Experiment 3: Meaning Enhances Recalling

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

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

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

Viktor Frankl Scrapbook

Existentialism

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

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

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.