This is similar to last week's assignment.
Of the chapters we have left to cover in your text - please pick one that is most interesting to you and read that for this assignment.
Briefly discuss why you picked this chapter and how it might build on your interests of cognitive psychology.
Of the various aspects of cognitive psychology presented in the chapter, which did you find the most interesting? Why? Which did you find least interesting? Why? What are three things you read about in the chapter that you think will be the most useful for you in understanding the cognitive psychology? Why?
How does this chapter build on and extend what you have been learning this semester in the cognitive psychology class and other class you have taken?
Please make sure you use the terms, terminology and concepts you have learned so far in the class. It should be apparent from reading your post that you are a college student well underway in a course in cognitive psychology.
Please use spaces between your paragraphs to make your post easier to read - thanks in advance.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Decision making is something we all experience on a daily basis. We make decisions throughout the day and some decisions require more reasoning than others. I chose to read more about decision making and reasoning in chapter twelve. After reading this chapter, I think it will help me gain a better understanding as to how our brain works during decision making.
I thought group decision making was the most interesting aspect in this chapter mostly because as a student, many of my classes have required group work and the group decision making is something I can relate to. When individuals are combined as a team, the group has the ability to enhance the effectiveness of decision making and problem solving. This is because each member offers new information and expertise that contributes to the decision making process. Working as a group to make decisions also improves the group memory over individual memory. According to the text, groups who are successful in this process usually exhibit characteristics such as, small group work, open communication, members share a common mind set, identify with the group, and members agree on acceptable behavior. However, there are also some disadvantages in group decision making. A common disadvantage is a term called, groupthink. Groupthink is known as premature decision making that is generally the result of group members attempting to avoid conflict. For example, I can relate to groupthink because often times when a decision making process becomes intense I feel the need to agree with the idea rather than exploring new ideas and creating conflict. Overall, group decision making is a very effective process that companies, organizations, and more use every day. However, it's important that all the members are work as a team and exhibit the characteristics of previous successful decision making groups.
I wasn't nearly as interested in reading about the heuristics and biases of decision making as I was when reading about the other aspects in this chapter. I learned that heuristics and biases help us make effective and intellectual decisions however I thought most of this section was repetitive and wasn't as interesting to read about.
One idea I'll be sure to remember from this chapter is deductive reasoning. This concept involves reaching conclusions from a set of conditional propositions or from a syllogistic pair of premises. Deductive reasoning is helpful and useful because it allows people to connect various propositions to draw conclusions. On the other hand, inductive reasoning was another concept I'll remember from this chapter. This type of reasoning allows us to reach highly probable conclusions through careful reasoning. When we use inductive reasoning, we base our reasoning on observations and since we cannot make a logically certain conclusion we strive to make a highly probable conclusion. Lastly, I'll remember that people use two distinct ways of reasoning which are associative system, and rule-based system. The associative systems allows us to make reasoning based on observed similarities and temporal contiguities whereas rule-based focuses on manipulations based on relations among symbols.
Overall, the entire chapter helped me gain a better understanding how people go about the decision-making process. Also, I learned what strategies work better for decision making, such as group decision making, and the several different ways we use reasoning.
Terms: group decision making, deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning, associative system, rule-based system
I chose chapter 13, Cognitive Development. I enjoy learning about different life stages we go through, beginning from birth and so on, which is one reason why I chose this chapter. I assumed that the chapter would discuss cognitive stages such as how our brain develops beginning from birth to old age. The chapter does in deed discuss our cognitive development but mainly focused on cognitive development during our early years.
The section that discusses the correlation between our environment and our brain development really caught my eye. I had heard before that our surroundings and interactions with the world influence our development but I wasn’t sure exactly how. As studies suggest [using twins’ as participants], it would be false to assume that our environment plays a bigger role in our development than our genes do. I also didn’t know that our environment can determine our brain size!
I found the section that discussed memory in child hood least interesting because I have already read about it in other readings. The ideas presented in the text were relatively the same as other readings I have done. For instance we tend to recall our earliest memory around the age of 39 to 42 months. Also the idea of childhood amnesia is reliant on the type of event.
It’s fascinating that we need stimulation and thought processing to promote connections in our brain. I had heard that brain stimulation is especially important in our elder years, especially for those that are prone to Alzheimer’s. I wasn’t sure if the idea was true or false. I remember a time when my grandma stated that she continues to do crossword puzzles (from her ‘People’ magazine) because its good for her brain; and indeed it is!
I thought about children that grow up in an environment where they are secluded and have no interaction with others. It’s sad because during our younger years, the number of neural connections is at a high; as we age new connections significantly decrease. A lack of stimulation in our early years means a lack of mental capacity in the later.
This chapter discussed the difference between higher order cognition in adults and children. Adults tend to rely more on meaning based representations and children rely more on perceptual representations. One argument suggests that when adults are asked a question they are to find the answer from their long-term memory bank. On the other hand children use imagery to answer the question if it is not stored in their memory.
The chapter is very relevant to real life and how we function. I found the information to be extremely useful and information that should be repeated. Our younger years determine how we will function throughout our lifespan. This can be a very positive notion or quite negative.
Terms: perceptual representation, childhood amnesia, neural connection, cognition/cognitive development
Chapter 13: Cognitive Development
The realm of cognitive development and developmental psychology taps into my own roots of studying the entire field of psychology. In my first collegiate semester back in the Fall of 2003, I took a course on developmental psychology and became extremely intrigued by the theories of Piaget among others. I always like to explore new readings on this topic.
I enjoyed reading about Piaget's stages of cognitive development. It had been a while, but these stages are something I firmly agree with and I feel as though they are quite simple for the common observer to understand. As a father of a 3 year old, I have watched my child "conquer" the sensorimotor stage and move into the pre-operational stage. The maturing of a child's thought processes and their ability to begin problem-solving strategies is the biggest transformation from the first period to the second. I think Piaget's ideas and theories can be a helpful tool to help parents better understand and comprehend the changes their child is going through throughout their development. As I said before, it is a very easily understood theory. Perhaps even the concepts of adaptation and organization would be helpful for parents.
I would not really say that any part of this particular chapter was uninteresting in comparison to any other part. My only delineation would be that I enjoy Piaget's stuides and work more than Vygotsky.
One idea I have always kept in mind regarding cognitive development and particularily in young children and infants is to keep it basic and simple. That is why I always remember the concept of the "tabula rasa" or blank slate. This is the idea that children are devoid of naturalistic tendencies and are shaped by their experiences. While it is difficult to believe this concept 100%, I feel as though we all have a large book inside that we begin to fill as an infant that is separate from any genetic influences we may have.
While I have studied a great deal about developmental psychology, I really enjoy the neuroscience aspects from the book. I did not realize how much the brain physically developed between the first month to nine months of an infants life. The visual perception of this growth gives me a better perspective on how important that first year is.
I had never heard much about prototype formation and found some of those concepts interesting as well. The fact that we can not store everything and rather, as underdeveloped children, we form abstract representations is very valid.
As I previously stated, I had studied a lot of about developmental psychology in the past, but had never discovered many of the neuroscience aspects that were presented in this chapter. Many of the concepts I had read before regarding Piaget and Vygotsky, as well as memory and Lateralization studies were enhanced by this chapter.
Terms: Piaget's stages : Sensorimotor, Pre-operational, Concrete Operational, Formal Operational. Vygotsky, adaptation and organization, tabula rasa, prototype formation.
Reading Activity – Week #14
Topic: Problem Solving
Chapter 13 in my Cognitive Psychology book focused on Problem Solving. Problem Solving can be broken down and described as a mental process that uses problem finding as well as problem shaping to find solutions. Problem Solving is part of a larger problem process and is considered the most complex intellectual function. I found this to be interesting that something that is as common as problem solving is such a complex cognitive strategy. Therefore I became curious and that is why I chose this chapter.
The chapter had a lot of useful information regarding the topic of problem solving. These issues related to Cognitive Psychology in many ways. Problem solving is a purposeful activity and is goal directed, and it involves cognitive processes versus automatic processes. A problem only exists when someone lacks the knowledge to think of a solution. Therefore most people consider a something a problem while others may not. For example, I’m terrible at understanding statistics while someone with more experience (such as a teacher, or mathematician) may not have a problem with understanding the proper steps in order to solve a complex statistical problem. Problem solving as been defined as high-order cognitive processes that require control and the use of more fundamental skills. In my first example of statistics, I struggle with the overall formula and the equations, but the more basic fundamental skills being used are multiplication, subtraction, division, square root, etc.
Of the things talked about in the chapter there were many things that stood out to me as well as many things I could have cared less about. One thing that I didn’t like was the whole topic of Gestalt theory and its relation to problem solving. I think it’s a boring topic, but it seems to come up everywhere within topics in psychology. The Gestalt Theory can be seen in problem solving strategies because in some of the earliest research of problem solving was done by Thorndike. He tested what we now know as the Trial-and-error Learning. He tested this theory by placing a food dish outside of the cage that the cats were locked in. The cats obviously wanted the food, but there were bars/poles between it and the food. The cats would run into the poles trying to get to the food, but failed. Some things that I found interesting in this chapter were Well-Defined Problems versus ill-defined problems. Well Defined Problems included ones in which all areas of the problem were clearly defined and specified. This includes the state or situation as well as the range of possibilities or strategies within the problem in order to reach the goal of solution. Ill Defined problems are one in which the problems are unspecified. A good example that the book used to describe this was, suppose you locked your keys in your car. You want to retrieve your keys without any possible damage, but you have an urgent appointment that you must make. In examples like this it is very hard to decide the best solution in order to achieve all goals. I was surprised to learn that Ill-defined problems are the most common in a person’s daily life. Thirdly, Knowledge-rich problems are ones that can only be solved by people who are capable or possess the specific knowledge in order to solve the problem.
This chapter relates to lots of similar material of this course as well as other courses. IT brings in the whole idea of memory whether it is short term or long term stores. There has to be a certain sense of memory when solving problems to know how to solve it, or how to go out solving it, it also helps us make our strategic decisions based on the consequences of our actions as well as preconceived notions.
Terms: Short Term Memory, Long Term Memory, Ill-Defined Problems, Knowledge-rich problems, Well-Defined Problems, cognitive processes, automatic processes, Gestalt Theory, intellectual functions
I read the last section in my cognitive book. It is about gender differences. I chose this chapter because I enjoyed the psychology of gender differences class I took last year. It is interesting because everyone can relate to this topic. I’m sure we have funny stories or debates of gender difference and which gender is better.
This chapter gave many examples of gender differences dealing with cognition. It actually goes perfectly with my previous blog when the topic of Gardner’s frames of mind theory (a full accounting of human intelligence and its relation to success in everyday tasks would benefit from a broader conception of what counts as intelligence). The different areas of intelligence are discussed in this chapter, in a slightly different context. The areas of intelligence that this blog will cover include; linguistic intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence and spatial intelligence.
Meta-analyses were used to examine these different types of intelligence/frames of mind. A meta-analysis is a statistical technique for summarizing the results of numerous studies that examine the same question in roughly the same way. The was my book described how great or how little the differences were was using the effect size. An effect size tells us how large a difference is relative to the variability in the studies. Numerical values were given but for now I’ll just refer to them as small, medium or large.
The first area of difference we’ll discuss deals with linguistic intelligence, verbal differences, to be exact. Women did prove to be better in verbal abilities, however, this effect was small - meaning the difference between men and women was not that great. We discussed this topic briefly in my gender differences class. Girls develop these skills at a younger age then boys. Some researchers think this may be due to gender differences between boys and girls that starts with the way that caregivers interact with them. In class we were told that baby girls are likely to be talked to more frequently and for greater amounts of time during childhood. They are more likely to spoken to and then to reply back.
What does this do a child cognitively? Because baby girls are talked to more in infancy they develop better verbal skills earlier. Does it matter what kind of speech the child hears? I would assume that boys are spoken to in an adult manner earlier. Whereas, baby girls may have baby-talk used with them for a greater amount of time during their infancy and childhood. Does this have an effect on their cognitive development when looking at linguistic intelligence?
Next my book looks at visual-spatial differences. In this meta-analysis boys did have greater visual-spatial abilities than girls did. However, there was much variation among boys/men and there was variability depending on what type of test was run. Sometimes it was a small effect size (spatial abilities) and sometimes there was a large effect size (mental rotation).
There are many other difference between men and women and their cognitive abilities. But, we all know that - we have been witness to it first hand. I wonder where these differences come from. It looks like they are more than individual differences - though I do think that plays a role. At the beginning of the semester we talked about looking at this class from an evolutionary stand point. It is easies to describe these process if we are working in a framework that includes adaptation, selection etc. This leads me to think that some these difference are a result of our changing over time. Somewhere back in time women need to have better verbal skills and men needed to have greater spatial abilities (maybe for hunting). This chapter also looks at the 1960’s and 1970’s when gender roles started to change in the United States and part of Europe. Now, you would think that this would lead to changes in cognition. Women were taking on more masculine roles and men had greater freedom in their lifestyles as well. I would expect to see that our cognitive abilities would reflect this change. Or maybe the small effect sizes of these meta-analyses are a reflection of those changes? This is an area where a lot more research can be done… but, how important is it? We know that men and women function differently - it would make sense that their neural processes are different too. I think these differences are needed and that men and women should stay different! Not that new ways of using intelligence are not good, advances in intelligence are always welcome - but who would want everyone to think the same way… we would all be thinking inside the box with no way out!
Terms: frames of mind theory, gender differences, linguistic intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, and spatial intelligence, meta-analysis, effect size.
For this assignment I chose to read the chapter in the text on cognitive development and to specifically focus on the theories of Piaget. I chose this chapter because he was one of the first to spark an interest in the development of cognition and because I have had some familiarity with his name. This particular chapter could build on my interests in psychology much like the last post, in that I am potentially pursuing a graduate degree in school psychology and the understanding of the stages of development would be quite important.
The first segment of important information in these theories began with Piaget and his creation of four periods of development. The first begins with birth to the age of two, called the sensorimotor period. During this period, the infant experiences no language or thought. Reflexes start off as being involuntary and slowly progress to voluntary ones in which there is purpose behind the actions. For example, an infant may start of by involuntarily looking and grasping and then eventually progress to looking at an object with the intent of grasping it (Solso, MacLin & MacLin, pp. 383).
The second stage of Piaget’s development theory is the preoperational period, which occurs from ages two to seven. During this time of development the concept of thought begins. This can include problem solving skills such that the child can think through the answer in their own mind. Also at this stage, a child is able to make believe.
The third stage of development is the concrete-operational period, which makes up ages seven to eleven. According to Piaget, in this stage of development children begin to understand three different concepts: conservation, classification, and seriation and transitivity. Conservation is the understanding that certain transformations do not change some basic properties of objects. For example three containers are placed in front of a child, two of which are the same in size and their third is taller and narrower. Equal amounts of water are poured into the containers of the same size and the child can agree that they are equal. Then, one of the amounts is poured into the taller, narrower container. Piaget discovered that children under the age of seven will think that the taller, narrower container holds more water, simply because the water level is higher. Classification involves the grouping of objects. An example of this is that a child in the second stage of development can answer a question about a picture containing cats and dogs. This child can answer the question of which there are more of, cats or dogs, however, when asked if there are more animals or more dogs they are unable to answer. A child in the concrete-operational stage of development understands that there are groupings (i.e. animals) that can be broken down into subgroupings (i.e. cats or dogs). Seriation involves being able to string together a series of elements according to some underlying relationship. Transitivity also deals with this concept. For example, a child in the preoperational period has no problem having three sticks and being able to place them in order from larger to smaller; however, they may not align the third stick correctly next to the first two. When transitivity comes into play, a child in the concrete-operational period of development can be presented with two sticks and decided which is larger. They are then presented with a third and are able to tell where that third stick would be placed in association with the first two, based on its size. In this stage of development, children are able to connect a relationship between the two separate groups.
The fourth and final stage of Piaget’s development model is known as the formal-operational period which occurs from adolescence and into adulthood. This differs from the concrete-operational stage in that in the previous stage, children were only able to wrap their minds around concrete situations. In this final stage, individuals are able to deal with abstract, hypothetical situations. According to Piaget, this final stage is the end of intellectual growth.
This chapter relates to other courses I have take in previous semesters. For example, dynamics of human development and developmental psychology. Again, this chapter is important for my potential future career. Working in a school setting, it is important to understand what each child understands at their particular point of development. It can also help set a standard for what is “normal” knowledge at that age and, therefore, allow educators to help children who are slightly behind.
Terms: Piaget, sensorimotor period, preoperational period, concrete operational period, conservation, classification, seriation, transitivity, formal-operational period
I decided to read my chapter on problem solving in relation to thinking. I chose this chapter because, as a student, I am faced with daily problems that I must solve. Understanding how we solve problems as individuals is a core part to helping improve our capabilities of understanding. This chapter was really interesting to me all around, but I will talk about only a few things in the chapter that I found the most intriguing.
There are two types of thinking presented in the first part of the chapter; directed thinking and undirected thinking. Directed is goal oriented and rational. This type of thinking requires a clear well defined goal. This type of thinking avoids wandering around aimlessly, exploring odd or akward options, and looking for creative solutions. It is a pretty straight forward way of thinking. Undirected, on the other hand, is more of a wandering state of thought. This type of thought meanders and is anything but rational and goal oriented. Dreaming and daydreaming can be considered these types of thoughts, and undirected thinking can also play a role in creativity and in solutions to problems that are poorly defined.
With problem solving, we obviously have problems. The chapter also defines two types of problems; well-defined problems and ill-defined problems. When directed thinking is at hand, the assumption is that the problem is a well-defined problem. This problem is said to have an initial state (need for food), a goal state (steak for dinner), and one or more paths to obtaining a goal. Each path can be decribed in intermediate states, some of which are critical to at all and can be referred to as subgoals. How you move on to one state to the next is defined by a set of rules, and the way that we get there is defined by the operator. If solving the problem is having steak for your dinner and theft is not among the options, the operator will not even consider stealing their neighbors steak. All of the states and operators taken together define what is called the problem space.
Ill-defined problems are those in which the goal state, the intial state, and/or the operators are not clearly defined. Painting a picture would be an example of this. The solution to what will be created cannot be specfied in advance, let along the path for ariving at the solution.
There are two other types of thinking presented a little later in the book; reproductive thinking and productive thinking. Reproductive entails the application of tried-and-true paths to a soltion. The thinker uses a series of steps that they know works from past experience and knows will work for this one. Productive, however, requires insight and creativity. The thinker has to look at the problem in another way and create a new way with which to solve it.
Thinking requires use of information present in the now and present in the past. This really relates to the things we have covered for memory, and it is a no brainer that thinking is really a part of everything we do. All of the terms I have presented are interlocking, they all deal with each other and use each other to come to a solution to a problem. We all use problem solving in our lives and we all use different techniques to solve these problems, but every path or solution that we have chosen can be defined by the terms above. Like I stated before, to understand the machine we must look at the component parts... and this chapter has broadened my ideas and how my solutions are constructed.
terms: directed thinking, undirected thinking, well-defined problem, ill-defined problem, initial state, goal state, subgoals, operator, problem space, reproductive thinking, productive thinking
The chapter I focused on was Cognitive Development. This is something that other psychology classes have touched on, but we never really talk about it (besides memory) in our cognitive class. One of the main reasons I picked this chapter is because I hope to work with children and adolescents in the future. I think it is important to understand that not all children develop at the same time and that children can perceive things very differently at different stages in their life. Knowing how to communicate with children at all different ages is something that will be very important in my future career.
Something I was greatly interested in was Vygotsky’s work. I have only learned about Piaget so it was very interesting to read about another psychologist (from Russia). Vygotsky believed that learning precedes development, which is the opposite of what Piaget generally thought. Vygotsky labeled the “zone of proximal development.” This is defined as the difference between what the child can do with help and without help. Vygotsky thought that a child goes through three developmental stages: (1) The formation of thematic concepts in which relationships between objects are important – (2) The formation of chain concepts – (3) The formation of abstract concepts similar to adult concept formation. Vygotsky believed that thought and speech have different genetic roots and their rates of development are different as well. He believed that the source of thought is in the biological development and the source of language is in a person’s social development. He thought it was not until a child realizes everything in the world has a name that the two came together.
I actually found the section labeled “Cognitive Development,” the least interesting because it is information that I have learned before. This section talked about twin studies and the Colorado Adoption Project (“followed participants over time and found that for both verbal and spatial abilities, adopted children come to resemble their birth parents as much as children raised by their birth parents do. In contrast, adopted children do not end up resembling their adoptive parents). The section talked about selective attention and how the older the children become the better they are about controlling their attention (and they focus more on relevant vs. irrelevant information). In this section it was also noted that older children are more likely to notice and use higher-order relationships. This basically means the older children become the more likely they are to group items together – “chunking.”
The first thing I think is important for me to know about cognitive psychology is the fact that the density of synapses increases until 2 years of age, then after that, there is a “shedding” of synapses where about 50% of them are lost by age 16. This is something I never knew and would be interesting to learn more about in cognitive psychology. I would imagine it is because we are constantly learning new ways to group and organize things. Also, synapses rapidly decrease as we age. It would be interesting to look at this more closely to see the changes in functioning as our synapses decrease with age.
The fact that brain size seems to be affected by environment is something that is extremely interesting to me. This was shown through the observations of animals. They found that some domestic animals have certain cortical areas that are 10-20% smaller than other animals raised in the wild. The text states that human babies raised in impoverished environments seem unable to overcome their early experiences. I am not sure I agree with this statement, although I can see what the text may have been trying to state. Early stimulation is something that can greatly affect the brain growth of a baby and child. Without that early stimulation the brain may not be as enriched as it could be.
The final thing that is important for me to know for cognitive psychology is the three different types of development through a life-span. They are cognitive development, neurocognitive development, and comparative development. Cognitive development deals with the interest in the development of cognition throughout a person’s life span. Neurocognitive development emphasizes the developing brain and corresponding cognitive changes. We are starting to realize more and more that biological development of the brain is involved with cognitive development of the species. Comparative development is typically done with studies on animals. Whether it is a fly or a chimp animals can be observed at all stages of their life and can be manipulated (having the animal in a secure area, having special feeding habits, etc.).
This chapter goes a little more in depth than we did in my development psychology class. It deals a lot more with perceptions while a person is developing and does not just cover Piaget’s model. This chapter can directly apply to people’s life and can help people to learn about their development. Learning more about the neuroscience part in this chapter (about losing synapses over the years) was really interesting and will definitely enhance my learning in cognitive psychology.
Terms: Cognitive development, neurocognitive development, comparative development, synapses, chunking, high-order relationships, Colorado Adoption Project, selective attention, Vygotsky
I chose to read up on creativity this week. My reasoning behind this was the mention in the assignment to refer how this area of cognitive psychology pertains to other classes. I took my time completing my liberal arts core classes, and found myself in need of a "fine arts" course. Visual Perceptions was the only one that seemed least likely to make me want to gouge out my eyeballs, so I signed on up. I was pleasantly surprised with the course, and suggest anyone who wants to take it to make sure they get Aypryl for an instructor. We looked at left brain/ right brain research and psudo-scientific work done on the subject. We checked out the visual system and colorblind painters. We even read up on individuals who have sight restored... any of this sound familiar yet? What we spent the whole semester on however was developing creativity, and oh boy was I excited to see a chapter in my cognitive book on the subject! I was sadly dissapointed to find that the text was... well... very textbookish about creativity. The strangest thing is that the text wants us to follow a four step process to creativity. This seemed quite silly the first time I glanced at it, but I suppose aferwards it made a lot more sense. The stages of creativity are preperation, incubation, illumination, and verification. First we prepare to be creative, we study, we formulate, or we strive too create. At first I balked at the idea of preparing for creativity... it's much like planning to be spontaneous. However, I pondered this for a bit, and read on. The text was focusing more on historical creativity, or those random sparks of genius that are novel in the context of the whole of human history. Things like the wheel, electricity, indoor plumbing and deep-fried snickers bars (now that's something that will change your world... and maybe not for the better). I suppose when we want to focus only on those who's life goal is to create we need to understand that their genius might demand more than the Aha! moments we create in. One may need a clear space for the least amount of cognitive load so their ideas can wander... and not to the stack of mail and dirty laundry. I experience the same thing when I sit down to do these blogs. My husband thinks I'm nuts (and he's right) but I simply can't focus on homework of anysort when my dishes aren't done. So here I am, striving and learning and preparing to create. On to the next step! Incubation, this is my coffee break, my phone call to my mom, the ten minutes I spend digesting the papers I read. The text describes this stage as the setting aside of your thoughts or work to contemplate it. Now we experience the fun, stage three, the Aha! moment, that clarity of mind when we let our thoughts have time to formulate something beautiful. How many times have you had that happen while driving, taking a walk, or many times using the bathroom (great place to think, by the way)? It is kind of amazing how much we are doing subconciously while we go about our day. We may not be rolling the question about in our head focusing on it, but somewhere in there we are still pondering, formulating, puting the pieces together. The difference here is in directed or undirected thinking. Directed refers to those things we are focusing on, a means to the end sort of processing. Undirected thinking is what we do when we randomly day-dream. Often this undirected thinking can occur while we go about our day doing things on auto pilot (like driving the car or brushing our teeth). We don't often focus on the things at hand, like our foot pressure on the gas pedal, we just do it, so our thoughts are allowed to go elsewhere. Stages one and four of our creative process are definatly directed thinking, where as stage two and three are not. Stage four is verification. Psychology is a science, and so we as budding scientists are all familiar with the concept of testing our hypothesis. This works for creativity too. We must build our plane to see if it flies. If we are like the Wright brothers, this whole verification process might take a while. This can still be used for creating in a less mechanical way. Say we paint, we smear pigments across our canvas and if we get it right it may look how we intended... of course we could just claim it's abstract and come to the realization that we can not all be Monet.
The most difficult thing about studying creativity is the lack of ability to really study it in a lab. There is no creative gene, no part of our body secretes the creative hormone, nothing measurable by blood draw or urine sample. There really is no good and valid way to study this human trait in a lab. Humans have questioned how to tap into this creative mindset for as long as they've realized some people have it while others don't. Who didn't want to be a cartoonist at one point in their lives just to be told that even Walt Disney barely made it? What we need to keep in mind is that creative people create ALOT, and most of what they create never gets recognized. The text shows us this by pointing out that Edison lost more money investing in things that never worked than he ever made on the lightbulb. I'm pretty sure we'll still remember his acomplishments rather than his failures because he was one of those people with the esteemed label of a historical creator. So what will I take away form the text? I like knowing how my mind comes up with the crazy stuff it does, there really is a process behind it all even though I use to like to see creativity as some gift from my personal genius.
For this last assignment I chose the topic of language.
Language is a unique ability of human brain that distinguishes us from many other species. It is organized in a particular way based on the recursive rules and is characterized by creativity, hierarchical structure and universality.
Creativity is determined by a fact that using language an individual can hypothetically create countless number of utterances. From everything we know from animals communication, there is always a limited amount of “words” and “sentences” that can be created by them. I would not be so critical though to certain species, such as apes (particularly bonobos, gorillas and chimpanzee) that were taught sign or Yerkes language. They proved to acquire sufficient vocabulary, they also lie, curse, cheat and even make jokes!
Universality is based on the fact that every nation, every known society, even smallest and lost in the remote places tribes have their language. There is no human community without it. And although there is such thing as primitive technology (Australian Aborigines, for example) there is no primitive language. All languages on the planet are pretty sophisticated, have all necessary levels of hierarchical organization (phonemes, morphemes, words and semantics, grammar rules) and can perfectly serve for the purposes of communication in the society.
Separate and interesting aspect of language is universal grammar. The term introduced by N. Chomsky has changed linguistics forever and brought some new perspective to the cognitive science as well. Chomsky postulated that all languages in the world operate being governed by the same, universal rules. He (as well as Hauser and Fitch) also insists that language initially appeared in humans as a result of single macro-mutation, instead of series of micro-mutations, as proposed by his opponents S. Pinker and R. Jeckendoff.
Problems of speech perception and speech production are complicated enough and deserve more explanation than I can put in a post. However, I want to mention that both of them are regulated by bottom-to-top and top-to-bottom processes. In case of lexical ambiguity, for example, first all meanings of the word are activated, then one of them is chosen depending on the context. There is evidence of priming effect influence on the level of phonetics, grammar and vocabulary.
Different modern techniques are used for language research. One of the interesting fields is speech errors. We know now that some errors are more common than the others, for example in language acquisition or SLA areas, even in language pathology. Thus they can highlight the hidden mechanisms of language work.
Terms used:semantics, phoneme, morpheme, language acquisition, syntax (universal grammar), speech perception, speech production, speech errors.
I researched the topic of cognitive differences between males and females or sex differences in the brain. I found a lot of information on line and most of it said the same things with slight variations. There are a few different explanation or the differences and a few discussion on what these differences may mean, if anything at all. This information fits into the chapter I read perfectly. It deals with sex differences and relates it back to gender differences. Again, I’m interested in this topic because it is something that everyone can relate to. We all have some information or knowledge in the area. With the new information that I found on the subject today I am even more interested in the topic.
The first couple of article I found online mentioned the usual information. They stated that we can trace cognitive sex differences back to the hunters and gathers scenario. One of the cites I looked at was also examining the difference between men and women and their opinions on what they thought was beautiful. The over all study was slightly skewed it simply looked at what areas of the brain were activated when a group of people viewed a piece of art. They did not, to my knowledge, ask the participants if they thought the piece was beautiful. Nonetheless, when men and women viewed these piece of art different areas of their brain were activated. Women were more interested in how objects related to one another; their location relative to others. Men were more interested in where objects were place, their absolute values.
Men think or view things more in the context of x,y coordinates. I can see how these preferences fit into a hunting and gathering society - like many of the sites said. I can also see who these attributes can go either way. As far as object location wouldn’t this be needed for women too? They need to stay close to their settlement and not wander too far looking for certain foods. I also think that hunters would need the cognitive function that allows them to see object relative to each other. While hunting I would think that they would need to have some awareness of certain objects in relation to others. What if certain hunters of certain parts of the heard were in areas that would ruin the hunt or their chance at catching the animals?
This article also talks about these brain processes being a result of gender differences that we still see today. It states that coordinate-reading brain systems are less activated by linguistic communication than categorical systems. Basically, because women talk so much they have better categorical systems. Because, men do not talk as much they have better coordinate-reading systems. This can related back to a hunter/gatherer scenario but it can also be a result of the gender differences that children are raised with today. As mentioned in a previous blog baby girls are talked to more than baby boys.
This starts to look at alternative explanations for sex differences from things such as social upbringing or hormones. One of my articles mentions that there are sex difference between the brains of newborn infants. Differences in their brain that can be seen in newborns (girls great capacity for language skills and boys greater capacity for spatial awareness). But, why are these differences here? It could be a result of our ancestors being hunters and gatherers. Another article I read talked about the evolution (hunters/gatherers) and environmental causes for these sex differences.
The environmental causes refers to the hormones that are in the mother’s body during gestation. If there is an increase in testosterone the infant seems to have more or better spatial awareness. When a mother has higher levels of androgens during pregnancy and is pregnant with a girl it can results in the daughter having congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). These females have greater spatial ability. Than girls without CAH have. There has also been research/experiments done on rats. Extra female and male hormones were given to the rats (estrogen and testosterone). Only in the case with extra testosterone were significant differences found.
After doing this research I do think that some sex differences can be attributed to an evolutionary theory that we have developed differently because of our ancestors hunting and gathering. Then I wonder why our cognitive systems haven’t adapted yet. We have not lived by those ways of life in many years. A lot of gender roles have changed in recent years - if evolution is the answer then when will our brains catch up with our behavior? I have more faith in the ideas of environmental impact on our cognitive differences. If hormones have the ability to change children into adults then I think they are capable of effecting cognitive systems as well. Finally, though there are cognitive differences in the processes we use I keep going back to our frames of intelligence. We may use different processes our overall intelligence and cognitive capacity are not that different. There is not a superior sex despite our many differences. Some of the sites I briefly looked at say that sex differences in the brain are not much greater than individual differences. This makes me wonder if these cognitive differences and differences in processes are even that important? Interesting yes! But what can we gain from this knowledge? What problems can we solve by just know that there are subtle differences and subtle differences?
Terms: Sex differences, gender differences, relative space, spatial awareness, coordinate-reading systems, linguistic systems/language skills, evolution, environmental, CAH, frames of intelligence.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/02/brainandbeauty/
http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n11/mente/eisntein/cerebro-homens.html
http://www.sfu.ca/~dkimura/articles/constraints.htm
This was posted for the wrong assignment! I'll repost it to the correct page, sorry!
What I found to be most interesting to me was the topic of creativity. Before reading this chapter I thought creativity could be almost anything that someone viewed as creative, but after reading I became aware of what exactly corresponds with creativity. This was news to me so I began to read on. I knew that it would be beneficial to write about because creativity can relate to what I have learned about intelligence and perception. My textbook gave examples of when creativity was used in order to paint the Mona Lisa or think up the theories of relativity. Hayes is cited for relying on three factors that characterize creativity. Creativity has only taken place when the idea or product is novel or unique. Another factor of creativity states that the product must be viewed as useful in some context. Lastly, the product must have been constructed on behalf of the creator’s special abilities or talents. Taking this opinion into consideration it is clear that not everything can be labeled as creative if the product does not support all three factors.
From this chapter I learned about the stages and processes of creativity. I had not known there were stages of creativity so therefore I found this information to be the most fascinating. I also found these stages to be the most useful to me because I could implement them into my own life and hopefully become a more creative individual. The first stage is categorized as preparation. This stage involves studying, learning, formulating solutions, and striving to create. This stage calls for a great deal of support and encouragement from others. The next stage is referred to as the incubation stage because during this stage a person takes a break from their creative demand. For example, when trying to solve a difficult math equation a person might take a break and go for a walk. Next illumination occurs which is the stage in which a mental set is broken in order to solve a problem. Most people know this stage as the time when the light bulb appears and they exclaim, “Aha.” After the last stage has been completed then it is certain creativity exists. The last stage relies on verification of the illumination stage. Verification allows the individual to double check their solution is reasonable and applicable (Kellogg 2003).
Overall I feel that creativity is an interesting topic because biologically not every human is born with creative abilities. Also, creativity is not an ability that is set in stone because it displayed and experienced differently by each person. The least interesting information I read about was how some people believe ancient gods granted humans the power of creativity. I would say I personally disagree with this belief and that is why I felt it was uninteresting. Yet the question still is where does creativity come from? What is its source? Is it inherited, learned, or culturally ingrained into children as they enter school? As I stated before learning about creativity can help me to better understand cognitive topics such as intelligence, perception, attention, problem solving, and possibly memory. There are many topics that creativity can relate to, and that is why I chose to finish my blogs with such a topic.
Terms: Creativity, preparation, incubation, illumination, verification