The mystery of memory

Summary

Memory is a very important, fascinating and interesting thing. There are few types of memory: long-term memory, short-term memory, working memory, procedural memory, declarative memory, photographic memory.

The process of remembering consists of recovering things from long-term memory and placing them into working memory. Other very important types of memory are procedural memory, that is remembering how to do things and declarative memory, which is remembering details of some thing. Moreover, there are other distinctions: recognition and recall.

Furthermore, people have photographic memory, which is snapshot-like fragments associated with smells, colors, tastes. Thanks to this type of memory people remember things from childhood.

What is more, people have great number of nerve cells in the brain, which can make even more different connections with each other. This process explains how memories are made.

All in all, memory is extremely important and there are still a lot of things to be discovered.

self-assessment

ESP vocabulary tests

This term we wrote quite many ESP vocabulary tests. I believe, that they really helped to improve my vocabulary I learned many new words. Now it is not so difficult to read articles in English, that are related to psychology.

Writing summaries

At the beginning I did not know how to write good summary, but I think that during this term, I learned how to do it write. I still have some difficulties doing it, but I believe that with more practice I can improve.

Online exercises

Almost every lesson we had been doing online exercises. I think they help to improve vocabulary and revise the material we learned at home. I believe I did quite good with the online exercises, although sometimes I feel like I should have been more ready for them.

Moodle tests

This term I had to do online moodle tests as well. It is difficult to say if I improved in them. Some times I had to use a book, because in the blank filling exercises you have to write exact same word as in the book.

Online listening in class. Traditional listening to cassettes.

We did many listening exercises in class during this term. I think these exercises were very useful. I did not have any trouble doing them, besides, they were very interesting and informative.

PPP

I presented a power point presentation this term. It was not difficult for me because I chose the theme that was very interesting for me, so I enjoyed looking for information and presenting it.

Speaking in prompt

In classes we had to speak in prompt a lot. I believe I spoke in prompt quite well. I like this kind of speaking. Could not say if I improved, I think my skills are about the same as at the beginning of the term.

Short talks

This term we had to present few short talks. It was not difficult for me, besides, the themes were interesting.

In conclusion, classes helped me to improve my vocabulary and speaking, but I still have to learn to write good summaries. Listening tasks were very useful and interesting.

Richard Wiseman

Prof Richard Wiseman is based at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK, and has gained an international reputation for research into quirky areas of psychology, including deception, humor, luck and the paranormal.

One of Wiseman’s research was about psychic detectives who claim to be able to help the police prevent and solve serious crimes. Prof Wiseman compared three psychic detectives with three students who did not claim to be psychic. All six participants were shown objects that had been involved in one of three crimes, and were asked to describe the nature of the crimes. Formal testing involved them being shown a list of statements, and having to match the statements to the crimes. Results from this formal test revealed that the psychics were no more accurate than the students, and that neither group performed at above chance levels.

In 2001, Prof Richard Wiseman teamed up with the British Association for the Advancement of Science to create a mass participation project exploring the psychology of humor as part of Science Year in the UK. 'LaughLab' was an internet-based experiment billed as 'the scientific search for the world's funniest joke' and received widespread media attention, including the cover story of The New Yorker magazine. Over 350,000 people from 70 countries logged onto a special website, and provided data that was used to explore various aspects of the psychology of humor.

These are just few examples of Professor Wiseman’s work. This psychologist participates in a lot of different and interesting researches.  

DREAMS

Everybody of us dream. People who are awakened from REM sleep, describe vivid dreams about 75 percent of the time.

Firstly, all normal humans dream probably four to six times every night. Just a small number of individuals are aware that they are dreaming while dreaming and can signal that awareness by making distinctive eye movements, a phenomenon called lucid dreaming.

Moreover, people differ quite a bit in how well they recall the last dream of a night. The reasons for memory differences are not well understood. Interference from distractions is probably operating in some cases. The content of dreams usually is commonplace, ordinary activities, familiar settings. For example, pregnant women dream about unborn children, people under stress dream about the stressor, aggressive individuals about fighting.

Furthermore, experiment has been made, where people were asked to were reddish goggles for some time. Later the things that they dreamed became reddish too.

All in all, dreams are important part of sleep, besides, it reflects everyday activities. 

Psychology of the Internet

Now days everyone of us know and use internet but do we really understand what consequences it has and what kind of changes it makes on our behavior and thinking.

For starters, most of us would agree that Internet is the best place to find all kinds of information. With few right words and a mouse click you can find everything you need, but is it always a good thing? Online you can find so many pictures or videos that contain aggressive behavior against people or animals. The worst thing is that all this information is available to kids and young people who are very easily influenced to do certain things. Kids learn to be aggressive when they see violence.

What is more, I think that social networks and all kinds of chat rooms are an interesting subject too. In this kind of network places person can be whoever he or she wants. Sometimes this can be a good thing, people who are not very secured of their selves and are struggling with their social life feel much better when nobody can see them and then they can talk to people, that they would never talk live. But I strongly believe that this is not a solution to this kind of self confidence problems. In some way these people create a new personality and this is not who they really are. I think that social networking can never change live communication; people who are used to talking online have difficulty interacting with live people.

Furthermore, these days one of the most popular things among young people is video games. There are some people who just live in front of their computer. This kind of people does not really have any social life. Besides, it is hard for them to adapt in simple social situations.

All in all, although Internet can be very helpful it can cause some damage too. I believe that such an easy access to pages that contain violence is not good for kids. Besides, I think that live communication when you can actually see other person and interact with him is much more valuable than any kind of social networking.

Summary

Applying psychology in the 21^st century

Summary

These days there are many studies being conducted by different psychologists or researchers to find out more about dreams and dreaming.

Researcher Robert Stickgold conducted a study about the content of dreams. Stickgold tried to understand how our wakening experience may be connected to the content of dreams. Study showed that people who were playing Tetris before going to sleep were very likely to dream falling Tetris objects. What I more, even people with psychological disorders and inabilities to recall their daily activities were dreaming Tetris objects.

Moreover, according to Daniel Wegner things that person tries not to think about before falling asleep is most likely to appear that nights dream. Furthermore, dream researcher Deirdre Barrett points out that people are able to solve visual problems during dreaming process.

Besides, good night sleep can help to process learned information. This was proven by researchers at the University of Chicago. Students who had a good night sleep after learning could perform better than students who had no sleep.

All in all, it is scientifically proven that sleep is very important part of everyone’s life, it reflects daily activities, can help process learned information and even solve visual problems.