Think of the material you covered in the reading assignment for this week. Next find an interesting topic related to the chapter you read this week and search the internet for material on that topic. You might, for example, find people who are doing research on the topic, you might find web pages that discuss the topic, you might find youtube clips that demonstrate something related to the topic, etc. What you find and use is pretty much up to you at this point. I would like you to use quality informative website though.
Once you have completed your search and explorations, I would like you to say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into the chapter, and why you are interested in it. Next, I would like you to take the information you found related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about it in an informative manner so the reader will learn about the topic through your writings (not by referring them to a website) . At the end, please include working URLs for the websites used.
Please use at least 3 references (links or articles).
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 psychology.
Please use spaces between your paragraphs to make your post easier to read - thanks in advance
Include a list of the terms and concepts you used in your post. (example - Terms: memory, cortex, visual system....)
Let me know if you have any questions.
The topic I researched discusses the different ways in which researchers are studying creativity. The article I found talks about how some measures are better at determining individuals creativity than other measures. This article relates to chapter eleven because the text discusses the brain regions researchers believe are involved with creativity. Also, the text also discusses studies of participants that indicated several conscious processes involved with creativity. I chose this article because I wanted to learn more about how researchers determine what is creative and what isn't. I also wanted to read about current studies and research that has been done on creativeness.
There are many tests researchers are using nowadays to measure creativity. One popular part of a creativity test is listing as many possible uses for a single object in one minute. M.R.I's, divergent thinking tests, creativity questionnaires and more can also help researchers determine what goes on inside a persons brain when they are doing a creative task. These tests and technology are what scientists are using to track the brain regions and structures that used for creativity. However, many researchers believe that creativity is very complex and researchers need to break it down into component parts in order to better understand how creativity works. In simpler terms, regions of the brain that are involved with creativity seem to have several side roads, detours, and little byways that all play together to create creativity. Overall, researchers are taking a more in depth look at the many single components of brain regions and structures that work together during creative tasks and that help us develop creative characteristics.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/08/books/08creative.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
Some of the articles I found is about further information involving artificial intelligence and the future of artificial intelligence. In the year 1977, Allen Newell talked about a time when the man-made world would be involved in things that would help keep us from danger and increase our abilities. These such things would include smart vehicles and all of our daily objects would be more advanced to help us. A valid point was brought up in one of the articles when it was stated, “As computers become ever cheaper, smaller, and more powerful, AI capabilities will spread into nearly all industrial, governmental, and consumer applications.” This is something that we are already starting to see today. As computers continue to advance they become more and more involved in our lives. They are now starting to be placed in grocery stores as for ads, are in every store, are frequently carried by people. Even phones are becoming like computers as people bring their work on the road. AI began by focusing on biological and cognitive models to help explain human information processing skills. Many of these experiments were done with robots that perceive and can interact with their environment. One type of research Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was started in the 1960’s and continues with research to this day.
Artificial intelligence was able to shine some light on what we considered human qualities. We often refer to our memory as storing files or wish we could erase some memories. These are things that are too simplistic and do not describe or refer to how our mind or memory actually works. Humans often pride themselves in being unique individuals and therefore any artificial intelligence must too display these qualities. As scientists try to develop robots with human intelligence they constantly are examining their own processes to gain better understanding. This is one of the main reasons that cognitive psychology takes a big part in artificial
intelligence.
As technology becomes more and more advanced we are able to dissect different parts of the human personality and perceptions and adapt them to robots. We are starting to see many different studies and experiments done. In a video shown in class we were able to see a mouse with a remote control, a monkey who could control a video game with his mind, and now we are starting to see a robot that can show emotion. There is now a robot that can respond to humans and show some emotion through its body language. The robot even learns through its experiences and adapts.
There is so much we can expect from artificial intelligence in the future.
http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/lazowska/cra/ai.html
http://www.units.muohio.edu/psybersite/cyberspace/aisurge/re-examine.shtml
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/video/2010/aug/09/emotional-robot-university-hertfordshire
Web Divergence Assignment – Week #13
Basic aspects of Spoken Language & Speech Errors
Spoken language is a form of human communication in which words are spoken. All words are made up of vowels and consonants. The spoken words are made into organized sentences and phrases. Speech Errors, commonly referred to as “Slips of the Tongue”, are conscious or unconscious verbal words that are different from normal phrases. They can be divided between production and comprehension errors. Errors in speech production and perception are also called performance errors. Throughout my search I found some informative sites. I focused this post on the “Slips of the Tongue” and wanted to go into a little more detail as to what it is. There was a site that was focused on talking about what it is as well as talking about previous research done in this area. I wanted to take Slips of the Tongue and apply it to find out what exactly it was, so therefore there’s a YouTube clip giving an inside look at what a slip of the tongue sounds like in real life. The idea that everyone can produce slips of the tongue got me curious as to how common it was. That is how I found the link to the last sight in this blog. There I found out that even Sigmund Freud talked about the commonness of Speech Errors in one of his books.
http://www.smithsrisca.demon.co.uk/speech-errors.html
The website above gives a very detailed look at several types of speech errors and what exactly to look for. Not only does this website gives a general overview of the type or error but also includes past research done in the particular speech error. I found this site very informative and very interesting, but there was also some information that went over my head and I, personally, had trouble understanding. One type of speech errors included in the website was “Slips of the Tongue”. Slips of the Tongue can be explained as an error made in everyday speech pronunciation. Boomer and Laver have done research in this area and this research was included within the paragraph. This research began more research done by Gary Dell out of the University of Illinois and also prompted the “Spreading Activation Theory”. Dell identifies and explains that most speech errors done within the Slip of the Tongue area are conclusive of three main ideas; sound errors, morpheme errors, and word errors. Sounds errors include accidental changed within the sound of normal words. Morpheme Errors include all changes of morphemes between words, while word errors are the accidental placement of words.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmeBxpEXVJk
I was very curious as to what Slips of the Tongue’s sounded like in real life so I went to you tube.com and searched for some examples. I was very surprised at the vast amount of videos that had these examples. I never knew how common these were, but then I thought about it and it makes perfect sense. A person may slip up their words out of pressure or nervousness. I was thinking that a speech error would be a person who always slips up their words. It didn’t even cross my mind that these errors could be a freak thing due to pressure placed on the person. In the video it shows presidents and news reporters saying the wrong words throughout their presentation. It is meant to be comical and it kinda was. It’s funny seeing people with power and fame mess up and laugh about things along with others.
http://psikoloji.fisek.com.tr/psycholinguistics/Fromkin.html
I came to my senses and realized that speech errors are a lot more common that what I had originally thought them to be. So I wanted to find out just how common they were. This sight talks about how everyone seems to have slips of the tongues every once in a while. The author of this site brought up even the famous Sigmund Feud. Sigmund Freud was aware of the idea of speech errors or slips of the tongue. He talked about speech errors in one of his books titled, “Psychopathology of everyday life”. Freud’s theory was based on the idea that speech errors occur from repressed thoughts that are seem within the particular errors that an individual person makes. This point was very fascinating. Although Freud makes a good and in fact understandable explanation, we must take into account that these errors may not always reveal as much as we may think or like to think. These errors reveal much more information about the structure of language versus the theory or repressed thoughts.
Terms: Structure of Language, repressed thoughts, Slips of the Tongue, speech errors, Spreading Activation Theory, speech pronunciation
One of the aspects of problem solving is the issue of creativity. How do some people manage to have incredible insights that literally change civilization and culture around them, while others… well, let us say just never do? Can we improve our creative skills?
As the latest research show, we can. It is known that creativity, imagination and perception are linked in a brain. Both these properties use the same neural circuits. So it becomes clear that it is actually difficult for us to imagine anything creative, anything we have not seen or experienced before. It happens because our brain cannot just simply recreate these images from the memory, it has to construct it from the very beginning.
Mark twain said: “Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned”. This quote gets additional meaning if we realize that in order to think creatively we actually have to develop completely new neural pathways and decrease the influence of experience-dependent categorization. So one of the possibilities to think creatively is to put yourself in a new environment, thus your brain has no opportunity to predict what will happen next. This idea corresponds to the information I came across in my text which shows that there is correlation between the circumstances of memorizing the information and its later successful decoding. To say it plainly, if you want to have a good grade on a test – try to study in a similar environment in which you are going to have it; if you want to create something new – change the environment, give yourself a new experience.
Different techniques might be more or less productive in terms of creativity as well. One of the good examples is mind mapping. We came across the concept somehow in a class, and I have previously read about it in application to business. I found a lot of information, but the most interesting is probably not even the actual Tony Buzan’s website but the source on learning strategies which among other things perfectly explains the concept and technique of mind mapping. I personally like it and as a teacher find it useful for my students. It might be quite beneficial, as it for example let them engage both hemispheres in analyzing visual and imagery information. It also let educators present the material indifferent modalities and thus promote better understanding and memorization. Stages in creating a mind map, such as brainstorming, also promote higher creativity in the coming ideas.
A lot of people tend to believe that dreaming somehow promote creativity. Although we still do not know the purpose and the mechanism of dreaming for one hundred percent we still can say that at least part of it is focused on the work with the information that came into brain during the day and also takes part in problem solving. We all heard and some probably experienced kinds of insights when the solution of a problem appeared right after awakening or even during dreaming. Sometimes even scientific discoveries can happen in this way. For some reason some most famous of such cases happen at the field of chemistry. A. Kekule saw the whirling snakes and linked this image with the benzene ring molecule, while D. Mendeleev saw a periodical table of elements. However I came across an article that actually says that D. Mendeleev did not see the table in a dream for the first time. He rather saw its improved version, as the table was invented by him already. Actually the whole generating of the table started from the ideas to write a textbook that would explain all the properties of the known elements.
Whether dreaming was a key factor that gave the world this scientific discovery is still a question, the role of good sleep is undoubtful for successive thinking, problem-solving and creativity.
Terms used: problem-solving, creativity, neural circuit, mind map.
Links: http://www.springerlink.com/content/w0012221t142p144/
http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/DE/PD/instr/strats/mindmap/index.html
http://www.mind-map.com/
http://integral-options.blogspot.com/2009/08/neuroscience-sheds-new-light-on.html
In my last blog I commented on the comparisons of cognitive differences between males and females. I found an interesting article on NPR’s website that was written from the American Psychological Association's Science Leadership Conference. It clearly discusses the topics raised when comparing males and female’s cognitive abilities. The information I gained from this discussion supported the facts from my textbook. For example, one psychology professor made it clear that sex differences and similarities are found and not found depending whole heartedly on the type of test given and the age of the person being tested. On an overall average, it is mentioned that females are more favored to succeed at memory tasks especially episodic memory tasks. Females also often tend to display better writing skills and speech skills such as articulation. Males overall are more competent with their spatial skills. What I found to be particularly noteworthy is that males are better at rotating objects mentally. This peaked my interest because as a class we just covered mental rotation and I was able to see examples of individual differences between the mental rotation processes people use. So for me this information was personally relevant. A video I watched also discussed how male’s spatial abilities may explain why males are better at math and science because those types of reasonings rely on spatial abilities. The woman speaking also brings up “the walk through” scenario we discussed in class. Spatial abilities help a person to visualize walking somewhere. In class our example relied on walking from the back to the front of a boat.
What I found most intriguing was reading about how females have received higher grades in school and entered college at a much higher level than males since 1982. What’s curious is that although this is the case, females have averaged lower scores than males on tests such as the SAT’s and the GRE. Based on my personal experience taking the ACT and information I have read it would be my opinion to say females don’t do as well on standardized tests because the format is sometimes much different than tests given in a classroom setting for instance. This website has a lot more information and dives deep into each sex difference and similarity that is up for argument.
Very early on in the semester we covered functional magnetic resonance imaging. I wanted to integrate this technology into my comment because it is used in some cases to understand cognitive sex differences. On the website I looked into fMRI was specifically used to see the differences in verbal abilities while comparing brain scan images. Scientists use fMRI to see if verbal abilities are based on nature meaning the biological differences. Many studies have results showing differences and many do not show anything significant. Because of this, the authors of this article decided to embark on their own investigation. They found that fMRI showed that girls ages 9-15 had greater brain activity compared to boys the same ages. Brain activity was found to be greater in girls’ inferior frontal gyrus which is an area involved in word meanings and other language functions. Activity was also greater on both sides of the brain in the superior temporal gyrus, which is involved in sounds of words. Last but not least, there was more activity found in the left side of girls’ brains located in the fusiform gyrus which is the area involved in the spelling of words and their visual identification. The authors believed they received these results because at that age girls are more developed while boys’ sensory systems are developmentally lagging.
The results that have been found and conclusions that have been reached would be best applied by teachers everywhere. Understanding the cognitive differences between males and females would help teach students more efficiently. One website I visited even mentioned the benefits of having unisex classrooms meaning only males in one class while females are grouped together in another class. Would it be most beneficial to group students by age and sex instead of grade level?
Terms: Mental Rotation, cognitive sex differences, fMRI, inferior frontal gyrus, superior temporal gyrus, fusiform gyrus,
http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=5036084
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyMrUCFDQeU
http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Gender_Differences/
The topic I researched is intelligence. The articles I looked up included, Theories of Intelligence, Fluid intelligence vs. Crystallized intelligence and The Miracle of Language. It fits perfectly into the chapter. It was in a section of the website called ‘cognitive psychology’ and it discusses intelligence. Part of the article recaps what my book talked about and it also stated things from a new perspective.
This topic is interesting because it talks about things that every college student (and students of any age) are going through. What is school if not one long intelligence test? That is why the topic of intelligence is very relevant to any and all students. In my previous blog I discussed autism and how we show intelligence through language. Yet a trait of autism can be a lack of verbal skills. But, that does not mean that they are lacking in all other areas of intelligence. One of my articles discusses the definition of intelligence in that we really don’t have one. Dictionary.com says that it is a the capacity for learning, know, understanding, aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings. It is the manifestation of high mental capacity. But what is ‘high’ mental capacity? How do we show our mental capacity? We use language… can we have intelligence without language? My article says that intelligence may be a single general ability while others say that intelligence includes a range of abilities.
In another article they mentioned Gardner’s Frames of mind: Theory of Multiple Intelligences. In this reading it took a slightly difference perspective than my cognitive book did. The more I read about Gardner’s Frames of mind the more I agree with it… then again I really haven’t found a lot to the contrary. I do think that we have difference types of intelligences. But does that mean that we have different ways of learning those tasks. In class we talked about being a ‘visual learner’. I had always been told I was a visual learner because I am interested in art. But I like to read.. I remember and understand the things I read. I also remember what things look like, but usually only when I think they look interested or attractive. When we were thinking of what a bike looked like I had a mental image of one. The more we talked about bikes, cohorts and generational differences the more detailed the image of the bike became. The image also changed a lot too. The biked changed into an attractive old looking bike that my grandmother may have had.
The same thing happened with the boat scenario. When we picture the small fishing boat my memory was of something recent I had seen on discovery channel. A man from England was attempting to catch a man-eating fish in India - so I picture the fishing boats that they used (they ended up in the water!). Then when we were supposed to be walking across the deck, to see how long it took, in my scenario I was on the Titanic and I started running because I know that ship sank in reality. So this brings me to something we discussed in class on Thursday. It dealt with depths of processing and how we same images. Some people need more detail or and cannot process with greater complexity until a reasonable amount of detail is present. Kind of like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Unless we know exactly what the floor looked like we cannot imagine walking on it. For others little detail is fine and we can still imagine moving throughout the imaginary world in our minds.
Do these different amounts of detail depend on how deep our processing level had to be or does it depend on how important those particular images are to us. For me when I imagined different objects it depends on what mood I’m in. If I were missing summer I would probably imagine a cute little fishing boat on a hot day. But since winter is starting and snow is still exciting rather than annoying I imagined a gloomy day. Then I brought in relevant information like the show I had just watched that had a fishing boat in it. Then for the big boat image I had not new information to add to the object - so I chose the most detailed image I had of a large boat in my mind, the Titanic. I have never been on a cruise ship or anything larger than a small speed-boat so the only image information I had were from the movie Titanic. Maybe this is why people use different types of images when they are recalling something or doing something with their imagination. We have individual differences. Just as we process things differently - and therefore recall things differently too. Maybe our imaginary worlds are produced with the same processes?
Maybe we use different process depending on what type of intelligence we use most. People who are good at math may have a tape measure type image in their boat so they can compare the lengths or know how deep the water is. Maybe those who respond better to language will picture something in a book or the names painted on the sides of the boat. Maybe people who respond less to visual stimulus will have less detail because their depth of processing with visual things is not as great than to other stimulus.
What if people don’t respond to a certain stimulus. Like a deaf, blind, or perhaps mentally disabled person? What if someone in lacking verbal skills. Earlier I argued that this does not mean that they are lacking in other areas of intelligence. This simply might mean that they do not have a way to communicate what they do know - because we only have on process that we use to share and show intelligence or knowledge. Then in one of my articles it mentioned that we not only show intelligence verbally that is also how we ingest it. Therefore, without verbal abilities the a person’s ability to gain intelligence isn’t reduced but how much intelligence they will absorb is because that is how the rest of the world communicates.
I know I really jumped around in this entry and my train of thought may not stay fluid throughout. But, the topic of intelligence can go into many areas of cognitive psychology. It plays a role in our educational system, our communication, special needs. I did not mention it earlier but we could even look at old case studies such as the Last Hippie. How would they rate his intelligence. It is defined as the ability to learn, function, understand, comprehend etc. He had normal brain function before his brain tumor and Buda-like transformation. So what would call all the things he knows? He is intelligent but only in a certain time frame. He is able to recall things but they come irrelevant the older he gets - the more out of context his knowledge becomes. There are a lot of ways to look at it. This topic is just very interesting!
Terms: intelligence, autism, frames of mind theory, language, imagination, processing, communication.
http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/p/intelligence.htm
http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/a/fluid-crystal.htm
http://www.duke.edu/~pk10/language/psych.htm
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/intelligence
My focus for this week was on decision making and reasoning. We go about our daily lives doing these things on a regular basis but many of us don't really know the why's or how's of our reasoning and decision making processes. I found that most researchers find themselves in a bit of a conundrum when trying to research rationality, in that we must first hold the beleif that we can be reasonable enough ourselves to be able to accurately asses what reason is. Then we need accurate ways of testing reason and rationality. One of the more common measures used was developed by Wason, and consists of giving participants rules which they must confirm to be true or false. He designed some cards to which one side had numbers and the other letters. Four cards were used and the participants were asked to turn over as few cards as possible to confim the rule given, two cards was the norm. The rule stated that vowels would have an even number on the flip side. A large majority of participants did not follow typical logic rules to determine the rules accuracy, and researchers were astonished to find that human reasoning consistantly failed! In 1983 Phil Johnson Laird came up with a new model, the mental models theory. This theory states that people have much better reasoning and logic skills when given the same task (prove or disprove a rule) but given a rule with relevant context (the example given was traveling to a destination by train, not car). The participants were shown cards depicting various destinations and either cars or trains on the flip side. With the new context of the logic task participants were much more likely to follow standard rules of logic to determine if the rule was followed. This shows us that people need insight to help make decisions based on reasoning. These mental models are not intended for abstract lab settings, but are applicable to real world tasks.
At this point the cognitive psychologist in us all should start to wonder why the brain can follow the logic in real life, but fails miserably in the lab. The explinations I found explain that in real world settings we have adapted certain mechanisms to assist in specific types of reasoning and logic situations, and when we enter the lab and begin to try to think abstractly we cannnot use our adaptations in the abstract. For different situations we have developed different ways to think, and in the lab we are at a loss for context to base our decisions off of. We base much of our reasoning skills off prior experience. Everyday rationality is based far more on uncertainty rather than certain reasoning, making probability a better human reasoning tool than logic. This may also explain the lack of logic skills in lab settings.
When looking at decision making it is much easier to see how this effects us daily. When we get up out of bed in the morning we begin deciding many different things, what to wear, eat, read, do with our lives.... we are almost allways making a decision of some sort. What we don't think about is how many of these decisions we really aren't making. There is a whole feild of psychology dedicated to finding ways to influence our behaviors and every day decisions. I really enjoyed the Ted Talk by Dan Ariely on decision making, and if you have seventeen minutes and twenty two seconds of life to spare, I urge you to check it out. Enlightening and entertaining, Dan let's us in on some of his findings on how others influence our lives. My favorite example from him is that of the absurd option used to influence our final choice. The first example for this phenomenon was a choice of vacation... three choices were given. first was Rome, all expenses paid, then Paris, all exspenses paid, last was Rome, hotel and dining paid.... but you must purchase your own coffee. You may not realize it, but the coffee makes the difference. Rome suddenly becomes more appealing because of the fact that Rome without coffee is offerred as well as Paris. Obviously Rome is every bit as amazing as Paris... but there's got to be something about that coffee if you would need to pay for it yourself. Wow, Rome with coffee, very special coffee it would seem. the Rome without coffee is absurd if you can have Rome with awesome coffee, and Paris isn't even given a second thought. Dan goes on with a more visual example of this absurd choice as a decision maker, and teaches us all who we need to hang out with at the bar. While the examples are fun, we must keep in mind that this is no magic trick, no fancy slight of hand or trick of the eye. Our brains at some point became predispositioned to make decisions the way we do. What we find in the long run is that we most often will make choices that are easy, we fail to put too much effort in and go with the default option, the easy out. If we can become more aware of the decisions we make, we may in fact be able to break out of the default mode and begin deciding for ourselves. We are bombarded with influences everyday that affect our choices and decisions. Along with external influence are our internal influences, our memories and experiences. We make many decisions based on how we feel we may remember the event. Daniel Kahneman argues that our decisions are not based on a choice of experience, but on a choice of anticipated memories. If we had a choice of Paris or Rome, as stated before, we may base or decision on if we think our memories of Rome will be happy (with or without coffee) or if our memories of Paris will be better. The two Dans may agree that we anticipate Rome to provide greater memories because people would still be willing to go there if they had to pay for their own coffee. We were lucky enough to be offered a trip to this wonderful land of caffinated individuals with complimentary coffee included... oh what great memories those will be! So what's the overarching lesson here? We are rational reasonable humans, but we also can be a bit lazy when it comes to making decisions. We can think logically, we are wonderful processors of probabilities, we adapt ways of being reasonable in varying situations, but not so much in lab settings... real life really is our forte. Decision making can be difficult, but we can always go with a default option provided for us, or find something unreasonable to make it all look so much more appealing.
citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.105
http://barryborsboom.wordpress.com/2009/06/01/the-psychology-of-decision-making/
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/lang/eng/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_experience_vs_memory.html
During the reading chapter on language and how it deals with words and reading I was very interested dyslexia and how it affects comprehension. According to the text, Dyslexics have been found to process words more slowly than nondyslexics. I also found it interesting that rates of dyslexia are most prevalent in the United States and this may be because the English language has multiple spellings for similar sounds, for example, f and ph for the sound fuh (Solso, MacLin & MacLin, 2005, pp. 377). This relates to a past lecture that I have had in my abnormal psychology class. According to John Somervill’s lecture, dyslexia involves any reading problem affecting reading comprehension and processing information in regards to reading. It is also no longer considered to be only the reversal of words.
Another interesting source that I found dealt with the causes of dyslexia. It starts off by saying that dyslexia may have some heritable characteristics. It also says that it can be attributed to early hearing problems in development. EEGs have been used to record brain activities patterns in children while they learn to read. I have learned from previous blogs that the left hemisphere of the brain is associated with language, math, and logic abilities, whereas the right deals more with creativity, special abilities, face recognition, visual imagery, and music. Through these EEG scans, it has been found that children who read normally have activity on the left side of their brain, however, those children who are dyslexic use the right hemisphere as well, which takes them longer comprehend what they are reading.
Hearing can also play a role in the development of dyslexia. If a child has many colds in the first five years of life, this can cause blockage of appropriate hearing. This hinders a child’s ability to hear clearly. For example, the words “pin” and “thin” may sound the same. This relates to what the textbook has to say about the similar sounds that some words make, which are difficult for dyslexics.
A well known author who suffers from dyslexia, shares other things that are a challenge for those who suffer from it. Some things may not even be associated with reading, but more with comprehension and memory. He shares that, for him, lists of things are hard to recall a short time later. For example, if he were given a list of errands to run, he would have a hard time recalling any of them shortly after he was told.
Terms: dyslexia; left hemisphere; right hemisphere
Sources:
Textbook
Abnormal psychology lecture on childhood disorders
http://www.dyslexia-parent.com/mag24.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghdIwj14I0w
One thing that we went briefly over but were also a topic within the chapter that I read was Mood-state-dependent memory. The simple definition goes as follows if we encode a memory we not only take in the image, and other date but we also take in the mood and the state of our emotions. Thus, our present mood will determine the memories that are available to us for recall. So when we are in a good mood we are more apt to recall good memories, and likewise with bad.
Not only does the mood determine what we are able to recall but it also determines what we encode. Studies have shown that a person’s mood determines what is salient within their environment. In simple terms when someone is pissed they remember things that are pissed. This is also shown in one of the ted talk’s lectures I have previously viewed. Where the participants were asked how their operation went. The person who experienced the least amount of pain during the operation but whom had experienced pain within the last minutes of the operation rated a higher level of pain than the person who experienced more pain in the beginning. This obviously shows how our mood and emotional state shapes what we choose to see and what we remember.
Recent studies have also shown that we are even hardwired to categorize or memories in particular parts of our brain. One study done by Erik et al. showed participants a slew of pictures some being of a car accident, mutilated bodies, erotic, and others tranquil. The participants were than showed pictures in sets of 7 after each visual plate. The studies showed that for positive encoding it took place in the right fusiform gyrus, which is responsible for facial, word and name recognition. While negative encoding occurred in the right amygdala known for the production of negative emotions it produces positive ones as well.
Overall, I find that mood dependency on recall of information interesting because I think if we can come to fully understand it we may live better lives. If we recognize that when we are in a bad mood, and we can't remember good memories one can understand that it is temporary. And realize that the reason why the negative memories are ever so present, not because of self-intention but because the way our brain functions. It will allow us to take a moment recognize that this is not reality and attempt to better our mood. Vs. accepting an irrational self -defeating existence. Beck had similar ideas when discussing Rational-Emotive Therapy. Not only do I think understanding this brings fourth ideas on depression but also ideas on ADHD. The mood state dependency theory notes that if drugs are used when encoding occurs it is more likely that drugs will be needed to remember. Or at least a structured attempt at retrieving that high. Well what justice are we doing children who suffer from ADHD by stocking them full of Dr. approved speed. I feel that it will create a generation dependent on drugs to simply function. After reading up on this it makes me wonder once again the appropriateness of drugs especially when prescribed to children.
http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/research/vr/Projects/Presencia/ConsortiumPublications/ucl_ion_papers/lewis_mood-dependent_memory.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context-dependent_memory
http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/mood_memory.htm