Internal Assesment - Stroop effect

       

  The Stroop Effect is one of the most-studied phenomena in psychology. This effect shows how the brain deals with conflicting interference. The test is easy to administer, and works in a variety of contexts. This experiment was first conducted in 1935 by J. Ridley Stroop and was first noted in the Journal of Experimental Psychology

          The procedure of this study is that the words will be printed in 3 forms, one all in black ink, then another one in colored ink correspondent to the color the words spell and the last also in color ink but not representing the word spelled. Then to present these words to a certain number of subjects and measure the time they take to finish reading each form. Objective of this experiment is to see how fast is the human reaction time to something that is considered to be a really fast reaction that is barely processed through the brain. This means that when we see the partial beginning of the word, our brains already forms the shape of the word and says it, but the point of this is not to read the words, but the color of the ink of the word. The word themselves has more influence over the mind than the colors. This is due to certain cognitive processes seem automatic in the sense that they do not require effortful thought or seem beyond our conscious control. There is also the consideration of the way you show the words. What if you put colored ink to nonsense words? Would you still have trouble saying them? Probably not. So in order to have a conflicting stimuli for the brain, we right the words of the colors instead of nonsense words.

          There are a couple of reasons behind this. There is one that states that the interference is caused by only one area of the brain is dominating the response of other functional areas. One is the Speed of Processing Theory: the interference occurs because words are read faster than colors are named. The other one is Selective Attention Theory: the interference occurs because naming colors requires more attention than reading words. Another way to explain this is that words are read faster than colors are named, two responses compete to be the actual response produced (this causes the interference), similar to a race to see which will come out first (reading words will always come out first).

The Placebo Effect

          The Placebo Effect is a sort of reaction a patient have when they think they have been treated but are actually not. The most common placebos we see are sugar pills and fake surgeries. It shows the power of the human mind and that sometimes the pain can be reduced by psychological means. It can also be the power of the positive thinking.

          The thought of placebos in modern times came from H.K. Beecher’s study. He looked at 15 clinical trials and found out that 35% of the 1082 patients had satisfactory results being administered with the placebo effect. This is the evidence at the time that supported Beecher’s study. But many after found a lot of wrong issues with his results and data. In 10 of the 15 clinical trials Beecher used earlier, 66.7% of the patients improved as a normal course of their illness, and thus, was not an effect of the placebo. Also in another case, the patients improved after 6 days, but that was a normal result and they would have improved even if they didn’t take anything at all for their cold.

Another important issue with his results was that he only recorded the ones that were successful, and didn’t take into account the patients that deteriorated; therefore there was a misleading direction in the data he presented.

          My personal opinion of the placebo effect after reading all of that is that maybe it does exist, but one shouldn’t depend on it to save a life. Obviously if a patient’s status is critical, it would be unwise and unorthodox to use the placebo effect hoping that it would work. I think the placebo effect works best on more trivial things, such as the pressing of buttons and air conditioning. The mind is a very powerful thing, and perhaps it may trick our body into thinking it is in a condition it is actually not.

Sex and Cultural Differences In Memory

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080220104244.htm

Sex differences in memory:

          There has always been differences between sexes, and their capacity of memory is one two.  The findings of psychologists Agneta Herlitz and Jenny Rehnman in Sweden did determine that sex differences have a lot to do with their episodic memory, a long-term memory build on personal experiences, by which give woman an advantage.
          The differences between the sexes is that women are better in verbal episodic memory taks (ex: remembering words, objects, pictures) and men are better at remembering symbolic non-linguistic things. Another case is that women can remember facial feature better than men, especially those of other females. Also that women recognize familiar smells better. But another thing that affects this is education, which have a big influence on these sex differences.
          Althought the chances that genetically-based differences between the capacity of male and female memory is not clear, results from experiments show that females have the advantage to episodic memory.


http://www.apa.org/monitor/sep05/culture.aspx

Cultural differences in memory:
         

           Throughout a child's life, it is normal for the child not to remember events that happened below the age of 4 or so. This is called "childhood amnesia". But researcher now have discovered the fact that between different cultures, the time when a child can actually remember something is very different, the largest difference up to 2 years apart.
           The main difference that could be found was between american children and asian children. People who grew up in societies that focus more on personal history, like the US, will have earlier childhood memories than those people who grew up in an environment whose value interdependence is placed above those of personal history, like Asia.
           These difference are also explained by the social-interaction model developed by Katherine Nelson. This models says, our autobiographical memories don't develop in a vacuum, but when we were children and we go over past events with adults, enabling us to remember more details.
          There have been many experiments done to understand these slight differences more. Like they tried to compare the earliest memories of Asian-American immigrants to those of native asians and americans and try to figure out a pattern. So overall, this is not a really precise theory, but they are working on it to prove that it is.

Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease is losing memories slowly and gradually. No one can identify the causes yet, although the most common trait is that people get this at an old age. When people get this, their identities fade away slowly, causing an incredible amount of pain in the families of the affected. They have nursing homes especially made to treat this, and a place for families to leave their beloved and to not worry about their loved ones being in danger at home, alone.

Although researches keep trying to find something that can stop this, all they seem to be able to find is a way to slow down this process, not stopping it entirely. In the early ages, no one seemed to know about Alzheimer’s disease. The main reason for this is because back then no one seemed to live over the age of 65, therefore the rareness of this disease surfacing. But now that human life has been prolonged to over 65 years old, the need for a cure is more and more demanding.

After reading and watching about this disease, it made me wonder about the mysteries occurring all around us, and I grew apprehensive. What if this disease someday attacks on someone in my family? What if later on I actually get this disease too, and can't remember anything from my childhood to my family? With this question, it lead me to think about  the importance of life. I understand now why people everyone keeps saying “live in the present, not the future”, because later on in life, the present is all you have because you can’t be yourself anymore in the future.

Some Short-Term Memories Die Suddenly, No Fading Summary

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090429091806.htm

          This experiment was conducted by researchers at the University of California. Before people believed that when memories are stored, some goes to the long term section and other go to the short term section. It is said that the ones that goes to the short term section goes unprocessed and groes more innacurate and imprecise by the second. But the researchers proved them wrong.
          They discovered that their subjects could hold temporary memories (like color and shape) for atleast 4 seconds before the memories suddenly disappear, though until then they remained quite accurate.

          To test the accuracy of short-term visual memory, Weiwei Zhang and Steve Luck designed experiments to measure two things. The probability the memory could be held and the precision of that memory. Both of the tests were tested on 12 adults. The first test was to show them 3 squares with colors, flashing for one tenth of a second. Then after 1, 4 or 10 seconds, they are shown a spectrum of colors with the 3 colors that appeared before, only that now they are colorless and one of them is highlighted. They ask you to select a color in the spectrum that best resembles the highlighted square's original color. The closer they click to the color, the more accurate. The second one is basically the same, except it tests shapes. 
          They concluded that the subject either had the memory, or doesn't, depending on how close they choose to the color/shape. Also that the probability of having the memory lies between 4 and 10 seconds, and the memories did not slowly "fade away".
          This can be important in real life because  it would provide away to help us avoid the confusion that might occur if we tried to make decisions on the basis of weak, inaccurate memories. Also that they are incorporating these findings into research for short-term memory dysfunction in people with schizophrenia.

The Memories You Want To Forget Are The Hardest Ones To Lose Summary

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070815105026.htm

          This discovery was conducted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It mainly says that very emotional, painful, shocking memories are are the hardest to forget, especially if they are visual ones. An example it presented was that when you see a footage of soldiers coming back from war, it is more emotional than simply reading it in a headline in the newspaper.
           Keith Payne, an assistant professor of psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences said that it is easy to forget neutral (as in simple, basic) memories such as a phone number or directions, but to intentionally try to forget an emotional one is really hard. Even a "mild" memory is hard to forget because when people are trying to forget it, they need to mentally separate it first and then block it of the ones you don't want to retrieve. Emotions obstruct this process because you make a connections of these with other parts of your life making it harder to isolate.
          The experiments they conducted is to show a word to subjects, such as "murder". By simply showing the word, the subject may or may not have any reaction to it in contrast to the emotions they have while looking at a very violant picture or footage. They found out that not only it is hard to intentionally forget unpleasant memories, that the pleasant ones are also hard to forget.

          These studies contributes to understanding how emotions limits mental control and whether by trying to intentionally forget an event can actually cause more pain. But also, if the motivation is enough, individuals with help of some coping strategies can overcome the effects of these memories.

New Understanding Of How We Remember Traumatic Events Summary

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081028103111.htm

          Neuroscientists at The University of Queensland were the ones who conducted this experiment and discovered why very poignant events can cause some traumatic effect on your long term memory.
          It states that for a long time, the ability of the brain to remember fear or trauma had been crucial to our long term survival, but some of those memories causes a negative reaction rather than one that will help us. It is said that in the amygdala (located at the back part of the brain) that when it encounters situations like the traumatic ones we had before, it releases a stress hormone.
          The Journal of Neuroscience published a paper by QBI's Dr Louise Faber and her collegues have shown how the brain's "adrenaline" called the noradrenaline affects the amygdala  by influencing chemical and electrical pathways in the brain responsible for the formation of memory.
          This discovery can help in real life because it teaches us more about the effects a traumatic event can have on you and maybe understand more on how to treat patients with post-traumatic stress or anxiety disorders. It gives us a clearly understanding of how these emotions and memories are formed.

What Is Memory - How Does It Work?

1. Explain the concept of sensory memory.   

    Sensory memory is the first level of memory. It is the ability to retain an image after the original stimulus is gone, although only momentarily and relatively unprocessed. There are two types of sensory memory, one is the iconic memory and the other is the echoic memory.

2. Give an example of sensory memory.

   You lost focus in a lecture, suddenly a significant word appears that causes you to return your focus. You should remember what was said just before the key word because it is temporarily stored in your sensory register.

3. What is the capacity of our sensory memory?

   Our sensory memory have a capacity to hold a large amount of unprocessed information (like 

visual data) but can only hold them accurately for a short time, like it fades away after a second.

4. Describe the concept of short-term memory.

   Short-term is the capacity to hold small amount of memory in your mind consciously while it is being processed in one's mind. Or simply what you can repeat immediately after perceiving it.

5.What is the "magic number" as it relates to short-term memory and who conducted the experiment which established this measurement?

   The magic number is an experiment called "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information". It was conducted by reknown psychologist, George Miller. This relates to short-term memory because it describes that the human mind can only remember in detail 7 (give or take 2) stimuli presented at the same time. It rejects the other stimuli presented after.

6. What is chunking?

   Chunking is the process with which we can expand our memory by remembering things in "chunks". The mind separate information in meaningful sections in order for it to remember it more clearly. It increases a person's recall capacity.

7. What has been determined to be the ideal size of "chunks" for both letters and numbers?

   According to G. Miller, the ideal size of chunks to remember is if you divide them into 5-9 items. But Herbert Simon showed that the ideal size for chunking letters and numbers, meaningful or not, was three.

8. Which mode of encoding does short-term memory mostly rely on, acoustic or visual?
   Acoustic memory is better than visual memory

9. Explain the duration and capacity of long-term memory.

    The capacity (information that can be stored in the brain) of the long-term memory is unkown. It is impossible to measure and can be limitless. Our brains ability to store memories is greater than any powerful computer.
    The duration of information is thought to be stored permanently, which means for your entire lifetime. Now there is a thought that some memories can possibly be genetically inherited and therfore las longer than a lifetime. 
 
10. Explain in detail the Atkinson-Shiffrin Model of memory.
 

   In 1968, Atkinson and Shiffrin proposed a model of human memory that memory is stored in two parts, long-term memory and short-memory. Later another third part is added, called the sensory memory. So in general it propose that human memory involves a sequence of three stages.


Sensory Memory:  The senses have a limited capacity to store information percieved with senses and it usually goes unprocessed. Ex: the visual system have a iconic memory for visual stimuli such as shape, color, siza and location, but not the meaning. The main ones are the Iconic Memory and the Echoic Memory.


Short-Term Memory:  Information selected by sensory memory then pass to short-term memory. This allows us to retain information long enough for us to use it. STM last around 15-30 seconds unless people rehearse the information, like separate into chunks.


Long-Term Memory:  LTM perseves memory and skills from a minute to a lifetime. LTM is hard to measure because it is just way too big and is more powerful than any computer storage. 

11. Identify three criticisms or limitations of the Atkinson-Shiffrin Model of memory.

 1: The model which consists of the "stream of memory" is said to lack internal consistency

 2: The Atkinson-Shiffrin model distinguishes different forms of memory, but it does not take into account what information is presented

 3: It doesn't take into accoudn the differences between the subject's performance including a cognitive ability or the previous experience with learning techniques

 
12.Explain the Levels of Processing Model of memory.

   Levels of Processing Model of memory is a theory presented by Fergus Craik and Robert Lockhart in 1972. It rejects the idea of the dual store model of memory. Instead, this theory propose that information can be processed in a number of different ways and that the durability/strength  of the memory trace is a direct function of the depth of processing involved. Ex: Shallow processing and Deep processing.

13. What is maintenance rehearsal - give an example.


   Maintanance rehearsal is a process of repeating and verbalizing a piece of information over and over again. Usually the short-term memory can hold the information for 20 seconds, but the maintanance rehearsal can keep it for a longer amount of time.
ex: when you ask for a phone number and don't have paper around, you repeat the number over and over again just in time to dail the numbers in the phone. This is the use of maintanane rehearsal.





14. What is elaborative rehearsal - give an example.

   This involves deep processing of a item to-be remembered resulting in producing a durable memory. Ex: when you memorize a word that have no meaning to you, you try to associate it with other things in order to make it meaningful. Like the word "braniac". It is similar to the word "brain" so you associate it with that word and brain makes you think of someone who is very smart.
 
15. Who developed the Levels of Processing Model and the concepts of maintenance 
and elaborative rehearsal?

   It is a theory presented by Fergus Craik and Robert Lockhart in 1972.

Memory

              

               What makes each and every person unique? The answer would be the experiences and achievements that we have acquired. But even if we have done these things, it doesn’t matter at all if you can’t remember them. So it is safe to say that memory is what shapes our identity and what it is based on.

              After watching the video, it got me thinking about how we take things we receive at birth granted. Nobody really cares for their senses (like sight and hearing) until we have lost them. It is the same way with our memory. It just seems so natural when you are looking back and laughing at some joke your friends told you the other day, or start crying at a movie you saw last week. But when I saw the man who can’t withhold new memories and the other man who suffers from Alzheimer’s, made it so clear to me that the fact of not being to picture the future, or simply make a cup of tea is a huge impact to someone’s life.

              It got me thinking of what experiences got me here who I am today. We learn and grow by building up our memories. It also inspires me to learn more about these sorts of memory loss and to care for the ones I have right now.

The Stroop Effect

          This effect is named after John Ridley Stroop, who discovered this in 1930. It is an experiment to measure the amount of time it takes to react to different stimulates. There are 3 types of stimuli to this experiment. The first one is to write colors with black ink. In the second one, the names and the color ink used are different, and in the third one, there are squares with a given color.

Then, you are given the task of reading the colors. At first, you read the colors written in black ink. And then, with the second one, you have to read the color of the ink used to write the color, and not the word itself.

          When you do this experiment, what you will encounter is that when you try to do the second one, your brain can’t react fast enough, causing you to momentarily begin to say the word that appears instead of the color ink.

          The reason behind this strange phenomenon is that because we have been reading throughout our whole live, and sometimes, when we see the beginning of a word, we can pretty much guess the rest of it and say it, without really actually finishing reading that word. So the words themselves have more influence than the ability to name the color without processing the word, making you stumble a bit. That is called the Speed of Processing Theory. There is also another theory, Selective Attention Theory, which basically says that the interference occurs because naming colors requires more attention than reading words.

The Myth of Multitasking

         

           Multitasking has been considered by many psychiatrists to be a myth because our brain can’t actually do two things at once. Sure, you can walk and talk at the same time, but that’s because you are using two different parts of the brain while you do so, so it doesn’t affect much of your performance. But some other cases like writing an essay and watching the TV at the same time, it seems like you are doing two things at once, but in reality, you are just switching back and forth. So there is no such thing as multitasking.

          The term “response selection bottleneck” refers to when you are doing many things at once; you actually have to prioritize them and then do it one by one, like filtering them first. This usually shows how you slow down and can’t perform as well as when you are only doing one thing at a time, with your undivided attention.

          David Meyer says that multitasking releasing stress hormones and adrenaline is important because if you keep multitasking, excess amount of these things will be produced and can cause a long-term damage. This can lead to the loss of short-term memory. Although his research also says that maybe, with training, your mind can switch back and forth more effectively, although never actually reaching the term "multitasking"

          Russell Poldrack found that you can actually learn when you multitask, but that learning is less pliable and more direct, making it harder to call back this piece of information stored. His research shows the different parts of the brain used to learn and to store new information when they are not focused. And since we are designed to focus,  we are not being as efficient as we thought we are, because the information is not stored in the part of the brain that makes it easier to retrieve.

          The author concludes that if we keep on multitasking, we are not being more efficient, but on the contrary, our brains don't work as well as when you are concentrating on only one thing at once. This is important because it affects everything in our daily lives. Companies, for example, will maybe earn less than a profit. Students will probably score lower on tests. The author also states that in the future we will invent new devices to help us overcome the unintended attention towards other things and to set mental limits when we try to do too much in a short amount of time. Or maybe we will simply adjust and those things that used to be a distraction, like phone ringings, getting emails, television sounds, will merely be some very distant background noises that doesn't affect us much anymore.

Observations of the BaMbuti Pygmies

          The BaMbuti Pygmies is located in Congo, Africa. They are hunter-gatherers and one of the oldest indigenous people in Africa. They are classified into four distinct cultures, each speaking a different language. They live in a tropical rainforest in the Forest of Ituri. They are the shortest of the pygmies, with an average of 4 feet 6 inches. Their culture is very different from our own and the African Pygmies are one group of people whose lifestyle has changed very little despite various foreign invasions.

          Colin Turnbull was a Britsh-American anthropologist who did many studies on the BaMbuti Pygmies. This study made him well known since it made a lot of contributions to the study of perception and how it affects the way we live. He said “The identity of the BaMbuti Pygmies of the Ituri Forest in the Congo with the forest itself goes beyond their social life; they are also psychologically conditioned by their environment. This can best be illustrated by some observations that I made during a recent field trip in their country.”

Turnbull first realized that distance affects perception was when he was with a pygmy called Kenge and when they saw buffalos in the distance, Kenge actually asked what kind of insect are those. And while they approached the buffalos, Kenge was shocked at what at first seemed so small, is actually immensely huge.

The reason behind this is because pygmies’ natural habitat is the forest, so they hardly ever see things that are further away, thus their lack of knowledge that things at an distance looks smaller than it actually is. This proves that you are what you’ve seen and experienced, so no two person’s perception is the same.

Colin Turnbull

          Colin Turnbull was a famous British-American anthropologist whose work on the African BaMbuti Pygmies is one of the most important works that made him a famous intellectual in the 1960’s and 1970’s. He was raised primarily by a series of German nannies and was educated at the prestigious Westminster School, where he became a renowned organist. He considered his privileges to be a duty to help those people of color, in other words, people who are discriminated.

          Turnbull first became interested in African ethnology on a motorcycle trip in 1951 during which he viewed East Africa, the Congo, the Sudan, and Egypt. It was on this trip that he first visited the Pygmies. He then met the BaMbuti tribe, which he considered to have social institutions more humane and more sophisticated the ones that were practiced in western civilization. The people lived in peace not because they were ordered to by the laws, but because of their wish to be united and to be treated equally amongst themselves.

          Later on in his life, in 1959, he met his partner Joseph Towles, with whom he exchanged marriage vows the following year. After his partner’s death, Turnbull donated all his research to the College of Charleston, and he insisted that this donation was to be named only after Towle’s name alone. He then died in Virginia in 1994 due to a complication of AIDS just like his partner.

What factors influence our perception?

There are internal and external factors that affects your perception.

      The internal factors are those that origins from inside of oneself. Like emotions, intelligence and your senses. So because no two people are the same, when they face the same situation, their reactions will be different. Our internal perceptions build when we experience something, especially when you were little. For example, I like Saturdays because it was a break from school and you don’t have to worry about homework until the next day. This started when I began school in kinder garden, so from then on, I perceive Saturdays as a day to relax and enjoy.

 Another thing that I like that is due to internal factors is those games that you have to spot differences between two pictures (which is influenced by our senses), because I can almost always find them.

The external factors are those that affect you from the outside, like places, people and culture. I like to use an umbrella under the sun, and everyone thinks that’s normal in Taiwan, but then when I went to Chile and did the same thing, people was staring and muttering “but it’s not raining! What is that for?” and so now I almost never do it and consider it weird when someone uses an umbrella under the blazing sun too… I also don't like buses, due to injury caused by a  buse when I was 6...

Perception is Reality

          The definition you see on a dictionary for perception is : the representation of what is perceived. Then if you look up reality, it will say : all of your experiences that determine how things appear to you. So we can deduce that the phrase "Perception is Reality" is right in a way, because we all have different lives, so we have different perceptions. So it is safe to say that everybody's reality is different. Reality is based on how we live and see this world. Imagine that you are a cat,  but if you've been place in an enviroment that only contains dogs, it is very probable that the cat is going to think that it's a dog and behaves like one and have no idea what a cat really is.

          My perception is constantly changing by itself. I think it is because i lived in many countries and they are all very different from each other. Maybe the perception that lasts the most in your brain is the one that you get in your infancy and childhood. So when i went back to Taiwan from Chile, everyone says that my personlity is not like one of a Taiwanese person. Well mainly they think that it is rude to get up in class to throw out trash, but I don't consider it rude at all, in fact, I think I'm doing something good by cleaning after myself.

Why did I take IB Psychology

   Well, I have to say that the reason I took this class is because I decided to try out for the full IB student program, and one of the six group subjects is psychology. Although there weren't other options in school, I think that I would still have taken this class because it is always very interesting to know how the human mind is working. When I think about psychology, what usually come to my mind is psychologists helping you in daily life to deal with the problems you can't solve alone. And in a way, helping others is helping yourself. I wish to be able to help others when i finish this course.