Applying Cognitive Psychology: Life, Law, Education.

     Alas, it has come the time for the last post of the semester. Now when deciding what to write about this time, I pondered for a while. Then when I packed up and moved back home, it just hit me. I should write about the one thing people constantly ask me about with my majors: What can you do with THAT? So I'm going to tell you how THOSE THINGS I've been writing about all semester and learning in class can be applied to your life, to the legal system, and to education.

     To avoid being super repetitive, some concepts will be referred to in passing, such as the availability heuristic. This is when we give answers or make assumptions based on what information is available to us. The things we hear about the most determine the side we are likely to choose. An example of this can be seen if you ask someone: what is the most popular type of dog? Most people will probably say a golden retriver or maybe even a german shepherd. The true answer? According to the American Humane Society, a mixed breed dog is the most popular type of dog. However, we are more likely to say a golden retriever because we think of that breed more often when we think of a dog. You can read more about this heuristic and other heuristics on posts below this one.

      However, beyond heuristics - we all use cognitive psychology on a daily basis. When you are paying attention to things, or trying to remember/recall things, etc. - all of these daily functions we take for granted - these are all cognitive functions and are understood with cognitive psychology. You apply cognitive psychology to your decision making and justifications, to your television show choices or choice of beverage, you apply it to your homework and tests, etc.

      Understanding the importance of cognitive psychology in our lives, we can now move on to further applications. Cognitive psychology has become very important to the study of law and the legal system. Dr. Shawn Marsh looked deeply into cognitive psychology in the law, something that has joined together to become legal psychology. Cognitive psychologists have helped us understand the limits of eyewitness testimony. They've explored and explained the role that perception and memory play in the justice system. They have even showed that the accent of the defendent can influence how we recall a memory and describe the perpetrator. Cognitive psychologists have also worked very hard to understand bias and its role in the court room: explicit (we are aware of our preference) or implicit (we are not aware of our preference). These preferences can affect our thoughts and potential prejudices as jurors or even as spectators. Understanding these preferences, thanks to cogntivie psychology, lawyers are able to better prepare for testimonies and for potential juror bias. Doing so will only allow for more justice in the justice system.

     Cognitive psychology can also be applied to education. Through cognitive psychology we have come to understand which study habits work best. We have learned how frequent quizzing improves student learning and information retention (unfortunate news, I know! But it really works!). Thus we have realized that flashcards work better than rereading a textbook chapter. We know that you retain more information if you sleep after studying. Roediger (third link provided) wrote about "translational educational science," or applying cognitive psychology to education. Doing so will allow us to determine which teaching methods work best which could potentially lead to a more unified method of teaching and improve student learning and the school environment.

      Basically, it is absolutely indisuputable: we use cognitive psychology every single day. We take it for granted, but it is always there to help us out in one way or another. So the next time you hear someone ask, or even you ask, what are you going to do with THAT? You'll know how to answer what you are going to do with the information from your cognitive psychology class, and what you have been doing with it before you were even aware that you were applying it.

http://www.americanhumane.org/assets/pdfs/pets-fact-sheet.pdf

http://www.ncjfcj.org/psychology-and-courts-exploring-sometimes-wacky-world-decision-making

http://psych.wustl.edu/memory/Roddy%20article%20PDF's/Roediger%20(2013)_APS.pdf

The Real Rain Man. A guest post by Justyna Dorris

Have you ever seen the 1988 movie “Rain Man” with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise? Well did you know that Hoffman’s character Raymond was based off of a real person named Kim Peek? Well it’s true. Kim Peek was born in 1951 and passed away in 2009 and Kim was a remarkable savant. “A savant is an individual who-with little or no apparent effort-completes intellectual tasks that would be impossible for ordinary people to master” (Brogaard & Marlow, 2012). Savants also have serious mental and/or physical disabilities along with their spectacular talents. This is typically referred to as having savant syndrome, which is an exceptionally rare phenomenon. This syndrome is one of the most interesting phenomena to study in the field of cognitive psychology (Hiles, 2002). When it came to Kim Peek, his special talents started early in his life at around the age of 1 ½ years old. “He could read both pages of an open book at once, one page with one eye and the other with the other eye. This style of reading continued until his death in 2009” (Brogaard & Marlow, 2012). Kim was able to retain 98% of the information he read, and that’s how he would spend his days. With him being able to absorb information so fast and also able to recall it at the drop of a hat, he was a walking GPS and a living and breathing encyclopedia. If you were driving from one city to another, he would be able to give you driving directions. If you gave him a date, like June 15, 1632 he could tell you what day it was and he was also able to remember an immense amount of political, musical, and historical facts. His memory was astounding (Brogaard & Marlow, 2012).

Many other individuals with savant syndrome are afflicted with autistic spectrum disorder, but Kim Peek was not one of these people. Though Kim didn’t suffer from autistic spectrum disorder he was highly dependent on his father, who took care him his whole life. Kim’s dad would dress him every morning and bring him to the library every day. Kim could never have a driver’s licenses or a girlfriend, because that would be too much for him to handle. When Kim was born he was diagnosed with mental retardation and the doctors told his parents that he’d never be able to talk or read. They suggested sending him to an institution and getting on with their lives. In spite of these recommendations, his parents decided to raise him rather than send him away and forget about him. “They quickly realized that their little boy with the oversized head had a remarkable brain. Due to his parents' efforts, Kim had the opportunity to develop his amazing talents. A large head does not equal intelligence or ability to retain information. But it does provide more storage space for someone who is able to process the content of 10,000 books, which was the number of books Peek had read by the time of his death” (Brogaard & Marlow, 2012). If his parents had sent him away like the doctors had suggested, Kim’s special talents would have never fully developed the way they had. Without Kim there would not have been the movie Rain Man and people would not really be aware of savant syndrome, even though it was done in a comical way. Savants are rare, but they are out there and they have something to offer to the world of cognitive psychology and the way the human brain works. “It is often claimed that, because of the extraordinary abilities involved, we will never truly understand human memory and cognition until we understand the savant” (Hiles, 2002).

Short Clip about Kim Peek:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZBucCevSeE

All Eyes On You...But Not Really. A guest post by Nicholas Imlach.

          While talking about spotlight effect, illusion transparency, and the better than average effect this week in class, I was wondering if knowing would change anything. The spotlight effect is essentially when people think others are paying more attention to them than they actually are. When someone is having a bad hair day, for example, they think everyone notices, but in actuality only a few will notice. The Illusion of transparency is when people think others can tell what they’re thinking. An example of this would be you and your friend looking at each other after seeing something and saying “are you thinking what I’m thinking” and you both thought something completely different. The better than average effect is assuming that you are better than the average person on most things. While learning about these different effects, a few questions arose.

            Would knowing change anything? Now that I am aware that people don’t pay that much attention, I may not be as concerned about saying something potentially stupid in class, or not as worried if I have a bad hair day. At least I would like to think I wouldn’t be as concerned. Now that I know people in general miss things, I wonder if I will be more attentive and try to spot more things. Another question that arose is the difference between people you run into on a daily basis compared to good friends. Are people more likely to see small changes in friends before colleagues? Also what if someone has feelings for someone else, are they more likely to notice the changes? Or is it people in general just can’t notice a lot while going about their average day?

            The illusion of transparency brought up some questions also. In class we talked about lying and how people can’t really tell. My question is, “is it that we can’t tell or do we not want to tell?” When is the last time someone asked you something looking for a compliment (hair style change) and you said it was awful? Most people will tell a white lie and keep their friend or significant other happy. To reiterate the question, when it comes to small lies for what most people see as the greater good, is it that we can’t tell the difference or do we not want to tell the difference?

                Finally the better than average effect surprised me. I honestly thought more people would say they were better than average. I thought most of the categories in class would have 85% and above. People don’t want to be in the bottom of most categories. I wonder if people switch, when they realize they are in the bottom 50% of a category, to “at least I’m not the worst.” In order to salvage some part of their self-esteem I imagine people eventually use that strategy. I have always enjoyed learning about human behavior, this class shined a light on some information that got me thinking about many implications, and I believe it comes down to knowing. Now that I know, I will attempt to be more attentive in spotting inconsistencies

So How 'Bout That Expertise? A guest post by Conor Carney.

            What is an expert?  Well it probably depends on whom you ask.  Webster dictionary defines an expert as having, involving, or displaying special skill or knowledge derived from training or experience.  It is rather broad, so it is difficult to really define an individual as being some one who is an “expert.”
            We saw a video of someone who was an expert at drawing.  He was able to see the New York sky line from a helicopter for only about 20 minutes then draw almost an exact replica of the city.  He was able to do all of this despite the fact that he was said to be severely autistic.  There are very few people who would be able to accomplish such a task, so I would consider him to be an expert. 
            What about professional athletes?  It is obvious that they have a very special skill, but there are so many of them.  If someone is injured, they are immediately replaced and sometimes the person behind them can out do their previous performances, so are they truly an expert?  Or are they just someone with a high level of skill.
            The same goes for almost any profession.  People are referred to as experts very frequently, but we really do not stop to think what that really means.  There are expert doctors, lawyers, chess players and even limousine drivers, but what does this really all mean. 
            To me an expert is someone who cannot be replaced.  Someone who is so highly skilled at what they do, that if they were to stop no one would be able to replicate what they do.  In this sense there would not be too many experts, because in almost every profession, there is always someone behind you that is ready to take your place.
            The autistic New York drawer is someone who is nearly irreplaceable.  If he were to no longer continue drawing, would one be able to give someone a 20 minute ride throughout a major city then have them draw a thorough and accurate replica of what they saw?  I highly doubt it, at least not without an extensive search.  What if you were sick and your regular doctor was on vacation?  Would you wait until their return or simply go to another doctor?  One would likely find another doctor, or “expert,” in their place.  This is the same throughout all occupations.
            What is an expert?  There is really no answer to that question, because it all depends on the person answering the question.  One person may consider someone an expert and another person may disagree and there really is not a right or wrong answer.  The requirements are so loose that someone could claim they are an expert sandwich maker or expert driver and there is really no way to tell them that they are wrong.  So, to answer the question what is an expert? It depends.  

Do Experts Truly Exist? A guest post by Kyle Luke.

                When I hear the word “expert,” I immediately think of individuals who have spent a large amount of time learning and working on a specific subject.  Typically, I think of individuals who have taught me different lessons or skills.  So to me I would define an expert as someone who has a great deal of knowledge about their field and who have earned the right to teach others what they have learned.  I know that this is different from the definitions given by dictionaries, but I feel that overall it has the same message.  For me I feel as though a person cannot be an expert until they have a solid enough understand of their subject or skill that they can successfully pass it on to others.  After all, what is the point of being an expert of something and compiling all of that knowledge on the subject if you are not willing to pass it on to the next generation and to hopefully keep the subject improving and evolving. 

                At my martial arts school it was common for certain black belts to help teach some of the lower ranking members of the school before the more advanced class started.  Fortunately for me, I was offered this opportunity even though I was a few years younger than those whom I taught.  I am not going to lie, originally I felt that I did not deserve to teach others because I would not have the respect of those whom I was trying to teach because of my age and that I would be an unfit teacher because I was still learning myself.  When I expressed to my head instructor that I was no expert on martial arts and how I felt that I had a long way to go before I could teach anyone, he told me some famous  quotes by martial arts expert Bruce Lee which I still value today (the quotes can be found at the end of this post).  The first quote was a message that even a martial artist as good as Bruce Lee never considered himself a master and that he was constantly learning and improving as he worked.  The second was about how knowing about yourself will help you interact with other people and that by putting in the effort and constantly improving, it is possible to earn other people’s respect and admiration.  After hearing these lessons, I felt much more comfortable about teaching others and I must say that I am extremely glad I did because I feel that I learned more by teaching others and helping them out than I did by practicing by myself.  It felt good to see that those whom I was teaching saw me as someone who had the knowledge to help them improve their skills – to them I was the expert. 

                I have to be honest and say that I am nowhere near an expert in martial arts.  I am merely someone who is slightly above average.  Yet, to my students I was someone whom they respected and trusted enough that they were willing to learn from me.  This was an experience that I really valued, not only for the chance to help out my fellow students, but for the opportunity to learn what it was like to teach someone about something I had knowledge about. 

 “I'm not a master, I'm a student-master, meaning that I have the knowledge of a master and the expertise of a master, but I'm still learning, so I'm a student-master. I don't believe in the word master, I consider the master as such when they close the casket.”  - Bruce Lee

“Self-knowledge involves relationship. To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person. Relationship is a process of self evaluation and self revelation. Relationship is the mirror in which you discover yourself – to be is to be related” - Bruce Lee

I Remember It Like It Was Just Yesterday: Flashbulb Memories. A guest post by Tabitha Candido.

          Throughout today’s lecture, flashbulb memories were the most interesting to me. Flashbulb memories are highly detailed, vivid “snapshots” of an event. Flashbulb memories are a type of autobiographical memory. Flashbulb memories usually come about and stick in someone’s mind because of personal importance, emotions, or shock factor (surprising events).

            An example of a flashbulb memory would be like the memory of 9/11. Many people think they remember what they were doing that day, where they were, and who was with them. Most people believe that they remember every specific detail about that day and what happened, but the truth is most of the time they don’t.

            Every time you recall any memory, it is not better than any other kind of memory. Flashbulb memories, even though they seem more vivid in your mind, really are not. 

            When you recall something, you think you remember it more and more but you truly do not. Every single one of those times you actually remember it a little differently and restore it the way you have just recalled it, to be changed once more another day. Flashbulb memories can also be influenced by TV footage of an event.

            Taking into account 9/11, many of us are asked if we remember this event, especially in school. I have been asked in school if I remember where I was and what I was doing that day and even whom was around me. As I was so young when this happened, I do not remember that much of it. All I really remember is that I was in elementary school, in math class specifically, and I remember the announcements going on the loudspeaker asking teachers to all go to the principal’s office if they were able to.

            After my teacher (Ms.Machado) came back into class she told us what was happening and told us we were going to get early dismissal that day because of this.

I remember my mom actually calling the school to talk to me to ask if I was ok and told me my aunt was going to be the one picking me up from school that day.

            Even though I remember these little snippets of what happened that day I feel now, after learning about flashbulb memories, that my memory from that day is not as accurate as I think I actually remember it. Thinking about this day now and trying to remember what I can actually, vividly remember is not as much as I actually tell people when asked about this day. All I truly remember is being told what happened and seeing my teacher cry.

As you can see, flashbulb memories are not always 100% correct or remembered in their entirety, but they usually demonstrate the emotional part of the memory and explain why people have these memories for so long. Just remember, even though you might believe you remember something very vividly, you might be very wrong.

The Human Brain. A guest post by Cynthia Ball.

     This week I enjoyed the presentation from our quest speaker, Professor Jackson, who did an excellent job of explaining various aspects of the brain that relate to neuroscience and cognition. It was the first time that learning about parts of the brain was not boring, but rather quite interesting. He explained various parts of the brain and their functions as relating to various defects in the physiology of the brain.

     What intrigued me most, and inspired me to write this, was the last section about “Myth Busting the Brain.” How mortifying!  I was one who believed in all of them, so naturally I was beside myself.  I thought, how was I now going to justify those beliefs to myself now? The left brain/ right brain theory was the first to baffle my mind. When he explained where the myth began, I was able to readily understand that it is the whole brain that is used and that either side may be more activated at various times.

     Another myth was one regarding how “puzzles boost brains.”  An example of such being the website Luminosity, as it claims to help you “reclaim your brain.” This also took me by surprise. I recently considered investing in the website and actually participated in one of their trials. The program’s intention was to have us believe that one’s cognitive skills would be greatly improved by using their website and playing their mind games. No doubt, as explained by Professor Jackson, the action of practicing these puzzles is the means for doing better at them as time progresses – but does not have an actual effect on your cognitive function or the “strength” of your brain.

     A similar program that I indulged in with my daughter during my pregnancy and after she was born and preached to other parents about is the Baby Einstein series of tapes and DVDs. They alleged their ability to greatly improve children’s cognitive development. It’s even been stated that by playing Mozart or any classical music to developing fetuses that they would get a head start on better cognitive skills.  The idea that listening to classical music can increase your brainpower has become so popular that it's been dubbed "the Mozart effect." I was one of those parents who actually fell for this and took part in it. How silly do I feel now? This particular myth started in the 1930’s when an ear, nose, and throat specialist had suggested that people with auditory disorders could have improved speech by listening to Mozart. Then in 1990, a study had been done regarding IQ tests in which it was suggested that listening to Mozart prior to taking the test resulted in higher test scores. Hence, “the Mozart effect” was born. (http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/human-brain/10-brain-myths.htm#page=2)

     The world of commercialism has and continues to apparently dupe a large majority of people into believing such myths to sell products. I recently came across an article entitled, “Age-Proof Your Brain” in Healthy Living Magazine. This article goes on to state, “So-called senior moments can be unsettling and frustrating, but we tend to accept them as a non-negotiable result of aging. In fact, researchers now believe that we don’t have to just sit back and let our gray matter fizzle over time.” Gray matter was something that Professor Jackson had also discussed with us in his presentation, so I thought this was quite interesting to now be reading this article. The article further claims, “New imaging technologies are revealing that the brain is far more elastic than we believe.” It suggests that through the use of “Brain Trainers” and Mind Games such as Sudoku, Rubik’s Cubes, and Crossword Puzzles, the brain is more likely to have neuroplacticity, according to researchers, and that will make the brain more resistant to disease because these games work areas of the brain responsible for memory in the hippocampus and for language in the left temporal lobe. This information was given by a Dr. Hall who also says, “They [the games] also encourage different parts of the brain to work together.”

     So, what are we all supposed to believe after a pitch like that? As Professor Jackson explained, those behind such myths claim as fact that they are “built on proven neuroscience,” yet it now makes more sense to me that it is more likely a result of practicing these so called mind games over and over again (Practice Effects) as stated previously. And also according to Professor Jackson, we all know that things are showed and demonstrated, not proven, and it’s about “science not magic.”

Holy Heuristics. A guest post by Justyna Dorris.

            Have you ever heard the word heuristics before? No, well me neither until this year and it turns out we use them every day and this is just the fancy word which simply means a “rule of thumb” that provides a best guess solution to a problem. Now that you know what a heuristic is, you’ll realize that you do this every day. In class we talked about three of the most commonly known ones, which are: the gambler’s fallacy, availability heuristic, and anchoring and adjustment heuristic. Let’s do a quick rundown of each of these before we move on to another one.

To explain gambler’s fallacy, let’s use the example of flipping a coin and getting heads or tails. Say you flip it eight times, the first one is tails, and then you get tails six times in a row, what will the eighth flip be? Odds are you said heads and your reason is because it was “due to land on heads.” That right there is the gambler’s fallacy. We have a 50/50 chance of getting heads or tails, so after a long run of getting tails you’re more likely to believe that you’ll get heads next even though it’s always a 50/50 chance.

To explain the availability heuristic, let’s think about a few things. Are you more likely to die from a car accident or stomach cancer? Most people will say car accident, but in all reality more people die from stomach cancer. We say car accident over stomach cancer because we hear about people dying from car accidents more often than we hear about people dying from stomach cancer, so this information is readily available to us. The things that we hear about more on a daily basis are the things that will come to our minds first. Another example of this is do more words start with the letter K or have K as the third letter? Believe it or not more words have K as the third letter than the first, so why are we more likely to say that there are more words that start with K? The answer is simply because it’s easier for us to think of words that start with K rather than words that have it as its third letter, but as soon as someone starts saying words that have K as the third letter you’ll think of a bunch of them (i.e. bike, like, lake, cake, etc.).

The anchoring and adjustment heuristic is when we are given certain information and then adjust it up or down. So someone asked you, are there more than 25 people in your psychology class without counting? You look and see there’s more and then they ask you how many people are there, most people will say 30 and they got to this by doing 25 people, plus 5 is 30. Or usually the chips you buy from the store are on sale for $2.50 but this week they’re being sold for $3.25. This is also an example of this heuristic because the store took the usual sale price and increased it from $2.50 to $3.00. They adjusted it from low to high which is a common practice for stores to do. Now that we understand these three heuristics let’s move on to another kind.

            A lesser known heuristic is the simulation heuristic, which is “a more specific form of the availability heuristic that explains why people experience regret and use counterfactual thinking. Simply stated the simulation heuristic pertains to how likely one thinks an outcome will occur” (Psychowiki.com). “The mental processes, by which people construct scenarios, or examples, resemble the running of the simulation model. Mental simulation appears to be used to make predictions, assess probabilities and evaluate casual statements. A particular form of simulation, which concerns the mental undoing of certain events, plays an important role in the analysis of regret and close calls. Two rules of mental undoing are proposed. According to the downhill rule, people undo events by removing surprising or unexpected occurrences. According to the focus rule, people manipulate the entities on which they focus” (Kahneman & Tversky 1981).

There are different reasons for when people will use this heuristic. The first is when someone has no previous information about something and they have to make a general prediction. So for example, when two people meet for the first time, neither one of them knows anything about the other so they make basic predictions about each other. When it comes to assessing probabilities’ using this heuristic, an example would be what would have happened if Lincoln wasn’t shot by John Wilkes Booth, how would history have been different? Or what will happen if you don’t study for your cognitive psychology final? Finally an example of evaluating casual statements would be something like: did studying for an hour cause you to get an 85% on your test or was the test just very easy? So as you can see we do use this heuristic in our lives when it comes to certain things. The other three heuristics mentioned are the better known ones and the ones that are used more often, but all of them are valuable when it comes to us making decisions and guesses about things.

Cognitive Psychology Connecting mind, research, and everyday experiences by E. Bruce

Goldstein

http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/Simulation_Heuristic

Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1981). The simulation heuristic (No. TR-5). STANFORD UNIV CA DEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

Just Call Me The Brain Mythbuster!

     In this post we are going to discuss and up-and-coming field: cognitive neuroscience. We are also going to debunk some myths about the brain.

     Cognitive neuroscience studies the biology behind cognition. It focuses on the biological connection between the brain and cognition. If you visit the website for the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (http://www.cogneurosociety.org/), you will find a quote by one Eric R. Kandel who says, “Cognitive Neuroscience – with its concern about perception, action, memory, language, and selective attention – will increasingly come to represent the central focus of all Neurosciences in the 21^st century.” Now while I can’t argue that this is a fact, I also can’t argue that it is improbable. Cognitive Neuroscience seeks to explain a lot of things we otherwise would have no understanding of, especially things we, as a society, want to know more about such as Alzheimer’s Disease and how to help/slow down/prevent it.  

     Cognitive Neuroscience, as well as general Neuroscience, is also responsible for our ability to reject certain myths about the brain.

     For example, we do not use 10% of our brain. We use 100% of our brain. Where does this myth come from? Well our brains do this thing called culling, and when we are around seven years old, early childhood, we have a lot more neurons and neural connections than we need. As we get to young adulthood, our brain “culls” these surplus connections to increase the efficiency of the neural connections in our brains. So though we may have fewer neurons than we did when we were younger, we are still using the full power of our brains.

     It is NOT all downhill after 40. It is often drilled into our heads that as you get older mental abilities decrease, but this is not entirely true. Yes, cognitive skills decline as you age; for example, it is easier for a younger child to learn another language compared to your middle-aged self. However, some mental skills improve such as vocabulary and regulation of emotions.

     People are not left-brained OR right-brained; we use both sides of our brain. If we didn’t need both sides, evolution would have disposed of one side centuries ago. While certain functions of the brain are dominated by certain hemispheres, common everyday tasks require the use of both hemispheres. (So that quiz you just took on Facebook about which side you are, is not actually accurate).

     Drug use does not cause holes in your brain. Only physical trauma can cause holes in your brain. Though I am not condoning the use of drugs, I find it important to specify that drugs do not cause holes in your brain. They do, however, cause a reduction in size of key regions of the brain and interfere with the set chemical connections of the brain. On a similar note, alcohol does not ALWAYS kill brain cells. Moderate amounts are acceptable, however if you blackout consistently each week (which you can read more about in my earlier post “Last Friday Night”) then you may be killing a decent amount of your brain cells.

     Your brain is entirely capable of creating new cells. In fact, it generates new cells constantly. It also continues to do so as you age.

     Blasting classical music will not increase your intelligence. Before you put some headphones on your pregnant wife’s belly to make your unborn child smarter, take note of this: it doesn’t actually do anything. There is no evidence of it increasing a child’s intelligence. In fact, there is actually some evidence that it decreases a child’s vocabulary.

     Playing games does not improve cognitive function. While you may improve your vocabulary or puzzle-solving skills, you won’t actually improve your brain’s overall function. To maintain the “youth” of your brain, workout: not your mind, your body. Good nutrition and consistent exercise will preserve your mental abilities more so than any “mind game.”

     Brain damage/brain injuries are NOT always permanent. Sometimes the brain is capable of repairing itself. Although it depends on location and severity, it is important to note that they are not all permanent. In fact, it has been seen in some instances that the brain is actually capable of “rerouting” and developing new connections to repair its mental abilities while not necessarily repairing its physical state.

I hope you found these myths interesting. Keep these in mind and the next time someone tries to mention one of these you can shut them down (politely of course!).

http://www.brainfacts.org/neuromyths/

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Top-Ten-Myths-About-the-Brain.html?c=y&page=2

Heuristics in Politics. A guest post by Sal Schiano.

       In What Americans Know about Politics[i], Michael Carpini describes the availability heuristic: “what Americans know most about politics is what is most readily available to them.”

Research has shown time and again that the majority of voters in America know almost nothing about the American political system and their representatives.[ii] How then, do they decide who to vote for office? This is one of the central questions in political psychology: how does an uninformed public make choices? The question can be answered through the science of cognitive psychology.

        The answer is through the use of heuristics, or “shortcuts” of understanding. The average U.S. citizen does not spend all of their time in determining who they are going to vote for in the next election. In fact the majority spend little to no time in evaluating the actualities of political candidates. The average American is busy and has no time for this, nor do they believe their vote matters anyways. Instead, to choose candidates they rely on the use of heuristics. This use may be accurate often but may also lead to inaccurate assumptions. Politicians are aware of the public’s ignorance and use of heuristics, they therefore employ cognitive psychological methods to try and secure votes. Priming, framing, and activation are three tools politicians use for elections to gain more votes, but they would not be possible without the prior knowledge of certain heuristics.

        Lau & Redlawsk attribute the use of five major heuristics in determining who the public votes for.[iii] What they determine as the most important heuristic is party affiliation. This refers to which party a particular candidate belongs to, anywhere from Libertarian to Communist, or the more common: Democrat and Republican. The voter identifies which party they believe they agree with more and often choose the candidate that too belongs to that party, this is the party heuristic. A similar heuristic is the ideology heuristic. Voters rely on some of the choices representatives make and group them with other decisions they think would be made because of the one particular decision previously made. This heuristic is flawed as it could cause an individual to vote for a candidate who say, may not stand for gun rights even though they are pro-military. 

       Another heuristic used by voters is the endorsement heuristic: when voters attribute the qualities of the endorser of a particular candidate to the political candidate. Politicians have used this heuristic to their advantage when they seek out a particular endorsement from a celebrity, company, etc. For example, one from a popular former president, such as President Obama did with Bill Clinton in 2008 and again in 2012. Voters know Bill Clinton and many liked him, because they like Bill and Bill likes Barack, they like Barack.

       A common heuristic that is not referenced often is the viability heuristic. Polls provide this through the use of a candidates “standing” in the electoral race. The use of easy to read percentages, bar graphs, and colors add to the cognitive saving heuristic of viability. This heuristic is used often early in the political race when there are more candidates. In this way voters are able to see who is winning and who is losing, sometimes severely, and quickly make the decision, say, not to vote for the guy with 3.2%. 

       The final heuristic Lau & Redlawsk argue is the candidate appearance heuristic. This is of utmost importance in voter decision because it is not restricted to anything but visual imagery. The voter can make a decision based off a single picture, because of all the information it provides, i.e. gender, race, age, and “likeableness,” which is reinforced by societal stereotypes. Voters who know nothing about politics can use this to make a decision, accurate or not. Some political scientists refer to this heuristic as the “have-a-beer” heuristic: in which the candidate seems like someone you’d want to have a beer with, which often locks in your vote. An example of this was President Obama’s famous beer summit in 2009. 

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[i] Carpini, Michael. What Americans Know about Politics and Why It Matters. New Haven: Yale UP, 1996. Print.

[ii] Philip E. Converse (2006) The nature of belief systems in mass publics (1964), Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society, 18:1-3, 1-74,

[iii] Advantages and Disadvantages of Cognitive Heuristics in Political Decision Making

Richard R. Lau and David P. Redlawsk

American Journal of Political Science , Vol. 45, No. 4 (Oct., 2001), pp. 951-971

Creative Fixation. A guest post by Nicholas Imlach

            The notion of thinking outside of the box has always interested me; I just feel it is under utilized. Going through the public school system feeling like nothing more than a drone monotonously going through the motions has me thinking something needs to change. Always being told you must do what you’re told, becoming fixated on a schedule, following the instructions and rarely asking why.

            When I was in high school I remember watching an episode of “Two and a Half Men.” The episode was based on Pavlov’s conditioning. At the time I didn’t realize the implication of the episode, so after I ended up google-ing Ivan Pavlov and was astonished at what I found. The basics to one of Pavlov’s conditioning experiments went like this: Pavlov had some dogs, he would ring a bell known as a neutral stimulus (NS) and apply an unconditioned stimulus (US), the US being food. When Pavlov gave the dogs the food they would salivate; the dogs would only salivate in the presence of the food. After a while of pairing the bell (NS) with the food (US), the bell became another entity in itself, known as a conditioned stimulus or (CS). When the bell became a CS the dogs would salivate by just hearing the bell, without any food being presented.

            After watching the episode I realized that seemed like the basis of high school to me. My school had two bells per class; the first meant you should be in your seats the second was move to the next class. The bell acted as a NS at first, but upon learning about the class or teacher the bell would become a CS, inciting emotion whether good or bad depending on the class. There was always one bell of the day that would incite a rousing interest by most of the students, that being the lunch bell. Upon realizing the parallels, my interest of psychology rose immensely.

            I tell this story as a basis for my point of thinking outside of the box being under utilized. Realizing that for those four years of school I could boil them down to nothing more than reacting to conditioned instructions made me think school may not be the best at growing creativity. The only real things I learned in school were to follow instructions, and don’t ask questions about why you had to follow the instructions. I had become fixated, I suppose, on following directions. I found myself being confused when asked the question “do you have any questions” not in terms of clarification, but whether or not I thought the material is true or not.

            For the past 15 years (before college) it always seemed implied that whatever the teacher said should be taken as fact. Being asked in multiple classes my opinion on whether I believe the material to be true, or more true than false, it took some work to extinguish the conditioning public school imposed on me. Using top-down processing and the video shown in this week’s class about creativity and how people tend to enjoy creative problem solving I wonder why it is not used more in the public school system. The other morning I saw my neighbors kids going to the bus stop, I said hello, asked what’s up, they looked at me like they were going to jail and said “going to school” in unison, in a voice that sounded like they were actually going to jail. I couldn’t help but say, “I know what you mean.” I understand we are not always going to be able to do what we want, but looking at school from both sides, how can teachers feel good about what they’re doing if a majority of their students are miserable and uninterested?

One last side note: playing call of duty the other day, in the game the player can create a picture to link with their name on the game. Someone started laughing and said look at so and so’s picture. The person used SCHOOL as an acronym and next to it said:

Seven

Crappy

Hours

Of

Our

Lives

I wonder if two polls were taken, one for adults and one for kids, what would be higher: the adults’ approval rating of congress or the kids’ approval rating of school?

All of the effort. A guest post by Nkechinyelu Agulefo,

To me, the effort heuristic is the most interesting heuristic of them all.  The effort heuristic is when the value of an object is judged based on the amount of effort that went into the production of the object.  In other words, if someone puts a great amount of effort into something, that person is more prone to believe the outcome should yield great results. A real life example is when I submitted my final biology lab last semester. I put so much effort into those ten pages and expected to get an A.  I spent hours on the lab report and even went as far as citing five more than the required sources which is so unlike me because I’m not an overachiever. 

(Me during the writing process.)

Long story short I got an A- and I didn't understand why.  I was devastated.  I met with the TA and pleaded my case but she didn't change my grade. I even bought her coffee with my River Hawk Dollars and at the end of my appeal she told me “thanks for the coffee but I’m not giving you an A.”  

 This is where the effort heuristic came into play.  I genuinely thought I deserved an A because of the amount of labor I put in; meanwhile my TA most likely didn’t think the same.

  Here’s another instance where the effort heuristic comes into play. If I visited an art exhibit and they showed me a painting that was made by a twelve year old and asked me to guess the price, I would probably say, “free.”  However, if they told me that that same painting was made by Jean-Michel Basquiat and asked me to guess the price I would say “four years’ worth of my tuition.” I mean it’s Basquiat, this guy is well known and has made paintings in Armani suits.  Even though the paintings are both unique and not very different, to me at least, I would definitely overestimate the price of Basquiat's painting and underestimate the price of the 12 year-old’s painting.

                                        12 year old Megrelishvili Tata's painting

VS.

JEAN MICHEL BASQUIAT

Another example of the effort heuristic is if someone was to give me $200, I would spend it without caring because it was effortlessly given to me and everybody knows free money is the best money. However, if it were to come out of my paycheck then I would definitely be more cautious while spending it.  In this case the worth of the money changed when it was coming out of my pocket as opposed to when it was given to me with no strings attached. Those are the basics of effort heuristics and I know for a fact it will continue to occur in the future, I am human after all.

Justin Kruger, Derrick Wirtz, Leaf Van Boven, T.William Altermatt, The effort heuristic, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 40, Issue 1, January 2004, Pages 91-98, ISSN 0022-1031,http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1031(03)00065-9.

Do You Really Know Yourself?

                We are often told that we must know ourselves, love ourselves, before anyone can reciprocate. This idea of knowing oneself stems as far back as Socrates, but that does not make it any less relevant to today. Self-knowledge has been a concept far longer than I’m sure many of us may have guessed. Freud was known to openly argue the concept, believing that it was limited and biased (and obviously that psychoanalysis was necessary for true insight – because that isn’t biased). Nowadays, you can take high school and college courses on self-knowledge, you likely are someone or know someone who purchased a self-help book or one of those ten-step programs “guaranteed” to help you know yourself.

                So clearly self-knowledge is important, but it is also very difficult to grasp – to truly have. However, self-knowledge is crucial because self-deception is so easy. Carl Jung is quoted regarding self-knowledge saying, “there is no coming to [self] consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” We cannot truly understand ourselves – have full, genuine self-knowledge – if we refuse to recognize both the good and bad parts of ourselves.

                Self-knowledge is also compiled of different forms, different “selves.” The ecological self is the self as perceived within the immediate physical environment. The interpersonal self stems from communication. The extended self has its foundations in memory and anticipation. The private self is acknowledged as we eventually realize our conscious experiences are our own, exclusively. Our conceptual self draws on social assumptions and theories regarding human nature in general (though especially ourselves). Ulric Neisser argued these different types of knowledge in a 2008 publication. Neisser also argued that we rarely differentiate between these different selves – we rarely experience them as distinct because “they are held together by specific forms of stimulus information.” What I thought was more interesting, however, was Neisser’s argument that these different selves differ in developmental histories, the accuracy with which we can know them, what they contribute to our overall human experience, and even what pathologies they are subject to.

              Do I think I am in touch with all of these different selves? Not anymore. I definitely had the assumption that I knew myself very well before, and even when I started this post. Now I’m not nearly as sure. Am I going to run to Barnes and Noble to purchase a self-help ten-step self-knowledge book? Not quite yet, but I’m getting closer as I keep writing. I guess we can try to evaluate this and get a little personal tonight. So, as I’m sitting in my living room typing this I suppose my ecological self is my perception of myself as a worn-out, slightly overwhelmed college student ready for a mini vacation. My interpersonal self is only communicating via text message and I’m merely being reminded that I’m sick and alone.. I suppose my interpersonal self is not too pleased currently (sorry about that interpersonal self, I’ll find some better people to text next time). My extended self is anticipating the vacation well remaining firmly stuck in my memories of Thanksgivings past, increasing my anticipation of this year’s, as well as the semester thus far and what I must remember is to come. Perhaps I’m not quite in touch with my private self yet, however my conceptual self is definitely rooted in the stigmas, stereotypes, and obligations of being a college student.

                Did I evaluate that correctly? I think so, but I’m not 100% sure, I am just an undergraduate student after all. It was fun though, you should try it; though it was definitely odd to separate them. I hope you feel like you learned something from this post, though not quite up to the standards of a ten-step book.

Five kinds of self-knowledge (Neisser)

It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's a superhuman!

This blog post is going to be dedicated to those who defy the norms:

     Shakuntala Devi was acknowledged in the 1982 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records. Devi was able to multiply two 13 digit numbers and recite the 26 digit response in just 28 seconds. There have been many "human calculators" down the line, and nowadays they are even tested in the annual Human Calculation World Cup. Participants include world-record-breakers, math teachers, motivational speakers, etc. Many of them have authored books in attempts to improve math skills among children or to even make math fun (I took AP Calculus - math is not fun). Mike Byster is one of the fastest mathematical minds in the world, but he is a former stock broker turned math teacher and creator of Brainetics (it's for kids, to help the math-shy; it sounds neat though). However, if you simply google "human calculator," and not on Shakuntala Devi's birthday, Scott Flansburg is the top result. Flansburg is the Guinness World Record holder for fastest human calculator, and even serves as the global ambassador for World Maths Day (which I had no idea existed, but pi day is on March 14th!).
      If you ever find yourself looking for a show to watch late at night, perhaps check out Stan Lee's Superhumans, where they literally search for people alleged to defy the norms (and represent a reality for superheroes in even the slightest of ways). However, I have searched through the main bios from the show in the attempt to find the most relevant superhumans - those concerned with the brain. Eskil Ronningsbakken is alleged to have the ability to TURN OFF fear - I'm sorry, what?? Yes. This superhuman takes on super balance at super heights and seems to have the ability to turn off the brain's innate reactions (fight or flight response - FLEE! FLEE FROM THE DEADLY HEIGHTS!). Juan Ruiz has been blind since birth, but is allegedly capable of visualizing the world through a form of sonar similar to echolocation, like bats and dolphins. Derek Paravicini, a.k.a. the human jukebox, is both blind and autistic and is also capable of remembering AND accurately replaying any song he has ever heard and ever hears. Although some of the other "superhumans" were interesting and their defiance of physical norms I'm sure requires cognitive factors, these were the most relevant. Honestly though, it's all so strange, interesting, and compelling at the same time. Do you think these things are possible? Are superhumans real? How?
        I honestly can't answer those questions for you, it's entirely a matter of opinion. I'm sure there are genetic and neurological components behind these superhumans, but I cannot give you the details. Can people train for these abilities? If I give my child Flansburg's book and Byster's Brainetics, can I raise my child as a human calculator? There are so many unanswered questions (some more realistic than others obviously), but I couldn't help but address this topic. My uncle has an absurd memory - he can remember crime scenes from years ago: dates, suspects, details, evidence, etc. without even looking at the case file. I grew up thinking he had some sort of superhuman, above average, photographic memory of sorts (although now we know photographic memories aren't real). Nonetheless, I've always wanted an explanation. I've always been curious and I've always wanted to learn how he did it so that I could have a memory like that too.

Let me know your thoughts! Do you know any superhumans?

I knew it! A guest post by Tabatha Candido.

            You thought you knew the outcome of that sports game didn’t you? You also thought you knew many another things after it happened but truth is, you really did not. Hindsight bias is very common in many domains. In many situations people believe that they already know what was going to happen, or they already knew something before it happened but we never actually do.

            Hindsight bias refers to the tendency people have to view events as more predictable than they really are. This means that before an event actually, happens we believe that we already know the outcome.

            Scientists Neal Poese and Kathleen Vohns, two psychology researchers, proposed that there are three levels of hindsight bias. Memory distortion is the first level; this level involves misremembering an earlier judgment. The second level, inevitability, centers us to believe that whatever the outcome was just had to happen. Last but not least, the third level would be foreseeability, which involves the fact that we could tell what the outcome was.

            These researchers have shown that we selectively recall information that we already know is true and we connect it to information that we knew before the event and make sense of them together, which causes us to believe we already knew. If we believe we knew it all along, we never truly examine why something really happened.

            This happens in real life on a daily basis in many of our lives when we actually stop and think about the concept. Even though this is hard to admit, I will have to admit personally that this happened to me not too long ago. I attended a soccer game recently at Gillette Stadium between Brazil and Portugal’s teams. One of the two best players on Portugal’s team was injured and it is common sense (to soccer fans) that every time one of their good players does not play, they lose their confidence and they lose the game. Knowing this while attending the game, the outcome was exactly what I thought it was going to be and Brazil won. Of course since I felt I knew the exact outcome I told everyone that I already knew this was going to be the outcome of the event and no one really believed me.

            As I am sure this has not been the only time this has happened to me as I feel like hindsight bias is a lot like me and my personality, it is unbelievable how we have almost no idea this happens in our heads.

            Not only have I experienced this myself but I have also seen this in my classrooms, in my household, and at my job. Hindsight bias is not set to happen in any specific location and can really happen with anyone and for any event that ever happened. Now that you know more about the concept, does this sound like you too?

Did I really miss that goal?! A guest post by Kyle Luke.

           An interesting thing I’ve noticed about my memories is how they have the ability to haunt me and weigh me down if I think of something similar to it.  For example I remember not being able to score a goal when I was wide open in front of the net when I played hockey for my town team.  I remember the anger and frustration I felt for letting my team down and the shame I felt for not completing such an easy task.  I have recalled this memory so often that I now question just how similar it was to the actual experience as when I rationalize the memory I find some oddities that could not be true.  For example I remember receiving the pass from one of my friends who used to be my partner on defense.  At no point in time were we ever forwards at the same time and there would be no reason for him to be so deep in the offensive zone.  This made me wonder why I kept recalling this false memory and if other false memories were affecting me in a similar manner. 

                As we know, some of the best ways to encode memories is to think of how it can affect our survival.  Another good way of encoding is if the person is using a lot of adrenaline at the moment or if the person is afraid or feeling other powerful emotions.  I believe that it is possible to encode a false or inaccurate memory if it is constantly recalled and the person focuses on the emotion they felt during that time.  However, there are several problems with the manner of encoding as the person remembering is more likely to focus on exactly what frightened them or what scared them.  This makes their memory incomplete on what other aspects and details were going on around them at the time which invites the possibility of having false memories. 

                Most of the false memories that I am conscious of can be categorized into regret or frustration.  I believe the reason for this is that I have recalled memories of things that I have regretted so often that I have completely changed the original memory and because I focused more on my choices and what could have happened I mainly feel regret when I think of the memory.  The same can be said for some of the memories that I am frustrated about.  Now I use both of these types of memories to help push me into not making the same mistakes twice, such as missing an open goal in hockey or waiting till the last minute to complete school work.  Even though I realize that these memories that I recall are most likely inaccurate and false, I still use them as life lessons to make sure that I do not make the same mistake twice.  They also give me an incentive to not screw up again and to remember that I can still overcome any mistakes I make along the way.