Month: October 2019

My eyes have never been the greatest. As I have looked at my phone and computer more my vision has gotten worse and worse to the point where my glasses are crucial for me to even scroll through Instagram. These past weeks we have learned about eyes, and how they form the perceptions of the world around you. Over my senior year I would work from 9 am to 11 pm and as most of the world does, I would drive myself home when I was done. Honestly I shouldn’t be allowed to drive in general. I am a menace on the road. So imagine me at night, after working 14 hours, and absolutely drained. Not great.

In class we learned about the brain’s processing of space and time. From this there are various things that can impair one’s vision, besides me already being blind, there was a turn into my neighborhood that was a disaster. I would always misjudge my distance and either wait way longer than I really needed to or almost cause an accident. Until this class I thought it was simply me being a bad driver. Then we discussed the different types of monocular perception. Monocular perception describes how the brain perceives things when only one eye is used.

Monocular perception is what caused the cars to seem closer or further away from me. The headlights at night created an interposition which blocked me from being able to perceive how far the car was away from me. By focusing on the lights to determine the distance I was seeing only their brightness, not their actual distance. I walk everywhere now, which i’m equally as dangerous at however now for the future I can try to focus on whats behind the lights for my gauge of distance, instead of the light.

Mood congruent memory is a concept that describes how the emotions an individual feels tend to generate specific memories that link with the certain emotion. Emotions and moods are contributing factors that that help to shape all of  our memories. In  psychological terms, they act as retrieval cues for human memories. When a memory is stored inside our brain, not only is the actual event stored, but the specific emotion or mood one was feeling during that experience is also stored. If someone is in a good mood, a memory in which they felt excited or happy will be triggered. However if someone is in a bad mood, a memory in which they felt angry or sad will potentially be triggered. A person can remember events more easily when they are currently in the same state of mind as they were in the memory that was stored.

An example of this that I had experienced in my own life was categorizing negative emotions with negative memories. I had been really upset one day about a certain grade on an assignment and the only memory that happened to cross my mind was thinking back to the last day of camp.  In this situation,  I felt even more upset than I did at the current moment. The last day of camp is extremely depressing and represents many unhappy thoughts. It means that summer is ending, school is about to start, and you have to say goodbye to the people you have been spending the entire summer with. I eventually reached that same level of sadness after the flashback had crossed my mind.

Retrieval cues are important in breaking down the true meaning of having memories. I always find myself recalling previous memories that had occurred in my life. I may have written about a negative mood, however there are plenty of times in which I can write about being in a good mood and recalling a happy memory. Our memories would not appear so realistic without assistance from our emotions and moods. It would be difficult for someone to accurately retrieve an old memory. Different states of mind affect the process of how our brain encodes, stores, and retrieves memories.

In class, we learned about the prenatal development within the womb, in which a single sperm cell combines with an egg to form a fertilized cell and then a baby.  Many Teratogens can negatively affect the baby including alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, bacteria, and viruses.  These cause malformations of an embryo or birth defects.  These abnormalities could be internal or external and are present at birth, although may not be diagnosed until later in life.  Many other forms of birth defects can also occur without somebody being dependent on a drug.  While one of my family friends was giving birth to her child, the doctors failed to notice the Umbilical Cord was wrapped around the child’s neck.  Unfortunately because they didn’t realize earlier, the flow of oxygen to the baby’s brain was cut off.  After realizing what had happened, the doctors were unsure about the extent of damage done to this newborn and stated only time could tell.  She is now a teenager and although physically has developed just like any other young woman would, she is unable to mentally develop leaving her with no brain capacity.  She is unable to think, walk, talk, eat, and drink without the help of another person.  Her parents decided not to institutionalize her and bring her around with them in a wheelchair and do everything for her in order to keep her healthy and as happy as she can be.  Such conditions usually require long-term specialized care including daily medication, occupational, physical, and behavioral therapies, specialized educational methods, and even home modification. These requirements are financially and emotionally damaging for many families including theirs.  Unlike illnesses, the consequences of oxygen deprivation and also the use of teratogens last for a lifetime.  The family facing this unfortunate circumstance will always need care and assist her at all times due to a birth defect.

Think back to when you were young. What is the earliest memory that you can remember, and what age were you? Its pretty difficult isn’t it. Chances are, the earliest memories you remember is around 3-4 years old. The earliest age of conscious memory for most infants / children is just about the age of 3 1/2 (Bauer 2002). Now if you actually remembered a memory from that young age without just remembering the memory by it being told to you by someone else; most likely that memory was a traumatic event that happened to you. We tend to remember traumatic events very vividly, more so than any other.

Sigmund Freud, a famous neuroscientist, believed that because infantile memories are weak, there is an increase in a certain memory if the situation was traumatic. These memories are sometimes considered “flashbulb memories,” which are said to be nearly photographic. Traumatic events are a direct threat to a person’s well being, that is why we can remember them so clearly. When confronted with trauma, a child may not have the ability to deal with the experience. While very young children may not remember specific events at a certain age, they do remember emotions, images and can be reminded of situations that cause them to be upset.

When I was young, I had many vivid memories that I could remember at a later age but now if I try to think back to some without looking at pictures or hearing stories to refresh my memory, most of them have faded away. About a few weeks ago I was asked the same question I stated above; “What is the earliest memory that you can remember, and what age were you?” I thought long and hard, and turns out, the earliest memory I could possibly remember was a traumatic event for me. When I was about 2-3 years old I distinctly remember that I had knocked my two front teeth out with my height chair at the dinner table. I remember it was at my old house on Ferry Road, it was dinner time and I had a cheese stick in my hand and my mom told me to be careful with the chair because I was hanging on it and it was dangerously close to my face. Little did I know my mom was right, I pulled the chair straight down onto my face, knocking my two front teeth out sending me right into my very first emergency room visit.

Maintenance and Elaborative Rehearsal

Maintenance Rehearsal, also known as Rote Rehearsal, is the process of repeatedly saying or thinking about a piece of information. This process is used to help memorize information in order to keep it in our working memory for a long duration of time, though this is truly never the case. Through this procedure, once the repeating stops, the information quickly goes away. This rehearsal only temporarily maintains the information in our memory for our Short-Term Memory is known to only hold about 7 pieces of information for about 12 to 30 seconds. Maintenance Rehearsal is not quite the best technique to use in order to store memory, but this process is still used regularly by millions of people. 

Elaborative Rehearsal is a technique which makes memorizing information meaningful. Unlike Maintenance Rehearsal, this process is not about repeating words and thoughts over and over again, but instead involves thinking about the meaning of the term to be remembered. To make this happen, one must relate the information to prior knowledge, make the information personally meaningful, which then leads to a much stronger Long-Term Memory. By making personal connections to words and terms, it will make it much easier to store this memory for a longer period of time, resulting in this information to be permanently kept in Long-Term Memory. 

A personal experience I have in which relates to Maintenance and Elaborative Rehearsal is when I was studying for a vocabulary test in my AP Spanish class in high school. I did not study for the test the night before because I thought I would easily be able to study for it within the first 10 minutes of class. Once I arrived to class, I immediately started studying the vocab words. I kept repeating the words and their meanings in my head over and over again until I thought I got it down. I was also repeating the terms with my friends so that we could help each other study. Once it was time to take the test, my teacher handed out the papers from the opposite side of the room from me, this meaning I was the last one to receive my test. Since almost a minute went by after repeating the words in my head, I could only truly remember the first few words on the vocab sheet.

Maintenance Rehearsal played a role within my situation because I was constantly repeating the vocab words over and over again to myself, thinking that it was helpful and that I would remember them for my test. Though they only stayed within my Short-Term Memory for about 30 seconds, and then quickly left my memory. Elaborative Rehearsal should have been put into play when I was studying because it would have helped me retain the words for a longer period of time. If I made connections with the words and some of my personal life situations, then the vocab words would have been moved in my Long-Term Memory, which would have helped me remember all of the vocab words and do better on the test.

References: Wede, J. (n.d.). Psychology.

https://edu.glogster.com/glog/exp3604-c-memory-assignment/1wvencc641i

Concept: Rote Rehearsal versus Elaborative Rehearsal

Maintenance rehearsal, also known as rote rehearsal, is a process of continuously repeating a specific fact or set of information in order to keep it in working memory for a longer period of time. This is done so that a person can memorize that information, however once the repeating stops the information goes away (most times). About 30 seconds after rote rehearsal ends, the information will be gone because the short-term memory only has a capacity of approximately seven items and a duration of 12 to 30 seconds.

However, elaborative rehearsal can be used to transfer the information in short-term memory into long-term memory. This is a process in which you make the information meaningful by thinking about “its relation to knowledge already stored in your memory” (Wede). The chance for the information to remain in long term memory will be much stronger if there is a personal connection to the material at hand.

Although rote rehearsal gives a person the ability to memorize a set of information for a short period of time in working memory, elaborative rehearsal is much more effective at allowing a person to retain information and store it in their long-term memory by making it meaningful information.

Experience: Forgetting Cranial Nerves

One personal experience that relates to the differences in rote and elaborative rehearsal occurred a couple of weeks ago in my biology lab. By the end of my lab period, I was required to have memorized the twelve cranial nerves, in order, and repeat them back to my teaching assistant. Throughout the lab, I went over the nerves over and over again. I was saying them nonstop to my lab partners as we all took turns practicing. I was using rote rehearsal by repeating the information constantly which kept it within my working memory, however I was not making it meaningful via elaborative rehearsal. This was my downfall, because without elaborative rehearsal, the information never made it into my long-term memory and therefore was never retained.

When our teaching assistant came to our table, we all had to be quiet and I was the last one to recite the order of the nerves to my teacher. It had been about a minute since I had last repeated the terms. By this point I could only remember the first few nerves before I forgot the rest, and this is because I stopped the rote rehearsal and the information left my short-term memory shortly after stopping.

I thought that I forgot the nerves due to pressure, but really it was due to the duration and capacity of my short-term memory. I would have had a better chance at remembering all of the cranial nerves if I had taken the time to use elaborative rehearsal and related the nerves back to my personal life, which would have helped to move the information into my long-term memory.

References

Wede, J. (n.d.). Psychology.