Monthly Archives: April 2015

What Parts of the Brain are involved with Human Reasoning?

What interests me most in reasoning is how humans are the only species who have deep, complex reasoning and thought processes — on the entire planet. To say we just all became what we are through a number of trial and errors from a big bang, — often, to me, insults our human-linear capacity and understanding of life.

On behalf of reasoning, I wanted to illustrate (and research) how humans are able to rationalize news — particularly bad news and how we represent and “deal” or cope with this information in our heads. While the number of articles I read over and over again seemed to show why humans like negative news and why humans tend to remember negative news more than positive, etc., are reasons that seemingly can be explained by physiologically and psychologically means. Psychologically, this is because the brain handles positive and negative news in different hemispheres of the brain. And, negative emotions generally involve more thinking (Tugend, 2012).

However, the coping mechanisms were absent. I did not research for hours. It was under 5 minutes. But in 5 minutes you learn a lot about a specific topic and what is mainly out there. So, I decided to go further into the neuroscience of human reasoning and what parts of the brain are involved.

Researchers at the University of California Berkeley found that the frontal and parietal lobes of the brain are involved with higher-order cognition. The brain and the processes that drive reasoning include the rostrolateral prefrontal cortex, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and the inferior parietal lobule, with the rostrolateral region more actively engaged in second-order relational reasoning (Tugend, 2012).

Our reasoning and cognition does not end there. It seems we give someone with critical comments more of an intelligence rank. Perhaps for some of us we associate it with our parents being critical yet wanting us to be pushed to work hard and be the best we can be?

Negativity in general seems to hold more weight and substance and has a larger affect on us than something that is directly the opposite. For example, hearing negative comments as a child builds more resilience to them when they are older (depending on how a child copes with such negativity, of course!), instead of children who are praised constantly and do not understand how to deal with a critical statement once they are older. Negativity tends to hold more weight in the child who did not hear critical remarks from their parents that often. (I think this research is fair in terms of the study, but isn’t a general principle to live by).

So, with the news, it may be that negativity of events hold more substance because there are more emotions involved that need higher-level processes of the brain. For example, negativity seems un-natural (stress, etc.) as to why science is finally starting to realize that stress ruins your mind and your body. It’s the same way you would digest an apple and a candy bar. An apple, organic food-matter, is easier to digest and humans gain energy from eating it. A candy bar, which is probably full of chemicals, unwanted sugars and maltodextrin, makes the body work harder to digest, and you actually loose energy after the “spike” that happens when you sugary foods. (Now, where is the complex reasoning in this?!)

I am starting to see the “macro” (big) and “micro” scale in everything, and how it is all connected.

It was a pleasure being in this class! I learned so much.

Good luck!

 

Works Cited

  1. Pederson, T. 2015. Mapping Brain Networks Behind Complex Reasoning. Retrieved from: http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/01/06/mapping-brain-networks-behind-complex-reasoning/79514.html
  2. Tugend, A. 2012. Praise Is Fleeting, but Brickbats We Recall. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/24/your-money/why-people-remember-negative-events-more-than-positive-ones.html?_r=0

The Utility Theory in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling is beloved by millions in part because of its fantastical nature, but also because the books allow Harry to face very adult decisions that allow him to grow. In the sixth novel, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry has to work with his mentor, Albus Dumbledore to piece together Lord Voldemort’s past. A majority of their decision making can be connected to the utility theory. Using the utility theory, Dumbledore makes life-changing decisions that helps Harry fulfill his quest to destroy Lord Voldemort.

The utility theory connects the decision making process to monetary values; which of these results will give me the most money in return? In real life, not every decision is based on economic factors. The utility theory states that people will pick whichever event will benefit most in the long run. In some cases, people will choose an event that is not the highest value. This could be because the losses of the decision outweigh the gains of the outcome; if one has to choose a lottery ticket that guarantees them $20, they are more likely to deny a lotto ticket that has a fifty percent chance of them losing $20 but gaining $40.

During the events of Half-Blood Prince, Harry and Dumbledore must find a horcrux, which is a fragment of Voldemort’s soul. In order to get the horcrux, one must drink a poisonous potion from a chalice until the horcrux is visible enough for them to grab it. For this obstacle, Dumbledore chooses to drink the poison. He reasons that Harry is the most valuable asset in their quest, and he must be protected. As a result, Dumbledore becomes very ill and can barely walk. However, Harry does attain the horcrux. When Harry and Dumbledore travel back to Hogwarts, Dumbledore is tragically murdered by Severus Snape, which is a part of an even bigger plot to save the world; Dumbledore had to choose between death and turning Harry over to Voldemort.

With the utility theory in mind, Dumbledore calculated that Harry’s safety outweighed his own safety. Even though he got really sick from the poison from the chalice, Dumbledore reasoned that it was worth being poisoned to keep Harry safe enough to get a hold of the horcrux. When it came down to a face-off, Dumbledore reasoned that being a martyr for the greater good outweighed giving Harry up to Voldemort’s followers.

Although the Harry Potter series is a book written for children, there are a lot of grown-up themes in the books. Decision making can be very difficult for anyone, let alone a teenage wizard. The choices made by those in Harry’s world define who they are as people. Their choices can be analyzed further by using the utility theory.

Expertise in Problem-Solving

I found lesson 13 to very interesting for many reasons, but one thing that stuck out for me most is the idea that experts and novices have very different mental sets in the way they choose to go about solving  a problem.  The idea that expertise does not translate from topic to topic really hit home with me because it reminded me of a friend of mind. God love her, she is the “stereotypical” person we all know that likes to one-up people. She believes she is an expert on any and everything, and she is grossly proud and prideful in her skill set as she has a master’s degree and is working on her doctorate. That is nothing to sneeze at, it is quite an accomplishment for a young woman under 25. However, those skill sets do not make her invincible from the very notion that she does not have an advantage in every area besides her expertise.

I will give you an example, she is someone who has always been wonderful at writing, superb diction and a wonderfully creative style that she allows to flow out freely, making it easy,  yet somehow challenging to read her work, which makes it all the more interesting. Her expertise in writing was not an advantage to her however, when she went to apply for a job at a forensic lab. She thought to herself, and made it blatantly known to everyone else that she would pass the initial entrance exam to the position with flying colors. However, unbeknownst to her, in the world of forensics, the language and coding is very much different than the typical writing style she has grown accustomed to. Everything is short hand, in a way that almost boggles the mind if you are not familiar with that type of linguistics. She completely bombed the entrance exam. Luckily, she was able to take it again, and she did very well after guidance from HR. However, she looked at me and said, “for the first time in my life, I was not good at something, and that really humbled me.”

I reveled inside, waiting for this day to come where she would admit that for once, her expertise did not get her to the end goal state that she was awaiting. She was not even close to being an expert in this new forensic work, she was merely a novice, just going through the motions of a particular formula or coding technique, rather than truly grasping and comprehending what it was she was doing.

This was a prime example of how expertise only translates successfully in a person’s field of expertise. Although she was an excellent writer, the underwriting reports she was required to do needed certain aspects included that she could not understand, as she never used those components before in any of her previous writings. She had little to no knowledge about the field, actually, but she decided to jump in head-first, without analysis or grouping patterns to steady her course of learning the material and accurately executing what she knew.

Gladly, this was a few years ago, and she is now doing well, in a different position, yet in the same line of work, where she is now able to use her field of expertise, academic writing, to publish different works and submit analyst work to her assigned director. In this work, she is fast, effortless in her execution, and she has extensive knowledge about how to get the job done, as she is in her comfortable space as a writer, and she is able to use her creativity to solve problems within her line of work much better than she proved to her employers on that entrance exam. However, that was lesson learned, without a doubt for her. She later told me she realized that she should not have assumed because writing and language is her strongest attribute, that every style would automatically transcend into an easy task for her. She admits, it was a novice mistake.

Thanks for a great semester, everyone! Congratulations and good luck!

Goldstein, E. Bruce. (2011). Cognitive Psychology 3rd Ed. Wadsworth. Cengage Learning.

You can’t judge a book…

You really can’t judge a book by it’s cover.  How many times have we’ve heard that saying in our lives?  It’s funny, after reading Chapter 13’s Reasoning and Decision Making, how the meaning within this statement takes on a new way of looking at things.  I don’t believe how we initially view or in this case make judgements about someone or something is completely intentional, it just seems to subconsciously happen and the next thing we know, we’ve already set an ideal or make-up of either the person or the situation simply from how we view them or what we think that we know of them.  Question is, when did we input such a viewpoint that later dictates to us what this thing, or person, or situation “probably” is.  The answer, more than likely from what we can recall, or our prior experience of it.

The “representative heuristic” is based on how often our expectation of something is which influence a judgement to be made simply based on the resemblance or what is seems to look like, again, usually from our prior experience with it. If we are able to associate it with something we know, to us, it as I stated earlier, must be, or “probably is” that. (Goldstein, 2011)  A great example of this would be racism.  We know that racism comes in many forms and against many subcultures throughout the world.  I never could grasp how racism is such an easy thing that many choose to practice but they do.  When I see, and or hear of practices, the first thing that comes to mind is, “Why is this person hateful against this person of color, this gender, or sexual preference”?  I’ve even asked if I was able to confront the situation in hopes to receive an answer.  Usually, it’s the, “I don’t like blacks because they’re thugs”, or “women should do a woman’s job.  Now where did this come from?  Oh, it’s because, you saw the riots on television, and now you assume that all people of color act this way?  Or that a woman could not possibly run this country, why?  Oh it’s because this is what “men” do.

I could go on, but the point I am trying to make is, this is not always the case.  There’s no need to feel threatened  by the aforementioned  due to what your prior known experience or representation of them seems to be.  You’d be surprised knowing what you thought could be completely opposite of what you knew to be certain.  Judge not my friend, there’s so much more to the book, just take the time to open it and read.

Goldstein, E. (2011). pp. 371-372 Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research, and everyday experience (3rd ed.). Australia: Wadsworth Cengage Learning

Less Calories, Less Memories

I began college as a bright, quick learner who engaged in coursework and understood the material in lecture immediately. I earned excellent grades with challenging courses, mostly because I would score so highly on exams very easily. I made and kept friends easily because I remembered what they told me about their days or what they mentioned they enjoyed. My brain was like a sponge, and just being taught or reading something made me remember it in great detail. Since infancy, I have been able to remember even the minutest details about what others were wearing or why something happened. When I began to dramatically restrict my food intake and increase my exercise output my junior year, I fell into the debilitating disorder of anorexia nervosa. Throughout my descent into, diagnosis of, and recovery from anorexia, I noticed that my mental sharpness had dulled and I was forgetting about things I never previously would have. As it turns out, anorexia nervosa has been found to exact immediate and lasting damage memory through attentional biases and nutrient deficiencies (Nikendei et al., 2010).

Proper nutrition is a tenant of healthy psychological and physiological functioning, with few better examples than its relationship with cognition. Neural activation relies on energy from glucose, vitamin B, and fatty acids; restricting food intake is to the brain what driving on an empty tank is to a car. Studies have shown that starvation induces a “fight or flight” response to focus all of their attention on food or weight-related factors in order to prioritize getting more calories for survival. However, these attentional biases exacerbate the feedback loop in anorexics when they ignore this evolutionary response and continue to starve. When I look back on my junior year, I can remember full days of every piece of food I ate, but little else. I completely forgot about due dates, birthdays, and doctors’ appointments because I was too caught up in this stress response to worry about anything other than (not) eating. Lack of nutrition led me to shift my focus from things I should remember to things I need to remember, a value that was distorted by my disorder. Simply being unable to focus on anything else (without realizing it) distracted me from a lot of important or valuable things that happened in those months. Without devoting enough attention to it, I was unable to store devote enough working memory resources to other events, which prevented me from eventually storing them in my short or long-term memory stores (Green, Elliman, & Rogers, 1997).

Severe malnutrition as a result of anorexia also has direct biochemical effects on memory. When a body is in starvation mode, it begins to break down stored fat into nutrients the rest of the organs, including the brain, can use. Once the fat stores are depleted, as is symptomatic of anorexia, the body begins to break down other parts of organs to convert to energy, including brain neurons. The heartbeat also slows to preserve energy, reducing the blood flow to the memory-regulating limbic system; one extreme side effect of long term anorexia is vascular dementia, in which insufficient blood flow to the brain essentially suffocates and kills off cells. Memory cells are some of the first to go in this “survival of the fittest” because they are relatively unimportant to the many ways our brains keep us alive (Green, Elliman & Rogers, 1997). Vitamin deficiencies alone, especially of B12, can also cause neuropathy and myelopathy, impairing our brain’s ability to interpret stimuli and encode it into memory properly (Matias and Kent, 1998).

I have experienced first-hand the cognitive effects malnutrition exacts on memory. On a psychological level, I directed selective attention to alleviating my starvation-induced anxiety and I didn’t even notice a lot of things I otherwise needed to remember. My extreme or less severe but longer-lasting states of malnutrition also led to macro- and micronutritional deficiencies that affected my cognitive memory processes on a chemical level. Despite a relatively successful, though nonlinear, recovery process, my body has been restored to a normal weight and lives off of a sufficient diet. However, the brain damaged caused by my body ravaging itself in order to survive seems to persist. I study for hours on exams and forget even the most basic information, and I even forget incredibly important or dramatic experiences. Recovering from anorexia has given me my life back, but I will never get back the memories my brain didn’t have enough energy to store. Nutrition is an incredibly important aspect to not only our physical but also our cognitive functioning. I hope that this information encourages others to live healthy and happy lives that they can look back on with clarity and gratitude!

 

References

Green M. W., Elliman N. A., Rogers P. J. (1997). The effects of food deprivation and incentive motivation on blood glucose levels and cognitive function. Psychopharmacology, 134 (1), 88-94.

Matias, J. L. & Kent, P. S. (1998). Neuropsychological consequences of extreme weight loss and dietary restrictions in patients with anorexia nervosa. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 20, 548-564.

Nikendei C, Funiok C, Pfüller U, Zastrow A, Aschenbrenner S, Weisbrod M, Herzog W, & Friederich HC (2011). Memory performance in acute and weight-restored anorexia nervosa patients. Psychological medicine, 41 (4), 829-38

 

Food as a Language

I don’t know about you, but food is one of the most universal languages.  Now what exactly do I mean by that you may wonder?  In our lesson, we discussed the creativity of language and how unique and beautiful language can be.  This applies to words we use to call and describe our food.  There are many types of food out there that were created in certain countries that are specific to those cultures.  These foods become popular in other countries, but rather than create their own word for the food, they continue to use the original name, no matter what language it is.  Below are a list of some foods that you may recognize which come from various languages other than the English language.

1. crepe                   2. burrito               3. canoli

4. quesadilla           5. lo mein              6. sushi

7. risotto                  8. fondue              9. baguette

No matter where you are in the world, and no matter what language is spoken in the country you are visiting, they will more than likely understand what food you are talking about when you use these words.  There are many more you could even add to the list, which would go on and on.  You will even find that many cultures use the same words to describe the taste of these foods.  Words such as “Yum” and “Mmmmm” are used interchangeably from language to language.

Many countries also use food and drinks as a means of communication.  For instance, in China, yum cha, which means drink tea is a tradition in which friends socialize while drinking tea.  Different types of tea reflect different moods and are often paired with dumplings and cakes.  England is another country that uses tea time as a means of communication.  Toasts are often given to accompany meals to wish for good health and a positive future.  These toasts are usually well thought out and kind with words of gratefulness to accompany.

Language is a very important part of food and they coincide with each other more than one may think.  Next time you take a bite of a delicious burrito or sushi and exclaim “yummy” think of how many others in the world are doing the same thing, from many cultures!

Working Memory and My Most Unique Step-Daughter, Jackie

Patrick Ian King

Cognitive Psychology Blog Post 2

 

Working Memory and My Most Unique Step-Daughter, Jackie

 

Jackie is currently 10.5 years old.  She is probably one of the most interesting children I have ever met.  In moments, she is loving and affectionate.  She showers strangers with conversation.  She expresses deep concern for anyone who is sick or hurt.  Her teachers absolutely love her as she is delighted to go to school every day.  Jackie is a social butterfly, always wanting to go and do something, anything.  However, Jackie has enormous difficulty learning.  She has studied math facts since kindergarten, and they never stick.  Jackie does not watch TV or movies like other children.  She cannot follow a storyline for more than a few minutes.  So while she loves to go to the movies, about 10 minutes into the movie, Jackie will inevitably ask, “Is it over now?”  Jackie has an incredibly poor working memory.  Her last neuropsychological exam put her in the third percentile.

Interestingly, Jackie is a wonderful example of the difference between working-memory and long term memory.  Jackie has amazing recall of events in her life that she felt were important.  So, if the typically episodic information actually makes it past her difficulty with working memory, she has an excellent long term memory.  Andrew Conway (2007) showed in his research on working memory that people who have a large-capacity working memory are often better at cognitive processes such as reading and reasoning and have higher IQ test scores.  Jackie can read, however, her reading comprehension is poor.  While her age peers are enjoying chapter books, Jackie can only manage very short stories with simple plots and limited characters.  Her IQ scores fall in the low 80’s which, upon meeting Jackie, does not reflect her delightful personality.

Secondarily, Jackie’s challenges support the research of Awh and Vogel (2008) and McNag and Klingberg (2008), that working memory capacity reflects how efficiently a person can focus attention on relevant information and filter out what is not salient.  Jackie’s teachers often say she focuses better working one-on-one or in small groups.  In a classroom of 25, Jackie cannot focus on the teacher.  She attends to what the child next to her is doing or what might be happening out the window.  Jackie often picks out non-salient details when she reads stories and is not able to tell the main idea of a passage, only details she found interesting.

Jackie also helps to emphasize the difference between short term memory and working memory.  The text defines short term memory as storing information for a brief period of time which Jackie can do if her interest and highly selective attention is present (Goldstein, 2011).  Working memory, on the other hand, is concerned with the manipulation of information that occurs during complex cognition.  Give Jackie a simple task, and she will complete it with vigor.  Ask Jackie to do 2 digit subtraction and she will resort to tricks like counting on fingers or using objects.  Some days she can incorporate borrowing digits but that is only after heavy prompting and reteaching.

Jackie is a wonderful example of the importance of working memory to human functioning.  She struggles to learn and is highly anxious fearing she will forget something important.  She has become obsessive about schedules and, sadly, has no idea when she is being manipulated by bullies.  Imagine how difficult it is to discipline a child who cannot really remember or make the connection between what she did wrong and the consequence?

 

 

References

 

Awh, E. & Vogel, W. K. (2008). The bouncer in the brain. Nature Neuroscience, 11, 5-6.

Conway, A. R. A., Jarrold, C., Kane, M. J., Miyake, A., & Towse, J. N. (2007). Variation in working memory:  An introduction.  In A. R. A. Conway, C. Jarrold, M. J. Kane, A. Miyake, & J. N. Towse (Eds.), Variation in working memory (pp. 3-17). New York:  Oxford University Press.

Goldstein, E. B. (2011). Cognitive Psychology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

McNab, F., & Klingberg, T. (2008). Prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia control access to working memory. Nature Neuroscience, 11, 103-107.

 

Visual Memory

After reading lesson 12 and visual memory, I have been trying to grocery shop (just quick trips of course!) and use visual memory to remember what I need to buy. I go through each of my cupboards, fridge, and pantry before I go to see what I am missing and then I picture of of those things in there. When I get to the store I start visualizing each of my cupboards etc to remember what I need. It actually works! I have only forgotten a couple things but to be fair I was distracted by a friend i haven’t seen in forever and we talked for so long I realized I had to rush back home to relieve the babysitter.
I know our lesson told us to visualize our house as being part of the groceries we need but that didn’t work for me. I’ve found that just picturing my actual cupboards and such is enough. I am shocked that it works though! The method of loci is very interesting. I’m not lucky enough to have a great visual memory so I find this to be awesome. I think my son has a photographic memory though because he can watch a movie once and remember most of the characters afterwards. He didn’t get that from me!
I’m going to tell my mother in law this trick because she can’t remember much!

Lesson 12 Commentary

Goldstein, E. (2011). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research, and everyday experience (3rd ed.). Australia: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Nine Dot Problem

A problem is defined in our text as something that occurs when there is an obstacle between a present state and a goal and it is not immediately obvious how to get around the obstacle.  I know I talk a lot about my son, but one of the reasons I chose this class imparticular, was to understand how his brain works.  So much of dyslexia lays within Cognitive Psychology, and this is one subject where I can talk about his strengths.

Recently, he was tested through the school system to see if he qualified for special education, which is an entirely different blog entry that wouldn’t be appropriate on a public forum.  I received the preliminary results ahead of the meeting and got to see the areas that the strengths I knew he had, was shown.  While he has severe deficits in areas an IQ test doesn’t show, as his IQ is normal at 106, it was able to show how advanced he was in areas, such as problem solving.  His problem solving, it stated, was far above average, something that I’ve known his entire life.

I demonstrated this by approaching him with the nine dot problem that was in the commentary for Lesson 13.  I wanted to not only give him something I knew he could accomplish easily, but also I wanted to see if he would fall into the majority who couldn’t seem to solve the problem.  If his problem solving ability was so superior, I wanted to see this ability in action and be able to have something so positive to mention in a blog post about him.

It took him under two minutes, probably shorter but it took me a few minutes to really get him to understand the rules.  But once he did, he solved it, he solved it so effortlessly and he smiled so big that it nearly made me cry.  Problem solving in terms of math was always, and will always be a struggle for me.  While numbers make him stumble, he can do most of it in his head, or not be able to even explain to me how he did it.  I however, stumble over math the way he stumbles over words, and I know this is a skill that will serve him well in the future.

I’m not sure if every dyslexic six year old (almost seven) can solve that nine dot problem as quickly and effortlessly as he did.  Every person is different and every person with dyslexia is just as different.  But most are able to think outside of the box, see solutions that those who don’t have that disability can.  There is so much he struggles on, so to see him be able to do something on the first try, and so well really was a boost to his self esteem.  He was able to get past the problem of fixation and visualize the solution quite easily.  Perhaps dyslexia isn’t as much of a disability as it is an ability.

Resources

Lesson 13 Commentary

Goldstein, E. (2011). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research, and everyday experience (3rd ed.). Australia: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

2:47 AM February 17th, 2011

“Ashley! Ashley!” I am awakened by my roommate, Kristen’s, terrified screeches. I sit up quickly and struggle to unlock my bedroom door; I glance at the alarm clock. 2:47am is lit up in bright red. I finally get my door open; Kristen is standing there holding her 3 year old son. Even in the nightlight glow, I can tell that his skin blue and he has foam coming out of the side of his mouth. I grab him from Kristen and lay him down on the bed. I yell for Kristen to call an ambulance, she is frozen. She doesn’t respond but just stands there staring at her son. I kick her as hard as I can to get her to listen to me as I am working on him. This time she snaps out of her daze and is able to call the ambulance.

This memory is permanently etched into my brain. Even though this took place four years ago, I still remember every vivid detail as if it just took place. I still remember what pajamas I was wearing and what day of the week it was along with the weather, whereas if that event never happened I wouldn’t remember those details about that specific day. If I were to pick a random day from four years ago, let’s say June 19th of 2011, most people wouldn’t be able to remember what they did or what they wore. You would of course remember it if something happened to get you to recall details that day. These memories are called flashbulb memories. Flashbulb memories are memories formed instantaneously and remembered forever, after shocking events occur (http://www.psywww.com). Reasoning for this is the added adrenaline and emotions with these shocking events, making these memories unforgettable.

Flashbulb memories have been studied extensively and to an individual these memories feel more accurate than regular memories due to the vividness and the emotions tied to them. However, studies have shown flashbulb memories are not more accurate according to the commentary in Lesson 9. Daniel Greenburg discusses when one hears about a traumatic history event, they are able to remember what they were doing when they heard the news for the first time along with other details. Greenburg explains that these memories are altered overtime because every time that we think about the flashbulb memory we add retrieval clues and inaccuracies of things that didn’t actually happen. Our flashbulb memories can slightly change over the years, but because it is so vivid we tend to believe that they are in fact more accurate.

When thinking about the first time that I heard of Steve Irwin’s death, I remember that my grandma told me as we were sitting outside on her swing. I remember what I was wearing and that I was texting my friend, Rebecca, about her boyfriend. I can remember several other vivid details of that day and even my exact first thoughts about Steve death. I was a huge Steve Irwin fan, which is why this memory is a flashbulb memory. This particular event happened nine years ago and after realizing that, Rebecca and I weren’t friends at the time. My vivid memory says that we were because I believed I had been texting her, however due to the recalls and altering my memory when I recall it, my flashbulb memory changed over the years. I am sure that when it happened and even a year or two after it happened, I would know I wasn’t texting Rebecca. Somehow that detail was added in after the fact.

I believe that my memory of when Kristen’s son had his seizure, who is now a very active 7 year old, is completely accurate and I don’t believe that there are any inaccuracies in that flashbulb memory. However, I also felt that way about the Steve Irwin memory as well. Next time that you think about a flashbulb memory that happened years ago, think about the details. Is that really how it happened or just how you believed it to happen?

Work Cited

Flashbulb Memory. (n.d.). Retrieved April 23, 2015, from Psych Web website: http://www.psywww.com/intropsych/ch06_memory/flashbulb_memory.html

Greenburg, D. (2004, December). Flashbulb Memories. Skeptic, 5(1).