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Hi, this is Poi's blog.
I'm rather interesting, really.
I heart psychology.
I believe in parallel universes.

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Thursday, April 05, 2007
The Style Delineator by Gregorc

The Style Delineator by Anthony Gregorc is a self-analysis instrument. It is designed to help reveal the set of mental qualities and mediation channels that someone has. For the test, i had to rank several list of words in order from least to most related to myself, (words such as objective, sensitive, intuitive, etc). The result was that, according Gregorc's test, my mediation channel is AR (Abstract Random), which explains several of my characteristics. fFor AR i scored 32, while for the opposite channel (Concrete Sequential) i scored a 15. Here are examples of my frames of reference:

World of Reality: abstract world of feeling and emotion
Ordering Ability: Random, weblike, multi-dimensional
View of Time: time is artificial and restrictive
Thinking Process: emotional, psychic, perceptive, critical
Validation Process: inner guidance system
Focus of Attention: emotional attachments, relationships, memories
Creativity: imagination, arts, refinement, relationships
Environmental Preference: emotioanl and physical freedom, rich, active, colorful
use of language: metaphoric, uses body gesture and language, colorful
Negative Characteristics: Spacey, Overly sensual, smothering

According to this test, i am an emotional person. Most of the characteristics that the test assume i have is correct, like my opinion of time is that it is artificial and restrictive. I also have a weblike way of ordering things, like my closet, for example. What i don't agree with is focus of attention, because i don't focus my attention on relationships and emotional attachments. The test must use generalisability, and becuase people are different, this part isn't true for me.



BLOG ENTRIES for Class Experiments


Entry # 1: My First Memory

For psychology class, Mr. Anthony said that memories are often reconstructed and are extremely emotional. We tend to remember events that trigger feelings and emotions, making these incidents memorable. They may be happy memories or unpleasant memories.
My first memory is of my first few days in nursery school. I was forced to eat cookies and drink milk when I wasn’t hungry. I vomited and cried. The milk wasn’t even cold and it smelled bad. It’s a very unpleasant memory, which is why I can remember it quite clearly.
Mr. Anthony said that it is neurologically unlikely to remember things during the ages of 1 to 2. There are also many ways that memories can be false. What we perceive as memories can actually be a recollection of childhood incidents that are later told to us but we mistake for actual recounts. They can also be images which are from photographs but we mistake for real recapturing of past incidents. So it appears that our memories are reconstructed from many outside elements. We seem to recreate the scene that we mistake for actual memories by the stories people tell us and from what we make up without realization. It seems that actual memories are events that we can’t see ourselves in when we look back on them, only our surroundings. If we see ourselves in the memory then it is likely that it is a recapturing of events caused by external forces. Memories are malleable and highly influenced by a range of factors.

Entry # 2: Chunking

Today, in psychology class, we did an activity called short term memory activity. We also learned about chunking, which is defined as grouping that makes it easier to remember things. For example, when we group telephone numbers into three separate groups, it makes it easier for us to remember it.
In the short term memory activity, we had to memorize numbers and write them down. The number increases by one digit every time. My score was a 5. The average score is a +/- 7, meaning my short term memory span falls in the average scale. However, this activity is not reliable in testing our short term memory span. For greater reliability, we need to do this activity about 10 times and get the average score. This is because it is possible that there were distractions or other environmental factors that allowed us to score more or less than what we’re supposed to. I noticed that I had one of the lowest scores in class. The numbers were hard to remember because of many reasons. First, they weren’t in any particular pattern or order. Chunking would allow an easier time in remembering these numbers. What we also learned is that if a memory is meaningful and emotional, then we can remember it easier. Thus, memories that are neither meaningful nor emotional are hard to remember, while memories of events that stir a lot of emotions are easier to remember. An example is the facts on a test that we studied for that fails to stir emotions or meaning to our lives is hard to remember, after we’ve taken the test already. In contrast, an event such as high school graduation is easier to remember because it stirs a lot of emotions and meaning to our lives.


Experiment # 3: Effort Processing

The third experiment was that Mr. Anthony read out 20 words on 20 separate sheets while letting us see the words as he held it up. The sensory inputs were the sight and sound of the words. At the bottom of each sheet was either letter ‘A’ or ‘B’; we were supposed to count the syllables in the word if we saw an ‘A’ and think about whether it was pleasant or unpleasant when we saw a ‘B’.
The score for the class was that the highest score was 19, and the lowest score was 6. The mean of the number of ‘A’ words people recalled was 5.09 words, the mean of the number of ‘B’ words people recalled was 7.09 words, and the mean of the total number of words people recalled was 12.27 words. There were 2 people with an equal number of ‘A’ and ‘B’ words, 2 people with more ‘A’s than ‘B’s, and 7 people with more ‘B’s than ‘A’s.
This experiment was effort processing which shows how it is more likely for people to remember words when they are given meaning. People remembered more B words than A words because B words were given more meaning to it, thus, we give it more power to be remembered. The syllables of the A words were harder to recall because we did not give it enough meaning. Mnemonic device helped the highest scorer recall things easier- he made up his own story in his head using these words, which allowed in better memory retrieval. The crazier the story, the more easier the words are recalled. Those who had distractions, misunderstanding, and exhaustion, are all factors that affect our ability to encode words into our memory. So if we are tired or distracted, we remember less than we are able to.

Experiment # 4: Understandings about Memory

The fourth memory test was much more simple than the other ones given earlier in class. Today we did our 4th memory experiment. We were instructed to listen to 14 words, read aloud immediately one after the other. At the end, we were given a while to write down all the words. The words were: bed, quilt, dark, sleep, silence, fatigue, clock, snoring, night, toss, tired, artichoke, turn, rest and dream.
This experiment lead to 5 understandings about memory:
The serial-position effect, which is when the first (primary) and last (recent) items are remembered best. For example, everybody remembered the first word ‘bed’ and 6 people remembered the last word ‘dream’ because we tend to remember earlier items and the things we heard last, rather than the ones in the middle, no dark, sleep, silence, and fatigue were not as easily remembered.
Words that have semantic distinctiveness, or a particular word that has a meaning that stands out or is dissimilar, are remembered pretty well. For example, the word ‘artichoke’ which had no close relationship with all the other words stood out to us and that is why we remembered it.
Rehearsal improves recall. The word ‘night’ was repeated 3 times, and everybody remembered it and wrote it down.
We have memory reconstruction, where we fall back on the schema that we already have in our head because the words are related to each other. Therefore, 3 people wrote down a word that wasn’t there: ‘sleep’. This is because sleep was related to almost all the other words; an interesting thing we thought about was that people who wrote down ‘sleep’ were more creative than others.
Chunking helps with memory. The words ‘toss’ and ‘turn’ could be chunked together because they are often seen together in the English language.

Experiment # 5: Memory and Schema

In class, this story was repeated three times. First, Mr. Anthony told Pang this story, and she had to repeat it to Maytee. Then Maytee had to repeat it to Daniel. This was the story:

A Qantas International 747 that was going to Los Angeles took off the Bangkok International Airport. A passenger near the rear of the aircraft announced that he was hijacking for the People’s Revolutionary Army.The Hijacker then held a 357 magnum gun to the head of Jack Straw, a flight attendant, and forced him to open the cockpit door. There the hijacker held the gun at the head of the pilot, Jane Smith, and forced her to change course to Cuba. While the pilot radioed Bangkok to report the situation she suddenly threw the microphone at the hijacker who fell backwards through the open cockpit door and onto the floor.The angry passengers forced the gun off him and tied him up. The plane returned to Bangkok and in a few minutes the hijacker was arrested.

When this experiment was carried out, what we noticed was leveling, which can be defined as simplifying of material. The story became shorter and more detail was lost in the process of retelling. Another aspect we noticed about memory was sharpening, defined as highlighting or emphasizing certain material. In this story, the details that were sharpened were about the gun and the plane. Assimilation also occurred- defined as the changing of details to fit the subject’s own background knowledge. This filling of gap is referred to as schemas. Students were more focused on the schema of the pilot and the flight attendant, while forgetting the passengers. A good example of the schema in the student’s mind is that, in the story the pilot was a woman and the flight attendant was a man, but when the story was retold, they reversed sexes; the pilot became a man and the attendant a woman, which is the image we tend to have in our minds: male pilots and female flight attendants. This shows how information and detail of an event can become distorted by our memory processing due to the schema in our minds. This experiment shows how real eye witness accounts are not entirely reliable because stories are often changed according to schemas.



It’s Magic, It’s Malleable, It’s Memory

What is the relationship between memory and selfhood?
According to the article, it can be said that memory creates the self, and yet at the same time, the self is what constructs and reconstructs memory. The self is shaped by the nature of memory; we become the “hero” of our autobiographical narratives, as the “self” is in the center of our life’s story. Thus, memory constructs our sense of self. However, memory is also the product of the self, as we constantly seek meaning in life, a process that shapes our experiences as well as memories.

What new discovery about memory do you find most interesting?
Although interesting discoveries in this article were ample, what I found most interesting about memory was the fact that memory does not reside in a single, specific location of the brain. Memory is stored in different parts of the brain, and yet they are still part of one memory. If one part of the brain was cut off, then memory is not destroyed. This changes my original view of memory that it was located in a single part of the brain and if this location is destroyed, then all will be lost. The example of the man who lost his short term memory but not long term memory is intriguing because I never knew it was possible. It clearly shows that different aspects of memories are located in different parts of the brain, something that is new to me.

How can some memories become indelible?
Certain memories become indelible, or in other words, permanent, when they are deeply engraved into the brain. This occurs when a traumatic event is experienced, which triggers a strong emotional or stressful response in a person. In the process for this event to occur, the brain releases 2 very strong stress hormones that activate neurons in the brain. This leads to the person feeling tense and the strength of the storage of that memory is measured. The more traumatic the event, the more permanent the memory becomes. So when the person is placed in a situation where that memory could be recalled, the emotions experienced resurfaces. In other occasions, emotional processing occurs beneath our conscious awareness.

How can amnesia and repression be explained?
Amnesia is defined as the failure to encode information into long term memory. Repression refers to how the memory is forgotten because of its painful or traumatizing nature; so our defense mechanism represses it in a need to protect us from anxiety. Repressed memories can be retrieved after a period of time, because it is always there but “buried”, however, with amnesia, the memory could never be retrieved because it had failed to encode. Both amnesia and repression are caused by a problem in a part of the brain called the hippocampus. The hippocampus controls and processes explicit (declarative) memory. When the situation is traumatic or emotional, it is possible for the hippocampus’s functioning to become impaired. Other aspects of the memory could still be stored in places such as the amygdala. This means explicit memory can be disrupted and yet, implicit memory may not necessarily be.

Explain the following statement: “Memory is more reconstructive than reproductive.”
Memory is not reproductive, which means that we cannot recall or reproduce a certain memory exactly the way they were when we experienced it. With the progression of time, minute details and elements of the memories are forgotten. These gaps could be filled with our schemas. Basically, if we were asked to recall a certain memory we could recall the general idea and its meaning, but not the details. For example, I were to recall my psychology test, I can remember the fact that it was about Memory and the main, key points on the test, but not the exact way the questions were asked, etc.

What new paradigm of memory is now emerging?
The new paradigm of memory, according to Elizabeth Loftus, is the blending of fact and fiction, with us being the writer. The way we reconstruct memory is the blending of real and unreal events with influences from our experiences, schemas and emotions. Moreover, a person’s idea of the memory may help shape their sense of self and perception towards life.


After reading this article, what conclusions can you make about memory?
After reading this article, it is possible to conclude that memory plays an important role in our sense of self, and yet the “self” is equally important in shaping memory. Thus, memory has an extremely paradoxical nature. Memory can be explained in a simple way, and in a more scientific way. The more simple explanation of memory is that it can be reduced to three steps: encoding, storage and retrieval. However, in a more scientific explanation, memory can be extremely complex because it has to do with neural networks at multiple places it the brain. Memory is also “malleable”; it can be constructed and reconstructed. In a sense, it is malleable because it cannot be reproduced only reconstructed. Schemas tend to fill the gaps of details that were missing, thus, the accuracy of memory is changed in the process. Emotional impacts can also shape memory, traumatic memories are often repressed, while memories that may stir a strong emotional reaction (like birthdays) are often easily recalled than ones that are not as emotionally stimulating (like mathematical formulas). It can be concluded then that technology has advanced rapidly and machines that study the brain are becoming more efficient in its purpose, which will, hopefully lead to even better understanding of memory.







poi [ 12:14 AM ]

1 Comments:

  • Well, since we both got abstract random . . . but I do think it fit you more than me though, it does seem to fit you.

    By Blogger Ju-da-su, at 6:42 AM  

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