Can we be sure if a memory is true or false? The answer to this is that we can never be certain. However, this is not to say that most memories are not true. There just needs to be evidence to prove that a memory is real. False memories are reconstructions of a memory that do not align with true events. It is a phenomenon where a person thinks something that did not happen or something that did happen is different from the way it actually occurred. Memories can appear to be solid and straightforward, but evidence suggests that memories are actually complex, subject to change, and unreliable. Memories can change as people age and change in opinion. They start to falsify or create new childhood memories. They can be tricked into having memories of events that never happened through effective suggestion. Effective suggestion is where a person manipulates the thoughts and feelings of others, causing them to create new memories. False memory was first studied by Pierre Janet and Sigmund Freud. They studied how malleable memory is and how memories can be changed or falsified. This is important because false memory have terrible consequences in legal cases like children as eyewitnesses of crime. Elizabeth Loftus, one of the most influential researchers, has worked on numerous high-profile cases including the infamous serial killer Ted Bundy. In a 17 min ted talk, Loftus talks about how false memory has affected huge legal cases, where actually lives are at stake. She shows the audience how unreliable memory actually is. She dives into a ongoing legal case about a man named Steve Titus. Steve was a married man and one night, the couple went out for a meal at a restaurant. On their way home, they were puled over by a police officer. The reason was because Titus’ car resembled that of a man who raped a woman, and he also looked like the man. Because of this, the police took a picture of Titus. They actually put this picture in a photo lineup, and the victim ended up pointing at Titus’ photo. Titus ended up being put on trial for raping this woman. The victim got on the stand during the trial and said, “I’m absolutely positive that that’s the man”, speaking about Steve Titus. Because of this Titus was falsely convicted and taken to jail. All of this happened just because of a false memory, that the victim made about Titus. False memory is something that occurs all the time in real-life situations and can become catastrophic as seen in the Titus trial. The entire Ted talk where Loftus goes more in depth into the effects of false memory can be seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB2OegI6wvI.
Month: October 2019
Charlie’s World
This past summer I began babysitting a family of three, with a three-year-old girl, a one-year-old boy, and a newborn little girl. I had babysat many children before, but never kids of such young ages, so at first it was very interesting to watch how the smaller children behaved. I was especially intrigued by the one-year-old boy, named Charlie. He was learning and developing so much every day, and it was fascinating to see him try to learn how to walk, talk, and interact with his siblings. He was so curious of the world around him and would crawl all around the house looking for anything fun he could get his hands on or put in his mouth. His favorite thing to do was open the kitchen cabinet with all of the Tupperware containers and take them out and stack them or put them on his head. At the same time, I would try to teach him words by saying them and having him repeat them, but he could only say simple words like “hot” or “mama”. If I would say other words that he didn’t know, he could make the sounds of the words but not say them clearly. Charlie was in the sensorimotor stage of his development, where he was experiencing the world through senses and actions. He wanted to look, touch, grasp, and mouth everything he saw in order to take all of the new information he was experiencing in and interpret it. The sensorimotor stage extends from birth to about two years of age. Charlie was one when I was babysitting him, so he was right in the midst of the sensorimotor stage where everything he saw he had to touch. Charlie used trial and error to gain an understanding of the world. Even during the short time I was babysitting him during the summer, I saw him develop and grow in so many different ways. I gained a new understanding of how children develop and learn about the world around them, and even had so much fun watching how Charlie and his siblings reacted to new experiences
The Preoperational Stage
The Preoperational StagE
The preoperational stage is the second stage in Piaget’s theory of development. It the stage that children ages two to seven are experiencing. During this stage, children have already mastered object permanence and senses, are starting to have a theory of mind and language, but still lack conservation. Having theory of mind means they are starting to understand how people’s feelings, perceptions and thoughts predict their behavior. Lacking conservation means the child cannot understand that the quantity of an object stays the same despite a change in shape or form.
This is a link to children lacking conservation in the preoperational stage
This is a diagram of conservation experiments. Children in the preoperational stage would say the two objects in the second column are different volumes, numbers, matters, and lengths just because they aren’t the same shape
My 5-year-old niece does not understand conservation because one time we were playing with play dough and I divided the play dough into equal balls. We were playing for a little and I squished my ball down to look like a pancake. She felt bad for me “having less” and gave me some of hers. She lacked conservation because the shape of my play dough tricked her into thinking I had less even if we had the same amount to start.
Children in the preoperational stage are egocentric as well. This means that they can only see things from their point of view and cannot understand other’s point of view. An example would be a child expecting their parent to know what their teacher was wearing at school without the parent seeing the teacher.
My 5-year-old niece lives in Connecticut and I live in Pennsylvania so when we talk it is often over the phone or on FaceTime. When she was about 3-years-old, I was talking to her on the phone and she told me “Look at that puppy”. She did not understand that I was not with her and could not see things from her perspective because I was on the phone. She was being egocentric which means she thought I knew things just because she was aware of them. She was unable to distinguish between herself and her aunt.
Blog Post 2 : Source Amnesia
While learning about memory in lecture 11, I was very interested in learning about source amnesia. Memory is such a complex topic because there are so many different components to how we remember things and how our brain works. I found the topic of source amnesia very interesting because I had experienced this myself. Source amnesia is attributing an event to the wrong source. It is mistaking experiences, things we have heard or read, dreamt, or imagined to the wrong source so either it happened or it did not. This topic is related to the misinformation effect which is when a persons memory becomes less accurate because of information gained after the event. Throughout my life I have told stories to my mom and sister that had never happened, and it became a joke that I would make the stories up. However, I was certain that I had experienced it. In actuality I was thinking that my dreams or things I had thought about in my head. When I would tell the stories I was attributing the story to the wrong source. It happens so often that I normally start by telling stories of my memories by saying “I may have made this up” and then continue telling the story. A distinct time that I remember attributing a memory to the wrong source was when I was recalling a time when my family and I were driving to South Carolina from New Jersey. I asked my mom if she remembered this trip, but more specifically if she remembered when it started raining really badly and thundering and lightening. We were driving on the road and lightening struck right next to our car, and I fully recall this happening. However, my mom knows for a fact that this did not happen. The more I thought about this and how I could think that something happened when it simply did not, I thought the only probable explanation was that either I dreamt of a similar situation or thought about how bizarre it would be if lightening struck near our car. I never knew what this was or why I believed that this event happened until we covered the topic of source amnesia in lecture.
Blog Post 2; Memory and Encoding
One topic I have been really identifying with in class is memory and encoding. I think the idea of traditional studying has become more about being able to regurgitate information and specific details rather than learning and understanding topics. As a college student, I think this is important to acknowledge because the point of college isn’t just to obtain a degree, but to be able to walk out of college knowing you’re a well-rounded, knowledgable individual. We weren’t meant to just memorize random facts or statistics for an exam and forget them; there’s a reason we’re supposed to be learning the information we’re given. A lot of my study habits include re-reading my notes and textbooks, making flashcards, and highlighting important words and numbers, but I’m not really learning that way. I’m memorizing tiny details that may or may not show up on my exam that I will most definitely not remember once I walk out of the exam. This information is all going to my sensory memory, or the short-lived, almsot immediate recording of sensory information. I’m not really retaining any of the information I’m supposedly “learning”, especially if I cram, or try to study everything in one night, which is not uncommon for me to do. As discused in class, it’s been scientifically proven that we learn better when we spread our studying out over time; re-reading our notes after class every day, writing down questions we may have missed in class, highlighting important topics to focus on daily, over a longer period of time than just a day or two. This will help the information retain longer in our brains (in our LTM, or “long term memory” rather than our STM or “short term memory”). Effortful processing, or learning information in a way that requires particular effort, is one way to achieve this. Being particularly mindful of what you’re reading rather than just skimming for big ideas, writing down ideas or other important concepts, or just going further in depth in your note taking is something that can benefit your study habits, along with beginning to review your exam information long before the exam.
Permissive Parenting
Based on what we learned in this unit of Psychology, there are three different types of parenting; authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative. Authoritarian parenting tends to be the most strict and involves parents imposing rules and expecting obedience from the children. Authoritative parenting is the most common style which involves demanding rules from their children but still are responsive to their children’s needs. The last type of parenting is Permissive parenting. Permissive parenting tends to be very loving and nurturing but lacks discipline and rules. Permissive parents act more like friends rather than a parental figures. The effects that this type of parenting has on their child includes struggling with self regulation and self control. The child is also more likely to display low achievement in certain areas such as school, more likely to display aggression, and it can even lead to substance abuse. So what does this mean? For instance, if you are strict with a child who has been raised with permissive styles, then chances are the child will act out in irrational ways. :max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/2794957-what-is-permissive-parenting-5b2c035943a103003654116b.png)
In my experience, I have had to babysit many children all of which have all had different parenting styles. The most difficult child that I had to baby sit is a perfect example of the effects that permissive parenting can have. This child was an only child and grew up with all the attention from his parents. Despite getting all the attention, the child also got anything he wanted. He had toys that filled up two rooms, a smartphone at the age of 7, and his parents rarely, if ever, told him “no”. This made my job of babysitting a lot more difficult because when I tried to enforce rules on him, he would often throw tantrums, screaming, crying, etc. In order for me to get him to do something, such as pick up his toys, I would have to bribe him of candy. Bribery and incentives are also a big part of permissive parenting because it’s easier for the child to listen to you if there’s a benefit for them. Overall, it was obvious that the kid was raised in a permissive environment where there were very little rules and his parents acted as his friends, rather than authority figures.
Why do babies love peekaboo?
In class, we talked about object permanence. When babies are first developing, they have such centralized senses, that if they do not directly see the object, they will not know that its there. Piaget did a study with babies under six months old that if he hid one of their toys under a blanket, then the baby will think that the toy has just magically disappeared. The babies wouldn’t go looking for it because they don’t know where to look for it. Once the toy magically reappeared again (once the blanket was removed from the toy), the babies just smiled and would reach for their toy again. It isn’t until about 8 months of age that babies know that the toy isn’t gone, but its just hidden.
I have a baby cousin and her name is Madison. Madison is currently 6 months old, and I love to play peekaboo with her. Every time we play, she is as shocked, happy, and surprised as the very first time that I played with her. She never seems to get tired of the game, even though it’s the same thing over and over again. All I’m doing is hiding my face behind my hands, then moving them away and smiling at her, yet she loves it. Since Madison is under the 8-month-old mark, she does not have object permanence yet. Madison cannot detect that my face is there, even though my face is only hidden by my hands. Since I am not “directly” in front of her, she cannot tell that I am there.
It’s the same concept as Piaget tested with 6-month-old babies, when the blanket is placed on top of the baby’s toys, the babies think that the toy is gone. The toy never disappears, its only that the babies cannot see it, and since they don’t have object permanence, they don’t know that it’s there. It’s the same as when I play Peekaboo with Madison, since I hide my face, she thinks that I left, even though I’m right there.
Also this is Madison, I just thought I’d put her picture here because she’s so cute.
Long-term memory
Right now, in Psych 100 we learned about memory and the topic I am going to talk about is long-term memory. Long-term memory is the biggest place you can store memories. It has an unlimited capacity and the storage is estimated to range from 1000 billion to 1,000,000 billion bits of information. Long term memory is memories that you remember from a while back. Long-term memory can be split into two types. The two are procedural and declarative also known as implicit and explicit. Procedural long-term memory is skills you have known how to do. Declarative long-term memory is able to be explained in words. Declarative can then be split into two more types which are semantic and episodic memory. An example of procedural is like how to ride a bike. An example of declarative is like directions to get to someone’s house. An experience that I have that relates to this topic is that I have declarative memories that I can explain. An example of semantic memory is knowledge about general world/events that happened to you in the past. An example of episodic is a memory that you can remember the time and place in your mind. One of the memories that I have that I can explain is directions to get from my house to my high school. This relates to the topic because I had to be able to remember how to get to my house from the high school back when I was a freshmen or sophomore so that an upperclassmen or friend’s parent would be able to drive me home after a practice when my parents could not get me. I also had to be able to do the opposite and tell someone how to get to the school from my house if I had friends over and they had to go there. My memory wouldn’t be a procedural because it isn’t a skill that I have but a memory that I can explain in words.
Can Dizygotic Twins be Equally Affected by a Teratogen Like Alcohol?
What are dizygotic twins? Dizygotic twins are what the average person would call a fraternal twin. A woman’s body typically only releases one egg once a month but sometimes more than one is released, that is how dizygotic twins come about. Dizygotic twins share the same prenatal environment. The average person would believe that a pair of dizygotic twins would be the least common type of twin but in fact they are more common than identical twins.
In order to understand how a teratogen can affect not only one fetus let alone a set of twins, one must understand what a teratogen is and the process of fetal development.
Prenatal development occurs in a series of trimesters. The first trimester consists of the egg maturing and the fetus developing body structure as well as organ system development. The first trimester is the first ten to twelve weeks of pregnancy. The second trimester is where the fetus starts to present some sort of movement. The second trimester lasts from weeks thirteen to week twenty-six. Lastly, the third trimester, the final stretch of pregnancy, is where the uterus increases in size and one gives birth.
Throughout the prenatal development process if some sort of substance harms the fetus it is known as a teratogen. The substance that can cause harm can range from anything like environmental factors, for example, pollution or radiation and can further extend to factors like cigarettes, alcohol, or drugs that may cause harm. Although teratogens don’t always cause harm to the fetus, in larger and longer periods of time it can cause harm.
To specify how alcohol affects a pair of dizygotic twins, one must understand the effects of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) in a singular fetus. If the mother abuses alcohol while pregnant, upon birth the baby will develop or have a lack of development in physical features as well as learning capabilities. In some cases babies can have a wide variety of under-developed features such as a smaller head size, shorter than average height, low body weight, difficulty with attention especially in a school setting which can lead to learning disabilities as well as delays in language and speech, and poor memory. In a set of dizygotic twins, FAS can affect one and not the other. A study found that “one twin had prenatal growth delays, neonatal withdrawal symptoms, and delays in both motor and cognitive function during the first year of life. The catch-up growth occurred during the postnatal period for the affected twin while the other twin was normal at the end of the follow-up at age 17 months”. In that study, they concluded that exposure to alcohol during the second half of pregnancy rather than the first half, greatly increases the risk for brain damage but not lasting postnatal growth.
The answer to if a teratogen such as alcohol can have an effect on both dizygotic twins would be no, one twin can be effected while the other be a healthy baby with no long-term effects, that doesn’t always give someone the green light to abuse alcohol while pregnant and the baby not have FAS.
References
Riikonen, R. S. (1994, November). Difference in susceptibility to teratogenic effects of alcohol in discordant twins exposed to alcohol during the second half of gestation. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7702696.
Basics about FASDs | CDC. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/fasd/facts.html.
Selective Attention
Selective Attention is the process of putting more energy into processing what’s important and funneling out what some one finds not important. We are able to bring information into our Short-term memory through selective attention. Selective attention can happen with us purposefully doing it and it can happen unintentionally as well. If you’re in a loud class room and you are trying to hear the professor talk, you are going to use selective attention to only listen to the professor. Unintentionally may be a scenario like this: your walking down the street with your friend while they are telling you a story, you see a car coming and so you stop at the cross walk but you didn’t hear anything your friend said. Your attention was on the car because you found it more important to not get hit by a car rather than to hear your friends story.
Every time we listen to something, hear something, or taking any type of sensory information in, we process it through selective attention. Anything that seems important will be brought to our short term memory. Anything that wasn’t important, we will funnel out and it will not reach our short-term memory which will result in no memory of it at all. If we do not encode something, we can not retrieve it.
Personally an example of selective attention that has happened to me is the following: I was home with my sister and watching a movie that interested me, she got up from the couch, walked right in front of me, and I had no memory of her leaving the room. A few minutes later, I went to talk to her and i realized she wasn’t there. This was selective attention because I found watching the movie was more important and interesting then my sister walking across the room.
I feel that we have all experienced the, “Wait, when did you leave the room…?” example of selective attention.