failing the internet IQ quiz

i was recently trying to watch a movie online so i googled watch Jaws online free and found a promissing link, which sent me to another link, which sent me to Jaws, for free, online. The only problem was, i had to comply with one of a slew of ads before i could get to the movie. Things like 1000 walmart gift card and so on. but the first thing on the list was "Test your IQ" so i figured why not? i'd answer ten questions about bob has two nickels and jim has four kind of things and be done with it. so i clicked it and the first question was as i suspcted. the second and third questions we also just outlandish word games. but then things started getting difficult. "if bob is taller than steve, and steve is shorter than bill, than steve is the shortest" true or false? well if bob is taller than steve and steve is shorter than bill, than bob is the taller of the three and steve is the shorter of the three, but what about jim, the 3 foot 2 inch wall flower? so i put false. the next question was another easy word game about bills grandfather being bills fathers father. but then, another curve ball. Ball, Beach, ______, Eucharist, which word best completes the soand so? now, i was tired, hungry, and i just wanted to watch jaws. but eucharist? the choices were dusk, umbrella, and some other completely random words. i sat there for a while. stumped. it wasnt clearly alphabetical and it had no apparent common thread among subject, and i honestly couldnt figure it out. i debated for longer than i should have, before realizing, i was sitting on my couch taking an online IQ quiz. stumped. i had opened it with the intentions of blowing through it, not reading any questions, and watching jaws. so i just clicked dusk, answered four more questions and the test was over. now all i had to do was signup for a something or other and give my phone number to so and so, and they would text me my score. I X'd out of it thinking this had all gone far enough and now i should be able to watch the movie, but a loading bar over the window where the movie would be said i had not completed the advertisement. i could not watch jaws. not here. i failed. i failed the great internet IQ quiz. it was never about answering the dumb questions, it was about being smart enough to know you cant just take some stupid quiz without giving your name phone number address credit card info, and opting to recieve a subscription of gamer pro magazine. defeated, i watched eraserhead, because its on google.

What was I conscious of a moment ago ?

I found this article about consciousness to be very intriguing because the various questions have you literally be conscious of what you're conscious of as you read. While reading, I have TV on and am listening to music and my roommate is speaking to me. Although it may seem like a lot going on, I'm used to working with noise in the background and I hardly even notice it nor am i distracted. The only reason I paid attention to the noise of the TV and music was because the article had me wondering about what I'm currently conscious of. I'm not sure if it's my mind playing tricks on me now that my attention was brought to my surroundings, but I've found the TV to be a bit more distracting now then usual. I think being conscious of your surroundings is very important, and means you are a very perceptive individual. However, I also think it's very beneficial to be able to control your consciousness because it means you have the ability to focus on the one thing you put your mind to. I think it's so interesting when things are happening around you and you don't even really notice until you stop to ask yourself - did my text message ringer go off a few minutes ago ? or, did this same commercial just come on a few minutes ago ? I think it's interesting how I am subconsciously taking in what commercials are on TV - since I am not watching it nor paying attention to what commercials come on, I wonder if that's the reason why people randomly crave a certain fast food restaurant, or all of a sudden have the urge to go to to 6 flags ? Is it because a commercial came on TV that day and they just weren't conscious of it, but were subconscious enough to remember it, but couldn't tell you why ? What about when you say "god bless you" to someone who sneezes - is that subconscious or conscious ? I wish this article gave more comparisons and explanations for these sorts of things, however I do like how it is full of questions that get you thinking and coming up with your own reasonings. Some theories I have for our consciousness is simply a result of repetition and habits. We often do things and not even realize it, just because we do it so much it's almost robotic. Therefore, do we really need to be conscious in order to get things done ? Is it necessary or better to be conscious of all your surroundings - or is it a good thing your subconscious is left to worry about certain things that happening around you but aren't important enough to bring to your attention and ponder about ? Could being conscious about nearly everything be beneficial because you're able to quickly assess any situation in case of an emergency ? Or would that just mean more on your mind and more stress, which might distract you and not let you really give your full attention and focus on something one individual thing if necessary ? Will you always have a crowded mind and not be able to think clearly ? I wonder what important things we take for granted on a daily basis by being subconscious and not conscious about these things. After reading this article I'd like to find out more about what different things people are conscious and subconscious about, and how it changes one's life for the better and the worst.

Article:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ten-zen-questions/200908/what-was-i-conscious-moment-ago

How Intelligent Is Intelligence Testing?

http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/reingold/courses/intelligence/cache/1198yam.html#authors
http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/sternberg_interview.shtml

What is intelligence? How can we measure it? Do IQ tests really test your intelligence? There are multiple definitions of intelligence. Robert J. Sternberg, who was a IBM Professor of Psychology and Education at Yale University, defines intelligence as the skill in achieving whatever it is one wants to attain in his/her life within his/her sociocultural context. Whether it be to get good grades or to become a successful ballet dancer, each and every person decides their own personal intelligence.

He argues that IQ tests were only "convenient partial operationalizations of the construct of intelligence, and nothing more. They do not provide the kind of measurement of intelligence that tape measures provide of height." He explains how these tests are based on analytical and verbal skills that are created and measured by the intelligence of the test developers. In other words, the test does not take into account the creativity and practical knowledge of a person. It also doesn't measure the problem solving skills or life-time success of a person. In addition, there are many other circumstantial situations that can change or affect not just a person, but an entire group of people in an community. One community may be knowledgeable in another way or culturally different, compared to other communities. Thus, these IQ tests are not valid completely. Sternberg had started to develop tests to measure creativity and the practical sides of the mind which are starting to be used by some schools and businesses today.

smart pills

link here.
Pills may be able to improve your cognition, but should we use them? The drugs classified in this article are mainly for ADD and ADHD patients. The prescription drugs help improve one's cognition, making one more alert and focused. There is a debate over whether they are ethical or not. In my opinion as long as they are safe then what is the harm? These drugs can help any one person's memory making them a more productive person. The article compares these drugs to over the counter caffeine pills and such. Both have provide a sort of increase in cognition, and relatively safely. I am curious how the world would turn out if everyone took these enhancing drugs. Would we all be more insightful, productive people?

IQ and Religion

Stumbling upon the website www.godandscience.org I found an article titled "Religion vs. IQ. Are religious people stupid?" Now for one I have never heard of this accusation towards religious people, but I don't doubt that it's never been asked. Why would anyone assume this? In the article it had said that people assume religious people choose religion so they don't have to think; they simply just let religion "answer" all their questions. Perhaps people who aren't religious feel as though the religious don't exercise their brains enough, because they don't have a reason to question anything in life if they just dismiss all wonders to their faith. In doing so this could lead to less experience and open mindedness which could make somebody less intelligent? Let's see what they facts are... "Atheists have noted a negative correlation between the practice of religion and the intelligence quotient (IQ)." Of course being a pro-religious website, their facts were a little fuzzy. But I personally don't believe that what you believe in has anything to do with IQ. This question could almost compare to asking "Am I less smart because I believe the earth orbits the sun?"...maybe that's a little dramatic, I just think that having a strong religion doesn't mean you're any less smart, but maybe it means you don't exercise your curiosity as much as you could.

Smarter than SmarterChild

Does anyone remember SmarterChild, the AOL Instant Messenger Robot? That’s what the human-mimicking robots in this week’s reading immediately brought to mind. For those of you who were like me in seventh grade and spent everyday after school chatting online, messing around with SmarterChild was one practically routine. Chatting, however, more or less consisted of typing obscenities and intentionally confusing the robot. Why is it that tricking a computer is so humorous (at least to awkward seventh graders)? Are we relieved to know that we can outsmart a talking computer? And why do scientists continually perform experiments like the Turing test? I think very few people believe that machines are cabaple of outsmarting humans and taking over, yet I’ve always found it interesting how threatened humans continue to be by the ever-increasing capabilities of the machines we ourselves develop.
Oh, and for any former friends of SmarterChild, sad news: he’s retired as of May 2009.

Baby Terminators

In attempts to bring their death toll back from the downward spiral it is in, Japan has created creepy realistic robot babies so they can motivate procreation among young people. Developed by students at the University of Tsukuba, the doll Yotara giggles and wakes up when a rattle is shaken. He can sneeze and have a runny nose, thanks to a heated water pump system. The robot can also sulks and dozes off like a real baby and smiles when his stomach is rubbed. Within the University the Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences, added touch sensors and a projector that beams the facial features onto a warm silicon balloon making up the robot's face. This is a ridiculous, to think now we'll have to worry about terminators for kids, way to go Japan, oh well, mine better come with a cool machine gun and an Arnold Schwarzenegger catch phrase,heres a link to the article.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/23/birth-boosting-hopes-japans-robot-baby/

wild child

video here

This blog post may be a little out of date for this week, but it is about language. My friend and I were talking about psychology and she told me about this incredible (and sad) video her professor had her class watch for homework.

The video is about a girl who was chained to a "potty chair" in a room up until she was about fourteen. She had almost no contact with the outside world and was completely nurtured (except to be fed I assume). When she was rescued she was almost animal-like and had almost no means of verbal communication. There was one similarly documented event in the 1800s where a boy was found in a forest, completely uncivilized, they compare the two cases in the video.

Eventually with proper care and a government grant she learned to speak a few words and phrases, but her voice was extremely high pitched and undeveloped. Sadly the grant was eventually stopped when they saw her progress slow, and she was put into foster care. Even more unfortunate is when she came to a bad foster home where she vomited and was so badly punished she became completely mute. From what I understand she is still alive today in adult group home.

This video was amazing because it gave psychologists, doctors and scientists an almost unprecedented chance at an incredible experiment that could never be preformed under ethical guidelines. They were able to examine the brain and learning processes later in life, to see how capable the human mind is of learning later in life, almost as a nature vs. nurture debate.

ASIMO

ASIMO: Advanced Step in Innovative MObility (click ASIMO for it's website)

ASIMO's new artificial intelligence
Disney's ASIMO

Have you ever seen the movie, Irobot? Did you ever think one day that robots could possibly take over the world? Maybe not take over the world, but robots are reaching a point in technology where they can start to learn, a form of thinking which was an action robots were unable to do for a long period of time. It took over 20+ years to create ASIMO which is now the world's most "advanced humanoid robot." It was designed to help people in daily rituals. In the first video, we see how this robot came to life and started to learn and understand the meaning of things. The robot is able to recognize objects and also learn new objects, just like a baby does when it is first introduced to something new. A baby usually fixates the object and just like a baby, ASIMO, does the same thing. It is able to look at the object, learn its title, and when in reach of the object again, it can will recall the object's name. Later in the video, we see how the robot is able to make a judgment about an object. It is able to tell what is and what isn't a chair. Then, the following video is just showing how advanced ASIMO has become. He is able to do many tricks like walk up and down stairs as well as run and dance. But, the host of the first video questions this intelligence. Even though this robot is able to show a sign of true genuine intelligence, can or will it be able to hold an imagination? Or can the robot even be able to endure pain? It still isn't able to feel emotion, an action only humans can possess. But ASIMO can talk, see, and function just like a human. What possibly can be the next step in artificial intelligence?

Music Instrustion and Your Verbal Memory

Interesting studies have shown that individuals who have musical training will have significantly better verbal memory compared to those without such training. They say the longer you have been trained the better your memory will be. This adds to the idea that when an experience changes a specific brain region, other skills that the region also supports are benefited. Researchers observed a group of students ages six to fifteen and tested them verbally by giving them a list of words to remember. They also received visual tests with images. While the visual memory showed no difference in musically trained students verses untrained, there were significant differences in the students ability to use their verbal memory in proportion to the duration of musical training they had received. The more that the musical training had stimulated the left side of the brain, the better that side could handle other assigned functions such as verbal memory. They continued this study with students who stopped receiving training and those who continued and they observed that while the continuing student's verbal memory improved and the ones who stopped receiving training showed no improvement, they had not lost any of their ability to remember verbal information. At least these students didn't backtrack. They had not lost any of their advantages in verbal memory gained from previous musical training after stopping training for an extended period of time.

http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2003/07/music-memory.aspx

The concept of AI has always given me the willies, I have no doubt there some truly amazing things could be done should computers reach that level, but some of the arguments others had made in the writing was a lack of emotion in AI, and I'm not so sure I want a dispassionate program to have a world full of knowledge at their disposal without being bound to any feelings. Like I said, it just gives me the willies. There is a documentary called Transcendent Man and it was far more unsettling than any horror movie I've ever seen. It's about inventor and very very rich man Ray Kurzweil and his quest to live forever and bring his dead father back to life, even if it means creating his personality in a machine, which is scary enough but the film chronicles how every forward step in technology means a step towards fully independent machines. One scientist in the film is working on the first actual robot brain, and he essentially paints a doomsday once they are able to learn. You should check out the trailer, its scary but worth it.

http://www.transcendentman.com/index.html

How smart can computers be?

Reading the article for this week had me remembering all the artificial intelligence hype of the late 90's. It's interesting to think about how worked up people got and apparently still do get over the possibility of computers being able to think on their own at levels that humans can. At what point do they replace us? They largely already have on a professional level, but can they ever think like we do? The article I read is from the New York Times, and discusses some general reactions to AI today, and Raymond Kurzweil's infatuation with computer intelligence (he's a big believer in post-humanism and the idea that computer intelligence will not only surpass human intelligence but continue on to control technological innovation). Having read the article assigned for this week, do you agree that's possible? Of course, who would have thought the ipod would be possible 40 years ago? Nonetheless, isn't there a point where human cognition cannot be mimicked by technology? The article seemed to draw the line at logic. Is there a way to create logic where it does not innately exist?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/weekinreview/24markoff.html?_r=1

Is testing effective?

Growing up in a public school system required a lot of testing, exactly like here, we had midterms and finals. Both times of the year are a full two weeks of complete stress. But unlike pratt the majority of my classes were liberal arts (until of course I became a senior and had more liberties). For english class we'd have to write a paper, for science we would have a written test, accompanied with an experiment/paper, for math we'd have a written test as well as for history or what is also known as social science. Testing requires a lot of studying, because let's face it, we're all not alway giving all of our undivided attention to the teacher while we're in class. So cramming all of the information into our minds within a couple of days is what we all become faced with. Why can't education be more of a (and use this term very tentitively) natural selection system...the people who understand a certain subject, suceed and the people who don't, well they just don't it doesn't mean they fail at schooling. Now, don't get my wrong, I don't think as a society we should just let kids completely fail, but why push them in a direction that they're not sucessful in? Testing doesn't prove very much besides how well you can memorize? Unless you actually know it. Why can't this world except sucess in one field and if a child isn't doing well in another subject then that's fine, they'll still have taught about it to become educated, but why be tested on it if all it will do is add stress? For myself calculus is completely useless information, so why does it take over 18 years for a student to arrive at a time where they can choose the schools they attend? Also why don't teachers caiter to each student's way of learning, instead of teaching in this completely generic, boring system? I'm not sure I learned more than social skills throughout all of my k-12 years. I know that's a little extreme, but what I mean is that I don't feel very confident if I had to prove I know what was taught to me in high school. I don't think it's my fault. I feel the schooling I went through didn't teach me in the way I would learn best. Maybe if kids weren't so stressed out about testing and grades, their minds would be more open to absorb information?

Simon

When I was little I was obsessed with the Simon memory game. I'd play daily and challenge my friends to see who could get furthest. At a party last weekend my friend had a Simon laying out and I tried to beat my old score. I came nowhere close. It just goes to show that if you don't exercise your memory like a muscle you'll loose it. Repetition, repetition, repetition is the key to the wonderful memory game. To exercise your memory and play, click here!

The Mind Readers

A neuroscientist named Jack Gallant who is working out of the Henry H. Wheeler, Jr. Brain Imaging Center at the University of California at Berkeley is working on a way to read a persons thoughts through the use of fMRI's, serious calculations, and tons of test material. There is a screen in the MRI machine that flashes images at the patient, and they are told to look not at the image but at the dot in the center of the screen. The person's personal thoughts are not interpreted, but the image that they are seeing can be recreated by the scientists just but studying the images of the brain. These studies have become fairly accurate, but they take a while to create and Gallant hopes that someday the images can be re-created in real-time in tune with when the patient sees them. Some people believe that this is a violation of privacy, which if it is employed later in legal affairs, this might be something to consider. However I find it very interesting that there is a direct correlation that can be scientifically tested that link what we see to how the mind processes it, and that it can be observed and translated by an outside party.

To read more about this click here

Fuggedaboudit, or Remember - It Just Takes Practice

Do you think you can actually force yourself to not remember something you see that is upsetting ? I found this article interesting because I question if this is possible for everyone to do. For me, I think it'd be very difficult to do so. However, new research claims forcing yourself to forget something is very possible, and likely - just by a little practice and conscious effort. This article tells about a study in which this was proven. After showing volunteers devastating pictures, they were asked to consciously suppress their memory of them, and in result, they were actually successful in doing so. Also, after the exercise, they had a more vivd memory of the cards they were asked to remember. Although this makes sense (that they'd remember what they were told), what they were told to suppress were photos that evoked strong negative emotions. It intrigues me that these people were able to successfully suppress them, just because they were told to. For me, negative happenings or visuals tend to stay on my mind no matter how hard I try to forget them. I also think it is interesting that these studies can enable scientists to help psychiatric patients, and individuals who can't help getting anxieties and dwell on the negative. I want to look into articles involving studies such as this one, and find out in what ways such studies can help psychiatric patients. I do have some questions about the studies explained in the article - what kind of backgrounds did these volunteers have ? Even though they aren't clinically labeled with anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorders, does that mean they were all happy-go-lucky, carefree individuals ? I think things such as the stress and anxiety toleration of these people play an enormous roll in these studies and greatly influence them. Also, their lifestyle, careers, and age play a big roll. What if some of the photos, such as ones of car crashes or injured soldiers reminded one of the volunteers of a personal experience they might have had with one of these issues? Would they then successfully be able to then suppress the image, just because the researchers of the study told them to do so ? Would they be able to "suppress the stress" ? What about the individuals who can't help but hold grudges all the time ? What about the individuals who are just more sensitive and emotional then others - will they be able to change their natural stress level by practicing forcing themselves to forget selective things ? I think this study kind of simplifies stress and anxiety disorders a little bit. To me, the article makes it seem like all anyone needs to do in order to not stress out is to just try to consciously not think about something. Being able to block out a bad experience of visual may be possible for some people, but not for all. In fact, even I - someone who does not have PTSD or anxiety disorder - find it next to impossible to just simply push a devastating or triggering image or event out of my head. However, I am also an individual that tends to stress easily and sometimes has a hard time lettings things go. In learning more about this study, I would like to know the break down and statistics of the individuals who able to suppress the negative visuals vs. those who weren't. Even though majority was able to, I would like to know by how much they were. I guess this study suggests that with just a little practice, anything is possible ? Even for the hardheaded individual. Being able to force yourself to forget something seems extremely ideal. Maybe it's true that practice does makes perfect .. (or some version of it.)

Article:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=suppressing-memories-takes-practice

Lying for Loyalty

Though this week's reading was in many ways disturbing, the main findings of the study weren't surprising to me at all. It's hard to imagine what my understanding of the Holocaust would be were I the German granddaughter of an eye witness, but I know for a fact that I am guilty of this same cognitive distortion in historically irrelevant contexts. The example that immediately came to mind was a friend of who blatantly cheated on her boyfriend multiple times. Following their break-up, I remember having to explain what happened to a mutual friend. In retrospect, I can see that I committed several of the same errors outlined in the study. For example, empty talking (staying extremely vague so as to let the listener fill in gaps as they see fit): "Well, you know how he was to her." More than that though, I can admit that my loyalty to my friend has completely distorted the reality of the situation. In explaining what happened to my other friend, I never once used the word "cheated," and what I emphasized over and over again was how my friend persistently tried to mend things after her infidelity was discovered. In black in white terms, my friend was the wrong-doer. However, because I love and trust her, my recounting of her relationship crimes is clouded. Giving my positive spin on a more evil truth makes me feel like a loyal friend in situations like this. However, this week's reading suggests that this can have much deeper and darker consequences.

memory vs. experience

Daniel Kahneman differentiates between two aspects of individuals in this discussion; the idea of every person having both a "remembering self" and an "experiencing self." These are two opposing forces, and collectively they shape how people view their lives. Whether a person is "happy" or not depends on the associations of the remembering and experiencing selves. Each self gives rise to two different sorts of happiness.

As it would be easily inferred, the experiencing self absorbs all the moments of daily life, one after the other. The remembering self is the "story teller," which interprets experiences and gives them a rating. Time is the critical variable in distinguishing between these two selves. For example; you take a two week vacation. For the experiencing self, if the second week of the vacation is better than the first, then having a two week long vacation is twice as good as a vacation that only spans one week. But for the remembering self, two weeks would be just as good as one week because time has little effect on a story.

There were a few ideas brought forth by Kahneman that I found to be especially compelling. One blunt truth is that most moments completely disappear from us forever. It was calculated that a moment is approximately three seconds in duration. So in a lifetime, our experiencing self has about 6 million moments. Our remembering self ignores most moments. However, after considering this topic I have come to believe that as individuals, we have the ability to choose between memories. If the idea of forgetting most of the moments that encompass a lifetime, it actually is possibly to devote time to revisiting moments in order to consume more memories. Our remembering self makes a decision as to which moments become memories, giving us more control.

I will end with a prompt given by the speaker. Consider choosing a vacation to take knowing that you will not have any pictures at the end, and you will receive an anesthetic drug to wipe out all memories of the vacation. Would you still choose the same vacation? Why? Would it even matter? It can be thought of in terms of time or as future memories. This illustrates that above all, the experiencing and remembering selves are just confusing.

Nap Time Now Remember Later

Studies have shown that during sleep, recent memories are crystallized into long term memories. Our declarative memory and motor learning skills increase in performance as we sleep, as well as other forms of memory. NREM, which stands for non-rapid eye movement is the moment during our rest cycle, where this process takes place, ninety minutes a day of even a nap can help restore these memories.Studies have shown that people without a nap showed no improvement in the brain processing new information from old information learned earlier in the day, but the ones that did nap were easily able to interfere the memories.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080107110401.htm

The Stuff of Memories

Can animals recall specific information from their lives? Arostotle and many other scientists argue that humans are the only ones who can remember what, where, and when a specific event occured. Recent experiments preformed by Howard Eichenbaum, PHD, a psychology professor at Boston University suggests otherwise. He Has been preforming experiments on rats by giving them tsts to show that indeed these animals do have memories and they have located where exactly this happens in the brain. There is a difference between recollection and familiarity. The rats couldnt simply rely on familiarity to solve the puzzles they were given. By exposing the rats to different scents placed inside of different digging materials the scientists were able to observe that the rats recognized when they took one scent and switched it with that that was in the other digging material. They concluded that the rats could not simply rely on the impression of smelling the one scent or digging in the one material but they could remember the asociation between the two that were mixed. The scientists experimented with blocking the hippocampi and found that the results had become random. this shows that the hippocampus plays a role in combining where-what-when information. This is very interesting information because they now had an animal model of how the memory works.

http://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/10/memories.aspx

moods and memory

reading

In class we were talking about how inaccurate memories can be. I came across an article on how memory of emotions can also be inaccurate. The article states that the memory of our moods differ greatly from looking back long term vs instance by instance. They use the example of mothers and their children. Generally speaking all the mothers reported the most pleasurable experience was when they spent time with their children, when instance by instance they enjoyed the grocery store more, or working out.

Is this how many of our memories work? Clearly our memories cannot be trusted but it also goes down to our memories of emotion. Do recovering the memories of our emotions also change as we recall them like say our first day of kindergarten?

cognitive bias

reading here

The reading for this week had me wonder why the thoughts we have are automatically correct. We rarely second think our thoughts wondering if what we claim to be true, is actually true.

How many times have you been frustrated at a friend, a boyfriend, or even someone that you look up to because of their misjudgment? Have you ever considered yourself subjective at time when you think that you are being objective? Emily Pronin, a psychologist performed a study to prove that the judgments that we think are fair and rational, are not. 

We are always right, and they are always wrong, right? These individual biases may seem obvious to outsiders, but those involved tend to claim objectivity. Emily Pronin has coined the term "Bias Blind Spot;" the fact that individuals see bias in others, but rarely in themselves. Bias blind spot often leads to conflicts and arguments not only with personal relationships but even between world leaders. 

What causes this? According to Pronin's research, bias blind spots happen because people have access to their own thoughts and feelings, but cannot know the true thoughts and feelings about others (common sense, right?). Thus people look inwards at their own thoughts and feelings, dissecting it as much as needed, then comes to a conclusion that their thoughts are as objective as possible, so there must be fault in the opposing side. "You think your view is objectively justifiable, and you have factual reasons for why it is correct. But if someone disagrees with you, you think it's because of their biases-their ideology or their emotions are preventing them from viewing things in a fair way," Pronin explained. Biases generally operate unconsciously, looking inward blinds people to their own biases.

Mental Numbing

The article assigned for this week had me thinking about how strange people's reactions to vastly tragic events are. Obviously in talking about something like the Holocaust, the scope of tragedy is so broad that it seems impossible to completely comprehend. Everyone understands that it was absolutely horrible, but do we really understand just how horrible? It's almost as if, should we be made to comprehend it entirely, we would never be able to think of anything else and certainly never think of humanity the same way again. Instead our minds just turn off. This limitation of feeling seems to follow all tragic events that happen on a large scale, while less so with something like, say, hearing about the death of a single person.

The article I read was called "Psychic Numbing and Genocide", and it delves into this topic of the mind seemingly failing to fully grasp the horror of tragic events like genocide. Specifically it went into detail about the current situation in Darfur, which brings to light this phenomena even more so because it is happening right now, and yet people are still able to in many senses, ignore it. The author's explanation of why this happens has a lot more to do with cognitive psychology that someone, or at least I, would have guessed. Specifically, it is related to cognitive psychology because of the impact of attention. Basically, the article boils it all down to an issue of attention and the way the human brain naturally divides its attention. "Diminished sensitivity" occurs as quantities increase; for example, it is easier to get someone to donate to a children's charity by highlighting one child rather than demonstrating statistics of millions of children. The author identifies this as the "psychophysical model", saying "Constant increases in the magnitude of a stimulus typically evoke smaller and smaller changes in response. Applying this principle to the valuing of human life suggests that a form of psychophysical numbing may result from our inability to appreciate losses of life as they become larger." This may at first be difficult to understand, and is really kind of counter-intuitive. But the author points out that as the numbers increase, the differences in emotional response between them decreases. For example, presented separately, saving 88 lives will not feel much more different than saving 87.

Do you think this is accurate? It's hard to say because it seems most people would have a reaction against this, insisting that saving 88 lives is obviously better than saving 87. But does that mean our response is much different?

http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2007/11/slovic.aspx

recovered memory syndrome

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

Recovered memory syndrome is a controversial condition where one recalls an event that they repressed to the point of no prior memory. The issue is people are very suggestible. In studies Dr. Elizabeth Loftus studied a mother and her two sons. She eventually convinced them about an event of being lost in the mall in childhood (which never happened) to the point where each of them gave detailed descriptions of the kindly stranger who helped them.

Recovered memory was compared to a witch hunt, in that suggested memories were usually linked to some sort of sexual abuse. In cases where children were badgered into believing they were molested innocent people when to jail, parents even searched out secret hiding spots that in actuality never existed.

So in reading this, how much of repressed memory can we trust is a true memory? Are people really just smart monkey's who can be trained into actually believing a false memory?

If your group wants to conduct an experiment, you can find the steps here:

http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/

and here:

http://methods.fullerton.edu/noframesindex.html

choosing our memories

how does each individuals brain decide what to store in their short term memory? Is it a concious choice? The article I read this week does not neccesarilly explain how information is chosen to be stored in memory, but more what is chosen to be stored. Using  functional magnetic resonance imaging (fmri), researchers can see just what information people are holding in memory based only on paterns of activity in the brain. In 10 sec delays after each exposure, researchers recorded brain activity during memory selection and storage processing in the visual cortex, a brain region that they hypothesized would support the maintenance of vusual details in short term memory. 

“Another interesting thing was that if subjects were remembering orientation, then that pattern of activity during the delay period had no information about color, even though they were staring at a colored-oriented stimulus,” said Edward Awh, a UO professor of psychology.

“Likewise, if they chose to remember color we were able to decode which color they remembered, but orientation information was completely missing.

Though the article proved to be quite informative, It still raises questions in my mind. I know im not the only one who forgets things that at the time I made a concious point to remember. did my mind subconciosly decide for me that it was information that would not be stored in long term memory? What make my brain decide to keep information in short term memory. I mean, if I were to take the Art History exam that I Aced last semester now, I would probably fail it. Information that could prove to be beneficial in my field of study. Why cant my brain recognize that?? haha 

Even though flashbulb memories seem so vivid in our minds we've learned from the reading that these seemingly permanent memories can change over time. These memories are usually of events that are typically highly personal and emotional in ones life. I remember where I was exactly when 9/11 happened and everything about that day. After reading the article I remembered that back in middle school I kept a diary. Even though I don't have the diary with me here in Brooklyn, I will be home over spring break and I'm interested to see how my "flashbulb memory" compares to what I wrote about that day.

Nose Memories

As is the case with flashbulb memories, sometimes our memories work in ways we don’t even realize. Tapping into the depths of the subconscious can be an extremely successful approach in branding and advertising. This article explores the role of memory and scent in brand distinction. Studies indicate that consumers remember scented products over unscented products (they used scented and unscented pencils in this case).

I’ve always been astonished by the power of smell and memory. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been overcome with nostalgia just from getting a wiff of something familiar on the street. However, I'd never considered how brands could (and I suppose many do) take advantage of scent memory and association. If the smell of toast can me homesick just because it reminds me of driving by the ethanol plant in my hometown, it’s more than likely I’ve picked a brand a second time because I've archived it's scent somewhere in my mind.

Sweet dreams

The study of altered states of mind allows us to better understand our own sober, baseline mind's activity by offering a third person perspective (hopefully not literally). This article highlights marijuana's particularly destructive effect on the frequency of dreams and the clarity thereof. I can relate through personal experience, that it's next to impossible to dream after smoking pot in the duration of the day. The article references a study that claims that THC inhibits REM sleep, the kind of sleep that is associated with dreaming. Also, after ceasing smoking REM sleep comes back in full swing, indicating a rebound effect. The study however doesn't establish the chemical mechanics in the brain that cause that to happen. It is known that DMT, or dimethyltryptamine, is the chemical that the body emits in its sleep, and also a psychedelic drug that causes lucid hallucinations. This leads me to believe that dreams are chemically induced brain reactions (but what isn't?). This implies that perhaps marijuana acts as a substitute for the brain's natural production of DMT, fooling it into thinking it doesn't need to produce any more, or perhaps the fact that it doesn't need to release any more. Once there is no more THC, the brain then releases its built up stockpiles of dream chemical. This is just my speculation, but the research on this topic is so superficial and underfunded that it seems anyone can be a researcher in this field. The more impressive implication of this is that with enough knowledge of the mechanics of the brain's chemical reactions it could be possible to simulate any mind state with a chemical (dreaming is possible, it seems like other ones would not be so far away). Perhaps it's a good thing this pandora's box remains shut...

Link: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-teenage-mind/200906/marijuana-sleep-and-dreams

lack of sleep, lack of memory

While attending a party Saturday night, I was greeted by a familiar face in the crowded sea of people taking over the apartment's hallway . Familiar, yes, but I had virtually no recollection of this individual's name, where I knew him from, etc. It was not until five minutes into the conversation that something clicked and my memory came back to me.

Yesterday, I left my apartment and began my ten minute walk to the Pratt computer lab only to realize after reaching Brooklyn Nites nightclub (my halfway point) that I had left my essential USB drive back at my apartment.

Such occurrences happen to everyone, but lately I have been noticing a considerable difference in the number of times I have been experiencing these things that I should know are becoming inaccessible on demand. Since this is not a blog about the happenings of my daily life, I decided to look up possible correlations between memory and other affecting factors.

I came across an article entitled "Sleep Boosts Memory." After reading the title, I laughed. It makes perfect sense. The study performed tested the effects of sleep on the memory of college students by using word retention. A psychology professor at the University of Chicago distorted actual speech recordings and played them back to students. Deciphering the speech was the aim. Two groups of students were used; the first listened to the speech to see how many words were understood and then were trained to see if they could understand more. The second group listened to the speech at 9 in the morning, again at 9 in the evening, and then proceeded to have a night's rest. A third group was tested at 9 at night, and again in the morning after a night's sleep. It was found, as would be expected, that people retain information more effectively if they allow themselves a healthy night of sleep. What is interesting about this specific study is that it sheds light on the fact that sleep not only helps in thought retention but it "finds" thoughts and memories that otherwise would "slip through the cracks."

For individuals who trek along destructive but inevitable paths of sleep deprivation, I am wondering what the long-term effects will be. What is the cognitive future of someone who experiences memory betrayal at an early age? Is it purely physical and environmental factors that effect memory problems or do these lapses predictive of what is to come? I plan on looking further into this matter. If I can remember to, that is.

ha

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200310/sleep-boosts-memory

Deja Vu: a Memory Based Experience

Have you ever had a conversation with someone and sudden feel like you've had that conversation before, with the same person, in the same location, about the same topic; but you know you haven't? Or maybe you've dreamed about something, and then a few days later, you actually experience what happened in your dream. This is the phenomenon known as deja vu. Deja vu means "already seen" in French. But since the experience is unpredictable, subjective, and brief, there are no real concrete studies done on this event. The studies can only rely on personal descriptions and recollection of memory for data.

In the article, it mentions several different types of deja vu. Associative and biological deja vu are the two most common deja vu types. Associative deja vu is experienced by normal, healthy people. You may experience something that has some sort of familiarity with a past experience. Researchers say this is a memory-based experience and that the memory centers of the brain are responsible for this occurence. The other kind, biological deja vu, is associated with people who have temporal lobe epilepsy. Here, people have a strong feeling of deja vu just before having a seizure. But I think the most common theory is from Sigmund Freud, who said that "the experiences resulted from repressed desires or memories related to a stressful event that people could no longer access as regular memory." Scientists call it "paramnesia" which is the most common way to explain deja vu.

Researchers now use deja vu studies to help understand memory and the brain and how the brain forms, store, and retreives memory. So far, what they have discovered is that the medial temporal lobe is involved in our conscious memory and within the medial temporal lobe contains the hippocampus which recalls events and the parahippocampal gyrus helps determine what is familiar and what isn't without actually retrieving a specific memory to do it.

What I thought was most interesting was how these studies have determined who is most likely to have these deja vu experiences. Researchers concluded that deja vu experiences decrease with age. Also, people who receive higher income, travel more, have higher educational levels, have active imaginations, and have the ability to recall dreams are more likely to have deja vu occurences. Some researchers found that the more tired and/or stressed you are, the more likely the experience will happen as well; others report the extreme opposite; that the more refreshed and relaxed you are, these experiences will happen more.

For more information, you can find the article here.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/deja-vu.htm

That Damn Dream Again!

I've always been extremely interested in dreaming, especially in the theories behind recurrent dreams because I myself suffer from a nightmarish recurring dream. This article explores the Threat Simulation Theory or "TST" which is a theory that states that dreaming is a biological defense mechanism that evolutionarily simulates threatening events in our dreams through cognitive mechanisms. The author of this article undergoes a certain dream, and explores the idea of TST being a theory of why he experiences different versions of the same annoying dream. The theory of TST - that we dream to simulate problem-solving strategies for life events - holds true to me in some aspects because I'm able to relate my annoying/scary recurring dream to my subconscious trying to find strategies for the problems I undergo in my dream (which are symbols of my conscious daily struggles.) However, after reading the comments people had to this article, I found good argumentations in the many people that don't believe in the theory of TST. One poster explores one theory, " .. I am not sure that my dreams are not simply my mind's way of playing and compensating for days when I have not gotten the amount of mental stimulation I need.. " And another poster wrote " I'm not sure how the dream is teaching me to escape from real life threats. I do, however, wake up feeling somehow accomplished. Perhaps these type of dreams help us build confidence in our abilities or as in the highschool dream, help us accept and acknowledge our accomplishments."

There are so many reasons why it is extremely tricky to provide factual reasoning behind the theories of dreaming. Everyone thinks differently and there are different reasons behind the way our brains work - it's the same for our subconsciousness and dreaming. Some individuals may undergo a recurring dream that they cannot find any reason behind it or it's representation, OR they may be able to find a reason and be completely wrong about it. Some dreams are so subliminal that it's hard to find out it's meaning .. also, many dreams can seem like a pointless scary nightmares to one person, and a meaningful wake up call to another. One person may be able to blow it off as just some scary nightmare, where another person may take it seriously enough to apply it to their conscious life or keep it in their memory. It's hard not to feel bias, due to the fact I undergo a dream that I think is a direct result of my real-life struggles. About 90% of all my nightly dreams are a result of my conscious daily struggles. Also, I often dream about the issues that I was just discussing or thinking about a few minutes before falling asleep. As far as dream theories - I think it's very difficult to find the true reasons behind each dream, or to even find out if dreams do in fact have reasons fueling them. Do individuals with a high anxiety level therefore have more stressful and anxiety-induced dreams ? Do the more laid back individuals have less paranoia-infused dreams due to their more careless way of thinking ? I do believe when I am undergoing a period of great stress, I tend to have more nightmares. Is this for everyone though ? What about the times I'm not undergoing stress, but still have nightmares ? I'm not exactly sure what it means, or if I believe it has anything to do with evolution and my ancestors. Will an individual undergo a nightmare because their subconscious perceived something they saw but didn't pay much attention to that day ? Does attention and perception create the reasons behind a dream ? I believe every case is different .. some people tend to dream more than others for one reason or another. If it's a nightmare, it may not necessarily be a result of the stress of their lifestyle. Some people's brains may dream euphoric dreams to escape a harsh reality - therefore, won't it depend on every individual ? How can we say dreams .. such a tricky and vague matter to prove its reasonings .. be caused by anything evolutionary ? Another reason why I think it's so hard to identify a single theory behind dreaming is because of influences such as drug use, which is proven to greatly effect all aspects of dreams (conscious and subconscious life as well as cognitive memory). There is also lucid dreaming, where one can control their dreams the same time they are dreaming them .. how can this be a result of any evolutionary or ancestry cause ? Furthermore, considering every individual has their own way of interpreting things, who's to say it was a nightmare ? Who's to say it was a dream ? Does this theory include lucid-dreamers ? If a child living in a traumatizing household has the ability to lucid dream, won't they then have euphoric happy dreams in order to escape their terrible conscious life ? Is their ability to do so considered an evolutionary cause ? I question many aspects of this theory and it is preventing me from being able to form one strong opinion about it. All I can base my thoughts on is by pondering what I believe the reasons fueling my dreams and my reoccurring dreams may be. I wonder if this theory includes the drug users, lucid dreamers, individuals who's undergone life-altering obstacles in life, and people of all ages and races. Does this theory test only children ? What about the disabled ? Won't it be beneficial to question elders who contain more wisdom and have undergone more obstacles in life ? I think it'd be interesting to see if the results of children are similar to those of the elderly. I can come up with countless questions challenging the truth behind this theory. What do you think about the TST theory ?

Article:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/quirky-little-things/200806/damn-dream-again