Memory confusion protocol: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 08:54, 27 June 2008

Revision as of 15:38, 21 July 2008

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The '''memory confusion protocol''' is a technique used by [[Social psychology|social psychologists]] to discover whether subjects[[Human subject research|subject]]s are [[Categorization|categorizing]] individuals[[individual]]s into groups and, if so, what characteristics they are using to do so - without the knowledge of the subjects, in order to reduce the risk that subjects will try to conceal their reasons. The technique has three main steps:

#Subjects are shown photographs[[photograph]]s of the individuals and are asked to form impressions of them.

#The subjects then see a set of sentences[[sentence]]s, each of which is paired with a photograph of the individual who said it.

#Subjects are not forewarned of the final step, a surprise [[Recollection|recall]] task: the sentences are presented in random order, and the subjects must attribute each to the correct individual.

The subjects' mistakes in the recall task reveal how they categorize the individuals: the subjects are more likely to misattribute A's statement to B if they grouped A and B as members of the same category than if they considered them members of different categories.<ref>{{ cite journal | author=Taylor, S., Fiske, S., Etcoff, N., & Ruderman, A. | date=1978 | title=Categorical and contextual bases of person memory and stereotyping | journal=Journal of Personality and Social Psychology | volume=36 | pages=778-793}} A description and example are given at {{ cite journal | title=Can race be erased? Coalitional computation and social categorization | author=Robert Kurzban , John Tooby, and Leda Cosmides | journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | date=December 18, 2001 | volume=98 | issue=26 | pages=15387–15392 | url=http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/papers/eraserace.pdf | accessdate=2008-06-11}}</ref>

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==References==

{{reflist}}

{{uncategorized|date=June 2008}}

[[Category:Social psychology]]