Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Thinking & Decision making and Reconstructive memory - Coggle Diagram
Thinking & Decision making and Reconstructive memory
Thinking and decision making
Thinking is the process using knowledge and information to make plans, interpret the world, and make predictions about the world in general.
Study = Sloman The dual system theory
Dual system Theory has two systems
System 1 is automatic, intuitive and effortless and it often employs heuristics.
A heuristic is a mental short cut that involves focusing on one aspect of a complex problem and ignoring others.
This system of thinking allows for efficient processing of the complex world around us but may be prone to errors due to when our fast assumptions do not match reality.
System 2 is slower, conscious and more rational as a method of thinking. It takes more effort than system 1 and also thinks about all the ways that we could interpret a situation and then eliminates possibilities based on sensory evidence until we arrive at a solution.
System 1 is often activated first, but is often inaccurate due to the speed of which a conclusion is made. Therefore system 2 thinking is used to create a more accurate or more correct conclusion.
Strengths: the study has good application ti the real world and can be used in business and institutional groups to reach effective decisions using system 2 most likely.
Weaknesses: companies can manipulate peoples system 1 thinking to make them assume false information about a product due to advertisement. This is considered unethical.
The model also has low construct validity as it does not explain how the systems of thinking interact or how they can be affected by emotion.
Decision making is the process of identifying and choosing alternatives based on the values and preferences of the decision maker.
Alter et al
This study was performed in 2007 and it comprised of two questions, one was written in a hard to read font and the other was written in a more easy to read font.
The findings were that in the easy to read font there was 90% of people at least making one mistake. However, with the more harder to read font there was only 35% of people who made at least one mistake. This demonstrates the use of either system 1 thinking or system 2 depending on which question the student was given. Therefore this study shows the existence of the two models of thinking in the dual systems theory.
Strengths: the study is a lab experiment which automatically means a high internal validity.
It is also an independent group design which means that there are no order effects.
Weaknesses: There was only 40 american students used meaning there is no cross cultural or population validity.
Due to the independent groups there are participant variables.
Also low mundane realism due to unrealistic setting and font.
Wason selection task
36 first year psychology students were given a selection task and had to decide which card was able to determine if a given statement is true or false. They had to decide which cards to turn over to see if a conditional sentence was true/false.
Findings: the group who were tasked with making the statement true and therefore using system 1 thinking made more errors than the experimental group who were tasked with falsifying the statement and therefore using system 2 thinking. However, a large number of students made incorrect decisions over both groups. The experimental group had to falsify the answer rather than just prove it hence why they were using system 2 thinking and the other group was only using their system 1 thinking.
System 1 can be acknowledged to have had an influence on system 2 thinking as the participants in the experimental group still made a lot of mistake on the whole.
Wason demonstrates that there are 2 systems of thinking. System 1 was used by the control group who made a large amount of errors due to the quick and irrational thinking of system 1. They were also affected by matching bias as the wording of the question threw them off from the correct answer. The experimental group were told to re look at their answers and try to falsify it. This means they were forced to use their system 2 thinking and make more rational decisions therefore they made less mistakes. However they did still make a large amount of mistakes in general showing the influence of system 1 thinking on system 2 thinking and how system 1 thinking could be more powerful than system 2 on the human brain.
Strengths: independent groups design means no order effects.
There is a high level of control as it is a lab experiment.
Weaknesses: independent groups design means there is the possibility of participant variables. There is a low mundane realism as it is an artificial task and setting. Therefore there is low ecological validity. Only 35 american students were used meaning there is both cross cultural validity and low population validity linking to low generalisability.
Reconstructive memory
States that memory is not a complete reproduction of an event but rather a reconstruction which uses schema to fill in any gaps of information. The idea is that humans cannot remember the entire event accurately so they replace the gaps of information with expected information using schema.
Reconstructive memory can be influence by leading questions which can manipulate your recollection of an event. Information which is consistent with your schemas will be remembered well but anything that is not consistent with your schemas is likely to be forgotten more easily.
There are two ways a memory can be affected by reconstruction: the first is a confabulation which is where a memory is fabricated, distorted or misinterpreted and is often believed to be true by that person. The other is a complete false memory which is where the recollection of an event is not true and never happened but it is believed to be true by that person. This does not mean that they are forgetting on purpose it is simply a mistake and can happen all the time to everyone hence why eye witness testimonies are so dangerous.
Study = Loftus and Palmer
They gave 45 students a video of a car crash, they were then asked to answer a question which had many different verbs as the main verb used in the question. "How fast were the cars going when they hit/crashed/collided/bumped/smashed/contacted".
Findings: there was a 9 mph difference in speed from the most severe verb and the least severe verb. This means that the reconstruction of the participants memory was affected by the leading question used. A follow up experiment was done asking only the two most severe and least severe questions. Then asking if they saw broken glass. The group who got asked the most severe verb in the question were more likely to say that they saw broken glass even though there was no broken glass present to be seen in the video. Therefore providing evidence for the presence of a reconstructive memory and also presence of both confabulation and false memories.
There are two conclusions to be drawn, one stating that the question actually made the participant change their estimation due to the wording, or the verb in the question genuinely distorted their memory of the car crash and a confabulation/false memory was created due to the leading question and schema filling in gaps of information.
Strengths: the study has high internal validity as it is a lab experiment. It also has a medium mundane realism as car crashed do happen in real life but it is typical to go a day without seeing a car crash happen and you estimate the speed. It also has independent group design which means there are no demand characteristics so the participants cannot guess the aim of the study,
Weaknesses: independent group design brings the possibility for participant variables and there is a low population validity as only students were used. They will also have limited driving experience and an older population may have a more confident estimation of speed. There could be no protection from harm as some people may have had bad experiences with car crashes and may not want to watch a video of the crash.
Brewer and Treyens - office study
Reconstructive memory and schema
Yuille and Cutshall
Witnesses had seen a real crime scene and they were interviewed just after the crime. They agreed to come back later on and give their recall of the event compared to the police reports.
Findings: They found that the recollection of events was actually very similar to the original police reports despite the employment of leading questions. They were not affected by the leading questions and actually provided accurate memories of the crime. For example the researchers changed the colour of a panel in their questions and the participants picked up on it. This tells us that memory is very reliable in this case and goes against the idea of reconstructive memory and the affect of leading questions.
Strengths: it is a lab experiment meaning high internal validity (the use of leading questions) even though the event was naturally occurring, this does not however make it a natural experiment as the variable was manipulated (leading questions).
Purposive sample - only people who witnessed the crime were able to take part.
Weaknesses: the study is not repeatable as it was a gunshot crime which cannot be replicated ethically.
It is also hard to control the level of rehearsal used by the participants. They would likely have told many people about the event and therefore making it harder to forget as they are constantly talking about it. The results are also only qualitative which means the interpretation of the data is only down to the researcher therefore introducing researcher bias.