Unit 3 Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

Unit 2

I know the second discussion question on synesthesia was very difficult. It is a complex concept and often confused with autobiographical/olfactory memory.

Synesthesia

Synesthesia is an effect between the sensory modalities within yourself. An example is called grapheme where colors and numbers or letters are associated together. A person with grapheme synesthesia would feel discomfort if the wrong color and number/letter were together. Another form is when color and sound go together, the synesthete would see color in response to sounds.

Number form synesthesia is when one has a mental map of numbers...such as a certain location in space and another number form type is when the synesthete associates letters, numbers, etc. with certain personalities.

There are food associated synethesias, such as those who can taste certain foods when certain words are spoken or those who taste in shapes, such as circles, squares, points. For example, there is a chef who will say...this sauce doesn't have enough points in it or it is too round.

Any Other Unit 2 Questions?

This is your opportunity to receive clarity on any other concepts from Unit 2.

While I am hoping that you spend time reading and trying to understand the material before you post, I do understand that you may not “get it” the first time around. That’s why it is good to post early, so we can discuss the topics.

Unit 3 Seminar

Information Processing Approach to Memory

Seminar Topic 1

The seminar will focus on the information-processing approach to memory. We will discuss how we develop a sensory memory, which moves into short-term memory and eventually into long-term storage.

Seminar Topic 2

The seminar will highlight interesting limitations of short-term memory, such as the "magical" number 7 + 2, which is the consistent limitation of the number of items we can hold in short-term memory. This number became the basis for our seven-digit phone number system, which is still in use today.

Seminar Topic 3

We also will discuss the advantages and down-sides of automaticity, which include "action slips", the bouts of absentmindedness that come with automatic processing.

MEMORYSensory Memory• Immediate recording of sensory information in

the memory system.• Look around you right now.• Not all of the information will make it into your

memory.• Sensory memory occurs primarily with visual and

auditory information.• While it may be recorded in your subconscious, it

may not make it to your awareness!

Short Term Memory• This is our activated memory.• Holds a few items briefly and then the

information either goes into storage or is forgotten.

• Example: Chunking information. We can hold 5 – 9 “chunks” of information. The average amount is 7 “chunks.”

Think of your phone number or the digits/numbers of a license plate.

What other items do we “chunk” to remember them?

Mnemonic Devices• There are many mnemonic devices to help

one remember. Creating or using acronyms

HOMES – the Great Lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior)

FBI – Federal Bureau of Investigation Method of Loci Peg-Word System Mental Imagery Grouping

What kind of mnemonic devices have you used?

Automatic Processing

Action slips occur when we're engaged in automatic processing (automaticity). How does this occur?

Please provide examples of automatic processing that you've experienced, as well as some action slips that you've encountered.

Working Memory Model

Short-term memory is essential to everything we do. A modular approach to understanding this ability is the Working Memory Model.

The author notes that there are criticisms to this model. Do you agree with these criticisms? Why or why not?

Baddeley’s Model of Working Memory

Language Visual Semantics Episodic LTM

Examples of Working Memory

• Working memory is kind of like a mental chalkboard. You are holding information to be used while solving problems and thinking. Putting together a puzzle. Planning a meal. Driving to work. Driving to an unfamiliar place. Watching television.

Criticisms of the Working Memory Model

Neath (2000, as cited in Robinson-Riegler & Robinson-Riegler, 2008) summarizes a number of problems with Baddeley’s model.• Working Memory isn’t about memory at all, but about

attention.• The quantity of information needed for higher-level

cognition exceeds the temporary storage space for working memory.

• The idea that memory loss is due to rehearsal and decay is not specific enough.

• It focuses too much on sensory processing and doesn’t deal with the concept of meaning.

WEBSITE RESOURCESThe San Francisco Exploratorium site includes a number of fascinating memory demonstrations and activities at: www.exploratorium.edu/memory/index.html

Michael Tipper provides a Web site for accelerated learning, which includes an extensive treatment of mnemonics, all the way from memory aids for spelling words to remembering rock formations. It can be found at: www.happychild.org.uk/acc/tpr/mne/index.htm

Unit 3 Project

Turnitin.com

In order for me to grade your project, you need to turn in your papers to turnitin.com and the courseroom dropbox.

You need to register with your email address and use the Class ID and password that I posted in the Announcements area of your Course Home.

Turnitin also has programs that can help you with your papers. However, you may want to use the Writing Center at Kaplan. Make sure, if you want feedback from the Writing Center, you submit your paper to them early in the week!!

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is taking someone else’s work and passing it off as your own. This happens when you do not give the original author credit for their hard work!

If you quote from a text/article, you need to put quotation

marks around the passage and properly cite the author(s) at the end of the passage.

If you are paraphrasing from a text/article, you need to properly cite the author(s) at the end of the passage.

Difference Between Quoting and Paraphrasing

When you are quoting someone, you are taking what they have written word for word.

When you are paraphrasing, you are taking what someone has written and are writing it in your own words. However, you still have to give credit to the original author. The key to paraphrasing is that you just can’t switch out a couple of words, you need to significantly change the passage, while maintaining the original message.

Quotations• Brehm, et al. define egoistic as “motivated by selfish concerns or simple conformity to socialized norms” (2005, p.

360).

• Therefore, our desire to help is “influenced by self-serving and selfless considerations” (Myers, 2005, p. 490).

• In order to fit within the learned helplessness paradigm, there must be an “experience of uncontrollability, that is, a random relationship between an individual’s actions and outcomes, aversive uncontrollable events over which the subject had no control” (Nun & Thompson, 1996, p. 128).

• McKean (1994, as cited in Cemalcilar et al., 2003) stated that “the behavioral and motivational effects include passivity, giving up, and procrastination; the cognitive effects include decreased problem-solving ability, frustration, and lowered self-esteem/ and the emotional deficits usually involve dysphasia or depressed mood following negative outcomes” (p. 66).

• According to Cemalcilar, Canbeyli, and Sunar (2003), researchers first used experiments which used “aversive events such as bursts of loud noise, electric shocks, or difficult problems” (p. 65) and were modeled after animal studies on learned helplessness.

Note that the period is outside of the parentheses when the citation is at the end of a sentence!!

Paraphrasing• Batson thinks it is a combination of both, that the motivation is, at least, partly altruistic

(Brehm, et al., 2005). He bases his hypothesis on the idea that the consequences of empathy may be the basis for altruism (Brehm, et al., 2005).

• Learned helplessness theory has been an area of psychology since the 1960’s. The theory, developed by Martin Seligman and other psychological researchers, began as a result of animal studies involving inescapable shock (Minor, Dess, Ben-David, & Chang, 1994).

• While similar experiments with humans did not work as well, or the same as, those with animals, Seligman and his colleagues began exploring the effect of learned helplessness with human subjects (Myers, 2005).

• Seligman (1975, as cited in Bodner & Mikulincer, 1998) claimed that the problems that are caused are similar to the psychological issues found in those who suffer from depression.