Thinking Outside of the Box

              I’m sure we’ve all heard familiar phrase “there’s more than one way to skin a cat” or “milk a cow”. We would hear this said perhaps during a discussion on how something should be done when one person/or set of people would insist on accomplishing a task the same way they were able to accomplish something similar in times past. They remained closed off to accepting a new and sometimes “better” way of completing a task, because they relied on their ‘mental set’, which is defined as a preconceived notion about how to approach a problem, which is determined by a person’s experiences or what has worked in the past. (Goldstein, 2014, p. 339)

This concept comes to mind as I think of myself as it relates to parenting. I have a four year old daughter and five month old son, who as you can probably guess couldn’t be more different. When my husband and I learned that our second child would be a boy, of course we knew that things would be slightly different as they got older, but we assumed the baby phase would be practically the same. We couldn’t be more wrong. Even the hospital staff didn’t give us the same “teaching/coaching” as they did with our first. Everyone who entered our room asked the question; “Is this your first child”? Once they learned that it was not, the conversation shifted, as if we were “pros” on all things baby. As it turns out, the simple things such as what baby wash, diapers, bottles and even pacifiers to use were different. Even what soothed our daughter, doesn’t even come close to what soothes our son.

For the baby shower to celebrate the soon coming of our son, we asked our family and friends to purchase a specific brand of diapers because it was the brand that worked well for our daughter. However, once our son was born, it took us much longer to realize that those diapers weren’t the best brand for him. After more than two to three dozen ruined outfits, and another dozen soiled bed sheets, it dawned on us to try another diaper. Had we not be so “stuck” on our previous experience, we may have thought to try another brand sooner. The same was the case with our choice of bottles. All in all, I would have to agree that because we developed mental sets on how to care for a newborn, it was more difficult to find an effective solution. In the five months of our sons’ life, we have learned that raising multiple children is not so “cookie cutter” and that we have to think outside of our own mental box.

References:

Goldstein, E. B. (2014). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience (4th Edition). In E. B. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience (4th Edition). (p. 339). Cengage Limited.

My 5-year-old son makes comments on when he was younger and behaved similar to my eight-month-old. He looks at me will sincerity and pride, and says “sissy still wears diapers, but I don’t because I can go potty by myself!” He often emphasizes how he remembers key features of when he was a baby, like when he made his first laugh. Its adorable because he clearly doesn’t remember these events, but he remembers me telling him. In fact, all of our memory before 3-years-old is implicit memory (Wede, 2020).

For the first three years of life our brains are developing rapidly. We do not form the capacity for recording explicit memory for quite some time, meanwhile we absorb tons of information unconsciously (Wede, 2020). This is due to our prefrontal cortex coming online. Up until this point, we encoded things drastically different and therefore cannot actually recall memory from this time period. With this knowledge I chuckle at my sons drop dead serious recollections of how he used to wear diapers.

He seems to remember things that he has heard second hand after 3.5 years old. His brain is cued not by memory but how he has stored and constructed a memory based off of my account of having expressed it. Since memory is an active process, he could very well have imagined himself behaving according to my explanation and thus constructed a memory of himself in diapers. This is called a false memory (Wede, 2020).

At some point since his prefrontal cortex has been up and running, he noticed the emotions of awe as I recounted my memory of something cute that he’s done. Emotions play an important role in autobiographical memory. This is because emotions activate the amygdala and cause us to form flashbulb memories (Wede, 2020). I am wondering if the same goes for false memory. Could my son be so powerfully moved by my emotions recounting a memory that he constructs his own narrative for the event?

References

Wede, Josh. (2020). Course Modules: L09 Everyday Memory and Memory Errors. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2130474/modules

This semester has tested my problem-solving abilities. I returned to college after a twenty-five plus year absence and I am dealing with an immediate family crisis as well as assisting my in-law who recently entered hospice.

Returning to college has led to mental “gymnastics” with my “little grey cells” as Hercules Poirot says when dealing with a good mystery. I have had to learn how to study again, apply the material to my life experience, and process that learning is more than memorization. I identified a fixation issue with a tendency to focus on a specific part of a problem impeding me from finding a solution. (Goldstein, 2014, p. 338) When I am given a question that challenges my perspective in a new way, I focus on that question, especially on quizzes and midterms. I am trying to train myself to complete the other questions before coming back to answer the question that disrupted my process. I have been researching ways to address this hyper focus; but so far, I’ve not found a resolution.

Another issue for me has been my mindset: a preconceived notion about how to approach a problem based on successful past experiences. (Goldstein, 2014, p. 340) In the past, I was instructed to read and re-read a chapter, make flashcards to learn the definitions, and to work on the general concepts. College has shown me that re-reading a chapter only makes the writing more familiar, but it does not equate to increased understanding or retention. It is the same with flashcards. I realize I need to create a second set of cards to help me understand and comprehend the terms. There are also new recommended study techniques that are different from the last time I went to college.

The first conflict during this school year was a personal crisis that threw me into a tailspin, disrupting my study schedule. This crisis is on-going. I have been trying to figure out how to rework my schedule to an adaptable one that works for me. The problem is time management; I keep brainstorming: a technique that encourages people to freely express ideas that might be useful in solving a problem. (Goldstein, 2014, p. 360) I find it hard to concentrate like I did before the crisis; my mind often focuses on my worries for this person. I find it twice as hard to finish things and to process the material in my classes. Unfortunately, I have not been the best at balancing this crisis with college.

The second conflict comes from helping an in-law who has been placed in hospice. The first hospice company was not a good fit and we switched to another company that has been much more compatible. Now, I take my computer to work on school assignments while I help out the in-laws. It’s not a perfect answer but it has improved my time management and gotten me back to almost meeting my deadlines.

This whole semester has taught me more about myself, how to study better to understand, and apply the information I have been learning to my everyday life. I also recognize that I’m stuck in a rut with problem-solving, but I hope to work on it by looking at how the brain forms long-term and short-term memories. I plan on brainstorming and thinking through the problem-solving process of Basadur that made sense to me. (Goldstein, 2014, p. 359) I also have realized that no semester is going to be easy and that I need to be better at preparing for crises that are going to come up during the semester.

References:

Goldstein, E. B. (2014). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience (4th Edition). In E. B. Goldstein, Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience (4th Edition). (p. 338, 340, 359, 360). Cengage Limited.

I always tease my husband that his memory is trash. Specifcially I tell him that his semantic memory is great, but his episodic memory is terrible. Which isn’t true in all cases, but mainly in recent long-term memory instances. He also tends to have good autobiographical memory – which is defined as memory for specific experiences from our life, which can include both episodic and semantic components. He tends to have stronger semantic components in his autobiographical memory and weaker episodic components.

My husband is the kind of person who knows all of the random facts at a trivia party or all the answers on Jeopardy, his semantic memory is amazing. He also plays the piano and is fluent in French. His semantic memory has proven to be quite good. Bu when he tries to recall different events that have happened or trying to remember if he had done something that he meant to do is where is memory falls short. I also have to mention that he has never had any brain injuries or damages.

When prompted with a script, which is defined as our understanding of the particular sequence of events that occur during an event, he is somewhat able to recall pieces of the event just based on context, but when asked to recall details of said events, he is unable to produce answers.

Though he has weak episodic memory, he seems to gain strength in that component when they are tied to certain emotions. “Emotions and memory are intertwined. Emotions are often associated with “special” events, such as beginning or ending relationships or events experienced by many people.” I believe this holds true in my husband’s case. When prompted with questions that contained emotion during the event, he was able to recall more descriptive details and instances from the specific events.

Goldstein, E. B. (2014). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience. Cengage Learning.

Memory is always the one that can bring us back to everywhere we missed. People always forget and remember things. When I was a kid, my grandfather always told us that although they are old and not able to remember a lot, they still remember several events vividly just like a video playing in front of them. They can still talk about the details from that time like what kind of dress my grandma wore for their first date or what he’s feeling when he heard there was something important happened to their family. Flashbulb memory plays a big role here.
The flashbulb memory is “a person’s memory for the circumstances surrounding shocking, highly charged events (Chapter 8, 2014)”, which is the situation my grandparent have experienced. Through their description, I acknowledged lots of things from their generation. However, some of my grandpa’s memory is strange to be remembered such as I do not think people will normally remember what kind of sock he wore for the day from a long time ago, although he taught me that it is a very special day. I understand it after I know more about flashbulb memory. According to Perera, “the amygdala seems to play a role in the formation and retrieval of flashbulb memories (Perera, 2021).” In an fMRI test, the amygdala area highly reacts to emotion. The existent of the amygdala in flashbulb memory decides that it focuses more on emotion instead of memory itself. That’s why although both of my grandparents remember the event, they can have a big argument about what their friends said sometimes. The feeling that they received can affect how well they remembered the event.
We are always remembering and forgetting our memory. It is surprising that emotion can help us remember more details thoughtfully. Flashbulb memory is a person’s memory that is affected by the situation around, which is because the amygdala is playing a big part here. Although we have lots of events and things that need to be remembered, and we will keep losing something unconsciously, the feeling we felt will sometimes help us make it long-lasting whether bad or good.

Reference:
Perera, A. (2021, March 3). Flashbulb memory. Flashbulb Memory | Simply Psychology.
Retrieved November 22, 2021, from https://www.simplypsychology.org/flashbulb-
memory.html.
Cengage Learning. (2014). Chapter 8. In Cognitive psychology connecting mind,
research and Everyday experience. essay.

Have you ever been sure that you started the washing machine before work only to arrive home and find out that you didn’t? This is an example of a false memory. False memories are a recollection that you have of an experience or event in your life that is either not entirely true or never happened to begin with. False memories often feel like real events and may become clearer as they are fixated upon because the brain wants the memory to be true. These memories happen at all ages and with all different types of events.

My mother-in-law grew up in Detroit, Michigan in a huge three-story house with a lovely backyard for lots of room for activity, or so she thought. She only lived in the house until she was around twelve years old, but she remembered it so clearly as the luxurious house in Detroit all the way into adulthood. She used to tell people stories about the plenty of rooms that were spread out across the home, and the extra-large basement that was full of activities. These stories she would tell led her to wanting to go back and see the home again after a decade or so of not living there.

Upon arrival at her beautiful three-story childhood home, her whole childhood seemed to be something that she no longer knew. She thought that she may be at the wrong address, or even that the home was torn down and replaced. Her mother, who was with her at the time of the visit to the past, walked her through the way the home was really set up. My mother-in-law was taken aback after realizing that all the stories she spoke of and the memories she recalled were completely made up inside of her head. She was so sure that the house was exactly as she imagined it but was proven to be wrong and started to recall what her home was truly like during the visit.

After the visit to her true childhood home, she realized that there were so many other things about her childhood that she had fabricated inside her head without even realizing it. She had memories of a neighbor who had an affair that turned out to be false. She remembered her grandmother having a lovely boyfriend who she was going to marry, he turned out to have a wife the entire time he was with her grandmother. Even to this day, she continues to have these false memories but with things that are not as imaginary as they were as a child.

False memories are so very common that most people often might never even realize that they were ever even falsified. False memories can be as little as believing you turned off the oven and finding out you forgot to, and they can be as big as the memory of your childhood home being entirely different then you have remembered your entire life. False memories may not always be entirely false, but when they are it can surely be frustrating or confusing for people. False memories can happen at any age or time in someone’s life, but they are completely normal and nothing to be worried about.

When an event occurs in our lives, we rely on our memory to recall and reiterate that event. Unfortunately, our memories are not films or recordings of events that we can go back to and look at or rewind to determine precisely what happened. We must reproduce the information from our memory based on our recollection and perhaps a skewed and /or induced version of what we remember. You would like to think that a firsthand account would be the most reliable and dependable source of information concerning an event. However, that may not necessarily be the case based on the misinformation effect and false memories.

The misinformation effect refers to the possibility that remembrance of an event can be influenced by information that is provided or added after an event. It is not only additional information, but how that information is introduced that could cause a disruption of precise recollection. For example, a person is an eyewitness to a robbery being committed with a knife. The eyewitness is later asked did you see what kind of gun was used in the robbery. The fact that the inquisitor had insinuated without a doubt that a gun was used could trigger the misinformation effect and could elicit an inaccurate response from the witness. The witness might question their own memory and believe that a gun was used in the robbery and their recollection will most likely remain that a gun was indeed used in the robbery. To get a more accurate firsthand response from the witness the first question should have been phrased what type of weapon was used in the robbery. When phrased this way the question will induce a response that is not tainted or influenced by the interrogator and will be a more accurate account of what the witness believed they saw.

False memories occur when you remember something that either did not happen or recall it happening differently than it did occur. False memories can be caused by the misinformation effect as misinformation or persuasion will cause a memory to be inaccurate. Additional information added or subtracted to the memory of an event generally through the passage of time can also lead to false memories. When we store information in our memory the memory does not always remain the same it updates. Information can be added or subtracted based on additional information we may have seen or heard. This newly found information can add to the accuracy of the event or further distort the memory by adding false information that will become your permanent memory of the event. For example, if you have a conversation with someone about an event say a party from a month ago. You will collaborate with the individual and revisit things that happened and more than likely come to a consensus agreement as to the undertakings of the evening. This will now be your memory of the party. You either created or corrected a false memory.

To test the reliability of eyewitness testimony and exhibit the misinformation effect as well as false memories, collaborate with your spouse and try to remember the events of your wedding day. Who was there, what the seating arrangement was, what you ate anything that you can think of? You more than likely will come up with several circumstances when you and your spouse disagree and if not, that is good as well. Now, go back and look at your wedding video. Inevitably you will find a difference in what you recall and the actual events that occurred. The events that you inaccurately recalled compared to the video are false memories. If you are not married think about the last class reunion you attended. The conversations more than likely revolved around events from the past that made you and others recall information from memory. As you reminisced, you probably found more than one instance where there were different perceptions and interpretations of events. People thought that you were at events that you did not attend and there was what you deemed other inaccuracies in the stories being told. More than likely you conspired with old classmates to correct the inaccuracies and simply reformed your memory. The newly discovered version of events had now become your updated memory of what happened. Whether it did or did not happen that way. You have succumbed to the misinformation effect and created false memories.

Based on the misinformation effect and false memories how reliable is eyewitness testimony? If the information has not been influenced, coerced, or allowed to wait too long for retrieval, probably pretty good. If not, information is likely to become distorted and not an accurate depiction of the events especially over time. Films or recordings may be the only true eyewitness testimony.

References
Goldstein, E. B. (2011). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience (4th ed.). Wadsworth, Inc.

Ever wondered why it was always easier learning a new language as a child instead of being an adult. Well, let’s start of by talking about what language is, language is a system of communication using sounds or symbols that enables us to express our feelings, thoughts, ideas, and experiences. There is many languages out there and probably new ones coming or so many languages we don’t even know about.

First, let’s start talking about the beginning of language. In 1986 savage-Rumbaugh, Rumbaugh, & McDonald were the first ones figure out the ability to use language, whether it was an animal or human. Even today we are still learning the ability to use language. Language can either be verbal or nonverbal, some examples would be a paper like this one for instance or dancing around to a song that you like. Language allows us to create new ideas and ways to communicate those ideas or feelings about something. Like with speaking Spanish, when I took a Spanish class a couple years ago there was different ways to express how I felt. When I met my friend Antonio and he is Italian, I learned that he talks while using his hands.

But there was always a question that I never understood, why is learning a new language at a younger age was easier then learning at an older age? According to oncology nurse, Suzanne Robin in her article “Why Is It Easier for a Child to Learn a New Language Than an Adult” she lists several reasons as to why children learn languages so easily. She describes about how younger kids are not that self-conscious when it comes to making mistakes or mispronouncing a word like an older adult is. She also talks about how after the age of eleven the brain is responsible for language acquisition to stop growing rapidly which makes it more difficult to learn or study a new language. But even at a younger age and learning another language you can lose their first language unless they are able to maintain both languages.

I know when I took a French class in eighth grade, I struggled learning a little bit, although some of the words were similar to English. But when I was learning Spanish, it was a lot more easier just for the fact that it is so similar to English that it came easier to me than the French language. While my boyfriends first language was Spanish and moved to Pennsylvania, he had a harder time learning English and he would talk to me about how the words were not so similar but because he learned at the age of six and while he was learning English, he was not able to maintain his Spanish. Now my boyfriend is now twenty-two he knows very little Spanish but is very good at speaking Spanish. SO, just because it was easier for someone to learn a language does not mean it is easier for someone else or the other way around.

In conclusion the answer to my question is that younger kids have the ability to learn these languages easier because the language acquisition is growing very rapidly and slows down the older you get. While language is just a word, language itself is beautiful and unique. It is easier for us to express our feelings whether it’s a song or someone just talks about their feelings, or simply just a picture.

Sharon Perkins. 26 September,2017. Why Is it Easier for a Child to Learn a New Language Than an Adult?https://howtoadult.com/easier-child-learn-new-language-adult-15590.html

Goldstein, E. B. (2011). Cognitive psychology: connecting mind, research, and everyday experience. Cengage Learning.

Recently I stumbled across a small-owned business created by a local mother. She has a handmade clothing line for kids 0 month to 5 years all of which she makes, ships, and takes inventory and stock for by herself. She oversees everything including her finances. She is also a stay-at-home mom while running this business at the same time.

Organization is an essential part in any business, but especially in a one-person operation. To obtain organization we must rely on categorization. Categorization refers to the process of organizing things into groups (Goldstein, 2015). For example, this mom has her clothing line separated into different types of clothing. She offers a variety of styles in shirts, dresses, pants, hats, and blankets. She offers tank tops, bell tops, cardigans, long sleeve hoodies. She makes peplum style dresses, tunic dresses, rompers, and t shirt dresses. For pants she makes diaper covers, shorts, leggings, harem pants, and straight leg. As for hats she offers headbands and beanies. Her blankets are only offered in ready to sell as all the clothing is custom fabric print. Customers select the print via photo albums along with price guides posted throughout the site.

As mentioned above, her price guides are also on her page. The items that contain more fabric and seem timelier to make are priced higher than those of small size and time dedication. Another example of categorization can be highlighted in reference to this. According to her page, a headband will cost $8, and a long sleeve hooded romper will be $28. I would expect this, as I would not expect it vice versa. The more fabric being used, the more money I will spend. The more time she dedicates to creating the item, the more money she must charge for labor. Therefore, the owner would not categorize the headband in the same price category as a full body clothing item. Likewise, it would be unreasonable to categorize these two together based on physical characteristics as well.

When looking at her page I could tell she took into consideration many factors when organizing her charts. For example, she didn’t categorize a romper with shirts, as it covers the torso and bottom half of the body. Although, she also makes short sleeve rompers which covers less than a dress. She considers amount of fabric used, style, time, and profit. Not just one of these is used to categorize but they all are. If she didn’t weigh her options, then her whole operation would likely be a mess and she would lose money.

Reference

Goldstein, E. B.  (2015).  Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research, and everyday

experience (4th ; student ed). Cengage Learning

Anxiety is defined as “an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts and physical changes like increased blood pressure.” (American Psychological Association). Millions of people around the world suffer from anxiety, just as I do. It’s a common disorder that can affect our judgement and reasoning. Judgements and reasonings that make up our days, our life, and all our decisions.

We typically use inductive reasoning to make our judgements. We gather observations, or we can reach our own conclusions from evidence to form our own reasoning. These conclusions can be true in cases, but they are not definite. Typically gathering this information that leads to our decisions or judgements comes from either multiple observations that concluded in similar ways, or the quality of the evidence found is strong enough to base our beliefs on. (Goldstein, 2015). These methods can be useful in learning new information and understanding future rationalizations but contemplating old and new observations can take more thought and consideration than we may have the time and energy for every situation. That’s when we use a “shortcut” to gather just enough past experiences to come to a conclusion faster. This is called heuristics, “a rule of thumb that provides a best-guess solution to a problem.” (Goldstein, 2015). Our past experiences can help us make quick decisions or realizations that can help us at a moments notice, but for better or worse, they are not always precise or correct. Negative heuristics can lead to repeat negative behaviour or even worse, a domino effect in illusory correlation. Illusory correlations occur when two events exist that seemingly correlate but in reality, they do not. (Goldstein, 2015).

When I’m having anxiety about going to a large event my mind races on what could possibly happen or go wrong. For someone with no prior experience going to a large event, they may be excited or possibly dwell on what it would be like. However, I have had a negative past experience at a large event. So without being cognitive about my worries and reframing my thoughts, I automatically correlate the two events. Heuristics can be helpful in a multitude of situations but in anxiety-producing ones, that happen to have past experiences linked to them by illusory correlation, they can be harmful. My judgement and reasonings are clouded and influenced by the quality of evidence formed at the past event. Although the information provided was not quality in the sense it was good or well researched, it was the feelings surrounding it and the notable incident that make the evidence too strong to ignore in future situations.

Work Cited:

American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Anxiety. American Psychological Association. Retrieved November 22, 2021, from https://www.apa.org/topics/anxiety.

Goldstein, B. E. (2015). Cognitive Psychology (4th ed.).