Were you born with a good memory?

Does biology and genetics decide whether a person has a good memory? Or is the brain a muscle that can be exercised and strengthened so that it can hold more information?

"For many centuries it was felt that mind-brain with its memory component was like a muscle — if you exercised it enough, it became bigger, healthier, and more efficient [cf. chapter three]. When I was young, most college-bound high school students were forced to study Latin. They were told that this study was good exercise for their brains and memories. With enough study of Latin, they would be able to learn practical disciplines more efficiently. Today, the analogy of memory and muscle causes chuckles of amusement at the innocence and simplicity of former educational and psychological theory. Today, most students of cognitive psychology believe that memory is physically determined. Individual differences allow for some small improvement, but generally a good memory remains good and a poor memory remains poor. Not much hope for the learning disabled here.However, some modern researchers feel that memory can improve dramatically with training. "

In my mind it seems more practical to assume that we are born with good memory or poor memory, but regardless of that I would like to believe that the mind can be improved with continuous work and effort. Which party is actually right about this I am not sure? Click here for the full article

false memories

have you ever questioned the memories that you have?

the memories that you recall, are you sure that they are real? 

real, as in did they really exist? or are they just made up in your head and you just assume that they are real?

as far as i know, up till now, i never questioned my memories being false. i automatically thought that what ever memories that i have, that they did really happen, but there are such things called false memory syndrome. even if this doesn't seem plausible, it is possible because our memories do get distorted over a period of time. like in our reading, and through the experiment that Schmolck performed, memories are not as vivid after a long period of time, and especially after about 32 months, the vivid memories that we seem to recall may be made up by our own mind behind our backs. but unlike the flashbulb memory, the false memory syndrome (a term created by Peter J. Freyd) describes an alleged condition in which a person's identity and relationships are affected by memories which are factually incorrect but are strongly believed.

for example, in the article that i read a women who went through an alcoholic family, two divorces and numerous other unfortunate situations in her life, she checked herself into a treatment center. there, she was put through numerous drugs that "clouded her mind" she also went through several intensive therapy sessions where she concluded that she has been sexually abused and because of that it lead to series of unfortunate events. this was not true,but it was due to the false memory syndrome. 

at the end of the article, i havent really grasped the idea WHY this happens to us

so, i would like to know whyyyy.

article here.

Alzheimers

All my childhood I grew up with my Bubby (Great grandmother) who developed Alzheimer's when I was about twelve years old. Since then I have always valued my memories, and pressured myself to remember every single important thing or piece of information (doesn't always happen) I continuously write everything down and keep journals so I can look back and remember my memories. It is pretty obvious I am afraid I will develop Alzheimer's. So is bad memory just bad memory or something more? How do you know when you have Alzheimer's? On the website www.seniorhealth.about.com there is a list of "signs" of Alzheimer's. One of the signs is forgetting how to use ordinary objects such as a pencil (I suppose forgetting how to use a pencil is more than bad memory). But then there are the things like forgetting to lock the door, shut off the oven or close the windows, all of which are things I and everyone else is very capable of forgetting. Can we stop Alzheimer's? Do slight signs of Alzheimer's show in young age? No fear, because at the end it assures me that everyone forgets some things, and it doesn't mean you have Alzheimer's :) . At www.mayoclinic.com they say that early onset Alzheimer's can develop at the age of 30 t0 40 but it is very very uncommon, it can also develop at the age of 65 and older. Unfortunately Alzheimer's is said to run in families, so genetic testing is available.

How Reliable Are Your Memories?

The article I read examined the issue of repressed memories. Considering the readings for this week, there seems to be a lot of support for the author's theory that many so-called "repressed" memories recall an incident that may have never, in fact, actually happened. The article summarizes a study done on a mother and her two sons. They were described an event that never actually happened to them as if it was something that they simply didn't remember. Specifically, that one of the sons was lost at the mall and returned to the mother through the kindness of a stranger. While this memory never existed in any of their minds prior to this, because it never happened, they were all able to be fully convinced that the event occured. What I think is most interesting is not simply that they were convinced that it happened, but their minds began to develop additional supporting memories of details. For example, that the man who returned the son to the mother had a beard and was wearing red suspenders. The seeming randomness of these details is fascinating. Furthermore, they all agreed on the same details. What does this mean? Maybe that they all shared, subconciously, memories of a similar man? Where did their minds pull this information from?

Everyone has those disagreements with friends about how a specific story went or how a situation unfolded: who said and did what, with whom, where? Like anyone else, I've been at least somewhat convinced that my memory of the event was incorrect by the intensity of another person who really recalled the event vividly. But like the imaginary bearded man in red suspenders, how accurate are any of these supposedly vivid details?

The author put the study in a more serious context, questioning the validity of the often sexually abusive in nature repressed memories that come up when people undergo psychoanalysis. I'd be interested to see how much more of a push it would have taken to, as the author suggests, convince the mother and her two sons that while the son was in custody of the bearded man, he had been in some way molested. If they can seemingly pull memories of this event out of thin air, how much more of a stretch would it have been to add another more serious event? It may even be easier to convince them of this because of the reputation of memories of traumatic events, especially from childhood, to be repressed. Do you think someone could convince you that something that you walked into the conversation thinking never occurred actually happened?

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/look-it-way/201001/recovered-memory-syndrome

Perception & Art

After the reading on depth perception, I decided to do some further research on how the mind work when it comes to depth perception relating to drawing and observations. Below is a quote taken from and article written by Boris Rauschenbach, called Perspective Pictures and Visual Perception. "This geometrical scheme of the non-distorted visual perception of a room demonstrates why a distortion-free system for the representation of visual perception is impossible. By strictly following visual perception in the representation of different objects (here the floor, the walls, etc.), the artist is forced to overlap images or to 'break up' the picture; the resulting image cannot be regarded as an accurate representation of visual perception. In the same way, if a three-dimensional model of our visual perception of a room is flattened on the plane, the model will break up and sections will overlap. " The author explores different models of perception and concludes that the "Renaissance perspective" we all had to master freshman year drawing class, cannot set the aesthetic standard for a 'correct' perspective because it is only one of the possible variants.

The article is interesting and is worth a quick read! (Only a few pages!) Read Here.

Armpit psychology

Vision is perhaps mankind's most evolutionally developed and complex sense and thus gets a lot of attention. It is by far the most important sense for our survival and our ability to function in society. Smell, however, is a much less emphasized area of research. This study looks at body odor and its relevance to physical attraction. A few conclusions were reached that testify to smell's importance and the intricacy of the somewhat subconscious workings of our olfactory senses, however inferior they may be to other animals. Firstly, the factor of odor is capable of overriding visual attractiveness in the scenario of sexual attraction. A person with perfect facial features can be deemed undesirable if the odor is too much. On the other hand, androstadienone, a kind of pheromone, can stimulate interest. Thus, as humans we are not nearly as visual as we thought. In fact, our evolutionary path probably has been dictated by our smell (who we chose as mates, who we passed our DNA on to, etc.) The other crucial findings are that we find the smells that don't reminds us of our own to be more attractive. Family members prefer (relatively) the BO of people outside of their family. This can be interpreted as incest avoidance- people don't want to breed with those that are in their immediate genetic range. It would be interesting to know whether other animals use smell in a similar way. Knowing that we have far fewer olfactory nerves than, say, a dog, would we as humans be a more incestuous species than others? Could this mean that it is only a matter of time until all the incest breeds disease that wipes us all out?

Link:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=armpit-psychology-body-odor

In 3-D

The phrase in 3-D has been used time and time again, especially recently, in many live action or 3-d modeled animated films. This visual interpretation of entertainment has even been said to move towards television and even pornography. This form of perceiving things visually is actually one of ten types of cues, with in the realm of depth perception. Parallax is a cue that falls under the Monocular cue, which provides the depth of information, when viewing a scene with one eye. Movies and televisions display technologies that only offer motion parallax-based depth cues, which allows your brain to only process one maybe two other cues out of ten to watch a 3-d film. Take the movie Avatar for instance, it makes you ignore several other cues in your brain, when applying this to a movie is fine but applying it to a tv for hours can really alter one's depth perception.

http://www.thisisbrandx.com/2010/02/is-3d-television-the-future-of-entertainment-a-very-different-perspective.html

sensory filtration

have you ever been seen a child hypnotized by a TV? glassy eyed, open mouthed, and in his or her own world. maybe it's just my 9 and 5 year old cousins that allow themselves to become so detached. shouting their names repeatedly will sometimes give no response at all. stepping between them and the tv will only make them snake around the obstruction or cause them to become awkwardly frustrated. as stated in the reading, "we are continuously filtering all this available input and using only a small percentage of it". Children are plugging themselves in to some form of two dimensional entertainment at early and earlier ages, for longer periods of time. an average child could wake up, watch tv as he or she eats breakfast, zone out with a psp and an ipod on the way to school, and spend the rest of the day jumping from computer to iphone to television, to psp, to things i'm not even aware of. and as people grow up with growing levels of two dimensional stimuli surrounding them at all times, what is happening to their depth perception? The reading mentions a scene from the movie Airplane, in which the viewer is tricked into thinking a telephone set in the foreground is of average size, until an actor answers the phone that is actually 3 feet across. tricks like these, as well as using miniature props or sets filmed up close to fool the viewer into thinking the objects are all natural size, would be very easy to spot in real life. but people now spend seemingly equal if not more amounts of time starring blankly at 2D screens, as they would looking through real 3 dimensional life. like the Bambuti Pygmies lack of depth perception, due to lack of open spaces, will people begin to lose their ability to distinguish between pixilated realistic depth and the real world?

Free Fallin'

This week I watch a video of a study, piloting free fall experiments to explore time warping during high adrenaline situation. Dr Eagleman, the conductor of the study posts some intriguing questions. How does adrenaline effects our perception of time itself? can the human mind actually slow time down? adrenalne soups up our muscles and nervous system, but Dr. Eagleman wants to know if it also speeds up the brain and the amount of information it can take in from the senses. After the test subject took the plunge, they were asked to gauge how long they felt the fall itself lasted(by using a stopwatch). The majority believed the fall to have lasted nearly twice as long than it actually did. Is this perception a survival mechanism we have to speed our brain up, and perceive time in "slow motion" giving us the ability to make the best decision/response necessary for survival in life threatening situations? I think that there has to be some truth to this idea of time perception, based on my own experiences as well as this study. But, I am skeptical as to the ability of the rest of our motor skills to respond in a similar way. I mean, i suppose there are those stories of someone having moments of super strength in dire situations, but it is an aspect that is not addressed in this study. If you are going to post the question, like Dr. Eagleman does, of can the human mind slow down time(with adrenaline) in order to respond faster? than the question that must be posed is, how will they respond? how fast will the response take?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG6nZY9Bxy0

Cloud Faces

Have you ever looked up in the sky and thought that a cloud resembled something else like a face, or an animal? Perhaps a dragon? Well here, these 2 professors try to understand what is happening when you see that cloud that looks like something else.

I came across this podcast from 2 lecturers, Nigel Hault and Ian Walker, from Bath Spa University and University of Bath, UK. In their podcast, they explain perception and attention and what it means through top-down/bottom-up processing. One of their students questioned why she thought clouds looked like faces and no one else saw it. They begin by explaining how and why our mind tries to make sense of things that we perceive as something else. One of them mentions how Aristotle breaks down perception into a two stage process: 1) working out what is around you and 2) using that information to do things. Through a person's experience, hopes, and expectations, our minds turn objects into other things we can pay attention to and make sense of. So in the case of the cloud faces, she tried to make sense of it through her reflection of something she thought of previously or experienced lately. Also, sometimes when you do expect or hope for something, your mind is already concentrating on that object and so your mind seeks that specific object and so you visualize what you seek to see.

Ink block tests are used as a way to tell what's in a person's mind. These images are of just ambiguous shapes, kind of like clouds. How the person perceives these images can determine what a person is thinking and/or what a person is suffering from.

The podcast is about 20 mins. long, if you're interested in listening. They're actually pretty entertaining. Here's the link. http://odeo.com/episodes/23109344-PsychoPod-Attention-and-Perception

Us and animals

It is a curious thing I think that we should perceive the way we do, maybe if perception is a matter of evolution, either nature or nurture, the way humans do it specifically is why we've become, for a lack of a better term, civilized.
Granted we really can't account for what other animals are processing, but every animal, including us seems to do it very specifically. Dogs for example, because of their noses, they smell through time in a way that hard for us to even grasp. New smells come as old ones fade, they're aways processing whats in the next wind, as well as the fact they have a higher retinal count, meaning they process more in a second than we can. The whole article is here. Even animals like raccoons, they have hands so sensitive that they are said to be able to actually map items and understand them dimensionally only with their hands.
But what of us, we don't smell the future and we can't see with our hands, but I think the difference is what we can do, our ability to shut things out, to prioritize and process selectively, that's our strength. In the way we've built our world, we would likely lose it if all information held the same weight, right now my upstairs neighbor's dog is going wild on the wood floor, but that is almost irrelevant compared to finishing this sentence.

Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight

Jill Bolte Taylor is a brain researcher who makes her living by trying to understand everything about how the brain works. She studies how the brain perceives the world around us also how the brains of people with severe mental illness are different that people with normal brain activity. This TED talk is especially interesting because she recounts the events of one specific morning when she woke up with a hemorrhage in the left side of her brain. She talks about how the two halves of the brain are completely different in their functions and that they have different personalities. The right side is all about the here and now and the energy all around us and the connections that we share. The left side thinks linearly and methodically and thinks about the past and future. The left hemisphere thinks in language. It is the side that tells us that we are individuals and disconnects us from the energy that surrounds us. This is the side that she lost when she had her stroke. She woke up with a pounding headache and her consciousness began to shift away from her normal perception of reality. She began to feel everything slow way down and shes focused on her internal functions. She noticed that she couldn't define the boundaries of her body because the molecules of her body blended with the molecules of the world around her. The left brain chatter totally shut off. She talks about the emotional peacefulness that she felt. The entire time her brain is switching back and forth between conscious thought and "La La Land." During this process she distinctly remembers thinking "I'm having a stroke, this is so cool. How many brain scientists get to study their brains from the inside?" After she recovered from her stroke she talks to audiences all over about how you are able to control the perceptions of your own mind and how it took this stroke of insight to discover the possibilities.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

Interest and Perception.

A while ago back in high school, my psychology teacher had us watch a video of students passing a basketball. There were two teams, one team wearing white, and the other team wearing black. The teacher asked us to count the number of times the white team had passed the ball. During the video a person in a gorilla costume walked though the scene pounded his chest and left. After the short clip was over, my teacher asked us if anyone had noticed the gorilla. To my suprise there were a number of students who weren't able to see the gorilla untill the teacher replayed the video and didn't give us a "task" such as counting the number of times the white players pass the ball. At http://uk.video.yahoo.com/watch/4922201 there is a video of Bob Davies, who speaks about perception and the limits of human observation. He goes on the talk about how we, as humans functioning in this soceity, get so "bogged" down with things like the economy, that we aren't living to our full potential. Could this video test be more of personality quiz? Determining which people don't let things cloud their reality?

Irregardless, this video has a strong connection to everyday life. For example when you have a relationship with another person, whether it be a romantic relationship or just friends, and something goes wrong and you're in a fight over something they did to you, all of your thoughts towards them will be negative, and everything they do will only remind you of their wrong doings, and it will be hard for you to judge them on the fact that they might actually not be such a bad person. These thoughts conclude that people only pay attention to what they want and their perceptions can be interuppted by opinions, causing everyone's reality to differ.

time flies when your having fun

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=if-time-flew-you-had-fun-09-12-15

They say time flies when your having fun, but a study in the journal Psychological Science they found when one perceives time to go faster they had fun. Subjects were tested listening to a recording, one ground for around five minutes, the other around twenty minutes, both being told the recording was ten minutes. The results were the five minute group had more fun than the twenty minute group.

After reading this I can't say I am quite convinced. What if you are doing something you genuinely enjoy and time does not seem to "fly"? Does this mean you did no have fun? I'll agree that when time moves fast things seem to be more enjoyable, but not in every case. And how does this compare to how we perceive memories where time seemed to stop? I feel like time flew regardless of a good or bad event most of the time when regarding a past memory. Perhaps I just have a bad memory.

Filtering Through Filters

Doing the Hock reading on the subway made sensory organization an extremely relevant topic for discussion. Hock asserts that ”We are continuously filtering all this available input and using only a small percentage of it. If your sensory filtering mechanisms were suddenly to fail, the world would become so intensely confusing that you would be overwhelmed, and probably you would not be able to survive it” (Hock 34).
Clearly our sensory filters develop through our environment and our experiences, but how much does their functionality depend on the nature of our environment and experiences? For instance, does someone from a small town in Iowa develop a sensory filtering mechanism as sophisticated as that of a subway-riding Manhattanite? Probably not. And if what Hock asserts is true, then as the world continues to urbanize, those who cannot filter through the constant noise will die out. But would this really be survival of the fittest, or survival of the most callous?
Perhaps it's because I'm a Midwestern girl, but they idea of such advanced and yet involuntarily sensory filtering disturbs me. This concept could not be more relevant for us going to school in New York City where you can literally tune out the pleas of a homeless person on the subway by turning up the volume on your iPod. Is the harshness associated with New Yorkers due to their skilled ability to filter through sensory input?
It took me twice as long to do the Hock reading on the subway than it would’ve had I done it in the quiet of my bedroom. Clearly, my sensory filter isn’t quite up to the New York standard. And to tell you the truth, I hope it never will be.

Hearing Dots

We’ve all heard of synesthesia that causes individuals to see green when they think of a certain number, etc. This is called grapheme-color synesthesia. There is also a form of synesthesia that relates sounds to colors, tone-color synesthesia. In fact, the article mentions that Kandinsky was thought to be this kind of synesthesate and “tried to create the ‘visual equivalents of symphonies’ in his paintings”. The article also describes a recently identified form of synesthesia, hearing-motion synesthesia. This was identified by Melissa Saenz and Christof Koch when one of Saenz’s visitors mentioned he could hear a screensaver on her lab computer. The screensaver was a pattern of moving dots. Upon exposing several hundred others to the screensaver, three people replied saying that they could also hear it. To confirm, Saenz and Koch required the individuals to identify similar rhythmic patterns in visual flashes and auditory beeps. It went on to describe that non-synesthesates are typically better at judging auditory patterns than visual ones, but hearing-motion synesthesates should be at an advantage when presented with visual sequences because they can both hear and see the pattern.

One of the most interesting points of the article to me is the statement that synesthesia isn’t really as rare as we all think of it to be. In fact, research suggests that 1 of every 100 people could have some kind of synesthesia. You can take Saenz and Koch’s test online here:

http://www.klab.caltech.edu/~saenz/hearing-motion.html

Also interesting, the article mentioned mirror-touch synesthesia, identified in 2005, wherein one experiences the tactile sensations of another person that is being touched.

http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2008/08/the_sound_of_dots_moving_new_form_of_synaesthesia.php

Visual Attention

ever wonder why all your attention concentrates on one item in a department store (for instance the marc jacobs watch that you have been eyeing down) or your significant other in a crowded room, as if there is no one else in the room besides you two?

well, its because we all have a brain - a brain with neurons in the visual cortex which views the world through "receptive" fields. This is the small portion of the visual field each individual neurons that see and respond to. Whenever a stimulus falls within the receptive fields, the cell produces a volley of electrical spikes known as action potentials which coveys information about the stimulus in the receptive field. 

The strength of the signals are not the only reason why our brain choses to pay strict attention to one thing or another, but it is considered one of the biggest. Our brain has the ability to suppress the neuron's response which keeps us from responding to everything all the time. 

Sundberg, PH.D, a former graduate student in Reynold's lab, and now a postdoctoral researcher at Yale University performed a series of experiments which she placed on stimulus in the receptive field and another in the surround. She found that directing attention to the center stimulus supported the neuron from the suppressive effects of the stimulus in the surround. 

This is our brain's way of keeping out the clutter. The brain uses the receptive field surround actively to separate what is important, and interesting to us and not.

here.

seeing with our eyes // seeing with our brains

The topic of perception cannot be passed without someone mentioning hallucinations. A recent addict to Ted Talks, I watched an interesting one in which Oliver Sacks conveniently linked a few things we have been discussing in class that go along with perception. If you aren't familiar with Sacks I would advise you to look him up because you probably have heard of his work, seeing as he is an incredibly well-known neuroscientist and author. (Awakenings, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, An Anthropologist on Mars, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, etc.)

As defined in this week's reading, the human brain organizes overwhelming amounts of sensory data into units that yield form and meaning; a.k.a., perception. Levels of consciousness and states of awareness alter perception. Contrary to imagination, Sacks explains that hallucinations come from the outside world and tend to mimic perception. Sacks gave several examples of patients he encountered with Charles Bonnett Syndrome, a condition that causes individuals who are visually impaired to have hallucinations. Usually, these people are of old age and are losing their vision as opposed to being blind from a young age. It occurs because the visual parts of the brain are receiving less and less visual sensory data so it sort of overcompensates, becoming hyper-active and thus producing complex visual hallucinations. To learn that 10% of visually impaired people experience hallucinations was completely unknown to me. Even more surprising, only 1% of these individuals acknowledge them. Why would people fail to explain that they are having these experiences? Sacks said that in many cases they are scared and unaware that they are actually experiencing a medical condition. It seems to me that this happens all the time. People will consider themselves crazy and others will write them off as psychotic rather than looking at their experiences from a medical or psychological standpoint.

A few other interesting points of the talk revolved around the types of hallucinations and what causes them. Visual hallucinations range from geometric, where an individual will see abstract colors and shapes, to very elaborate sorts of hallucinations where it is very common for people to see faces and cartoons. As Sacks was explaining this, I couldn't stop wondering why this would occur. He soon said that there is a tiny part of the brain that is responsible for recognition of teeth and eyes, and it is hyper-active when someone is experiencing a visual hallucination. Similarly, there is a part that senses cartoons, buildings, landscapes, etc. So one question that I had that Sacks failed to mention is...WHY IS THERE A PART OF OUR BRAIN THAT IS PROGRAMMED TO SENSE CARTOONS? Cartoons have been around for what, 80 years? Did this part of the brain adapt with the onset of such a visual feature? I'm not sure if I am diving too far off the deep end of neuroscience right now but the Sacks really sparked some fascinating questions.

here you go.

Study Suggests People Can Learn without Paying Attention

I always wondered about subconsciousness and how it relates to perception. I've always been a pretty perceptive person by nature with the ability to multitask and successfully have my attention paid to a few different things at the same time. I actually think better and am more successful when I, i.e. write a paper and listen to music at the same time. However, I do know a few people that aren't able to i.e. read a book and watch a TV at the same time. While surfing the web for an article on this subject, I came across this article that tells about the results of recent studies which suggest that people are able to learn without actually paying attention. Although slightly different, it does remind me of times I'm able to sing along to a song and drive at the same time, or my ability to pay attention to what's happening in a movie while writing a great paper at the same time. The studies in this article reveals the results of individuals being subjected to read letters flashing on a screen while dots danced in the background. Some dots slide in one direction, and when the amount was increased, the participants who had a month of such exposure did much better at judging the direction in which the dots were traveling than individuals who hadn't gone through previous testing had.

This article is very interesting because it proves that even when you're not focused or aren't paying full attention to something, your subconscious is usually still very aware of what's happening around you, and this is beyond your control. Even if it's not your main focus, your mind is still able to recognize, pay attention to and perceive multiple things at once. Although this is different than multitasking, they are both very similar when it comes to attention, perception and cognitive memory. These studies do rise a few questions in my head. I wonder, when our subconscious is able to pay attention to events happening in the background of their main focus, does this mean they are drawn to the events in some sort of way ? In this case, is our brain telling us it's important to pay attention to our surroundings, perhaps more than whatever we're trying to focus on ? Is our ability to "keep tabs" on our surroundings a sign of our true inner desires or represent what our subconscious thinks we should be paying attention to ? If an individual is completely aware of what's happening in their surroundings, does this mean their main focus isn't enough to keep their attention ? Or does this mean some people just get easily distracted for one reason or another ? These studies make me wonder - what about those individuals who are just easily distracted in general ? For those who aren't able to pay attention to their surroundings while focusing one main thing, or for those who aren't able to multitask well .. does this mean that their brain's aren't as advanced as those who are successfully aware of multiple things at once ? Or does this mean that they are actually have more self-control and are more equipped with the ability to focus one on thing without being distracted by other things ? This also makes me wonder about which is more important. Is it more important to be able to "keep tabs" on everything happening around you, or is it more important to be able to focus completely on one thing without being subconsciously distracted ? This article was very interesting, but it definitely makes me want to do more research on this topic as well as its relationship with cognitive memory.

Article:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=study-suggests-people-can

Emotion, Attention and Perception

Evidence has been found to support the theory that, "emotional situations can send your visual cortex into overdrive". This implies that in moments of heightened emotion a person's attention and perception of the world around them can be very sensitive to details that might otherwise have been over looked. This theory does not hold true if the person has damage to the part of the brain called the amygdala, which is one of the main centers for emotional processing. In which case the person would mentally know that they should feel the emotion, but the body would not react in a similar and related fashion. For instance, the person would be afraid, but there palms would not become sweaty.

What an incredible defense mechanism bordering on a "super power". As soon as our brain can identify that we are in danger our body goes into a form of cruise control that allows us to see, hear, and focus faster than we could normally.

check it out here

conlang

"Conlang, or constructed language, is a language who's phonology, grammar, and/or vocabulary have been consciously devised by an individual or group, instead of having evolved naturally." "Most constructed languages can be broadly divided into: Engineered Languages, Auxiliary languages, and Artistic Languages"

When Steven Pinker began talking about the origins of language and specific words, the validity of new words, and their chances of becoming immortalized in the grammar of society i began to think of one of my favorite hobbies and modes or facets of creativity. i'm very into making up words using common sounds and letter combinations. GH GHT ING KN PN UE CHE are a few examples of letter combinations that yield extremely pleasant and sometimes puzzling sounds and foundations for words. once ive created a plausible sounding word, it is simmple to asign meaning to it. partruse, conveignche, chlatte, freigne, ghnoische, whats important in these words is sound and an actually word that they may be relatable to. my love for made up words started when i was in 8th grade and was subjected to aptitude tests as a result of my attention span, energy, and a few other unimportant qualities. In one of the tests the hippie doctor asked me to read some words for him. they started of with words like chair and house moving onto multi-syllable words, but then he had me read words that werent words. i thought it was exciting. like a bit of a challenge. when experienced readers read over a page, they dont sound out words, they see the grouping of letter and identify them as a word instead of a group of sounds. we've all seen the paragraph that rearranges the letters in the words, leaving the first and last as they should be, and we can all read it. make up words. if you cant read em, you might be dumb. schunneghettente.

the color of emotion

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/creative-development/200812/the-color-emotion

Following class last week I decided to look up color studies. While i had a hard time finding the language barrier of vast amounts of names for colors vs. light and dark, I did find an article linking color to emotion.

The article is mainly about children and how they associate feelings with colors and how commonly in children's institutions there is a use of primary colors that children often associate with. The common and obvious colors and meanings are yellow-happy, green-glad, red-mad and blue-sad. Professionals feel it is important for children to connect to their emotions and an easy way to do this is through color. Also when relating to children it is important to enter their realm of thinking, which is also easily done via color.

I think that color is a very primal and cross cultural field, easy for everyone to understand and universal, thus making it a natural segway to a child's inner mind.

The article leaves me with a few questions. How are more complex colors viewed in a child's mind? are more complex colors also universal in feeling? When it comes to therapy how could one depend on a study like this with patients who are young? And the cultures where they only have light and dark in their vocabulary, how does this relate to them?

graphs, statistics, and blinders.

this weeks reading was about the amount of hand gestures blind people use, in comparison to people who can see, and the use of "segmenting strategies" when giving directions or describing paths frequently traveled. Well, I suppose its interesting to see the numbers on a nicely organized graph, and the quoted material talking about how "optic flow provides information about the locus of bodily movement in relation to the large-scale spacial layout" is very interesting, but, (i don't want to sound immature, but) who cares? the lack of hand gestures to go along with a blind persons speech could be attributed to a couple of different reasons. It would seem (to me) the most logical reason being that because of the deprivation of site, the sense our culture relies upon most, blind people must use their other senses and human attributes to make up for their lack of site. When a blind fold is put on a person with functioning eye sight, the first thing they will do, before taking a single step, they will put up both hands in front of them to act as feelers or bumpers. After a life time of blindness, people would be accustomed using their senses in a slightly different manner and have a different perception of their own body than that of a person using site to perceive the world. this isn't very interesting. no ma'am, this isn't a very interesting study at all.////

English as the Universal Language?

If there was to be a universal language what would it be? Could it possibly be english?

"English can be at least understood almost everywhere among scholars and educated people, as it is the world media language, and the language of cinema, TV, pop music and the computer world. All over the planet people know many English words, their pronunciation and meaning.

The causes for this universality are very well known and understandable. English first began to spread during the 16th century with British Empire and was strongly reinforced in 20th by USA world domination in economic, political and military aspects and by the huge influence of American movies."

It seems possible that for the sake of global communications the worlds leaders would all learn the same language, and it is also possible that the language chosen would be english. However it does not seem likely that countries would forfeit their native language on the smaller scale of the general public, because language provides an identity and a history for the people that share it.

Article found here

Language and Hand Gestures

As a continuation from last class, I was just thinking how much our native language(s) do play an essential role in not just communication from one to another, but also in determining our cultural and behavioral aspects. I'm Filipino and both my parents are from the Philippines. My father speaks our foreign tongue, but since my mother grew up here and learned to speak English more often then our language, she lost her accent as well as her knowledge in that language. As a result, we speak English to one other at home. I wish I knew how to speak Tagalog (our language), because now I feel like I missed out in an important part of my culture. And generations after me, they probably won't even know what our national language is because they'll all be speaking English. It's sad to know that part of our culture, maybe the most important part of it, might not be saved in time.

A topic I also wanted to touch upon was more relative to this week's reading. There are several ways to go about communication, verbal and hand motion go hand in hand. Have you ever tried playing the game, Taboo? The whole object of the game is to try and describe the word given to you without using the words also listed on the card as well as not using any type of hand gestures to give away the answer. It's kind of hard to not use hand gestures to help us get our point across.

In the second article I found, it explains why we use our hands while we speak. Sometimes, it helps us explain ourselves from a distance, where voices are hard to hear. Also, it can help us to explain something better and with enthusiasm when lecturing or talking to a large audience. One of the more interesting aspects of gesturing is it can help us figure out words we can't find when we're in that "tip of the tongue" experience.

The study in the articles explains how a groups of people were to describe the cartoon Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. Some were able to speak freely, others had their arms strapped down. When describing something spatial, the participants who had their arms strapped down had a harder time describing and a slow time speaking about the event. To conclude, mental images in the mind are placed but words to describe and translate that thought takes more time to gather. Thus, hand gestures help to get that idea across. But since the people who's arms were tied down, they had to only use words to describe what they were trying to say and thus, the slower time to respond. As you can see, we use our entire body to help transmit information from one to another, not just our words.


http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/strange-tongue/201002/saving-endangered-languages

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ulterior-motives/200904/why-do-we-move-our-hands-when-we-talk-i-finding-the-right-words

language, evolution, and us

Why is English one of the most widely spoken languages in the world? It is because English is an easy language.

About three weeks ago, a study was performed which declared that languages adapt in the same way biological organisms do, contrary to traditional ways of thinking that consider language to be based on "random change and historical drift." The first large-scale analysis was conducted, where the grammatical properties of more than 2,000 languages were compared to their environmental factors. It was found that languages with the largest global spreads and amount of speakers had the most simple grammar structures. Languages become easier out of social necessity, it seems. Migration or colonization have forced individuals to learn certain languages. If the language is too complicated, adults cannot process it and pass it on to future generations. The conductors of this study put it simply; "Just as very distantly related organisms converge on evolutionary strategies in particular niches, languages may adapt to the social environments in which they are learned and used."

The article brings forth many questions. There will always be complex languages, but will they become easier and adapt in the same way social evolution has always made things adapt? Will languages with simpler linguistic properties become even easier and more accommodating to adults who must learn them? The study refers to locations that have very complex language systems, like West Africa. Why are these languages to complicated to begin with? Where does the nature of their grammar come from? As native English speakers, we must entertain the idea of where we stand intellectually, given that our language is considered to be amongst the easiest. Personally, I have never given any thought to this notion. What does it mean to recognize that places we consider, in many cases, to be "primitive" actually operate on a complex linguistic system? Of course, there is an entire spectrum of language that can be analyzed and interpreted and this article did not address many points. Still, it put a lot into perspective.

http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/article.php?id=1805

Languages Are Vanishing: So What ?

I do believe that language is one of the biggest reasons on why the world is so traditionally diverse. There would be many positives and negative effects on the world if the human race spoke one, or just a handful of the same language. Firstly, this would tremendously effect each culture in their traditions and way of life. Yes, there can still be different cultures even if they all speak the same language, but I do not feel the cultures would be nearly as separate from each other as they are now. A huge reason in why every culture is so different is because of the fact there is a language-barrier, separating and isolating them from those who don't speak or understand their language. It's almost like not being allowed to be part of a club because the language difference and inability to understand and follow the club's lifestyle. Leaving the human race to be grouped off and not able to be a whole because of the many different ways of life and traditions between cultures. The fact that languages are so quickly becoming more and more distinct of course leaves us with the wonder about what will eventually happen. Will the extremely traditional / religious / culturally based groups of humans really stand for this ? Would they back down and learn another language just to fit in with society ? Not only do I believe there is an extreme amount of individuals who would never do so, but I also think the positives or this conversion ride hand in hand with the negatives.

I believe this article is lacking on explaining some negative and positive outcomes this may have. With this, I believe the negatives are hardly acknowledged, and it's a bit naive and bias in believing it's mostly a positive change. The author of this article Roy F. Baurmeister explains "Maybe we should celebrate the disappearance of obscure languages. Wouldn't there be considerable positive value if everyone in the world spoke the same language? Imagine how easy it would be to communicate with everyone else." I do believe he may be right in this aspect, but I also believe the negatives of language distinction is almost equal to these positives. Considering every human being acts and feels differently about every given thing, and being certain things hold certain value and meaning to every individual, I do believe language holds a different meaning to each and every person. A lot of cultures take extreme value in their language and it greatly influences their way of life. Therefore, if everyone spoke one language, populations that take such pride in their tongue may really not like this idea, and in return may rebel against this idea of mass unification. To many, this could be the same as being stripped of your pride and what you stand for. Not everyone believes tying the entire world together in such a way is a wonderful idea. And i truly believe that no matter what, the human race will always find negatives, and try and rebel and do things that individualize themselves. I believe if it's seen negative by many cultures then extreme measures may be taken by them, denying this the best they can. With this, the distinction of languages can not only cause a great loss of ancient tradition, but for those who convert, they can endure severe consequences of betrayal. For those who choose a new type of lifestyle as well as enduring major cultural changes.. will they be punished for doing so ? Will this be viewed as backstabbing and in ways be seen as being sacreligious ? What do you think would happen to the world if everyone understood everyone else ? I also think A LOT of political issues would come of this, and it would greatly effect sales considering some ways people are tricked into paying more than they need to is a result of language-barriers. Would people then try to come up with other ways to individualize themselves ? Would people then create different, secret ways to communicate other than languages ? Will peoples values, traditions and heritages become less important or non-existant ? Could this create things like gangs and family break-ups ? Or would the positives win .. and this world may actually succeed better and have less racism, and everyone can for once be viewed and treated as equals ?

Article:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cultural-animal/200811/languages-are-vanishing-so-what

Segmentation Strategies = Key to Marketing

After reading Iverson's bland reading about gesture and speech the only thing idea that really stood out to me was the idea of "segmented strategy". Segmented strategy is what the blind in the experiment used to move about the course. They used subdivisions to break up the course and make the path more familiar and easier to follow. This strategy was rarely used by the children who were blindfolded. Thinking further I realized just how much this segmented strategy is used in our daily lives. We are constantly categorizing and dividing information we take in. Since many of us are going into communication design fields after Pratt, I thought I'd share some advertising strategies fueled by this idea of "segmented strategy". I found this article about marketing that actually claimed segmentation is the the key to winning the customer over. For advertisers the first thing you need to do is really classify who your target audiences are, and segment them into various groups. Companies also use segmentation to prioritize new development efforts and customize marking programs to be most effective to their consumer's needs and wants.

Five major segmentation strategies are (1) behavior segmentation, (2) benefit segmentation, (3) demographic segmentation, (4) geographic segmentation, and (5) psychographic segmentation.

Click here to learn more about segmentation strategies.

Lying to Children

I read an article off http://www.paulgraham.com/lies.html written by Paul Graham. He talks about why we lie to kids, which kids we tell the truth to, and the subjects that lead us into lying or "bending the truth." Some of the topics he talks about are protection, sex, drugs, innocence, death, identity, authority, school, peace and detox. Have you ever been around a young child, who isn't yours and they ask you a provocative question? For a second you're shocked then you gather your thoughts, do you answer the question correctly, make up an answer, or tell the child to ask their parents at a later time? The pressure of answering a provocative question to a child is huge, with their minds not yet fully developed any bit of shocking information can imprint their little minds for a lifetime, and the imprint is not always positive. But on the contrary which is better, keeping your children protected and therefore leading to an age of shock when they realize the truth or just telling them the truth right off the bat? Grahm goes on to discuss the question, what lies are really "lies". For example when you bring your new born baby home and place them in a nice quiet room with a perfect temperature a calming color, which is completely opposite of real life which includes loud noises, rude people, and completely dirty colors due to liter and overuse...is keeping your baby in a protected environment lying to them? Should we be more like transcendentalists, act through tough love and let our children learn from experience? So then at what age do you give them a sense of reality? What reality do you reveal first? Do we have as much control over our children as we think? Can protection be viewed as abuse?

Maybe lying can do you some good, too

Well first, as a continuation of what we were talking about at the end of class last week...I looked at a few different articles about whether or not smoking cigarettes could possibly lower your I.Q. The consensus seems to be that it is possible, but oddly most of the studies I found that were talked about researched the affect of smoking on alcoholics’ brains. I thought this was a little strange because the titles of the articles were about smoking, not alcoholism. In any case, the general idea seemed to be that alcoholism affects your I.Q., and smoking on top of that (like apparently 50-80% of alcoholics) is only further diminishing it. Not really shocking.

This article talked about the story of a football player who beat all the odds, from getting injured to getting replaced over and over again, to end up with a successful sports career despite it all. It describes the player’s, Kurt Warner’s, ability to ignore the negative evidence against him “anchoring”, or “confirmation bias”. These anchors are determinations or biases we develop that cause us to, when recieving information, keep only what supports or confirms our biases and throw the rest out without a second thought. I thought this was an interesting idea, having never considered it an issue of bias or even necessarily a negative thing before. Isn’t that just confidence? Maybe it’s over-confidence. The article toyed with the idea that perhaps while we normally consider “over-confidence” to be a negative thing, it can obviously have some strong positive effects, as in Kurt Warner’s case. He states that his determination came from the fact that he just never felt emotionally that he wasn’t as good as the players replacing him or that he didn’t belong. The author of the article explains numerous pieces of evidence that suggest that Warner was not, in fact, as good as the other players. The author goes on to use this situation as a microcosm for the place of cognitive psychology in our world, saying “...cognitive psychology is an excellent tool for modeling the brain, and an occasionally wildly inefective tool for modeling reality.” Do you agree with this? I feel that there is maybe some truth to it, but would not state it as strongly as the author, as he seems to insinuate that cog psych is therefore irrelevant to reality, which I disagree with. It is, however, interesting that what concepts work in a technical study of the brain may not always pan out in reality.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-playing-field/200901/lying-yourself-its-not-always-bad-idea

The article titled The cognitive psychology of circumstantial evidence enlightened me to the fact that cognitive psychology and how it is related to a verdict by a jury in a court case. The article discusses the fact that circumstantial evidence(evidence that indirectly proves a fact, i.e. a forensic scientist who testifies that ballistics proves the defendant’s firearm killed the victim) is less convincing to a jury then Direct evidence(an eyewitness of the shooting). But studies have shown that more than 58% of the time eyewitness identifications are mistake. Whereas 1% of DNA matches turn out to be false. So why is it common for many jurors to gravitate towards direct evidence over circumstantial evidence? The article suggest that it is due to the idea that jurors simply do not understand circumstantial evidence and thus routinely underestimate its effect on the objective probability of the defendant's guilt. How a circumstantial case can be acquitted by a jury even though they find the evidence to be strong enough to convict. one theory presented is that jurors cannot wrap their heads around circumstantial evidence, therefore they tend to subconsciously hold it on a lower pedestal when deliberating. I think that the rule of "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" is one that a jury must always keep in mind when coming to a decision. In a way to disregard the Warren Harding error discussed in this weeks reading. To try to think like Bob Gollemb, the car salesman. To not acquit a case  on the basis of their ability to imagine a scenario in which the defendant is factually innocent, when there is probable mechanical calculations. I feel maimonides(jewish philosopher) had a great insight to the dilema:

   " If we do not give judgment even on the basis of 

   a very strong presumption, the worst that can happen is that the 

   sinner will be acquitted; but if we punish on the strength of 

   presumptions and suppositions, it may be that one day we shall put 

   to death an innocent person; and it is better and more satisfactory 

   to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent 

   man to death..."

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-28777857_ITM

Lie to me

An interesting article/blog that discusses a simple way to detect if a person is lying through study. They recruited volunteers to participate in a short conversation. They were divided into groups. one group was asked if they would like to donate money to a particular organization and some where requested to lie about their response. One group was asked to mimic the first groups facial expression and body movements to determine whether or not they were being truthful. One group was asked to not mimic the first group and the final group was not given any instructions both also had to determine if the first group was being truthful or not. The results of the study surprised me. I initially expected that the group that mimicked the liar/truth teller's response would result in the highest success of determining the truth from the lie. But based on the study, the group that was asked to not mimic the liar/truth teller could best gauge the truth from the lie. I also found it interesting that the majority of the group that was not given any instructions naturally mimicked the liar/ truth teller. 

Ultimately, I think its difficult to give this study full credibility. I feel that this study though can shed some light it to certain situations where one can better gauge a lie. Situations where A. one does not know the other person. and B. the lie does not have direct relevance to the person. A truth and a lie always seems most important when it has a direct affect on a person(i.e. if a signifigant other cheated on the person) and when it does there are many other factors that come into play when one is determining the truth from the lie. Denial, I think being a front runner. The need and want for the lie to be a truth or visa versa plays a big role. Things as such can blind a person from making a rational decision, like the volunteers in the study. 

An interesting article/blog that discusses a simple way to detect if a person is lying through study. They recruited volunteers to participate in a short conversation. They were divided into groups. one group was asked if they would like to donate money to a particular organization and some where requested to lie about their response. One group was asked to mimic the first groups facial expression and body movements to determine whether or not they were being truthful. One group was asked to not mimic the first group and the final group was not given any instructions both also had to determine if the first group was being truthful or not. The results of the study surprised me. I initially expected that the group that mimicked the liar/truth teller's response would result in the highest success of determining the truth from the lie. But based on the study, the group that was asked to not mimic the liar/truth teller could best gauge the truth from the lie. I also found it interesting that the majority of the group that was not given any instructions naturally mimicked the liar/ truth teller. 

Ultimately, I think its difficult to give this study full credibility. I feel that this study though can shed some light it to certain situations where one can better gauge a lie. Situations where A. one does not know the other person. and B. the lie does not have direct relevance to the person. A truth and a lie always seems most important when it has a direct affect on a person(i.e. if a signifigant other cheated on the person) and when it does there are many other factors that come into play when one is determining the truth from the lie. Denial, I think being a front runner. The need and want for the lie to be a truth or visa versa plays a big role. Things as such can blind a person from making a rational decision, like the volunteers in the study. 

http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2010/01/is_there_an_easier_way_to_dete.php#more

Are We In Control of Our Own Decisions?

Visual illusions can be a metaphor for rationality. When an illusion is proven to just be a trick, your intuition fools you in a repeatable predictable way and there is no way around it. Vision is the best thing that Humans can do. We have been evolutionarily designed to use our sight. If illusions can trick our best sense then it is not hard to imagine that if we are making mistakes in something we are so good at then what are the chances that we dont make mistakes in other areas that we are not as good at? Things that we dont have an evolutionary reason to do with no specialized part of the brain like vision has and something we dont spend many hours of the day doing. We may make many more mistakes and not even realize that we are making them. Cognitive illusions are harder to demonstrate than visual illusions. For an example, organ donor percentage in European countries can be seperated into two groups, countries that have a very high percentage of donors and countries with very low percentages of organ donors. When asked some thought it had something to do with cultural issues or it had to do with how much the people cared about society or maybe that it was about religion. However, the graph shows countries that are thought to be very simple but demonstrate different behaviors. It turns out it actually has to do with the forms that the people must fill out at the DMV. The forms in the countries with low numbers of donors have a choice that says "check the box below if you want to participate in the organ donor program." What happens is people dont check the box so they dont join. The countries that have a lot of donors have a form that says, "Check the box below if you dont want to participate in the organ donor program." When people get this they dont check but they do join. This means that even though we feel like we make all the decisions in our lives ourselves, many of our decisions are nit residing within us. The person that designed the form will have a huge influence in what you will do. You might think that if you were to encounter one of those forms that you would change your behavior but you have such a feeling that you are in control of your own behaviors that it is very hard to believe that we actually have an illusion of making a decision. Some may think that this happens because it's something no one really cares about and it's after you're dead so it doesn't effect you, but in reality its exactly the opposite. It is because we care and it is such a complex desicion that we dont know what do do so we leave the box blank and we pick whatever it is that was chosen for us. This is also examined when making decisions of different kinds. For example the choice between an all expence paid trip to Rome or and all expence paid trip to Paris. They are both different but it is difficult to choose. Then if you introduce a choice that is inferior to one of the other choices it is much easier. If you have the choice between an all expence paid trip to Paris and two seperate trips to rome except one of the trips does not include coffee with breakfast then the trip that does include coffee with breakfast suddenly becomes the superior choice and even begins to look more superior to paris. It is the same with physical attraction. An experient was done where a group of people were asked to pick between two faces to take on a date but half of the group was given those same two faces with a third face that was similar to one of the other faces but slightly uglier. This was to see whether the uglier version would work in favor of the more attractive person and it was true. This is usually how people pick someone to take bar hopping. They choose someone that looks similar to them but a little uglier. When we build physical things we understand our limitations and we buld around them. when it comes to the mental world such as designing things like healthcare, retirement and the stock markets we forget our limitations. If we understand our cognitive limitations in the same way we understand our physical limitations we could design a better world.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html

Illegal Aliens, Obama & Semantics

Using the "correct" word is such an important part of politics but i feel like in recent years, it is what has brought politicians, presidents and laws under high scrutiny.

Whenever I hear the phrase "illegal alien" I always laugh because I think it is such a bizarre label. Illegal alien is supposed to mean undocumented immigrant but comes off more like a racial slur. It is a phrase most commonly used by the US government in federal documents. Because of semantics when I hear the word alien I think of someone from another planet or extraterrestrial, not an immigrant who doesn't legally reside in the states. More so, the term "illegal alien" is considered pejorative by most immigrants. I think the label somewhat dehumanize immigrants through context and tone, especially in the latino community.

During Obama's campaign for president he used the term "undocumented immigrants", after being elected he switched to "illegal immigrant". For a person who always says, "words matter", I find this sudden change pretty interesting. To hear how Obama explains why he uses the term "illegal immigrant", go to this site.

"Be Fruitful and Multiply, but not in those words"

Pinker States, "It is really puzzling for the science of the mind why, when an unpleasant event befalls us--we slice out thumb along with the bagel or knock a glass of beer into our lap--the topic of conversation turns abruptly to sexuality, excretion, or religion."

I really enjoyed this part of the reading, because it points to a taboo area of language that is not typically acknowledge or discussed, and therefore it is sometimes is overlooked as being inconsequential to the world we live in but the excerpt bellow states otherwise:

"Virtually all people swear, and people swear pretty consistently throughout their lifetime — from the moment they can speak to the day they die. Swearing is almost a universal constant in most people’s lives. Research, according to Jay, has shown we swear on average from 0.3% to 0.7% of the time — a tiny but significant percentage of our overall speech (frequently-used personal pronouns occur at approximately 1.0% rate in speech). Swearing is more common than you might think. But personality research suggests that people who swear more, not surprisingly, score higher on traits such as extraversion, dominance, hostility and Type A personalities. Swearing is not just for the uneducated or people of a lower socioeconomic class — it knows no social boundaries in its expression.

Swearing is a natural part of human speech development. We learn which words are taboo and which words are not through our normal childhood development."

This article was found at:

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2009/03/30/why-do-we-swear/

Language in the Digital Age

The article I came across in the New York Times entitled "Language as a Blunt Tool of the Digital Age" addressed several concepts that I'm sure we all are aware of. Unfortunately, it seems that the "art" of speaking in the American culture has nearly diminished. Word usage is rarely taken seriously. In regards to linguistics, we value practicality to complement our fast-paced methods of communicating. Text messaging, blogging, emailing, twittering, etc. in many cases force us to use less words. What does this do to the way we interpret what is being said?

Since a desired intent can not come across because of word limitations, the meaning is therefore altered. I think many problems arise from this which are probably more substantial than what is recognized. Entire thought patterns are disrupted by misinterpretations. Our processing of other information has drastically changed. Our intake of information from the vastness of the World Wide Web differs greatly from the way in which we obtain information by reading a book. The article's author classified it as a"power-skimming, link-hopping and window-toggling" kind of reading.

So there is, in my opinion, much reason for the sorts anxiety about language that exist and have been experienced in the past. Language is being undermined by other factors besides technology, like business and globalization. The article made an interesting point about business language. Companies use terms like "levering up" and finding "synergy" to avoid the reality of the situation. Pinker stated in The Stuff of Thought that reality is a separate representation to each and every individual. What kind of reality formulates when someone is told that their company is "right-sizing" as opposed to someone telling them they're fired? The article also relates to Pinker's ideas of using these kinds of alternate words and phrases. There is a veil that is placed over things when their true intent or implication is desired to be hidden. However, quick psychology is used by individuals to infer the the real intent.

It is compelling to consider language in the rapidly shifting, ever-advancing world that we live in. The question of where we are heading in terms of articulating ourselves and experiencing value of language is definitely something to think about. Going downhill? Most likely.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/16/world/americas/16iht-currents.html?pagewanted=2

When creating your discussion questions...

...check this link first.

The War on Semantics

The excerpt from Pinker got me particularly interested in the role of semantics within politics. Obama’s presidency, as well as his presidential campaign, has been full of semantic obstacles. Barack Hussien Obama, though American-born and an openly practicing Christian, has been scrutinized for the Arab connotations of his name. Despite the facts, a disturbing number of people have rallied around the idea that his name indicates that he is either a Muslim, a terrorist or both.
Public approval of policies also depends heavily on strategic semantics. For instance, the appointment of government “Czars” started under Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Czars have no actual power and only serve as advisers for different efforts (such as drugs or the auto industry). Despite the fact Czars in the US government have nothing in common with the positions of power held by the Czars of Russia’s past, conservative extremists have manipulated the connotations of the word to frame the Obama administration as communist or totalitarian.
Just as we have implicit associations with people, we have them with the words and names we use and hear everyday. Strangely enough, I feel a lot less guilty about stereotyping a word than I do another human being, even if the fundamental principles are more or less the same.
If anyone’s interested, this video is an entertaining look at how ignorance and semantics can be a lethal combination. Skip to 4:22 seconds in.

The "Me" and "We"

I came across this article titled "Study Suggests 'We' Words Strengthen Marriages" in the New York Times from last week. It marries the Gladwell topic we discussed last week with the language topic we are blogging about this week. Last week we talked about how Gladwell claimed to be able to determine the future of a couple's relationship through some interviews, down to a very specific measurement. This article, while it doesn't discuss Gladwell specifically, delves into the idea of diagnosing the disease of the couple through the symptoms they present interacting with one another. Specifically, the symptoms they display in their use of language. The article narrowed it down to one thing: what pronoun did each person use? If they each used "me" or "I", the prognosis was not good. However, using "we" or "us" signified a sense of unity and understanding between the two, and maybe they'd make it after all. Similar to the studies we talked about last week, other things were measured, as well, including heart rate and blood pressure. This helped to determine percieved stress levels of each indivdual. Each interview lasted only 15 minutes, and again as in the studies we talked about last week, were based around a point of contention between the two people.

I considered the fact that this is a fairly easy to recognize symptom of a troubled relationship...for example, in an unhappy relationship, aren't you likely to realize you're saying "me" instead of "us"? And if you don't wish to be percieved as being a part of an unsuccessful relationship, you would maybe adjust your language accordingly, right? *****

So what came first: the chicken or the egg? Does saying "we" make a happier couple, or does only a happier couple use "we"? My initial reaction is that although the latter seems more likely, does that mean using "we" when you might really want to say "me" wouldn't have an effect? Wouldn't small, subtle signs of unity and understanding subconsciously create these feelings? Psychologist Doreen Arcus disagrees, stating:

"A practical test of the power of pronouns, she said, would be to instruct people ''feeling deeper conflict to use more `we,' and if you change the way they speak, does it alleviate the conflict? Language that does not reflect behavioral realities won't fool anyone for long.''

Maybe she's right...but I still wonder if it couldn't have at least a small positive effect, like positive energy.

Is everyone overthinking the value of a couple pronouns? Does saying "me" mean you're not thinking about "us"? Or is it just a natural way to speaking evolving from decades of thinking "me" as a single person? One man in the article says, "I still have a tough time saying `we' versus `me' in many realms of our relationship. It was `me' for 26 years of my life." Furthermore, insisting on "we" seems to paint a narrow picture of marriage. Some people live more independently from one another than other couples, but that does not necessarily make them less successful, happy, or likely to stay together in the long run.

Still, a sudden shift from "us" to "me" could clearly be a negative indicator in the relationship, of course. The relationship is clearly changing if you're thinking about "your" plans and not "our" plans.

...right? Maybe, maybe not.

Article available here.