Does the Media Curve our Heuristics?

Lately the news has been filled with violent crimes, murderers, protests, and police brutality. How much of our perception to the media change our heuristics and create our stigmas. People are protesting the way news reporters display victims of different races. Availability heuristic states that people are guided by what we remember in the past (Goldstein, 2011). When watching the news or reading the newspaper perception might be altered from what we experience. Descriptions like Ala. suspect brilliant, but social misfit and  Montgomery’s latest homicide victim had history of narcotics abuse, tangles with the law can effect it (Wing, 2014). The first post was about a caucasian who committed murder the second post is about a black individual who got murder in police brutality (Wing, 2014). Although this may not seem that it alters your stigma and stereotypes, seeing constant portrayal of these groups of people changes perception. This can especially happen when you do not get a chance to meet other cultures and races. In that situation it is easy to make assumptions and stereotypes. It is similar to the effect of when people are asked which deaths occur more on airplane accidents or automobile accidents. Most people believe that more people die from airplane accidents rather than automobiles. This is because our memory is not perfect. We easily remember events that are tragic like 9/11 but don’t really remember all of the auto accidents that happen on the news. We also do not hear about every auto accident that happens. In addition, as humans we also wrongfully assume that some small samples can represent for a larger groups or populations (Goldstein, 2011). This does not make it any easier to ease stigma and stereotypes. Some people may take a stigma across a whole group of people. People also tend to use causal interference. This happens when reading a headline like Ala. suspect brilliant, but social misfit. Reading this my perception of the sentence can be, this tragedy happened because he was brilliant, but a social misfit so he must have a mental problem.

Goldstein, E. B. (2011). Cognitive Psychology. Belmont, Canada: Cengage Learning .

Wing, N. (2014, 8 14). When The Media Treats White Suspects And Killers Better Than Black Victims. Retrieved from Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/14/media-black-victims_n_5673291.html

Deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning are the topics I have decided to write this post on. Let’s start by defining them:
Deductive reasoning is a logical process in which a conclusion is based on the concordance of multiple premises that are generally assumed to be true. This is sometimes referred to as top-down logic. Inductive reasoning is reasoning in which the premises are viewed as supplying strong evidence for the truth of the conclusion. This is sometimes called bottom-up logic. Both of these styles of reasoning have deeply-rooted origins in philosophy, going as far back to Aristotle, perplexing philosophers throughout history. Inductive reasoning does not guarantee statements to be true. It underlies much of human cognition. The salience of it is hypothesis selection based on some relevant criteria. Inductive reasoning is tired to heuristics and particularly the Representative heuristic, which encourages us to judge something purely based off how many features it shares with something else. This can be very faulty and is definitely not necessarily true. . In my own life, I very frequently fall for the lure of inductive reasoning and see that my judgment may have been valid, but certainly was not true, like in the case of when I tried to befriend someone many years ago that I felt sorry for. They struck me as friendly, but ended up being very horrible in the end and I have not spoken to them in years. Such is inductive reasoning – associating something with a characteristic or group because it appears to resemble them, but in truth it isn’t part of them.

There are different types of syllogisms that exist that are used to study reasoning. Such examples are categorical syllogisms and conditional syllogisms. Categorical syllogisms showcase premises and conclusions, demonstrating the correlations between categories, and making use of quantifiers such as “all,” “none,” or “some.” Contrasting, with conditional syllogisms, the first premise has the form “if/then.” Many people have a hard time understanding the difference between truth and validity. Just because something is valid does not make it true and just because something is true does not make it valid. These two things are often confused, being used interchangeably, when they are not truly mutual.
Rationality itself is a very complicated thing that few people truly understand. “Why is the sky blue?” some ask, but there are the overwhelming majority that just don’t care why it is blue, and there are some that will claim it is green. In terms of decision making, either deductive reasoning or inductive reasoning can be used. It is probably better to use deductive reasoning though. Cognitive psychologists have divided the decision making process into five tasks: Set or revise goals, gather information, make plans, structure the decision, and the final selection. This is a complex task, but can be aided with the use of utility theory. Expected utility theory refers to the hypothesis that if humans have the relevant information, we will make decisions in a rational way and will chose options that result in the maximum possible expected utility. Benefits and costs are also factors that determine our decision making.
In my own life, I have used both forms of reasoning many times. An example of using deductive reasoning would be when I began signing up for classes this summer. I took a physiology class due to a requirement in my major. Naturally, with it being a biology class,I assumed that it would be very hard. “All biology classes are hard. Physiology is a biology class. Therefore, it must be hard…” In this case, it was both valid and true, because yes, the CLASS IS VERY HARD!!!!!! Perception. 1980.

From the time I was small child, I was absolutely fascinated with different cultures and languages. I swear that I got the travel bug at the tender age of five. This was when my family moved to Germany to accompany my father on a three-month business trip. Ever since then I have loved to travel and immerse myself in different cultures. In high school I was so enthralled with the idea of traveling that I applied to be an exchange student and so I ended up spending my senior year of high school in a small town just an hour outside of Barcelona, Spain.

Upon arriving, I had almost no knowledge of Spanish. I was constantly bombarded with the sounds of a foreign tongue, one that I was able to hear and perceive, but unable to understand. I would later learn that this was because I was unable to properly convert the sound waves that I was receiving and perceiving into information that I could understand (Goldstein, 2011). But within just a few days, I began pick up on the similarities between English and Spanish (and quite frankly every other language). As mentioned by Goldstein (2011), all human languages are similar in two very important ways: they are governed by rules (although, a different set of rules) and hierarchical. These two things were what allowed me to begin to learn Spanish. Soon after arriving, I realized that I would need to learn these new rules in order to be able to efficiently communicate with those around me. I also realized that by learning vocabulary, I could slowly build up my language skills to be able to fully able to express whatever I wanted to (Goldstein, 2011). After just three months I was fluent enough to be able to hold a conversation about almost any subject. However, throughout the year I heard the same phrase over and over again, “You speak very well, but you still have a strong foreign accent.” The only problem was that I couldn’t hear the accent myself and I still cannot today. This is due to something called phonemes.

According to Goldstein (2011), phonemes are the sounds that you produce when you speak words. According to Birner (1999), this problem plagues many people who become multilingual later in life due to the fact that some of the sounds made in other languages undoubtedly don’t exist in one’s native language. Interestingly, babies actually begin to babble in the phonemes of all languages when they learn to babble, however by around nine months of age, they begin to babble in the phonemes of the native language that they most frequently hear. By the time a baby is one year old, they loose the ability to distinguish between sounds that aren’t relevant in their own language. After doing some research on this subject, I was happy to find out that this wasn’t an unusual phenomenon that I was experiencing. It just happens to be that I am not as readily able to hear (meaning that I can’t always distinguish between the sounds that I make when I speak and the sounds that native speakers make) and make all of the sounds in Spanish. Luckily though, due to the way in which people perceive words, native Spanish speakers are able to understand the words that I mispronounce (due to phoneme mispronunciations) by relying on the context of the other words used in the sentence (Goldstein, 2011).

Although, my time in Spain may not have lessened my foreign accent, nonetheless, I am ultimately able to achieve the overarching goal of learning a new language: communicating with others.

Sources:

Goldstein, E. Bruce. “Perception.” Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience. Third ed. Australia: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2011. 51-57. Print.

Birner, Betty, ed. Why Do Some People Have an Accent? Washington, D.C.: Linguistic Society of America, 1999. Linguistic Society of America. Linguistic Society of America. Web. 30 July 2016. <http://www.linguisticsociety.org/sites/default/files/Accent.pdf>.

Decision Making

Chinese or American for lunch? Grab a taxi or ride a bike? Engineering or medicine? Through our life, we face many questions to decide on.We choose actions and form opinions with our mental processes which are influenced by biases,reason,emotions,memories and culture.Decision making or what our textbook calls it “Choosing among alternatives” is an everyday process that we go through whether we are conscious of it or not.In this blog post, I’ll be talking about how people make judgments that involve choices between different courses of action and factors that influence decision making.

When decisions are made two properties are put in mind: benefits and costs.This makes an individual choose the right decision that would benefit him and not harm him.However,I believe that people have different styles and ways of making decisions.For example,when it comes to my family my husband is always the one who give me the choices and make me decide at the beginning of our marriage and after a while, I told him can you stop letting me decide because it’s sometimes very tiring.What he replied made me think twice as he told me that its hard for him to decide as he would be overthinking and creating all different scenarios and sometimes it’s indifferent to him whether we choose A or B so this makes it much more difficult.This made me think that some people always like to set decisions and they would easily do it while others may find it hard.This difference in decision making leads us to our next paragraph which is the factors that affect decision making.

Several factors influence decision making.Some of these factors are past experiences,cognitive biases, and individual differences.Also,the types of decisions could affect our choices as we handle political decisions,personal decisions,medical decisions,romantic decisions and financial decisions differently than day to day decisions like what to wear or what to eat today.Some choices are simple and seem straight forward, while others are complex and require a multi-step approach to making the decisions.

Past experiences can affect how we decide in the future as it could encourage us on deciding the same way or avoid repeating past mistakes.Furthermore, as I said that cognitive biases influence our decisions as it changes our thinking patterns based on observation and generalization.This leads the individual to over rely on expected observations and previous knowledge while dismissing the uncertain information.Finally,individual differences such as age,Socioeconomic status (SES) and cognitive abilities may influence decision making.Older people may be overconfident in making decisions.

Furthermore,emotions play a major role in decision making in several ways.Expected emotions are what we predict we will feel after a particular outcome.Whereas Immediate emotions are emotions that are experienced at the time of decision.Integral immediate emotions are emotions  associated with the act of making a decision.Incidental immediate emotions that are unrelated to the decision.For example,Expected emotions are when I predict how I will feel when I will graduate with a masters degree.Immediate emotions would be when I decide on continuing my studies and taking a masters degree.Integral immediate emotions would be deciding whether I take a masters degree or not.Lastly Incidental immediate emotions  would be a fight with mom earlier in the day.

As a conclusion, decision making is an important area of research in cognitive psychology. Understanding the process by which individuals make decisions is important to understanding the decisions they make.There is yet a lot of research to be conducted on decision making, which will enable psychologists and educators to positively influence the lives of many.

Eyewitness memory and eyewitness identification, why so often do people get it wrong?  According to The Innocence Project, which is an organization founded in 1992 by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, is a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system according to www.innocenceproject.org.  Since the creation of The Innocence Project they have exonerated 342 cases through DNA and have found 147 real perpetrators that actually committed the crimes, (Innocence Project, 2016).  One of the lead causes of the wrongful convictions are eyewitness memory and eyewitness misidentification which we talked about in Lesson 9.  According to the project, at least 70% of wrongful convictions were due to faulty eyewitness identification (Innocence Project, 2016)

There have been several cases were witnesses picked suspects in the back of police cars almost 100 feet away.  Eyewitnesses have picked people in a line-up that had an r marked next to the suspect, and nothing on the other photos.  There have also been several cases were eyewitnesses pick who they thought it might be or someone that resembles the actual perpetrator.  So the question is how does this happen? Also, how can we fix it from not happening as much as it does.  According to our text, eyewitness testimony is testimony by an eyewitness to a crime about what he or she may have saw during the commission of the crime.  In the United States of America, 200 people per day become criminal defendants based on eyewitness testimony (Goldstein et al., 1989).  There have been several studies done in which eyewitnesses either picked the wrong person or could not even recognize the person that did it.  Memory is faulty.  Henderson et al., 2001 states that even under ideal conditions, identifying faces is a difficult task and errors occur.   There are several errors in why people mistake the identity of a person.  Errors are usually due to suggestion, familiarity, and attention.  Errors in attention happen when eyewitnesses are focusing on one thing and forget other details.  Errors due to suggestion happen when a police officer or another person infers or suggest things which then “bring back the memory” of the eyewitness or make them remember things they did not know or have any clue about.  Errors due to familiarity happen when eyewitnesses pick innocent bystanders or someone they saw at the scene due to the fact that they remember their face, even though they were not the actually perpetrators.

Different groups are working with law enforcement agencies to make sure policies are being adopted that decrease the amount of wrongful convictions based off bad eye witness testimony. The Innocent Project has asked police departments to adopt policies, in which they do the following on all line-ups, a Blind/Blinded administration where the officer administering the lineup is unaware of who the suspect is, which helps reduce sugguestive practices.  Lineup composition on all line-ups, that include “Fillers” (the non-suspects included in a lineup) should resemble the eyewitness’ description of the perpetrator. That all officers give instructions to the person viewing the lineup, letting them know that the perpetrator may or may not be in the lineup and that the case will continue regardless of the line-up.  The IP also wants all law enforcement to get written statements from the eyewitness articulating his or her level of confidence in the identification made at the time that the identification is made and to record all procedures, this all according to o www.innoceneproject.org.  I think that if all these things are done it could drastically reduce the number

www.innocenceproject.org

Cognitive Psychology Third Edition-Goldstein

In the events of memory, I was walking down the road in an unfamiliar place in the town of Stone Harbor New Jersey when I smelled a familiar smell of my youth. It immediately took be back to the old neighborhood. I could see my house where I was raised, the houses of my neighbors, even the cars I have seen day in and day out. It was a flash of a memory so old yet it seemed so real. Then the smell shifted and the memory slowly faded.

In the process of the smell, it was a sensory long term memory that was made by an implicit conditioning memory. This memory was not consciously made but over time the memory of the smell was conditioned into my memory and associated it my old neighborhood. “Classic conditioning occurs when pairing an initially neutral stimulus taking on new properties.” (Goldstein, 2014)

Another aspect that it’s an episodic memory associated to an historical memory, “Episodic memory is that involves mental time travel- the experience of travelling back in time to reconnect with events that happened in the past.”(Goldstein, 2014) Although the memory was triggered by my olfactory, it took me down memory lane.

This process of isolating a distinguishable smell that triggered a memory seems not to be a common occurrence.  There was a study “Effect of smell presentation on individuals with regard to eye catching and memory” (Akira Tomono, Koyori Kanda, Syunya Otake, 2011) which introduce how association of visual objects are better enhanced with olfactory smell. We found that appropriate smell presentation contributes to an object’s conspicuity and memorability. “Analysis of gaze time and retention time showed that when smell is not presented, a viewer’s eye moves frequently in a wide range, thus attempting to acquire as much information as possible. On the other hand, with smell presentation, the viewer is more likely to concentrate on the relevant objects.” (Akira Tomono, Koyori Kanda, Syunya Otake, 2011)

To conclude, the reason why I was able to recall the mental visual picture was because my mind associated that specific smell and bonded it with the memory of my neighborhood. Yet, when I visually imagine my neighborhood, I do not smell the scent nor can I recall it. Hence, the association is one directional and conditioned.

Reference:

Cognitive Psychology- Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience, E. Goldstein, 2014

Effect of smell presentation on individuals with regard to eye catching and memory, Akira Tomono, Koyori Kanda, Syunya Otake, Version of Record online: 17 FEB 2011

With the rising use of laptops and tablets in class, many stress the benefits of using technology to take notes – electronic note-taking is faster, more efficient, easier to find when going back to reference, and it is easier to connect notes to online materials like graphics and videos. However, the benefits of handwriting notes may outweigh these new advantages.

When writing notes by hand, students have to pay attention to what professors are saying, what PowerPoint slides are showing them, remember this information long enough to write it down, and then pay visual attention to what they are writing. This creates a loop in which students are constantly repeating the information they have just learned in their heads through both audial and visual pathways, making it much easier to remember said information when recollection is necessary (Goldstein, 2011). Electronics also pose the threat of distracting attention from class, with abundant entertainment available online at the hands of social media and news websites, etc.

An article in NPR also suggests that longhand writing of notes forces students to be more selective in the information they choose to write – in effect, they need to pay attention to relevance of information they are given, which both streamlines notes for future use and forces additional processing of stimuli to determine which pieces are absolutely necessary to remember (NPR, 2016). In another study published in Psychological Science, it is suggested that generative note-taking that requires summary and processing of relevant information helps retention and encoding much more than non-generative notes that copy class lectures verbatim (Mueller, 2014). This is similar to the streamlining process in that additional analysis of information is needed, which benefitted students’ memory and retention of material in the long run.

The type of material being recalled can also display differences between laptop notes those taken by hand. In Mueller’s study at the University of California, students in each group scored equally when tested on facts and dates, but more semantic or “conceptual-application” questions heavily favored students who took notes by hand (Mueller, 2016). This suggests that while taking notes on a laptop or electronic “shortcut” may provide short term efficiency or speed, students who reinforce their learning by writing and streamlining are more likely to understand the information well enough to provide application of material and answer semantic test questions.

As a college student, I often find that I remember class notes better when I write them down. However, it is impossible to ignore the convenience of typing notes and the possibilities that come with note-taking software and the connection of notes to the Internet. Obviously this class is online, and I don’t think that the absence of in-class or handwritten notes is detrimental to my learning in this course. I also think the way this specific course is designed as an online class helps tremendously, as we are given textbook pages and learning modules to read and note, and then retain and reference those notes and sources in weekly quizzes, blog posts and labs that require us to look at the information again. Because of this repetition, it is much easier to recall information on tests and students can successfully apply what we have learned.

References:
Goldstein, E. B. (2011). Chapter 2: Cognitive Neuroscience. Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience (3rd ed.)(pp. 23 – 45). Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is Mightier than the keyboard. Psychological Science, 67(1), 1159–1168. doi:10.1177/0956797614524581

NPR. (2016, April 17). Attention, students: Put your laptops away. Retrieved July 13, 2016, from http://www.npr.org/2016/04/17/474525392/attention-students-put-your-laptops-away

One of the greatest concerns I have in terms of adjusting to getting older is how the process will impact my cognitive functioning in terms of long term (LTM), short-term (STM)/working memory (WM).

My dad succumbed to the cognitive ravages of Alzheimer’s disease; therefore, I considered whether I might be genetically pre-disposed to the disease. If not, what was my fate in terms of normal brain aging and cognition? What could I do to improve cognitive functioning in terms of memory?

Alzheimer’s disease is not a normal part of aging. Its mission is to slowly and mercilessly erode cognitive functions including memory. My dad had some good moments during his initial battle with the disease. My family and I would observe him use implicit memory to confidently and safely walk to the kitchen to get a beverage then drink it without issue; therefore, his right parietal lobe, at least at this time, was functioning as well as his cerebellum. In addition, in terms of working memory, his “visuospatial sketchpad held visual and spatial information.” (Goldstein, Bruce E. 2011) The observation was painful in light of the circumstances, yet had an element of fleeting comfort.

Eventually, he was unable to feed himself as a result of his left parietal lobe degeneration. (Alzheimer’s Society 2014) My dad was an engineer, who excelled at and enjoyed process optimization, which defines the work of an engineer. Yet the disease, ultimately, would not allow him to invoke episodic memories that pertained to his career, family and friends. Episodic memories are adversely impacted by the deterioration of parts of the medial temporal lobe: the hippocampus, which is responsible for the formation of new LTM, the thalmus, which is responsible for sensory perception, and the amygdala, which processes emotions associated with memory). (UCSF Aging and Memory Center 2014)

But what of his retrieval of a LTM regarding his mother’s preparation of breakfast many, many years ago (episodic memory), then his “awareness of the stored information that was (apparently) moved back to STM?” (Goldstein, Bruce E. 2011) Is STM not the first cognitive function to start declining as a result of the disease? The answer is that the initial resiliency of LTM is the result of an unconscious rehearsal of the best remembered memories so recall is strengthened.” (Morris, John C. 2016) Apparently recall of these long ago events relies on the hippocampus less. (Alzheimer’s Society 2014)

My dad’s right temporal lobe deteriorated; therefore, in terms of visual coding for LTM, my dad could not recognize family members based on their face or appearance. (Alzheimer’s Society 2014) (Goldstein, Bruce E. 2011) That reality was almost unbearable.

During the normal course of research, I learned that the probability of succumbing to early onset familial Alzheimer’s disease was low. In addition, “fewer than one in five adults age 65 or older have the disease, which rises exponentially with age.” (American Psychological Association 2016)

For those of you in your early 20’s, you will be happy to know that your brain’s volume is at its peak; however, it’s a downward spiral from there. The cortex shrinks, neurons atrophy, dendritic connections are reduced, and blood flow declines. Episodic, source, and flashbulb memories decline the most, while semantic and procedural memory decline the least. Planning and organizing activities take more effort. (American Psychological Association 2011)

I currently focus on a lifestyle that may improve my cognitive functioning in terms of memory by (1) eliminating distractions as the process of information encoding and retrieval can be adversely impacted, (2) exercising: I take intermediate level ballet classes, (3) socializing, (4) staying positive about the aging process as memory might improve as a result, 5) challenging myself intellectually (I am enrolled in the PSU psychology degree program), (6) reducing stress: I’m working on that, and (7) practicing self-efficacy. (American Psychological Society)

I have no reason to believe that my brain is not going through a normal, age-related, degenerative process. I do my due diligence in terms of researching credible information on the topic, then discussing the information with my doctor. I don’t want the fear of decreasing cognitive abilities such as memory to keep me from understanding and managing the normal brain aging process in spite of the “downward spiral.”

Works Cited

Goldstein, Bruce E. “Glossary.” Cognitive Psychology Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience. 3^rd Edition. Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Copyright 2011, 2008. pg. 132.

Web Publications

Image credit: Jannis Productions. Rebekah Fredenburg, computer animation; Stacy Jannis, illustration/art direction.“Under the Microscope.” Braintour. Alzheimer’s Association. Copyright © 2011 Alzheimer’s Association®. web 12 July 2016

http://www.alz.org/braintour/tour_credits.asp

“Dementia and the Brain.” Alzheimer’s Society. Last reviewed: September 2014. All content Ó 2106 Alzheimer’s Society. web 11 July 2016. n.pg.

https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=114

“Episodic Memory.” Brain 101: Topics in Neuroscience. University of California San Francisco Memory and Aging Center. © 2016 The Regents of the University of California. Page Content Reviewed: December 8, 2014. web 11 July 2016. n.pg.

http://memory.ucsf.edu/brain/memory/episodic

Morris, John C,. M.D.“Why do Alzheimer’s Patients Remember Certain Things and Forget Others?” Washington University School of Medicine St. Louis. Copyright 2007-2016 Caring. Web 11 July 2016. n. pg.

https://www.caring.com/questions/alzheimers-patients-remember-past

https://wuphysicians.wustl.edu/for-patients/find-a-physician/john-carl-morris

Memory Changes in Older Adults. American Psychological Association. Ó2016 American Psychological Association. web 11 June 2016. N. pg.

http://www.apa.org/research/action/memory-changes.aspx

Vierck, Elizabeth.“Memory and Aging.” APA Office on Aging and Committee on Aging. Ó2016 American Psychological Association. web 11 June 2016. N. pg.

http://www.apa.org/pi/aging/memory-and-aging.pdf

It is the age old myth of believing that goldfish only have the memory span of 3 seconds long. With further research and experiments we now know that goldfish have a memory that last at least 3 months long (Harfield, 2014). If the myth was true, this would mean that the goldfish is never given enough time to process information to the long term memory. Short term memory is described as memory that can hold at least 5-7 items for a period of at least 15-30 seconds long (Goldstein, 2011). Long term memory happens to be a little different as we transfer information through repetition and rehearsal the memories can last for years, well for a goldfish only months at a time. With this understanding we would think that goldfish wouldn’t even make it out of the short term memory stage either.

We can easily test a goldfish memory by conducting our own science experiment. It can be as simple as using a lever for the fish to receive its food (The Goldfish Tank, 2016). It is a very similar concept to operant conditioning. When a goldfish presses on the lever and food is released the goldfish is able to remember the next day that when the lever is pressed food is released. If the gold fish was unable to make that connection, then the memory span of the goldfish would be shorter. Because the goldfish is able to make that connection we can conclude that a goldfish’s memory is much longer than what the rumors say. We can also learn when the memory span ends when we realize that the goldfish no longer goes to the lever for its daily feeding. Another experiment that was conducted to test a goldfish’s memory was similar to Pavlov’s famous dog and saliva experiment to test classical conditioning. The same was done for goldfish in which they learned that it was feeding time when a certain sound was played. This was proven to be true when the sound was played five months later and the goldfish still correlated the sound to feeding time.

In conclusion, memory is an important aspect of all of our lives. In the case of goldfish memory is a necessary tool for survival when it comes to remembering feeding or even remembering predators in the real ocean. We should all experiment on all of our pets to see how long they are able to remember things.

Goldstein, E. B. (2011). Cognitive Psychology. Belmont, Canada: Cengage Learning .

Harfield, D. (2014, February 4). Why goldfish having a three-second memory is a myth…. Retrieved from How It Works: http://www.howitworksdaily.com/why-goldfish-having-a-three-second-memory-is-a-myth/

The Goldfish Tank. (2016). Goldfish Memory: Is 3 second goldfish memory a myth? Retrieved from The Goldfish Tank: http://thegoldfishtank.com/goldfish-info/myth/goldfish-memory-three-second-memory-myth/

Elizabeth Negron

I would sometimes look at the clouds and imagine faces or animals. Also, I would find faces in landscapes,food or even man-made objects…..this experience always made me feel clueless. I didn’t know what I am experiencing or why I am imagining this. While reading my Cognitive Psychology textbook I came across a demonstration about finding faces in landscapes which reminded me of my past experiences. Searching more about this topic I came across the term “Face Pareidolia” which is the illusory perception of non-existent faces. I believe most people have never heard about it but nearly everyone has experienced it. According to the World English Dictionary Pareidolia is defined as “the imagined perception of a pattern or meaning where it does not actually exist.”(BBC, 2013)
Furthermore, Gestalt Law of perception explains how humans have the cognitive tendency to combine isolated, simple ideas and stimuli into meaningful and complex configurations. Gestalt describes in details five laws of perception which are continuity, closure, proximity, similarity and simplicity. Each type looks at a different side of our organizational perception. Continuity perception is when we perceive objects that seem to have a relationship to each other as being continuous. Closure describes our tendency to look for unity in objects and to see lines as a single unit so we tend to fill in details. Proximity indicates our tendency to group together close items in a meaningful way. Law of similarity suggests that similar things tend to appear grouped together. Finally, a law of simplicity or Pragnanz explains how objects in the environment are seen in a way that makes them appear as simple as possible. This cognitive ability is considered a survival technique that our brain uses to automatically seek sensible wholes out of random context.

BBC (2013, May 31). Pareidolia: Why we see faces in hills, the moon and toasties. BBC Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22686500

Gestalt challenge. Retrieved July 12, 2016, from http://gestaltpsychology.weebly.com/gestalt-challenge.html

Goldstein, B. E. (2011). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience with Coglab manual (3rd ed.). United States: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.