intro.psych (Psyco 105) Discussion

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Are the measures appropriate for addressing the research questions?

intro.psych (Psyco 105) Discussion: Group 1 Discussion Group: Reading the Research-DID: Are the measures appropriate for addressing the research questions?

By Admin on Thursday, November 12, 1998 - 10:29 am:

Sort the tasks out here. What tasks did Eich et al. use? Why did they include the tasks they did?

This discussion is for marks

Back to the Method

By Jep on Sunday, November 22, 1998 - 01:44 pm:

Well Eich et al. gave the personality a list of 40 words as well as drawings. There were 20 decks each ended in one picture. By giving one personality the words and pictures and the other personality different words and pictures the experimenter was able to ask each personality questions pertaining to the related group of words/pictures, to see what each personality remembered from each set, either from the same personality or the other. I wasn't to sure exactly what the question was, and if in fact it was directly related to someone with DID or just with the memory and how it works in general.

By Ivanka on Sunday, November 22, 1998 - 08:28 pm:

The tasks use were supposed to test for implicit and explicit memory between personalities. The priming tasks such as word-stem and picture fragment were intended to test for implicit memory.

By Jep on Sunday, November 22, 1998 - 10:04 pm:

It seems to me that the test was not testing for both but only implicit memory.

By Ivanka on Monday, November 23, 1998 - 10:19 am:

Right! I was a little confused about that.

By Ivanka on Monday, November 23, 1998 - 10:53 am:

I'm still confused but maybe they used the tasks they did to see which personalities were "allowed" to use which parts of the brain. They used both tests involving language and visual stimuli perhaps with the intention of separating right and left hemisphere brain tasks. The right hemisphere is known for visual analysis of information and the left is used for language. Perhaps a person with DID shuts off access of these parts of the brain depending on which personality has heard or seen harmful things.

By Jep on Monday, November 23, 1998 - 11:54 am:

That could be true. I am kinda confused to, but it kinda makes sense what you are saying. I think that maybe they could turn certain parts of the "brain" memory on and off as they see fit. It may be that if the individual uses it to turn on and off memories from the past to protect "themselves" they may also be able to do this with the language and visual effects of the testing.

I understand what was done and what was asked of the patients but I'm not really sure why they were asked this.

By Ivanka on Tuesday, November 24, 1998 - 07:57 pm:

Even though the person is displaying different personalities that seem to lead entirely different lives, it is still the same person deep down inside on a subconscious level. This is my understanding of implicit memory. The memories that are universal to all the personalities. This is my first exposure to this illness so if I'm way off here, let me know. I guess they would be testing it to see how it exists and what kind of memories are kept between the personalities. I missed the video because I was sick so if I missed something vital pertaining to this could you post it? Than

By Jep on Tuesday, November 24, 1998 - 10:34 pm:

I think you have a pretty good view of the film, not much was missed, if you have a good idea what DID is. I agree with what you are saying Ivanka, and that is my understanding of what is going on with the individual, being the same deep in the subconscious.

By Ivanka on Wednesday, November 25, 1998 - 10:44 am:

I guess they did test for explicit memory. This is taken from a section of this site written by Admin.

Explicit Memory -

Eich et al. analyzed free recall of the words
that the participants had rated on visual imagery and pleasantness as a measure of explicit memory. The results are show in the left part of Figure 1, cued recall. Personality 1(P1) could remember close to 50% of the words he/she had previously encountered but couldn't recall many words that Personality 2(P2) had encountered. Similarly, P2 couldn't recall the words P1 had rated.

So the cued recall was to test explicit and the stem completion was to test for implicit.

Man, I must have been tired the first times I read this!

So I guess that they used these tests to test for interpersonality amnesia and priming. They chose the tests they did so that they could tell the diference between guessing and recollection. They also wanted to see what types of memories could be transfered between personalities. they basically fornd what the subjects claimed . . their explicit memory did not transfer between personalities but their implicit or more ambiguous memories did on more occasions.

I hope I have this straigh

By Jep on Wednesday, November 25, 1998 - 11:20 am:

This would make sense because they would want to blank out the more explicit memories. Although I don't know how they could block out everything. Maybe they have to so that there isn't a "leak" of information anywhere to any personality?.