Cognitive Psychology | Edexcel A-Level Psychology (9PS0)

Cognitive Psychology

353 questions
28 subtopics
Paper 1: foundations in psychology, all compulsory
Paper 1 and Paper 3

The second Paper 1 topic, built around memory.

It covers the working memory and multi-store models, episodic and semantic memory, reconstructive memory and schema theory, and the experimental methods, inferential statistics and case-study work that cognitive research relies on.

Sample questions from Cognitive Psychology

Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.

The working memory model

What are the two sub-components of the phonological loop?

Show the answer
The phonological store and the articulatory rehearsal process.
Reconstructive memory and schema theory

Name the three distortions Bartlett described in serial reproduction.

Show the answer
Levelling, in which detail is lost; sharpening, in which some elements are exaggerated; and rationalisation, in which the story is altered to make sense.
Independent and dependent variables

In a study of noise on recall, which is the independent variable?

Show the answer
The presence or level of noise.
Experimental designs

What are two limitations of matched pairs design?

Show the answer
Matching can be time-consuming and the matching may be imperfect.
Objectivity, reliability and validity

What is ecological validity?

Show the answer
The extent to which findings can be generalised to real-life settings and behaviours outside the research environment.
Graphical presentation of data

Why do the bars on a bar chart not touch?

Show the answer
Because the categories are discrete and there is no continuous scale between them.
Classic study: Baddeley (1966)

Give an example of a semantically similar word list.

Show the answer
Words with similar meanings, such as 'great, large, big, huge, broad'.
Contemporary study: Sebastián and Hernández-Gil (2012)

What did Sebastián and Hernández-Gil (2012) find in the older adult group?

Show the answer
Digit span was lower than in adolescents, indicating decline in later life.

The 28 subtopics

One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.

Subtopic	What it covers	Questions
The working memory model	Recall questions on the central executive, phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad and episodic buffer, and the dual-task evidence that supports them.	11
The multi-store model of memory	Recall questions on the sensory register, short-term and long-term stores, their capacity, duration and encoding, and the role of rehearsal.	17
Episodic and semantic long-term memory	Recall questions on Tulving's distinction, procedural memory, and the patient evidence that separates the three types.	8
Reconstructive memory and schema theory	Recall questions on schemas, Bartlett's War of the Ghosts, and levelling, sharpening and rationalisation in serial reproduction.	13
Individual differences in memory	Recall questions on processing speed, the effect of schemas on reconstruction, and highly superior autobiographical memory.	10
Developmental psychology in memory	Recall questions on Sebastián and Hernández-Gil's finding that memory span grows from age 5 to about 17, how dyslexia impairs memory span and working memory, and the progressive memory decline of Alzheimer's disease.	12
Laboratory and field experiments	Recall questions on what distinguishes laboratory, field and natural experiments, and the trade-off between control and ecological validity.	10
Independent and dependent variables	Recall questions on identifying and operationalising each variable, conditions of the IV, and why a correlation has neither.	8
Experimental and null hypotheses	Recall questions on writing each hypothesis, why the null is retained rather than proved, and why falsifiability matters.	11
One-tailed and two-tailed tests	Recall questions on directional and non-directional hypotheses and how to word them, when each is chosen, when one-tailed and two-tailed tests are used, and why a one-tailed test has more power at the same significance level.	11
Experimental designs	Recall questions on repeated measures, independent groups and matched pairs, and the strengths and weaknesses of each.	10
Operationalisation, extraneous and confounding variables	Recall questions on extraneous variables, operationalisation and why it matters for replication, confounding variables, the difference between an extraneous and a confounding variable, and an example of a confound in a memory experiment.	9
Order effects and counterbalancing	Recall questions on practice and fatigue effects, counterbalancing, randomisation, and why counterbalancing balances rather than removes.	8
Situational and participant variables	Recall questions on what each is, which design is vulnerable to which, and how standardisation and random allocation reduce them.	10
Objectivity, reliability and validity	Recall questions on internal, predictive and ecological validity, test-retest and inter-rater reliability, and why a measure can be reliable but not valid.	8
Demand characteristics and experimenter effects	Recall questions on how participants work out the aim, the please-you effect, experimenter expectancy, and single- and double-blind procedures.	8
Measures of central tendency and dispersion	Recall questions on choosing and calculating the mean, median and mode, the range, percentages, calculating and interpreting standard deviation, significant figures and order-of-magnitude checks, and normal, positively skewed and negatively skewed distributions.	42
Graphical presentation of data	Recall questions on bar charts and histograms, when bars touch, scattergrams, and how a graph should be labelled.	10
Mann-Whitney U and Wilcoxon	Recall questions on the four inferential tests, when Spearman's rho, Mann-Whitney U and Wilcoxon are used, the design each test requires, when a non-parametric test is chosen, the U and T formulae, and the observed-against-critical-value rule.	14
Significance, critical values and errors	Recall questions on probability and levels of significance, observed and critical values and what the tables require, sense checking, one-tailed decisions, type I and type II errors, standard form, and the symbols used in statistical conclusions.	27
Case studies of brain-damaged patients	Recall questions on Henry Molaison, the qualitative data a case study yields, and the strengths and weaknesses of the method.	20
Classic study: Baddeley (1966)	Recall questions on the acoustic and semantic similarity conditions, what each showed about short- and long-term coding, and the study's limitations.	13
Contemporary study: Schmolck et al. (2002)	Recall questions on the patients, the semantic tasks used, what the lateral temporal damage explained, and how it builds on the HM case.	12
Contemporary study: Steyvers and Hemmer (2012)	Recall questions on the naturalistic scenes used, the pattern of intrusions, and how it qualifies Bartlett's conclusions about schemas.	10
Contemporary study: Sebastián and Hernández-Gil (2012)	Recall questions on the developmental pattern of digit span, why Spanish spans are shorter, and what the word-length effect shows.	10
Key question in cognitive psychology	Recall questions on memory in dementia as a key question, what it affects first, and how the multi-store model, long-term memory types, retrieval cues and reconstructive memory inform care, with eye-witness testimony and revision as further key questions.	10
Practical investigation in cognitive psychology	Recall questions on designing an experiment, the decisions to settle before running it, the analysis to report, and how to evaluate it.	11
Issues and debates in cognitive psychology	Recall questions on laboratory artificiality, machine reductionism, ethics in case-study work, cultural bias, and how cognitive psychology is applied.	10

Cognitive Psychology is 353 of the 2,738 questions in the guide.Get the guide, £8

How the guide is worked

Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.

Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.

Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.