Month: October 2019

Living in an Authoritative Household

During lecture 12’s discussion, we learned about three styles of parenting: authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative. Each of these styles are quite different when discussing their implementation and general philosophy. With the authoritarian practice we learned that parents tend to impose firm or strict rules on their children and expect that they obey those rules. With permissive parents, they will not say no to their kids. These types of parents will never impose any rules and most likely would tend to their children’s demands. Lastly, authoritative parents tend to be a mix of the two. Rules are set in place and expected to be followed, however, if a child is able to provide reasoning, they could negotiate and compromise with their parents. These types of parents are flexible and responsive to their kids, but they still have a general structure and set of rules that expect their kids to be obedient to.

When discussing these practices, I was caught reminiscing about my childhood and how I was raised. One thing I remember during my childhood was getting punished a lot. Now I know that sounds bad at first, but I will admit I was quite the troublemaker growing up. Along with that, I also remember that my parents, mostly my mother, had many rules, in which they expected us to follow. I believe that my parents imposed many rules on us because they had three kids (each a year apart) to look after and raise at the same time. Some rules that I remember pertained to curfews and time limits for things and since the three of us either enjoyed playing outside with friends, or play video games and toys, it makes sense that curfews and time limits had to be put in place. For example, my brother and I were forbidden to play Wii at all during the weekday, and we were limited to 1 hour on Saturday and 1 hour on Sunday. We even had a small white timer in front of the television in which as soon as the timer went off, we had to stop playing and do something else. If we didn’t stop playing after an hour, we would get grounded for an hour and sent to our room. For the most part, we obeyed those rules until we reached adolescence and after that it was the end of time limits. Another rule I remember was put in place whenever me or my siblings hung out with friends outside or over their house. If my memory serves me right, I think we had to come home around 8pm. We had the freedom of going anywhere around our neighborhood but as long as we told our parents where we were and we got back home before 8, we had no problems.

In general, our parents never let us stay past 8, play excessively, and respect one another. If we did not follow any of these rules, we usually got grounded for an hour or more, or if we really misbehaved, would get hit with a belt. Typical Hispanic parents would punish their kids by hitting them with belts and such, and I remember, just getting threatened to get hit with the belt was enough to get us to behave.

With that in mind, I would say that my parents used authoritarian practices when raising us. My parents were never lenient and willing to negotiate with the three of us and these authoritative practices really show because during adolescence we became more obedient, even if our parents didn’t threaten us with punishment.

Remember When…

When I was young, very young I have a specific memory of going shopping with my great grandmother. We were looking for a Hardy Boys book for my brother for Christmas. We went to the mall and the book was sitting there in the bookstore window.

I often attribute this to my first memory, but the thing is I don’t know if this memory is real. As far as I know there was nothing significant about this event. I have no other recollection of my great grandmother, and for all I know this may have been a vivid dream I had when I was younger. I do; however, have the book. I don’t think I will ever know if this memory is real and until I took this class I thought this was unusual. But, I was surprised to learn that our brain often makes up false memories.

When new memories are made its called construction and when memories are recalled its called reconstruction. Our brains; however, do not always reconstruct memories correctly. We have a tendency to fill in the gaps and details that didn’t actually exist. In class when we did the exercise with the different words on the board “chair” was never posted, but because words similar to “chair” were in our brains we thought we remembered it.

Our memory is not always reliable but the reason it is not reliable can work towards our advantage too. The fact that our brain fills in the gaps and picks up on pattern recognition very well. However, this can result in something called suggestibility where we remember things that did not actually happen. For example, if someone witnesses a dog running by they may say it has brown fur and floppy ears because that’s there view of what dogs look like. In reality though the dog may have been a different color but because we aren’t good at remember details we fill in the gaps. This is important to remember when listening to eyewitness accounts. They are not always reliable and cannot counted on. In conconcussion, our memory is pretty good but its not perfect so we need to be aware when reconstructing previous memories.

Retroactive and Proactive interference

We live, learn, and we forget. Memories are an essential part of how we experience the world around us. When we forget, it is commonly defined as retrieval failure. This is our inability to retrieve information from our long term memory and bring it back into our working memory. Our working memory is when we are able to use our memories whether they are explicit or implicit memories. However, when we forget those memories it is typically some type of interference. Interference can either be proactive or retroactive.

A retroactive interference is where past information interferes with current information. I have recently experienced a retroactive interference. I was talking to my friends and telling them about my recent breakup. I referred to my ex-boyfriend as my boyfriend. At first, I thought it was just an accident until it happened again. At this point, I had convinced myself that I was just in the habit of calling him my boyfriend, until we learned about retroactive and proactive interferences. At which point, I learned that the past knowledge of him being my boyfriend was interfering with my current knowledge that he is no longer my boyfriend. Retroactive interference can typically be avoided through better sleep patterns because sleep leads to better recall and retrieval from the long-term memory.

Proactive interference is where new information interferes with past information. One example of a proactive interference was when I got a new phone number and I tried to remember the new number to tell my mom, but I accidentally told her my old phone number. The old number was actively interfering with my ability to learn my new phone number. Overall, there are many ways that information can interfere with new or current memories.

The retrieval process is key to completing the cycle of the memory process, which is why many people are frustrated by their occasional inability to retrieve past or current memories. I have personally experienced interference through both respects. I used to get easily frustrated by my inability to recall important things like my phone number, but now with my new knowledge of interference in memory retrieval I will be able to calm myself down and remember that interference is normal.

Song Lyrics and Memory

During Lecture 10 we talked about the retrieval of memory and how it can be affected. I found this very relatable to when I think about my favorite songs. I think the song lyrics are like retrieval cues. When I hear a certain song, I can remember where I was and what I was doing when I heard it. This only happens with songs that have a lot of meaning to me. The memories are semantically encoded and therefor easier to recall. I can see myself driving down the back roads close to my house blaring “All Too Well” by Taylor Swift. The memory is even more clear if I am in the same mood as I was when I listened to the song the first time. This is because of mood dependent memory and memory congruence. If I am listening to an emotional song, I start to remember the last time I heard the song and how emotional I felt then. If I am driving on a back road, encoding specificity allows me to remember which part in the song I was at when I was last there.

Occasionally I will forget lyrics to songs I have heard at least 100 times. I get confused because I love the songs so much, but the words are just lost to me. I will start to sing a song from when I was 15, but another song’s lyrics pop into my head and I start to blur the two songs together. This is due to retroactive interference. New music starts to interfere with my memory of old music. I will sometimes not pick up on the fact that I am singing the complete wrong lyrics if the song is not playing. Then for the next week I will have the tune stuck in my head, but I will be rehearsing the wrong lines. The habit of me doing this can cause rehearsal failure. Next time I hear the song, I will start to sing what I think are the words until I find out that my memories were never real of the song.

Memory Construction

Memory construction is the concept that over time ones memory can alter/ change based on different factors. There are so many examples to help support this notion. There is no possible way to recall a memory perfectly, unless it was recorded and played out in front of you. When I used to go to my cousins lake house for vacation, I would come home and tell all my friends about my experience, as time went on, I came to the realization that every time I would tell the stories of that summer, that they would be different each time. This reflects the idea of memory construction. A story or memory can be changed over a given period. The greatest factor in this process is time. As time goes on, the less you will be thinking about that given memory. Other factors may relate to emotions or feelings about that given memory.. If one feels upset over a given memory, they may add in detail that can potentially make the memory seem worse than it actually was, altering exactly what happened. As previously stated, it is impossible to go back and recall a memory perfectly with an exact, detailed account. In class, 9/11 was brought up as a memory. People remember the day, and the event that happened, but it is impossible to go back and remember the exact details leading up to the incident or right after the incident. This allows one to distinguish elements between long term memory and short term memory. In short term, it is much easier to go back and remember what happened right before you recently, as to recalling an exact account of an incident that happened a very long time ago. Furthermore, memory construction is the notion that when we retrieve our memories, they may be altered than how they actually happened.

Living through Piagets Theory

Learning about Piaget”s Theory really hit home for me. I am the oldest child of three and have witnessed all the stages that Piaget describes. The first stage from birth to two years of age is considered the Sensory Motor Stage. At this point in time children take in the world through their senses along with gaining object permanence. Object permanence is the knowledge that things exist even when they can not be seen. I can remember my brother always wanting to play with the pendant on my moms necklace. To get him to stop she would just put the pendant inside her shirt so he couldn’t see it. Even though my brother saw her tuck it away, since it was no longer visible he completely forgot about it. As time went on and he got older this stopped working, because he gained object permanence, so she would have to take it off completely. The second stage from ages two to seven is called the Pre-Operational Stage. In this time period children learn language but do not understand logic. They are also starting to form a theory of mind but lack concept of conservation. Concept of conversation is the understanding that quantity remains the same despite the change in shape. At this time in my brothers life  i can remember unevenly splitting candy with my brother and lying about the quantities (so I could have more) and he would believe me. The third stage is called Concrete Operational Stage which is during ages seven to eleven. At this stage children can now think logistically and understand conservation. This was the turning point in brothers life where i could no longer trick or lie to him because he could now independently think about if i was being fair to him. The last stage called the Formal Operational Stage is from ages eleven and up. During this time period children can think logically about abstract concepts. This stage is thought to being earlier than Piaget believed. Piaget’s Theory is still very influential today and holds a lot of empirical support.

Implicit Memory

For the majority of my life I have been a competitive dancer. Ever since I was about four years old, dance has been a tremendous part of my life. Lyrical and ballet are my two favorite styles of dance. It is fascinating how over the years I have accumulated so many skills in dance, that I can perform them without needing to assert any conscious thought into it. Many things became a second nature to me. At the dance studio I danced at, I assisted one of the dance instructors in teaching jazz choreography to 6th grade girls once a week. I realized when I was trying to teach the girls how to do turns (pirouettes), it was rather difficult for me to explain how to do it step-by-step.  It was quite frustrating to me because I truly wanted them to understand what I was trying to teach them and pick it up with ease. I realized during our lecture in class, this was due to procedural memory or implicit memory, meaning performing certain tasks without conscious awareness of previous experiences. For example, riding a bike is very hard to describe to someone else because it requires learning and practice. I have done those turns countless times and I could perform them without putting much or any thought into it, but it was difficult for me to explain how to do them to the girls and all I could do was show them and try my best to describe my actions.  I found it quite interesting that even though we can become so good at something and have so much knowledge on it, it can be so hard to teach it to someone else.

Encoding Specificity & State Dependent Memory

Katie Perry 

10/18/19 

Blog Post #2 

Josh Wede 

Encoding Specificity & State Dependent Memory 

In lecture 10, we learned about the concepts of encoding specificity and state dependent memory. Encoding specificity is when your memory is best when the condition of encoding matches the conditions of retrieval. For example, if you learn something while underwater, the chance you recall it is better if you are in the same condition of being underwater. It would be harder to retrieve if you were on dry land, because of encoding specificity. State dependent memory is very similar to encoding specificity. State dependent memory is described as which memory retrieval is most efficient when an individual is in the same state of consciousness as they were when the memory was formed. For example, not being able to remember something you encoded while you are sober, while you are intoxicated. It can even be vice versa as well; you can better retrieve a memory drunk if that memory was encoded when you were in the same state of intoxication. I have witnessed both concepts in real life, without knowing they had a name to it. At family parties, my uncle drinks and he will remember where things were at that he had misplaced the last time he was in that state. That is an example of state-dependent memory that I had witnessed. I have experienced the concept of encoding specificity myself though. In high school, I did better on tests where I studied in the room where I was going to take the test in. I noticed that I had done better on the previous tests when I had studied in class, or in the same room. Every time I had the opportunity to study in the Health room, I did because the theory of encoding specificity helped me retrieve information I had studied when it came to testing time. Both storage and retrieval theories are ones that I noticed in real life and have even experienced first hand.  

Social Attachment and Parenting

Some Reflection…

When was the first time you were separated from your parents for an extended amount of time? Maybe you were staying at grandma’s house for the night or maybe it was your first day of preschool or kindergarten. Do you remember how you reacted or how your parents recall you reacted? Psychology tells us that how every human is born with an innate need for social interaction and attachment.

Infantile Attachment

As humans, we rely on bodily contact to form social connections at younger ages as opposed to forming connections with those who provide nourishment. Once we are born, we all seek attachment but unfortunately, sometimes that is not always the case. Recall to the questions I asked before and try to remember how you reacted when this connection with your parents was detached. While with almost every child there is distress upon separation, with most children, the return of their caregiver comforts them almost immediately. With children that have a more insecure attachment with their caregiver, they will continue to be in distress once reunited. Regardless, when children are neglected from making any connection whatsoever at a young age, they potentially may grow up withdrawn, frightened, or unable to develop speech.

How Parenting Impacts Development (Usually)

When growing up and developing these relationships with their caregivers, children may be parented in an authoritarian, permissive, and/or authoritative manner. This is when a parent may be very strict, submissive, or a mix between the two respectively. Commonly, when a child develops in an authoritarian environment, they potentially develop lower self-esteem. In a permissive household where their every need is provided, children may not develop enough self-reliance throughout their childhood. While this isn’t confirmed, consistently we see that in households that uphold authoritative parenting with a mix of both benefit the child the most by giving them more social competence.

Proactive Interference and Retroactive Interference

In our chapter on memory, we learned about the ideas of proactive and retroactive interference. Proactive interference is when something you learned in the past is interfering with what you are currently learning. Retroactive interference is when something you are currently learning is interfering with what you learned in the past. These concepts are interesting but also confusing because it is very easy to mix them up. The way I remember is that Proactive is Present; meaning that something is affecting your present learning. The word retro is associated with the past and that’s how I remember, something is affecting your past learning.

I realized while we were learning about this material that I have experienced proactive interference. In 6th grade, we began learning language in my school. We had 6th grade set as an introductory year where you would take both Spanish and French for one semester each. Then we got to decide which language we would rather take, and I decided on Spanish. After a couple of years of learning, I had a pretty basic understanding of the language. One of the first things you learn when taking a language is how to count. I tried this after a couple of years after learning and noticed every single time I would get to about 15, I would start counting in French. It was so absurd to me and I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I could still count and recite all the numbers up until 100 in Spanish but when counting if I wasn’t paying very close attention to what I was saying I would always switch over to French. To this day, this still happens.

This is a perfect example of proactive interference because even though I was taking Spanish and learning it perfectly with no other hiccups when it came to counting French always would pop back into my head. Learning about proactive interference helped me to understand why this was happening and made me feel less weird about the whole thing.

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