Have you ever taken the time to realize that when we make decisions, and we take certain steps for those decisions? Most likely you don’t even realize that you are doing it as it has become part of your everyday decision-making routine. The first step we take is generally called “set or revise goals”. In this step, we view the goal that we want to achieve, and we plan for that goal. In example of this would be wanting to lose weight, and we decide from that moment that we are going to watch what we eat and set an exercise regimen to obtain that goal of losing weight.

The next step one would take to complete or obtain that goal would be gather information. During this step, we take any information we can from different workouts, or gather information on diet that we feel might be best, certain foods that might help pre workout and post workout for recovery. Gathering information could be viewed as the most important step of the decision-making process, as without this step, you don’t have enough information to make a well-informed decision. Another step that is part of the process is make plans. During this process, we understand the goal, but we have made a plan to obtain that goal. This could be a certain time you plan on eating, or a certain schedule that you are following when it comes to working out whether that is morning or night, or cardio and strength training. Once you have made plans and gathered information, you can structure the decision based on the information you have and make the final selection that you know after having knowledge of how to obtain your goal, you have gone through the correct steps of how we make decisions and how we can process the information.

I decided to use these two because it feels deeper than just describing the different ways, we remember events or the world around us. Both episodic and semantic memories are forms of long-term memory. This is important for us to remember as they might seem like the same type, but they each play their own role in our long-term memory.

When you take semantic memory for example, we are retrieving things we might have learned from our past whether that is the way we speak, the colors we see around us, and things we are familiar with that become second nature to us. At times this could be seeing some fruit, and knowing whether that fruit is a banana, strawberry, or a grape. We can without much trouble, know the difference between those fruits because for most of us, we see those fruits at the market, or we eat them regularly. but what about the very first time you seen those fruits? Can you recall what it tasted like? Where you tried them? If you can, then you are using what you call your episodic memory.

Episodic memory is part of long-term explicit memory, and comprises a person’s unique recollection of experiences, events, and situations (Perera, 2023). Episodic memory was given the name by Endel Tulving in 1972 to signify the difference between knowing and remembering. Take a look at math for example. There might have been a time when you learned how to do multiplication. For some, they might not remember, but when I do multiplication and asked where I learn it, I can revert back to the exact moment of learning it in the 3rd grade, how I was taught it, and how good it felt to learn it. Now, I do the multiplication without remembering that memory, because it is something that I know how to do which is now a semantic memory. Both of these memories are important because episodic helps us recall how we felt, or that moment in time, where semantic memory helps us understand the know the world we live in.

Perera, A. (2023, February 26). Episodic Memory: Definition & Examples. Https://www.Simplypsychology.org/. Retrieved June 10, 2023, from https://www.simplypsychology.org/episodic-memory.html

I decided to use Gestalt Laws of Perception for my first blog. How we view the world we live in can be different from one another and can be difficult for us to understand. One thing is for certain, is that we try to make the world make sense and there are many ways we do so. I would like to talk about the law of similarity.

The law of similarity can be best described as how we naturally group like items together, and that can be done in many ways. Whether that is by color, by shapes we see, or by the sizes of items that are in front of us. I have the pleasure of having my four-year-old and currently as a family we are working on puzzles. I tried to put a puzzle piece that fit perfectly in a spot, but my daughter had taken the puzzle piece out. When asked why she did it, she said that the puzzle piece doesn’t go there. The colors scheme was off, but she saw that the piece fit perfectly but was not correct in her mind because she associated the like colors and started to group them together by likeness of color.

This law is something that I catch myself doing as well with organizing likeness of colors when putting away items in my kitchen and feel out of place when I don’t group items together. I believe it depends on the person, but this law can hold true for everyone, just depending on what the item is, and situation is as well. I am not sure why as there is still being research done on to truly understanding this, but it could be caused by how we naturally group like items and could help us understand the way are brain associated similarities.