Month: October 2023

Throughout unit 3 of Psych we have learned a lot about human development and how we grow to be the people we are today. I have found this unit to be extremely fascinating because while talking about some of these theory’s and concepts I remember myself as a little kid thinking the way I did. It is interesting to have explanations to why children think the way they do and how they develop and grow to think more logically and understanding.

Learning about Piaget Theory of how kids look at the world probably caught my attention the most because I was able to connect all of these stages to real life examples that I remember.

Growing up with siblings close in age with me, everything was a competition, including who got more of something. During the Preoperational Stage the competitiveness was the worst and now I have learned why. When it came time for desert with my brother and I we would all have Oreo cookies and a glass of milk. My mom could never give us different shaped glasses of milk because whichever glass was higher filled we automatically thought was more milk, even though it was the same amount. I also remember always pulling apart my Oreo cookies so I would have more, even though in reality it was the same amount.

The thought process we had as little kids now makes sense to me. In the Preoperational Stage children begin to form theory of mind which means they are able to create ideas about the mental state of their own and others and the way feelings and perceptions predict behavior. Despite this fact, children are still egocentric which means they cannot take another’s viewpoint. Relating to my example from when I was little,  the Preoperation Stage makes children unable to understand the concept of conservation which means quantity remains the same despite changes in shape, like the different glasses of milk.

 

Lecture  11 – Josh Wede Pennsylvania State University

Many claim that they’re able to remember each aspect of past occurrences, piece by piece and scene by scene. But is there a way or theory to prove this? The short version is no, we can’t; if we forget something small, our brain will attempt to fill in the blanks with other information. The term “misinformation effect” refers to the process by which the brain integrates false information into a memory in order to interpret sensory input.

 

The Loftus Study was carried out to demonstrate how versatile and effortlessly influenced people’s memories are. Elizabeth Loftus created the Loftus Study with the goal of examining memory flexibility. In this study, forty-five students watched brief films—five to thirty seconds—in which vehicle crashes occurred. After seeing the films, the students were asked to estimate how quickly they thought the automobiles were traveling before they collided. The term “contact”, “hit,” “smashed” and “bumped” had an impact on memory formation since different students were asked the same question using different synonyms which technically meant the same thing but were processed by the brain differently. Even though they had watched the same film, students’ estimations of how fast the car was moving varied according to the words used. 

 

A week break followed the beginning of the study to see if the brain would try to fill in extra information to connect to the words used when the students were asked about the speed of the cars. The next question asked about the crash was if there was any shattered glass from the accident. The study ended up showing that words like smashed and hit provided more answers of yes, there was glass broken than the group who had the crash described as contact or bumped. There was actually no broken glass in the video shown to any of the groups but the week break made their brains associate the severity of the crash with the word used to describe it. This demonstrated that the brain may manufacture fake occurrences that ultimately drastically change memory, in addition to perceiving events differently based on small variations in the account of the events. 

 

A few years back, my dad was in a car accident on the highway driving home from the airport. Though I am not fully aware of the severity of the accident, I know that the car was totaled and my dad had some pretty serious neck injuries. These memories and information I have of the accident make my brain assume it was very bad. My dads description of the accident was that he was hit by a drunk driver at 90 mph which makes my brain associate things like broken glass, dents in the car, and possibly even a flipped car. The brain fills in these gaps with the information I already know about car accidents and knowing that it takes a lot for the car to be totaled. This proves the Loftus experiment to be true because even though I was not at the site of the accident, my brain fills in the gaps to tell me what happened and more details than i was actually given about the accident.

lecture  11 – Josh Wede Pennsylvania State University
https://moderntherapy.online/blog-2/loftus-and-palmer-study-explained

 

One day, my mom got a call to go to court because she saw a car accident happen right in front of her. She was just waiting at a red light at the intersection when it happened. According to what she remembered, she thought the red car was trying to turn right on a red light, and the gray car had a green light. She believed that the gray car had the right of way and blamed the red car for causing the crash. When she was in court, she told the story based on what she could remember. But it’s important to remember that our memories aren’t like video recordings and they might not catch every single detail perfectly. Memory reconstruction is the process by which our brains attempt to piece together events from fragments of information stored in our mind. In my mother’s case, the traumatic nature of a car crash, along with the stress of being a witness in court, can influence the way she remembered the incident. For instance, her belief that the red car attempted to make a right on red might be influenced by her general understanding of traffic rules. In her mind, this scenario might align with what she expects to see at an intersection. Also, her emotions during the accident might have made some details stand out more in her mind. She also believed that the gray car had the right of way and blamed the red car. But sometimes our brains fill in the gaps in our memory to make a story that makes sense. This happens to all of us, especially when we’re trying to remember complicated or stressful events.In reality, the actual order of events might have been more complicated. Things like when the traffic lights changed, how fast the cars were going, and what the drivers were doing could all add more layers to the story.

Classical conditioning was discovered by physiologist Ivan Pavlov. With Pavlov’s finding, we had a better understanding of unconscious learning. In order for classical conditioning to work, you need to have an unconditioned stimulus, neutral stimulus, conditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, and a conditioned response. An unconditioned stimulus is something that happens automatically, without you even noticing it. For example, you feel a chilly breeze, and your first response is to shiver. This is an unconditioned response because it is an automatic response that you did not even think about doing. Next, a neutral stimulus does not create an initial response. You can hear a song on the radio, and have no reaction to it because it has no meaning to you, therefore it flies past your mind. With a conditioned stimulus, it was once neutral, but now creates a response from you. An example of this would be you being neutral to tomatoes, but you ate them one time, it gave you food poisoning, so now you hate tomatoes. With an unconditioned response, it can only happen with an unconditioned stimulus. The unconditioned response happens automatically, like smelling your favorite food and starting to salivate, the salivation is the unconditioned response. Finally, the conditioned response is a learned response. Taking the example of the tomato, the dislike you now have towards tomatoes is the conditioned response. 

Pavlov’s experiment consisted of him ringing a bell and dogs. In the beginning, Pavlov would feed the dogs, and because they were being fed, they would salivate. This was the unconditioned stimulus. For the neutral stimulus, Pavlov would ring a bell, which elicited no response from the dogs. He would then combine the unconditioned and neutral stimulus together, ringing the bell when feeding the dogs. Because the dogs would salivate when they were being fed, and they began to associate the ringing of the bell with food, every time Pavlov would ring the bell, the dogs would start to salivate, which was the conditioned response. 

Before I came to college, I worked in a retail store. In this store there was a bell above the door that would let you know that someone had entered. When someone enters the store, it was expected that we go and greet the customers. Seeing customers and saying hello to them is the unconditioned stimuli. This is because walking by someone and smiling or saying a polite hello has been ingrained in our minds, so we automatically do it without second thought. Next, the ringing of the bell above the door would be the neutral stimulus. When I first started working in the store, I would have no reaction to the bell because to me, it was just another sound. During my conditioning, when my unconditioned stimuli was paired with my neutral stimulus, I was then conditioned to greet people every time that I heard the bell go off above the door. 

Work Cited

Cherry, Kendra. “Classical Conditioning: Examples and How It Works.” Verywell Mind, 1 May 2023, https://www.verywellmind.com/classical-conditioning-2794859. Accessed 22 October 2023.

There have been many interesting concepts I have learned throughout PSYCH 100 so far, some of which I can relate to mine or someone else’s experiences. Of all the possible concepts I could talk about, the one I wanted to discuss is one of Jean Piaget’s stages for schema development. Specifically, I wanted to talk about the preoperational stage and some experiences relevant to the topic.  

According to Piaget, this stage starts to develop around 2 and 7 years old after the sensorimotor stage. The preoperational stage has various defining characteristics. For instance, this is the stage where children start to understand language but cannot fully understand the meaning of language (like sentence structure or grammar). Children lack a sense of conservation during this stage. This means that they cannot comprehend that something is the same quantity even though they appear larger. Children are described as egocentric, where they can only think about their own viewpoints and are unable to view other viewpoints. Children also start to develop a theory of mind. This allows them to start predicting certain behaviors based off of a person’s mental state. The development involved in this stage is very influenceable in making people the way they are.  

Having a pretty big family, I have personally experienced some of the key characteristics of the preoperational stage throughout my life. For instance, one of my cousins is around 5 years old. She has a tendency to spout a ton of out-of-pocket sentences uncharacteristic of a child her age. In particular, she would often say some inappropriate words and phrases every time I would try to start a simple conversation. Despite saying these words, she clearly does not have a grasp on what the words mean and cannot make relevant responses to simple questions like “how have you been?” or “what are you up to?”. This shows how children within the preoperational stage have the ability to say words but do not have the understanding of when to say certain words or sentences.  

This same cousin also tends to latch onto me in random scenarios. For example, I was talking to one of my uncles during a Memorial Day gathering and out of the blue she hugged my leg signaling that she wanted to play. This disrupted my conversation. This is an example of egocentrism as even though she wants to play, she does not see that I am having a formal conversation with my uncle. The inability to see my viewpoint is a characteristic of egocentrism, which helps define the preoperational stage. All in all, that is what I have gathered about Jean Piaget’s concept of the preoperational stage and my experiences that tie to it.  

Wede, Josh ” Lecture 12 – Infancy and Childhood” The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 22 October, 2023. Lecture.

Memory is a constructive process. We have a tendency to change and adapt our memories as we recall them. Memory construction is the way we filter or fill in missing information to make our recall more coherent (Wede 2023). In reality, we are unable to verify the accuracy of a recollection. If an event we recall simply exists in our memories without any supporting evidence, then it is untrustworthy and perhaps biased.

In first grade, my parents took me to visit our family in Brazil. Looking back, there is one memory that I think I remember vividly. This trip has been mentioned over and over throughout the past couple years. It feels as though I’ve told everyone about this specific incident, which makes me think, did the incident happen the way I have been telling people? 

I am not sure that my memory of events matches how they actually transpired. Taking a shower in my grandma’s house seemed to have so much interest. I remember thinking her shower was so cool because she had a sliding door shower. This was new to me; I didn’t have it at home. While in the shower one night, I was playing around with the door until it slid closed on my finger, cutting it open. There was blood everywhere.  

I can say that I do not remember much from my 2 week long vacation to brazil. But I remember this specific moment. Now, what happened before and after this memory, I can not recall. This leads me to question, is the only memory I remember even truly accurate? 

I believe that this traumatizing memory led me to a change in perspective. Perception is very important. It is used to organize, select, and interpret our sensations. Because I cut open my finger laying with the shower door, I began to avoid the shower door. I refused to touch the door after that moment. This is an example of Top-Down Processing. Top Down Processing is when you use prior knowledge and experience to make sense of incoming information- how our brain interprets existing knowledge (Wede 2023). Memory construction and top down processing go hand in hand with one another.  

 

Wede, Josh. “Lecture 11-Forgetting & Biology of Memory.” The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 22 October, 2023. Lecture.

 

Wede, Josh. “Lecture 6- Sensation & Perception.” The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 22 October, 2023. Lecture.

When reflecting on previous events, many people claim they can remember the entirety of the event scene by scene, object by object- how can we be sure of this? The answer is we can’t;  if details are slightly forgotten our brain will attempt to form connections to fill the gaps. This is called the misinformation effect, and is defined as inaccurate information being incorporated into a memory by the brain to make sense of gathered data.

To prove that the memories people have are flexible and easily influenced, the Loftus Study was conducted. The Loftus Study was designed by Elizabeth Loftus who wanted to study the flexibility of memory. This study involved 45 students who were shown short 5-30 second long films in which car accidents happened, then the students were asked how fast they believed the cars were moving prior to them coming in contact. The word which affected the formation of the memory was the word contact, as various students were asked the same question but with various synonyms such as hit, smash, and bumped. Based on the words used, students had different guesses for the speeds which the cars were moving in though they had watched the same video. The pictures below display an example of the difference in which the words hit and smash can imply for how people view the scene, and the speeds people guessed based on which word was used in the questioning process.

After the speed question, there was a week break from the study, then the students were asked to recall if there was broken glass within the films of the car accidents. Those who were asked the question about the car speed with the word smashed proved to be over twice more likely to falsely say there was broken glass in the collision than the students who were asked the question using the word hit. This proved that not only does the brain perceive events differently based on slight differences in the description of the events, but it can also create false occurrences overall drastically changing the memory. The table below displays the recall of various individuals who were asked the speed question with different words.

Knowing this information, I can understand that I have had the misinformation effect occur with my memories. A simple example of the misinformation effect occurring in my life is recalling a toy car which I had when I was little that I could actually drive. Throughout my life after I gave the car away I had memories based on what my mom had told me, which was that it was a purple non branded toy jeep. Growing up, I remembered the purple jeep not having a brand label on it up until I saw a picture of myself within the car. Not only did the jeep have a large Barbie logo on it, it was also pink! Based on new information supplied to me after the memories had been formed, my brain had falsely filled in missing details as drastic as the color of the car. This corresponds directly to the findings within the Loftus Study, as after the formation of a memory added details about the event, though they were false, were incorporated into my memories leading to the misinformation effect.

Works Cited:

Saul Mcleod. “Loftus and Palmer (1974): Car Crash Experiment.” Simply Psychology. 16 June, 2023. https://www.simplypsychology.org/loftus-palmer.html Accessed 22 October, 2023.

 

Wede, Josh. “Lecture 11-Forgetting & Biology of Memory.” The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 22 October, 2023. Lecture.

Ryan Bodnar

Psychology 100

Professor Wede

22 October 2023

Source Amnesia

Amnesia is something that you may have heard of it is a disease that causes people to not remember most things for example their own name. But source amnesia is different from amnesia, source amnesia is the inability to recall the source of information. For example, you know that the capital of Pennsylvania is Harrisburg, but do you remember how your learned that? We obtain this information and remember it as facts, but it is unknown where this information is originated in our memory. Source amnesia directly effects the explicit memory. Explicit memory is when day to day information is retrieved consciously with an effort. But the Information in the Explicit memory can be lost if the Information retrieved is not often recalled. Source amnesia is does not affect implicit memories, implicit memories are riding a bike or driving a car, even though you may have not ridden a bike since childhood they would instantly remember how to ride a bike.

We all have experienced source amnesia and have forgotten information that you know you knew. Some of my personal experiences of source amnesia come from math class. Sometimes I will forget my times tables and have you use a calculator. Even though I learned and memorized my timetables when I was young. I constantly find myself not remembering simple multiplication problems. Even though I learned and spent hours learning this information I will find myself at a lost and unable to come up with the answers. Another example of Source memory that I experience is when I study for a test and but the effort to get a good grade on the exam, but I forget some of the information when I am taking the test. This are both examples of something that I put hours into and a lot of effort, but I couldn’t remember it during that certain situation. When we think about this concept of source amnesia there are multiple examples that you can experience it and how you experience it I your everyday life.

 

 

 

There are four ways forgetting occurs in the brain. These include Encoding Failure, Retrieval Interference, Rehearsal Failure, and Trace Decay. Encoding Failure takes place during the sensory stage, Rehearsal Failure occurs during short term memory, and Trace Decay during long term memory. Retrieval Failure happens through interference of incoming information, as well as previously encoded memories. These two types of retrieval problems are called Proactive and Interactive interference. When Proactive Interference occurs, information that someone has already learned and processed interferes with one’s ability to remember information learned at a later time. The information that is being processed in this instance is usually of the same topic or related in some way. Retroactive Interference occurs when information someone is learning in the present interferes and causes them to forget information previously processed.

When I used to dance competitively, I would often experience both Proactive and Retroactive Interference of memory. A big part of being able to dance involves memory. I was in many routines, and I would often have to remember choreography to very similar, or even the same styles of dance. During recitals and showcases I would not only have to perform my competition routines, but my showcase routines as well. I experienced Proactive Interference in the beginning weeks of rehearsal, where I was learning a lot of choreography to multiple routines at ones. One particular instance I remember is learning the choreography to my showcase ballet number. While learning the routine I kept on doing choreography from my competition ballet number that I have learned months before. It was always the one part of the dance that I would get confused with my already learned competition number during rehearsal. Because of this I would have to go home and practice my showcase routine more in order to be able to recognize the difference in choreography of the two different routines

Retroactive Interference of memory would also occur during choreography weeks. However, with this experience I found that I was able to remember and recall the choreography we had most recently been taught. The closer we got to finishing the routines, the more I realized I was forgetting the choreography at the start of the routines. I found myself completely blanking, and forgetting how the dance started, but being able to dance the choreography we most recently learned. Something else that would occur was I would do certain moves or formations that did not happen until later in the dance too early.

My experience of doing the moves to a different dance routine while rehearsing a routine I was learning in the present moment can be categorized at Proactive Interference because information that I had already processed and learned months before, was interfering with my ability to retain the new choreography I was learning in that moment. Just like knowing one language can interfere with someone’s ability while learning a new language, the similarities between the encoded information and the incoming information is what caused me to forget. My experience of only being able to recall the choreography I had just learned can be explained through Retroactive Interference because it consists of new information being encoded, which caused me to forget previous choreography I had learned. Along with my experiences with Proactive and Retroactive memory I also noticed many of my teammates having the same experiences. While some dancers did not have these experiences and were able to recall and distinguish the choreography we had learned, it is important to understand with dance that memory is a constructive process done through practice and repetition.

Luenendonk, Martin. “Proactive and Retroactive Interference Explained.” Cleverism, 25 Sept. 2019, www.cleverism.com/proactive-and-retroactive-interference-explained/.

Our whole lives are purely made from memories. Our memory is made up of 3 different systems: sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. Sensory memory is the first step in the cycle and involves how we first perceive our surroundings. Iconic memory is a part of sensory memory that relates to visuals. It allows us to take a visual picture and hold it in our memory for 1 second before it is sent down the cycle. Echoic memory is also within sensory memory and pertains to our hearing. It allows us to play back what we hear and normally only lasts 5-10 seconds before moving it along the memory path. 

 

Next, comes short-term memory. This is memory that comes from sensory memory and will either be forgotten or turned into long term memory. Short term memory only lasts 10-30 seconds and anything remembered after that is considered long-term memory. Most people can only hold 5-9 pieces of information. Information that is remembered in those 10-30 seconds of short-term memory is then transferred into long-term memory. 

 

Long-term memory can be broken down into implicit and explicit memory. Explicit memory refers to memories that we are aware of and can recall. These explicit memories can be categorized even more into semantic memory and episodic memory. Semantic memory refers to factual information while episodic memory includes your personal life events. Implicit memory includes information that we are not consciously aware of and are not quite able to explain. Implicit memory can also be broken down into habituation/classical conditioning, procedural memory, and priming. Habitual/classical conditioning refers to information that has already been learned and you have formed associations with. Procedural memory refers to memory for how to do things like tying your shoes. Finally, priming is the ability to identify a stimulus more quickly once we’ve seen similar stimuli. 

 

Memory is very important and understanding memory can help us in all aspects of our lives. I can still remember the first time I played volleyball and learned how to pass a ball. After learning the proper form, I remember my coaches tossing a ball at my arms. Instantly, the ball hit my arms and I could feel the exact location the ball touched. This sensory experience of touch only lasted 1 second in my sensory memory before it moved to my short term memory. I was able to remember the movement I made in order to put my arms in the correct position for the ball to hit. I remembered the same spot the ball hit my arms. The memory was then moved to my long-term memory. Because I wanted to remember this skill, my coach kept throwing more and more volleyballs at my arms. I would have to make a move and allow the ball to hit my arms. Again and again this information would transfer from my sensory memory into my short-term memory and finally into my long term memory. Over time, my coach increased the speed at which the ball came at me more and more as I was getting a faster reaction time. Thinking about it now, I can pass a ball with ease that is coming at me very fast. Within my long-term memory, my ability to remember how to pass a ball is encoded within my implicit memory; when a ball is coming at me, I do not necessarily have to think about what to do, in fact the motion just takes over. Even more, this memory would fall under a procedural memory as I have learned and practiced how to do something over and over.