Wednesday, 23 October 2013
Law: 14th - 18th October
Aims Behind Sentencing
(doesn't apply to persons under 18 or where the sentence is fixed by law mininum sentences and mental health orders)
1. Punishment
2. Deterrence (reduction of crime)
- individual
- general
3. Reformation/Rehabilitation
- education
- skills
- community sentences
4. Protection (of public)
- life imprisonment given to serious offences
5. Denunciation
- society expressing disapproval of criminal activity
Media's view: dependent on individual cases
(doesn't apply to persons under 18 or where the sentence is fixed by law mininum sentences and mental health orders)
1. Punishment
2. Deterrence (reduction of crime)
- individual
- general
3. Reformation/Rehabilitation
- education
- skills
- community sentences
4. Protection (of public)
- life imprisonment given to serious offences
5. Denunciation
- society expressing disapproval of criminal activity
Media's view: dependent on individual cases
Psychology: 14th - 18th October
MSM - Essay Plan
Describe:
(quite proud of my diagram there)
Sensory Memory
- 5 senses
- extremely small capacity
- duration: few seconds
- partial recall technique
STM
- attention
- encoded acoustically (Baddeley)
- duration:18 seconds (Peterson & Peterson - trigrams)
- capacity: 7 ± 2 (Jacobs - number lists)
- maintenance rehearsal extends duration
LTM
- elaborative rehearsal
- encoded semantically (Baddeley)
- potentially unlimited capacity (diary studies)
- potentially unlimited duration (Bahrick - school children recall)
Evaluation:
KF
- motorbike accident
- contradicts
HM
- hippocamus
-supporting
Disadvantages
- laboratory (less ecological validity)
- too simple
- problems with case studies (not generalised)
- rehearsal not always needed
- probably more than one store for LTM (different types of LTM)
Advantages
- laboratory (cause/effect and control)
- support from lab studies
- support from case studies
- clear and straight forward
EWT - Schemas
Psychological Factors
- schemas
- leading questions
- misleading information
- anxiety
- age
Schemas
Memory doesn't store information exactly as it was presented to us (not like a videotape) so EWT may be unreliable because people only remember parts of an event and fill in the rest with what they think happened.
People tend to make sense of information by trying to fit it into schemas.
Schemas are:
- 'packages' of information (stereotypes) about our experiences
- mental structures that organise our knowledge and assumptions about things
- when we came across something new, we either add it to an existing schema, modify a schema or make a new one
- they allow us to make sense of what we encounter so we can predict what is going to happen and what we should do
- for example, when people are wearing minimal clothing we assume that the temperature is hot
BUT - sometimes we try to force new information to fit into our existing schemas
- may distort the new information
- the new information may not be exactly the same as what we actually encounter
- when we later recall this information, the distortions will have been incorporated into our recall and so not entirely accurate
- for example, if as a child you are bitten by a dog you may add this to a schema and assume that every dog bites
- could effect EWT as the things people think they saw may not be completely accurate
Fred Bartlett (1932)
- first person to test idea of schemas
- showed that memory is an active process and that it is subject to individual interpretation and construction
- suggested schemas also influence how we recall things later
- 'war of the ghosts' story - 20 British P's asked to memorise short story about native American traditions
Findings
- considerable distortions which increased over time
- attempted to fit the story into their western schemas
3 types of changes:
- flattening (failed to recall unfamiliar events)
- sharpening (elaborating parts making them more important than they were in the story)
- rationalisations (shortened the story changing it to make more sense)
Conclusions
- accuracy in reconstructing memories can be low - we don't just forget but change things
- more we tell a story the more we reconstruct
- assumed that schemas influence retrieval but maybe also influence comprehension and understanding
- cultural assumptions (stereotypes) can affect memory
List 1986
- asked P's to rate events according to probability of them being in a shoplifting scenario
- made videos of 8 different shoplifting events including both high and low possibility events
- showed videos to new P's
- week later asked them to recall
- more likely to recall high probability events (things likely to be in shoplifting schema)
Brewer & Treyens 1981
- P's waited in room that looked like office, containing objects expected to be there and some not
- asked to recall
- most recalled expected items
- sometimes added objects that weren't there (in office schema?)
- few remembered the unusual items
EWT - Misleading Information
Loftus and Palmer
- post-event information may cause material to be altered before it is stored (memory of the event would be permanently affected)
- P's shown a clip of an accident
- three groups: group one (asked how fast the cars were going when they smashed), group two (asked how fast the cars were going when they hit) and group three (no question asked)
- week later called back and asked if they recalled any broken glass
- group
Results:
More people tended to expect broken glass if they were prompted by the misleading information than if they weren't.
EWT - Leading Questions
Loftus
- car crash video to 5 groups of participants
- asked question: how fast was the car going when it ____? (smashed, collided, bumped, hit, contacted)
- the fastest sounding word made the people say a higher speed
Loftus and Zanni
- picture of crashed car
- asked 'did you see the/a crack in the headlight?'
- when asked using 'the' people said yes because they were lead to the answer
Describe:
Sensory Memory
- 5 senses
- extremely small capacity
- duration: few seconds
- partial recall technique
STM
- attention
- encoded acoustically (Baddeley)
- duration:18 seconds (Peterson & Peterson - trigrams)
- capacity: 7 ± 2 (Jacobs - number lists)
- maintenance rehearsal extends duration
LTM
- elaborative rehearsal
- encoded semantically (Baddeley)
- potentially unlimited capacity (diary studies)
- potentially unlimited duration (Bahrick - school children recall)
Evaluation:
KF
- motorbike accident
- contradicts
HM
- hippocamus
-supporting
Disadvantages
- laboratory (less ecological validity)
- too simple
- problems with case studies (not generalised)
- rehearsal not always needed
- probably more than one store for LTM (different types of LTM)
Advantages
- laboratory (cause/effect and control)
- support from lab studies
- support from case studies
- clear and straight forward
EWT - Schemas
Psychological Factors
- schemas
- leading questions
- misleading information
- anxiety
- age
Schemas
Memory doesn't store information exactly as it was presented to us (not like a videotape) so EWT may be unreliable because people only remember parts of an event and fill in the rest with what they think happened.
People tend to make sense of information by trying to fit it into schemas.
Schemas are:
- 'packages' of information (stereotypes) about our experiences
- mental structures that organise our knowledge and assumptions about things
- when we came across something new, we either add it to an existing schema, modify a schema or make a new one
- they allow us to make sense of what we encounter so we can predict what is going to happen and what we should do
- for example, when people are wearing minimal clothing we assume that the temperature is hot
BUT - sometimes we try to force new information to fit into our existing schemas
- may distort the new information
- the new information may not be exactly the same as what we actually encounter
- when we later recall this information, the distortions will have been incorporated into our recall and so not entirely accurate
- for example, if as a child you are bitten by a dog you may add this to a schema and assume that every dog bites
- could effect EWT as the things people think they saw may not be completely accurate
Fred Bartlett (1932)
- first person to test idea of schemas
- showed that memory is an active process and that it is subject to individual interpretation and construction
- suggested schemas also influence how we recall things later
- 'war of the ghosts' story - 20 British P's asked to memorise short story about native American traditions
Findings
- considerable distortions which increased over time
- attempted to fit the story into their western schemas
3 types of changes:
- flattening (failed to recall unfamiliar events)
- sharpening (elaborating parts making them more important than they were in the story)
- rationalisations (shortened the story changing it to make more sense)
Conclusions
- accuracy in reconstructing memories can be low - we don't just forget but change things
- more we tell a story the more we reconstruct
- assumed that schemas influence retrieval but maybe also influence comprehension and understanding
- cultural assumptions (stereotypes) can affect memory
List 1986
- asked P's to rate events according to probability of them being in a shoplifting scenario
- made videos of 8 different shoplifting events including both high and low possibility events
- showed videos to new P's
- week later asked them to recall
- more likely to recall high probability events (things likely to be in shoplifting schema)
Brewer & Treyens 1981
- P's waited in room that looked like office, containing objects expected to be there and some not
- asked to recall
- most recalled expected items
- sometimes added objects that weren't there (in office schema?)
- few remembered the unusual items
EWT - Misleading Information
Loftus and Palmer
- post-event information may cause material to be altered before it is stored (memory of the event would be permanently affected)
- P's shown a clip of an accident
- three groups: group one (asked how fast the cars were going when they smashed), group two (asked how fast the cars were going when they hit) and group three (no question asked)
- week later called back and asked if they recalled any broken glass
- group
Results:
More people tended to expect broken glass if they were prompted by the misleading information than if they weren't.
EWT - Leading Questions
Loftus
- car crash video to 5 groups of participants
- asked question: how fast was the car going when it ____? (smashed, collided, bumped, hit, contacted)
- the fastest sounding word made the people say a higher speed
Loftus and Zanni
- picture of crashed car
- asked 'did you see the/a crack in the headlight?'
- when asked using 'the' people said yes because they were lead to the answer
Sunday, 13 October 2013
The Beginning
This is just a side-blog where I will be concluding the stuff I have learned at college. I am currently doing AS Levels in Psychology, English, Maths and Law and hope to upload at the end of each week. Although this blog is technically a learning technique for me, I welcome others to read it if it would be of use to them during their AS Levels.
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