Download Unit 6 Notes

Unit VI: Language, Memory & Cognition
Language Structure

Language: written, verbal, and signed words and the way we combine them to communicate meaning

Phoneme: in language, the smallest unit of distinctive sound.
(Example: The word chat has three: ch, a, t. The English language has about 40. the largest thing that separates
native from secondary language speakers is mastery of phonemes)

Morpheme: in language, the smallest unit of meaning.
(Example: the word misunderstanding has four: mis, under, stand, ing. Prefixes and suffixes add morphemes to
base words, compound words are least two morphemes, etc.)

Grammar: system of language rules that enable us to communicate and understand others (includes
semantics and syntax)
o Semantics: rules and study of meanings
o Syntax: rules for combining words into grammatically correct sentences and thoughts
Stages Of Language Development
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
Cooing aka (approx. 4 months): Spontaneous uttering of phonemes. (Infant development of producing
sounds greatly outpaces comprehension)
Babbling speech (approx. 10 months): Phonemes take on household language. (Phonemes get trimmed
down to native tongue, accents already begin)
Holographic speech aka one-word stage (approx. 12 months): Single words stand for whole ideas (“Doggie”
represents all thoughts related to the dog)
Telegraphic speech aka two-word stage (24 months): Two words stand for whole ideas, basic syntax structure
intact: noun-verb or adj-noun (“Doggie soft” “Doggie loud”)
Path to complete and complex sentences (24 months+): Grammar, syntax, and vocabulary increase at
astonishing rate. (ex. avg. 1 year old knows approx. 100 words, avg. high school senior knows 60,000) (ex.
Nouns, verbs, adjectives come quickly. Articles, pronouns, contractions develop later)
Theories for Language Development
Skinner’s Language Theory

Skinner’s Theory of Language Development suggests that babies learn language through basic conditioning
principles: association, reinforcement, and imitation. (Ex. Part of Skinner’s argument consisted of showing
that deaf children are not reinforced strongly to speak, so most learn to speak very slowly and generally
poorly whereas their sign language development is very rapid b/c it is reinforced very strongly)
Chomsky’s Language Theory

Chomsky believed that the capacity for language and manipulate language is innately preprogrammed in our
brains, and that the role of environment is to this genetic language foundation with whatever languages we
dump into it.
Three things Chomsky used to prove his point:

1) Self generated sentences: “I hate you mom” would not be taught to a child, but they can easily develop old
words into new ideas

2) Overgeneralization aka Overregularization: Children take new words and liberally apply common grammar
and syntax rules to them: “Many sheeps” or “I holded the toy”

3) Universal grammar: There is underlying tendencies for all babies to learn nouns first in all languages, the
same basic “deep structure” of language syntax and grammar applies in all languages, it is only the “surface
structure” that varies. Surface structure: understanding syntax differences in language. Deep structure:
understanding meanings regardless of syntax. (Surface: “I went to the store yesterday” and “Yesterday, I
went to the store” aren’t structurally the same design. Deep: they have the exact same context)

Critical period: probably the most important theory suggest by Chomsky, he believed that there was a
window of opportunity to learn language well and then after that window closed, the language acquisition will
never be as successful (Critical period applies to any human development where there is a period when it is
best achieved or done like crawling, walking, etc.) Chomsky believed it was about age 9 for language, and
then the window begins to close (Non-english immigrants can never master language as well as native
speakers, the older the immigrants, the less mastery, high schoolers taking a foreign language can never
mastery it as well as elementary school children, adults who become deaf never master sign language as well
as children born deaf that are taught to sign immediately, children who can hear can sign just as well as
children who are deaf if they are taught at the same age, children in multilingual households can master each
language fluently)
Lev Vygotsky’s Social Language Constructivism

Vygotsky’s theory suggests that children use language as the bridge or device to better understand their
mental concepts with the things in their environment. For example, Vygotsky said that the reason why most
children talk to themselves as they play/work (many adults do to) is because this helps advance the
connection of behavior with their mental interpretations of it. (Talking through the motions as they do them
basically help children understand the mental reasons for doing them and speeds up the semantics of
languages)
Benjamin Whorf’s Linguistic Relativity a.k.a. Linguistic Determinism

According to Whorf’s linguistic relativity/linguistic determinism, our language gives great indicators into how
culture’s think and what is important to them. The reverse is also true, a culture’s priorities will craft their
language to reflect those priorities.

This explains why Inuit groups have many words for snow, the Hopi peoples have a hard time explaining the
past (they have no past tense), Americans but not Japanese have an easy time expressing our anger (Japanese
have few self-descriptive feeling words), American cars and boats are often called she’s, American doctors are
often called he’s when no sex is indicated)
Basic Memory Model
Getting information in and processing it

The Atkinson & Shiffrin model of memory suggests that memory has 1) Three levels/stages of memory and 2)
Three processes to possess memory

The 3 processes of memory are: 1) encoding, 2) storage, 3) retrieval.
o 1) Encoding is taking environmental stimuli and processing them in such a way that they can be
meaningfully stored in long term memory if it is something that needs to be remembered long
term OR processed in such a way that they can be meaningfully kept in short term memory for
the duration of need (something in short term never committed to long term will be forgotten
as soon as short term memory changes its focus to someplace else) (Encoding is like typing on a
keyboard for a Word Document (Long term memory will require saving, short term, you exit
document no saving))
o 2) Storage is the saving and preservation of memories for long term duration so that they can
be referenced to and called upon later when needed (Storage is like saving a document to one’s
computer hard drive)
o 3) Retrieval is the bringing of long term memories (you can’t actively work with the info. in long
term) back to short term memory (this is why it is also called working memory, b/c it is where
you “work” on new and old data) so that it can be utilized. (Retrieval is like opening up a
previously saved Word document so that you can work on it on the desktop) When long term
stored data is finished being “worked on” it retreats back into storage.
o 99.9% of information we can keep or be aware of comes through 3 three-stage processing. Very
little is automatic or unconscious processing, meaning we can have that information without
actually actively processing it. Three things that fall into this category of automatic processing
are: sense of time, sense of space, and sense of frequency

The 3 levels/stages of memory are: 1) Sensory memory, 2) Short term/working memory, 3) Long term
memory
o Sensory memory’s job is to collect the billions and billions of pieces of data bombarding your
brain from your five senses every second of every day. All data (except for unconscious data) is
brought to sensory memory and almost all of it is immediately discarded. Sensory memory lasts
for only about .01-.25 seconds because otherwise it would be overwhelmed as new data pours
in. Thus it must get rid of old data practically as soon as it arrives. Most is deemed
meaningless, thus it decays immediately into the recycling bin. The small amount of data in
sensory memory that your brain indicates is meaningful enough to keep for longer than that
.01-.25 seconds must be sent to short-term memory b/c it can’t hold in sensory. (If sensory data
did not immediately move or destroy data, imagine your brain sensing the world the same way
videos lag online from slow download speeds)
o Short term/working memory’s job is two fold: 1) tackle the new data deemed meaningful
enough to be sent to it from sensory memory and 2) call upon stored data in long term memory
to be brought back b/c it has relationships with the incoming sensory data. Short term memory
has about a 15-30 second max lifespan before decay begins without rehearsal (with rehearsal,
you could feasibly keep unstored memory in your short term memory forever, but the first
distraction (a.k.a. new data) would make it go away.) When data is done being used in short
term memory, one of three things are going to happen: 1) It will return to storage in long term
b/c it was something already there, 2) It will become stored in long term because you have
encoded to go there, or 3) It will vanish into the recycling bin b/c it was not in long term and you
did not commit to long term. The magic number of data units (not characters, units of meaning)
is 7 +/- 2. (Newer research suggests that it may be closer to 4-5 and less to 7)
o Long term memory stores data that needs to be kept for future recall. IF PROPERLY ENCODED,
long term memory does not decay (only fades without practice) (the pathways of retrieval
might decay, but the data itself does not. If the bridge is out, the island still exists, just getting
there doesn’t) A major difference and thus advantage that the brain has over a computer, is
that that memories in our long term storage are placed in many files around the brain that
relate to the topic of the memory whereas a computer stores a file in once place unless you
force it to back up files. (Rats who knew mazes well had small portions of their brain removed
one piece of a time between each new maze run and they were still able to finish the maze
faster than new rats to the experiment, even after large portions of their brain were removed.
If not for multiple file storing, the first time the file containing maze data would be removed,
the rat would not be able to do anything)
Types of Effortful Processing

Effortful processing is any information that requires our attention and conscious effort to be able to learn it
o 1) Visual encoding is the encoding of ideas as picture images. Done through imagery: mental
picture schema
o 2) Acoustic encoding is the encoding of ideas as sound bites
o 3) Semantic encoding is the encoding of ideas by their meanings
Levels of Processing: Maintenance vs. Meaningful Rehearsal



Levels of processing: how intensely you think about the material. For example, if you only think about
spelling or number of letters in term, that’s shallow processing. If you picture the word in your mind or think
about a real life example of it, that’s deep processing.
Maintenance rehearsal is the conscious repetition of information to keep it in short term memory but not to
commit it to long term memory (phone number to get into phone list). Generally shallow. Decay hits when
you stop rehearsing.
Meaningful rehearsal is the conscious repetition of information with the intention of committing it to storage
in long term memory for later usage. Generally deep
Serial Positioning Effect

Serial position effect aka primacy and recency effect is the tendency to recall the first few things and the last
few things better than the middle in a list of data.
o Primacy effect is recalling the first things well in a long list, due to two factors: 1) It is
introduced into short-term memory when it is fresh and w/o competing data, and 2) It gets
rehearsed the most b/c it is the first things practiced
o Recency effect is recalling the last things well in a long list, due to two factors: 1) It was the last
data in short term, thus is has displaced most everything before it and 2) It is the freshest data
before recall is asked
Ways We Tend to Encode Memories Better









Self-reference effect is the tendency to remember data or words that are meaningful to you personally over
data that is neutral or less meaningful to your personal life
Chunking is the organization (sometimes automatically) of data into familiar, manageable units to make
encoding, storage, and retrieval easier
Mnemonic devices are any kind of memory aids, especially those who use vivid imagery or organization
devices to improve encoding, storage, and retrieval
o Method of loci is mnemonic device technique where one associates new topics to be learned
with objects found in one’s environment so that seeing one will hopefully trigger the
information of the other
Long Term Potentiation is an increase in a neuron’s synapse’s firing potential, after brief, rapid stimulation.
This discovery in the brain’s interneurons help explain two important things concerning learning: 1) it shows
why more practice and more study makes it easier to recall data when prompted to (much like someone can
much more comfortably drive down a road they’ve taken everyday over one they’ve been on once or twice)
and 2) the spacing effect is more effective than cramming concerning learning b/c the long term potentiation
makes recall stronger after successful periods of study, rest, study, rest, study, rest, etc.
When we are very emotional, we are much more likely to recall memories than from times when we were
unemotional. This is because the amygdala produces hormones when we are emotional that increases the
strength of long-term potentiation, meaning we are chemically geared to be able to remember emotional
things over neutral things (likely a survival technique for future survival)
Because memories are stored in several dozen to hundreds of relative files (schema) based on each aspect of
an idea, not surprisingly, the data that was encoded through several means (such as visual, auditory,
kinesthetic, and tactile) is much easier to remember longer and recall better and more thoroughly than data
stored through only one or two means (visual only)
Flashbulb effect- the ability to recall an immense of amount of events surrounding a very emotional situation.
People on Pearl Harbor attack day, JFK assassination, Challenger explosion, and 9/11 can recall much more
about that day (even stuff we normally would forget such as weather and where we were and who we were
with) than we typically would over a less emotional event
Overlearning: is the continuation of practicing the recall of information even after someone is certain they
know it completely and accurately. Practice, practice, practice.
Spacing effect aka distributed practice is the tendency for distributed practice or short practices with breaks to
yield better long term retention of data than mass or cramming practice (20 minutes of study six days in a row
will yield better long term memory recall on tests and post-tests than 2 hours of cramming even though they
are the same amount of time. Studies show that the brain needs rest after durations of study so it can process

data in small doses) SO QUIT CRAMMING! While cramming may work for an upcoming test on that unit, it
will not help at all for the AP or final exam. Spacing now means less studying for AP or final exam later
Hermann Ebbinghaus is considered the world’s most famous memory psychologist. In his Ebbinghaus curve,
he shows three things: 1) A good amount of data learned is lost within an hour 2) Spacing effect/distributed
practice improves long term recall and 3) The more the rehearsal sessions the better the recall
Snagging Those Environmental Bits of Data



Iconic Memory is a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli lasting no more than a few tenths of a
second (think how rapidly our visual world changes)
Echoic Memory is a momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli lasting so that recall can be done in about
3 to 4 seconds after being heard even if attention was else where (your sound recall is stronger for slightly
longer b/c less competition for sound sensory than visual sensory)
In short term memory, storage of ideas that are not committed to long term memory decay rapidly as time
increases between knowing the data and then being asked to say the data. (In one study, people were given a
seven digit number to remember in short term but were not permitted to commit it to long term memory. To
prevent the people from rehearsing the number or attempting to move it to long term, as soon as the people
were given the seven digit number, they were immediately asked to say the alphabet backwards from Z-A for
a certain amount of seconds. Those asked for immediate recall of the digits did so with about 90% accuracy,
those asked after saying the alphabet for 3 seconds had only 60% recall accuracy and after just 15 seconds of
time between presentation of digits and asked recall with alphabet in between, less than 10% could accurately
recall. Short term is limited in both time of retention and amount of data it can keep)
Implicit vs. Explicit Memory


Implicit (non declarative) memories are memories whose ability to store or retrieve them DO NOT involve
having to actively encode. These are stored in your cerebellum. (These resist all forms of amnesia and other
types of serious forgetting)
o Procedural memory- how to do something, muscle or action memory (ex. how to ride a bike, how to
shoot a basketball, etc)
Explicit (declarative) memories are memories whose ability to store or retrieve them DO involve having to
actively encode. These are in your cerebral cortex.
o Semantic memories- universal facts and information anyone can know (ex. George Washington was
our first president, Paris is the capital of France, 2+2=4, etc.)
o Episodic memories- personal memories of your life (ex. Your first kiss, your 16th birthday party, your
adventures at summer camp, etc.)


People with amnesia do not lose implicit memories (stored in cerebellum and learned unconsciously), only
explicit memories. For example- people with certain kinds of amnesia cannot describe how to ride a bike or
remember a time from childhood when they rode a bike, but they can do it when ask to, just not say how they
know. In a famous test done with amnesiacs with hippocampus damage, doctors would shock them with a joy
buzzer by shaking their hand at a time post-damage. The next time the person met with the doctor, they
would pull their hand away when the doctor attempted to shake theirs but they could not say why they pulled
it away.
The hippocampus is the storage warehouse for short-term memories dedicated to long term commitment.
Damage to the hippocampus could lead to a person injured in 1945 asked questions in year 1970 to believe
that Truman is president, WWII is coming to a close, and man is far off from reaching the moon. B/c data
cannot go into long term, they would have to be reminded again and again what year it is and what has
happened b/c when their short term memory gets distracted by other things, the memories are lost forever.
People suffering concussions or blows to the head often cannot remember the minutes directly before, during,
or after the blow b/c the jarring effect prevented short term memories to transfer over, making the memory
or event non-existent.
Methods and Types of Memory Retrieval
Prospective vs. Retrospective Memory

Prospective memory: remembering something that still needs to be done in the future (ex: take a test
tomorrow, go to doctor appoint next Wed)

Retrospective memory: remembering a memory that has already occurred sometime in the past. (ex: any
episodic or declarative memory you’ve already obtained)

These two memory types tend to work hand in hand. If you remember you have a dentist appointment
tomorrow, it may cause you to think back to that one time you had a really bad experience there. Or vice
versa, you think back to that one nightmarish day at the dentist and it jogs your memory about the next day’s
appointment.
Recall vs. Recognition

Recall is a measure of memory in which a person must retrieve information learned earlier. Fill in the blank
tests and essays demand recall

Recognition is a measure of memory in which a person need only to recognize previously learned information.
Multiple-choice, matching, and true/false tests demand recognition.

Recognition is easier than recall, explaining why test scores of students on multiple choice tests will be higher
than fill in the blank tests, even if they are testing on the same exact material

Relearning is a measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning a material for a
second time. If you learn something, forget it, then relearn it, your depth of knowledge will be faster and
deeper than your first time learning. Relearning is more like dusting off old knowledge to make it fresher,
much faster than sticking it in long term the first time.

Priming is the unconscious activation of all aspects and associations in memory of a particular concept. If
someone is told they will be learning a new species of mammal that day, priming says our brain’s will prime
for this knowledge by bring down to short term memory everything we have ever learned about mammals so
that we have it readily accessible to reference and compare to the new data about to be learned.
Priming can also influence our thinking behavior. For example, if you entered a store and happened to glance
at the abducted children posters, you are more likely to enter the store and immediately see child-adult
interactions with a “could this be an abduction situation” than you normally would b/c the files of what you
know about child-adult relationships is in your short-term memory, all geared towards abduction knowledge
and reference. (The great silk and milk experiment)
Déjà vu is the feeling that one is going through a situation or experience that is eerie and often way too similar
to a past recollection for one’s environment. Déjà vu is best explained by the following: when we keep old
memories, we only keep the highlights. As time moves forward, the details of old memories fade, only the
crucial parts remain. Everything we do in life is automatically referenced through context to our old
experiences. Sometimes things that happen now have many qualities in context of old experiences. The
reason why déjà vu is so apt to occur is because since only the highlights of old experiences remain, it is easy
for the old and new event to appear identical in nature. If we could recall all the details of the old events, we
would likely then see that they actually had very little in common, just the strongest aspects in common.


State Dependent Learning

State dependent memory a.k.a Context dependent memory: suggests that the various conditions or states we
are in during the formation of a new memory are also the best states to retrieve or recall them in later. The
right contexts provide the strongest chance of jarring recollection. Two examples:
o Mood-congruent is a type of priming recall that says we are most likely to remember information
recalled in the same moods we were in when we learned them the first time. If you learned it while
you were angry/happy, you are most likely to recall it when you are angry/happy. Children who
were currently in a sad mood when asked to describe their parents painted their parents as horrible
people and brought up examples, the same children asked six months later when they were in happy
a mood described their parents as wonderful people and brought up examples.
o
Spatial-congruent is a type of priming recall that says we are most likely to remember information
recalled in the same types of environment we were in when we learned them the first time. This
explains why I would discourage you from studying with TV or music on, b/c TV and music won’t be
on in the classroom atmosphere. One study found a difference of scores of up to 18% when
comparing students who studied in a library vs. those who studied in the park and then both groups
had their test administered in another library.
Problems in Retrieval/Remembering/Recall
The 7 deadly sins of memories:
Forgetting
1) Absent-mindedness: inattention to details produces encoding failure (failure to notice where you put
your keys causes an inability to find your keys, you never “forgot” where they were b/c in actuality you
never knew)
2) Transience: storage decays over time b/c of lack of use (unused information fades over time)
3) Blocking: information is present but inaccessible (tip of the tongue phenomenon, Alzheimer’s disease)
Distortion
4) Misattribution: confusing the source of information (thinking something happened in reality that was in
a movie, saying something we thought we came up with we unconsciously plagiarized from someone
else)
5) Suggestibility: lingering effects of misattribution can become false truths through repetition of telling the
same unintentional lie
6) Bias: rose-colored glasses or seeing the world as we’d see it at a point in time (negative feelings for
someone now can cause us to underestimate our positive feelings for them in the past)
Intrusion
7) Persistence: unwanted memories that we cannot let go of

The main reason we forget things is because of insufficient or failed encoding. If it’s remembered poorly, it
will be recalled poorly and decay faster.

With or without repetition, knowledge decays over time. Harry Bahrick showed in his “forgetting curve” that
with or without repetition, knowledge decays rapidly in the first few years and then the degree of decay levels
off over time. Most info is lost immediately but a % of it (40-30% generally) can last for years. If it can still be
remembered after 3 years, it likely gets remembered forever.
Proactive vs. Retroactive Interference

Proactive interference: Old data makes it hard to remember new, similar data. Proactive interference
explains why old locker combos, old addresses, and old telephone numbers make it difficult to remember new
combos, addresses, or phone numbers.

Retroactive interference: New data makes it hard to remember old, similar data. For me personally, and with
most teachers, learning the current year’s students’ names make it harder and harder to recall previous
student names. (We recognize them as people we know and have taught, could pick them out of a photo line
up, but the names often escape us)



Repression is a theoretical type of forgetting that involves moving stress-related events from conscious areas
of thought to unconscious areas of the mind so that they cannot trigger anxiety emotions, feelings, or
memories. (Many cases of sexual abuse of young children report some degree of repression where the
children simply ‘forget’ what happened to them, usually only discovered th rough psychoanalytical therapies)
Tip of the tongue phenomenon is the situation where you know you know the answer but you cannot
currently find it to express it, usually verbally. Tip of the tongue is common and has an easy explanation: the
answer is indeed in long-term memory somewhere, but for whatever reason, it cannot currently be retrieved
to short-term memory so you can use it, usually b/c it is proving hard to find in memory. Remembering by “it
starts with”, “it sound like”, etc., is your attempt to get it found and get it into short term memory.
Eidetic memory a.k.a. Photographic memory: is the ability to reconstruct mentally the exact visual or auditory
clue as it was presented to you without actively learning it to begin with. If you have eidetic memory and you
see something or hear something, you basically can recall it from your brain as if you had a still Polaroid or
tape recorded in your head. Approximately 1 in 5 10 year olds may have eidetic memory, however, less than 1
in 500 adults do. The ability to use eidetic memory fades over time, largely believed because as we have more
and more and more information into our brains, we cannot continue to store them simply by photographing
or tape recording them. *While children with eidetic memory have a distinct advantage at the time, as they
begin to lose it (usually by middle school), these children often have a very harsh and poor shift in grades
temporarily until they adjust from having one of their best tools taken away. Think about it this way: Why
would you study if you could use a cheat sheet. But if you get so reliant on using the cheat sheet, how well
might you do when you can no longer have it but have grown accustomed to it.*
Retrograde vs. Anterograde Amnesia

Retrograde amnesia is the inability to recall certain memories from the past. Retrograde amnesia usually
affects emotional and personal events. Even someone with full blown retrograde amnesia might remember
facts (like the capital of Japan) or procedures (like how to ride a bike) but would forget more personal material
(like their 21st birthday or the names of their children) Most concussions result in at least a little retrograde
amnesia, especially around the time of the injury.

Anterograde amnesia is the inability to form new memories after a related trauma has occurred, usually to the
hippocampus. If a forty year old person develops anterograde amnesia, they can remember everything and
everyone that happened to them that they learned at and before 40. Everything and everyone introduced to
them afterward will never be remembered b/c long term memory is impossible.

Source amnesia is the ability to know knowledge but not be certain or mislabel who or where it came from.
Psychologists believe that the encoding of WHO is the weakest encoding we have. In one experiment,
elementary school children did three experiments with a traveling science demonstrator. Two weeks later,
those children’s parents read them stories that described six science experiments for kids, three of which the
demonstrator had done, three which he had not. When asked two months later to describe the six
experiments, the kids did it quite easily and in great detail. When asked who taught them the six
experiments, most of the kids attributed learning all six of them thanks to the science demonstrator.

Zeigarnik effect: people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks. Even our
memories need to experience the closure of completion, and if they haven’t yet been completed, they nag the
brain like crazy. This may help to explain why games likes Tetris and candy crush saga, while extremely
simplistic, are level beating addictions: the brain remembers and stresses over incompletions. Once
completed, the memory fades. Another great example is Jeopardy or other trivia shows/games. Most people
don’t care at all about the random material . . . until they are asked about them. Then, even if they don’t
have the faintest clue what the answer is and ultimately won’t care to remember it later, they still MUST know
the answer. And that has less to do with answer and more to do with closing out the incomplete memory.
Once completed, the events surrounding the memory decays quick. (Zeigarnik first proposed this after
research showed that many servers could easily remember the food and drink orders of parties up to 12 at a
time at a table, but as soon as the party left the table, the servers forgot most of it within moments)

Pollyanna principle: people remember pleasant things faster and more accurately than unpleasant things
when recalling previous memories. The biggest reason for this is that a pleasant memory is nice to remember
as it happened. Since unpleasant memories aren’t, they are more likely to be distorted and altered so they
have less of an emotional affect on us when being recalled.
Elizabeth Loftus’ Work on the Reconstruction of Memory


Elizabeth Loftus did extensive work on the notion that talking about or recalling the past has little to do with
what actually happened and has much more to do with how we stored it and then recreated it later.
In her famous reconstruction experiment, two groups of candidates were shown a short film of two cars
where one wrecks into the other. Afterward when asked to recall the footage in their mind, one group of
candidates was asked to estimate how fast the cars were going when they hit each other, the second group of
candidates was asked to estimate how fast the cars were going when the smashed into each other.
Candidates who got ‘hit’ reported a much lower average speed as a group than those who got the word
‘smashed’. Even more importantly, a week later the candidates were all brought in and asked if they had seen
any broken glass after the accident. Those who had been asked ‘smashed’ originally were twice as likely to




report yes they had indeed seen broken glass during the video over those who had originally been asked ‘hit’.
In reality, the footage showed no broken glass at all.
Misinformation effect is the accidental and usually unconscious addition in one’s memory of an event. The
misinformation effect becomes worse as the memory gets older and older in our brain. This explains the
mysterious broken glass never actually shown.
Confabulation is an unintentional lie of the misinformation effect that occurs during the recalling of a story
that is a complete idea but lacks certain, usually meaningless gaps. Misinformation confabulations can explain
how story telling can turn a hammer into a screw driver, a stop sign into a yield sign, a magazine into a
newspaper, or a red T-shirt into a green sweater, etc. (Confabulations fill in the minor holes in a story and are
usually harmless. If recalling how you had to jump out of the way of a speeding car, you may mention how
your magazines spilled everywhere. In reality, they might have been newspapers, but b/c they are not
meaningful in the big picture, they were easily forgotten in what they actually were, but you know you were
carrying something, so your brain fills in a plausible albeit wrong guess: You carried magazines)
Experimentation through memory tests show that often our stories of the truth are often built just as much on
imagined confabulations as they are in reality. Thus it is impossible to judge reality based on the persistence
of the memory we have of it. Confabulations are convenient for telling a story a thousand times over, but it’s
still a thousand times told with incorrect information, it doesn’t become “more true” over time. Single eye
witness testimony is considered so weak in a court of law and by police, it is often disregarded as untrue.
Even multiple witness testimony is still far weaker than footage or DNA b/c many witnesses can still generate
confabulations that still lead everyone down the same wrong path.
This misinformation effect and the ease at which we construct confabulations is demonstrated in part by the
major controversy of testimony or memories discovered under hypnosis. False memories can be planted both
intentionally and unintentionally through the power of suggestion
Ways to Improve Memory

Study repeatedly to boost long-term recall

Spend time rehearsing or thinking actively about ideas, new ideas are weak and need to be strengthened

Make the material as personally meaningful as possible, we don’t forget things important to us

Use mnemonic device strategies for material that would be hard to recall otherwise

Refresh your memory by reestablishing your retrieval clues, i.e., get in the right mood, the right environment

Recall events immediately to prevent the development of misinformation, if you see a crime, write down
everything immediately before your imagination tries to take hold

Minimize interference: don’t study when your tired, don’t study like subjects back to back, don’t study with
visual and auditory distractions memories

Overlearn it. Practice, practice, practice.
Cognition & Critical Thinking



Cognition is the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating
(Basically all higher level mental functions are forms of cognition)
Concept is the mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people. This is how most information is
stored in our brain. We frequently call these schema.
Prototype: a generic picture of a concept in our brain that serves as the template and working model for a
concept folder. For example, under “evil people”, many people’s prototype would probably be Hitler b/c he
serves as a great example that fits pretty much all aspects of what it means to be evil. If a person is prompted
to say the prototype they would have for birds, most people might say something like a cardinal, robin, or
eagle but would be less likely to say something like chicken, ostrich, or penguin, b/c the first three serve a
more encompassing generic description of what we think of birds and even though the second three are
certainly birds, they possess qualities that make them less generic representations.
Problem Solving

Algorithm is a methodic and logical step by step process of following a procedure that is time consuming but
very accurate. Opposite of heuristic.

Heuristic is a simple mental thinking strategy shortcut that causes judgments and solutions to happen faster
but tend to be more error prone. A short cut, rule of thumb, or “common sense” approach. Opposite of
algorithm.
o Representative heuristic is a mental shortcut of stereotypically judging the likelihood of things in
terms of how well they seem to match our particular prototypes and ignore other relevant
information that is less representative of our prototypes. For example, in 1995, one thousand
people were given the following problem: “There is a man who is short and slim that reads poetry.
Is he an Ivy-League English professor or a truck driver?” 92% of people said he was an Ivy-League
English professor. But let’s break it down. There are 8 Ivy-League schools with perhaps 15 English
professors each. That’s 120 people max and how many of them will really fit the total description of
being male, short, slim, and poetic? There are more than 300,000 people in this country employed
as truck drivers. Even if only 0.1% of them fit the description of male, short, slim, and poetic, that’s
still 300 people. Stereotypes are representative heuristic prototypes.
o Availability heuristic is a mental shortcut of estimating the likelihood of events based on the
availability of them in memory. If we can think of instances of one thing in our mind over another
more readily, we automatically assume it is more prevalent. For example, people were asked: “Are
there more words that start with the letter K or more words who have their third letter being K?”
On snap judgment, most people said starting with K because we can think of those words much,
much faster than third letter K. In reality, it’s almost 5 to 1 third K vs. first K. This explains why some
people think you are more likely to die in a plane crash over a car crash b/c plane crashes make
national news, they are more memorable, they kill mass amounts when they do happen, thus they
appear prevalent.
o In reality, you are 12 times more likely to die in a car crash.
Divergent vs. Convergent Thinking

Divergent vs. Convergent thinking: Convergent thinking is thinking directed towards finding the answer to a
problem. Divergent thinking is thinking that searches for multiple plausible answers to a problem. (Ex.
Divergent: Brainstorming potential solutions to fix the economy. Convergent: Working together to solve the
answer to a math equation)
Deductive vs. Inductive Reasoning

Deductive: Looking at broad examples and narrowing done to a specific conclusion. GOOD. (ex.- Johnny
knows that many people get bee stings, very few die from them, ergo, bee sting allergy is an existing but
rare phenomenon)

Inductive: Looking at a specific example and drawing a broad conclusion. BAD. (ex.- Johnny’s friend dies
of a bee sting, ergo, Johnny concludes bee stings kill everyone)
Kohler’s Research on Insight

Insight a.k.a. Aha Effect is the sudden solution or realization of an answer after a period of inability to do so.
Insight follows a predictable pattern: 1) Attempt, 2) Frustration, 3) Dormancy, 4) Solution. This insight cycle
has been found in most higher level mammals. Insight was researched extensively by Wolfgang Kohler: Ex.chimpanzees were in a cage with a banana dangling from the ceiling out of their reach. There were three
boxes in the room. The chimps would reach, jump, throw stuff, try to climb walls, etc. to get to the banana.
They would then become noticeably upset, throw tantrums, destroy stuff until they were exhausted. They
would then go off and do other activities or sleep and ignore the banana. Then, often out of nowhere, they

would stop what they were doing, they would rapidly grab the boxes, stack them, climb them, and get the
banana. (Pigeon insight clip)
Psychologists like Kohler think that insight occurs because: 1) Frustration causes stress and anxiety so the
brain tells you to stop working on a problem as a defense mechanism and 2) Though the brain protects you
from frustration, it also doesn’t like unresolved problems, so unconsciously, away from stress, your brain
continues to work on the problem, probably even as you sleep. When the answer arrives, the unconscious
mind leaks it to your conscious thought. (Don’t confuse tip of the tongue with insight. Insight is gaining a
solution one previously didn’t have. Tip of the tongue is struggling to spit out information already present,
just not currently accessible.)
Things that Interfere with Critical Thinking and Problem Solving










Overconfidence is an overestimation in our abilities or depth of knowledge. Being cocky about something may
cause for you to not put in the right amount of effort necessary to succeed. The average of many experiments
shows that human confidence in our answers is about 85% across people, but actual accuracy rate is only
about 70%
Belief bias is faulty reason logic that leads to wrong conclusions. Believing things that are false or inaccurate
and then using them as the tools to reach conclusion is taints everything. Faulty logic could be the following:
Idea 1) Democrats support free speech, Idea 2) Democrats are not communists, Conclusion) Communists do
not support free speech. While this may be true, this cannot be proved by going from steps 1 & 2 to equal this
conclusion. Look at it this way, replace the word communist with Republican. Still appears to be true?
Consider the following specious reasoning scenario: “What is better than eternal happines? Nothing. But
bread is better than nothing. Thus bread is better than eternal happiness.”
Functional fixedness is the inability to see objects serving other purposes other than its normal, original
purpose. If you are home and the lights go out and you don’t have a flashlight and you suffer from functional
fixedness, you may be stuck in the dark. If you aren’t currently suffering from functional fixedness, you may
reason that your phone can easily serve as an emergency flashlight. (Even without the flashlight app :-p)
Confirmation bias is the tendency to pay attention to data that supports our beliefs and to ignore the data
that challenges or contradicts our beliefs. Think what politicians do: they believe one way. Some data
supports it, other data doesn’t. They bandwagon on the supporting data and completely disregard the
opposing data.
Choice supportive bias: the tendency, once a choice of options has been made, to exaggerate the positivity of
your choice and to exaggerate the negativity of the things you didn’t choose. Maybe you’re legitimately on
the fence about choosing an iPhone or an Android. But you ultimately decide iPhone. It won’t take long
before it goes from “serious weighing them both” to “of course I chose iPhone, it’s awesome and Androids
suck”
Belief perseverance is the tendency to cling to one’s ideas or beliefs even if challenged with overwhelming and
obvious information that contradicts it and proves our beliefs wrong. It is easier to keep false concepts than
modify to new ones or admit being wrong. This is basically denial of fact.
Mental Set a.k.a. Rigidity: The tendency to fall into mental ruts or predictable mental patterns because the
line of thinking has always worked before. You are in the routine of driving straight home from school every
day, day after day. If today you were supposed to go in the opposite direction because of a doctor’s
appointment, you may find yourself halfway home before you realize it because of the rut of routine makes
you instantly go into same old, same old mode.
The Woozle Effect: the tendency to automatically use previous info and data as part of our thinking process
even if the previous info and data are fundamentally flawed or even flat out wrong. This is how a lot of urban
myths and legends are born into acceptance. The internet has made the Woozle Effect more potent than ever
before.
Framing is the way an issue or statistic is posed changes our interpretation of it. Changing the way data is
presented can have a large impact on our decisions and judgments concerning that data. (For example: 90%
fat free and 10% fat mean the same thing, but would not be interpreted the same by consumers. If you have a
1 in 20 risk, it is the same as a 10 in 200 risk, but most view 1 in 20 in sounding much more risky. How many
people would play a game of chance if they were told they have an 80% chance of losing then if they were told
they had a 20% chance of winning.)
In one famous framing experiment, 9 in 10 college students reported that they felt condoms were effective in
stopping AIDS when they were told that condoms have a 95% chance of preventing AIDS transmission.
However, only 4 in 10 college students reported that they felt condoms were effective in stopping AIDS
transmission when they were told that condoms have a 5% chance of failing to prevent the transmission of
AIDS.
YouTube Channel: “SciShow Crash Course Psychology” videos relevant to this unit: #13, 14, 15, & 16