Starting_with_Psychology_Tma_01

Introduction How can the way in which we organise our thinking by using mental images, Concepts and schemas help us improve our memory' To help me answer this question I will be taking each of the three ways of organising our thinking and answer the following questions! What is a mental image, concept or schema' How can the use of mental images, concepts and schemas help us improve our memory' What evidence is available to support this' Mental Images Firstly; let’s look at mental images. This is simply constructing a mental picture whilst thinking about something. Using mental images provides an additional cue for when we recall information, the more colourful, bizarre and larger the images the better it will fix in our memory; as we tend to remember more specific items rather than general items. Mnemonics is a technique for improving memory and is based on using mental images. An example of this is when we create a rhyme or some type of saying to remember something, such as the colours of the rainbow by reciting “Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain”, Each first letter of every word represents a colour; Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. Another example of this was developed by the poet Simonides called “Method of Loci”, where you link mental images to a list of items with a sequence of locations you know well. Raugh and Atkinson (1975) developed the key word technique where you create a mental image when learning a language for example, and carried out research on two groups of participants. They were all asked to learn sixty Spanish words, but only one group of participants were taught the key word technique. Those that learned the technique scored an average of 88 percent compared with 28 percent of those that didn’t. Concepts Secondly; we will look at concepts. Spoors et al (2007) tells us that concepts are the process of making mental representation of a group of objects or events that share similar properties. In short we organise our thoughts into categories. This process is called concept information. An example of this would be if you looked at a bird and recognised that it had a beak, feathers and wings along with any other defining features, you would recognise this concept as a bird; even though some birds fly, if you saw an emu or quail you would still recognise it as a bird because of the majority of the defining features are the concept of a bird. Some people’s concepts of a shark are similar, it swims, has gills, a fin and a tail. This is why some people see it as a fish, which infact it is not, it’s a mammal. So our concepts are sometimes not clearly defined and depends on what we do or how we see objects rather than how we define them. So sometimes our concepts can be wrong depending on personal experience and knowledge. Concepts can help our recall of information by grouping information together, such as when we are trying to remember a shopping list, you would probably recall items in group clusters. This could be by grouping some of the fruit and vegetables together or items of personal hygiene. George Mandler (1967) suggests that by organising information we learn it even though we are not making any effort to memorise it. He carried out an experiment with two groups of participants, giving them one hundred cards each. Each card had a word printed on it. Both groups were told to sort them into groups, but, only one group were told to try and memorise them at the same time. When both groups were asked to write down the words they remembered , the group that were told only to sort them into groups remembered just as many as the group that were also told to memorise them at the same time. Schemas Finally; we will look at schemas. Spoors et al (2007) informs us that a schema is used to describe a mental framework in which you file all your knowledge about certain objects, situations, groups of people and even yourself. It would include the whole package of your thinking when you think about something. A mental frame work of knowledge is developed as a result of experience. If your memory was a theoretical filing cabinet, each file would represent a schema. Spoors et al (2007) also tells us that schemas help us recall information as they provide cues to prompt our memory. Schemas help us deal with everyday life, and we can apply our knowledge of similar experiences when we encounter new ones. Jean Piaget who died in 1980 investigated the way that children developed their thinking or cognitive skills. He proposed they did this by developing schemas which are built up from the world around us. We will hold similar knowledge in our schemas as other people, but as our personal experiences are different our schemas will be too. Conclusion We have looked at the ways that we organise our thinking by using mental images, concepts and schemas. We have also considered how we can use these ways of organising of thinking to help improve our recall of information. In some cases we have also seen how sometimes our recall and thinking can be distorted by general factors. We have looked at evidence gathered by recognised others, and their findings. We used all this information to answer our original question; how can the way in which we organise our thinking by using mental images, concepts and schemas help us improve our memory' Word Count (935) References; George Mandler (1967), Raugh and Atkinson (1975), and Spoors et al (2007)