Psychology

How do I Learn or Study I fully agree that our human brain is a computer. It is indeed a massive computer. We can input new information in it, store in it and we can even manipulate these data. Along the way or over a period of time, we lost some data. Sometimes, we may find it difficult to remember some information when we need it. And when we do not need it, we remember it. These are some of issues on the retrieval of the data. According to the Atkinson –Shiffrin Model of Memory (1971), our five sense organs are the doors where information from the environment are enter into our brain, our brain will filter the important data. These data are further through our pattern recognition stage and a selection stage. It will be store in our short or long term memory. Since young, I like to eat durians. Many years ago, when the smell of durians was still very strong, you could smell the fruits from far away. Not many people like the scent and the taste of this fruit, which is called the king of the fruits in countries around South East Asia. However, I just love to eat. I have some episodic memory of it. I remembered there was a stall near my grandfather’s house, I before we reached the stall, I could smell it before we see it. When we passed by the stall, I would even take a look at the durians. I could not remember when had I started loving durians. I could only remember my mother once told me that when I was around 1 year old, there was a man who would carry a basketful of durians and sell them from door to door. I would ask my mum to buy the fruit even I was not able to speak yet. As mention above, from Atkinson-Shiffrin model, the control processes are strategies that one can use to acquire new knowledge. One needs to acquire three skills. They are rehearsal, coding and imaging. I could say that I have use the repeated rehearsal to remember durian. I may not have known how to say the word ‘durian’ when I was too young to speak. I heard and learnt from the adults to speak the word. Later, when I was old enough to go to school to learn how to write the word, I learnt it through repeated rehearsal again. The love is further enhanced by the sight and the tasting of the fruit. When I am writing this now, I can feel my mouth salivating and my tongue is wetting my lips. I am visualizing that I am eating durian now. Coding is the semantic elaboration of information to aid in remembering the knowledge. Below is the semantic structure of how I learn and remember durian. I have divided durian into five parts, namely outlook, seed, scent, taste and name. Actually the outlook and seed is how durian looks like from the outside and inside. It is green and spiky from the outlook. It has a few seeds which are usually yellowish-white. The taste is usually soft and sweet. The smell of durian is extraordinary, odd and not many people like it. I learn to speak and write its name.