Psychology Lecture 10: Associative Memory

Lecture 10: Associative Memory

• Associative memory is an implicit model of the world, condensing a lifetime of experiences, not conscious.
• Semantic memory is an explicit model of the world, including general knowledge and consciousness, and can be verbalized.
• Culture significantly influences associative learning, strengthening associations through repeated exposure and weakening them through lack of exposure.
• Intuitive judgments (System 1) are influenced by associative memory, with deliberate judgments (System 2) potentially correcting errors.

Reading 1: Associative Processes in Intuitive Judgment

• System 1 operates automatically, using associative memory for quick judgments.
• System 2 is deliberate and controlled, tasked with correcting potential errors from System 1, but often fails.
• Associative coherence explains biases, as a stimulus triggers a self-reinforcing network of related ideas and responses.
• Attribute substitution occurs when faced with a challenging question; the mind substitutes it with an easier one, leading to heuristic judgments.
• Processing fluency, the ease of processing information, influences judgments by making familiar or easy-to-process things seem more familiar, true, or good.

Lecture 11: Heuristics vs. Statistics

• Availability heuristic, processing fluency, and attribute substitution are mental shortcuts.
• The concepts of "dangerous" and "safe" can be culturally based, disconnecting from factual statistics.
• The use of probability estimation terms can be misleading, especially in the context of events that are described using such estimations.
• Our intuitive judgments are not always based on statistical probabilities, but are culturally influenced.

Lecture 12: Motivated Reasoning

• Dominant culture may tend to avoid or not value the physiological reality of human newborns.
• Cultural values motivate attributing positive outcomes to dominant cultural values and negative outcomes to non-dominant ones.
• Accuracy motivation involves seeking an accurate explanation, requiring cognitive effort/complex thinking.
• Directional motivation seeks a specific explanation, potentially leading to biased memory/conclusion-driven reasoning.

Lecture 13: Medical Knowledge (Part 1)

• The risk of intervening in labor can be under-estimated while the risk of not intervening can be over-estimated.
• Induction of labor can overestimate the risk of stillbirth.
• Medical practice can involve the precautionary principle or the anti-cautionary principle with regards to assumed risk of a practice (vs safety/benefit of the procedure).

Lecture 14: Medical Knowledge (Part 2)

• Historically, midwives would wait until the umbilical cord stopped pulsating before clamping.
• Cord clamping before the physiological closure of the umbilical vessels is a common practice.
• Active management of the third stage of labor involves the administration of uterotonic drugs, early cord clamping/cutting, controlled traction of the umbilical cord and aims to prevent postpartum hemorrhage.
• The quality of evidence related to the effectiveness of interventions in childbirth is not always high or well understood.

Lecture 15: Medicolegal Pressures (Part 1)

• There are different levels of evidence in medicine, with Randomized Controlled Trials considered the most accurate.
• Expert opinions (without data) have the lowest level of accuracy.
• Medicolegal pressures affect physician behavior and decisions when considering the legal and financial risks of lawsuits, with potential risks in litigation even if the patient/family does not actively pursue a lawsuit.

Reading 2: Misguided Medicine

• Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) was widely used but then studies revealed significant risks, particularly for breast cancer, heart disease, and stroke.
• Peanut allergies in young children may be reduced by early exposure to peanuts.
• Keyhole surgical procedures for osteoarthritis of the knee may not be demonstrably better than other approaches
• Routinely checking for cancer using tests such as mammograms and PSA tests may not always be the best approach for early detection: many cancers detected in such procedures could remain without treatment
• Heart stents are still overly used despite having limited benefits
• Vertebroplasty may not be a more effective solution than other approaches

Reading 3: A Woman In Residence, Ch 4

• Detailed description of a delivery procedure
• Standardized set of criteria used to assess and score the condition of the baby (Apgar score).

Reading 4: Informed consent and refusal in obstetrics

• Women have the autonomy to make decisions about their bodies, including refusing medical procedures.
• Subjectivity is essential in risk perception and benefit evaluation; different women will have different acceptable levels of risk.
• Ethical considerations in medical practice related to coercion in decision making and balance of respect for autonomy vs need for recommendations in the presence of conflicting values.

Guideline Flexibility

• Guidelines in obstetrics should, where possible and with appropriate safeguards, allow for patient preferences.

Lecture 16: Medicolegal pressures (part 2)

• Ultrasound technology relies on sound wave reflection and echoes.
• The "Georgia Case" exemplifies the legal and moral complexities in childbirth.

Lecture 17: Reasoning About Childbirth

• Discussion of the history and legal status of abortions in several contexts.
• Precedent in the legal system and the role of court decisions in defining the legal status of pregnancy.
• Pregnant people's human rights in different periods and countries.
• Case studies provide different legal viewpoints and legal reasoning.

Lecture 18: Childbirths Experience

• A variety of approaches and preferences in childbirth exist, including scheduled C-sections, home births, and unassisted births.
• Legal and societal contexts impact the possible choices for delivery procedures, considering preferences and rights of the individual.