Social_Sciences

Task 1 How can the way in which we organise our thinking by using mental images, concepts and schemas improve our memory' Part A Mental Images  Remembering information better if we form a mental image of it  Work best if they are not consistent to our normal memory traits  Using a key word to activate an image of your own making  Michael Raugh and Richard Atkinson’s (1975) experiment (page 37) Concepts  Making a mental representation of a group of objects or events that share similar properties (page 40)  Over generalisation of concept Schemas  A mental framework of knowledge developed as a result of experience (page 43)  Applying previous knowledge to a relevantly new situation  Negative side of forming a schema  References! Use personal experiences!! Part B On an all too regular basis our memory lets us down; this can range from everyday things such as pin codes for our cash cards, where we parked our car to memory of relatives’ birthdays or other important events in our social calendars that should never be forgotten about! Many psychologists have spent time to look into this and they have come up with different concepts on ways of organising our thinking to make our task recalling events easier. The three ways are Mental Images, Concepts and Schemas. I am going to look into these three ways before mentioned and give some explanation on these and give examples of how these can improve our memory. A Mental Image is forming an image in our memory that will help us remember facts and / or details more accurately than just remembering the fact itself. This method of improving our memory works best if we form an image that is not consistent with our everyday thoughts so that it will stick better in our memory, if images are large, colourful and bizarre it works best as we tend to remember distinctive items rather than everyday items . Michael Raugh and Richard Atkinson’s experiment (1975) demonstrates how the “key word” theory (using English words that sound like the language being learnt to form a mental image) works as the results show the average score by using it was 88% compared to 28% for those who didn’t use it. On a personal level, during my studies for GCSE Maths, an important topic was trigonometry, my teacher at the time told us of the “SOH – CAH – TOA” rule, so whenever I came across a trigonometry question I thought of the Japanese flag because of my pronunciation of it! Little did I know at the time I was forming a mental image and possibly even using the key word technique. The second option of how to improve our memory is by using Concepts. A concept is making a mental representation of a group of objects or events that share similar properties , for example, as on page 40, animal, you could divide this into animals that live on land or animals that live in water and then further sub concept into whether they belong to the shark “family”, “big cat family” and so on and so forth. By forming a concept we are categorising in our memory banks in order for us to remember or associate better. Research by George Mandler (1967) suggests that by organising information we are learning it even though we aren’t making any attempt to memorise it . From this, overgeneralization can occur, overgeneralization is extending the use of a concept to include objects or events that are similar but do not usually belong to the concept . An example of this would be if you were asked to state what you know about Manchester United and if you had no interest or knowledge in football you would state all the facts you know simply about football, i.e.; players, managers, stadia even though they may have absolutely nothing to do with Manchester United, this is the overgeneralization of a concept. The third alterative on how we can improve our memory is by using Schemas. A Schema is a mental framework of knowledge developed as a result of experience , an example of a schema I use could be my own football schema. In my Schema I associate the team I support Man Utd, the history, important goals for or against, the players, the ground. I also include my own football experiences such as cup finals, medals, injuries, training, dues, kick-off times, positions, opposition players for example. Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget spent over 50 years looking into the way children developed their thinking. He proposed that that they did this by developing schemas which are built up from their experience of the world . From my personal schema I mentioned above you can clearly see what I have “filed” in my football schema and this has been “filed” since my football experience began back in the 1980’s. This can help improve our memory because we can conversant on and state facts on football we have knowingly or unknowingly “filed” away over the years. My football schema will be individual to myself as my past experiences are different to everybody else’s. Conclusion After exploring the before mentioned methods on how we can improve our memory, it is clear to see that everybody uses all of these methods even if they do not know it to some extent. From my own personal experience, I have formed a mental image for revision although I did not know at the time that if it was not related to my normal thinking I could have remembered the facts better! From the methods mentioned it can depend on what method the person finds easier to manage, different people might be able to relate facts easier using concepts or they may find that by managing their schema of a selected topic. It will bear the best results. Word count: 901 Referencing Spoors, P. (2007). Starting with Psychology. Milton Keynes: The Open University. Page 36, 40, 43, 44. Task 2 From my first task experience in psychology what I found easiest was referencing back to the accompanying course book for information or reminders on each way on organising our thinking and also help on taking and storing notes. The information gave and even the examples were of great assistance! The most difficult part of the task was putting across my own personal experiences for each way mentioned to improve our memory, I wanted to do this especially as I wanted to show my tutor that I had grasped the different concepts and had understood them. In order to make my own difficult area easier in the future, it would to be plan out 2/3 of my own personal examples on each theory and work on them and when I’ve finally explained the topic to my satisfaction, insert it into my task.