EMA Part 1
For this
part of the EMA you should write an essay with the title below.
Title:
‘Neuropsychology offers the only suitable way to study human memory.’
Critically evaluate this statement, drawing on evidence from biological and
cognitive psychology.
For your
essay, you must draw on material from Weeks 3 and 4 of the module. In addition,
you should draw on and discuss at least two academic journal articles or
equivalent primary source material not referred to in the DE300 module
materials. These need to be highlighted in the reference list for the EMA
markers.
The word
limit for this essay is 2000 words, excluding the reference list but including
in-text citations.
Student notes
The
question requires you to critically evaluate the statement that
‘neuropsychology offers the only suitable way to study human memory’, drawing
on evidence from both biological and cognitive psychology. In doing
this, it may help you to think about the different methods and techniques
commonly used in biological and cognitive psychology, the types of knowledge
they produce, and their strengths and limitations in terms of
what they can and cannot reveal about memory. You are being asked to carry out
a critical evaluation, which means you need to consider both sides
of the argument – i.e. consider the merits of the view that memory is a
biological process and the merits of the view that it is a cognitive process.
With
respect to biological psychology, you have encountered some examples of how
memory has been explored from this perspective in Week 3 of the module, for
instance in the videos in the Week 3 Study Guide and the corresponding textbook
chapter.
Chapter 2
and the videos explore clinical and neuropsychological investigations into
memory and consider the relationship between memory (and forgetting!) and the
brain. Note that there is a lot of potentially relevant material in Week 3 and
you will not be able to cover everything, so you will need to be discerning
about what you choose to include in your answer. You should be guided by the
essay question, and the need to construct a coherent argument, with lots of
evaluation.
In terms of
cognitive psychology, you should consider material from Week 4. That week
explores the contributions that research on eyewitness testimony and facial
recognition has made to understanding of memory. You may find the material on
prosopagnosia especially useful, as it cuts across the biological and cognitive
domains. Consider how cognitive psychologists conceive and study memory,
whether for faces or events, and then contrast that with the work of
neuropsychologists. This is a key point to address, and unpack, as you explore
whether memory is a biological or a cognitive process, or both.
As the
question requires you to draw on studies from two specific weeks of the module
(and possibly others), you will need to present a succinct overview of
biological and cognitive psychological approaches to memory, and carefully
select some illustrative examples to focus on in your essay. As the word limit
is only 2000 words, you will need to be selective, keep your points directly
relevant to the question, and to summarise your evaluation effectively.
It is up to
you how you decide to structure your essay; however, keep in mind that you are
expected to integrate the material from Weeks 3 and 4, and draw on evidence
from across the two psychological domains (i.e. biological psychology and
cognitive psychology). To write a coherent essay, avoid presenting two sets of
unrelated studies and/or theories from the two domains. Rather, develop your
argument by synthesising across the content of Week 3 and 4 of the
module. It could be useful to consider, for example, how the different
psychological domains understand memory and treat it as a research subject. How
are they different or similar? By considering such questions, you will be able
to make links and formulate arguments across the biological and cognitive
domains, and therefore craft an essay that reads as a coherent whole. There are
different ways you could integrate and critically evaluate the material from
different weeks of the module, and there is not one right way. Whatever you do,
it is important to keep your essay focused on addressing the essay question
and to focus more on critical evaluation than on description.
Finally,
please remember that for this essay you are expected to conduct library
research of your own into relevant material beyond the module resources, and to
include two primary sources not referred to in the DE300 materials. You
will need to do some systematic searching for relevant source materials that
support the arguments you make, and your choices should be well-integrated into
the points you are making in the essay – the purpose is to support your
argument effectively, not just to satisfy a marking requirement. Remember how
important it is to evaluate the source, nature and reliability of all the
material that you find through searching. The primary sources you should draw
on are likely to be psychology journal articles, though they could be chapters
from academic psychology books – not textbooks. You could also consider more
recent works by the authors mentioned in the DE300 textbook, providing they are
relevant to the essay question.
To help the
marker to identify the new material, please highlight the two sources in the
reference list at the end of your essay.