As you probably know by now, cognitive psychology integrates many different fields of science. For the final I would like to you pick two topics of interest from any sections of the book and integrate them into a topical blog of sorts.
The final is worth 30 points. Points will be allocated as follows:
Up to 5 points for overall readability
Up to 5 points for integrating the topics together as well as the references
Up to 20 points on the terms used. Up to 2 points per term. It
must be clear that you know the term and how it fits into the topics.
Make a list of the terms you used at the bottom
of your post - then go back and either circle, highlight, or underline (etc.)
the terms so we can see where and how you used them.
You can email the assignment
to me or drop off a hard copy in the psych office.
Let me know if you have any questions,
--Dr. M
For this week’s final blog I decided to take a deeper look into memory and more specifically the two different types of amnesia's: anterograde and retrograde. With each of these different types of amnesia's I will be discussing different case studies which have provided a lot of evidence and information on research towards the specific study on amnesia's and memory.
All though the definition of memory may seem like common sense to some, its definition in this blog is very essential and will help contribute to the following topics of interest. Memory, is the brains ability to store effects of experiences in the brain. When amnesia occurs there is a partial or total loss of memory. In retrograde amnesia a person suffers deficits on former memories and in anterograde amnesia they suffer deficits on later memories. Often times in order for a type of amnesia to occur brain damage must first be present in the form of tumors, head injuries, infections, neurotoxins, genetics, or viruses.
There are many different types of memories which are also important in discussing before we get to the actual case studies. First they are broken up into explicit and implicit memories. Explicit memories we are consciously aware of, we can put into words, and we know we know the information, they can further be broken down into semantic memories which consist of facts and information and episodic memories which consist of experiences of our own lives. Implicit memories on the other hand occur unconsciously, we can’t put them into words, and they deal more with procedural things like riding a bike or playing an instrument.
H.M. is the most famous case study known to psychologists demonstrating a classic case of anterograde amnesia. H.M. experienced severe seizures due to epilepsy and drugs were not working to treat it so he underwent surgery to try and calm this part of his brain. In this surgery HM had a bilateral medial temporal lobectomy which also removed his hippocampus, amygdala, and part of his adjacent cortex. This surgery was successful in controlling his epilepsy and decreasing the amount of seizures/convulsions he had, but it had a very negative other effect: anterograde amnesia. H.M. had no recollection of explicit (conscious) memories but his implicit memory was fine, this conclusion shows how consolidation is effected by this type of amnesia. In order to test H.M.s memory to see how explicit/implicit were affected a series of tests were run. In digit span +1 and block tapping +1, he was able to use chunking to try and remember the initial orders but after they started adding subsequent orders he wasn’t able to complete the task so this type of memory was impaired which showed a lack of explicit memory since it requires conscious knowledge. In a set of mirror drawing reversal task, rotary-pursuit tests, incomplete picture tests, and Pavlovian conditioning however, he performed normally which showed his implicit memory was not affected. Scientists were able to draw a final conclusion after this that anterograde amnesia affects one’s ability to form explicit memories but not implicit memories.
There are many different cases which demonstrate both types of amnesias, H.M. is the most famous for anterograde, but I couldn’t find just one that stuck out for retrograde so I am going to focus on two that many probably never have heard of before: Jonathan Overfeld and Scott Bolzan. There are many possible causes for obtaining retrograde amnesia, head injuries are probably the most common, but stressful situations/psychological trauma may cause them too. In Overfelds case, no injury occurred, he was sitting on a bench in a park one day and all the sudden he realized he didn’t know who he was, he couldn’t say if he had any family, and he didn’t know where his car was or if he even had one. After time though, it was discovered that he did know how to do certain implicit things like playing the piano, reading the newspaper and understanding it, recognizing the color of his favorite pack of cigarettes, but he just couldn’t identify who he was or details about his own life. After being looked at the hospital it was concluded that Jonathan wasn’t using any drugs or alcohol, and doctor named Markowitsch hypothesized that “memories, especially personal memories, come from two sources that need to synchronize with each other: factual memory (explicit) and emotional memory (implicit).” He also stated that when a stressful situation occurs the two systems can’t synchronize and they become separated years ago this was called la belle indifference which meant that the patients face their memory loss indifferently. After doing a series of nuclear medical screening procedures it was found that Overfeld showed a biochemical abnormality within the part of his brain that was responsible for autobiographical memories (memories about oneself). According to the Doctor, our brains don’t forget, rather they store our memories in drawers and when we are in danger or emotional distress our stress hormones lock these drawers. It is not certain if or when these drawers will ever be opened. Markowitsch also has combined historical theories about amnesia saying that people with amnesia subconsciously don’t want to remember and also the brain doesn’t not have the capacity to remember. Jonathan Overfeld has tried remembering some of his past, and it has been said that he came up with a theory that as a foster child he was entered into a Catholic School where he was raped repeatedly, this could be the reason why he developed retrograde amnesia.
Scott Bolzan acquired retrograde amnesia due to head injury while slipping on a wet bathroom floor. Bolzan was an ex NFL player who had forgotten 46 years of his life. He could not retrieve any autobiographical memories ranging from who he was, what his occupation was, who his wife was, if he had a family, etc. In Scott’s case it has been made clear that although he can’t remember these autobiographical explicit memories he still has implicit intelligence and reasoning, as well as language function. He can understand written and spoken words, and has retained procedural skills such as bike riding or playing a musical instrument just like Overfeld above. Doctors did a brain scan on Scott and found that there was no blood flow going to the right temporal lobe of his brain where memory is stored and this shows physiological proof of his amnesia as well.
Terms: explicit memories, implicit memories, lobectomy, consolidation, mirror reversal task, episodic, semantic, temporal lobe, chunking, anterograde amnesia, retrograde amnesia, memory, brain, autobiographical memories, procedural memories, retrieval.
http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/retrograde-amnesia-strange-case-jonathan-overfeld
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Overfeld
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/football-player-scott-bolzans-life-deleted-irreversible-amnesia/story?id=14616045&page=2
http://www.apa.org/monitor/sep05/lessons.aspx
http://blog.brainfacts.org/2013/05/patient-zero-what-we-learned-from-h-m/#.U1bCSPm-1sI
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2649674/
For the final blog, I chose to gain a deeper understanding of Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development in comparison to Vygotsky’s Stages of Cognitive Development. With each of these cognitive development theories I will be discussing the similarities and differences between the two and how each psychologists looks at the way in which children learn. Each psychologists lays out a series of stages in which children encounter as they develop that make up the psychologists’ cognitive development theories.
Before the two theories can be compared and contrasted, each of the stages must be defined for each psychologists. Chapter 12 of our textbook captures Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s stages of cognitive development. Piaget separated development in four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, operational, and concrete operational. On the other hand, Vygotsky based his theory of development on three stages: social, egocentric, and inner. Both theories of child development are well-known, but each are different from each other.
First, Piaget looks at the ages of 0-2 where the child is in the sensorimotor stage. In this stage, the child experience his or her world of the here and now through the senses. Later in the sensorimotor stage, the child develops object permanence in which the child understands that an object exists even if the object is not present within the field of vision. In this stage, no language is yet present.
Next, is the preoperational stage in which the child is between 2-7 years of age. Piaget believed that during this stage, the child still does not have the ability to think through actions or the ability of mental operations. At this age, child have egocentric thought. Egocentric thought means that the child feels as if others share their points of view, but only follow their own. During the preoperational stage children also have no conservation ability. Children think that the amount of something stays the same even if the appearance of it has changed.
Concrete operation is the next stage in Piaget’s theory where the child is between the ages of 7-11. Here, the child has the ability to conserve. Also, children begin to learn best through hands-on learning and children are able to think concretely and with reasoning. Additionally, the child has acquired reversibility in thought and a person or object remain the same over time.
Last, Piaget’s final stage is formal operations. Children are 11 and older in years of age during this stage. People in this stage are able to think abstractly and have inductive and deductive reasoning abilities. Individuals are able to solve problems and use hypothetical thinking skills.
In Piaget’s theory, children are able to act in their own environment in order to learn. Social interactions allow children to move away from egocentricism and to think for themselves. Piaget also looked at assimilation and accommodation when children build schemes or mental representations of people and objects. Assimilation is information that a child already knows whereas accommodation involves adapting a child’s existing knowledge to what is being perceived. Overall, Piaget believed that development of his four stages had to come before a child can learn.
Vygotsky was also providing another view of cognitive development of children. Vygotsky’s first stage, social, occurs around the ages of 0-3. The social stage of Vygotsky’s theory includes simple thought and emotions by infants. Here the child has more of an external control of behavior of others has the child is dependent on the care of another.
Next, Vygotsky looks at the stage of egocentric. The egocentric stage involves children ages 3-7. With this stage there is a bridge between the external and inner speech of a child. A child learns through social interactions and from the culture and environment in which they are being raised.
The inner stage is the final stage of Vygotsky’s theory. The inner stage is for children that are 7 and older. Within the stage, a child moves toward more individualized thinking. The language of the child is involved in higher mental functioning and the child interacts more during shared activities.
Overall, Vygotsky believed that children construct knowledge, learning may lead to development, development cannot be separated from its social context, and language may play a role in development. The major principle of Vygotsky’s theory is the development of language. Language of a child indicates their cultural beliefs and how they will interact with others.
As seen, both Piaget and Vygotsky had high levels of understanding in cognitive development. However, each saw a child’s cognitive development in different way. A few of the most known differences between the perspectives are the role of language in cognitive development, the value of free exploration versus more structured and guided activities, the influence of culture, and the importance of interactions. However, the main and most obvious difference between the two theories is the role of hierarchy. Piaget’s stages must be “completed” before a child can move on to the next; Vygotsky’s theory, however, does not depend on time.
Also, Piaget was more centered on a biological connection in children’s development. Vygotsky claimed that children’s knowledge is gained through social interactions and their culture. Therefore, Vygotsky’s theories were more generalized and not elaborate enough whereas Piaget’s theories were more structured and thought out. Overall, Piaget took a more scientific look at a child’s development cycle.
Although there are many differences between the two theories, there are a few similarities that should be noted as well. Both Piaget and Vygotsky believed that social interactions played some role in cognitive development (although Vygotsky thought stronger about this). Piaget simply thought that children gained understanding through the learning from others.
Terms: Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development, Vygotsky’s Stages of Cognitive Development, sensorimotor, object permanence, preoperational, egocentric, conservation, concrete operation, reversibility, formal operations, schemes, assimilation, accommodation, social, inner, language, hierarchy
http://www2.education.uiowa.edu/html/eportfolio/tep/07p075folder/Piaget_Vygotsky.htm
This URL highly outlined Piaget’s stages of cognitive development and Vygotsky’s stages of cognitive development. The website also explained other major principles defined by the two psychologists.
http://www.fountainmagazine.com/Issue/detail/CONSTRUCTIVISM-in-Piaget-and-Vygotsky
This URL looked at Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories within the classroom and how each plays a role in a child’s understanding of cognitive tasks.
http://www.education.com/reference/article/cognitive-development/
This URL provided an explanation of each stages of the psychologist’s developmental cognitive theories.
http://wps.prenhall.com/chet_mcdevitt_childdevel_3/47/12219/3128086.cw/index.html
This URL provided the main differences between Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s cognitive development of children.
http://www.mindmeister.com/139274374/piaget-vygotsky-a-comparison
This URL spelled out the differences and similarities between the two theories. The main emphasis from this website was on the comparison of the two cognitive development theories.
http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Similarities_%26_differences_between_Piaget_%26_Vygotsky_theories
This URL focused solely on the similarities of the two theories and created an outline of each of the stages from both psychologists.
The topics I chose for the final blog were topics that were of interests to me and also posed interesting question throughout the semester. The two topics I will be discussing in further detail are highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM) and eidetic memory/photographic memory. I have been fascinated by memory ever since I started studying psychology, for one because my own memory is not so good but also because memory is a pivotal key to learning and intelligence. While I do not possess a highly superior autobiographical memory or an eidetic memory, there are individuals with these unique abilities.
From birth we are exposed to many millions of stimuli, sensations and information. All of these experiences throughout life, from your first kiss to a family vacation to sad farewells, have the potential to end up as autobiographical memories or can be coded into what some refer to as a photographic memory. The eidetic memory is by definition the ability to recall images, sounds or objects in memory with great precision, this can also be said about HSAM. The difference between the two is actually pretty simple. Autobiographical memories are essentially a collection of your “greatest hits” throughout life, they can represent personal experiences, specific objects, people and events experienced at particular time and place. While some individuals with HSAM would call this photographic or eidetic memory there are others that have the ability to not only remember events from their own life but from other events not personal to them.
Memory has been a topic of great interest for many disciplines, one’s personal memories have also been the subject of many psychological studies because an individual’s experience is unique to them alone. Our personal memories are selected by our brain based on importance, rather than storing everything we see our brain sifts through the information which isn’t important to us and saves the moments that are significant in our lives. This is true for any type of heightened memory ability, so far nobody that we know of can remember everything, it is simply too much information to store and process. Most people with superhuman memories tend to be skilled at one specific task, like chess or cards. While some people can improve their memory through techniques like mnemonics and practice, those with eidetic memory are born with it. With eidetic memory, children are more likely to possess the ability than adults but they begin losing the ability around age six as they learn to process information more abstractly.
We also know from Ebbinghaus’s research that our rate of forgetting is linear over time, the ability to access some episodes from our life becomes harder over time as that information in the brain deteriorates and becomes vague. While this is how the average person’s memory saves data there is a very small population of individuals with HSAM. These people can often recall any event in their life and tell you the day, time and year and sometimes the emotion they were feeling as if it were yesterday. New research is being developed as to how this small population of individuals is able to have such a powerful memory. This is especially interesting because as I mentioned earlier, people with HSAM do not show exceptional memory in other areas besides autobiographical memory, however they do display slightly above average intelligence. Many researchers indicate an amplified white matter consistency in people with HSAM, which they suggest may indicate the transfer of information among connecting neural regions is enhanced in these individuals and this may contribute to their superior autobiographical memories. The research and our understanding of these rare traits are still in the early stages because it was unknown for so long that such a significant amount of people had the ability. Many of the individuals with HSAM or eidetic memory did not even know what it was until recently, often individuals with the trait do not realize anything is different for them because it is all they have ever known. British born Stephen Wiltshire, who we discussed briefly in some class discussions is a prodigious savant, or someone with a skill level equivalent to or greater than that of a prodigy, regardless of any cognitive disability. The most common trait of these savants is their limitless mnemonic skills, with many having eidetic or photographic memories. Prodigious savants are extremely rare, most estimates suggest fewer than fifty or so such individuals are alive today. Steven is capable of drawing the entire skyline of a city after a helicopter ride with unbelievable precision. He was a mute when he was younger and was diagnosed as autistic at the age of 3, however he gained an interest in drawing very early and eventually learned to speak around age 5 but mostly expressed himself through his art. While this is the rarest form of HSAM or eidetic memory, these individuals may hold the key to understanding how to code and retrieve information in our brain more efficiently and effectively than ever before. Our ability to remember events or people throughout life plays a big role in our self-identity and I encourage further research to help improve and understand memory.
Terms: mnemonic, photographic memory, highly superior autobiographical memory, eidetic memory, Ebbinghaus,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidetic_memory
This was a useful site to learn more about the individuals who have been scientifically tested for photographic memory.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200603/the-truth-about-photographic-memory
This site helped to explain other types of memory that are similar to photographic memory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobiographical_memory
This site was helpful in giving me a lot of background on the topic and giving further analysis than the book.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/quirks-memory/201301/people-extraordinary-autobiographical-memory
This site discussed individuals with HSAM a phenomenon in a small population of people.
For my final topical blog, I am interested in learning more about creativity and human intelligence. I am interested in knowing more about different types of human intelligence as well as the relationship between creativity and human intelligence.
According to Britannica, human intelligence is a mental construct comprised of “the ability to learn from experience, adapt to new situations, understand and handle abstract concepts, and use knowledge to navigate one’s environment.” The definition of intelligence is not without controversy, though. Most researchers have agreed that intelligence consists of many different cognitive processes including perception, memory, learning, and problem solving. Intelligence is the integration of these processes and how these processes are used to learn, adapt, understand, and navigate rather than mastery of any single process in any single context. The measurement of these processes and the context in which these processes are measured has been the source of the controversy surrounding human intelligence. Many theories attempt to explain what human intelligence is and how to measure it.
The more familiar theories of human intelligence are psychometric theories of human intelligence. Psychometric theories of intelligence quantify human intelligence usually through a variety of tests of mental abilities including analogies, classifications, and series completion. One composite, numerical score of these variety of tests represents human intelligence. In psychometric theory, higher scores on certain components of the composite scores such as memory can compensate for lower scores on other components of the composite score such as series completion. Charles Spearman was one of the first psychologists to propose a psychometric theory. In 1904, Spearman published an article about examining different patterns of intelligence and proposed two components of human intelligence. Spearman called the first factor the “general factor” or “g.” All intelligence tests require the general factor; however, Spearman was never able to explicitly define g and equated to mental energy. The second factor was the specific factor which related to specific intelligence such as mathematical intelligence.
L.L. Thurstone disagreed with Spearman’s theory and suggested that intelligence consisted of seven different factors including verbal comprehension, verbal fluency, numbers, spatial visualization, inductive reasoning, memory, and perceptual speed. Philip E. Vernon and Raymond B. Cattell struck a balance between the theories of Spearman and Thurstone. Vernon and Cattell divided intelligence into two types of intelligence, fluid and crystallized abilities. Fluid abilities are the abilities to reason and problem-solve while crystalized abilities are vocabulary, general information, and topical knowledge. Crystalized abilities develop from fluid abilities and increase across the lifespan. Fluid abilities increase in the early years of the lifespan and decrease in the later years.
David Wechsler combined many aspects of these theories and developed one of the most widely used intelligence tests today. Wechsler first became interested in human intelligence during the height of World War I. Wechsler was charged with evaluating soldiers’ intelligence which helped determine soldiers’ assignments. Wechsler worked closely with experts in human intelligence including Karl Pearson, Charles Spearman, Edward Thorndike, and Robert Mearns Yerkes. Wechsler’s intelligence test consists of four scores: verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, and processing speed.
Howard Gardner strongly disagreed that human intelligence is one entity and can be represented by with one score. In 1983, Gardner proposed the Theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI Theory). According to Gardner, “intelligence is a biopsychological potential to process information that can be activated in a cultural setting to solve problems or create products that are of value in a culture.” Gardner proposed eight criteria for intelligence such as developmental progression, core operations, and existence of exception people. Gardner produced seven different intelligences from the eight criteria including logical-mathematical, linguistic, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligence. Logical-mathematical and linguistic intelligences would be considered componential intelligence and are the intelligences that Wechsler’s intelligence tests measure.
The connection between Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences and creativity is more intuitive; however, intelligence plays a role in creativity no matter which theory or definition of human intelligence is being considered. Creativity is generally defined as the ability to generate new ideas by connecting existing concepts. This ideas do not have to be new to the world just new to the individual. Intelligence helps gather information, interpret information, provide solutions, and evaluate solutions. Intelligence plays a role in creativity because higher levels of intelligence help an individual evaluate solutions quicker; however, creativity goes beyond mere intelligence. Intelligence helps individuals gather information, interpret, and evaluate information whereas creativity connects seemingly unrelated information to form solutions.
Initially, researchers thought above average intelligence was a requisite for high levels of creativity which is known as the threshold hypothesis. The threshold hypothesis suggested that an intelligence quotient (IQ) of 120 was needed for high levels of creativity; however, research has supported an average IQ of 100 as sufficient for high levels of criteria. A higher IQ i.e. 120 may be beneficial for more demanding problems; however, personality factors seemed to play a bigger role than intelligence in creative achievement. Although creativity could be considered experiential intelligence which is the ability to react to novel situations and stimuli, creative individuals do not necessarily have to be more intelligent than the average individual. Creative individuals typically have more experiences, use their individual experiences more, and work through ideas more thoroughly. Creative individuals also do not tend to display functional fixedness that is creative individuals use ideas or objects in ways that are unfamiliar.
Terms: adapt, classification, components, comprehension, componential intelligence, creativity, experiential intelligence, functional fixedness, human intelligence, inductive reasoning, intelligence, knowledge, problem solving, theories
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/289766/human-intelligence This resource provided the commonly accepted definition of human intelligence and common theories about intelligence.
http://www.intelltheory.com/wechsler.shtml This resource talked provided information about David Wechsler and the intelligence test he developed.
http://www.intelltheory.com/mitheory.shtml This resource talked about another way to conceptualize intelligence, the Theory of Multiple Intelligences.
http://creativesomething.net/post/41103661291/the-relationship-between-creativity-and-intelligence This resource discussed the relationship between intelligence and creativity.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028961300024X This resource discussed and tested the threshold hypothesis.
We ceaselessly understand and recall data, and this procedure starts at a young hour in life. When we can learn or be entertained, we should first appreciate something, which might be precisely the significance the maker had planned. to react to anything for longer than a prompt response, we must recollect something of what we had understood. Comprehension and memory have a long history of study in brain science. How we appreciate something has suggestions for how it is recollected, and what is recalled is in huge part a capacity of what was at first caught on.
Throughout the comprehension process, memory becomes possibly the most important factor as approaching perceptual inputs are associated with past learning or experience to build an understanding of the occasion. This built memory representation then might be utilized as a source of perspective for deciphering future experience. This proceeding connection of appreciation and memory sways numerous parts of our lives.
To prevent decay of the data of what we are encountering it must be attended to and exchanged to a restricted limit short term memory, or what is at present alluded to as working memory, which includes the simultaneous stockpiling and preparing of pertinent data while repressing or overlooking data unimportant to the current assignment. In working memory, data is briefly kept up by a rehearsal instrument, and data that is straightforwardly in the center of attention is transformed basically on the premise of its visual or verbal code.
This stockpiling and preparing framework takes into consideration the joining of as of late gave data at present being prepared, bringing about the advancement of a mental model of the earth, circumstance, or encounters. Working memory might be isolated into three real frameworks, a central executive is accepted to control attention, a phonological loop is answerable for capacity and handling of verbal data, and a visuo-spatial sketchpad is answerable for capacity and preparing of visual and spatial data.
Rather than working memory, data in long term memory is fundamentally encoded semantically and is pretty much forever put away, with recovery disappointment because of memory decay, or inadequate recovery signals. A few orders do exist in demonstrating long term memory and how it is identifies with our lives. Long term memory can be divided into procedural memory, knowing how to do something, and declarative memory, realizing what it is. Procedural memory comprises of both motor and cognitive abilities that frequently don't require for something to be verbally illustrated, while declarative memory might be further separated into two principle classifications, semantic memory and episodic memory. Semantic memory might be considered the word reference of our cerebrum about things on the planet, episodic memory could be considered an encounter that is labeled with a specific minute in time and spot.
So what we make of the world or in different terms our understanding of things get prepared distinctively withing our brains that are either valuable or not all that imperative. But shouldn't we think about stimulus importance, it has been demonstrated to be a vital variable in numerous errands using working memory. The diverse sorts of stimulus additionally oversee how well our cerebrum appreciates and saves the data that is displayed to us.
Terms: Comprehension, memory, short term memory, working memory, rehearsal, attention, central executive, phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad, long term memory, procedural memory, declarative memory, semantic memory, episodic memory, and stimulus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory – Provides a lot of information on memory and how memory works.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/aprilholladay/2007-03-12-memory-first_N.htm – This article reassured what I had read before and provided some other information.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_comprehension – Provided some information I used in my blog that pertained to comprehension.
For the final exam blog I decided to do my research on comprehension and memory. Comprehension and memory are present in our daily lives constantly and are needed for us to be able to decide what actions need to be taken. No, matter how you look at it comprehension and memory are intertwined because if they weren't then we would have extreme difficulties doing just even the simplest of things.
We ceaselessly understand and recall data, and this procedure starts at a young hour in life. When we can learn or be entertained, we should first appreciate something, which might be precisely the significance the maker had planned. to react to anything for longer than a prompt response, we must recollect something of what we had understood. Comprehension and memory have a long history of study in brain science. How we appreciate something has suggestions for how it is recollected, and what is recalled is in huge part a capacity of what was at first caught on.
Throughout the comprehension process, memory becomes possibly the most important factor as approaching perceptual inputs are associated with past learning or experience to build an understanding of the occasion. This built memory representation then might be utilized as a source of perspective for deciphering future experience. This proceeding connection of appreciation and memory sways numerous parts of our lives.
To prevent decay of the data of what we are encountering it must be attended to and exchanged to a restricted limit short term memory, or what is at present alluded to as working memory, which includes the simultaneous stockpiling and preparing of pertinent data while repressing or overlooking data unimportant to the current assignment. In working memory, data is briefly kept up by a rehearsal instrument, and data that is straightforwardly in the center of attention is transformed basically on the premise of its visual or verbal code.
This stockpiling and preparing framework takes into consideration the joining of as of late gave data at present being prepared, bringing about the advancement of a mental model of the earth, circumstance, or encounters. Working memory might be isolated into three real frameworks, a central executive is accepted to control attention, a phonological loop is answerable for capacity and handling of verbal data, and a visuo-spatial sketchpad is answerable for capacity and preparing of visual and spatial data.
Rather than working memory, data in long term memory is fundamentally encoded semantically and is pretty much forever put away, with recovery disappointment because of memory decay, or inadequate recovery signals. A few orders do exist in demonstrating long term memory and how it is identifies with our lives. Long term memory can be divided into procedural memory, knowing how to do something, and declarative memory, realizing what it is. Procedural memory comprises of both motor and cognitive abilities that frequently don't require for something to be verbally illustrated, while declarative memory might be further separated into two principle classifications, semantic memory and episodic memory. Semantic memory might be considered the word reference of our cerebrum about things on the planet, episodic memory could be considered an encounter that is labeled with a specific minute in time and spot.
So what we make of the world or in different terms our understanding of things get prepared distinctively withing our brains that are either valuable or not all that imperative. But shouldn't we think about stimulus importance, it has been demonstrated to be a vital variable in numerous errands using working memory. The diverse sorts of stimulus additionally oversee how well our cerebrum appreciates and saves the data that is displayed to us.
Terms: Comprehension, memory, short term memory, working memory, rehearsal, attention, central executive, phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad, long term memory, procedural memory, declarative memory, semantic memory, episodic memory, and stimulus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory – Provides a lot of information on memory and how memory works.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/aprilholladay/2007-03-12-memory-first_N.htm – This article reassured what I had read before and provided some other information.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_comprehension – Provided some information I used in my blog that pertained to comprehension.
Cognitive Psychology – Final Assignment
For my final blog, I have chosen to discuss in further detail the topics of creativity and human intelligence. It is obvious that some are more creative than others. And it is also obvious that some are more intelligent than others. What is it about certain people that makes them more creative or more intelligent? And what are the rest missing? Creativity and intelligence are two very terms to measure. The first thing I wanted to look into was what parts of the brain are used when a person is being creative. And I also wanted to look into what parts of the brain are involved in a person’s intelligence.
Each side of the brain controls different types of thinking. The brain has two hemispheres: the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere. There is a structure that connects the two hemispheres and lets them communicate to one another. Even though the different halves of the brain have different functions, they still work best together. I found that for a really long time people thought in a “left brain”/”right brain” sense. People assumed that they used one more than the other. This seems to not necessarily be the case. Both sides of the brain control different things, but when working together is when a person does their best. The website that I found states what the different hemispheres of the brain are specialized to do. The right hemisphere is specialized in emotions, music, creativity, etc. And the left hemisphere is specialized in language, logic, reasoning, etc. There is strong evidence that the two hemispheres are better used for different functions, but people are not left-brained or right-brained. I found this very interesting because it is something that is still so widely talked about. Some people think that they use one side of their brain more than the other. This website states that most people are unaware that the left brain/right brain theory is out dated. After learning this interesting information, I decided to look more into the creative process rather than what makes someone more creative than someone else.
Our book for this course talks about Wallas’ description of the creative process. His description has four different steps that a person must follow to end up with more creative ideas and ways of thinking. The first step is preparation. Preparation is when the individual will define the problem and try to solve it. The second step is incubation. Incubation will involve the person taking a step back from the problem in order to look at other factors. The third step is illumination. This is the step where the person achieves insight to the problem. And the final step is verification. Verification is the step in which the person carries out the solution to the problem. All of these steps seem very vital to the creative process. And I was wondering if there are any other theories on the creative process that are different from Wallas’ theory.
I found a different list of steps in the creative process that actually builds on Wallas’ steps. This new list was created by a filmmaker named Tiffany Shlain. Shlain’s description of the creative process consists of 10 different steps. The list goes the hunch, talk about it, the sponge, build, confusion, just step away, the love sandwich, the premature breakthroughlation, revisit your notes, and know when you’re done. Some of these are self-explanatory, and for those that aren’t – I will explain in further detail. The hunch, in simpler terms, is basically the starting point. The hunch is when you decide to take on a problem. Then you must talk about it and involve others around you. The sponge step is when you immerse yourself in new information regarding the problem you chose to look at. Then you must start to build on what you have started with, but after that you will hit the step of confusion. After confusion hits, you will need to take a step back and then “The Love Sandwich” occurs. This basically means that you need to give yourself feedback rather than only get it from others. Some people aren’t very good about giving constructive (and kind) criticism. After that comes the premature breakthroughlation. During this step you will have many small breakthroughs – that you need to remember to celebrate. The last two steps are for you to revisit your notes and to know when you are done.
So obviously there are different ways to go through the creative process. Some are more complex than others, but they all bring the person to the same result – a more creative answer to a problem. So the next thing I want to explore is how to measure creativity. I know that creativity and intelligence are hard to measure. So I wanted to look up is there were certain ways to do so, and how.
When measuring creativity, there are 4 things to keep in mind. These 4 things are fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration. Fluency is how many responses the person comes up with. Flexibility refers to how many types of responses. Originality is the unusualness of the responses. And elaboration is the detail of that person’s responses. Once we measure all 4 of these things, we will have a better idea of how creative a person’s ideas or answers are. Using this method has positive and negative aspects. If you use these four things to measure a person’s creativity, you will get a result that is clear and quantifiable. But this also doesn’t tell anything of the relevance or value of the result. This was just one way that I found to measure creativity, and as you can see, there are negative aspects. There are many ways to measure creativity though, and I don’t think that any one way is correct, or more correct than another. There are different measurements for creativity that will look at what you want them to look at.
Intelligence in humans is something that is equally as hard to measure. But it is something that we are always trying to measure anyway. Intelligence is a hard thing to measure because there are so many different types of intelligence that a person can have. The website that I found on assessing intelligence says to “never assume that education equals brainpower.” I think that this is a very good fact to remember. There are so many people out there that have little education that have done great things, and vice versa. Since we know that we have multiple intelligences, we can see that we are all intelligent in different aspects of life, we all learn in different ways, and we are all interested in learning different things. One of the most interesting things I have found in this chapter is that the most intelligent people are the ones who are willing to admit just how much they do not know. It is said that a great sign of intelligence is when a person admits that they do not know something rather than pretending that they do. This is something that doesn’t really follow our beliefs on the matter – so it’s something that really caught my eye.
Although creativity and intelligence are hard to measure – it can be done. There are many different ways to be creative and there are many different types of intelligence. This is very important to remember when studying cognitive psychology. Cognitive psychologists are concerned with how the mind works and why. If we can understand that some things just can’t be fully measured like others – it will help our learning. Even though creativity and intelligence are big parts of our day-to-day lives, they are concepts that will always be hard to understand, and equally as hard to measure.
URLs:
http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/a/left-brain-right-brain.htm
This website had a lot of good information on how the left brain/right brain theory is outdated. It discussed how people do not use one side of their brain more than the other. Even though the two hemispheres have different functions, one is not used more than the other.
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/02/19/tiffany-shlain-creative-process/
There is a longer version of Wallas’ creative process on this website that a filmmaker created. This website has that entire creative process and it explains the steps. I feel that this is a good/different way to look at the concepts the book talks about relating to the creative process.
http://www.senseandsensation.com/2012/03/assessing-creativity.html
This website listed many different ways to measure creativity. There was a lot of good information on how creativity can be measured in different situations to get the type of result the person is looking for.
http://www.askmen.com/money/how_to_200/222b_how_to.html
There is a lot of helpful information on this website about intelligence and how we can measure it. There is no surefire way to measure how intelligent someone is, but we can look at the different types of intelligence and different character traits that a person has and take a stab at it.
Terms: Creativity, Intelligence, Left Hemisphere, Right Hemisphere, Creative Process, Wallas, Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, Verification, Cognitive Psychology
After looking through the chapters, I narrowed my topic of interest down to human intelligence and artificial intelligence. These two topics really did resonate with me throughout the book. I enjoyed the information that the book had on these topics, and the research that I did on these topics only furthered my appreciation. The areas that I enjoyed reading about within in these topics was problem solving. I do not know why these areas intrigued me some much, maybe it was because I liked how we come to conclusions. I had never thought to stop and figure out how I came to conclusions of problems before, and really took for granted the ability to problem solve. Another thing that I enjoyed reading about was the the vast amount of ways there are to resolve a problem, and the fact that some ways are better for certain situations. Inductive, deductive, creativity, divergent thinking, and in some ways artificial intelligence are all ways that a human can come to a conclusion on a problem. The ability to problem solve is something that separates us from less developed species, and that is something that really got me interested on these topics.
The main way of problem solving that I thought was the most recurrent way for me to problem solve was deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning seems like the most logical way to problem solve. Narrowing down ones options by weeding out the most illogical solutions just seems like it is flawless. What I learned from reading the problem solving chapter is that there is not one best way to problem solve. There are in fact methods that work best for different situations. For example, doctors have to sometimes come up with solutions based on symptoms that a patient has. They do not know the answer or what might be the best solutions, but they do what they can with the information that they have in front of them. That is why I think problem solving is so interesting to me. There are so many ways to come to a conclusion. This leads me to artificial intelligence, and the ability of computers to problem solve at such an amazing rate compared to humans. I am really interested in the future of artificial intelligence over the years to come.
Artificial is a whole new way of problem solving. When I was reading the chapter I began to think about artificial intelligence as a way for humans to problem solve. Computers, calculators, and machines are created by humans. The fact that humans are capable of creating something that is smarter than themselves is really interesting. Computers are beginning to surpass the ability of human knowledge, but yet we created them. At what point do computers start to fix themselves, and generate information without our help. I know that this is already going on, the book talks about the movie Irobot and how robots start to have feelings. This is clearly just a fictional movie, but I believe that the idea is not far off. This brings me to the future of artificial intelligence, and the progression. It brings up a lot of questions that cannot be answered. Example that come to mind is what amazon is doing with delivering packages now. A drone now can deliver a package right to your door step just by having the address to your house. Cars now have the ability to park your car. It seems strange, and out of the ordinary, but if you close your mind to the ideas they will never develop into reality. I was really happy that I got to read about these topics in the book, and the continued research that I did on these topics because they really opened my eyes to the future, along with the field of cognitive psychology.
I didn’t get a chance to read from the artificial intelligence chapter this year, so I decided to use this last chapter in my final blog post. I will be integrating information from the chapter on artificial intelligence, and the chapter on consciousness.
Artificial Intelligence can be defined as a branch of computer science that deals with the development of computers and computer programs that emulate human cognitive functions. The intrigue of artificial intelligence is in regards to the question of whether or not a computer can actually think. It’s obvious that a computer can do some functions simulating cognitive function, like a calculator for example. A calculator can perform math functions, much better than the average person, however it is only abiding by programmed mathematical principals. The classic Turing test shows how a computer may be indistinguishable from a human in certain aspects, which suggests that the computer is as capable of the specific function as a human would be. However, the question still stands about whether or not a computer could be designed that would actually ‘think’. It is suggested that consciousness exists above intelligence, in the hierarchy of the brain. Consciousness is defined in the text as the awareness of environmental and cognitive events. Intelligence does not have a single accepted definition, and draws on various aspects of problem solving, concept formation, reasoning, and creativity. The AWAREness model of consciousness (Attention, Wakefulness, Architecture, Recall of knowledge, Emotive, novelty, emergence, selectivity, subjectivity) identifies attention as being a crucial aspect of consciousness. It has been suggested that consciousness is kind of in charge of intelligence. Consciousness is like a little man sitting in a control room in your brain. It is responsible for all of the thoughts, memories, and feelings that are experienced. Intelligence can be thought of as the little person’s operating software. The consciousness draws on the intelligence to achieve certain functions. Therefore, to answer the question about whether or not computers can think, it must also be asked if computers can be conscious. The reason we can have artificial intelligence and not artificial consciousness resides in our understanding of the original constructs. Intelligence can be understood in various aspects through mathematical principals. Thus, an algorithm can be written, providing a computer with a sort of guide about how to go about doing certain functions. However, as thought and logic are products of consciousness, it is a point of interest if we would be able to understand a source by the product of the source. Conversely, another theory says that intelligence can be understood as a single equation that tries to maximize future range of options, and that consciousness evolved in accordance with this equation. As the brain originally developed to control coordinated movements of an organism and then evolved to allow for emotions and eventually complex thought, this fits perfectly with the aforementioned theory. If this equation could be used in an algorithm, it could be theoretically possible that a computer could develop consciousness. If the AI were to run on a parallel distributed processing network with it’s thought being represented by a connectionist model, then it could record patterns of successes, appropriately change the weights of connections between units, and effectively learn. This advance in AI would be affected by the implementation of quantum computing, which allows for units to be expressed in a superposition of states rather than one or the other. The interesting part here is that another model developed, based off of quantum physics, which identifies consciousness as a sort of metaphysical property that needs to be understood. The rational behind this is that there has not been a scientific explanation of consciousness, and when looking at the double slit experiment you can see that consciousness actually plays a role in reality, by influencing whether or not a photon exists as a particle or a wave. I would be very interested to see how scientists will go about trying to create artificial consciousness, and exactly how quantum computing will be involved in that. Moore’s law talks about the growing rate at which technology advances, which taken into account here, suggests that these hypotheticals will become real issues very soon. Furthermore, this advance in artificial intelligence can be understood a lot better after a comprehensive map of the brain is completed. If consciousness is indeed a result of neurological activity, and the hard problem is answered by patterns of activity and specific connections rather than a specific consciousness area of the brain, then we will may able to find that pattern and implement it into the first artificial consciousness.
Terms: Artificial Intelligence, Turing Test, Consciousness, Intelligence, AWAREness, Algorithm, PDP, Connectionist Model, Moore’s Law, Hard Problem
http://www.goutampaul.com/AIConscCamera.pdf
This link talks about artificial intelligence and consciousness, but focuses more on the philosophy of the issues.
http://www.consciousness.it/CAI/CAI.htm
This link goes in depth about consciousness and tries to talk a little about the neurological correlate of it.
http://www.ted.com/talks/alex_wissner_gross_a_new_equation_for_intelligence#t-436341
This link contains a ted talks where a man talks about the equation for intelligence and a little about how that would work with the future of robots
For this final blog I decided to look further into artificial intelligence, and more specifically how they learn. I became most interested in this topic after last week’s class. We discussed artificial intelligence at length, and at that point I didn’t really know what AI was. AI is a computer that humans try to build in their likeness, essentially. It combines the work of many fields such as computer science, psychology, linguistics, philosophy, and neuroscience. AI is able to perform many tasks, however the machine is only as good as we program them to be. The newest hurdle in AI is developing a robot that can learn on its own. As far as we are aware, only beings with a consciousness are able to learn, and furthermore we aren’t entirely sure how it is that we learn. Formally, learning is the acquisition of knowledge or skills through experience, study, or by being taught according to the Webster Dictionary. However, science has only pinned down a few way that we believe we learn.
First is through the use of mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are neurons in the brain that fire exactly the same way if you’re performing an action, or if you view that action being done by someone else. Through the use of mirror neurons, we are able to replicate the actions of others and learn behaviors. A second mechanism that we know is used in the learning process is memory. Without memory we would not retain anything we learned, and we would need to continually relearn everything every time we encountered that same situation. Memory is how humans store and retrieve the knowledge we learn so that we are able to use it again and apply it to more complex situations. Another possible brain structure involved in learning and making strong memories is the amygdala. The amygdala is often described as the emotional center of the brain and allows us to attach emotions to our memories. Arguably the most important emotion that can be attached to a memory is fear. Fear is the best and earliest intact emotion we have for learning, and it keeps us safe which could give us insight into why it is so well developed at such an early age.
So how does all of this apply to AI? Well the biggest struggle for AI developers is how to make a computer that has something resembling mirror neurons, memory, or an amygdala. Memory is no issue, and computers have stored data for many years now, and scientists are able to improve this continually. However, their memory does not function like ours. Computer memory is more like a storage unit where you put old furniture and then you can go back there any time you’d like and get the whole piece of furniture. Human memory has many different types, and each type is used for many different things. For example there is topographic memory that is used when we are lost, and we are able to recognize familiar places. Computer memory would only be able to know if they had been in that exact location at that angle before by comparing it to images taken while there before. Although our memory is far from perfect, it is very helpful to us. We also have declarative or explicit memory that is much more similar to a computers memory. Declarative memory is when we recall something exactly as we’ve learned and stored it, usually facts or events. This is very similar to a computer’s memory because that is all that a computer is able to do so far, and therein lies their greatest limitation. We have many types of memory and recall because it helps us solve problems and understand our world more completely. Now that computer have a memory, they are able to store what they learn, so how can we develop a mechanism for learning?
This is a problem that scientists like Geoff Hinton have been attempting to solve for decades. His solution is called deep learning, a process that involves allowing the AI to sort through mass amounts of data with no instructions so that it is able to develop meaningful categories on its own. He equates this process to a child who is asked to sort blocks with no instruction. They may be sorted, by color, size, shape or many other categories defined by the child. Similarly the AI is given millions of hand written digits and asked to categorize them, again with no instructions. Here the AI has to sort them by likeness, meaning which are the most similar, and then assign a name to the category when it is finished. This is a fairly simple task for us as human beings, however this task may have to be repeated hundreds even thousands of times before the AI gets them all right. The idea of this is for the AI to learn pieces or chunks of information before learning something more complex, the best example of this is for the AI to learn letters before it learns words before it attempts to read.
Another of the biggest issues in development of AI currently is logic. Logic is the process by which we reasonably examine our world. Without the use of inductive and deductive reasoning, AI is unable to make inferences based on knowledge and it is unable to apply past experiences to help it pick the best options in a difficult situation. There are algorithms, complex mathematical equations that allow AIs to carry out their functions, that help to accomplish these kinds of reasoning but they pale in comparison to those of humans. Furthermore, AIs have a difficult time comprehending and understanding language, and particularly accents. Google is putting a lot of their energy and budget into improving language comprehension of their technology, and we can see this in their latest phones. Anyone with the KitKat processor in their cell phone may have recognized that their voice search is more efficient than ever, and this is because Googles voice recognition technology is constantly improving. This progress does not give some hope to the AI world because in a cell phone, the voice recognizer processes what is said, categorizes it, and then passes that information along to other processors that open up your google search bar, and then the google search engine takes it over from there.
Terms: artificial intelligence, learn, mirror neurons, memory, amygdala, topographic memory, declarative memory, deep learning, logic, inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning, algorithms, language
Links: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/11/is-deep-learning-a-revolution-in-artificial-intelligence.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence
http://ic.epfl.ch/artificial-intelligence-and-machine-learning
https://www.cs.princeton.edu/research/areas/mlearn
http://siliconangle.com/blog/2014/04/10/ai-developers-to-power-new-generation-of-context-driven-artificial-intelligence/
http://research.google.com/pubs/ArtificialIntelligenceandMachineLearning.html
https://www.google.com/search?q=learning+definition&oq=learning+defin&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l5.4286j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory#Types_of_memory
This week I decided to blog about the types of amnesia. Things that effect the memory are more likely to make people interested in things. Anterograde amnesia and retrograde amnesia are the main types of amnesia. I will be discussing what the types of amnesia and then showing a case study about each one.
In Retrograde amnesia (RA), the brain structures that are most common brain structures that are effected by the RA are the areas that are using declarative memory or with episodic memory. These areas are associated with the hippocampus, the temporal lobes and some other areas of the brain. RA is the loss of previous memory, before the onset of disease or trauma. Sometimes RA can be temporary due to whatever caused you to have RA in the first place. Some other causes for RA are traumatic events, nutritional deficiency, infections, and surgery.
Trauma may not always happen to cause RA, you can have RA if there are things that you consciously or unconsciously want to forget about something that is bothering you. The nutritional deficiency is found most commonly in the alcohol-dependent patients. They suffer from lack of needed vitamins that are needed to help the brain function. Infections that are blood related can affect the brain as well; it causes damage to the brain itself. Some surgeries that can create a better life for people with epilepsy can cause issues with the memory system and create patients to have RA.
One case that is known about a patients loosing memory from surgery that was to cease the epileptic seizures that were causing issues in the man’s life is the case of Henry Molaision. When the surgeons went into Henry’s brain they removed the parahippocampal area of the brain which caused Henry to have sever RA and anterograde amnesia. This would cause great issue for Henry for the rest of his life.
Anterograde amnesia (AA), is the loss of the ability to create memories after you have had something happen to you. You are no longer able to create or recall things in the short term memories that you are trying to create. Yet, with AA your long term memory is still intact. This is mostly caused by alcohol or drug use by whoever is affected by AA.
Henry as stated before was also associated with AA, so he could no longer recall new or old memories that he was creating or had created. Another case that is known is Clive Wearing, his brain was attacked by a cold sore virus leaving him with the inability to use short term memory. This also made him wake up several times a day.
Terms: long term memory, short term memory, parahippocampal, temporal lobes, hippocampus, episodic memory, declarative memory, anterograde amnesia, retrograde amnesia, amnesia
CITES
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Wearing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anterograde_amnesia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrograde_amnesia#Traumatic_brain_injury_.28TBI.29_or_post-traumatic_amnesia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Molaison
This week I decided to blog about the types of amnesia. Things that effect the memory are more likely to make people interested in things. Anterograde amnesia and retrograde amnesia are the main types of amnesia. I will be discussing what the types of amnesia and then showing a case study about each one.
In Retrograde amnesia (RA), the brain structures that are most common brain structures that are effected by the RA are the areas that are using declarative memory or with episodic memory. These areas are associated with the hippocampus, the temporal lobes and some other areas of the brain. RA is the loss of previous memory, before the onset of disease or trauma. Sometimes RA can be temporary due to whatever caused you to have RA in the first place. Some other causes for RA are traumatic events, nutritional deficiency, infections, and surgery.
Trauma may not always happen to cause RA, you can have RA if there are things that you consciously or unconsciously want to forget about something that is bothering you. The nutritional deficiency is found most commonly in the alcohol-dependent patients. They suffer from lack of needed vitamins that are needed to help the brain function. Infections that are blood related can affect the brain as well; it causes damage to the brain itself. Some surgeries that can create a better life for people with epilepsy can cause issues with the memory system and create patients to have RA.
One case that is known about a patients loosing memory from surgery that was to cease the epileptic seizures that were causing issues in the man’s life is the case of Henry Molaision. When the surgeons went into Henry’s brain they removed the parahippocampal area of the brain which caused Henry to have sever RA and anterograde amnesia. This would cause great issue for Henry for the rest of his life.
Anterograde amnesia (AA), is the loss of the ability to create memories after you have had something happen to you. You are no longer able to create or recall things in the short term memories that you are trying to create. Yet, with AA your long term memory is still intact. This is mostly caused by alcohol or drug use by whoever is affected by AA.
Henry as stated before was also associated with AA, so he could no longer recall new or old memories that he was creating or had created. Another case that is known is Clive Wearing, his brain was attacked by a cold sore virus leaving him with the inability to use short term memory. This also made him wake up several times a day.
Terms: long term memory, short term memory, parahippocampal, temporal lobes, hippocampus, episodic memory, declarative memory, anterograde amnesia, retrograde amnesia, amnesia
CITES
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Wearing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anterograde_amnesia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrograde_amnesia#Traumatic_brain_injury_.28TBI.29_or_post-traumatic_amnesia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Molaison
For my final blog I was interesting in learning more about consciousness. The two areas I wanted to focus on where functions and states of consciousness. I decided to come back to this because I was really interested in how things can alter consciousness, and what causes different states.
Consciousness is the state of being aware or an object or something internal.This helps us have a sensory experience, subjective experience, and feelings associated with them this is called qualia. To help experience objects we detect them through our retinas. There are many debates about if qualia are real and if people have experiences or not. Another idea is that quale is used to make volitional movement possible. It is also thought that consciousness gives us allows us to plan our behaviors ahead instead of relying on instincts. Sigmund Freud used the “tip of the iceberg” to explain our conscious and unconscious mind. He goes on to explain that we only see a small portion of your conscious mind and rest is all unconsciousness. The top part is what we are aware and what is happening. The bottom half is what we do not know is happening. I think this goes well with the topic because it puts in something to visually think about what you think you would know a lot about but in reality there is some much more than the conscious mind.
There are eight different functions of consciousness context setting, adaption and learning, prioritizing, recruitment and control, decision-making, error detection and editing, self-monitoring, and organization and flexibility. Context setting is where the systems act to define an incoming stimulus of context and knowledge. Adaption and learning is having consciousness for involvement to successfully deal with novel information. Prioritizing this is needed to access information in the unconscious. Recruitment and control consciousness is involved in our motor systems to help with voluntary movements. Decision-making brings out information to help in making decisions. Error detection and editing this function helps us know when we have made a mistake. In self-monitoring it helps us with control on conscious and unconscious self. Organization and flexibility helps us in predictable and unpredictable situations. All of these functions are used in daily life. Reading more into they I didn’t realize there was so many types and they all have such big parts of our conscious mind.
Consciousness has four different states sleep, dreaming, drug use, and meditation. These are all different areas states of awareness. Sleep unlike being awake we do not experience things like in our alternate state. When we are awake we are aware of things around us and experience it. When we are sleeping we don’t get that same sense of experiences. Scientists have experimented with sleep and EEG’s showing there is a difference in conscious and unconscious states. The second state of consciousness is dreaming and occurs during the REM sleep. We have dreams but ask where the content comes from. Some people believe that it comes from experiences that our unconscious mind gave us and it interprets it into our dreams. There is also a difference in sleep to dream sleep, and plain none dream sleep. Ordinary sleep you can not recall anything about the sleep. For dream sleep you have vivid memorable dreams. Drug use is another of the states of consciousness. Our brain has receptors that take in drugs but these kinds of drugs were not made to go with these receptors. These drugs with the receptors changes our state of consciousness. Drugs that can alter our state of consciousness would be depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens. These can affect both psychological and physiological consciousness. The last state of consciousness is meditation. This is when you release all your thoughts and are supposed to bring upon relaxation. There has been reports of different kinds of brain wave between relaxation and performing meditation.
consciousness, qualia, volitional movement, EEG, depressants, stimulants, hallucinogens, context setting, adaption and learning, prioritizing, recruitment and control, decision-making, error detection and editing, self-monitoring, and organization and flexibility.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness
http://psychlopedia.wikispaces.com/States+of+Consciousness
In chapter 8 of our text we learned about automatic processes. A simple way to explain automatic processes is to begin with an explanation of what they are not. For example, if one was tasked with the odd but still somewhat cognitively demanding task of counting backwards from 116 by 7.7, one would be heavily reliant on conscious/controlled processes. That is to say one would need to exert a very deliberate and conscious effort as opposed to generating answers almost instantaneously/automatically. Each calculation would need to be carried out individually in one’s mind, unlike how if someone asks us what is five plus five or one plus one, an individual may provide an answer instantaneously. This likely happens in an automatic fashion due to implicit memory.
Our text describes implicit memory as being memory that is measured primarily through a change in performance. In our previous math calculations example involving counting backwards by 7.7, our automatic processes would not be able to rely upon implicit memory as the average person likely has little to no experience counting backwards by a unit of 7.7. In contrast to that calculation would be the one plus one calculation. Numerous examples of counting/adding by one likely exist in almost any individuals life, being taught to count by parents usually happens in counting objects one by one, working part time jobs may require one to count money back requiring a similar process of counting. As a result we have an implicit memory for this that allows us to bypass searching our long-term memory for mathematical information about subtraction and decimals and then apply the knowledge consciously. Instead the implicit memory allows for rapid production of an answer in this scenario.
This likely seems somewhat intuitive, after all it is only logical that an individual would be better at tasks they have much more familiarity with. However one should not dismiss the constructs that would be considered automatic processes as merely being the result of cognitive rehearsal of a memory/mental operations. One of the largest reasons for this arguably lies in the results of priming studies that suggest automatic processes can come into play fairly swiftly. Priming studies most commonly are concerned with some stimuli activating cognitive processes or associations outside of an individual’s conscious awareness. Lexical decision tasks demonstrate that someone can identify a word faster if they were shown a different word belonging to the same category than if they were shown a word completely unrelated to the target word.
Other studies cited by the text show priming can influence how we feel about target individuals, dependant on what pictures had previously been displayed so quickly as to not break the threshold of consciousness. Automatic processes are even responsible for mundane effects such as disliking stimuli more if we disliked them to begin with and then were repeatedly exposed to them and vice versa (the mere exposure effect). From allowing us to perform certain functions rapidly to influencing our judgments of others, implicit processes appear to influence a wide range of the human experience.
This is unsurprising given that my first source suggests that we implicitly learn from our environment. If these processes are implicitly learned in early life and influence human’s in a variety of scenario’s it should be the case that it also has some influence on our knowledge and concepts. We likely implicitly learn some proportion of our knowledge of concepts/abstract ideas and organizations of facts and words. There could be high consistency with how we speak about certain topics if we as humans are all learning specific premises/concepts non-consciously.
This could be especially true given that these automatic processes are happening outside of our conscious awareness and take very deliberate conscious efforts to alter according to my second source.
Social learning theory/psycho-biology researchers have made significant contributions with respect to helping understand men and women’s stereotypical gender roles. Cognitive science may be able to help offer explanations for why we think about the concept of gender in the ways we do. It may be able to do this through looking into how we obtain and organize concepts. Though many people, even psychologists according to one source write about transgender people in offensive ways, there is likely no wildly popular course on how to misgender and offend transgender people through writing.
Instead, many cisgender people have likely not been exposed to images of or real life transgender people or issues, making it easy to believe that there are only cisgender men and cisgender women. If their semantic concepts of gender are influenced by this it may be very common for a cisgender person to assume certain propositions, a small unit of knowledge that is an assertion, are. One such proposition could be that every woman they meet has a vulva or that every man has a penis. This could explain why so many researchers have resorted to misgendering language such as male to female or female to male. This is because the proposition that a woman can be someone that has a penis may not have been implicitly learned then stored in the ‘woman’ concept the way propositions about women and vulvas were likely learned and stored in the ‘woman’ concept. Again, it should be noted that altering implicit processes is a difficult task and terms such as male to female or biologically male or female could be used as a method of trying to shoe-horn the concept/reality of transgender people into a far to narrow cis-centric concept gender rather than undertaking the cognitively more taxing challenge of expanding the semantic concept of gender.
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/xge/118/3/219.html Used this source to make it plausible that we could possibly learn dominant views without conscious awareness of how we obtained them.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/per.779/pdf This source demonstrated that automatic processes really do happen without our awareness and that they are not always easy to change or control.
http://fap.sagepub.com/content/24/2/259?etoc Finally this source offers a very thorough overview of why certain terminology is inappropriate as well as providing a discussion on the current usage of the word amongst researchers in the field of psychology.
Conscious processes, automatic processes, priming, mere exposure effect, concept, rehearsal, lexical decision task, implicit memory, threshold of consciousness, semantic concept, knowledge, proposition