My first dog was a blonde Pomeranian who was named Scooby after the show I was horribly obsessed with as a child. I got him when I was very small and up until about five years ago I felt that I remembered the day I got him perfectly. I remember going to a friend of my mom’s house and seeing all these adorable pom puppies. They were all so cute but I saw one that I instantly felt madly in love with. I desperately wanted to take him home and I told my mom. Upon further conversation with the woman who had the puppies, we came to find out that he was deaf and unfortunately born without eardrums. This little munchkin had never been able to hear a thing. That was no problem for me however and we decided to take him home.

After telling this story to many people and explaining why he wouldn’t respond when someone called him, it was revealed to me that the story went a bit differently. As a puppy Scooby was in immaculate health. He had eardrums and they were perfectly intact. One day however, when I was very small, I was playing with him and either dropped him or threw him down a couple of stairs. I cannot remember this in the slightest and I feel that I must stress that I absolutely love animals and I would never harm an animal. I don’t even eat meat and haven’t for over six years now so this realization has burdened me with so much guilt. Apparently that drop caused serious injury to both ear drums and he was never able to hear again.

I am not sure whether I was told this by my family to take the guilt off or if I switched the truth in my own memory subconsciously. False memory is such a scary thing. We value our memories and hold on to them and usually see them to be the truth with zero uncertainty. I don’t remember that drop but I can almost vividly imagine my scenario as I have remembered it for years. It is sad to think not even our own memories are reliable and how easily they can be influenced. How much do you really know what you think you know?

Initially, I thought I would write about how much of a space cadet I can be and tie that in with false memory, and my inability to properly reiterate just about any story. However, after reviewing some posts, you all helped me feel insanely normal, thank you. So I have decided, seeing as I happened to have attended a rather intensive military language course, I might write about that. So, nu-ladna (anyways, okay..).

My first intended assignment was to be a Russian linguist, didn’t happen, I don’t know any secrets, so no worries with breaking any crazy laws. I did complete the year long course however. And if you have had the chance to take a year of a language, you can appreciate how challenging that really is. This is a tiny bit different, its a college, we learned history, writing, grammar, so on, but it was all in Russian, we were not permitted to speak English, classes were 8 hours, and usually around 4 hours of homework that was designed for you to not be able to finish, but if you left a blank it was moosoar (garbage). It was a lot, but it was really putting us in the same spot we were in as children. Need a bathroom break? You had better pay attention to what Gaspasha (Ma’am, term of respect) says before she leaves.

In my group of other Russian linguist-to-be’s we caught on quick, learned jokes, watched movies, and found a whole new world and culture. So naturally we want to share it. We watch a funny youtube clip, and even if you don’t know Russian, they use “SO MANY COGNATES” you’ll get it. It was always very frustrating that they couldn’t catch the cognates. How did you not hear the blatant English words in this foreign language? So when our lesson went over Speech perception, specifically segmentation, I felt pretty silly. If you don’t know the grammar, you don’t know the adjectival endings, you don’t know anything about the language, how would you possibly know that the word ‘pause’ which is pronounced with a heavy Russian accent and slurred through with whatever was being said is actually your English ‘pause’.

Learning languages is a difficult task, for just about anyone. So it astounds me that children are so able to pick up so many at once, and I was tasked to learn one additional language at twenty-one years old, and it was a struggle. I did it, but I dedicated a year of my life to it, no hours of play time, and cartoons, no playdates. But their little brains are just more open to the possibility that ‘Nala’ (my pup) can be a sobka and a dog. We are all still capable of this, it just takes more persistence to add in that additional wiring to whats already there.

So, my year in an intensive military language program left me fluent in Russian, I still mix up my words, sometimes I have a hard time putting my Russian thought into English because Russian had a much better word or phrase. Never in learning Spanish, French, or German in a traditional classroom setting had I learned so much. I love language, I love culture. And I hope those of you with families keep those languages alive, for your family, your history, and your health.

Who does not like Sunday brunch? Well, in our household it is a staple and a great way to ring in a Sunday (last day of the weekend)! This Sunday, we were having homemade biscuits and sausage gravy with soft boiled eggs. Well, I looked up a recipe and it required a cookie cutter. I am no baker so naturally, I have no cookie cutters. After some time of not being able to reach a solution, my boyfriend suggested using a cup, a glass cup that we drink out of. It was immediate insight for him. As for me, a few things stood in my way, such as fixation, function fixedness, and mental set. These three things contributed to my Sunday brunch panic.

“Fixation: people’s tendency to focus in a specific characteristic of the problem that keeps them from arriving at a solution” (Goldstein, 2011). To apply this to my Sunday brunch, I was so concerned with not have a cookie cutter, I was unable to work past it. I spent so much time being focused and digging through old boxes of cooking objects, I did not think outside of the box. I actually did not even think of anything that could imitate a cookie cutter.

My next thinking road block was function fixedness. The last thing crossing my mind was something that is like a cookie cutter, even the same shape. Function fixedness is when you limit the use of an object (Goldstein, 2011). I never looked at a glass I drink out of and thought about the other uses of it, such as a cookie cutter. The function of the glass was for me to drink out of, not make biscuits.

Growing up, I only really baked anything at my Grandma’s. My Grandma had every kitchen gadget you could ever think of. I never had to improvise. I never had to think out of the box for how to achieve a certain look of a dessert. The fact I was so stuck on not having a cookie cutter, I attribute to mental set. Mental set is “a preconceived notion about how to approach a problem, which is determined by a person’s experience or what has worked for them in the past” (Goldstein, 2011). That fact I never used anything else other than a cookie cutter really inhibited my ability to approach the problem at hand.

Not being able to work outside of what I knew was a solution really made this brunch stressful. I consider myself lucky that my boyfriend was there to provide insight. Insight is ‘the sudden retaliation of a problems solution” (Goldstein, 2011). He provided an immediate solution to my problem at hand. Needless to say, using a cup was perfect and did exactly what was needed of a cookie cutter.

References:

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

Out of all the topics we have learned during this course, I have to say learning about false memories was one of my favorites.  “A false memory is when you create a memory inside your mind that actually never occurred in real life (Goldstein, 2011)”. This is completely relevant to my life and I am sure anyone else’s by the nature of it, but this is a subject that brings up a lot of arguments between my parents and I on how my childhood had really went.

Anytime my brother and I are talking about our childhood together, he really only remembers about two things and I would be able to remember a whole list of what was really going on. I realize that I have great long term memory but not so much as short term. Anyway going back to the arguments between my parents and I. There is this one scenario that we see differently. My parents had refinished our basement and put both my brother and I bedrooms. They decided to close off my bedroom and turn it into a one bedroom apartment because I apparently did not sleep in it, and from what I remember I had no choice but to move out of that bedroom because of their decision. As you can see I am still holding a grudge over it because we both have different memories of the situation.

Is it possible for me not to remember sleeping in that bedroom anymore and rather sleep upstairs in the bedroom that I originally slept in. Or did my parents just make that up so it would seem believable rather then looking like mean parents kicking me out of a bedroom.

According to our text, “Implanting memories are extremely easy (Goldstein, 2011)”. “Most of our memories can seem accurate, but are actually false (Goldstein, 2011)”. This news is mind blowing. So I guess I will never really know how I felt about that bedroom. Maybe I really didn’t like it because of the “ghosts” living down there in the dark.

References

Goldstein, B. (2011). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience (3rd ed.). Wadsworth, Inc.

Memories are what we carry with us throughout our entire life. We have some that’s good and some that’s bad, but memories are what makes our life unforgettable. However, the question is how certain memories can actually be false memories. While reading the specific topic about false memory and the different designs that was used to show whether or not it is possible for us to actually implant memories. Well, from my perspective definitely, I feel memories can actually be implanted and can be changed as well. Reason being, a close friend of mines lives for the great memories that he creates throughout his life. However, being his friend for quite awhile, hearing different stories some that he didn’t necessarily partake in are memories that he has implanted as if he was there. This brought me to think back to lesson for the example with Carl and Jim.
So with that being said, I took him as my own experiment and actually began observing and did the same test that was used in the lesson. The results were basically identical and I found it to be hilarious. Although we have many memories together, there were some I knew we weren’t together for, which I used to my advantage. So one day, we were talking and I mentioned a specific time that he wasn’t there. Two days later he came back to me and stated he remembers. A week went by and I asked again and this time details were given. One thing I can say with this is that the same way a person can implant a memory is just as easily to change or even forget the memory in general. In this aspect, I can say memories can happen where you can simply forget. Those memories become strictly of what the stories that were being told to you. You begin to build a memory off the different versions of the stories from friends or family. Now the biggest question is can we really trust our memories. If it is possible to create your own using memories or stories that someone is telling you then how accurate can we really say we lived in our own memories.

That awkward moment when someone I know asks me, “Remember that time, like 10 years ago, when you and I were hanging out with [insert two familiar names here] and [one of those familiar names] fell off of [insert some random object] and you laughed so hard that your drink came out of your nose?”. It makes me laugh but I shake my head and tell them that I do not remember that happening at all. The person will then continue to explain more about that day to try and spark my memory. “Remember…. You were wearing a white shirt and said something about how your drink would stain your shirt, but that the laugh was definitely worth it.” I still shake my head and tell them I really do not remember it.  Things like this happen to me quite frequently. I have friends that remember something like it happened yesterday and I have absolutely no recollection of the memories. Every once in a while, when they try to trigger my memory, I will remember something basic about the situation, like the fact that I was there, but definitely not anything specific.

To add to it, studies say that someone can remember their first memory at around 3 years old, and I do not remember anything that early. The first thing that I remember is when I was 5 and I broke my arm. I may have a few scattered memories here and there that could be from when I was younger but I cannot recall how old I was specifically. I remember most of the things that influenced my life emotionally, like when my mom and I moved to Colorado or when I started a new school. I do not have what our lesson referred to as flashbulb memories that are super vivid or detailed from before the age of about 20, just the general memory. I have no issues learning anything for school, or remembering conversations I had with someone about things like work, I remember the day my daughter was born, or first day of basic training but there are so many other memories, especially autobiographical memories that just aren’t there. For those that have seen the movie “Inside Out”, those memories have turned grey.

I believe that my lack of memory or my lack of recall on memories is simply my personality. There is nothing that I have gone through that was physically, mentally, or emotionally scarring that I would have subconsciously tried to block out parts of my life.  I have a healthy relationship with my parents and had a very nice childhood. I just think that I make and keep my memories based off things that have affected me emotionally rather than just memories in general. Some of the memories that I do have are memories that I can picture simply because I have heard the stories so many times. Hey…if I can’t remember them and really enjoy them – at least there is someone else that can.

Mental sets is a daily and almost instant set of “guidelines” that we have used previously utilized to help evaluate a problem. It is the most efficient way our brains go about solving daily problems. By understanding what mental sets are, how our brain utilizes them, and best practices on intentionally altering the way we think we can benefit in our daily life to make more informed and deliberate decisions, enjoy solving problems, and effectively act on those decisions.

“In general, the term mental set refers to the tendency to think about and try to solve problems in a manner consistent with the way in which we have interpreted and solved seemingly similar problems in the past. There is a positive and a negative side to mental sets. On the positive side, if the approach we take to the problem is the correct one, it will help us solve the new problem quickly and efficiently” (DCL UNCG Psychology 121). While on the opposite side of the spectrum if you have learned something previously incorrect and try to build on that you will refer back to a wrong answer. This is where knowing how the process works can come into helping us utilize and train our brains more effectively and efficiently.

Have you ever heard of employers desiring someone who can think “outside the box” and that a desirable quality in an employee is to have a “creative” solution? While this is a grand way of wording the result, it is still based on the concept that those that can think quick on their feet and in nontraditional ways will succeed in their careers. This is does not necessarily mean that they always do not follow a set of rules in their thought process, but only that they have previously made connections or mental sets that are different than the general thought process and assumptions that most make. For example, when you are told a riddle and the solution is challenging due to the double meaning of some concepts and words and then you suddenly experience the “aha” moment. This is not only a thought process but there is an attached physical response related to this. In 2012 there was a study done by various scientists that took MRIs as people solved Chinese Chengyu riddles. Dr. Zhao goes on to say “Our data indicates that the early period of insight solution shows more activation in the middle temporal gyrus, the middle frontal gyrus and the anterior cingulate cortex. These activities might be associated to the extensive semantic processing, as well as detecting and resolving cognitive conflicts. In contrast, the late period of insight solution produced increased activities in the hippocampus and the amygdala, possibly reflecting the forming of novel association and the concomitant “Aha” feeling. Our study supports the key role of hippocampus in forming novel associations, and indicates a dynamic neural network during insight solution” (Zhao, 2013). While this may not seem revolutionary, it is insightful to the physical response and process of mental sets.

I found this profound in a simple discussion I had with my children as we shared riddles. For example, what has four legs and one foot? With the use of the words “legs and foot” you would typically refer to the mental set it was living, but it in fact was a bed. Another riddle we enjoyed was that of what seven letter word contains hundreds of letters? The answer- mailbox. By grouping the words “word and letter” your mental set mislead you to not create one of these “out of the box” answers earlier mentioned. But rest assured that now that you are aware of the issue and how to solve this differently you have created a new mental set and possible solution.

Overall, the world needs people to think alternatively and quickly to prove the success of our species. Mental sets help us in a way that could be considered “Darwinism” in nature and always evolving. By better understanding how to use and create mental sets we can not only better our answers, be more creative in our solutions, but also propose revolutionary concepts.

DCL UNCG Psychology 121. (n.d.). Retrieved November 20, 2016, from                http://web.uncg.edu/dcl/courses/psychology-ischool/unit7/unit7_mental.asp

Zhao, Q., Zhou, Z., Xu, H., Chen, S., Xu, F., Fan, W., & Han, L. (2013). Dynamic Neural Network of Insight: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study on Solving Chinese ‘Chengyu’ Riddles. Plos ONE,  8(3), 1. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0059351