Month: November 2023

It’s all too common to forget a well-known name, misplace our keys, or find it difficult to recall specific details of a previous incident. Though we may think of our memories as precise information recorders, storing data for perfect replay, the truth is far more intricate. We are unaware of how frequently our recollections let us down. We’ve been studying the nature of forgetfulness, its various expressions, and numerous important theories that attempt to explain it in my psychology class. I’ve been really curious to find out more information on these subjects.

 

When we forget, availability or accessibility is the main problem. Because recall would be difficult if a memory trace were destroyed or deteriorated, storage and availability are related. On the other hand, retrieval is referred to as accessibility. Even when the memory is in storage, it is not accessible. Context-dependence and the tongue-tip phenomenon demonstrate how accessibility increases the likelihood of forgetting.

 

Access is also restricted by intentional and reactive intervention. Proactive interference is the term used to describe the process by which memories from the past disrupt the recall of recent knowledge. “Retroactive interference” is the term used to describe the situation in which one finds it difficult to recall past events due to new knowledge. Something similar happens to me when I’m learning new vocabulary for a lesson! When assessment and practice are not regular, accessibility progressively declines.

 

Numerous theories try to explain forgetting. The notion of trace decay states that if memories are not used, they will gradually erode. Interference hypothesis states that similar memories compete with one another and muddle recall. The cue overload principle states that if a stimulus is associated with too many memories, the associations will all be weaker. For many reasons, our memories are not as reliable as we might believe!

 

Knowing the science of forgetting helps me to understand how exceptional memory can be under the correct conditions. It has aided in my understanding of the boundaries of my memory so that I may create compensatory tactics such as note-taking, reducing distractions, and repeating key information. Now, when I periodically have a memory lapse,  I understand why.

Forgetting Things – The Quirks of Our Memories

We’ve all experienced it – struggling to recall a familiar name, forgetting where we left our keys, or drawing a blank on the details of an event from years ago. As much as we might believe our memories work like video recorders, accurately storing information for perfect playback, the reality is much more complex. Our memories fail us more often than we realize. In my psychology class, I’ve been fascinated to learn more about the nature of forgetting, the different types, and some critical theories seeking to explain it.

When we forget, it’s either availability or accessibility that is the root issue. Availability has to do with storage – the memory trace might be degraded or destroyed, making recall impossible. Accessibility, on the other hand, refers to retrieval. The memory exists in storage but can’t be accessed. Tip of the tongue phenomenon and context-dependence show the role of accessibility in forgetting.

 

Proactive and retroactive interference also prevent access. Proactive interference happens when old memories hamper the recall of new info. Retroactive interference is when further info hinders the recall of old memories. I experience this when learning new terms for my classes! Decay over time, absent periodic review and rehearsal, also degrades accessibility.

 

Various theories aim to elucidate forgetting. Trace decay posits that memories fade with time if not used. Interference theory focuses on how similar memories compete and confuse recall. The cue overload principle notes that when a stimulus is linked to too many memories, any one association will be weaker. A lot of factors make our memories less reliable than we might assume!

Understanding the mechanics behind forgetting makes me appreciate how remarkable memory can be in the right circumstances. It’s helped me recognize the limits of my recall abilities so I can develop strategies to compensate – writing things down, minimizing interference where possible, and repetition of important information. I’m now less frustrated when I occasionally experience a memory glitch!

What about you – have you noticed any patterns related to when you’re more likely to forget things? Do you use any tricks to help jog your memory when it fails? Share in the comments!

Wede, Josh ” Lecture 11– Forgetting” The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 12 November, 2023. Lecture.

Intro to Psychology has been an exciting class. I expected just to relearn much of what I learned in psychology during high school, but to my surprise, I have learned a lot of new information.

In Unit 2, we learned about sensation and perception. I enjoyed learning about the different types of sensations we experience as humans and how they work in our bodies and are applied through perception. So, for my first blog post, I will cover the basics of the difference between sensation and perception.

Let’s start with sensation – Sensation is detecting physical stimuli from the environment using our senses, like sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. It’s the activation of sensory receptors that then send signals to the brain. On the other hand, perception is how the brain selects, organizes, and interprets those sensations. For example, when you taste an apple, the chemicals stimulate receptors on your tongue. That’s sensation – it detects the stimulus. Perception recognizes that sensation as the taste of a sweet and slightly tart apple, attaches meaning and memories to it, and so on. Both work together closely to create experiences.

Several principles guide sensation and perception. Thresholds refer to the minimum amount of stimulus energy required for detection. As stimuli get more and more intense, differential thresholds help us distinguish differences at higher levels. Also critical is signal detection theory – our ability to detect faint signals amidst background noise. How we set response criteria impacts hits and false alarms and how sensitive or conservative we are.

Perception isn’t always accurate, and individuals can perceive the same stimulus differently based on factors like past experiences. But our perceptions feel like an objective reality to us. That’s why eyewitness testimony in court cases can be unreliable yet seem credible to the witness. The perceiver unconsciously makes inferences that may or may not be correct.

There are interesting perceptual phenomena like illusions – discrepancies between physical reality and subjective perception. We can’t always trust our senses! Context effects highlight how the surrounding environment shapes perception. Changing context can radically alter what you see. For example, the exact brightness blocks will appear very different based on background shading.

The interplay between sensation and perception explains so much about how we experience and navigate the world! Both play a vital role. I look forward to learning more about additional perceptual concepts like depth, motion, and constancy. There is still much to uncover regarding how we sense stimuli and perceive reality.

Wede, Josh ” Lecture 3 – Sensation & Perception” The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 22 October, 2023. Lecture.

Classical Conditioning and Pavlov’s Experiment

 

Many people don’t realize that they are secretly controlled by different stimuli in their everyday lives. Whether it’s immediately reaching for your phone every time it vibrates, or your mouth watering when you think of something sour, these things happen to us all. This is due to classical conditioning. Classical conditioning is a learning process that happens when two stimuli are repeatedly paired. Classical conditioning specifically involves a conditioned stimulus, a conditioned response, and repeated reinforcement. It occurs when a neutral stimulus is paired with a positive stimulus. These stimuli will then elicit a response. With repeated reinforcement of the stimuli, the response then becomes automatic creating the conditioning. For example, a psychologist named Ivan Pavlov conducted experiments to test this hypothesis. He used a dog, food, and a bell. Before the conditioning occurred, the dog would salivate at the sight of the food and would have no reaction to the sound of the bell. Then, Pavlov would ring the bell and then directly after, present the dog with food. He repeated this over and over again until Pavlov would ring the bell and the dog would start to salivate without the presence of the food. In this situation, the bell was the neutral/conditioned stimulus, the food was the positive/unconditioned stimulus. The salivating to the bell was the conditioned response. Because Pavlov kept presenting the dog with the bell and food, he used repeated reinforcement. 

 

I have been classically conditioned in many aspects of my life, but one I am particularly sad about has to do with food aversion. Food aversion/taste aversion comes from classical conditioning and is the learned behavior of avoiding food or a certain taste based on a negative previous experience. I used to love eating smoothie bowls with fresh fruit on top. Starting the new year off, I decided to make myself one and it was delicious. That night I visited a friend’s house where I got food poisoning and spent the night vomiting up that same smoothie bowl. About 2 months later, I had a volleyball tournament where I again succumbed to a delicious smoothie bowl. Later that day I was vomiting it up due to a stomach virus I had gotten. From that point on, I could not even think about another smoothie bowl without getting a sick feeling in my stomach. About a year later, however, I decided to try to regain my love for smoothie bowls. I went to my local cafe and got one of their smoothie bowls. While eating it, I definitely was not enjoying it as much as I used to, and soon after finishing it, I again got a sick feeling. Fortunately nothing happened from this smoothie bowl, but I have learned my lesson to stay away from smoothie bowls. 

 

From my experience, the smoothie bowl presented itself as the neutral/conditioned stimulus. The previous sicknesses like the food poisoning and the stomach bug would be the positive/unconditioned stimulus. Because I kept eating the smoothie bowls and getting sick right after, repeated reinforcement was also occurring. Me feeling sick after eating a smoothie bowl became the conditioned response. Although sometimes they are hidden, experiences of classical conditioning are in our everyday lives without even realizing it.

Also known as manic-depressive illness, it alternates between a depressive and a manic state. Some days they are depressed and become gloomy, tired, withdrawn, and just feeling isolated, but on other days they become hyperactive and euphoric, coming up with new life plans and major life changes in their lives, and just being in a frenzied state. These extreme mood swings make it hard for people who suffer from it to carry out their day-to-day lives. It is estimated that 2.8% of US adults suffer from bipolar disorder, and more than eighty percent of reported cases were severe. Fifty percent of people with bipolar disorder range from the age of 18 to 29.

One of my closest friends suffers from bipolar disorder. Every day he complains about the pills he has to take and the effects they have on him, how they make him numb, but that it is way better than how he was before. He is now able to hold a job, able to function throughout the whole day without having to worry about some new idea he has, or by not even being productive by laying in bed the whole day. But this only happened recently; it wasn’t until his second attack that he and his family got serious help for him.

It started out with him acting more depressed than usual; he wouldn’t hang out with us anymore, activities or trips that he always loved to join in on suddenly seemed boring to him, and he was always angry, the littlest things would just make him snap. But then all of a sudden he’s becoming more active, more static, thinking he was just feeling better, but every time we hung out, he would suggest even more extreme ideas than the last. He was rambling about how he was going to change his life and become a famous esport player for a game he has never played, and he blew his entire savings on a new gaming computer with streaming capabilities. After that point, we haven’t heard from him for a couple of weeks. 

I get a call from his mother saying he’s locked himself in his room for a couple days and he would not answer any of their calls. When I arrive at his house, I meet his parents and get inside his room, and his entire room was trashed. His new computer setup was just broken into pieces, the monitor smashed, clothes all around the room like a storm ran through it, and my friend huddled up in a fetal position covered by his blanket. When we talk, he just talks about how worthless he is, how much of an idiot he is thinking he could be a famous esport player, and how everything he has worked for is for nothing, how ashamed he felt when he was with his parents because he didn’t believe he was living up to their expectations, or how I, don’t even care about him and just see him as some mental case that I can “have fun” with. 

Thankfully, after this incident, he got the help he needed. It took a lot of work and time, but as he went on, things just got better and better. He had liked all of his doctors and the different changes in his life they had told him to take in order to keep his emotions docile. My friend is the only person whom I have met to suffer from Bipolar disorder, and he has gone through two attacks. It’s scary for everyone, and especially them, who are going through these problems in life.

 

cites:

“Bipolar Disorder.” National Institute of Mental Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/bipolar-disorder. Accessed 14 Nov. 2023.

 

Learning about positive and negative reinforcement and positive and negative punishment in class reminded me a lot of my childhood and many learning situations for me. When I was little, as with many other kids, I went through stages where I was more difficult behavior wise at some points than others. During these times my parents trued different methods of punishment and reinforcement to fix my behaviors.

Sometimes, they would use a more gentle parenting type of approach with positive or negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is when something is added to increase behavior. For example, my mom would try giving me and hug and letting me talk out my feelings, and we would come up with ways to fix them. Other times my parents would try negative reinforcement. Negative reinforcement is when something is taken away to increase behavior. For example, if my older brother was bothering me, causing me to act up, my mom would ask him to go play somewhere else.

Another approach my parents took was positive and negative punishment which was found to be less effective than reinforcement. Through my observations my parents would tend to use positive and negative punishment instead of reinforcement when they had les patience to deal with the situation. Positive punishment is when something is added to decrease behaviors when negative punishment is when something is taken away to decrease behaviors. For example, by positive punishment my mom would make me do more chores, and with negative punishment I have have a device taken away for a period of time. As a kid I found punishment to me very frustrating and ineffective. I would always make sure to fix my behaviors for a short period of time, for example to get my phone back faster, but would always find myself getting in trouble again.

One of my favorite and most effective ways to help my behavior was by token economy. I specifically remember at the age of 5 my mom was trying to help my behavior with a star chart at home. If I had a good day I would earn a star, if not then I wouldn’t. This went on for about a month and a half and once I hit 30 stars I was rewarded with a pair of shoes I really wanted. I found this to be one of my most effective and easiest ways to fix my behavior because I was working towards something I wanted.

Rocco Cappolella 

Professor Wede 

Psych 100 

13 November 2023 

Word Count: 305 

Positive Reinforcement and Negative Punishment 

 

Positive reinforcement occurs when something is added to a scenario or given to someone to increase the likelihood of that behavior occurring again. Positive reinforcement is often used by parents by giving their children rewards to reinforce good behavior and influence them to have good manners. The opposite of positive reinforcement is negative punishment because instead of giving a reward for good behavior, the parent or caretaker would take something away to punish bad behavior and make it less likely for the child to act in that manner again.  

I have an example from my life where I used positive reinforcement and negative punishment to increase the likelihood of good behavior from my dog. When I first got my brown labradoodle Jesse, she had horrible manners, would bite, would bark, and would jump on people. I realized that I had to find a way to make my dog behave better. I began to use negative punishment when Jesse was acting this way by taking away her chew toys and ignoring her. When Jesse would behave, I would give her treats and play with her. Using these methods helped me a great amount in teaching my dog to behave well. Once I had improved Jesse’s behavior, I started teaching her to sit down and give paw (dog handshake). I would have a treat in my hand and tell her to sit down and wouldn’t give her the treat until she sat. Then once she figured out sitting down, I did the same thing with giving paw and she caught on very quickly. This past Summer, I tried to teach her to roll over, but it never worked out. Jesse still sometimes misbehaves, but using positive reinforcement and negative punishment has helped to make my dog much more well behaved and mannered. 

 

Work Cited: 

Wede, Josh “Lecture 15 – Operant Conditioning” 

If you have ever felt the need to enforce a specific action from someone, you might want to try reinforcement. Reinforcement is forcing or strengthening the actions of someone, and the reinforcer is something that increases the likelihood that a specific behavior will occur. There are two types of reinforcement, negative and positive. Negative and positive reinforcement both include stimuli, which is anything that can trigger a physical or behavioral response. With negative reinforcement, you remove a negative stimulus which increases the behavior, such as putting on your seat belt to turn off the beeping sound that the car makes. On the other hand, with a positive reinforcement, you present a positive stimulus which increases the behavior like getting a reward after completing a positive act. If you do not pair the stimulus with an action or behavior, then no change will be made and the behavior will continue to occur. In order for negative or positive reinforcement to occur, you must pair it with a stimulus to increase the desired behavior.

In my life, I have been positively reinforced with going to work and receiving a paycheck. In this case, the behavior is going to work for my scheduled shift, and staying for the entire shift. The stimulus is receiving the paycheck for all of my scheduled shifts in the past two weeks. Because getting a paycheck elicits a positive response, I want to keep going back to work so I can continue to get paid to spend money on necessities and items or clothing that I want. If I did not go to work, then I would not get paid, and if I went to work and  never got paid, then I would have no motivation to continue to show up to my shifts. But because of positive reinforcement, I want to go to work to continue to get paid. 

When considering how children behave we often think to ourselves, how do we make them realize any inappropriate behaviors are wrong? How can we lead them in the right direction? The key to doing this is reinforcement, and there are two types of reinforcement which can be used: Positive and negative reinforcement.

 

Professor Wede states reinforcement describes an event which strengthens the behaviors occurring before it (Wede, 2023). The difference between positive and negative reinforcement is that positive reinforcement presents positive stimuli after the behavior occurs while negative reinforcement removes negative stimuli after the behavior.

 

Within the classroom, I have experienced both positive and negative reinforcement from teaching methods my instructors have used. A classic example of positive reinforcement which many students have experienced would be receiving stickers or golden stars for exhibiting good choices/behaviors. This is a method typically used in elementary school, as visuals are valued greatly by little kids. An example of positive reinforcement which I am experiencing in my current chemistry class is every time I attend a community tutoring session I receive 10 extra points towards my grade.

Figure 1. Golden star used as positive reinforcement in classrooms.

 

When it comes to negative reinforcement in the classroom, an example would be if kids have a sad face sticker from acting bad then when they change their behavior the sticker is taken away. In college, an example of negative reinforcement would be if students had zeros for any work they did not complete, and as they finish assignments the zeros are dropped.

Figure 2. Red sticker removed for negative reinforcement.

When choosing reinforcement for education, I find that positive reinforcement is more beneficial than negative reinforcement, as motivation can be gathered and used towards earning rewards rather than feeling certain behaviors must be exhibited to rid any nuisances. I have observed people tend to move away from stimuli they do not enjoy. If professors begin their classes by saying they use a grading system in which putting more effort in the class such as attending tutoring sessions will earn students more points, the students are likely to stick with the class and put in the work rather than if a professor introduced their class structure by stating there are zeros for all assignments and students must work to remove the zero. 

Sources Cited:

Wede, Josh. “Lecture 15- Operant Conditioning.” The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. Nov, 2023. Lecture.

 

Digital Image. Accessed 12 Nov, 2023. https://jonnywalkerteaching.wordpress.com/2015/08/02/how-gold-stars-ruin-stuff/

 

Digital Image. Accessed 12 Nov, 2023. https://www.amazon.com/Unhappy-Frowns-Stickers-Motivational-Teacher/dp/B09Z6WB8JZ

 

“Imagine that you are on vacation and eat a chicken enchilada at a restaurant. Hours after eating the enchilada, you become violently ill. For years after that incident, you might be unable to bring yourself to eat a chicken enchilada and may even feel queasy when you smell foods that remind you of the particular dish” (Cherry, 2023).

Taste aversion is the subconscious dislike of certain food after becoming sick or having a digesting event. This principle is used to control predators and this is why wolves become scared of sheep. Putting poison on a dead sheep causes the wolf to become sick after eating the sheep. This causes the wolf to be disgusted by the taste of the sheep and eventually become scared of it. The wolves now avoid the sheep at all costs since they formed a taste aversion. When I was a child, I formed a taste aversion to Welch’s sparkling grape juice and salmon. This was because before getting sick I had these foods for dinner. This formed a taste aversion and now I despise the smell or taste of these foods again. The taste aversion causes me to have nausea and unpleasant feelings when tasting or thinking about the foods. I’ve been trying for a while to retrain myself to like these foods again.

When I was 12 years old, I ate a sushi dinner with sparkling grape juice. Later that evening, I became sick and threw my dinner back up. This caused me to develop a taste aversion to these foods and even thinking about them gives me feelings of nausea. In conclusion, taste aversion is a conditioned response to the unpleasant experiences and feelings associated with a food. This is used to avoid foods that cause illness and aren’t good to eat, thus protecting the predators and other species.

Works Cited:

Cherry, K. (2023, August 21). Taste aversion and classic conditioning. Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-taste-aversion-2794991