Psychology

How is the Clever Hans effect an example of a specific bias? How would you prevent the effect?

*** Demand characteristic (maybe a little Rosenthal)

How can UMD students get some coaching on how to study LESS and get MORE from that time?

*** It means that spending hours staring at your notes is not as effective as being tested. Quiz yourself, quiz your classmates, write test questions and then practice answering them. It is all about training your brain to access the information and use it

Referring back to the article in the previous section, what are some variables that could not (or would not) be manipulated or randomly assigned? How would we study them with a correlational design?

*** Not sure (confused about which article)

How would you relate some of these issues to what you've learned about Type I and Type II errors.

***Come back to this as review

What are some advantages and disadvantages of each method/design?

***See Chapter 3 part D

Why would people use self-handicapping to protect their ego? What research evidence is there that this occurs? Describe what the researchers did and what they found.

1978, Half of the subjects had taken an initial test with 16 solvable and 4 unsolvable problems. The other half had taken a test made up of 4 solvable and 16 unsolvable problems. Under both conditions, the experimenter told each subject: "You have done extremely well, in fact, better than nearly all the participants who have taken this test so far." Those with the 16 unsolvable problems - problems they later reported as seeming almost impossible - were confronted with a success that they couldn't imagine that they had achieved. To protect their fragile sense of competence and self-esteem - they self-handicapped. The performance-hindering drug both protected them from failure and protected their belief that their first success had been their own.

How might we describe what we can observe in terms of stimuli and responses?

A stimulus is some environmental event that we hear, see, feel, smell or taste. A response is something that we do after detecting a stimulus. So, for example, when you smell a food that you really like (stimulus) your mouth starts to produce more "mouth-watering" saliva (response).

What are the ABCs of psychology?

Affect (feelings), behavior, and cognition (how we process info, beliefs)

What is chunking and why does it increase the amount of information you can store in STM?

Also, on a more concrete level, the use of chunking has been proven to be a significant aid for enhancing the STM transfer to LTM. Remember, STM's capacity is limited to about seven items, regardless of the complexity of those items. Chunking allows the brain to automatically group certain items together, hence the ability to remember and learn better.

Why might someone's EQ be as important, if not more important, than his or her IQ?

Although "regular" intelligence is important to success in life, emotional intelligence is key to relating well to others and achieving your goals. Many people believe that it is at least as important as regular intelligence, and many companies now use emotional intelligence testing to hire new staff.

What is amnesia? Distinguish the difference between: Retrograde amnesia and Anterograde amnesia

Amnesia is a condition where there is a loss of memory. There are two general categories of amnesia: Retrograde amnesia refers to the inability to remember things prior to the onset of memory loss. Someone with a head injury may have no memory of a couple hours prior to the accident, while someone else might forget their name or identity, but is perfectly able to form new memories. In some cases people with such a condition might go on to form completely new lives. Anterograde amnesia refers to an inability to form new memories, even though memories from the past remain intact. Individuals with Alzheimer's disease may remember childhood and their life several years ago, but may not remember who their family members are today or what they did five minutes ago.

What is cognitive load and how does it explain why we cannot truly multitask?

An important point to stress is that our brain has limited resources, so if we are engaged in a difficult controlled process (e.g., trying to memorize a long series of numbers), we will not have the power to do other intensive mental tasks (e.g., have an intelligent conversation). That is, one task interferes with another. However, we would still be able to carry out several automatic processes (e.g., recognizing the face of someone you know) because they do not really require any mental resources. The extent to which our mind is engaged in controlled processing is known as cognitive load... the more load we have at the moment, the less we are capable of thinking about.

How do we differentiate between the independent and dependent variables?

An independent variable (IV) is something we are going to manipulate (change). A dependent variable (DV) is something we will measure after manipulating the independent variable. Our goal is to determine if changing the IV CAUSES a change in the DV.

What is maintenance rehearsal?

As the video explained, one method is to repeat things over and over again. This is known as maintenance rehearsal. If you want to memorize a phone number, you could repeat it to yourself over and over again until you have encoded the information well enough that it will be stored and available for retrieval whenever you need it.

Who is B. F. Skinner and what did he contribute to psychology?

B. F. Skinner (1904-1990) is generally considered the father of Radical Behaviorism - the theoretical argument that the environment determines all behavior. No attention or importance is given to the mind; to Skinner it is all about rewards and punishment. As you will see, much of his work was done with a specially designed chamber, known as a Skinner Box (a.k.a. an Operant Chamber), that controls rewards and punishments. The second kind of learning, operant conditioning, involves behavior -- the main idea is that intelligent creatures adjust their behavior to maximize desirable outcomes and minimize harmful or aversive ones.

How are between-subjects and within-subject experiments different? What is getting randomly assigned in each kind of experiment?

BS: One approach is to have different groups of participants who experience different "levels" of the independent variable. WS: Another approach is to have participants experience both levels of the IV and measure the DV twice. In within-subject designs, the groups we need to create now involve the order in which they experience the two levels of the IV.

Why is distributed practice more effective than "studying a lot" for a test?

Because it spreads learning out over a longer period of time so you learn and don't just memorize

Study designs: Case study, Correlational study, Controlled experiment

Case - Research can conduct a detailed analysis of a particular person, group, business, event, etc. We tend to use this approach to learn more about especially interesting or rare examples with the goal of describing that particular thing. (Dr. Carlisle evaluated Ted Bundy and conducted a psychoanalysis of his sexual fantasies merging into reality) Correlational - In correlational designs two different variables are measured to determine whether there is a relationship between them. (Thornhill et al. (2003) had people rate how physically attractive they found other people to be. They then had them separately smell tshirts those people had worn (without knowing which clothes belonged to whom) and rate how good or bad their body oder was. They found that the more attractive someone was the more pleasant their body order was rated to be.) Controlled - Researchers create a controlled environment in which they can carefully manipulate at least one variable to test its effect on another. The key here is that the researchers can cause a change in one variable. (Clinical psychologists can test a new pharmaceutical treatment for depression by giving some patients the new pill and others an already-tested one to see which is the more effective treatment.)

How do sociobiologists explain the similarities and differences between the cognitive capacities of various species?

Comparative cognition is the scientific study of thought and intelligence in non-human species. Though some species tend to get credit for being particularly "intelligent" (e.g., humans, apes, dolphins) researcher have demonstrated that many other branches of life have remarkable cognitive abilities. It boils down to this - specific cognitive capacities evolved because they provided the particular species with some advantage when it comes to staying alive and having offspring. We cannot judge all other species' intelligence against our own, we have to understand the similarities and differences across species in the context in which each species survived. If living together in groups and cooperation in hunting was helpful, we would expect more sophisticated social relationships (bonding, hierarchies) and communication mechanisms (e.g, body language, vocalizations). (It all depends)

What is the research evidence that controlled processes can become automatic processes? Be prepared to describe Schneider & Shiffrin's methodology and results.

Controlled and automatic processing can be studied in the laboratory (W. Schneider & R. Shiffrin. Controlled and automatic information processing: I. Psychological Review, 1977, 84, 1-66.) One kind of task is perceptual. Sets of four letters are flashed very rapidly on a computer screen in front of an observer. The observer's task is to detect the presence of target letters which might appear once in the set. The target letters were chosen in one of two ways. Under one condition, the target letters changed after about 100 sets of letters. Because the observer had to keep changing which letters to look for, this task required conscious attention throughout testing and therefore used controlled processing. If a second task requiring controlled processing was done at the same time, performance on both declined. In the second general condition for this task, the target letters remained the same throughout testing, which lasted for several thousand trials. Because the target letters remained the same, processing eventually became automatic. detecting the target became much faster, and observers reported that the target seemed to jump out from among the other letters. Performance on this task became much better than on the controlled processing task. Furthermore, when observers did the controlled task and the automatic task at the same time, their performance was not affected. This shows that the automatically processed task requires little or no working memory or conscious attention.

What causes us to forget?

Decay - it is possible that the information has dissolved over time and is lost forever. Much like the information in our sensory information decays rapidly, information we do not access frequently might be lost permanently. Interference - sometimes it is hard to encode information correctly or to recall it efficiently because our brain is processing something else at the same time. One thing interferes with the other. For example, you might not be able to recall something that you studied just before hearing some terrible news - all of the thinking you did about the bad news might interfere with the information you just encoded. Insufficient priming - the memory might be stored correctly, but you may not have enough activation to locate it and move it from long term to short term memory. For example, if you are trying to remember someone's name, it might be helpful to run through the letters in the alphabet. Once you get to "S", you might have triggered the memory by adding in the right prime to your efforts. Disorganization - it is also possible that the information is stored, but that you cannot find it due to some error in the manner the information was organized in storage. So it might not be gone, it might just be hard to access. Have you even tried to remember something, and then all of a sudden minutes or even hours later, it just pops into mind?

What is the difference between decay and a failure to retrieve memory?

Decay means that the information is no longer in our memory where as failure to retrieve means that the information is there but is hard ti retrieve because of insufficient priming, interference, or disorganization.

What are some things in your life that used to require effort but now happen automatically? Give at least two of your own examples that weren't mentioned in the reading or in class.

Driving, tying tennis shoes, braiding hair, ect.

How did Thorndike support his Law of Effect using cats in a box?

Edward Thorndike (1874-1949), an early American psychologist, was a key figure in the development of behavioral theory and is best known for his work on animal learning. He placed cats inside of a puzzle box and observed their behavior. The main idea here is key -- a behavior is more likely to occur if it leads to a desirable effect. Thus, even very complicated behavior can be explained in terms of "trial and error" learning rather than intelligent insight.

What is elaborative rehearsal and why does it help you remember things? How is it related to schemas and priming?

Elaborative rehearsal involves forming associations with other meaningful things. The more associations you form when you encode the information, the more likely you are to encode, store, and retrieve the information later. This is known as elaborative rehearsal, because you elaborate on the information to add complexity and meaning.

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize your emotions, understand what they're telling you, and realize how your emotions affect people around you. It also involves your perception of others: when you understand how they feel, this allows you to manage relationships more effectively.

What are the core principles of modern psychological science?

Empirical evidence (through experience/experiments), objectivity (decreasing bias), control (removing the effect of extraneous variables), hypothesis testing (a statement made at the beginning of an investigation that serves as a prediction and is derived from a theory), replication (whether a particular method and finding can be repeated with different/same people and/or on different occasions, to see if the results are similar), and predictability (aiming to be able to predict future behaviour from the findings of our research)

What is extinction?

Extinction is the process of unlearning a behavior when reinforcement is no longer associated with it. (You don't want the dog to scratch the door to go outside so you ignore it when it does)

How did Dweck demonstrate that changing our mindsets can change our performance? Be prepared to describe the methodology used by the researchers, and what they found, in both of the studies they discuss in the article.

First hundreds of 7th graders math scores over 2 years, then 100 7th graders doing poorly in math, 2 groups: study well or education on the nature of intelligence and brain, latter group saw improved math scores

What are some ways in which this bias can have harmful consequences?

First impressions of people can stay with us, we can judge people very quickly.

What is the difference between an exact and conceptual replication?

First, there is a type called "exact replication" (also called "direct replication"). In this form, a scientist attempts to exactly recreate the scientific methods used in conditions of an earlier study to determine whether the results come out the same.The second type of replication is called "conceptual replication." This occurs when—instead of an exact replication, which reproduces the methods of the earlier study as closely as possible—a scientist tries to confirm the previous findings using a different set of specific methods that test the same idea. The same hypothesis is tested, but using a different set of methods and measures.

What is the difference between "fixed" and "growth" mindsets?

Fixed (intelligence level cannot change), growth (intelligence can grow/increase over time)

How does what you eat influence what you learn? You don't need to memorize all of the nutritional elements described, but be prepared to provide at least one specific example.

Following an all-round healthy diet ensures that an organ as sensitive as the brain has all the available resources to work at an optimal level. There are some nutrients and diet options that have been particularly linked to maintaining a sharp mind, provide essential nutrients needed for a wide range of complex functions, (B12 and Folic Acid Keeps homocysteine to a minimum High levels of homocysteine are now thought to be a major risk factor for poor health, with consequences including impaired brain function and possible damage to the heart)

How might coincidences lead to superstitious behaviors in animals (and in humans)?

Food is being delivered randomly and if something happens by random (looking over left shoulder) and then the food was delivered the organism will continue to look over left shoulder (superstitious behavior).

What can I do to help my brain help me?

Get lots of sleep, eat well, and exercise

How might students with different mindsets behave differently?

Growth mindset - academic performance improves over time, fixed mindset - similar/worsening academic performance

Using several difference examples, how can you erase an undesired association (e.g., fear) using Habituation (also known as flooding)?Systematic desensitization? Counter-conditioning? Can you reduce a negative reaction with a positive stimulus using classical conditioning? Can you reduce a positive reaction with an aversive stimulus using classical conditioning?

H (have a fear of heights, go flying a lot) SD (fear of clowns, work way up from toy and pictures to a read clown) CC - With counter-conditioning the goal is to replace the undesired response by replacing the association. When we try to counter-condition away a positive response with an aversive stimulus this is called Aversion Therapy, maybe used for addicts. (every time you saw a spider someone gave you $100)

Since both techniques use multiple exposures, what is the key difference between habituation and systematic desensitization?

Habituation is simply getting used to something. When we try to use habituation to weaken an undesired response we call it flooding by exposeing the organism to the exact stimuli (ex fear) over and over again (don't start easy just jump in) Systematic desensitization is a more gentle (and in some cases, more humane) way of addressing an undesired association is to start out with an easy stimulus and slowly work our way up to the real one (range of stimuli)

Who was Clever Hans and why is his story a good example of why scientists who study animal intelligence have to be so careful with their methodology?

He was a horse and people thought he could do math and communicate the answer my tapping his hoof, but in reality he was reacting the muscles in the people around him tensing up, or reacted to a slight head nod. The horse truly was clever, not because he understood human language but because he could perceive very subtle muscle movements. More important, Pfungst discovered that people can unconsciously communicate information to others by subtle movements and that some animals can perceive these unconscious movements.

How is the cocktail party effect an example of motivation determining allocation?

Here is one more example that we can all relate to, known as the cocktail party effect. You are in a crowded room full of conversations and you are having one of your own, and then suddenly you hear someone else say your name in their conversation. Your brain was subconsciously eavesdropping the whole time, but the information did not seem important enough to interrupt you... until it detected your name. If someone is talking about you, it might be important enough to shift your resources over to that conversation. The cocktail party effect can also work if someone is talking about something that is important or relevant to you. For example, I am from Nebraska, so if I overhear someone talking about Nebraska, it will draw my attention.

How do people conserve mental load by using heuristics? Be prepared to define, give examples of, and distinguish between: Availability HeuristicAnchoring Heuristic (Anchoring and Adjustment)Representative Heuristic

Heuristics - mental shortcuts that help us make decisions quickly and with minimal cognitive effort. Availability Heuristic -So the rule of thumb is this: the easier it is to think of instances of something, the more often that thing occurs (we think planes are more dangerous than cars, which isn't true). Anchoring Heuristic (Anchoring and Adjustment) - This is a shortcut we use when we need to estimate a number. All we do is use a number that we have been exposed to and adjust up or down. The problem is that we never adjust enough. Representativeness Heuristic - This rule of thumb applies to judgments about which category something belongs in. For example, you might look at the way someone is dressed and make instant judgments about their intelligence, friendliness, and sexual preference.

What is metacognition?

Higher level cognition: thinking about the thought process itself

Which common studying techniques were found to be the least effective for students?

Highlighting, underlining, rereading, and summarizing

What is accessibility? How is it influenced by: Priming? Be prepared to discuss how priming helps to retrieve information from memory. Chronic use? Emotional impact?

How readily available information is to be retrieved. More accessible if you've been primed (a stimulus that activates a related concept), if you use that word a lot (work at a zoo and see emus all the time), or if it has emotional significance to you (you were attacked by emus).

What is the difference between a theory and a hypothesis?

Hypotheses are proposed explanations for a fairly narrow set of phenomena.When scientists formulate new hypotheses, they are usually based on prior experience, scientific background knowledge, preliminary observations, and logic. Theories, on the other hand, are broad explanations for a wide range of phenomena. They are concise (i.e., generally don't have a long list of exceptions and special rules), coherent, systematic, predictive, and broadly applicable. In fact, theories often integrate and generalize many hypotheses. (can also be overarching)

How does an IQ score relate to the concept of g?

IQ tests are attempt to measure g.

Why do we have to be so careful about how we interpret correlations? Be prepared to take an example of a correlation, describe four possible explanations, and discuss why from the correlation alone we cannot be certain which explanation is true.

If we took a survey of children's eating habits and grades in school we would likely find that those who eat a healthy breakfast have higher grades than those who do not. In fact, Cheerios has mentioned research findings in their commercials implying that if you feed your child their cereal, he or she will do better in school. But is that really what the data tells us? With a statistically significant correlation between two things, like (X) nutritional breakfast and (Y) grades, several things are hypothetically possible: Changes in X cause changes in Y - Eating a better breakfast does, in fact, cause better grades. Changes in Y cause changes in X - Learning more causes students to eat a better breakfast. Both of the above are true and the two variables are reciprocally determined... eating better causes academic improvements AND learning more causes better eating habits. There is something else, like socioeconomic status (S.E.S.), that influences both breakfast consumption and academic performance. Healthy food tends to be more expensive than junk food, and the families that can afford a lot of healthy food can also afford other resources that help students (books, computers, tutors, etc.). Therefore, the two are technically related, but not because one directly affects the other.

How did Kruglanski et al. (2002) demonstrate that seemingly objective judgments could be influenced by motivations subconsciously? Be prepared to describe the methodology and results of their study.

In a study done by Kruglanski et al. (2002), students at the University of Maryland were asked to describe their thoughts about either the time that the basketball team had made it into the final four or the time there was vandalism in College Park when the team had lost to Duke. They were then asked to describe their feelings about either event, and the results were what were expected - feelings of pride and excitement for the inclusion, and feelings of disappointment and shame for the vandalism. Later, as a separate "mini-experiment" students were given two pieces of fabric and were asked which was of higher quality. One was red and one was purple, and unbeknownst to participants the two pieces were made of the same exact material.

What is the stroop task?

In psychology, the Stroop effect is a demonstration of interference in the reaction time of a task. It is when the controlled process and automatic process are used at the same time. ex. word written in different color (the word blue written in green)

What is reproducibility?

In science, replication is the process of repeating research to determine the extent to which findings generalize across time and across situations.

How did researchers test the effects of mindfulness? Be clear about their methodology and findings.

In the study, George Mason University professor Dr. Robert Youmans and University of Illinois doctoral student Jared Ramsburg conducted three classroom experiments at a California university to see if meditation might help students focus better and retain information. Researchers randomly selected students for basic meditation instructions before a lecture and discovered that the students who meditated before the lecture scored better on a subsequent quiz than students who did not meditate. In one experiment, the meditation even predicted which students passed and which students failed the quiz.

How can mindfulness meditation improve academic performance?

It increases focus and mental clarity and self-discipline

If we want to establish an association, why is forward short-delay the best way?

It is simple and has the shortest delay so that the two stimuli are paired together.

How does it relate to controlled vs. automatic processes?

It is when the controlled process and automatic process are used at the same time. ex. word written in different color (the word blue written in green)

Measurement timelines: Longitudinal study, Cross-sectional study

Longitudinal - This approach is to recruit a sample of participants and track them for an extended period of time. (To study predictors of marital satisfaction Huston and colleagues (2009) have followed 169 couples who married in 1981. They found that 35% had divorced, 20% were were still married but unhappy and, overall, satisfaction had decreased over time for the average couple.) Cross-sectional - Researchers can gather participants of different ages and look for differences between the groups. (Psycholinguistic (language) psychologists could study groups of 1st through 8th grade students to determine the age at which children begin to use swear words.)

How do researchers use each of the following to test their hypotheses? Be prepared to give a few original examples of how you would use each method to collect data. Measurement methods: Naturalistic observation, Structured observation, Self-report, Psychophysiological, Archival

Naturalistic - A researcher unobtrusively collects information without the participant's awareness (Drain and Engelhardt (2013) observed six nonverbal children with autism's evoked and spontaneous communicative acts. Each of the children attended a school for children with autism and were in different classes. They were observed for 30 minutes of each school day. By observing these children without them knowing, they were able to see true communicative acts without any external influences.) Structured - Researchers can set up a situation and observe that participant's behavior (A kiosk loaded with bottles and pouches of Honest Tea was placed in Dupont Circle with signs telling people to pay on the honor system by leaving $1 per drink in a see-through box.) Self-Report - Participants are asked to provide information or responses to questions on a survey or structure assessment (Educational psychologists can ask students to report their grade point average and what, if anything, they eat for breakfast on an average day. A healthy breakfast has been associated with better academic performance (Digangi's 1999)) Psychophysiological - We can also use technological devices to measure what is taking place in the body (e.g., heart rate, levels of hormones, areas of brain activity). (Researchers have found that levels of oxytocin are associated with social bonding and empathy. By collect saliva or blood researchers found that oxytocin levels increase after receiving a hug (e.g., Light et al., 2005).) Archival - Researchers can examine data that has already been collected for other purposes. (Zullow and Seligman (1988) measured levels of pessimism and optimism in Presidential nomination acceptance speeches and succeeding campaigns. They found that the candidate who mentioned hope more in their speeches had won 9 out of the 10 elections that were studied.)

How can we describe classically conditioned associations in terms of A neutral stimulus (NS) An unconditioned stimulus (UCS) An unconditioned responses (UCR) A conditioned stimulus (CS) A conditioned response (CR)

Neutral Stimulus (NS) -Albert had no experience with white rats previously, so the presence of the white rat had no particular meaning. Therefore, the white rat was a neutral object to Albert. There is no naturally wired response to the neutral stimulus. It is just, well, neutral. Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS) - A baby, just like an adult or another mammal, will have a startle response to a loud noise. Albert was not conditioned to have this response to the gong (he did not learn to have that response). It is natural and automatic. So in this study, the gong is the UCS. Unconditioned Response (UCR) - Crying is the natural and automatic response to a scary noise. In this study, the gong (UCS) triggered the unconditioned response (UCR) of crying. Conditioned Stimulus (CS) - After repeatedly pairing the white rat (NS) with the gong (UCS), the baby learns the association. What was neutral now has a conditioned meaning, so the rat has gone from a NS to a CS. Conditioned Response (CR) - If Albert sees the rat (or anything else white or fluffy for that matter), he now begins to cry even without hearing the scary sound. The unconditioned crying response (UCR) has now becomes a conditioned response (CR) to the presences of the rat (CS).

How did researchers (Nicolaus et al., 1983) use the concept to protect endangered birds and farm chickens from egg-eating crows?

Nicolaus and colleagues (1983) showed taste aversion could be used to control crow predation on eggs, which is a problem for bird sanctuaries and farmers with outdoor chickens. The researchers put a sickness-causing agent in several eggs, then left them where crows could get them.

Are the effects of mindfulness meditation the same for all groups that have been studied?

No, in the experiment it helps freshman more than anyone else

What is the research evidence that we have state-dependent memory?

One of the first was by Donald Goodwin and colleagues, published in Science in 1969, who asked male volunteers to perform memory tasks that involved learning and remembering words while either sober or under the effects of alcohol. As displayed in the figure, Goodwin et al. found, as would be expected, good retention of the words if the volunteers had been sober at learning and sober at recall. Perhaps unsurprisingly, if volunteers were sober at learning but drunk at recall, their memory was relatively impaired. The really interesting finding was that the group of volunteers who were intoxicated at learning (and we're talking a mean of 111 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of breath, or roughly 3 times the UK drink driving limit), and were similarly inebriated during the retention test, nevertheless recalled a comparable amount to those who had been sober on both occasions. As Goodwin et al. concluded, the results indicated "that learning which the subject acquires while he is intoxicated may be more available to him while he is intoxicated than when he is sober."

Why might researchers fail to replicate a scientific study? Be prepared to describe the possible role of: Statistical chance, Aspects of the particular circumstances, Quality of the replication methodology, Dishonesty

One reason for defensive responses is the unspoken implication that the original results might have been falsified. Another reason for non-replication is that, in studies with small sample sizes, statistically-significant results may often be the result of chance. Another reason for non-replication is that, while the findings in an original study may be true, they may only be true for some people in some circumstances and not necessarily universal or enduring. A final reason for non-replication relates to the quality of the replication rather than the quality of the original study. Non-replication might be the product of scientist-error, with the newer investigation not following the original procedures closely enough. Similarly, the attempted replication study might, itself, have too small a sample size or insufficient statistical power to find significant results.

What does it mean to operationalize a conceptual variable? Be prepared to apply this to any psychological concept we may want to measure (e.g., depression, level of attraction to another person, optimism, intelligence, parenting style, aggression) or manipulate (e.g., mood, self-esteem, fatigue, stress level, amount of testosterone in your bloodstream).

Operationalization is the process by which a researcher defines how a concept is measured, observed, or manipulated within a particular study. This process translates the theoretical, conceptual variable of interest into a set of specific operations or procedures that define the variable's meaning in a specific study. In traditional models of science, operationalization provides the bridge between theoretically based hypotheses and the methods used to examine these predictions.

How would you describe examples of Positive correlations? Negative correlations?

PC: As height increases so does weight, NC: increased train speed, lees time to get to destination

How would you go about establishing a classically conditioned association? (For example, how would you...Teach a dolphin that the sound of a whistle is a good thing Keep a pet off your couch by making it want to avoid the pillows on it Make a young child excited to earn a gold star sticker on her homework Make a young child avoid things that are labeled with the symbol for poison)

Pairing, several times, forward short-delay. NS: reboot chime (pre-learning) UCS: mint UCR: extending hand (an unlearned, natural response to a desirable food) Jim pairs the NS with the UCS repeatedly The reboot chime becomes the CS, extending the hand in response to the CS is the CR

Do I really have a "learning style" that determines whether or not I can successfully learn in a course?

People have learning preferences not learning styles, The lack of evidence suggests that students who describe themselves as "physical learners" to do equally well on an exam regardless of whether or not a teacher found ways to make students move around the room during class meetings

How do researchers avoid making these errors?

Placebo - If we were testing the effect of caffeine on exam performance, we would be making a research error if we gave nothing to half of the students and gave coffee to the other half. Even if we found a difference, we wouldn't know if the caffeine actually increased performance or if those students did better because they were expecting to feel more alert and focused. The results could be biased by the placebo effect. Rosenthal - In a blind study, the participants do not know if they have been assigned to the experimental or control groups. In a double-blind study, neither the participants nor the researchers interacting with them know. Research assistants naïve (unaware) of the hypothesis could proctor the exam, and the researcher grading essays could do it without any names or indication of which group the student was in. Demand - In order to avoid demand characteristics in some studies, the participant will be naive as to what the real purpose of the study is, which group they're assigned to, or at least what the expected results would be. Those interacting with participants also need to follow a research script and treat everyone in exactly the same way. Researchers may also go a step further, using deception to mask the true purpose of the study. Social - If we're collecting data via self-report, the best we can do with this is to stress the importance of honest responses and design the study to ensure that an individual participant's data is either collected anonymously (we don't know who they are) or kept highly confidential (no one else will find out). Another approach to avoiding the bias is to collect data using other methods that do not relay on thoughtful self-report responses (e.g., psychophysiological).

What are some of the most common ways that mistakes in research methodology can introduce errors and biases into the data? Placebo effect, Rosenthal effect (also referred to as the Pygmalion Effect)\, Demand characteristics, Social desirability

Placebo - It turns out that the mind is so powerful that it can cause you to experience what you expect to, rather than what's really happening. This can be a problem for research if you are testing whether some manipulation has an effect on people. Rosenthal - Similar to the placebo effect, a researcher's own expectations of what the results will be could subconsciously influence the way that participants are treated (acting slightly more friendly) or how things are measured (grading essays). Demand Characteristics - If participants are aware of the purpose of the study, their behavior may change. For example, some may try to guess what the researcher wants to have happen and behave in a way that confirms those expectations. In other cases, antisocial participants might act the opposite way, intentionally altering their response or behavior just to prove the researcher incorrect. Social Desirability - Some things are difficult to measure, like prejudice, sexual behavior, and addiction, because people are often reluctant to talk honestly in fear of negative social judgments. Instead, they may offer what they believe are socially desirable responses or behavior.

What are some examples of how early psychologists failed to support their assumptions with legitimate research?

Plato argued that there was a clear distinction between body and soul, believed very strongly in the influence of individual difference on behaviour, and played a key role in developing the notion of "mental health", believing that the mind needed stimulating by the arts to keep it alive. Aristotle firmly believed in the idea that the body strongly affected the mind - you might say he was an early bio psychologist. Psychology as a science took a "back seat" until Descartes (1596 - 1650) wrote in the 17th century. He believed strongly in the concept of consciousness, maintaining that it was that that separated us from animals. He did, however, believe that our bodies could influence our consciousness and that the beginnings of these interactions were in the pineal gland - we know now that this is probably NOT the case!

How can you influence behavior using ___? Positive reinforcement (+R) Negative reinforcement (-R) Positive punishment (+P) Negative punishment (-P)

Positive Reinforcement (+R): Presenting a desired stimulus after a desired behavior has occurred with the goal of increasing that behavior. For example, a mother grants her child 10 minutes of TV time (+R) for cleaning his room. Cleaning has been encouraged. Negative Reinforcement (-R): Removing an aversive stimulus after a desired behavior has occurred. For example, a father nags with annoying voices until his child cleans her room. Once the room is clean the nagging stops (-R). Cleaning has been encouraged. Positive Punishment (+P): Presenting an aversive stimulus after an undesired behavior has occurred with the goal of decreasing that behavior. For example, a mother makes her child hold a bar of soap in his mouth (+P) after using a curse word in the house. Swearing has been discouraged. Negative Punishment (-P): Removing a desired stimulus after an undesired behavior has occurred. For example, a father takes away his daughter's cell phone for a week (-P) after she uses a curse word in the house. Swearing has been discouraged.

What kind of outcomes influence behavior? Primary reinforcers Secondary reinforcers Primary punishers Secondary punishers

Primary reinforcers are naturally desirable. For example: food, warmth, sexual pleasure. Secondary reinforcers are things we have learned to want because they are associated with other stimuli. For example: we learn that money is desirable because we associate it with the things we can buy. We learn that an audience clapping is a good thing because we associate it with praise, compliments and even rewards. Primary punishers are naturally aversive. For example, physical pain, bright lights, hunger Secondary punishers are things we have learned to avoid. For example: we learn that an audience booing is undesirable because we associated it with isolation and a lack of rewards. When you parent stares at you and shakes his or her head side to side you know that you've done something wrong because you have learned to associate that look with other punishers. If an animal or human is punished by being hit with a belt the belt itself becomes an aversive stimulus.

What is the difference between Automatic and Controlled cognition? Describe this in terms of intention, awareness, control and effort.

Processing that requires attention uses up limited cognitive (~mental) resources, because short term memory and its input from attention have limited capacity. Short term memory can hold about 7 chunks, so anything that requires conscious processing uses up some of this limited resource. Therefore, if you do two things at the same time that both require conscious, controlled processing, you will do them less well than when you did only one at a time. A task that is very well practiced becomes automatic: Such tasks require little or no mental resources, so that they can be done at the same time as other tasks. They are done quickly and seem automatic, requiring little or no conscious guidance.

What does it mean to randomly assign participants to experimental conditions?

Random assignment refers to the use of chance procedures in psychology experiments to ensure that each participant has the same opportunity to be assigned to any given group.

What is the process of random sampling (also known as probability sampling)?

Random sampling means that you are randomly selecting individuals from the population to participate in your study. This type of sampling is typically done to help ensure the representativeness of the sample (i.e., external validity). It is worth noting that a sample is only truly random if all individuals in the population have an equal probability of being selected to participate in the study. Also uses weighting to adjust for differences (pairing demographics).

What is a schema? What is the advantage of storing information this way?

Schemas are groups of information that are linked together because they are somehow related. For example, you have a "zoo" schema that contains all of the things you generally associate with the concept, like the animals, the enclosures, that time a chimpanzee threw something stinky at you and everyone on the school trip laughed.

What are the most common subfields and what kinds of jobs do those psychologists do?

School (Assess and counsel students, consult with parents and staff, and provide behavioral interventions when necessary), neuropsychologist (Explore the relationships between the brain and behavior how thought and behavior can be explained by activity in the brain), social (Interested in how interpersonal relationships and interactions with other people shape behavior), developmental (Studies the development of a human throughout the lifespan), cognitive (Study perception, thinking, and memory), etc. (see more in textbook)

What is short-term memory (STM)? What is Miller's magic number?

Selective attention determines what information moves from sensory memory to short-term memory. STM is most often stored as sounds, especially in recalling words, but may be stored as images. It works basically the same as a computer's RAM (Random Access Memory) in that it provides a working space for short computations and then transfers it to other parts of the memory system or discards it. It is thought to be about seven bits in length, that is, we normally remember seven items. STM is vulnerable to interruption or interference. A limited capacity of up to seven pieces of independent information. The brief duration of these items last from 3 to 20 seconds. Decay appears to be the primary mechanism of memory loss. Magic #: 5-9

How would you describe each of the five dimensions of Emotional Intelligence? Self-Awareness Self-Regulation Motivation Empathy Social Skills

Self-Awareness - They understand their emotions, and because of this, they don't let their feelings rule them. They're confident - because they trust their intuition and don't let their emotions get out of control. They're also willing to take an honest look at themselves. They know their strengths and weaknesses, and they work on these areas so they can perform better. Many people believe that this self-awareness is the most important part of emotional intelligence. Self-Regulation - This is the ability to control emotions and impulses. People who self-regulate typically don't allow themselves to become too angry or jealous, and they don't make impulsive, careless decisions. They think before they act. Characteristics of self-regulation are thoughtfulness, comfort with change, integrity , and the ability to say no. Motivation - People with a high degree of emotional intelligence are usually motivated . They're willing to defer immediate results for long-term success. They're highly productive, love a challenge, and are very effective in whatever they do. Empathy - This is perhaps the second-most important element of emotional intelligence. Empathy is the ability to identify with and understand the wants, needs, and viewpoints of those around you. People with empathy are good at recognizing the feelings of others, even when those feelings may not be obvious. As a result, empathetic people are usually excellent at managing relationships , listening , and relating to others. They avoid stereotyping and judging too quickly, and they live their lives in a very open, honest way. Social Skills - It's usually easy to talk to and like people with good social skills, another sign of high emotional intelligence. Those with strong social skills are typically team players. Rather than focus on their own success first, they help others develop and shine. They can manage disputes, are excellent communicators, and are masters at building and maintaining relationships.

What is the relationship between sleep and learning?

Sleep, and particularly REM sleep, makes sense of disparate, emotionally fragmented or weakly coupled memories into a coherent structure that the brain can use more effectively during wakefulness, lack of sleep causes a whole range of cognitive problems, suggesting it fulfills an important role in maintaining the mind and brain at their peak

What is the advantage of being able to allocate cognitive resources to different tasks?

So a central concept to cognitive psychology is that motivation determines allocation - the importance of information (sensory, like touch, or factual, like a set of statistics) determines what proportion of your available resources will be consumed about it.

Why does being tested help me learn? What is the research evidence that supports the Testing Effect? How should this influence how I study?

Students who took a practice test after learning some new information remembered significantly more than those who had more time to study if the final test was 2 days or 1 week later vs 5 minutes (Roediger & Karpicke), study more with practice tests

What is the evidence that planning to teach can help you learn?

Study participants who expected to teach produced more complete and better-organized free recall of the passage and, in general, correctly answered more questions about the passage than did participants expecting a test, particularly questions covering main points (John Nestojko)

What does it mean to say that two variables are correlated?

The Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient is a measure of the strength of the linear relationship between two variables. It is referred to as Pearson's correlation or simply as the correlation coefficient. If the relationship between the variables is not linear, then the correlation coefficient does not adequately represent the strength of the relationship between the variables.

How does cognitive load influence your learning?

The amount of information it is processing at any given moment is referred to as its cognitive load. When the load his high, meaning that it is busy working on something, it is harder for you think about other complex things, and even harder for you to create new memories. Thus, the higher the cognitive load, the less brain power available to do other things. More cognitive distractions = less learning.

What does "studying smart" involve?

The best study techniques are distributed practice and flashcards and practice tests (see next 5 flashcards)

What do psychologists mean when they theorize about g?

The common idea here is that there is such a thing as an overall level of general intelligence, even though the individual items on an IQ test measure different forms of reasoning and problem solving. Charles Spearman (1863-1945) called this general intelligence the g factor, some core level of basic intelligence that underlies all other specific abilities. The idea of g is easy for people to relate to because we often think about some people as being particularly "smart" and others, well, less so.

What is confirmation bias and how might it influence you?

The confirmation bias is another example of motivated cognition because we want to be correct... and that motivation leads us to look for and remember information that confirms what we already believe. Start with this video, which provides an overview of the concept.

What is spontaneous recovery and why might it occur?

The final issue you may run into is known as spontaneous recovery. A some point after a behavior has gone through extinction and stopped, it may suddenly reappear for a bit and then go away again. That unexpected (spontaneous) reoccurrence (recovery) of the behavior is perhaps best thought of as a mechanism by which intelligent animals test out the environment in case the problem was only temporary and things are back to the way they used to be. As long as you ignore it, a spontaneously recovered behavior should go extinct again in short time.

What are the three processes of memory? That is, what has to happen in order to store and use information? What is encoding?What is storage? What is retrieval?

The first is called encoding; the process we use to transform information so that it can be stored. For us, it means transforming the data into a meaningful form such as an association with an existing memory, an image, or a sound. Next is the actual storage, which simply means holding onto the information. It is very similar for us because it means that a physiological change must occur for the memory to be stored. The final process is called retrieval, which is bringing the memory out of storage and reversing the process of encoding. In other words, return the information to a form similar to what we stored.

What are some examples of how each schedule is used to reinforce or punish your behavior? Continuous Fixed Ratio Variable Ratio Fixed Interval Variable Interval

The first schedule is continuous - you are reinforced or punished every single time the behavior occurs. For example: Every time the puppy sits on cue it gets a treat. (Most likely to stop when reinforcement stops) Fixed Interval - Waiting a certain amount of time after completing task before reinforcement comes (paid every 2 weeks), (scalloped response pattern) Variable Interval - Have to wait an unpredictable amount of time for reinforcement, waiting for elevator. (steady response pattern) Fixed Ratio - Paid for a set number of items completed or sold, paid for every 100 envelopes stuffed, (post-reinforcement pause) Variable Ratio - reinforcement at unpredictable quantity of responses regardless of time, slots at casino, (high and steady rates)

What are mnemonics? The resource below provides a number of examples, but we don't expect you to memorize each. Instead, be prepared to define the word mnemonic and provide at least two examples of how they can help you memorize something.

The following are examples of techniques you can use to memorize important information: For information involving key words Acronym - an invented combination of letters with each letter acting as a cue to an idea you need to remember. BRASS is an acronym for how to shoot a rifle-- Breath, Relax, Aim, Sight, Squeeze. For foreign language vocabulary Keyword Method- Select the foreign words you need to remember, then identify an English word that sounds like the foreign one. Now imagine an image that involves the key word with the English meaning of the foreign word. In Spanish, the word "cabina" means phone booth. Invent an image of a cab trying to fit in a phone booth. When you see the word "cabina," you should be able to recall this image and thereby retrieve the meaning "phone booth."

What does it mean to say that a response has been classically conditioned? How did Pavlov initially demonstrate classical conditioning with dogs? How did Watson's study with "Little Albert" demonstrate that fear can be explained by classical conditioning?

The neutral stimuli has become the conditioned stimuli after pairing. Metronome and salivating, rat with fear.

What is null hypothesis testing?

The null hypothesis is the default position that the effect you are looking for does not exist, and the alternative hypothesis is that your prediction is correct.

How would you summarize psychology as a discipline?

The science of understanding affect, behavior, and cognition. Study both normal and abnormal functioning and treat individuals with mental and emotional problems.

What is sensory memory?

The sensory memory retains an exact copy of what is seen or heard (visual and auditory). It only lasts for a few seconds, while some theorize it last only 300 milliseconds. It has unlimited capacity.

What is the difference between a research population and a research sample?

The target population is the total group of individuals from which the sample might be drawn. The population is the group we want to understand and gain knowledge about. A sample is the group of people who take part in the research study. The individuals who take part

What is the Garcia Effect and how does it explain why some people just can't even think about eating certain foods? How is it unusual, in terms of being a single-trial, forward long-delay pairing? Why, from an evolutionary perspective, is the Garcia Effect helpful for survival?

The tendency to blame food for illness, even if the food had nothing to do with the illness, is called the Garcia Effect. It is unusual in several ways. 1. It emerges in full strength after only one CS-UCS pairing. 2. The CS-UCS gap is very long-up to six hours or more-yet the conditioning is strong. 3. The association is very selective. People associate the sickness with the odor or taste of a food, not with sights or sounds or other stimuli in the environment. 4. The learned response resists unlearning. In ancient times, that was a good thing. Food was often the cause of illness, and it was important to learn quickly to avoid ingesting the same poison twice.

What is an extinction burst and why might it occur?

There are two issues you will run into. First, you are likely to observe a sudden increase in the behavior, or what is know as an extinction burst. Think of it from the dog's perspective... this has worked in the past, so keep trying and it will eventually work again. We might expect this sudden increase in scratching for a while, and then the rate of scratching should gradually decrease until it is extinct.

What does it mean for a result to be statistically significant?

Therefore, the goal of hypothesis testing is not to see if there is any difference between sets of measurements (there almost always will be), but rather to see if the differences are unlikely to be due to random variation. If so, we can say that our result is statistically significant. The general procedure is as follows: 1. Compute a test statistic (e.g. a t-statistic). The test statistic is a single value that is sensitive to the difference between the null hypothesis and the alternative hypothesis. 2. Use the sampling distribution of the test statistic (e.g. the t-distribution) to calculate a p-value. The p-value is the probability of obtaining a test statistic at least as large as the one observed. 3. Reject the null hypothesis if the p-value is less than a predetermined threshold, which is known as the significance level. For example, if we use a significance level of 0.01 and obtain a p-value of 0.008, we reject the null hypothesis and say that the result is statistically significant.

What is cognition?

Thinking, memory, all metal processes, can be beliefs, etc.

What is long-term memory (LTM)?

This is relatively permanent storage. Information is stored on the basis of meaning and importance. The knowledge we store in LTM affects our perceptions of the world, and influences what information in the environment we attend to. LTM provides the framework to which we attach new knowledge. It contrasts with short-term and perceptual memory in that information can be stored for extended periods of time and the limits of its capacity are not known. Schemas are mental models of the world. Information in LTM is stored in interrelated networks of these schemas. These, in turn, form intricate knowledge structures.

Why is random assignment essential if we want to conclude that it was our manipulation of the IV that caused differences in the DV?

Thus, in a between-subjects experiment, we use random assignment to create the different groups. By randomly assigning participants to the various levels of the IV, all of those other variables should be (on average) equally distributed within the groups.

What is an Institutional Review Board (IRB) and how does it help ensure that research participants are treated in an ethical way?

To address such needs most institutions and organizations have formulated an Institutional Review Board (IRB), a panel of persons who reviews grant proposals with respect to ethical implications and decides whether additional actions need to be taken to assure the safety and rights of participants.By reviewing proposals for research, IRBs also help to protect both the organization and the researcher against potential legal implications of neglecting to address important ethical issues of participants.

How might we use the concept of schemas to explain why environmental context is encoded along with other information?

To explain these phenomena, Endel Tulving proposed the Encoding Specificity Principle, according to which memory performance depends on the similarity between the information comprising a memory trace and the information available at recall. The encoding specificity principle When we are encoding an event into memory, the memory trace is made up of details about the event (who was there, what they said, etc), but also of the context in which the event occurred. Context in this sense is a broad term, encompassing elements such as where and when the event happened, who else was there, and also thoughts and feelings we had while experiencing the event. These internally-generated thoughts and feelings are likely to be influenced by many factors. For example, was it dark or light, warm or cold, noisy or quiet, were we happy or sad, drunk or sober, etc. All these elements are bound together to form the memory trace relating to that event.

What is the difference between Type I and Type II error?

Type I error Falsely rejecting the null hypothesis. In other words, the effect you are looking for does not exist in reality, but the conclusion of your study is that the effect is real. This is a false scientific claim. For the example above, the type I error would be claiming that physical exercise increases mood when it actually doesn't. Type II error Falsely accepting the null hypothesis. In other words, the effect you are looking for is real, but the outcome of your research is that there is no effect. This is a missed scientific discovery. For the example above, the type II error would be claiming that exercise has no impact on mood, even though it does.

How would a behaviorist explain something like a gambling addiction?

Variable ratio, because of schedule of reinforcement that follows

What are some general principles for ethical research? For each be able to explain teach term and provide and examples of what might constitute as a violation. Voluntary participation, Informed consent, Risk of harm, confidentiality & anonymity.

Voluntary - The principle of voluntary participation requires that people not be coerced into participating in research. This is especially relevant where researchers had previously relied on 'captive audiences' for their subjects - prisons, universities, and places like that. Informed - Essentially, this means that prospective research participants must be fully informed about the procedures and risks involved in research and must give their consent to participate. Risk - Ethical standards also require that researchers not put participants in a situation where they might be at risk of harm as a result of their participation. Harm can be defined as both physical and psychological. Confidentiality - They are assured that identifying information will not be made available to anyone who is not directly involved in the study. Anonymity -The participant will remain anonymous throughout the study - even to the researchers themselves.

Why would a moderate amount of exercise improve academic performance?

Walking for 30 minutes a day, five days a week, is typically recommended as adequate exercise for significantly improving all-round health. In the medium to long term, this strengthens the heart, reduces blood pressure and even lifts mood. All this is good news for sharpening the mind, which does better with a healthy brain and positive outlook. In the short-term, any activity that boosts oxygen intake will immediately affect mental performance for the better

Based on what you learned about schedules of reinforcement, why do variable schedules lead to behavior that is more resistant to extinction?

We are especially likely to see an extinction burst if the behavior was previously reinforced on a variable schedule and if reinforcement is suddenly removed. In the dog's experience, sometimes it scratched for two seconds, sometimes ten, and sometimes for two minutes before the door opened. Since a variable schedule is unpredictable, the animal is already accustomed to persisting until the reward arrives. Therefore, it will take longer for the animal to learn that the reward is never coming and give up on the behavior as a way to get what it wants.

How can we explain why being in the same state facilitates recall in terms of the Encoding Specificity Hypothesis and how the contextual primes might increase the accessibility of information.

What Tulving realised was that this isn't the whole story, however. According to the encoding specificity principle, the context we are in when we try to retrieve a memory can also have a substantial impact on our likelihood of successfully accessing the correct memory trace. Specifically, the chances of retrieval success are directly determined by the overlap between the encoding and retrieval contexts. Thus, bizarre as it may seem, if we are drunk at encoding, our subsequent memory will be more successful if we are also drunk at retrieval. Brain imaging evidence from Park and Ruggsupports the notion that memory performance depends, at least in part, on the overlap between processing operations at encoding and retrieval. They had participants learn everyday objects (e.g., apple) that were presented either as words or as pictures of the objects. At test, participants were asked to distinguish between studied and non-studied items. Each studied item was presented in a form that was either congruent (e.g., word at study and test) or incongruent (e.g., word at study, picture at test). Park and Rugg found that the highest memory success occurred in the congruent conditions, and was associated with overlap between the brain areas activated during learning and retrieval.

What is inattentional blindness?

When we focus our attention on one thing and in turn fail to notice everything else that's going on

When would heuristics be the most likely to influence our judgments? Relate this back to the earlier concept of motivation determining allocation and cognitive load.

When we have a large cognitive load and the decision wasn't our top priority because we aren't able to give our full attention to everything.

What is a spurious correlation?

When we look at two variables that are mathematically correlated but are not related to each other in a meaningful way we call this a spurious correlation.

How might someone argue that there are actually many different types of intelligence?

While some have focused on measuring the g factor, other theorists have proposed that there are actually several different types of intelligences that are not necessarily correlated with each other. That is, a person can be strong in a couple types and weak in others. Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences is among the more popular, but we will not go into detail on it here. However, just to give you an example, he suggested that one person with strong logic-math and spacial-visual intelligence would be a chess expert while another person with strong bodily-kinesthetic intelligence would be an Olympic athlete. Gardner's theory initially listed seven intelligences which work together: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal and intrapersonal; he later added an eighth, naturalist intelligence and says there may be a few more.

How do your motivations influence your judgment?

With the confirmation bias we are motivated to be right which means we look for information that supports our existing beliefs.

What is the evidence that laptops and cellphones can interfere with your learning? Be specific about the research methods used to address that question.

You are less effective and more distracted, the study by Roberts and Curtis showed that (pop) quiz scores were lower when using a phone/laptop. Sana, Weston and Cepeda (2013) conducted a controlled experiment in which participants viewed a 45 minute presentation and took notes with a pencil and paper. Using random assignment, half of the participants were seated behind two students who were using laptops to take notes and, periodically, to check Facebook, email, and other websites. When given a test on what they had learned from the presentation, the participants who were not distracted scored an average of 73% on the quiz. Those sitting behind distracted peers, on the other hand, only scored a 56% on average. This study provides some evidence that the "cone of distraction" is in fact a real problem in our classrooms.

How is memory organized into functional, overlapping systems?

http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/learning/memory.html See photo in article Memory is organized into three levels, each with its own limitations. Sensory memory allows our brain to take all of the information coming in from our sensory systems (e.g., eye, ears, nose) and hold on to it for a moment so that the information can be processed, organized, and interpreted. For example, if we flash an image to your eyes, your sensory memory maintains that image for a fraction of a second to give you more time to understand the information coming in from your eyes. Sensory information that is relevant to us at the moment or a memory we are thinking about are stored in short term memory, often referred to as working memory. Everything else that we need to save for later goes to long term memory.