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One of the most easy ways to remember information, especially for young students, is to use acronyms to learn and understand concepts in school. Most students probably learned PEMDAS in math class or ROY G BIV in art class, as well as acronyms you made up on your own. Whether you made them up on your own or used the acronyms your teacher presented for you, they most likely stuck with you and helped you to remember this information.

Using acronyms to remember information is an example of Elaborative Rehearsal, which is when a person transfers information from your Short-Term Memory to the Long-Term Memory by making this information meaningful. In your short-term memory, you hold a few items for a short period of time, which is why you can use elaborative rehearsal to relate these memories in your short-term memory in order to keep it stored in the long-term memory. If you were to just try to memorize certain information, you might be able to recall it for a short period of time, but it would not be stored in your long-term memory or allow you to recall this information later in life, it would only be temporary.

In your long-term memory you have almost limitless storage and the information stored is relatively permanent, hence why you apply these acronyms in school. The information is stored in long-term memory because you have made this memory meaningful or related the acronym to prior knowledge you know. I know personally that I still remember specific things like symmetric shapes because of a song my teacher taught me in second grade which I can still recall today, retrieving it from my long-term memories because she made the song meaningful, not just straight memorization.

During lecture 8 we learned all about monocular cues and how they differ. I found this lecture to be very interesting but I have some difficulty knowing which one is which. To tell the difference I wanted to break down a picture which many students have experienced or at least seen here at Penn State and then discuss one of the cues.

 

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In honor of the white out this weekend I wanted to take a classic fan photo of a past PSU white out.

The first thing I wanted to point out in this picture is the difference between the people who were close to the picture and the people whom were farther away. The people close as you can see have some blue hats (and even a green hat). along with this you can see the people and their skin tones. Finally you can notice that there are people wearing different shades of white. Some whites are dull some are shiny and some are a little greyer. Now if you look towards the 50 yard line maybe even closer all you can see is layer of white. you no longer are able to distinguish one person from another. You are now unable to tell if anyone is wearing a blue hat or anything else that would stand out. If you wanted to at the opposite end of the stadium you could tell a handful of people to wear colors that would stick out, like black, red, blue, green, pink, or pretty much any color that isn’t white, and from this view you would still think everyone is wearing white and only white.

Everything I just described is a phenomena called texture gradient. This is a monocular cue which tells us that we see less detail in objects that are further away. This is why we can’t see the blue hats or the skin tones of people at the opposite end of the stadium. If you ever wonder why the people broadcasting the game always include images from high up or far away it’s because those pictures look more dramatic than they actually are.

 

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Cumberland Valley will face State College in Penn State’s Beaver Stadium on Saturday, Oct. 26

These are some classic examples of pictures that will be shown to you by the people covering the game. In these pictures it looks perfect as if everyone is wearing the correct color and we percieve it this way due to texture gradient.

 

When I was in high school, I was told to do a presentation  about illegal drugs, which is a totally unfamiliar topic for me. The proper nouns are difficult for me to remember and say them out. After finishing doing the power point, I began to practice it. At first I practiced it in my dormitory. I remember every sentences and points I want to talk about very well and I felt confident about the upcoming presentation. The day before the presentation date, I went to the classroom where I would give the presentation to practice for the last time. However, when I stood in front of the classroom, my mind was suddenly like a blank paper. I forgot nearly everything I planned to talk about. I felt really weird because I clearly remember I can recite everything in the dorm. So I practiced it again and again in the classroom. To my surprise, that night when I came back to the dorm, I can recall the presentation successfully again.

The example above can be explained by a psychology concept called retrieval cues. Retrieval cues are stimuli that assist in memory retrieval. In other words, retrieval cues help people access memories stored in long-term memory and bring them to your conscious awareness. The presence of retrieval cues can make recalling memories much easier.

In the example, the reason I can do the presentation well in my dorm is that the initial practice place is the dorm. The environment of the dorm is the retrieval cue. Therefore, it helped me to recall what I want to say. When I stood in front of the classroom, where the environment is totally different, I lost my cues that help me recall the words I want to say, so I seemed to forget everything. Although I have those feelings, the fact is that the presentation was already stored in my long-term memory. I did not really forget it, but hard to activate it from the long-term memory. The only difference that cause me to recall successfully and forget is with the retrieval cues or not. However, retrieval cues are not necessary. It is just a tool help people recall easier and faster. Without the dorm environment, I can still give the presentation in classroom, but it might be harder than with a retrieval cue.

Definition referred to:  https://study.com/academy/lesson/retrieval-cues-definition-examples-quiz.html

When I was young, I always went to my grandparents’s home playing, which is near the airport. Each time I stood on the balcony, I can see planes flying through the sky. I asked my mother:”Why is the plane flying so slowly? I think I can run even faster than the plane. Did you say that planes are the fastest transportation in the world?” At the time my mother just told me that is because the planes are too far from us. Soon after that, I had a chance to travel by plane. During the take off and landing processes, I looked outside the window. Through the fast moved trees and buildings on the ground, I get to know how fast the plane was moving. (That is even the slowest speed during the whole flight because it is only the beginning)

The experiences showed above can be illustrated by a psychology concept called motion parallax. Motion parallax is a monocular depth cue arising from the relative velocities of objects moving across the retina of a moving person. It is what we always refer to as the object moving near us seems to move faster than the object moving farther from us.

In the example above, when I sit in the plane, objects on the ground are near to me. We can just assume it as we are near to the objects because motions are all relative. So we feel like the objects move so fast because of the small distance. Assuming that the real flying speeds are the same when it is nearly to land and during the landing period. When we see a plane in the sky, the distance between us and the object is a lot farther than what it is when we are in the plane. Because of the big distance, we feel like the plane moves very slow. But in fact, we know, the real speeds are the same. It is just we have different feelings when observing objects from different distances.

Definition referred to: https://study.com/academy/lesson/motion-parallax-in-psychology-definition-lesson-quiz.html

Vision is a phenomenon between cones and rods reacting to the perception of light and the brain reading the signals from the eyes and creating a picture for us to see. I was in fifth grade when I fist noticed my vision getting fuzzy. It was minor so I didn’t mention it to my mom, but it was just noticeable enough to start to have difficulty reading the board in class. But soon it got bad enough that I couldn’t make out the board and my grades were dropping. Eventually I told my mom and we got my eyes checked out. It turns out I was near sighted. I was given glasses. My vision progressively got worse over time too. Now a days if an object is more than 5 feet away from me it is blurry almost to the point of no recognition. I have friends that are able to drive and function without their prescribed glasses or contacts. I also have friends that have perfect vision and will take my glasses and make fun of how bad my eyesight is. Poor eyesight hinders my every day life. Every morning I have to wake up unable to clearly see the world and choose whether to put on glasses, that get greasy and and dirty throughout the day, or to touch my eyeball just to put a weird flexible piece of plastic against it so I can see. These products are also expensive. Glasses can be up to a couple hundred dollars and contacts cost a few hundred dollars a year, and insurance only covers so much of it. All in all there is a big hindrance from society just because a persons eyes and brain were not wired correctly and some of us aren’t able to see without assistance from glasses or contacts.

In Lecture 3, we learned about the various different types of research that psychologists use to analyze and learn more about a myriad of various topics. Like many other scientists, psychologists love to experiment. However, there are many limitations that psychologists face when trying to come up with answers to solve the most difficult cases. That is where experimental research comes in. Experimental research makes up the backbone of most scientific research done in the psychological field, as well as in various other applications in the medical and everyday worlds. Experimental research is a great tool for researchers to use, but in order to reap the maximum benefits of it, it must be used correctly. Evidently, it is crucial to design your experiment in a way that a well-represented group of people can answer and fully understand without much difficulty.

In experimental research, the crucial element that makes or breaks studies is the concept of random sampling, which guarantees that any given person in a population has the same chance of being selected in a sample as anyone else does. This is important to note, because a sample that is hand-picked by the researcher (or skewed towards a certain demographic) can result in biased, and inaccurate results. Representing a population properly can go a long way in ensuring your results are unbiased and accurate. Many researchers look to use samples to demonstrate the characteristics of a given population, and a poorly represented sample can lead to inaccurate generalizations about the population. In addition to random sampling, there are other elements that researchers must pay attention to when creating their experiments. One of the most important aspects to watch out for is the wording of the questions asked. Surveys and experiments should be succinct, brief, and clear. Clarity is key in making sure that people accurately answer your questions or cues. In addition, experiments should utilize words and concepts that the respondents are familiar with. Wording means everything, and confusing verbiage can skew your results significantly. An example of this would be from class, when we discussed the 1992 Roper Poll in Lecture 3. The researchers asked the question, “Does it seem possible or does it seem impossible to you that the Nazi extermination of the Jews never happened?”. In this scenario, the results of the poll were quite shocking. 35% of respondents stated that it was possible that the Nazi extermination of the Jews never occurred. This is a textbook example of how wording can affect your results, as the people who answered this were quite confused by the verbiage, and didn’t quite understand exactly what the researchers were trying to ask. Simply, a majority of the people polled responded with that answer due to lack of understanding or confusion. A follow up poll conducted in 1994 proved that the respondents answered without a full and clear understanding of the question being asked, as the results were drastically different from the initial ones, thus showing the importance of ensuring a sample is easy to understand and analyze.