This week's posts

This week's posts are about Monuments and Memory

the impact factor

Eigenfactor.org

For Music Group

http://pom.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/35/1/5

Stephen Wiltshire draws Rome from memory

This is Stephen Wiltshire he is autistic but can do amazing things with his memory. He can remember and draw out the entire panoramic map of Rome after a 45 min helicopter ride and be almost exactly right. This clip shows that the human brain has the amazing ability to store a huge amount of information after seeing it only once, we just have to know how to retrieve it. I had a cousin who could do similar things; when he was 21 he was studding for med school and I was 11 at the time and I remember watching him study. He flipped through the book only glancing at each page for no mere then what seemed like 5 seconds because he had photographic memory he was able to store the entire book in his head. He went on to become a a doctor and by the age of 22 was already assisting at the emergency room.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFGG6zWByhM ===== Photographic memory clip!!

study tips from world memory champion andi bell

Do you remember in the first few weeks of class when we were tested on what knowledge we retained from Winkel's lecture about the birth of cognitive psychology? We were asked to write down any words or phrases that pertained to that lecture. Afterwards, when they were read out loud, it turns out that we had retained little, and most of that had nothing to do with the lecture at all. For instance, I wrote down "the 1960s" for some odd reason. A lot of kids wrote "Charles Darwin" and "Computers", but very few (and I do not recall his name to this day) could remember the name of that one important guy who invented cognitive psychology. Sort of alarming, no?

Well, here is a youtube video 

 (and here is the second part of that video) 

with a few tips on how we can all learn to memorize random words and phrases we might need for a future quiz.  Seriously, check this out- the BBC makes some totally enthralling television. 

In the video is a guy named Andi Bell. He is the World Memory Champion, and demonstrates his fantastic skills by memorizing 520 randomly shuffled cards in under 20 minutes. Bell has developed a technique where he associates the images on the cards with random objects and also associates those objects with a location along a familiar route. By creating multiple neuro-pathways to a specific memory, Bell has a better chance of recovering that memory. As it turns out, humans are hardwired to remember routes better than random objects or facts. Bell uses this to his advantage by creating stories along a route with the images he associates with the cards. 

All nighters

When I was a sophomore me and my fellow class mates used to sit in the studio and work on homework all night long. Until one day this kid Nick Foley runs in the room and is like holy fuck were loosing memories. The situation was so extreme that one student used to have a buzzer that would ring every ten minutes, this was one to keep a count down going and two to wake people up if they fell asleep.

The theory being that you loose memories permanently. I think also that you don't remember events that occur while consciously sleep deprived, even though you are completely capable of reasoning.

And also in my experience when extremely sleep deprived I would confuse memories. For example for design we had to design a clock. At the same time the club I was in was holding a fundraiser. One night I was freaking out telling my roommate that I couldn't decided on the design for the clock we were going to sell next week. I sincerely believed that I was designing a clock for the fundraiser.

Science daily featured an article with sleep deprived mice. They subjected the mice to a tone (audio) and then electrocuted them. So they associate the sound with pain. Then played the sound 5 hours later, mice showed signs of fear. They then deprived them of sleep and the mice eventually could not remember the association.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/07/030709064042.htm

Also other studies have shown that we remember faces and things but not their context or environment.

Here is a link to a sight that helps you improve your memory.

http://www.lumosity.com/

this game is the fun-nest!

http://www.lumosity.com/brain-games/flexibility-games/word-bubbles

Savants and more Savants

In response to Dara's posting, I also have also been captivated by the mystery of savants. And I'm not the only, savant syndrome is largely an unexplored, inexplicable phenomenon in any area of study (not just cognitive) that relates. While there stands many theories that attempt to illustrate the causes behind this condition--from a monogamous concentration on a single ability leads to genius skills-- to a trade off, an almost compensation, for a person cursed with disabilities-- there still stands no theory supported with hard solid evidence.

While not all autistic kids have savant syndrome, and not all savants are autistic (although these cases are even further isolated-- see also..malcom in the middle?) the more mind-blowing ones most deffinatly are.

CHECK OUT THIS COMPILED LIST OF THE 10 MOST FASCINATING SAVANTS IN THE WORLD /i guess ever because some date back to the 16th century.
From sculpters, to musicians, to counters, to linguists, to even a blind girl that can walk with sonar and know what time of day it is at all times, these people are extraordinary ard worth a look at. And Stephen's up there.


Still this rare occurrence, like all other abnormalities, gives us insight into brain, and what intelligence really is. If you had to guess, what would it say about it?

30 second memory

In class last week, we discussed flashbulb memory but I thought it would be interesting to look at the opposite. In the you tube link it is a BBC documentary on a Clive Wearing, a man with anterograde amnesia, which means he can only remember about 30 seconds prior to the moment. The only person he remembers is his wife and every time he sees her, it is as if they have just spent years apart. He says that just before that moment he had no consciousness, no thoughts and no emotion. One thing that I thought was off was that he never questioned the camera. Maybe this is all good editing but I would think that he would constantly look at the camera and wonder why they were there

On the cognitive end, I thought it would be interesting to contrast a "normal' cognitive effect such as a flashbulb memory to an "unusual" memory effect. Knowing the spectrum of possibilities allows for a greater understanding of cognitive memory.
Having memory of the past makes us who we are in the present. Clive barely exists in our reality because he cannot understand and hold on to so many concepts that make us a human with consciousness. Is Clive still capable of cognitive thought?

I recently watched the movie Memento in which the Hollywood version of Clive Wearing. One thing the movie brings up is the difference between the physical and the psychological with the condition. Do people who suffer from this type of amnesia suffer it for psychological reasons or is that their brain physically can’t make the memories. An earlier poster put up the video on 9/11, which showed the amygdala firings change when recalling the memory depending on the distance from the area.

But I swear that's how it happened..

As you all already know, I read Remembering Satan for my presentation. Since finishing the book, I have been endlessly fascinated with learning more about the accuracy of memory, and the validity of "recovered" memories. I found an article in Science Daily about the subject. A Psychologist at the University of St. Andrews conducted a study investigating the differences between memories that are "spontaneously recovered", and memories that are recovered during suggestive therapy sessions.

The experiment involved 120 women, split into 4 groups (women who spontaneously remembered childhood sexual abuse, women who remembered sexual abuse during therapy sessions, women who had never actually forgotten their childhood abuse, and women who were never abused). The women participated in false-memory tests (see article for details), and the results were analyzed based on their classification.

According to the results, women who recovered their memories of childhood sexual abuse during suggestive therapy sessions were prone to false memories. This shows how common it is that memories are altered by "the seven sins of memory", particularly in this case, suggestion. This was exemplified in Remembering Satan, where the prompting of interrogators and therapists ended in a 20 year jail sentence for a man who was never guilty.

Savants

Although I am about to step on the toes of my own presentation (which is tomorrow), a Pratt announcement e-mail came that parallels it perfectly. If you are like me, you typically see those e-mails and just delete them, but this one refers to one of the topics I was planning on discussing tomorrow, and focuses on a subject that I have got a youtube video of all lined up of. His name is Stephen Wiltshire, and will be on campus tomorrow morning, featured on channel 2, drawing New York City entirely from memory. As shown before, he will do so with extreme accuracy if not complete perfection.

A mute until the age of three, when diagnosed with autism, Wiltshire's gift for architectural drawings was clear by the age of eight. He is classified as a savant, meaning that he has an unusual gift for a specific topic, in this case drawing, despite otherwise low intelligence and capabilities, a symptom present amongst the mentally challenged in some cases, and in most cases the talent is math, music, or art related. During my presentation I will go into more detail on this unusual occurrence, but it is still largely unknown how such gifts are possible.

So for those up early tomorrow morning..... turn on channel 2! from 7-9! As art students, watching him work is beyond amazing. One thing to notice though.... while his technical drawings are incredible and highly accurate, and the manner in which he draws, from one side of a page to the other as if he can already see the completed sketch and is simply tracing over it, notice the lack of atmosphere. While the structures and details are drawn in, shadows, light, and all sense of feeling seem absent. Why?

As we learned last week, flashbulb memories are easily morphed and altered within ones mind. A researcher at New York University by the name of Elizabeth Phelps, in conjunction with other researches around the world, has been looking at flashbulb memories connected to the September 11th attacks here in New York. More specifically, she has been looking at how people’s proximity to the actual event affects their memories of the event. She conducted MRI scans on people in New York City and the surrounding area to gauge how their brains reacted to remembering the event. She found that the part of the brain that reacts when feeling physically threatened was more active in people who were actually close to the towers as opposed to people who were farther removed. The study is still underway, and is being run in conjunction with a database that is scheduled to open to the public this year. Whether this affects how accurately people’s flashbulb memories of events are preserved is unclear, but Phelps’ own research may help to fill in that gap. Her other research focuses on the connection of memory and emotion, an interesting pairing when you consider how strongly emotions play into what you do and do not remember. Just thinking of how people suppress memories due to trauma makes clear how relevant her field of study promises to be.

A Brief Video About Phelps' 9/11 Research


An Article About Phelps


Phelps' NYU Lab Website

The 9/11 National Memory Survey website

The Wrong Answer

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=getting-it-wrong

This article is not directly related to this week's class, but it does have something to do with memory. Researchers at UCLA found that getting wrong answers can actually help with learning. Instead of attempting to avoid errors, under the assumption that they slow or prevent learning of the correct answers, it was found that getting the wrong answer and then learning the correct answer, helps us learn things better.

In one study, one group was made to guess at a weak word association, like "star" and "night," which they were unlikely to get on the first try, before being taught the correct answer. The second group was given the word pair to study for the same amount of time. The group who got the wrong answers first did about 10 percent better at remembering the pairs, and the effect even lasted after 38 hours. Another study used an essay with a pretest and got very similar results.

It's interesting how getting the wrong answer can actually be a good thing, as long as you learn the right answer later. I wonder if the reason this works is that you feel more involved with, and actually think about, what you are learning instead of just trying to memorize it.

Pratt 3d (finally relevant)

As most of us know, Pratt Institute has a very unique 3 dimensional abstraction program everyone takes it for one year and Industrial Design majors partake for 4. 

" In the effort to achieve an organic entity, the student must transpose the world about him into symbols of his expression using forces analogous to the ones which he finds in nature, e.g., balance not the symmetrical equalization of weight or median lines, but the dynamic distribution of it to achieve livingness; tension, the awareness of the drama of existing relationships in space between widely separated volumes which invariable demands a readjustment of the purely representative forms; opposition, the forceful relationship of the heterogeneous elements in the design structure; rhythm the major motive of movement throughout..."-Elements of design Rowena Kostellow

We spend weeks considering the "rules" everything considered by Hoffman, primarily creating a hierarchy of elements, and the relationships with in that hierarchy. 

Our relation in space defines our physical being in context.  Our visual intelligence, the way we perceive things in many ways defines our entity, however changing. The Steel structure above is by Richard Serra, he is probably the first artist we think of when we consider 3d abstraction. On the PBS site there is an interactive abstract visual experience on the bottom. And if ever the opportunity presents to visit his work you should go when its not crowded because if its quiet you can hear the echo of you heart beat in some spots.

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/serra/#

rachael

Mozart effect

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/february2/mozart-020205.html

While doing research for my project I've been reading about the "Mozart effect," which influenced the Baby Mozart videos as well as the whole classical music for kids fad. It even went as far as being used to pass laws in some states that required childcare centers to play classical music. It turns out this effect has basically become an urban legend. The original research was done on college students, and only helped them with certain kinds of tasks for about 10 minutes after listening to the music. Also, other studies done on the effect did not always get the same results.

Although research was never done on the effect in babies and children, many people came to believe that classical music could increase their babies' intelligence. This article describes how the effect was exaggerated and overgeneralized. It also introduces the opinion that the spread may be related to Americans' fears about education and knowledge.

One of my sources for the group project suggests that while listening to music may not increase children's intelligence, learning how to create music may have positive cognitive effects. This situation relates to what we did in class last week, when we reviewed each other's sources. It is important to do research even on our research, and not to extend a scientific finding to an area where it has not been tested.

Also, this site has some research on how music and music learning affects people cognitively and some studies related to the Mozart effect.

http://www.erin.utoronto.ca/~w3psygs/04.PUB.HTML

Distort This!

“Cognitive distortions are exaggerated and irrational thoughts identified in cognitive therapy and its variants, which supposedly perpetuate certain psychological disorders.” (Wikipedia)

Hey boys and girls! Happy Pre-Monday. For my blog this week I wanted to research more about cognitive distortion, which is more or less mental misconceptions that make people stressful, anxious, or depressed. As we go to art school, we all know that these factors, and a serious lack of sleep often kick us in the ass and make it difficult to work. I’m working in the class group dealing with the “environmental study space thing,” and I was thinking that if we could find a way to reduce anxiety, even on a short-term level, we can assist people’s productivity and drive with their work.
The Different type of distortions, are as follows, (according to Wikipedia, which is sourced to a few different sites,)
All or nothing thinking, overgeneralization, mental filter, disqualifying the positive, jumping to conclusions, magnification and minimization, emotional reasoning, “should” statements, labeling and mislabeling, and personalization.
If we take the last one, “Personalization,” which is basically feeling personally responsible for things you have no control over, or instead, blame others for your failure, it’s easy to see how natural this distortion is. There are always times when you may feel guilt for something you couldn’t even have done anything about, (the subway was wonky and you were late to work, for example,) or times where you blame others when you are also at fault. Ever had a group project where you stop caring about it and just say, “My partner had bad ideas we had to use,” or “It wasn’t my idea to use that color, paint, application,” etc…? Yeah. That’s what I mean. I feel that by just realizing these common distortions, it’s easier to catch yourself getting into a depression, or becoming anxious. Is there a way we can make others aware of these? Will the awareness help them realize when they are doing one of these actions? How? Here’s a video of this kid further attempting to explain the “jumping to conclusion,” distortion. He’s kinda silly and wearing a blazer from Express but hear him out. He makes some valid points.

http://www.youtube.com/user/CountDOODOO#p/u/8/DC0W8uDYQlY

Hoffman’s rules serve to point out how fragile and easily fooled our perception of the world around us, specifically our visual awareness, is. Some objects around us use multiple rules to fool our mind into seeing things differently than they actually are. 3D animations are a prime example of this as they create the sense of three dimensions even though they are a flat plane, and have a sense of movement even though they are actually a series of still frames played in sequence. Another example of this that has always struck me is the lights on theater marquees that simulate movement. Called “chase lights” in electrical terms, they work by having multiple sets of alternating lights arranged in a continuous line that switches between just a few circuits (normally two) in series, creating a sort of physical animation that fools the eye into thinking that the light is actually traveling around the sign instead of just back and forth. The sets are arranged such that the end of one set is placed next to the beginning of the following set. So when one cycle ends and jumps back to the beginning of each set, the light seems to move to the beginning of the next set as opposed to the beginning of the same set. This relies on Hoffman’s rules of creating the simplest possible motion (it is easier to conceive of a light moving around the sign instead of moving from one position to the next then moving back to its original position), and creating a uniform motion (the lights seems to continue on instead of starting at the beginning of their path, which seems more uniform as opposed to fragmented).




This example shows how the lights themselves don't even move, just simulate it.

Visual Rules

As art students, a mastery of the rules presented in How We Create What We See are, though it most likely goes unnoticed, part of our daily repertoire. A knowledge of visual interpretation and comprehension is necessary so it can be utilized in reverse to create depth, perspective, and realism in a two-dimensional surface and be reinterpreted back by the viewer as a three-dimensional entity. It is impossible to control and manipulate that which is not understood, so artists intending to represent something realistically must innately know all of these issues, as most likely the knowledge of such rules is not conscious, but underlying. What I think is most interesting is whether or not a realist has a grasp on these rules to a further extent than those lacking the ability to two dimensionally represent three dimensionality affectively.

Artistic masters without a doubt possess innately all of these rules, and street artist, Kurt Wenner, translates them in a fun, contemporary manner, manipulating traditional concepts of depth to create an extreme feeling of depth on a flat surface.

These are some examples which show the chalk artist's amazing use of manipulation and mastery of depth, as from all angles these depictions must be equally convincing. The woman appears to be sitting on a couch, and while there are other non realistic elements, such as the stopped motion, without further examination the scene looks quite real, if not at least confusing. While at first glance in the second image too, it seems the butterfly truly is a butterfly in flight, the dimension highlighted by the soft shadow.

Barn Doors and Darn Bores!

Lets face it, Michael Erard kinda comes off like a Dick. However, he did have a pretty interesting article on his, (extremely self promoting,) website, called “Read my Slips: Speech Errors Show How Language is Processed.”
Researchers analyzed slips of the tongue using bononos, to assist in understanding how humans use language. Kanzi, a 27 year old Bonobo knows the difference between different types of foods when tested on a lexigram, (a screen that shows words or visuals for different items,) however, sometimes when researchers asked him to touch the lexigram for blackberry, he might touch blueberry or cherries instead. This is similar to the way humans mix up colors, such as saying green instead of blue, or how one may mix up multiple wording because of repetition, for example, if you are trying to say Barn Door, but instead spill Darn Bores, simply changing around the first letter of each word.
Slips of this sort almost always affect nouns, or furthermore, “content words, (such as “cat,” “hat,”) rather than grammatical words, (such as “the,” or “in,”) because grammatical words are used more frequently.” Therefore, being consistently rooted into our conscious so we rarely mix them up. (This does not apply if you are speaking in a second language however.) There are some criticisms to this research, some believe we cannot relate ourselves to apes because in this study it can be argued that the bonobo was trained to respond in certain ways, not developed and conditioned like a human. Also, they keyboard proximity of the Lexigram could potentially account for errors. I prefer to continue believing in the more Freudian thought process. If I accidently say I’m drinking a beer when, in reality, im drinking water…I probably want to be drinking a beer. Maybe the bonobo just was hungry for a different type of fruit. Hah…But that’s not so Cognitive is it, Boys and Girls?

actually, don't go green

So I know we were supposed to post on that guy's blog, but I browsed his posts they've pretty much all been covered here already.
I guess I'll just post on our group project instead.
not sure if this link will work...
Apparently a study was done on the relationship between people's perceptions of social safety and the amount of "green space" they live around. We have discussed in class that persons who spend time out-of-doors or who have a view of green things from their office had a more developed ability to concentrate. What is interesting about this study is that people's feelings of social security are affected by whether they are viewing open green space (forests) versus closed green space (parks, urban gardens). A study of over 83,000 Dutch citizens living in urban and rural environments revealed that those who are frequently exposed to closed green space are likely to have diminished feelings of social safety. On the other hand, those who often inhabit areas of open green space are linked to feelings of social security. Although this study doesn't contradict the findings from the study we read in class, it is interesting to note that although having a view of trees from our studios may help us concentrate, it may also exaggerate our feelings of insecurity.

The Virtual Cliff experiment.

In the original experiment(above) the baby does not cross the glass but tin the updated new version, the baby will not cross the glass if the mother makes a scary expression. But if she makes a happy face the baby crosses the glass. I believe this is because the baby has learned to trust the mother and follows her even if its depth perception says otherwise.

Updated Virtual Cliff

I also read an article on land tortoises and their response to the visual cliff. They dint come near the edge, even as babies. Because tortoises use not only their eyes but also their limbs to navigate the space around them its strange that they dint reach out and try to make sure that the cliff is real, they relied only on their sight. But when aquatic tortoises where placed on the cliff board they "jumped" the cliff! Also they made the experiment even more detailed by making the cliff illusion deeper on one side and this cause more of the aquatic tortoises to "jump" as they preffered the shallow side 51 to 31.

In the Beginning Was the Word, and the Word Was “Um”

In Erards book “Um” and in many posts on his site, he makes a point to reveal our usage of pause fillers in conversation. He also tells us that even though they are inevitable, we strive to remove them from our speech. While reading Um I wondered where our desire for “umlessness” came from. When did we decide that filling a pause with sound was unattractive and incorrect? After all, these utterances are not completely meaningless. They are signs of thought.

An etiquette book from the 1930’s titled, “The Correct Thing, A Guide Book of Etiquette” by William Oliver Stevens disapproves of pause fillers. “Change pitch and tempo for variety. A slow steady drawl on one pitch will put any audience to sleep.” Even more offensive than this says Stevens is: “Tagging ‘uh’ after your words – ‘and uh…but uh’ – which is maddening to have to endure.”

In a post by Erard which links to one of the first articles he wrote on this linguistic subject, he states that in the early 20th century as American society became increasingly urbanized, we valued planning and efficiency. There was no place for “um” and “uh”. This would show weakness. Perhaps as Erard states, people thought this would reveal that “the bureaucracy in your head, of your self, was breaking down.”

It also became easier to point out verbal mistakes as the phonograph and radio drew attention to minute errors. Public speaking teachers also enforced this belief, and contributed to our feelings towards “um” today. The frequency of verbal blunders heard in the media now have lead to a more relaxed view of these pause fillers by some. They may not be widely accepted yet, but we seem to at least recognize their inevitability and occurrence for all people, regardless of status.

Reading the OED

Reading the Oxford English Dictionary,

Michael Erard, on his post 'At real art ways', had talked about another linguist Ammon Shea. Ammon spent an entire year reading the dictionary to then write a book about the experience. 

The book is about how books are just words put in a series to entertain. Most words in them selves are unnecessary, but can be amusing. In the book he points out Some of you reading this are no doubt thinking, “Why do I need this silly little word that describes ‘of or relating to breakfast’?” The answer is you don’t need it. But it is also true that you don’t need the overwhelming majority of words you use throughout the day, either, and jentacular is far more charming than most of them." He seeks out words, that bring a greater experience to conversation. When words are a vehicle of expression, its dictionary meaning when put into context gives the word an infinite number of meanings...or at least I think thats what he is alluding to. 

Also his writing style is especially interesting in that when he writes be it book, blog, or letters he will identify words of importance with (n.) or (v.), I guess because he doesn't hold much faith in others vocabulary. 

"Oddly inspiring...Shea has walked the wildwood of our gnarled, ancient speech and returned singing incomprehensible sounds in a language that turns out to be our own.”-Times review 

http://thebookladysblog.com/2009/01/12/book-review-reading-the-oed-by-ammon-shea/

"Read My Slips: Speech Errors Show How Language Is Processed"

Speaking of slips, in Michael Erard's article "read my slips" he substantiates the theory that we learn from our mistakes. Initially, he takes a look into the experiments surrounding Kanzi, a 27 year old Konobo (ape) who connects spoken words to lexigrams (abstract visual symbols). ALthough Kanzi makes her mistakes in identifying the correct lexigrams at times, what is most interesting is that when asked to distinguish blackberry, she will pick a similar (if not the correct) lexigram, like hot dogs, cherries, and blueberries. This signifies a complex system of classifying words established mainly on their meaning and sound, and thus implicates "that, given the chance, bonobos and other apes can acquire systems of meaning that are closer than anyone has thought to what humans do, and that some aspects of language acquisition are not unique to humans."
Most scientists believe that language and sounds are stored in a type of network in the brain. In relation to mundane slips of the tongue, there is much to be learned as well. Cognitive scientist Gary Dell proposed that

"when sounds or words stored in such a network are selected, this also strengthens or "activates" neighboring words or sounds, which may be misread as the right ones. In his model, people forced to speak quickly make more errors not because they have more opportunities to do so but because the stimulation of neighboring units has less opportunity to fade. Dell also proposes that practice tends to activate present and future units more than past ones. As a result, the more practice a speaker has, the higher the proportion of anticipatory errors, although overall errors decrease."

through further study it is found that the same slips can be found in writing, insinuating "that humans possess a single language faculty regardless of how they deploy it" although some of this may be contributed to lapses in motor skills as well.

Interesting stuff, and it reminds me of the speech exercises I did back in my short-lived actress phase. Did these small warm-ups stem from the study of languages and slips? Or were they born out of sheer logic? Try saying Toy Boat 15 times fast and tell me if that seems like a cognitive or a motor slip to you.

Article

Erard On Politial Slips of Tongue

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Erard was asked by a reporter for a news blog, called Portfolio, to comment on the trend of public figures mixing up the names “Obama”, as in Barak Obama, and “Osama”, as in Osama Bin Laden. Two reporters for CNN (Glenn Beck and Alina Cho), and Mitt Romney are the offenders mentioned in the article. The article is an interesting exploration into how our political views affect our thought processes on more basic level. Erard says that while these linguistic missteps are just that, mistakes. He also states that one of the possible reasons for their occurrence is that the two names were categorized in the minds of the people speaking in a negative light. Glenn Beck now has his own show on the conservative cable news network Fox News, and Mitt Romney was running against Obama in the presidential election that year. Erard suggests that due of the probable negative connotation that both “Obama”, and “Osama” had in the minds of the people who made the mistakes, and the similarity of both names, the names were swapped. He also points out that both of the names are not English, which he claims makes them less familiar and therefore more easily swapped. The juxtaposition of political preference and Erard’s interpretation of language mistakes becomes even more interesting when you read his blog post about the article for which he was interviewed. While shying away from stating his own political beliefs directly, the tone of the post seems to be too upset at people trying to portray the slips of tongue as a conspiracy to smear Obama for someone who has a well reviewed published book. While I am sure that Erard did his best to honestly access the spoken missteps that he was questioned about, it still makes me wonder. Like Erard states there is not enough evidence to justify a conspiracy theory, the tone of the response he posts is not enough to make any substantial guess as to what his political beliefs are, but it is enough to make one wonder how Erard’s own political bias affects his judgment of the situation.

View the article here
View Erard's blog response here

The Significance of Word

I find this article very interesting, primarily the first few paragraphs, before Erard delves into a political connection and analysis. He is addressing at the start the importance of a word, and what a word truly is. In reality, a word is nothing. A simple string of sounds tied together in a universally agreed upon manner, a symbol for the entity itself, a "grafting of the arbitrary onto the utterly conventional", Erard states. A word in itself is just that- a powerless nothing. However, he finds interest in language as a whole, as an entity in its own right, with the stringing together of individual words to produce a thought being an output of the mind, a creation of a being, as described through his nail analogy. A word can tell you nothing. However, when processed through the mind, their combination and output can tell you everything, as Erard addresses as he flows into a political realm.

I found this video by a cognitive psychology and linguistics professor, here he speaks of the meaning of the word, language, and specifically in this clip how it relates to politics, connecting well with the issues that Erard establishes.

Playground designs from the 70s

http://www.divinecaroline.com/22111/84399-playgrounds-70-s

Just wanted to share this awesome link...(you'll still need to do the other blog posting as well though)

Playground Designs from the 70s

http://www.divinecaroline.com/22111/84399-playgrounds-70-s

All blog posts should originate from this website this week...

http://michaelerard.com/

(Rebecca posting under Shirin's name)

What's in a [word]?

A word is a verbal abstraction, created by and evolved within a society to represent a concrete or abstract entity to allow for communication. However, without the word the entity still is comprehensible, and undoubtedly exists. With one word, open interpretation and individual experience can lead us to derive different meanings and perceptions of the word. As society progresses and grasps new concepts, the language adapts as society adds new symbols (words) to further define entities. While a word is assigned a concrete definition, it's perception is objective and allows for a society to form as a whole a word's connotation, which changes as a culture does. Referencing Pinker's example, while three words carry the same denotation, their connotations are very different:

"I am firm, you are obstinate, he is pigheaded.", or "I am exploring my sexuality, you are promiscuous, she is a slut."

Abstract thought can also exist outside of words. Music and art are also versions of abstraction that exist without the use of words. A painting of a farmer in a field acts as an abstract symbol of that instance, just as the word field acts as a symbol for the idea of a field.  Seeing the image of the farmer in the field creates a thought process of its own that does not necessarily utilize words. Cognitive thought is not bound by language, however it is directly affected by it. Abstract thought relies more heavily upon language, yet there are other forms of abstract thinking that utilize cognition. Such things as visual language are equivalent to and sometimes communicate information more easily than written language, and thus written language is not the only means for cognitive processes. Language therefore is not required for cognition as it serves merely as a symbol which can be, sometimes more effectively, represented in another manner. 

Shirin, Kaylee, Chance, Carolina, Megan.

Our group, the Weiner Winners, recognize that Language affects one’s conception of reality. If we look at the example of two different languages, one example within the Science Forum discussion on Language and it’s influence on thought, “Hypography,” being Korean and English, it is noted that between these two vastly different languages, concepts are expressed uniquely. It reflects on the statement of, in English being, “I am going to the store,” that this expression to an English speaking individual is regarded as, “I am coming to the store and coming back.’ However, in Korean, you would not assume the person is coming back unless the person specifically states such. Therefore, language must be naturally built around of perception of reality. According to Pinker, “Language is understood in multiple as well as in direct [parts] of the content of the sentence.” Pinker 22. Therefore we can conclude that language is not thinking, but the expression of the process of cognition.

We use metaphors and analogies within everyday life in the physical world to assist in explanation of abstract thoughts, which often can create discrepancies between unique experiences and cultural context. This can be seen in the work of Lawrence Weiner…He’s so bad ass.

The work that he creates utilizes text and various graphic elements to create unique sculptural experiences for each viewer. Although the visual experience of the sculpture is universal, each person, based on their relationship to the language, viewers will create different abstract associations with his work. Closing thoughts anyone? Word.

Link to in-class Pinker forum post assignment

http://hypography.com/forums/linguistics/18527-language-and-its-influence-on-thought.html

A few posts down and you'll find the popular BBC article on weapon gathering chimps.

Cognition in Music

http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.pratt.edu:2048/stable/1577332?seq=1

In our "alternative" group, we have decided to pursue research on the cognitive elements of musicology. As a sub-sect of this, I have looked further into what is called motor-mimetics, which involves the "non-sonic" aspects of music and music creation. This article, by Rolf Inge Godoy, explains how our mental images of musical sound effect our cognitive understanding of music. This relationship is referred to as the motor theory of perception. When we hear music, be it a single drum beat or a complex composition, we may unconsciously imitate the music with sound producing actions, or imagine the music as an actual entity of which we may "trace the contours as it unfolds". According to Godoy, music is much more than just what we hear, and listening to it appeals to all of our other senses, as would any other fully cognitive activity.

Godoy summarizes his theory here:

"There is now a growing amount of evidence in the cognitive sciences, both in the domain of audition research and in general, indicating that this sensory integration is not a secondary "by-product" of a "pure" sound stimulus, as has been the dominant Western view of perception and cognition in the past couple of centuries. In particular, I believe that we have good reason to suspect that images of sound-producing actions such as hitting, stroking, blowing, etc. play an important role in our images of musical sound, hence my idea here of motor-mimetic elements in music cognition."

After reading this article, I am curious to see how the idea of motor-mimetics effects the actual musical creator, as they produce it, and how our total sensory perception of music effects us emotionally.

Cognitive development toys

Role of Play in Children 1-4 article on JSTOR

Great article for project!!!!! Lots of general information!

The key point that this article explores are that in order for a child to develop well mentally, numerous cognitive skills have to be taught; such as engagement, persistence and resistance to distraction=attention, memory and motor skills. Therefore in order to have a toy that benefits the child's cognitive development this toy has to have these components; visual object manipulation and memory. Then the article goes into case studies of how cognitive development is measured in pre-schoolers, such as problem solving. Furthermore they state that most of these cognitive development studies are inaccurate or inconclusive because they fail to measure the progress of children to adults. These studies also fail because when the cognitive memory tests are given; the child might score lower/show weaker memory or problem-solving skills because of being in an unfamiliar environment with strangers. Then the article goes into the actual studies and scientific/statistic details which are very dry and confusing. But overall this article was very helpful for our Cognitive Toy Design project because it listed the three aspects that are key in play and cognitive development.

Cognitive Toy

The site “Ape to Zebra” promotes childs toys that assist in cognitive development. They aren’t marketed to target the psychological field of cognition, but some of the toys seem to address relevant topics. This has not been proven and is my own theory. Take a look at the Rainbow Stacking Rings below. They come in two versions, one is on a larger scale.

Memory plays a large role in block play. Playing with this type of toy can stimulate touch perception. The blocks provide your sensory receptors with information to be stored in memory. Touch can create mental imagery, which aids in memory retention.
Memory also allows you to recall actions and motor sequences, such as the process you used to arrange the blocks. If they fell the first few times you set them up, you may reconfigure the order.

Attention might also be learned through the use of this toy. By concentrating on one aspect of the environment, you are able to focus.
Problem solving, another focus of cognitive psychology, can also be strengthened.

Research done at Temple University concludes that simpler toys such as blocks, crayons and clay are healthier for children than expensive electronic toys that don’t allow them to be expressive and make their own decisions. Unfortunately, these blocks are pricey, at 71.55 USD because the dies are all natural and the rings are made from solid wood.

Charles Bonnet Syndrome

Last week in my seminar class, my professor showed a video shot by her son. Curiously, it aligned with my own concerns about hallucinations vs. perception of reality that have grown out of the book I'm reading for class. The man in the video is Oliver Sacks, a neurologist and author/poet (The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat), and he is speaking about Charles Bonnet syndrome. Charles Bonnet syndrome affects people who are blind to some degree and manifests as vivid, recurrent hallucinations. More often than not, sufferers posses no other symptoms of mental disorder.

I think I am compelled by this subject because the process of art-making has taught me how much reality depends on individual perception. As someone who creates, it is necessary to grasp the physicality of a presently non-existent object from a future time in order to map out the the construction of some such object. In other words: the artist or craftsperson must possess a powerful, often visual, imagination. When I am confronted with the task of making art, I believe that the process of planning out the final product is more or less a hallucination of sorts. This belief is often validated by the fact that my paintings or pottery almost never look or function the way that I had originally imagined they would. 

To be clear, those who suffer from Charles Bonnet syndrome are unlike craftspeople because their hallucinations are not the result of willful imagination or from their subconscious mind. But I think that Oliver Sacks is well spoken in the beginning of the video when he states the fact that, "we see with the eyes, but we see with the brain as well". 

What Hallucinations Reveal About Our Minds

Pratt Cognitive Study Space

Herman Miller, a Michigan based office furniture manufacturer, as a gesture of Google-like corporate good will makes their research available to the public (and their competitors). Much of their research is about improving spaces that people inhabit and work in through creating more effective products that are conducive to improved learning and working environments. Specifically the essays titled “Enriching the Learning Experience”, “Forming Places that Form Ideas”, “Library Redefined”, and “Rethinking the Classroom” specifically apply to creating effective study spaces. While not justified by means of cognitive psychology, the essays are great case studies of other spaces that have been created and/or modified with the same intention of creating an improved study space. The essays also describe different solutions to help concentration and involvement. The article “Rethinking the Classroom” has good data on information retention in relation to how the information is presented, and on student and teacher preferences for room type and flexibility. Another essay, “Forming Places that Form Ideas”, has interesting information about learning as a social activity, a relatively new concept in the history of education. While the essays do promote the company is a not so subtle way, they are well researched and referenced, making them valuable justifications for an improved study space on the Pratt campus, as well as a valuable resource for further research.

To download pdfs of the essays, click here

Hey Kids! So, I'm in the group in class developing some type of "relaxation environment," that's conducive to studying/working. The second day of class we all went around and talked about something new we did with our study spaces to assist us with our work. Some people added a fancy plant, some changed their lighting, etc... Besides creating an environment in terms of lighting, atmosphere, (incenses...haha) etc... we as a group have to be aware of what backround noise is interfering with our exphttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDYq8-3wta0eriment. If natural backround noise occurs, such as construction, (depending on where our room is located,) or some other external source that we cannot control, it will (duh) alter our experiment. So theres absolute silence as a control, or some sort of established backround noise. In terms of what I see in the labs and through m friends, we all work best with some sort of back round noise or music. It's brutal to most people I know to be in lab without their headphones. I read "A Journal of Music Therapy," by Jason L. Burns, which I found through the Pratt E-Reference. It's a study where the "effects of different types of music on perceived and physiological measures of stress were evaluated" according to the basic abstract of the journal. Basically, they took 60 college students and said they were going to take a very serious test. Half the students waited to take the test in a silent room, while the other half waited in a room that was playing "soothing music." The people who listened to music were deemed as less stressed, through their change in arterial pressure, hear rate, skin temperature, etc...Great, right!?! However, it was also found that people who listened to their own personal music before a stressful situation, rather than those who listened to a generic "soothing" mix were even more calm before a stressful situation, such as a big exam or presentation. So the question is, Dear Class, how could our group personalize each persons "relaxation" music within our environment? Is it even possible or should we just test of relaxation room using a generic mix of what a majority considers to be relaxing. My relaxing music of the week is the Avett Brothers, I and Love and You. (Cheesy, I know.) My study buddies said i listened to it so much their nerves were shot.....Sleep on that.

universals in music

http://www.jstor.org/stable/851047?seq=2

Universals in Music: a perspective from cognitive psychology by Dane Harwood.
Ethnomusicology, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Sep., 1976), pp. 521-533

Based on my group’s research in the out of the box group, we came up with an article that articulate and pinpoint universals in music from the perspective of cognitive psychology. The article stated the importance of the definition and study of universals in music because the categorization aids the organization of the design of the studies and the correlation between universals in music and language. The parallels of music and language sparked further interest for me after having just finished “In other words”. When formulating universals, the article takes several factors into account like public cultural boundaries regarding music, listening context, structure and function.

In the article, the section on melodic contour interested me the most. The article asserts that many cultures music is stored in our memory by picturing it’s melodic contour. That is how the sounds all fit together and not how each individual sound relates in interval change to the next. That is our cognitive process “chunks” the music and creates generalization on the information processed on an abstract level and from there a detailed analysis can be accessed. This idea transferred tot eh actual listening of melodies created a melodic fission. It has been tested that cross-culturally many of minute intervals are perceived in the same degree of specificity. “In Other Words” noted that in English the difference between the sounds ba and pa is time between making the sound with our vocal chords and our lips smacking the air. For native English speakers this timing is within a very specific range and the differentiation between the two is precise based on each individual speaker. This overlap between language and music is something that is very interesting, although it is not a topic that my group will not be exploring in depth.

Study Space

Our group project is to create an ideal study space, and I found a very interesting journal in the process of researching articles on the topic. It is called Environment and Behavior, a bi-monthly publication, and has a rather extensive online journal available, though some of the articles do result in the site prompting you to sign up (and of course pay) to read them. Nonetheless, a good deal of information is available for free here, and the Pratt Library also carries it. The journal is based on the most recent studies of the influence of environment on the individual, groups, and societies as a whole, addressing natural and built environments. Most importantly, one of the publications main goals is to test and evaluate the success of structures designed for a specific purpose, whether or not the effectively draw out in people what they were intended to, as well as the relationship between human behavior and their environment. It presents readers with both science and psychology, focusing on studies that deal with the close interrelation. Book reviews, recent studies, and articles by experts in the field are included within each, ranging from extremely comprehensible and relatable to far over most of our heads, but in general is incredibly interesting and relates directly to the studies we read about in class in reference to environment and cognition.

Image of Memory Made

Without memories, you wouldn’t even remember reading this. Memories make our lives possible. We would not be able to learn, progress, or even have social interactions on the level that we do every day without the ability to remember. Yet we (or maybe just I) understand relatively little about how memories are made within our brains. Recently, an image of memories being formed was captured for the first time by scientists at McGill University, UCLA, and The Montréal Neurological Institute and Hospital (also know as “The Neuro”). The image is of proteins being formed at a synapses. Synapses are the connections between brain cells that form a huge network within the brain that is constantly fluctuating. This fluctuation allows for activities such as learning and memory to occur, this is known as synaptic plasticity. What the images demonstrates is how memories, specifically long-term memories, are made permanent. The proteins that are being formed in the image act to strengthen the synapse, and thereby strengthen the memory that is being formed. This makes the connection, and thereby the memory, more permanent. Apparently, this process has been know to happen when new memories are formed, but until now has never been imaged, making this the first visual proof. It is interesting that something that we perceive as so complex and ephemeral, such as memory, is created by proteins.

ScienceDaily (June 19, 2009)

Additional blogging guidelines

I was trying to avoid giving a word count requirement but it seems that it would help level the playing field. There is now a 200 word minimum (400 word maximum) for blog posts. If your prior posts or comments were under 100 words, you may want to go back and beef it up to boost your grade.

The topic quality has been fantastic and on-point with the class material. Keep it up!