Core Studies: Cognitive Area | OCR A-Level Psychology (H567)

Core Studies: Cognitive Area

144 questions
13 subtopics
Component 02: Psychological themes through core studies
Component 02

Core Studies: Cognitive Area is examined on component 02 of OCR Psychology, Psychological themes through core studies.

144 recall questions across 13 subtopics.

Sample questions from Core Studies: Cognitive Area

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

Loftus and Palmer (1974) eyewitness testimony: background and the first experiment

Who took part in the first experiment?

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Forty-five students at an American university, who were tested in groups.
Loftus and Palmer (1974) eyewitness testimony: the second experiment, conclusions and evaluation

Give one strength of the control in this study.

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Every participant saw the same clips and answered the same standardised questionnaire, so the study is easily replicated and cause and effect can be inferred.
Grant et al. (1998) context-dependent memory: results, conclusions and evaluation

What did Grant et al. conclude?

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Context-dependent memory applies to meaningful academic material, so performance is best when the environment at study matches the environment at test.
Memory: similarities and differences between Loftus and Palmer and Grant et al.

Which study has the greater ecological validity, and why?

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Grant et al., because reading an article and being tested on it is close to genuine student's behaviour, while watching a staged crash film with no consequences bears little resemblance to witnessing a real accident.
Moray (1959) auditory attention: background, method and sample

Define dichotic listening.

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It is a procedure in which a different message is played into each ear at the same time through headphones.
Moray (1959) auditory attention: procedure, results and findings

Outline the procedure of the third experiment.

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Digits were inserted towards the end of both messages, and one group was told beforehand to remember all the numbers they could while the other received ordinary shadowing instructions.
Simons and Chabris (1999) visual inattention: background and procedure

Who took part, and how many were included in the analysis?

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Two hundred and twenty-eight observers were recruited, mostly students at an American university, and after thirty-six sets of data were discarded, one hundred and ninety-two were analysed, twelve in each condition.
Simons and Chabris (1999) visual inattention: results, conclusions and evaluation

Why was an independent measures design essential here rather than merely convenient?

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Because an unexpected event can only take a person by surprise once, so each observer could contribute usable data on one occasion only.

The 13 subtopics

One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.

Subtopic	What it covers	Questions
Loftus and Palmer (1974) eyewitness testimony: background and the first experiment	Recall questions on the aims of Loftus and Palmer's 1974 eyewitness testimony research, reconstructive memory, the method, sample and film clips of the first experiment, the critical question and its five verbs, mean speed estimates and possible explanations.	12
Loftus and Palmer (1974) eyewitness testimony: the second experiment, conclusions and evaluation	Recall questions on Loftus and Palmer's second experiment, including its sample, groups, the broken glass question and results, the conclusion about how memory of an event is formed, police questioning, and the study's control, sample, ecological validity, ethics and demand characteristics.	15
Grant et al. (1998) context-dependent memory: background, method and procedure	Recall questions on the aim and background of Grant et al.'s 1998 study of context-dependent memory, its method, design, variables and four conditions, the sample, standardisation across experimenters, noise and silence conditions, and the memory tests.	15
Grant et al. (1998) context-dependent memory: results, conclusions and evaluation	Recall questions on Grant et al.'s findings on matching study and test contexts, short-answer and multiple-choice results, conclusions, advice for students, and the evaluation of control, mundane realism, sample, noise presentation and ethics.	12
Memory: similarities and differences between Loftus and Palmer and Grant et al.	Recall questions on how Loftus and Palmer and Grant et al. illustrate the cognitive area, their methodological and sample similarities, what both show about memory, and differences in the aspect of memory, independent variable, materials, ecological validity, age range and ethics.	10
Memory: what Grant et al. add to Loftus and Palmer	Recall questions on the practical message of each memory study, how far Grant et al. change understanding of memory, whether the findings conflict, usefulness, individual and cultural diversity, testing universality, and controls unique to Grant et al.	8
Moray (1959) auditory attention: background, method and sample	Recall questions on the aim of Moray's 1959 auditory attention research, the earlier finding it built on, dichotic listening and shadowing, the three hypotheses, method, apparatus, participants and the first experiment's task.	8
Moray (1959) auditory attention: procedure, results and findings	Recall questions on Moray's recognition test and its unpresented words, the results of the first experiment, the second experiment on names in the rejected message and the attentional block, and the procedure, result and conclusion of the third experiment.	11
Moray (1959) auditory attention: conclusions and evaluation	Recall questions on Moray's overall conclusion and the cocktail party phenomenon, and the evaluation of reliability, the ecological validity of shadowing, the sample, the type of data, ethics and applications such as air traffic control.	8
Simons and Chabris (1999) visual inattention: background and procedure	Recall questions on the aim of Simons and Chabris's 1999 study, sustained dynamic inattentional blindness, the method, design and sample, discarded data, the videos and unexpected events, transparent and opaque videos, task difficulty, and the post-video questions.	13
Simons and Chabris (1999) visual inattention: results, conclusions and evaluation	Recall questions on Simons and Chabris's findings on noticing rates, video type, the unexpected events, task difficulty and similarity to the attended team, their conclusions and applications to driving and eyewitnesses, and the evaluation of design, sample, ecological validity and ethics.	14
Attention: similarities and differences between Moray and Simons and Chabris	Recall questions on the similarities between Moray and Simons and Chabris in aims, methods, samples and tasks, and their differences in sense studied, unattended material, sample size, design, main findings and variables manipulated.	10
Attention: what Simons and Chabris add to Moray	Recall questions on how far Simons and Chabris change understanding of attention, whether they support Moray, relevance to everyday life, individual and cultural diversity, how both illustrate the cognitive area, a shared weakness and a joint practical message.	8

Core Studies: Cognitive Area is 144 of the 3,537 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.