Recently I have stumbled upon an interesting article written by Jennifer S.Lerner from Harvard University and a few other researchers. It is titled Emotion and Decision Making. When we use judgement or choice to shape our decision, we use the type of emotion referred to as integral emotion. It helps us avoid dangerous situations, or donate a large sum of money at our own expense. Interestingly enough, patients with damaged prefrontal cortex (the area that integrates emotion and cognition) are showing reduced ability to feel emotion (alexithymia). People with such disabilities show tendencies to prefer riskier economic decisions over safer one’s until they reach bankruptcy. This is attributed to the absence of their “somatic markers” or emotional cues where they are expected to feel fear that should stop them in taking risks that are too high.
Integral emotions may also interfere with a person’s life in other negative, irrational ways. For example, the article provides an example of how a person may give up flying due to his fear of heights, and prefer to drive instead. This may be unreasonable as there are higher rates of death in automobile catastrophes than there are plane crashes, hence the fear of flying is not based on the actual danger of the planes, but on an irrational emotion. In extreme cases where integral emotions override a person’s judgement, I think gambling can act as a good example. Interestingly enough, scientists have discovered that the dysregulation of different areas in the brain, especially in the prefrontal cortex plays a major part in causing the risky behavior of gambling people. Even though gamblers may understand that they might lose everything and end up with nothing, they are driven by their integral emotions which convince them that they are in full control and it is impossible to lose.
To conclude, each person should be able to identify what type of emotions affect his decisions, and find a way to control them in order to live a productive life and avoid problems due to making poor life decisions that were influenced by irrational emotions “of the moment”.

Sources:

1.https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/jenniferlerner/files/annual_review_manuscript_june_16_final.final_.pdf
2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2827449/

The main source that I will be referring to in my discussion of memory, is a documentary called The Mystery of Memoryproduced, directed by Edward Gray and Michael Schwarz. The documentary focuses on three different cases, but I will refer to only one that I found particularly interesting.
The story begins with a 43 year old woman living in LA. Her memory works in a spectacular way, enabling her to recall anything that has happened in her life since she turned 12. Price can recall not only factual information like dates when events took place, but also the dates/specific details of the emotional events that happened to her. The downside of her unusual episodic memory capacity, is that she cannot forget the bad things either, such as the death of her husband.
In an attempt to understand why she remembers everything, James McGaugh and Larry Cahill (Ph.D in Psychology, University of California, Irvine) conducted a series of tests and experiments. What they did was they took brain scans of Price and other subjects with similar cognitive abilities in order to identify the brain structures of the patients. As a result, they have identified that some brain regions of the subjects were significantly larger when compared to controls, and according to McGaugh, the same areas in the brain are enlarged when a patient is diagnosed with an OCD disorder. A quick google search showed me that the brain areas associated with OCD disorder are : the orbitofrontal cortext, the anterior cingulate cortex (both are located in front of the brain), the thalamus and the striatum (GRAY and ESCHERICH). Reading on further about the symptoms of a person with OCD, it is suggested that the unpleasant thoughts are dismissed by normal people, while in a patient with OCD, the unpleasant thought gets “stuck”. This makes me wonder whether a similar process occurred with Jill Price: perhaps her memories failed to pass through a filter process which is present in most people, and that allows us to forget the events at least partially. However, this comparison is only an afterthought, as patients with OCD are greater in their number while Jill Price cases are rare and considered exceptional.
I went on a little further with my google search in order to find out what happens in the brain as memory fades. From the earlier readings, I remember that a memory is formed when an electrical signal is passed from one neuron to another. The ability to store a memory is also referred to as the strengthening or weakening of the synapses (synaptic plasticity, or long-term potentiation) (King). What happens when a person forgets something, may actually not be the act of forgetting, but the inability to access the stored information. A neurobiologist Jeffrey Johnson explains this: “even though your brain still holds this information, you might to always have access to it” (Keim). Perhaps in the near future, scientists will be able to develop techniques for retrieving the “forgotten” memories, and more people will be able to not only develop cognitive abilities similar to Jill Price, but also learn how to control them.

Reference

1.GRAY, KETURAH and KATIE ESCHERICH. “‘It Makes Me Crazy’: Woman Can’t Forget”. ABC News. N.p., 2016. Web. 13 June 2016.
2. Keim, Brandon. “Forgotten Memories Are Still In Your Brain”. WIRED. N.p., 2016. Web. 12 June 2016.
3. King, Paul. “How Are Memories Stored And Retrieved”. Quora. N.p., 2016. Web. 12 June 2016.

In the present day, people are expected to do a number of things at the same time in order to achieve their goals. Parallel processing may be a function that was invented so a computer can multitask, but unfortunately, with humans that is not always a case, or at least not a good idea.
Whenever I sit in front of my computer or my phone, everything else that is happening around the world becomes mute. Friends often become very angry, as I am not able to respond to what they are telling me, but the truth is: I simply do not hear them. As suggested on britannica website, “attention has to do with the immediate experience of the individual; it is a state of current awareness.” A similar statement made by William James is referenced in the Cognitive Psychology textbook, where he claims that our mind filters out the rest of the information as we are focused on one single task. That is something we term “selective attention.” However, why is it that I am able to eat a burger, walk to my job, and listen to music at the same time?
Multitasking is a phenomena that some may consider a myth, as people are limited in their ability to do a number of things at the same time. To others, it is not something unachievable: taking a look at what we do daily, here it is why. A driver is able to drive a car, drink his coffee, and check out his phone from time to time. When the driver fails to attend to the most important activity, which is watching the road, an accident might occur. This serves as an example of how several stimuli occur at the same time, and how the important one is ignored while the less important one is perceived. However, when driving a car, attention is not the only thing that comes into play. Our behavioural tendencies play a large part in it too, this is why we are able to drive a car, switch between breaks and engage covert attention, divided attention at the same time. This is often referred to as automatization of actions. The same cannot be expected from our attention, as it is limited and unfortunately we are not evolved to focus on a number of different tasks simultaneously.
As a conclusion, people are able to attend to a number of different stimuli, but the response comes in a form of succession rather than simultaneously. This is why it so vital to know the shortcomings of attention, and make an effort not to engage in dangerous behaviour by multitasking during tasks such as driving, crossing the road, etc.

References:
1. http://www.britannica.com/topic/attention