Cognitive Psychology: Theory, Process, and Methodology
by Dawn M. McBride and J. Cooper Cutting
Instructor Resources
Lab Exercises
Web-based exercises and accompanying assessments direct both instructors and students to useful and current web sites, along with creative activities to extend and reinforce learning or allow for further research on important chapter topics.
Tip: Click on each link to expand and view the content. Click again to collapse.
Chapter 1. Introduction to Cognitive Psychology
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A link to an experiment similar to Donder’s simple reaction time experiment.
Follow-up exercise: Ask students to perform the simple reaction time experiment. Ask students how they performed the task and how difficult it was to detect the target.
A link to an experiment similar to Donder’s choice reaction time experiment.
Follow-up exercise: Ask students to perform the choice reaction time experiment. Ask them how they performed the task and how difficult it was to detect the target. Furthermore, ask them about the differences in between the simple and choice reaction time. Which one is more difficult and why?
This website includes various demos exploring cognitive processes. Ask students to choose one demo and describe what cognitive process the experiment examines.
Follow-up exercise: Have students choose one demo and describe what cognitive process the experiment examines. What do they know about that cognitive process so far from Introduction to Psychology? What else would they like to learn about it?
Chapter 2. Cognitive Neuroscience
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PBS offers excursions into the working of the brain.
Follow up exercise: Have students “relive” the probing of the motor cortex that was done in the 1940s by Canadian brain surgeon Wilder Penfield.
The Scalable Brain Atlas is a fully web-based source for brain atlases, imaging data and topologies. You have a chance to explore the brain in a 3D interactive context.
Follow up exercise: Ask students to explore the human brain. What did they find surprising? Do they know what each lobe is primarily dedicated to? Can they identify other structures?
This Brain Atlas offers views of the normal brain, but also the brain affected by various disorders.
Follow up exercise: Ask students to explore the human brain under different brain conditions. Can they identify any of the disorders? What is the typical brain deterioration in individual disorders?
Chapter 3. Perception
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GoCognitive is a website with various demos exploring cognitive processes.
Follow-up exercise: Have students “find” their blind spot. What is happening? How is it possible to have a “hole” in your vision?
GoCognitive is a website with various demos exploring cognitive processes.
Follow-up exercise: Have students try out the light from above heuristic. What affects this heuristic? Can you mention other heuristics we use in vision? Are they always accurate?
This is a website designed by Michael Bach that offers exciting visual illusions.
Follow up exercise: Try out motion aftereffect. What happened? How does the brain play a role in the experience you had?
Chapter 4. Attention
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Thinker is a resource intended to assist students with their mastery and appreciation for the field of cognitive psychology.
Follow-up exercise: Ask students to perform the divided attention task. Are there any instances in everyday life when you engage in similar tasks? Why is this more difficult than the focused attention task?
GoCognitive is a website with various demos exploring cognitive processes.
Follow-up exercise: Have students perform the visual search task. Which search is easy and which is more difficult? Have you observed when you made mistakes and why? What does this exercise tell us about the role of attention in feature binding?
Cognitivefun! is a website with free resources for students and instructors. It provides demos in perception, attention, and memory.
Follow-up exercise: Ask students to perform the flanker compatibility task and discuss their results. What conditions were the easiest and why? What does this task reveal about the nature of our attention?
This is part of the “NOVA Online” coverage of a ‘97 Mount Everest expedition; the Stroop test was one of many neuropsychological tests given to the climbers at varying altitudes. The site includes links to many fascinating items about the Everest expedition, as well as other neuropsychological tests given to the climbers.
Follow-up exercise: Have students discuss other contexts in which this type of neuro-behavioral test could be used.
Chapter 5. Memory Structures and Processes
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This slide show demonstrates the partial report method developed by Sperling (1960) to examine the capacity of iconic memory.
This slide show demonstrates how many items STM holds, and how the capacity of STM can be extended.
NASA Human Factors provides examples of how cognitive processes work.
Follow-up exercise: The above mentioned experiment is trying to show how different types of information stick in your head. What methods did you use to remember the information? Was the method useful? Would you use another method now?
GoCognitive is a website with various demos exploring cognitive processes.
Follow-up exercise: Have students perform the n-back task. What does this task test? What do you have to do in order to perform well? Does attention play a role in successful performance?
GoCognitive is a website with various demos exploring cognitive processes.
Follow-up exercise: Have students try the working memory capacity exercise. How did they do? What is working memory useful for? What can working memory capacity predispose people to? Is it beneficial?
Try these memory puzzles to learn more about the subsytems of working memory.
An adaptation of Shepard and Metzler's classic study.
GoCognitive is a website with various demos exploring cognitive processes.
Follow-up exercise: Have students try the implicit memory task. How does this task reflect our memory? Is it an intentional or incidental form of memory?
Chapter 6. Long-Term Memory: Influences on Retrieval
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ASA Human Factors provides examples of how cognitive processes work.
Follow-up exercise: Perform interference. How does interference work? Do you have any everyday examples of interference?
In this slide show demo, the serial position effect is demonstrated and explained.
ASA Human Factors provides examples of how cognitive processes work.
Follow-up exercise: Have students perform mnemonizer. What in the basis of this exercise? How are you supposed to memorize the information based on this mnemonizer? What are other mnemotechniques you use in your studying?
The Exploratorium is a website offering playful exploration of how the world works.
Follow-up exercise: Explore the different ways of improving your memory. Do you use any of these techniques? When can each be useful?
Chapter 7. Memory Errors
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GoCognitive is a website with various demos exploring cognitive processes.
Follow-up exercise: Have students try the DRM procedure. What is the main purpose of this task? Why is it that we misremember or even make up information or an event? What does this indicate about human memory? Are there any other instances when human memory is not perfectly reliable?
This experiment highlights one methodology that biases people to recall things that did not occur.
False memory resources. [Cautionary note: Much of the web material on repressed/false memories--over 3 million pages now!--is heavily slanted toward one side of the debate or the other; instructors should caution students to think critically about any extreme claims regarding the prevalence of repressed memories or false memories. A few of the more interesting web sources are listed below:]
“Remembering Dangerously.” This is the full text of a very accessible article by Elizabeth Loftus, originally published in the Skeptical Inquirer in March, 1995. It presents an analogy between the “repressed memory movement” and the Salem witch trials, now a classic argument of false memory advocates. Not much laboratory data, but a few nice case study examples.
“Repressed memories and recovered memory therapy (RMT).” Skeptical summary of RMT techniques and court decisions related to repressed memory claims. Good list of references regarding false memories.
“False Memory Syndrome Facts” web page. Clearly slanted, but does have links to some good articles and resources, and even "comic relief."
Follow-up exercise: Ask students to read one or more of these resources and briefly report on what they find. You might even organize a formal debate on the existence of repressed memories or the extent of the “problem” of false memories.
Website of Gary Wells, an Iowa State University professor who has been the leading researcher on eyewitness testimony.
Follow-up exercise: Have students perform the eyewitness testimony task. Were they able to identify the perpetrator? What factors can bias our ability to identify perpetrators? How is this task different from an actual eyewitnessing and testimony?
Chapter 8. Imagery
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Thinker is a resource intended to assist students with their mastery and appreciation for the field of cognitive psychology.
Follow-up exercise: Ask students to perform the exercise above. How is this memory strategy useful? When could it be used for the greatest benefit?
Chapter 9. Language
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How do we use information we already know about words to help us interpret incoming language? Find out by performing the word superiority experiment.
PsyToolkit is developed by Gijsbert Stoet, a psychologist working at the University of Glasgow. This offering introduces students to the lexical decision task, and offers a demo and additional readings.
Chapter 10. Concepts and Knowledge
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This is a web site for students, teachers, and others interested in the causes and consequences of prejudice. The website has many resources regarding stereotyping and prejudice. A few experiments are applicable when discussing stereotypes as relevant to Chapter 10.
Follow-up exercise: Ask students to perform the implicit association test and ask them to discuss their results.
Where does expertise come from? Try this demonstration to find out.
This is the home page for free educational tools useful in Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience classes. It includes free access to materials for students, educators, and researchers in cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience.
Follow-up exercise: For chapter 10, you may wish to pick the Implicit Dot Clearing experiment and run it in class. This experiment can be used to demonstrate network approaches: spreading activation. Once a concept is activated, its subsequent processing is facilitated.
Thinker is an excellent resource intended to assist students with their mastery and appreciation for the field of cognitive psychology.
Follow-up exercise: Ask students to run the Basic Model Demonstration in order to understand the organization of concepts in the mind. Ask them how this explains the phenomenon of priming.
Chapter 11. Problem Solving
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This is the home page for free educational tools useful in Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience classes. It includes free access to materials for students, educators, and researchers in cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience.
Follow-up exercise: Ask students to perform the Tower of Hanoi exercise. Ask how they learned the task and how they approached the problem. What helped them to become expert at the task?
Thinker is an excellent resource intended to assist students with their mastery and appreciation of the field of cognitive psychology.
Follow-up exercise: Ask students to perform the Heuristics exercise. Give them approx. 5 minutes to figure out the problem. Have them discuss the steps that led to solving the problem. What steps did they use?
Thinker is an excellent resource intended to assist students with their mastery and appreciation for the field of cognitive psychology.
Follow-up exercise: Ask students to perform the Algorithm exercise. Give them approx. 5 minutes to figure out the problem. Have them discuss the steps that led to solving the algorithm. What steps did they use? How did this process differ from the previous exercise?
This is a webpage designed by Prof. Gayle Dow from Indiana University. It offers many interesting demos concerning thinking and problem solving.
Follow-up exercise: Ask students to perform the Insight problems. Have them solve each task without resorting to the solution option.
Questions: How is Insight different from Heuristics or Algorithms? Did you use different strategies when solving each individual task (spatial, mathematical)? When do you think using insight to solve problems work best?
Chapter 12. Reasoning and Decision Making
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On each turn of the game, you and Serendip must choose, without knowing the other's choice, between cooperating with each other and trying to take advantage of each other.
Thinker is an excellent resource intended to assist students with their mastery and appreciation for the field of cognitive psychology.
Follow-up exercise: Ask students to perform the exercise above (representativeness heuristics). Have them discuss what affected their decision.
Thinker is an excellent resource intended to assist students with their mastery and appreciation for the field of cognitive psychology.
Follow-up exercise: Ask students to perform the exercise above (Availability heuristics). Have them discuss what affected their decision.
Thinker is an excellent resource intended to assist students with their mastery and appreciation for the field of cognitive psychology.
Follow-up exercise: Ask students to perform the exercise above (Framing effect). Have them discuss what affected their decision. Where can we utilize framing effect?
Thinker is an excellent resource intended to assist students with their mastery and appreciation for the field of cognitive psychology.
Follow-up exercise: Ask students to perform the exercise above (Anchoring bias). Have them discuss what affected their decision. Are there other instances in life when their decision is affected by an anchor? What life experience they have that were affected by anchoring effect/bias?