Psych Essays

Forgetting Intro

• Years, strangers name

• not weakness, just prioritizing

• mistakes in process can lead to errors, but you can enhance

Forgetting Body 1

How memory works

Memory is information that has been aquired and stored that can be retrieved

• Encoding: sensations to format brain can store (requires focus)

• Storage: organizing and linking details STM then if rehearsed and important LTM

  • STM: 7 items for 20 sec (phone number)

  • LTM: limitless (knowledge, skills, experiences)

• Retrival: accesing stored, cues bring stored into conscious

  • Recall: fill in blank

  • Recognition: multiple choice

Forgetting Body 2

Why we forget and amnesia.

Everyday forgetting 

• Atkinson-Shiffron Model (only if rehearsed, kept)

  • sensory memory: 3-7 for a few sec

  • working memory: 7-9 for several seconds

  • LTM

• Encoding failure: sense, but don’t notice (attention)

• Storage Decay: well encoded can fade (rapid then levels off)

  • Spanish learners 3 then 25 years

• Retrieval Failure

  • Proactive: old interfere with new (phone #)

  • Retroactive: new messes with old (remix lyrics)

• Motivated forgetting

  • Freud painful memories to protect self

Diseases (damage to hippocampus)

• Alzheimer’s: gradually damaged memory

• Anterograde: can’t form new memories

• Retrograde: can’t recall previous

Forgetting Body 3

Ways to enhance memory

• Mnemonics, Peg System, Roman Room

• Encoding Strategies

  • Visual image

  • make it about yourself

  • generate it yourself

  • organize

  • practice retrieval

  • connect to survival

Processing Intro

• perception shaped by senses and what our brain expects

• processes allow perceptions to form through sense, interpret enviornement

Processing Body 1

Top Down vs Bottom Up

Bottom Up

• begins with sensation

• ex: red apple

• slow, but good for new stuff

Top Down

• guided by higher level processes

• used prior experience and knowledge

• ex: read misspelled word and understand

• quick!

Processing Body 2

How does it shape perceptions

Bottom-Up:

• What Am I seeing?

• makes sure perceptions are based on actual input

Top Down:

• Is it something I have seen before?

• Faster

• Context important (driver hating)

• Perceptual Set: perceive one thing but not another ex: 13 or B in crossword or old or young lady)

Work Together:

• bottom up to get data and top down to make meaningful

• ex: reading (BU: elements of letters, TD: understand reading)

Processing Body 3

Complications

Bottom Up:

• time consuming

• detail focused

• can miss broader context or meaning (ex: proofreading for grammer might miss big storyline issues)

Top Down

• misinterpret when expectations override sensory input (ex: dark blob, might just be a shadow when you think its a scary person)

! Need both to understand efficiently

Processing Conclusion

! Both needed

Top Down gives big picture but Bottom up ensures accuracy

N v N Intro

• Are we born as blank canvases to be painted by our experiences, or do our genes shape the story of who we become?

• Psychologists reasearch across multiple areas such as intelligence, personality, and development to understand how genetics, nature, and environment, nurture, work together to influence human behavior research

N v N Body 1

Intelligence Nature

• Intelligence shows significant heritability, or the variability among individuals that is caused by genetics

• Mark Twain

  • All children raised in barrels, heredity is 100%

• Twin Studies

  • Identical twins raised apart still show similar intelligence

  • Scores are almost exactly the same when raised together

  • Even talents (math, music, sports) align

Intelligence Nurture

• cloning 100 genetically identical children in different environments → different intelligence

• Adoption Studies

  • adopted from poverty → IQ increase (~4.4 higher than siblings)

  • Unrelated siblings show a positive but small correlation (environmental impact)

• verbal becomes more like biological

Intelligence reflects the interaction of genes and environment; genetic predispositions develop within environmental opportunities

N v N Body 2

Personality Differences

• Twin studies

  • Bogota twins (separated identical twins)

  • rural vs. urban, same humor, strength, and supportiveness

Nature

• temperament, sociability, and emotional tendencies

• unusual similarities (fears, hobbies, quirks)

Nurute

• Twins

  • urban twins better nutrition, taller

  • rural twins had fewer resources, so they lacked speech therapy

Personality emerges from genes, but environment modifies the expression (resources, nutrition, learning)

N v N Body 3

Development Nature

• separated identical recall parents having similar kindness, genetic influence on how children perceive experience

• “Children experience us as different parents depending on our own qualities.”

  • Temperament affects response to the same parenting

Nuture

• Environmental shaping:

  • walking barefoot more rough then neighbor (metaphor)

  • Babies raised in warm home more outgoing and confident

  • social experiences reinforce or diminish genetic influence

Epigenetics

• environment can switch genes on and off

  • rats deprived of maternal licking → higher stress later

  • Poverty can leave epigenetic marks on genes involved in stress

Development is dynamic interaction, experiences trigger or inhibit genetic potential

N v N Conclusion

• intelligence personality and development, nature and nurture work together

• continuous interaction between genetics and environment

• separated identical twins: genetics powerful, but diff in nutrition, parenting, trauma, education, and opportunity amplify or limit

• must understand both!

Research Intro

• From the strange situation to the Stanford-Binet test, psychology’s most striking discoveries come from carefully executed research methods

• Experimental, correlation, and case studies are just a few methods that offer unique strengths and limitations, illustrated by key studies.

Research Body 1

Experimental

• Definition

  • manipulates one or more independent variable to observe effect on the dependent variable

  • controlled environments to isolate cause and effect

  • qualitative (scores, measurements, counts)

  • random assignment to help generalize

• Example (Ashe Conformity)

  • lines test with confederates

  • high conformity

  • situational factors about when people would defy

• Example (Marshmallow Test)

  • how self-control can be studies

• Strengths

  • cause and effect

  • control over variables

• Limitations

  • lab setting may reduce real-world applicability

  • some ethnical concerns

Research Body 2

Correlation

• Definition

  • relationship between variables (does not manipulate them)

  • uses statistics to identify patterns and associations

• Bogota Brothers

  • strong similarities in personality, humor, and interests still

  • differences (height, speech impediment) show environmental impact

  • Correlation data reveal both genetic and environmental influences

• Strenghts

  • study of variables that can not be easily manipulated (ex, upbringing)

  • spotting trends and creating a hypothesis

• Limitations

  • can’t establish cause-and-effect relationships

  • Third variables may affect outcomes

Research Body 3

Case Studies

• Definition

  • in-depth analysis of an individual, small group, or unique thing

  • qualitative methods (interviews, observations, documents)

  • natural real world

• Example (Little Albert)

  • 9-month baby conditioned to fear white rate by pairing with loud noise

  • fear generalized

  • emotional responses can be learned!

• Strengths

  • detailed data that can deepen understanding

  • useful for studying rare cases

• Limitations

  • findings cannot be generalized to the whole population

  • Researcher bias and lack of control can affect interpretation

Research Conclusion

• important to use multiple methods

• strengths and limitations

• Examples demonstrate unique insights and challenges

• diverse methods work together to provide a complete understanding