January 2, 2012 I stepped onto the yellow footprints of Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina. Not knowing what to expect, I imagined boot camp would be a combination of yelling, physical activity, marching, and hazing that would result in me becoming an extremely muscular Marine. Needless to say that didn’t really happen. However what I did experience were so many events that can be applied to this course.

Ears! OPEN SIR! Was the indicator that whatever the drill instructor was about to say we needed to pay attention. Sometimes this was a simple task that simply consisted of giving the drill instructor your undivided attention. Most of the time however, this meant you needed to use selective attention to focus on the message being delivered specifically for you. Often I would find myself at the position of attention with three drill instructors surrounding me. Usually the drill instructor located directly in front of me would ask questions while the one’s flanking my right and left would scream at the top of their lungs into my ear less than a foot away. I couldn’t tell you what the drill instructors to my left or right were saying since my undivided attention was given to the drill instructor directly in front of me. Through the screaming I was able to focus on only one message delivered to me even though the drill instructors each spoke close to the same volume. Had I not focused on one message, I would not be capable of answering the questions I was asked resulting in me being screamed at for a longer duration of time. Other times we would be yelled at constantly by several kill hats (Their sole purpose is to teach you discipline through intensive physical training). They would scream inches from your face demanding you to push, crunch, run in place, and mountain climb until you thought you were going to pass out. Focusing on their commands, you would immediately do as you were told until your savior the Senior Drill Instructor would yell stop! As if someone screamed fire, the cocktail party effect took place because even though multiple instructors were yelling hearing that cue let you know you could get up and report to the Senior instructor.

Attention was obviously a critical part of boot camp. Not paying attention resulted in a punishment while paying attention led to less of a punishment. The fact that our brains are able to focus or not focus on more than one message depending on the situation really is amazing in itself. Luckily we are equipped with a mind that allows us to interpret and bring us to a level of awareness to help us survive.

I was diagnosed with Epilepsy at the age of ten. My mom, Lisa, completely freaked out when the doctors told her that they were certain of the diagnosis and that I would probably need brain surgery if my medication didn’t manage my seizures. So my doctors decided to try tegeretol. (200mg 3x per day). This is an anti-seizure medication. When I think back on this episodic memory I realized that it really wasn’t so bad to hear, expect for the fact that they were going to have to shave my head. To me that was the only downside. At the age of ten, going from shoulder length curls to Sinead O’Conner isn’t something that I really wanted to do. These memories that will be discussed in this blog are all examples of long-term memories.

The doctors at DuPont hospital, in Delaware were really nice. I had been spending a lot of time in the hospital (doing EEG’s, MRI’s) with video games, oversized animals and lots of candy and fun snacks. I couldn’t wait to get my surgery this place was great!
Two weeks before my surgery date, I had a follow-up appointment with my primary neurologists I had been on this new medication, tegretol, to prevent my seizures for three months now. We were there to see if I was seizure free, and I was. When we were called in to his office I wasn’t quite sure how I should feel, I mean I knew I had been feeling better than ever with no seizures. The truth was that the tegretol made me seizure free and it was great! Would that mean that I would never go back to that hospital again??? I loved it there.

While the doctor was talking to my mother I was being a typical ten year, fantasizing about playing video games, having unlimited snacks and playing with oversized stuffed animals. Sadly, to my disappointment, I hear my neurologist tell my mother that he had already consulted with the doctor at the children’s hospital and stated the effectiveness of the new medication. Their combined conclusion was that the surgery would not be needed since they were able to control the seizures with medication. It was such a bummer for me to hear, but my mom was so relieved when she heard the news.

I have been on Tegretol now for twenty years. My implicit memory or procedural memory reminds me to take my pills everyday. My doctors had really laid out the side effects of the medication (nausea, drowsiness, memory loss & more). If at anytime the side effects were too much to take that I could find something else. I’ll have to say that I don’t have too many complaints really. Well maybe a couple. I’m tired about three hours after taking my medication and when I’m reading, or memorizing things I have to read it three or four times to get the info to sink in.

According to our textbook these memories that I have discussed above are explicit and also implicit memories explicit memories are memories that are recalled from conciseness or personal experience. According to Tulving, it’s mental time travel. The implicit memories discussed above are procedural. Taking my medication is something that I do everyday and I have to remember to do it. Remembering to take my medicine every day for twenty years has turn into a habit. Now, the act of waking up everyday and taking my medicine, having lunch taking a pill and finally having my last pill with dinner.

References:
1. https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/fa14/psych256/001/content/09_lesson
2. Cognitive Psychology, Connecting mind, research and everyday experience, Goldstein, 3rd Edition

Divided Attention with Automatic Processing in Automobiles

“Five seconds is the average time your eyes are off the road while texting. When traveling at 55mph, that’s enough time to cover the length of a football field blindfolded” (2009, VTTI).

Driving has become an automatic process for most of us who drive therefore many drivers will divide their attention to a few tasks at the same time while driving. Most drivers are confident in their dual task abilities because they believe they can successfully use divided attention in the car because they have been driving for years and have a lot of practice in different driving situations. “The theory of automaticity proposed by William James suggests multiple processes can go on simultaneously, when they are habitual, involving minimal conscious control” (Iqbal, 17).

Both driving and cell phone use are automatic processes that have become habitual in the everyday lives of many. Combined and they can cause the driver to become distracted and take the drivers attention away from the road. “The cognitive, visual, and physical demands of such task can compromise the primary task of driving” (Iqbal, 18). Specifically, cell phone use while driving can increase the likelihood of missed lights, slower reaction time (RT) in applying breaks, and collisions.

There are many research experiments that investigate and measure divided attention among drivers and their driving performance under secondary tasks such as cell phone use. For example, both Strayer and Johnson had experimented and found that when drivers where talking on the phone they missed more lights (approx. .07) compared to drivers who weren’t on the phone (approx. 03). RT in applying brakes was also slower if a driver was on the phone than drivers who were not on the phone. Consequently I found this to be true in my own experience. One night my girlfriend Kenisha was driving me home from another friend’s house after doing her hair. Kenisha was talking on the phone with her mother who likes to call her every five minutes. While Kenisha was on the intense phone call with her mom she ran a stop sign. It was after midnight, no one was hurt but we had consequently got stopped by a male police officer. The officer let us girls off the hook and we continued with heightened awareness.

Cell phone use while driving can also increase the risk of collisions. In a survey of cell phone use and accidents “the risk of a collision was four times higher when using a cell phone than when a cell phone was not being used “(Redelmeier & Tibshirani, 1997). I also found this to be true in my own experience. One day when I was driving in rush hour traffic I got side swiped by another driver who was on her phone and not paying any attention to the road. She side swiped me on the side of my car at my blind spot so unfortunately I couldn’t see the collision coming.

The above experiments along with my own experiences has proven than driving and using a cell phone device can’t be done simultaneously. Divided attention among driving and cell phone use doesn’t have equal distribution of attention with both task therefore increasing the likelihood of missed lights, slower RT with breaking, and collisions. As a result of the increased dangers there have been movements that seek to eliminate cell phone use while driving. Two that I am familiar with is ATT’s screen protector that comes on each new phone you buy that says “don’t text and drive”, another is Oprah’s famous no texting while driving pledge.

Works Cited

Goldstein, Bruce. “Introduction to Cognitive Psychology.” Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience. Third Edition. Belmont, CA 94002-3098: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2011. Page 94. Print.

Iqbal, S., Ju, Y., & Horvitz, E. (2010). Cars, calls, and cognition: Investigating driving and divided attention. Paper presented at the 1281-1290. doi:10.1145/1753326.1753518

Opening Quote taken from http://www.distraction.gov/content/get-the-facts/facts-and-statistics.html

I remember when my long-term memory served me well. I used to get very high grades in my college courses, without having to study a lot. In fact, I was on the Dean’s list every semester and inducted into the Honor Society, Phi Theta Kappa. This was all while being a mom of two and working full time as a Property Manager. Things change however, and I can no longer rely on my old study habits, or rely on having a better than average long-term memory. This became apparent upon discussing my study habits with my professor. I realized that I have to adjust the way that I am used to studying, and try new methods for storing information into my long-term memory, in order to be the student that I so desperately want to be.

Some of the changes in my cognitive abilities have come from the side effects that I have had to struggle with from my battle with Lyme disease. And some of them are most likely because of all that I am taking on in my daily life. I still work full time as a property manager still, I still have two kids, but I am now also the Education Chairperson for my local Apartment Association. The additional responsibilities may not seem like much, but I feel that there is no sense in doing something unless you are willing to do it well, and because of this I spend a lot of time going the extra mile to make sure my follow through is up to par. Most people in my life have suggested that I am taking on too much, and at times I can agree with them, but I know how difficult it is to finish a degree when you put it on hold, and I do not want to lose my momentum.

One of the ways that I plan on effectively transferring information into my long-term memory, while studying, is using elaborative rehearsal. Elaborative rehearsal “occurs when you think about the meaning of an item or make connections between the item and something you know” (Goldstein 173). Adding personal touches on the topics that I am studying should help to increase the chances that I will remember the materials more accurately when taking a test. This goes along with the levels-of-processing theory, “memory depends on how information is encoded, with “deeper” processing resulting in better encoding and retrieval than “shallow” processing” (Goldstein 174). I particularly like the suggestion that Goldstein makes of finding meaningful connections between the items that one is trying to remember. In fact, writing this blog should help me to remember Chapter 7 of our textbook with more accuracy than if I had not written it, since I am relating it to my personal life. So thank you Professor Wede, for giving us homework that will help our memory!

Another way that I could effectively assist my study habits, and long-term memory, is by linking words to myself. Who doesn’t like talking about themselves, right? When using the self-reference effect “memory is better if you are asked to relate a word to yourself” (Goldstein 174). In my last blog post I described how my neurons were misfiring due to a health condition. Therefor when I thought of the word neuron I visualized my brain with tiny neurons zapping in all the wrong directions, and how this had caused me to lose some cognitive abilities and have seizures. The fact that this also helped me to form visual images helped my ability to remember the material. Gordon Bower and David Winzenz tested whether or not using visual images could enhance memory by using “a procedure called paired-associate learning” (Goldstein 177). This theory showed that, when pairing images with words, “more than twice as many words” were remembered by the participants (Goldstein 177).

The third way that I will be attempting to enhance my memory will be by reorganizing information in ways that make more sense to me. I am a fanatic about organizing my computers so that there are usually no folders or items on my desktop; this helps to remove distractions while I am working on a specific task. Each of my documents, or files, is stored in folders that make the most sense to me. Whether it is a certain class, or a particular aspect of my work, everything has a place to be stored appropriately. I agree with Goldstein, “Folders on your computer’s desktop, computerized library catalogs, and tabs that separate different subjects in your notebook are all designed to organize information so it can be accessed more efficiently” (178). One of my favorite sayings is “a cluttered desk leads to a cluttered mind”, and this is no different from my view of organization throughout the many other aspects of my life. I plan on using an organizational tree to hopefully increase my effective memory, and additionally help by creating retrieval cues, “a word or other stimulus that helps a person remember information stored in memory” (Goldstein 178).

Each of these long-term memory enhancers should be able to assist me in rebounding from my failed attempt at passing the mid-term exam. I am hoping that if I can teach myself new study habits that I will be able to once again become the honor student that I used to be. Being a psychology major, I like to analyze myself, and figure out ways that I can improve on my quality of life and I certainly value any work that I do to be true to myself. If I get a bad grade, or fail a test, I feel as if I have failed myself. By increasing my long-term memory storage, this should ensure that no matter how much that I am taking on in life, I can still have a good shot at performing to the best of my ability.

Goldstein, E B. Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience. 3^rd. ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2011. Print.

Images:

N.p., n.d. Web. <http://www.semel.ucla.edu/sites/all/files/resize/users/user-412/brainmapprintv4-150×152.jpg>.

N.p., n.d. Web. <http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/teaser/blog/201112/webspecial-p1050528-500.jpg>.

N.p., n.d. Web. <http://www.samuelpean.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Fish_memory.jpg>.

When I was a little girl, I played the game memory with my mother and my grandmother. When I became a mother I played the game with my children although they liked calling it “the matching game”. Interesting side note ~ when I played as a young girl, we used a deck of playing cards and when I played with my children, they had several versions of the game you could purchase at a store. Toy Story matching was the game of choice for my kids.

Goldsten defines memory as “the process involved in retaining, retrieving, and using information about stimuli, images, events, ideas, and skills after the original information is no longer present (Goldstein, 2011, p.116). So how does our memory and the game memory tie together?

The definition seems fitting to game I played when I was younger and then went on to play with my kids. There are several cards turned facedown in front of all players and when it is your turn you flip over two cards. If they match, you pick them up, place them in a pile next to you and select again. However, if the two selected cards do not match you must flip them back over, face down. This is where the memory part of the memory game comes into play.

Each player must pay close attention even when it is another players’ turn. If player “A” flips two cards that are not a match every other player gets to see what two cards have just been flipped and their location. Perhaps player “B” flipped one of the two cards during a previous turn. If player “B” can remember where each of the matching cards lie, he/she can flip them over and place them in his/her pile.   So how does all of this work in our memory?

Sensory memory is the beginning step that holds all of the arriving details for only a few seconds or even just fractions of that. Short-term memory will retain about 5-7 things for approximately half a minute (Goldstein, 2011, p.118). So, you can see the advantage to the game if the player right before you has flipped over two non-matching cards. You can retain and recall form your short-term memory what each cards was along with its location. Goldstein (2011) states that most short-term memories are forgotten. This means that if my children and I were to play the memory game tonight and then play it again next week, placing each card in the exact same spot it had been in the previous game, the likelihood of us remembering the exact location of each card would be slim.

I enjoyed playing the memory game both as a young girl and as a mother. My children enjoyed playing it as well. In fact, for months, it was their game of choice for family game night.

References

Goldstein, E. (2011). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research, and everyday experience (3rd ed.). Australia: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Thirteen year old Mo’ne Davis of Philadelphia has been in the national spotlight lately for being one of the most influential teens of the year, gaining her a cover on Sports illustrated magazine (2014, fig 1 .) She is a baseball pitcher with skills that are unbelievable. She pitched against many boys her age with greater muscle mass than herself, and the country was in awe she could compete. Children have dreams of being something, and are constantly being asked what we want to be when we grow up. Some children already have this skill determined for them.

They excel at one talent for some reason no one can describe. It might be a 7 year old pianist or guitar player, or a child that can sing like a pro at age 10.  In her interviews she explains she wants to go to college for basketball which astonished many people that followed her story. Why would this girl who excels at a sport change the course of her future, and what makes her so naturally good at baseball?

Procedural memory, or skill memory may be responsible for this phenomenon. It is described as executing an implicit action (Goldstein, 2011.) This often is autonomous and does not require much thinking. While baseball is a highly practiced skill, and I do not doubt Mo’ne Davis has to practice almost every day to have gained her skills there is an inherent skill that some cannot learn by practice. Some of us are automatically better at thinking or writing, as opposed to physical intelligence. Goldstein (2011) describes executing abilities without being entirely aware of how it is accomplished. The action it requires to gain specific skills that come so easily to some children with enough practice could become procedural in nature, and the skill comes with more ease.

Goldstein (2011) says this balance is automatic when riding a bike so perhaps this could also be similar for children who are good at sports like Mo’ne, and children that sing very well. It does not take much practice for them, and this procedural memory that we do not have a cohesive explanation for maybe the key in explaining these specific skills children posess.

Chen, A. (2014, August 20). From Little League phenom to national star: The story of Mo’ne Davis. Retrieved October 16, 2014.

Goldstein, B. (2011). Long-Term Memory. In Cognitive Psychology (3rd ed.). Belmont, Calif.: Wadswoth.

Tickets were purchased, we had a bucket of popcorn, and were reclining in our seats when the lights dimmed and there, standing 20 feet tall, was Ben Affleck. That’s right after reading the book and all of the media hype, I got to see the box office hit Gone Girl. For those of you who have yet to immerse yourself in the twisted, sexy thriller, I highly recommend making your way to the nearest movie theatre, as soon as possible. Shortly after seeing the cinema, I received a call from a long distance friend who asked how the movie was and what is was about. I responded with excitement how the movie started out and how the mystery developed. Immediately after, I described the emotions and surprise I felt at the end of the movie. The movie itself was over 2 hours long though, why was it so hard for me to recall the middle of the movie? As humans, it’ easier for us to account for information at the beginning and end of sequences thanks to the serial position effect (Goldstein, 2011).

The ability to more easily and readily recall information at the end of the sequence is called the recency effect (Goldstein, 2011). It seems understandable that when all is said done, one would remember the end of a movie for the sheer fact that is the most exciting and memorable part. In a test of memory, the recency effect can be explained due to the ability to recall information from the short term or working memory. Because of this, the recency effect only lasts about 30 seconds since short term memory only has the capacity to hold information for 30 seconds (Goldstein, 2011). If there is a delay between exposure and when the subjects are asked to recall information, the recency effect may disappear entirely. In fact, data even suggests that information stored in the short term memory begins to dissipate as soon as recall begins (Beaman & Morton, 2000).

In contrast, you would think that items from the beginning of a sequence might be the most  difficult to remember since they would fade from short term memory first. Studies have found this contrary to the truth, in fact, information presented at the beginning of a sequence tends to have one of the highest rates of recall as seen in the attached graphic. When watching a movie as intricate as Gone Girl, I often found myself thinking about information presented at the beginning of the movie and making connections to other events in the film to try and solve the mystery. Similar to that, in a test of memory a subject rehearses and repeats the first few pieces of information. The processes is repeated for each object until the short term memory is full, over time, some of the information will be coded for, stored, and called from the long term memory, referred to as the primacy effect (Goldstein, 2011).

The serial position effect can most easily be demonstrated through memory tests most often done simply with words but similar concepts can be found with almost every form of media we take in. Be it movies, books, even lessons in class. It may seem like memories from the middle of the material vanish right into thin air. In reality, our brains just aren’t as well equipped to recall information from the middle of the sequences. Not all hope is lost, with enough rehearsal anything can be stored in long term memory. For now, anyone I recount Gone Girl too will just have to be happy with knowing how the movie ends, after all, it is the best part of the movie.

References

Goldstein, E. B. (2011). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting mind, research, and everyday experience (3rd ed.). California: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Beaman, C., & Morton, J. (2000). The separate but related origins of the recency effect and the modality effect in free recall. Cognition,77, 59-65. Retrieved October 19, 2014, from www.elsevier.com/locate/cognit.

As my son is approaching a year old this coming Sunday I am reminded of the strides that he has made over this past year. The most relevant milestone that relates to what we have studied throughout this class would be the process of object permanence. Object permanence is a form of short-term memory that all children develop during their first years of growth. Overall I have to admit my son has had a quite rough time with his short-term memory. Easily I can describe my son as a “momma’s boy”, this may be attributed to the fact that he does not have a father in his life and the majority of the first year he only ever spent time with my immediate family and myself.

The short-term memory component of our lives is designed to store information for short periods of time. Jonathan, my son, has a hard time dealing with his short -term memory on whether people are present or not. His cognition of object permanence is slowly beginning to increase; for the most part he panics and begins to cry and scream when he realizes he is in a room all alone. Jonnie can watch you walk from one room to the next and within less than five minutes he begins to panic and start crying while crying out momma, he then tries to walk from the room he is in to the connecting rooms in hope to find someone. Another way that I can describe my sons development of short term memory is that he will hand me a toy and if I put it behind my back he will try to search for where I placed the toy. After a few minutes of searching he will stop looking and will find a new toy.

When I present the toy to him again he gets very excited and runs over to retrieve the toy from my hand. This could be an ideal example of how the short-term memory works. When a stimulus is not present then my child does not realize that I still had the toy and it did not disappear. But when I make the toy resurface his face lights up and it as if he had found his long lost favorite toy. Although his brain is small and rapidly developing and advancing in knowledge daily, it is easy to see his short term memory forming in this very impressionable time period.

Overall the growth of a child from infancy into becoming a toddler is a spectacular time span to watch developmentally and cognitively. Over the short span of an child’s life, a rapid development of personality and understanding of the world is formed. It truly is an amazing time period to be able to watch, short-term memory formation is one of a child’s first large developmental hurdles to overcome and is one of the toughest milestones to teach the developing brain of an infant.

There’s a certain set of disorders that people have to deal with.  The symptoms are vague, varied, and never the same.  The scope of the symptoms depends on the person, the disorder, and any other varied symptoms.  Life style, deficiencies, and other disease processes also affect these disorders.  I’m one of the lucky Americans who gets to deal with a vague symptomology of an autoimmune disorder.  One of the most distressing symptoms for me (and for many other people) is the “memory fog.”  This is quite simply a loss of my short-term memory, which was never that great to begin with.

Some people debate whether the fog is caused by the fatigue that is associated with all these disorders, or whether it is a seperate symptom.  My own doctor does not know if my memory loss is because of the deficiencies I suffer (very common in a lot of autoimmune disorders), because of the fatigue, or because my body is attacking itself, including my brain.  No matter what is causing it, it is known in many autoimmune circles as one of the most distressing symptoms/complications/occurences/curses.

Imagine, having to say things out loud to yourself in order to remember them.  Imagine that you take a medicine every day to help combat some of the symptoms, but you can’t remember to take it.  Or imagine that that medicine causes the memory problem!  The best, only way I can honestly think of to describe the sensation is that a fog has descended over your mind.  Besides affecting your short-term memory, often all of your cognitive abilities suffer.  When my memory fog is at it’s worst, I stutter, get lost in sentences, and I often “space out”.  I get frustrated with myself, and this frustation often causes emotional reactions.  I can’t imagine that it’s very fun to have a conversation with me at this point, unless you like being lost in a verbal maze.

Mostly, the memory fog seems to affect the executive functioning of the brain.   I’m unable to retrieve things, to speak fluently, and sometimes, even form a coherent thought.  It makes a job where you must interact with people particularly difficult.  I often get around it during the really bad times by making lists and posting them everywhere, as well as speaking very, very slowly.   And while most people think it could be solved by a good night’s sleep, most of the time, people with these autoimmune disorders have trouble sleeping well.  I’m very fortunate because my brain fog comes and goes, and not everyone is that lucky.

Marian Rissenberg, a neuropsychologist, wrote a very succinct article on what this brain fog is like, what it entails, and even some handy tips of fighting it.  Essentially, though, it’s a struggle that makes real life hard.  Most days are like fighting a losing battle, and there is a lot of frustration, confusion, and emotion involved, not just for me, but for everyone in my day-to-day life.

http://rissenberg.com/brain-fog/

Image credit, Lupus Sisters.

-If you’re interested in my certain autoimmune disorder, have any questions about the diagnosis, life with an autoimmune disease, or just are curious, I’m happy to provide some education.  –

 How I became a “Cover Girl”

          Many of us are exposed to a series of advertisements on a daily basis. Whether in a magazine, a commercial, or perhaps exposure to a billboard sign, advertisements are scattered through the environments we encounter. There are many tools used in marketing and advertisement that allow companies to discretely manipulate their products into the everyday lives of people. One such tool that is of the utmost importance is the recency effect, known to the marketing world as “The Recency Theory” (tvisnotdead.com). The recency effect is defined as “superior memory for stimuli presented at the end of a sequence” (Goldstein, pg.153). The skillful placement of advertisements will often determine whether or not we purchase a product or if the product will be of later interest to us (tvisnotdead.com). This proved very true for a young teenage girl.

          I remember being 15 years old, sitting in a doctor’s office waiting for my sports check up in order to participate on the track team.  I had always been somewhat of a tom-boy.  I was never one of those girls that succumbed to the pressures of having to look perfect every morning for school.  Make-up was a terrifying subject I avoided at all times and a curling iron, for me, might as well have been a weapon of pure evil.  While waiting for my appointment, I picked up the closest magazine and started to flip through it. I can’t remember now, nor did I notice then, what any of the center articles were about as I was lost in my own thought of how girly this magazine was and how I was certainly not the target audience.

After my appointment, I was on the way home with my mom and she made a comment to me concerning the blemishes on my face. She suggested that I start using cover up on my face so that the focus of the people I interacted with wouldn’t go directly to the pimple that had somehow taken on a personality of its own.  I remember thinking I had no idea what cover up was nor did I know what to begin looking for. What brand should I use? What type? What shade? Then, I remembered something I had seen earlier. Placed strategically in the back of the magazine I had flipped through in the doctor’s office was an advertisement for “Cover Girl” cosmetics.  In the advertisement was a woman holding a tube of mascara and I remember her eyelashes being the most beautiful I had seen. The magazine also had many other cosmetic ads but because of the recency effect, the last ad for that particular brand of make-up was what I remembered best. The ad had been strategically placed at the back of the magazine in order for recall of the product to be at the maximum strength for the reader.

Though the next few months were quite a challenge and experiment with make-up, I continued to only purchase Cover Girl products for every new face I tried to create.  Even to this day, I only use Cover Girl cosmetics, not because I have to, but because that advertisement for that company was one that stuck deep in my mind, thanks to the recency effect.

Goldstein, E. B. (2011). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience, Third Edition. Belmont, CA., United States: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

“Retail Chains Benefit from “The Recency Theory”. TV is Not Dead. 18 October 2014                       < http://tvisnotdead.com/2009/08/12/retail-chains-benefit-from-%e2%80%9cthe-recency-theory%e2%80%9d/>.