IB Psychology HL

Experiment 3: Meaning Enhances Recalling

2007-03-12T20:11:00.001-07:00

In today's experiment, Dr. Anthony raised up a set of flashcards with a certain word written on it and a letter written ont he top left or right corner of the paper. Given that the letter was A, one had to count the number of syllables in the word. If the letter was B, one had to evaluate the word as "pleasant" or "unpleasant". After twenty letters, students wrote down the words and the letter associated to the words.

Results revealed that the majority of the students remembered words they had to rate "pleasant" or "unpleasant". Dr. Anthony commented that this revealed how humans tend to remember things that are more meaningful, which in this case are feelings. For most people numbers did not mean as much as feelings did and therefore, the "A" words were not memorized as easily as the "B" words.

Many other factors may affect this experiment though, one of them being the amount of sleep an individual had. I for one did badly in the experiment, which may be (as an excuse) a result of having four hours of sleep due to IB homework and stress.

This experiment could also reflect how individuals attempt effortful processing. A student in our class managed to remember 19/20 words. His tactic of remember the words was creating a story using the words themselves.

Short Term Memory and Chunking

2007-03-08T23:29:00.001-08:00

Dr. Anthony conducted an experiment on the whole class today. He read out numbers starting from 3 digits to twelve digits. Students had to attempt to remember each set of digits and write them on a piece of paper. The class in average remembered 7 digits, but I only remembered 5.

The average human is also able to store about 7 digits in their short term memory. The experiment the teacher has just conducted supports this statistic.

Generally individuals may device ways of memorizing digits. One way is through "chunking", or the splitting of digits from a list of them. Chunking creates a rhythm or pattern in pronounciation. Generally, a pattern in pronounciation is easier to remember than having none.

To prove this point, Dr. Anthony repeated sixteen digits, but this time using the chunking technique. A student recited all sixteen digits without hesitation or guessing.

Memories of the Past: Cognitive Perspective

2007-03-07T08:00:00.001-08:00

The instructions for this class were to recall the earliest memories one had.

I remember being licked by a dog I had in KL when I was about 1-2 years old. The wet and soggy feeling made me cry.

According to Dr. Anthony though, it’s highly unlikely that I had remembered this memory, but produced this memory, woven or influenced by other events such as family members recalling it. Dr. Anthony argued that one could only remember true memories originating when one is 5 years old and above, due to neurological development. However, this event seems so vivid and lively that it doesn’t seem possible for it to be something made up.

Memory is capable of changing quite easily. Dr. Anthony used the term “malleable”, meaning it is easily influenced by society. I agree to that as I do recall some memories that I know are false.

In my point of view, I think that there are some memories that I actually do recall accurately. Apart from being licked by a dog, I remember picking the bones of my grandfather after his cremation as part of a ceremony.

Viktor Frankl Scrapbook

2007-02-04T19:45:00.001-08:00

Viktor Frankl Scrapbook

Existentialism

2006-11-23T03:42:00.000-08:00

I think existentialism is a rather dark. Does it really belong to the humanist approach? It rejects religion then tells us to embrace our depressions. It feels more like philosophy than psychology, but maybe that's what psychology is. The topic is quite different from the scientific approach found in the learning perspective. The ideas of existentialism is very interesting and the debate it covers, over life and human nature, is more interesting than behaviorism.

Foundations of the Behaviorist Approach

2006-10-10T09:48:00.001-07:00

Although ideas of behaviorism first appeared in Edwin Lynn Thorndike’s studies of animals and his concept of the “law of effect”, Watson is recognized as the founder of behaviorism. He showed that psychology should be more objective, thus studies should be done through observation of the environment and how organisms respond to it.
From behaviorism, the ideas slowly evolved to the learning perspective. Following Watson, Skinner broadened the topic by attempting to show that feelings, which Watson disregarded, could be studied too. With more theories based on biological and cognitive studies, the ideas of behaviorism evolved to the learning perspective.
Behaviorism first appeared in America, where people were optimistic about life and situations. The Americans liked to have a sense of pride for their country and a feeling that things could be achieved. The idea of progression beyond limits was implanted in society.
The psychodynamic perspective was denounced in America. One reason to this is that the psychodynamic perspective was not satisfyingly scientific enough and could not be studied. There are no ways to study the unconsciousness in detail. On the other hand, the Behavioral perspective is logical and scientific. The science in the Behavioral perspective is it is based on observations than predictions. People enjoyed the simplicity, caused by the idea of parsimony, of the Behavioral perspective. Behaviorism, in contrast with Freud's Psychology, was much more optimistic and the Americans enjoyed its difference from Freud's Psychology.

Essay III Introduction

2006-09-27T23:32:00.000-07:00

Neo-Freudian theories, having evolved from the theories of classic psychoanalysis, provide a greater understanding of human behavior. One of the major theories Carl Jung, a Neo-Freudian psychologist, theorized was one that explained how personality functions. Another of Carl Jung's important theories is his theory of the collective unconsciousness.

What I Learned About the Essay

2006-09-07T00:15:00.000-07:00

The essay taught me that IB grading is extremely difficult *though I already got an idea of how they grade from English class*. The essay has to be critically analyzed to check for any small errors. The diction or wording of the essay is very important, since different words, although synonyms, have different uses and meanings. The essays must be extremely complex in sentence structure and info. The info must be elaborated and proven by facts.

What I think of Freud and Little Hans

2006-08-30T08:43:00.000-07:00

I think Freud is thinking too much. I feel that his interpretations are, and surely are, subjective. On the contrary though, he has fairly strong support from his research on Little Hans. What I find amusing about Freud's report on Little Hans is his belief that Little Hans was a pervert from a very young age. Most people view children below six as sweet, innocent kids and that was probably what Little Hans' parents thought about him too. Then Freud comes along saying that Little Hans was a perverted little devil, wishing to kill his sister and dad, and seduce his mom. The extremely different point of views of little children seem abrupt and hilarious. I really think that Little Hans could be naughty, but wouldn't be old enough to acknowledge killing and murder yet.

Vienna in the late 19th Century

2006-08-22T09:32:00.000-07:00

Vienna was thriving with culture and prosperous. Art and music was everywhere. Famous people from Europe came to Vienna just to sit and chat about their ideas and discuss plans. The government was strong then and the governer planned many changes for the city. However, the governer himself was anti-semetic, hating Jewish people. This could have led to Freud's negative ideas that people were driven to do harmful things to others. Although the city was rich and prosperous, the space between the rich and poor was great. One was either extremely rich or extremely poor. Life probably was very hard for those who did not keep up with the rich side. During the change between the 19th and 20th century though, Vienna was the main city where psychoanalysis took place.

Big Issues in Psychology

2006-08-17T00:10:00.000-07:00

Having filled out a survey to determine which side in psychology conflicts we're on, we came to conclusions that in some ways contradict what we first believed. In the beginning, I first believed that people were governed by nurture over nature and there tends to be changes in people as they go through their lives. I also thought that people's actions are rather irrational. The results that came out however, proved I was right on two and wrong with the others, showing that I have fooled myself in believes. Results showed that I did agree to changes in personality and that nurture is the main factor that controls our action. However, results showed that I believed that people's actions are rational. My believe that nurture and nature appear to not prefer to any side too much.

The Reason to our Actions

2006-08-14T19:38:00.000-07:00

Everyday, our lives are filled with actions that we do systematically. I believe that the reason to this is subconciousness. The inner self, id, tells us to do things. Id itself is trained by outer factors and inner factors, thus society at whole is responsible for what our subconciousness tells us to do.
Biologically we are our own brain. Our conciousness gives us an outward feeling, and thus it is related to why some of us believe there is a soul in each of us. Our conciousness tells us that we are what we see, but all we really are, as in our personality, is the brain. Thus, since we "are our own brain", I believe that chemical signals trigger the brain's responses too. The subconciousness triggers chemicals that cause wants and needs experienced in conciousness. Thus the subconciousness causes the conciousness in us.
Nature and nurture are major parts of our lives too. As animals we are tempted to satisfy our feelings, like fighting, arguing, stealing, etc. All the same, culture also affects how we act. Some cultures are taught with military standards and some cultures stress on morality. A child with a parent who doesn't really tell the child right from wrong or introduces the child at a very young age could be rather violent, while parents who are strict or stresses on morality could bring up a child of peace.

Why Psychology

2006-08-09T21:15:00.000-07:00

The reason why I chose IB Psychology Higher Level is based on interest. I have always liked to know more about the mind and human behavior. On some days when I'm free and have nothing better to do than sit down and stare at the skies, I ponder on strange things like whether people talk to themselves and if it's subconciousness doing the talking or the concious state of a person.
Another reason why I joined IB Psychology is it is in the science field. As my major will be a science, Psychology might play a role in the future.