Have you ever worked on a difficult assignment or project and talked yourself through the problem? If you are like me, I can think of many occasions that this has occurred. Usually this is done when I am having difficulty understanding an assignment, question, or something similar and I think audibly to help myself walk through the issue. Before today, I never really knew what this process was, but I was certain that this method worked based on past experiences. To my excitement, after reading a chapter on problem solving in my cognitive psychology course, I discovered a similar technique that can be used in various environments to uncover how learners/participants arrive at a solution – it’s called the “think-aloud protocol.” The way it works is fairly simple, instead of silently reflecting on various solutions, the participant is encouraged to speak their thoughts aloud so that others can learn what information is attended to while doing so (Goldstein, 2011, p. 338). Being an inquisitive learner, I wanted to know more about this process. How exactly does this method help the individual and how does the outcome benefit the observer?

The response to the questions previously posed was answered in a classroom setting. Aguilar (2013) recounts a story of her trip to Bali by sharing her fascination with a child that taught her son how to play various instruments by doing as he did (online). After viewing and being a part of a learning experience that took place with demonstration and motioning, Aguilar (2013) was encouraged to integrate the “think-aloud” strategy in the classroom (online). By being an example, at the prompting of a mentor, she began to share the think-aloud strategy with her middle school students as they commenced drafting papers for English Language Arts (Aguilar, 2013, online). As a result of regularly practicing “think-aloud” to focus her writing, revisions, and organization, as well as applying “metacognitive processes” to interpret texts, the student also picked up similar behaviors (Aguilar, 2013, online). Her statement shares the astonishment of the students’ progress:

 I was surprised by how captivated my students were with these mini-lessons; those of us who teach middle-schoolers know that it’s hard to captivate this audience! Then I saw the evidence show up in their writing; when we had a conference about a piece they were working on, they’d narrate their thoughts and use phrases I’d used, such as, ‘here, I want my audience to feel…’ (Aguilar, 2013, online).

Such an example shows how encouraging this process is for a teacher to understand what students interpret and how to modify lesson plans, assignments, or urge additional focus on a particular area of confusion. For the student, this allows them probe further, fostering a deeper of reading assignments, projects, and similar tasks.

The next time you struggle with a problem or an assignment has taken on the form of an enemy, try this technique to see how it works for you. Sometimes verbalizing your thoughts help you to arrive at the “aha moment” with ease and the question may not seem as intimidating.

References:

Aguilar, E. (2013, August 1). The think-aloud strategy: an oldie but goodie. Edutopia. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/think-aloud-strategy-oldie-but-goodie-elena-aguilar

Goldstein, E. B. (2011). Cognitive psychology: connecting mind, research, and everyday experience (3^rd ed). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning.  

I must admit, I was very skeptical in accepting the idea of false memories being created. But here I was reading about this very thing in my cognitive psychology course. It seems a bit odd to major in psychology and be exposed to various theories, experiments (with personal participation in some), and supporting data, that I would remain a skeptic, but that is exactly what occurred. I wondered, how is it possible for an entire story to be produced with just a nudging from someone else’s account or through altered family photos? Although I remained doubtful, over the past week I discovered that not only was this a real concept, but it can actually happen at any given time and aid in curbing unhealthy behaviors.

With recent influx of dietary plans, fitness equipment, videos, supplements, and various “lose weight” schemes on the market, it is obvious that obesity is problematic for our society. Although optimum health and fitness is desired, it’s not always easy to get rid of bad habits. The multiple health clubs and new “breakthrough” programs abound for this very reason and many of us fall into the same trap only to remain the same. And while this may seems like a hopeless cycle, there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. Wilson (2013) shared an experiment from leading cognitive psychologist, Elizabeth Loftus, which attempted to influence unhealthy eating habits (online). She desired to see if pairing of a negative childhood experience with an unhealthy food would alter eating habits as an adult (Wilson, 2013, online). To test this, participants were given a false memory in which they believed strawberry ice cream made them sick as children (Wilson, 2013, online). The findings from the study a week later was eye-opening:

…researchers asked about the ice cream incident. Many participants had developed a detailed memory — what Loftus calls a “rich false memory” — about when they had gotten sick. Subsequent studies showed this memory affected the participant’s actual eating behavior. (Wilson, 2013, online)

This seems to suggest that such methods would help the fight against obesity and perhaps discourage unhealthy eating habits. However, it would not be without its critics. In the same article, Harvard Professor Daniel Schacter, admonished such an act saying that it would be ‘playing around’ with one’s mind, instead of “trying to understand what’s going on in our memories” (Wilson, 2013, online).

Although planting false memories may not be the way to go, it does show how malleable memory can be and how certain behaviors can be altered with a little nudging. It’s absolutely amazing how the mind works and it seems we are just discovering how vastly complex it truly is.

References:

Pennsylvania State University World Campus (n.d.). PSYCH 256 Lesson 9: Everyday memory and memory errors. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/fa14/psych 256/001/content/10_lesson/printlesson.html

Wilson, J. (2013, May 18). Trust your memory? maybe you shouldn’t. CNN. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/18/health/lifeswork-loftus-memory-malleability/index.html?iid=article_sidebar

Is it possible for a computer to think independently? This age old question has been pondered countless times and was made evident by Alan Turing’s “Turing Test.” This popular investigation, probed the capabilities of a computer’s artificial intelligence, comparing it to that of a human, by asking this very question. At the time of his exploration, it was found that it could not quite compare and received much criticism. Curious on whether this has actually changed with today’s innovative technologies, the question can be asked again and explored objectively.

Remarkably after considering this topic, it seems that a software has actually passed this seemingly impossible feat. According to McCoy (2014), “…a Russian-made program, which disguised itself as a 13-year-old boy name Eugene Goostman from Odessa, Ukraine, bamboozled 33 percent of human questioners.” This means that the program created was able to convince questioners that it was highly probable the interaction was taking place with a human, not a computer. Visiting professor, Kevin Warwick, of the University of Reading shared his sentiments of the event, “In the field of Artificial Intelligence there is no more iconic and controversial milestone than the Turing Test, when a computer convinces a sufficient number of interrogators into believing that it is not a machine but rather is a human” (as cited in McCoy, 2014).

“Passing,” in this respect, is predicated on the computer’s ability to convince 30 percent of the panel of its human abilities – after a text conversation of five minute (McCoy, 2014). And while this was a substantial amount to sway, there were a few critics that simply do not agree with this outcome. Bershidsky (2014) headed an article with this very sentiment, “Fake Victory for Artificial Intelligence.” This stance was taken based off of a conversation shared of a highly disturbing event which the program seemed to know nothing about. Instead of accepting what was believe to be a victory, the reporter decided to visit Princeton’s website to see just how the program would fair (Bershidsky, 2014). After interacting with the “Eugene” and mentioning the May 2nd fire at Union Hall, he noted that the program’s interaction was questionable considering the gravity of the demonstration (Bershidsky, 2014). “On May 2, of course, Odessa saw its bloodiest clashes since World War II: More than 40 pro-Russian demonstrators died in the city’s Union Hall after it was set on fire…” (Bershidsky, 2014). It was suggested that the program had no knowledge of the events and attempted to divert the questions unsuccessfully (Bershidsky, 2014). With such an interaction, it would make one question how the program actually passed.

While my curiosity paid off in discovering that there was an actual victory in passing the Turing test, the skeptics view (as shared previously) does bring about valid questions. Was this a concrete victory, were the conversations based on small talk or was the conversation relative to the times today in which a 13-year-old could respond to. Regardless of my division, however, it is clear that innovative technology is one step closer to truly passing the test.

References:

Bershidsky, L. (2014, June 9). Fake victory for artificial intelligence. Bloomberg View. Retrieved from http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-06-09/fake-victory-for-artificial-intelligence

McCoy, T. (2014, June 9). A computer just passed the Turing test in landmark trial. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/06/09/a-computer-just-passed-the-turing-test-in-landmark-trial/