses must be told that the suspect may or may not be present in the lineup Otherwise, witnesses presume that the culprit is present, and are likely to select the person in the lineup who most resembles the culprit
ID Parades
The standard police lineup presents the witness with all potential suspects simultaneously, encouraging a relative judgement of which member most resembles the memory trace Research suggests a sequential lineup may be preferable, in that witnesses then make an absolute decision (Is this the culprit or not?) (Lindsay & Wells, 1985) Data from ID parades suggests they are far from 100% reliable: Slater (1994) assessed results of 302 ID parades (843 witnesses) 36% suspect identified; 22% foil identified; 42% no ID Wright & McDaid (1996) assessed results of 616 ID parades (1561 witnesses) 39% suspect identified; 20% foil identified; 41% no ID
ID Parades : CCTV
The increasing prevalence of CCTV would be expected to make criminal identification much easier, however this is not necessarily the case Bruce et al. (1999) showed participants a target face taken directly from CCTV footage. They were then shown an array of 10 high-quality photographs and asked to point out the suspect or indicate that he was not present When the target face was present, it was identified by only 65% of participants When the target was absent, it was falsely identified as present by 35% of participants Critically, showing participants a 5 second piece of CCTV film of the suspect in addition to the still image did not enhance performance
Summary
Eyewitness memory is fallible : even though a confident witnesss testimony can sway a jury, that confidence is not a good predictor of accuracy Eyewitness identification is influenced by: Estimator variables : factors over which the criminal justice system has no control, so needs to estimate the influence System variables : factors the criminal justice system has some control over Event characteristics : duration, lighting, frequency, time, arousal, weapon presence, stress Witness characteristics : age, race Eyewitness identifications using mugshots are susceptible to source monitoring errors and the commitment effect ID parades, though commonly used, are not very reliable : the encourage witnesses to make a relative judgement (which member most resembles the memory trace) rather than an absolute judgement (is this the culprit?)
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Lecture Plan
Memory lists & the DRM paradigm Schemas False memories vs repressed memories Imagination inflation Research evidence Plausible vs implausible Research evidence Language and false memory
Lecture 23 False Memory
Memory : Suggestive, Subjective, Malleable

Remembering is not just a matter of retrieving the correct piece of information from a database, but rather involves a reconstructive process, through which the original memory can be continuously modified. Post-event misinformation can lead people to recall events differently from the way they actually occurred, or even to recall wholly false events that never occurred.
Sacchi et al. (2007) p.1006
Memory List
Bed Rest Awake Tired Dream Snooze Blanket Snore Nap Yawn
False Memory
False memory : any memory reported for an event, or component of an event, that has not actually been experienced False memories range in nature from mistakenly recalling a word as having been presented as part of a list (Roediger & McDermott, 1995), to the recall of elaborate autobiographical details of personally experienced events (Loftus & Pickrell, 1995) The 1980s/1990s saw a huge number of recovered / false memories of sexual abuse, with consequent legal ramifications e.g., the McMartin Preschool trial, lasting 7 years and costing $15 million (US)
False Memory
Scoboria et al. (2004) propose a four-step model for the development of false memories: 1) The event must be plausible in the culture of the rememberer (cultural plausibility) 2) The event must be deemed personally plausible for the rememberer (personal plausibility) 3) The event must be evaluated as something that genuinely happened to the rememberer (autobiographical belief) 4) Images and thoughts about the event must be mistaken as memory details (autobiographical memory)
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Schemas : War of the Ghosts

Bartletts (1932) research was some of the first to demonstrate the reconstructive nature of memory Cambridge University students were asked to read & recall a Native American folktale The War of the Ghosts (available on LMS) Bartlett examined participants recall of the story over different time periods found they contained numerous errors of omission and comission The added information typically made the story more consistent with the types of stories/folktales they were familiar with Bartlett suggested that these additions made the stories more consistent with students schemas (mental model of what typically occurs in a situation) : the English folktale schema contains a hero, antihero, crisis and resolution, whereas the Native American schema does not
Schemas : Office
Brewer & Treyens (1981) examined the effect of schemas on reconstructive memory Participants were asked to wait in the experimenters office after 35 seconds, the experimenter returned and took the participant to another room where they were asked to recall everything in the room in which they had been waiting Participants showed a strong tendency to recall objects consistent with the typical office schema : everyone remembered the desk and the chair next to it, only 8/30 recalled a skull, few recalled the wine bottle / coffee pot / picnic basket Critically, many recalled items such as books/pens that had not been present demonstrates that people may incorrectly recall items consistent with their schema
Memory List : Recall

Write down as many of the words I asked you to remember as you can (10) You have 60 seconds. . . The words on the list were: Bed, Rest, Awake, Tired, Dream, Snooze, Blanket, Snore, Nap, Yawn Though Sleep was NOT on the list, many people will falsely recall/recognise Sleep because it is associatively related to all the items on the list In our test, Sleep is the critical nonpresented lure (CNP) : research confirms that this paradigm produces very high rates of false recognition (70%) for the CNP (e.g., Payne et al., 1996), and that participants have a very high level of confidence in their recognition (Roediger & McDermott, 1995),
Memory List = DRM paradigm

The DRM (Deese-Roediger-McDermott) paradigm is used to induce false memories of lure words. The nature of the list, and the personality of the participants, affects the lures falsely recalled Participants presented with lists containing embedded stereotypical male (president, detective) or female (secretary, nurse) roles are more likely to falsely remember words consistent with the stereotype traits : male (active, wise) or female (warm, caring), (Lenton et al., 2001) Participants with chronically high levels of aggression show a phenomenon known as hostile attribution bias (HAB) in which access to hostile schemas leads them to interpret ambiguous information in a negative way : when presented with DRM lists containing ambiguous words (cut, whip, mug), 50% of aggressive people falsely recall aggressive words (e.g., hit, hurt, stab; Takarangi et al., 2008)
Language & False Memory

Theres no doubt that leading questions can influence peoples memories but even subtle changes in the language used have the potential to lead the witness Recall that Loftus & Palmer (1974) found that estimate of car speed changed as a function of word use (contact vs. smash) Loftus & Zanni (1975) showed participants film of a car accident and asked them one of two questions: Did you see a broken headlight? Did you see the broken headlight? Participants were significantly more likely to confirm yes when the question was posed using the definite article the
Language & False Memory

Smeets et al. (2006) similarly found that the nature of the question used changes the prevalence of false memories They asked 120 participants whether they had seen (nonexistent) footage of the assassination of Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn: 1) Did you see the amateur film of the Fortuyn shooting? (ambiguous) 2) Did you see the amateur film of the moment Fortuyn was shot by Volkert van der G? (specific high-suggestive) 3) Did you see an amateur film of the moment Fortuyn was shot by Volkert van der G? (specific low-suggestive) 4) Do you remember whether there was a film of the moment Fortuyn was shot by Volkert van der G? (neutral) Overall, 37.5% of participants reported having seen the non-existent film Importantly, 63% of the ambiguous group reported seeing the film, vs. 30% in the high/low suggestive groups, and 27% in the neutral group
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Freud & Repression

Repression forms of cornerstone of Freuds (1896) psychoanalytic theory Freuds seduction theory proposes that hysteria stems from repressed memories of childhood sexual trauma recovering those memories (i.e., bringing them to consciousness) will alleviate the hysteria Freud later abandoned seduction theory and instead proposed his theory of childhood sexual fantasy, however the notion of repression lives on.
Repressed or False Memories?

Repression : the unconscious exclusion of painful impulses, desires, or fears from the conscious mind (vs. suppression conscious) Estimates of the frequency of repressed memories of childhood abuse range from 1859% (Loftus, 1993) of cases Many repressed memories relate to events that occurred when the person was < 1 year old This is problematic as extensive research shows that we have childhood amnesia : a poverty of recollection for the first years of our lives According to Morton (1990), childhood amnesia extends from 0-4 or 5 years past the age of ten, or thereabouts, most of us find it impossible to recall anything that happened before the age of four or five, (p.3)
Imagination
Imagination has the power to change what we believe about our past
Loftus (2001), p. 584
Imagination inflation: imagining an event increases subjective confidence that the event happened. This has important implications, e.g., psychotherapy Maltz (1991) suggests giving free rein to the imagination: Spend time imagining that you were sexually abused, without worrying about accuracy (p.50). 20% of US & UK psychotherapists use this technique with patients who dont recall being abused (Poole et al., 1995)
Imagination Inflation
Bass & Daviss (1988) book The Courage to Heal has been implicated in almost all cases of recovered memories that have subsequently been determined to be false (Wakefield & Underwager, 1992, p.486) If you are unable to remember any specific instances but you still have a feeling that something abusive happened to you, it probably did, (Bass & Davis, 1988, p.21) As each group member reconstructs her own narrative, the details of her story almost inevitably evoke new recollections in each of the listeners. In the incest survivor groups, virtually every member who has defined a goal of recovering memories has been able to do so. Women who feel stymied by amnesia are encouraged to tell as much of their story as they do remember, (Herman, 1992, p.224)
Imagination Inflation
Garry et al. (1996) assessed imagination inflation using the Life Events Inventory (LEI) : participants rated the likelihood that several plausible life events (e.g., finding $10; breaking window with hand) occurred on a 1-8 Likert scale Two weeks after the original study, participants returned and were asked to imagine some of the events from the LEI, after which they completed the LEI again Comparison of LEI likelihood scores confirms that items that had been imagined were rated as significantly more likely to have happened The simple act of imagining an event increases the belief that it occurred
Lost in the Mall

Loftus & Pickrell (1995) conducted one of the first studies demonstrating that people can (and do) fabricate memories under the right conditions Participants were asked to recall a plausible childhood event (i.e., getting lost in a mall), after a sibling confederate described the event Though the participants are led to believe theyre recalling a real event, relatives have previously confirmed that the event never took place
After several attempts to recall the event, 30% of participants came to (falsely) recall the event in great detail, even though it had never occurred This finding clearly has important implications for the legal system
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Seeing is Believing
Wade et al. (2002) demonstrated that memories can be implanted by digitally altering photographs Participants were presented with a photographs of themselves as a child and asked to recall the events depicted One photograph was digitally altered to show the participant in the basket of a hot air balloon which, according to the participants relatives, never occurred But when presented with the photograph, 50% of participants reported (false) memories about their hot air balloon experience!
Plausible vs. Implausible

Loftus & Pickrell (1995) and Wade et al. (2002) demonstrated that vivid memories for plausible events (i.e., events for which we have a schema) can be implanted what about implanting memories for implausible events? Mazzoni & Memon (2003) had participants imagine two events, one of which was a fictitious health procedure involving a school nurse slicing a sample of skin from the participants little finger for a health test Simply imagining this event led 25% of their participants to remember the experience and describe it in some detail: It was a small gray room, and there was a tall blond woman in glasses. I remember my sense of fear. The procedure lasted longer than I expected. There was a strong smell of disinfectant
I was there with my mother. There were many people in the room. I was hungry. I felt the smell of gas used to put me asleep. A nurse held my hand but then all became a blur (Mazzoni & Scoboria, 2007, p.787)

Research shows that young children are particularly susceptible to the implantation of implausible memories, with clear consequences for legal cases Otgaar et al. (2009) examined the prevalence of false memories for plausible (choking on a sweet) and implausible (being abducted by a UFO) events in 7-8 and 11-12 year old kids The children heard a true narrative about their first day at school, and a false narrative about either the plausible or implausible event they were then interviewed twice and asked to report everything they could remember In both age groups, plausible and implausible events were equally likely to prompt false memories over 70% falsely remembered being abducted by aliens (and 39% were resistant to debriefing : It really did happen (p.120))

Pezdek et al. (1997) found that false memories for some implausible events (e.g., receiving an enema as a child) are less likely This could be because the participants lack a schema for the event, or because the event seems personally implausible Hart & Schooler (2006) tested both these possibilities by giving participants either information about the procedure involved in an enema, or the prevalence of enema administration in children (amongst other foils) Participants completed an LEI both before and after receiving the information The results indicate that knowledge of the procedure (schema) did not influence belief about having experienced an enema, however providing participants with false info about the frequency of the procedure (increasing perceptions of plausibility) increased beliefs by approximately 20%
Are Repressed Memories Plausible?

Research clearly demonstrates that false memories are easier to induce for plausible than implausible events what does this imply for false/repressed memories of child sexual abuse? Pezdek & Blandon-Gitlin (2008) asked 159 college students (ages 18-70) two questions:
How plausible do you think it is that you yourself could have been a victim of childhood sexual abuse, even if you were unable to remember the abuse? How plausible is it that you, at any point in your life, might seek psychotherapy?
Are Repressed Memories Plausible?

Pezdek & Blandon-Gitlins (2008) findings for college students indicate that people likely to seek out therapy are particularly likely to believe that they may have been victims of forgotten sexual abuse Their findings are supported by Rubin & Berntsen (2009) who found even higher ratings of plausibility for repressed memories of sexual abuse : 79% of 495 participants in their Gallup survey indicated that forgotten memories of childhood sexual abuse were either plausible or very plausible Given that it is easier to induce false memories of plausible events, such findings indicate that inducing false memories in a therapeutic setting is a genuine concern
25% of participants indicated that it was plausible or very plausible that they could have been a victim of abuse but not remember it Critically, of the 31% of participants who thought their chances of seeking therapy were >50%, 61% thought that it was plausible or very plausible that they could have been a victim of abuse but not remember it
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SUMMARY
False memory: any memory for an event that has not actually been experienced Scoboria et al. (2004) argue that for a false memory to develop : The event must be culturally plausible, personally plausible, evaluated as something that genuinely happened (autobiographical belief), and images and thoughts about the event must be mistaken as memory details (autobiographical memory) The DRM (Deese-Roediger-McDermott) paradigm is used to induce false memories of lure words : it induces very high rates of false recognition (70%) for the CNP (critical, non-presented lure) The simple act of imagining an event increases the belief that it occurred (Imagination inflation) Much research shows that vivid memories for plausible events (i.e., events for which we have a schema) can be falsely implanted false memories for implausible events are less likely, however they still occur, particularly in young children (e.g., Otgaar et al., 2009 alien abduction)
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Lecture Plan
Reliability of childrens eyewitness testimony Multiple interviews Disclosure patterns Suggestibility Social Factors Cognitive Factors
Lecture 24 Forensic Developmental Psychology
False Beliefs Moral Comprehension
Forensic Developmental Psychology

Children are the most dangerous of all witnesses
Whipple (1911), p.308
Multiple Interviews
The more interviews a child is exposed to, the more likely it is that the childs reconstruction of the event from memory will be influenced by postevent information (i.e., source misattribution) Flin (1991) thus argues that the first spontaneous statement made by a child is the most valid Repeated interviewing has other unwanted consequences too Repeatedly asking the same questions may lead the child to believe that there is something wrong with their answer, encouraging them to change their story in order to offer the right answer to the interviewer (Ornstein, 1991) Repeated interviewing also increases resistance from the child (Flin, 1991)
Children are well known to be more open to suggestion than adults

Whipple (1918), p.245 Forensic developmental psychology (Bruck & Poole, 2002) is concerned with childrens actions and reactions in the legal context By the time they get to court, on average, children have been subjected to between 4 11 forensic interviews, on top of repeated questioning by family members, therapists, social workers, and other interested parties (Gray, 1993; McGough, 1994)
Disclosure Patterns in Children

When a child experiences a traumatic event, various factors influence their report of the event : cognitive, motivational and emotional However specific questioning is needed as young children lack the cognitive scripts needed to organise events into coherent frameworks Consequently, young children provide more detailed answers to cued and specific questions, rather than openended questions (Ceci & Bruck, 1995) Unfortunately, specific questioning comes with a cost: answers to specific/cued questions are more likely to contain errors (Ceci & Bruck, 1995)
Suggestibility
Both adults and children are susceptible to suggestive interview techniques, such as misleading questions about events witnessed Research suggests that childrens testimony may be particularly malleable, leading to the reporting of unexperienced events : Ceci & Brucks (1993) review of research on childhood suggestibility reported that 83% of studies find that preschool children are more suggestible than older children Suggestive interview techniques include: Repeated specific/leading questions Implicit/explicit threats Bribes/rewards Stereotype induction Guided imagery
All of these techniques increase error rates, with the risk for false statements increasing when multiple techniques are employed (Bruck & Ceci, 2004)
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Suggestive Interviews
Dent (1982) illustrates the effects of leading questioning on a child witness
Police : Wearing a poncho and cap?
Research examining the development of suggestibility often involves exposing witnesses to a staged crime event following some delay after the event, witnesses of various ages are presented with misleading details about the event e.g., Which way did the man run after he stole the apple? Children 4 years and under are more likely to accept the false suggestions than older children and adults (e.g., Holliday et al., 2002) Dale et al. (1978) demonstrated that leading questions (e.g., Didnt you see some bears?) were far more likely to be falsely responded to in the affirmative than neutral questions young children do not have sufficient experience with language to understand the force of question wording
Child: I think it was a cap.

Police: What sort of cap was it? Was it like a beret, or was it a peaked cap, or?
Child: No, it was sort of, it was flared with a little piece coming out. It was flared with a sort of button thing coming out of the middle.
Police: What sort of like that was it a peak like that, that sort of thing?
Child: Ye-es
Police: Like a sort of orange segment thing, like that, do you mean?
Child: Yes!
Police: Is that right?
Child: YES
Police: Thats the sort of cap Im thinking youre meaning, with a little peak out there
Child: Yes, thats the top view, yes.

Police: Thats the sort of thing, is it?
Child: Yes
Police: Smashing. Um what colour?
Child: Oh! Oh I think it was um black or brown

Police: Think it was dark shall we say?
Child: Yes it was dark colour I think and I didnt see her hair.
Ceci & Bruck (1995) describe the serious consequences of the suggestive interviewing of young children A number of high-profile abuse cases include bizarre/implausible claims by young children e.g., in the case of Commonwealth vs LeFave, 3 members of the LeFave family who ran a childcare centre were accused of abuse by the preschoolers under their care The childrens accusations extended beyond sexual abuse to include claims of seeing wild animals like elephants, sacrificing and eating those animals, eating dead babies, and taking trips on alien spaceships
However there are exceptions: Jones & Krugman (1986) described the case of a three-year-old girl who was abducted, sexually abused & thrown into a cesspit to drown She survived and was located 70 hours after her abduction Five days later, the girl picked the bad man from a lineup of six photos Five days after the photo identification, she viewed a videotaped lineup of 5 men, including the suspect, each speaking a set phrase; again, she identified the same man Two weeks after her abduction, she was again interviewed and shown a photographic lineup without the suspect in it, although it was suggested to her that the bad man was in the group Despite the leading suggestion, the girl indicated that the bad man was not among the photographs (Jones & Krugman, 1986)
Suggestibility : Cognitive Factors

Why are young children more susceptible to suggestion? Developmental differences in memory trace strength may make younger childrens memories more vulnerable to disintegration (Howe, 1991) if younger children encode weaker memory traces, these will be more vulnerable to feature disintegration and overwriting than stronger traces Developmental differences in suggestibility may also arise from source misattribution Young children have difficulty distinguishing between acts they have performed, and acts they have imagined performing (Foley & Johnson, 1985) Repeated suggestive questioning may cause a child to create an image of the event which they later find difficult to distinguish from reality
Suggestibility : Social Factors

Both adult and childrens report accuracy is affected by numerous social factors : bribes, threats, fear of embarrassment, desire for reward, protection of loved ones (e.g., Bussey, 1992), however young children are particularly sensitive to such influences Young children are more suggestible than older children when the erroneous suggestions are made by adult authority figures (Ceci et al., 1987) Such findings may reflect : childrens greater tendency to consider their own memories less reliable childs desire to please adult interviewers by telling them what they imagine they want to hear (Leichtman & Ceci, 1995)
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The nature of reinforcement provided by the interviewer has a profound influence on the prevalence of false information reported by children

Garven et al. (2000) found a large difference in the number of false claims between children given reinforcement and controls Children given reinforcement offered the desired but false answer to
Garven et al. (2000) asked kindergarteners to recall details about a visitor to their class who had read a story, gave out treats, & wore a funny hat The children were asked misleading plausible questions, Did Paco break a toy? and misleading implausible questions, Did Paco take you to a farm?
35% of plausible questions 52% of implausible questions Children given no reinforcement falsely agreed with 13% of plausible questions 5% of implausible questions
Half the children were given feedback following the misleading questions No responses were negatively evaluated : Youre not doing good Yes responses were positively evaluated: Great. Youre doing excellent now These differences were still evident 2 weeks later when children were all interviewed in a non-leading manner, indicating that interviewer bias in a prior interview has far-reaching effects

Bull (1992) suggests that children may provide erroneous information in interviews because social convention requires that an answer must be given to a question, even when respondents are really not sure Older children are less likely to guess when they are uncertain (Loftus, 1996) Hughes and Grieve (1980) demonstrated that young children (5-7 years) have a very strong tendency to answer any questions posed by an adult, even when those questions are odd and clearly require clarification prior to answering e.g., Is milk bigger than water?

Children are taught that: adults know best they should not contradict an adult they should be polite to strangers if you dont know the answer, have a guess This provides a powerful set of social rules that makes children extremely compliant in any form of suggestive interview Interviewers keen to reduce the effects of such convention on childrens responses should: (a) Tell the child that they may answer 'I don't know (b) Tell the child that if the question is repeated, that does not mean that the previous answer was wrong
Is red heavier than yellow?

Only one child answered I dont know
False Beliefs
Concerns about false accusations of child abuse reached a peak in the 1980s and 1990s with Loftus et al.s work on false memories As children live in a make-believe world, they magnify incidents which happen to them or invent them completely, (Heydon, 1984, p.84) However research examining childrens eyewitness testimony of staged crimes suggests that when children falsely recall, the errors they commit are more frequently errors of omission (not reporting something that happened) than errors of commission (reporting something that didnt happen) Saywitz et al. (1991) found that children who had been examined by a paediatrician frequently failed to report that a genital examination had taken place
False Beliefs
Distinguishing between events that were actually experienced and events that someone tells a child he/she experienced is difficult, esp. for children and adolescents Loftus (1993) conducted several experiments in which a trusted family member (e.g., parent, older sibling) related various past events to another family member : one of the events was a false story about the child having been lost in a shopping mall at age 5 25% of participants falsely recalled clear, vivid and believable memories of the event, including explicit detail about the experience that never occurred
e.g., I remembered being lost and looking around for you guys. . . And then crying. And Mom coming up and saying Where were you? . . . Dont you ever do that again, (Loftus, 1993, p.532)
Just because a description is vivid, doesnt mean the event actually happened
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Moral Competence
Matilda told such Dreadful Lies, It made one Gasp and Stretch one's Eyes Her Aunt, who, from her Earliest Youth, Had kept a Strict Regard for Truth, Attempted to Believe Matilda: The effort very nearly killed her, And would have done so, had not She Discovered this Infirmity.
Belloc (1896) There is little evidence to suggest that children tell more lies than adults By the age of 3 or 4, most children understand the distinction between truthfulness and lying (Bussey, 1991) children base their concept of truth on factual reality: reporting the facts as they saw them Children also seem to understand the importance of telling the truth in court: until age 9 they tell the truth for fear of punishment, but from 9-15, they tell the truth because of the implications for others (Feben, 1985)
Moral Competence
However, when children do lie, adults have difficulty distinguishing it Ceci et al. (1994) asked a group of trained professionals (judges, mental health workers, lawyers) view video footage or read transcribed segments of interviews with children : half the children had made false statements (following leading interviews) Ceci et al. examined the professionals ratings of the childrens credibility They found that the professionals were unable to reliably differentiate between those reports that were true, and those that were false This has important implications for professionals ratings of credibility of claims of child abuse (Horner et al., 1993)
PrePre-event Suggestibility
Childrens event reporting is also susceptible to the influence of pre-event misinformation : Leichtman & Ceci (1995) conducted an experiment in which an unfamiliar man (Sam Stone) came into a kindergarten class, chatted to the teacher, and sat with the children during storytime Prior to the visit, half the children were told negative things about Sam Stone (e.g., That Sam Stone is always getting into accidents and breaking things) Ten weeks after the visit, children were given an open-ended interview about what happened when Sam Stone visited the kindergarten Children given negative information were significantly more likely to make false statements, indicating that prior knowledge/beliefs affects eyewitness testimony
PostPost-event Memory
The average time between witnessing a crime and being asked to recall the details in court ranges from 6 (Flin et al., 1988) to 11 months (Davies & Noon, 1991) do such delays have a great effect on child than adult memory? Everyones memory is sensitive to the passage of time: over time, information is lost or becomes inaccessible due to decay or interference (Baddeley, 1983) Research shows that childrens memories are more susceptible to decay than adults Flin et al. (1992) tested 6 yr old, 9 yr old and adult memory for a staged argument Memory was tested with a 24 hour or 5 month delay Results for the 5 month delay showed a significant reduction in accuracy for the 6 and 9 year olds, but no reduction in scores for the adults
Summary
Given an authoritarian interviewer . . . Who may be consciously or subconsciously motivated to influence a childs memory; given multiple pretrial interviews; given a childs increased memory fade over time; given substantial intervals between the observed event and testimony at trial, substantial impairment of a childs memory process seems inevitable , (McGough, 1991, p.116)
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Lecture Plan
Mock juries Juror selection (voir dire) Pretrial publicity Trial complexity Note taking Preinstruction Defendant characteristics Attractiveness Race Deliberation Stages of deliberation Types of deliberation
Lecture 25 Juror Decision Making
Jury of your Peers

No freeman shall be arrested, or imprisoned, or deprived of his freehold, or his liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or in any matter destroyed, nor will we proceed against him, nor send anyone against him, by force or arms, unless according to the sentence of his peers Magna Carta (1215)
Juries existed well before 1200 AD first documented evidence suggests the ancient Egyptians had a jury system over 4000 years ago (Moore, 1973) The ancient Greeks similarly had a jury system in which jurors were allotted by lottery : An Athenian jury was the Athenian people, (McDowell, 1978, p.40) From Greece, the jury system spread throughout Europe and was introduced to the UK in 11th C by the invading Normans
Jury of your Peers

Juries differ in different countries: Size : 7 persons in Greece (3 judges, 4 laypeople) 8 persons in Italy (2 judges, 6 laypeople) 12 persons in Australia, US, England (all laypeople) 15 persons in Scotland (all laypeople) Guilty, Not Guilty (most of the world) Proven, Not Guilty, Not Proven (Scotland) Majority verdict (24 US states, Victoria, England) Unanimous verdict (Queensland, 27 US states)
Verdicts :
Decision :
Jury of your Peers

Throw twelve strangers together, provide them with no training whatsoever for what they are about to do, have them hear two adversaries present weeks or months of conflicting evidence, have professional advocates argue that the other side is wrong or lying, lock the twelve strangers into a small room, and then ask them to decide whether a human being should live or die. And, oh yes, any decision must be unanimous, so if the jurors disagree with each other, only one groups views can emerge as the survivor.
Sundby (2005), p.162
Mock Juries
Mock jury studies are the most common means of examining jury behaviour Advantages: Can investigate significant variables whilst holding others constant Allows direct access to deliberation process Disadvantages: Unclear how applicable/relevant experimental findings are to real jury behaviour It is essentially impossible to recreate the courtroom atmosphere and responsibility / consequences involved in a real trial under experimental conditions (Devine et al., 2001), even when using real trial tapes, and testing real jurors instead of undergrads. As it is illegal to interview real jurors about their cases, researchers have few alternate options (McEwan, 2000)
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Jury Selection (Voir Dire)

Jury composition can play a significant role in trial outcome, hence jury selection (or voir dire) is extremely important in countries that allow it In Victoria, both prosecution and defence have the option to reject 6 jurors per trial (in NSW, only 3) Voir dire played a MASSIVE role in OJs criminal acquittal
250 potential jurors were called and required to complete a 79 page questionnaire assessing demographics and potential biases (took > 4 hours to complete!) selection took > 2 months Defence testing indicated that most whites believed OJ guilty, and most blacks thought him not guilty final jury 9 Black, 1 Hispanic, 2 White (jury pool was 40% White, 28% Black, 17% Hispanic, 15% Asian) Defence testing indicated women make more sympathetic defence jurors final jury 10 females
Pretrial Publicity
Pretrial publicity presents special challenges as : It can influence the outcome of the trial It is not under the control of the court It is demonstrated to affect perceptions of: defendant likeability sympathy for defendant pretrial judgements of guilt defendant as a typical criminal Pretrial publicity becomes problematic when it causes potential jurors to be prejudiced against a defendant before trial (Studebaker & Penrod, 2005) During voir dire jurors often report that yes, I can set aside preconceived notions about the defendant, however cognitive research suggests that this is far more difficult than it may seem
Pretrial Publicity
When making judgements, such as determination of guilt, we typically process information in an integrative fashion Setting aside preconceived notions about a defendant requires the ability to: identify biasing information know how that material was stored in memory reverse/control for those biasing effects As human information processing is integrative, rather than specific, prejudgements guide our attention, perception and interpretation of both new and old information (e.g., Hamilton et al., 1990) It is thus virtually impossible for us to successfully set aside prejudicing information
Pretrial Publicity
As such, pretrial publicity can bias a jurys verdict in a number of ways Encoding: jurors selectively attend to information consistent with their preconceived notions based on the pretrial publicity Memory: pretrial publicity may be subject to source monitoring errors in which jurors mistakenly believe the pretrial publicity was part of the real trial testimony, and are unable to distinguish the separate sources (memory for information and the source of that information are thought to rely on separate cognitive processes, Johnson et al., 1993) Ruva et al. (2007) demonstrated that jurors do not forget that they read negative pretrial publicity However the jurors also believe that they heard the same information during the trial source monitoring misattribution
Pretrial Publicity
Schums (1993) mock jury research shows that 50% of jurors exhibited an early information bias (primacy effect) which biased their interpretation of later information Jurors either ignored later inconsistent testimony, or reinterpreted it as being consistent Meta-analysis of pretrial publicity research indicates that participants exposed to negative pretrial publicity are significantly more likely to judge a defendant guilty (Steblay et al., 1999) Even jurors who report that they can set aside publicity are more than twice as likely to convict when the pretrial publicity is negative vs neutral (Sue et al., 1975)
Trial Complexity
As the amount of information in a trial increases, the jurors self-reported ability to understand the issues in the trial, and their confidence in the verdict, decreases (Heuer & Penrod, 1994) Similarly, as evidence load increases, juror comprehension decreases (Horowitz et al., 1996) Simple strategies can be used to enhance juror comprehension e.g., taking notes during trials increases understanding, enhances attention and memory, and leads to higher quality deliberation (Flango, 1980; Rosenhan et al., 1994) Note taking is prohibited in many US states, but is at the discretion of the judge in Australia and Canada
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Trial Complexity
Simple strategies can be used to enhance juror comprehension e.g., jury preinstruction : juries are not typically given information about the relevant law until after the trial evidence has been presented this limits jurors ability to assess evidence in light of the law required to interpret it Giving jurors instructions about the relevant law before the trial begins provides them with a framework (or schema) with which to consider and process the evidence as it is presented (Ogloff & Rose, 2005) Preinstruction on the requirements of proof, the presumption of innocence, and reasonable doubt reduces conviction rates (Kassin & Wrightsman, 1979) Thus preinstruction seems to encourage the presumption of innocence, compared to uninstructed groups which presumed guilt (Ogloff & Rose, 2005)
Defendant Characteristics
Juror may use information irrelevant to the trial to make judgements e.g., attractiveness, race, SES Defendant attractiveness Arguably the greatest advantage a defendant can have is being physically attractive (Mazzella & Feingold, 1994) Meta-analysis of 25 studies indicates that mock jurors are more inclined to find attractive defendants not guilty Further, if attractive defendants are convicted, they receive more lenient punishments for crimes such as robbery, rape and cheating; however they receive harsher punishments for crimes such as fraud (Mazzella & Feingold, 1994)
Defendant Characteristics
Defendant race Though there is a general perception that white jurors are biased against black defendants (e.g., Parloff, 1997), metaanalysis of 37 studies indicates that defendant race does not significantly affect the verdict (Mazzella & Feingold, 1994) However, race does influence punishment severity : black defendants receive harsher punishments for crimes like robbery and homicide, whilst white defendants receive harsher punishments for crimes like fraud and embezzlement (Mazzella & Feingold, 1994) When crimes are congruent with those stereotypically associated with race, juries appear to be more severe (Gordon et al., 1988)
Juror Decision Making Models

There are two major types of juror decision making model: mathematical and explanation-based approaches Mathematical approach incorporates 3 major models : 1) probability theory; 2) algebraic theory; 3) stochastic processes In all these models jurors engage in a series of mental calculations in which they weigh up the relevance and strength of each and every piece of trial evidence, and translate that score into an assessment of culpability (Winter & Greene, 2007) The score is compared to the criterion needed to deem the defendant guilty if the weight of the accumulated evidence meets that threshold, the juror renders a guilty verdict

Explanation-based approaches are best exemplified by the story model Model portrays the juror as an active decision-maker who interprets, evaluates, and elaborates on trial evidence contrast with the mathematical models in which jurors are portrayed as passive recipients of evidence which is weighted and combined in a probabilistic fashion (Winter & Greene, 2007) The story model (Pennington & Hastie, 1993) proposes that jurors construct a narrative storyline based on the evidence, their real-world knowledge of similar cases, and their relevant expectations/experiences Model proposes 3 stages in decision-making: 1) Evaluate the evidence through story construction 2) Learn about the verdicts available 3) Reach a decision by fitting the story to the appropriate verdict

Pennington & Hastie (1988) tested the story model in a mock jury study Both the defense and the prosecution presented their evidence using either a story-based approach (story format) or a witness-based approach (evidence not presented in any particular order) When the prosecution used a storybased approach and the defense didnt, jurors convicted 78% of cases When the defense used a story-based approach and the prosecution didnt, jurors convicted 31% of cases This suggests that making it easier for jurors to construct a narrative increases the likelihood that they will render a verdict consistent with that narrative
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Juror Evidence Evaluation

Jurors evaluate evidence in different ways before reaching a verdict Conviction is significantly more likely if the defendant is positively identified by an eyewitness (Loftus, 1980), however we know that eyewitness testimony is often inaccurate Even though confidence does not correlate with accuracy, jurors are particularly influenced by confidence level of witnesses (Cutler et al., 1990) Jurors assign more weight to confession evidence than to other types of evidence (e.g., eyewitness evidence; Kassin & Neumann, 1997) False confessions are a common occurrence and confessions are sometimes coerced, yet they still affect juror evaluation A confession, even when gained under high pressure, still increases conviction rates (Kassin & Sukel, 1997), even when a judge has ruled the confession inadmissible
Jury Decision Making

At times, juries make decisions that cause controversy e.g., the Liebeck vs. McDonalds (1992) case in which the jury awarded $2.9 million (US) as recompense for the plantiff spilling hot McDonalds coffee into her lap During deliberations, jurors spend 70-75% of the time discussing the evidence, and 20% of the time discussing the law (Ellsworth, 1989) There are three main stages of deliberation: Orientation : foreperson is elected, procedures etc. discussed Open conflict : jurors attempt to persuade fellow jurors to reach a verdict Resolution : jurors attempt to ensure that everyone is happy with the verdict
Jury Deliberation
Juries typically adopt one of two styles of deliberation: verdict or evidence driven Verdict driven juries (30%) begin by taking a straw poll and orient their discussion around the verdict Evidence is sorted according to the verdict it supports, and straw polls are frequently retaken to monitor opinion Evidence driven juries (70%) begin by discussing the evidence presented in the trial Different verdict categories are discussed and the evidence may be related to several possible categories Once the jury has decided on the best story to account for the evidence, a straw poll is taken (typically late in deliberation; Hastie et al., 1983)
Jury Deliberation
During the open conflict phase of deliberation, jurors can be swayed by two types of process (Kaplan & Miller, 1987) Jurors who are persuaded by informational influence privately accept the change in verdict, having changed their mind as a result of compelling argument/facts highlighted by other jurors Jurors persuaded by normative influence publicly conform but maintain private belief The best predictor of the final verdict is the initial verdict of the individual jurors (Kalven & Zeisel, 1966) thus majority tends to prevail Of 215 real juries with a clear majority, the majority verdict ruled in 209 cases (Kalven & Zeisel, 1966), presumably because of the group polarization effect when groups begin discussion with a clear preference, discussion tends to strengthen that preference
Deliberations
Deliberation is thought to enhance juror memory in two ways (Pritchard & Keenan, 2002) 1) Deliberation allows for memory pooling jurors share memories and fill in any gaps during this process Both free recall and cued recall performance improves with increasing group size (Stephenson et al., 1986) 2) Deliberation allows for error correction if a juror is mistaken in his/her belief(s), other jurors can correct those errors Prtichard & Keenan (2002) found that deliberation serves to correct erroneous information, but does not introduce distortions into jurors memories (p.599)
Judge & Jury

Until 1670, jurors could be fined/jailed if the judge thought theyd reached the wrong verdict When judges and juries differ in their verdicts (<25% of cases), the judges are more likely to convict (Kalvern & Zeisel, 1968; Sanders & Young, 2000) This is presumed to reflect the fact that judges have been exposed to crime/conviction information, have more readily available schemas, and are privy to information re: previous convictions all make judges more likely to convict People evaluate the probability of an event (i.e., defendant's guilt) by the ease with which relevant examples/associations come to mind (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973) consequently judges, and jurors with previous experience, are more inclined to convict (Greene & Wade, 1988)
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Summary
Jury composition can play a significant role in trial outcome : women make more sympathetic defence jurors Pretrial publicity can cause potential jurors to be prejudiced against a defendant before trial : it is extremely difficult to set aside this information, leading jurors to encode information consistent with their preconceived notions (selective attention), and have difficulty distinguishing the pretrial publicity from the real trial (source monitoring errors) Defendant race does not affect the verdict, but does influence sentencing : harsher penalties for crimes stereotypically associated with race Two major types of juror decision making model: mathematical and explanation-based approaches (e.g., story-based approach) Three main stages of jury deliberations : Orientation, Open conflict, Resolution. During open conflict, jurors can be swayed by informational influence and normative influence

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PSY 2COG : Cognition

Lecture 1 Overview Introduction to Cognition

Lecture 2 Friday 12-1pm WLT1 AW Rm 4101 Be ART 403 Perception

Tutorial Program (2 hour tutorial)

Memory Memory Language Language MID SEMESTER

16 Apr 23 Apr 30 Apr

Historic roots of cognition

Historic roots of cognition

Historic roots of cognition

Historic roots of cognition

Historic roots of cognition

Birth of Cognitive Psychology

Rise of Cognitive Psychology

Atkinson & Shiffrins (1968) Multi-store model of memory.

Techniques in Cog Psych

Techniques in Cog Psych

Techniques in Cog Psych

Inability to produce coherent speech

Techniques in Cog Psych

Techniques in Cog Psych : PET

Techniques in Cog Psych

Techniques in Cog Psych : fMRI

Techniques in Cog Psych

Techniques in Cog Psych : ERP

PSY 2COG : Cognition

Lecture 2 Perceiving Speech

Why is segmenting speech hard?

Why is segmenting speech hard?

Why is segmenting speech hard?

Coarticulation & Invariance

Why is segmenting speech hard?

Why is segmenting speech hard?

Why is segmenting speech hard?

Why is segmenting speech hard?

Why is segmenting speech hard?

I scream (for) Ice cream

The doctor sends the bill A duck descends some pill

Segmentation Depends on Native Language

But WHEN/HOW does phoneme restoration occur?

Visual Cues & Speech Perception

Speech Perception : McGurk

PSY 2COG : Cognition

Bruce & Young Model processing

Familiarity and Averageness

Lecture 3 Perceiving Faces

Perceiving beauty: faces tell us?

Featural vs Configural processing

Are faces special?

Models of face processing

Models of face processing

What do faces tell us?

What do faces tell us?

Configural vs Featural Processing

Configural vs Featural Processing

Configural vs Featural Processing

Configural vs Featural Processing

Configural vs Featural Processing

Face Inversion Effect

Face Inversion Effect

PSY 2COG : Cognition

Lecture 4 Problems in Perceiving Faces

PSY 2COG : Cognition