IA

French and Richards (1993)

Clock Experiment

Schema Theory, a principle which defines cognitive level of analysis is that “cognitive processes are influenced by social and cultural factors”. Frederic Barltlett came up with the term schema which he defined as a mental representation of knowledge. An experiment he did showed that people had trouble remembering a story from another culture and they reconstructed the story to fit in with their own cultural schemas. With this he showed that memory is not like a recorder but rather when a memory makes sense to them and has meaning they are more likely to remember it. Also, Barlett claims this is why memory is subject to distortions.

            French and Richards (1993) performed an experiment based on this theory. They wanted to investigate if schema theory affected short term memory. Their experiment consisted of having three conditions these were:

• First Condition : In this condition participants were shown a clock with roman numerals and asked to draw the clock from memory
• Second Condition: This condition participants were shown the same clock, except the participants were told before hand that they would have to draw the clock from memory
• Third Condition: Third condition was left with a fullview on the clock and was asked to draw it.

The clock used represented the number four with IIII, not the conventional IV. For the first two conditions the clock was left on the board for 5-6 minutes before it was taken out. In the first two conditions, the majority of participants drew the number four in the conventional IV roman numerals. French and Richards explained this result in terms of schemata knowledge of roman numerials showing how it affects the memory of the participants. These results also show that even though the roman numeral IV was drawn instead of IIII it does not mean that the brain created a false memory but rather used the schema theory to fill in the gaps of knowledge as the conventional IV is better known than the IIII. 

Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer’s disease is a mental deterioration, usually seen in old aged people. So far, there is not a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, there are method to slow it down but the memory loss, confusion and cognitive decline will remain there and continue to develop. Some doctors give advices to try to prevent symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. However, some analysis made by the government claims that there is not enough evidence so far to support the idea of exercising, crossword puzzles and eating habits being ways in which one could prevent the disease.

            So far, not much investigation and money has been put into Alzheimer’s. what some scientists believe, is that eventually, Alzheimer’s disease will be one of the things that will worry Americans as much as cancer or heart diseases. This is due to Americas increase of life rate. This means people are also more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease, this concerns Americans as their Alzheimer’s disease and dementia rates increase.

            A phrase that can be linked to memory is that one that says “use it or lost it”. This means that you should use your brain and memory more often in order to avoid gradual age-related mental diseases. Some things doctors have recommended to do are keeping a mind always active, exercise frequently, eating certain foods and consume certain types of vitamins. On the other hand, other experimenters have tried to find the opposing factors (those which will are likely to lead to Alzheimer’s disease) or any other kind of cognitive disease. The results were that those people who smoked, have diabetes, depression, metabolic syndrome or a certain type of gene, have a greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

            Personally, I think that people will try to do whatever they can to avoid the disease. However, there is not a definite way to treat it or prevent it from happening. Hopefully, scientist will be able to develop new ways in which the disease can be treated or ways in which one can prevent the disease more effectively.

Response to the video

Memory is related to breathing because it is a thing we do everyday at every moment of our lives and becaue we don’t know how we remember things.

                What is stored In the brain are not just memories. Those are factors that make up your everyday life. Remembering does not begin straight away. At an early age, childhood amnesia is developed first. It refers to the fact that adults cannot remember what they did when they were 5 years old of before.

                Professor Mark Ho, looks for the key chain that enables memory to begin in children and made an experiment. The test consisted of self recognition, by making the baby realize that he/she is someone as babies are not very aware of their surroundings. Then the mother would put a tissue on the babies nose and will have a mark on their noses. When they were shown a mirror and the babies would see the dirt mark on their noses. Most children would point at the mirror rather than themselves. Only two of the babies who did the experiment were able to realize there was something wrong in their face and noticed the dirt mark on themselves rather than pointing it our in the mirror.

                An image of self is needed before being able to recall one’s own memories. Before we might have memories of events and things but the researchers discuss that they do not have any emotional memories and therefore not meaningful to us unless we have a perception of who we are. 

Some Short-Term Memories Die Suddenly, No Fading

The human brain stores some kinds of memories for a lifetime. But when our eyes are open and looking at things, our gray matter also creates temporary memories that help us process complex tasks during the few seconds these visual memories exist. For decades, scientists have held that such short-term memories don’t suddenly disappear, but grow gradually more imprecise over the course of several seconds.  ScienceDaily (Apr. 30, 2009) 

According to the quote above, short-term memories gradually fade away. But researchers at the University of California have found that exactly the opposite happens. They did an experiment in which the participants had to retain temporary memories of an object’s colour or retain the shape of the object for four seconds. Afterwards, participants stated that the memories began to “wink out” and they were able to remember the shapes and colours accurately until at some point they suddenly disappeared.

                Another experiment done by Weiwei Chang and Steve Luck at UC Davis Center for mind and Brain. Their experiment consisted of asking 12 adult participants to answer a pair of tests which would separately measure the accuracy of a short-term memory and the probability that the memory still existed or went on to the long-term memory.  The first experiment consisted of flashing three different squares each filled with a different colour. They flashed the image for a tenth of a second  and in intervals of one, four or 10 seconds a wheel showing a spectrum of colours appeared. Afterwards, the three squares would reappear however, uncoloured,  and with one of the squares highlighted. Participants had to recall the colour of the highlighted square and clock the area of the spectrum that looked mostly like the colour they recalled. This process was carried out about 150 times for each of the three memory retention intervals. Results showed that when participants were able to retain a memory of colour they would click a colour very close to the one shown. The distance between the clock and the colour indicated the accuracy of memory. But when the participants were unable to recall the colour they would just click at a random part of the wheel.

                The second test carried out by Chang and Luck was similar to the first one, The only difference was that they used shapes instead of colours. The results were similar to the first one and Luck stated that the participants “either had the memory or did not have it” and the probability of having a memory decreased in a matter of four to ten seconds was very low. Therefore, memories do not gradually fade away. These findings help into the research of memory formation and retention and this would help in everyday life as it will prevent us from making decisions based on weak, inaccurate and unreliable memories.

The Memories You Want To Forget Are The Hardest Ones To Lose

Painful, emotional memories that people would most like to forget may be the toughest to leave behind, especially when memories are created through visual cues, according to a new study by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. ScienceDaily (Aug. 16, 2007) 

                Keith Payne, an assistant professor of psychology in the College of Arts and Science, carried out an experiment which discuss whether emotional memories can be intentionally forgotten like those memories which are not as relevant to our everyday life. Those neutral memories can be from wrong directions, an outdated phone number or the change of a meeting time. It is believed that this intentional forgetting, allows an update on memory for new information to be stored. However, Payne and Elizabeth Corrigan (a graduate psychology student) found that there are emotional events not as strong, like getting a bad grade or having a negative comment from someone could make it complicated to intentionally forget that memory.

                As  Payne and Corrigan explain, when people are intentionally trying to forget information they have to segregate information into what they want to remember and what they don’t want and block off that information they don’t want to retrieve later on. When emotion is involved in a memory, these two factors which help the intentional forgetting of memory are disables as people make connections between their emotional events and their everyday life and because of this, there is a complication when trying to separate the information, hence difficult to forget that memory.

                A few experiments were done prior to this one. However, those studies used emotion-laden words as stimulus such as “death”and “sex”. Whereas, Payne and Corrigan’s experiment asked 218 participants to see a set of pictures and then their expressions were recorded. This was because pictures will have a stronger impact on the participants than the letters used in previous experiments. For instance, the word “murder” could or could not have made the participants feel any fear or negative emotions in them. On the other hand, if a graphic picture of a murder is shown to the participant the effect and emotion will probably be more noticeable and change the way the participants feels.

                The results of the experiment showed that participants could not forget emotional events as easy as those memories which were “ordinary”. Another finding was that both pleasant and unpleasant memories are not easily forgotten intentionally. These findings contribute to see the ways in which emotions confine mental control and answer the question whether intentional forgetting can be helpful when treating painful or traumatic experiences. Findings also show that emotion puts limits on the ability we have to control the contents of our minds. Payne also pointed out that if motivation is powerful enough then intentional forgetting could also be applied to those memories which are strongly connected to emotion. Finally, he pointed out the fact that another experiment might be needed to test the strategies and effectiveness on treatments to voluntarily forget memories. 

The Language Of Emotion: Ad Slogans In Native Tongues Connect To Consumers' Emotions

“In our globalized world, consumers are exposed to marketing messages in many languages. But a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research says messages expressed in people's native languages are most effective at triggering emotional reactions.” ScienceDaily (Dec. 22, 2008)

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            This experiment was carried out in the Netherlands by Stefano Puntoni, Bart de Langhe and Stijn Van Osselaer. Their experiment consisted of studying the effects of different slogans on participants whose 1^st language was different than the one from the slogans (language in the slogans was participants in their 2^nd language). According to their results, in general, when a message is expressed to a consumer, if the message is shown in his native language; the participant is more likely to perceive that message more emotionally than if it was shown in their second language.  

            Researchers believe that these results have nothing to do with the participants skill with the language or the ability to understand an advertisement when hearing it in their second language. However, it was found that the ads that were in the participants first language have an emotional advantage on consumers due to the fact that emotions are also linked with memories, therefore, as researchers believe. When a person is reading or hearing a word, a memory is triggered unconsciously in which that word pays a role. As consumers have more personal experience with their first language, the words they use have more personal memories, hence why a marketing message in a native language is perceived to be more emotional.

            Other findings showed that this effect is more likely to appear in women than in men as women have a stronger emotional memory.  This is a good thing for marketing as they can use this to catch the attention of women and advertise their products. Also, it was found that it did not matter which one was the first language (Frenc h or Ducth). The slogans were always perceived more emotionally in the first language than in the second. A real life application for this would be when trying to make business with a foreign company as if there is someone who speaks and knows the slogans in the first language of the business man then they are more likely to empathize and become eager to make business.

What is memory - How does it work?

1.                Explain the concept of sensory memory.
- Sensory memory is the ability to store stimuli as memories. Sensory receptors sense this stimuli which could be detected as iconic memory or echoic memory.

2.      Give an example of sensory memory.
- An example of sensory memory could be when listening to a tune and remembering it. (echoic memory)

3. What is the capacity of our sensory memory?
-  the capacity of sensory memory is fairly large, however it is only able to hold images or sounds for a short period of time before turning it into short-term memory or letting it decay.

4. Describe the concept of short-term memory.
- The ability to hold a small amount of information in the brain and use it in a short period of time. It is believed that the duration of the short term memory only lasts a few seconds           

5. What is the "magic number" as it relates to short-term memory and who conducted the experiment which established this measurement?
- The number that relates to short-term memory is 7+/- 2. Miller(1956) conducted this experiment and stated that most people only store up to 7 independent items in short memory, these may be numbers, letters, words, etc.

6. What is chunking?
- Organizing things in a way one can be familiarized with.

7. What has been determined to be the ideal size of "chunks" for both letters and numbers?
- The idea size of chunks has been determined to be 4 +/- 1.

8. Which mode of encoding does short-term memory mostly rely on, acoustic or visual?
- acoustic

9. Explain the duration and capacity of long-term memory.
- Long term memory’s capacity is believed to be infinite and the duration is long enough to last a lifetime.

10. Explain in detail the Atkinson-Shiffrin Model of memory.
- Atkinsosn and Shiffrins Multi Store Model is based in the assumptions that memory is a number of separate stores and memories are sequential. The stores are thought of components which interact with the memory store through attentions, coding and rehearsal. The way the model works is of information accessing the sensory memory thorugh different senses like vision and hearing. This is called modality specific. The information will stay in the sensory memory briefly and some part of it will be sent to the short term memory store. When the information is in the STM, it can be easily lost within 6-12 seconds if its not rehearsed. Lastly, the information will go to the Long term memory store which could be thought of as an enormous storehouse for information.

11. Identify three criticisms or limitations of the Atkinson-Shiffrin Model of memory.
- A limitation is that the model can suggest how memory processes function. However, it won’t be anything more than a “model”.

- Experiments are criticized for being reductionists.

- Models are way too vague and cannot accurately describe complex events in memory.

12.Explain the Levels of Processing Model of memory.
- The levels of processing effect refers to the memory recall of stimuli as a function of the depth of mental processing. This is determined by connections such as preexisting memory, time spent processing the stimulus, cognitive effort and sensory input mode.

It contradicts Atkinson-shiffrin memory model in the representation of memory strength as continuously variable. Divided into Maintenance rehearsal and elaborative rehearsal.

13. What is maintenance rehearsal - give an example.
- Type of rehearsal proposed by Craik and Lockhart (1972) in levels of processing model of memory. It involves the repetition of an item’s auditory representation. This type of rehearsal does not lead to stronger or durable memories.

14. What is elaborative rehearsal - give an example.
- Type of rehearsal, also proposed by Craik and Lockhart (1972) in contrast to maintenance rehearsal, which involves simple rote repetition. Elaborative involves deep sematic processing of an item that has to be remembered, producing durable and stronger memories.

15. Who developed the Levels of Processing Model and the concepts of maintenance and elaborative rehearsal?

- Craik and Lockhart (1972)

http://penta.ufrgs.br/edu/telelab/3/elaborat.htm

http://penta.ufrgs.br/edu/telelab/3/maintena.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levels-of-processing_effect

http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/chunking.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunking_(psychology)

http://www.s-cool.co.uk/alevel/psychology/human-memory/short-term-memory.html 

The Stroop Effect

The stroop effect is named after John Ridley Stroop. In the experiment he first did he asked people to read the written colour regardless of what the colour of the word was. In his second experiment he asked participants to say the colour of the words instead of the word and when they were shown a coloured square, they had to name the colour of the square. His third experiment just tested the same participants after they had some practice to investigate the effects of association. A difference that JR Stroop did in his experiment that is that he did not put time into account.

The results showed that people had more trouble when they tried to say the colour of the word rather than the word itself, psychologists believe that this sort of interference is caused by an area of the brain which focuses on written language, here is where the brain determines the meaning of the words. So there is a struggle between the right hemisphere and left hemisphere of the brain as one hemisphere reads the word and the other one looks at the colour.

In this experiment two theories are seen. These are Speed of Processing Theory (interference occurs because words are read faster than colors are named) and “Selective Attention Theory” (interference occurs because naming colors requires more attention than reading words)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroop_effect

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/words.html

Observations of the BaMbuti Pygmies

Colin Turnbull was an Englishman born in London who studied philosophy, politics and music. He was an important intellectual figure during the 60s and 70s and he studied anthropology at Oxford university, he then specialized in the African field, he got interested in this field when he traveled to East Africa, the Congo, the Sudan and Egypt on a motorcycle trip in 1951, that was when he first met the Pygmies.

         Bambuti pygmies are a group of indigenous people of the Congo region in Africa. Their groups are relatively small, consisting of 15 – 60 people. They live within the forest; and this has influenced their perception, as they cannot see objects very far away, allowing Turnbull to investigate perception in more depth. He observed that the pygmies have never seen a very wide view. In other words, they were so used to live in the forest they never got the chance to go outside and see other things. An example is when Kenge noticed the buffalo far away and thought they were insects of some sort, but when they got closer to them and he saw the buffalo getting bigger and bigger as they approached he was dazzled. He could not believe what he was seeing because throughout his entire live he always had objects an animals very close to him so when he saw something far away, it looked small to him, hence why he thought the buffalos were insects.

         This study was important as it shows and supports other experiments which say that perception can deceive us. 

The Myth of Multitasking

1. Why is multitasking considered by many psychologists to be a myth?


Because as Lord Chesterfield said “There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.” Meaning that multitasking exists but only to some extent and as we “multitask” our performance in both activities decreases.



2. To what does the term "response selection bottleneck" refer?

It refers to the reaction of the brain towards multiple stimuli. As all these stimuli are forced into the brain, the brain “switches between tasks” which leads to a massive loss of time from what the original task was.



3. David Meyer has found that multitasking contributes to the release of stress hormones and adrenaline. Why is this important?

Because it affects the mortality rate of people due to the cause of long-term health problems and loss of short-term memory.



4. Explain what Russell Podrack found regarding multitasking.

He showed that even if people “multitask” their productivity will be relatively low and they won’t be able to store the information in the Long-term memory. His experiment consisted of observing the brain by scanning it. His results showed that when people are distracted the striatum shows activity (an area of the brain used for learning new skills). Whereas when people are not being distracted their hippocampus is being used (area of the brain used for storing and recalling information).



5. What does the author conclude could happen to our culture as a result of increased multitasking?

The author believes that if multitasking increases we could end up depending on technology to do our everyday routine. Meaning we will have access to new information but we won’t be able to reason wisely.

Colin Turnbull

http://www.colinturnbull.com/


http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/pqrst/turnbull_colin.html

Colin Turnbull was an Englishman born in London who studied philosophy, politics and music. He was an important intellectual figure during the 60s and 70s and he studied anthropology at Oxford university, he then specialized in the African field, he got interested in this field when he traveled to East Africa, the Congo, the Sudan and Egypt on a motorcycle trip in 1951, that was when he first met the Pygmies. Then in 1954 he returned to Africa to investigate and record the native music and then he went again to study the Pygmie life in more depth. Turnbull made around 6 long trips to the Congo. During these trips he met an African who would later on be his partner. His African partner’s name was Joe Towels and they were partners for 30 years. They lived in New York and rural Virginia but in 1988 Joe Towels died of AIDS. After Towels death, Turnbull went into a deep depression and went to the Dalai Lama’s eldest brother to become a Buddhist monk afterwards he ended up giving away all the money he had and taught music, fieldwork, farming and writing until his own death in 1994 caused by AIDS as well.

Perception IS Reality.

Perception is the way in which an individual sees the world. The brain is so powerful that is able to store memories and necessary skills so that the person can survive. These memories or experiences are what help and make each of us different from another even though we see the same thing or hear the same thing. This suggests an explanation for why some people are passionate about some things and other people are just not interested. The way we see the world is important because only we can appreciate it, we are unable to make others see the world as we do. Which is why the phrase "perception is reality" comes to be true. As we cannot see the world as others do. Our brain just takes in information, connects it to our experience and thats why we decide if we like something or not. For example, when we encounter an image that has different shapes, our brain automatically tries to work out what the object could be and when it finds a shape, that is what we see. However, there are some ways in which perception can be tricked and we see distorted images or images which are not what they look like.

http://www.google.hn/imgres?imgurl=http://www.awakeningstarseeds.com/perception_vase.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.awakeningstarseeds.com/perception.htm&h=300&w=300&sz=3&tbnid=b6ZUU-906Ho9-M:&tbnh=116&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dperception&hl=es&usg=__2aBycEHaowq1FQcWuF64MejlLco=&sa=X&ei=XT5sTO-SBIWclgeHm6gv&ved=0CDUQ9QEwAw

http://www.whitedovebooks.co.uk/articles/sp/perception.htm

Why Psychology?

I've been studying psychology for about a year and I've really liked it so far. The reason why I chose psychology was because I thought it was an interesting subject and I wanted to actually find out what psychology was about. Now that I have a clearer idea of what psychology is and how it is divided. I would like to take that and apply it in what could be potentially my career. However, I'm still unsure how I am going to achieve it as there are many factors that affect my decision. Psychology has helped me understand more things about human behaviour and has shown me possible explanations for every day behaviour.