Archive for November, 2008
Using Acronyms to Aid in Memory
Posted by Nick Roy in Psychological Foundations of Learning Sunday, 30 November 2008 16:33 No Comments
Forgetting assumes that information that was stored in the short term or long term memory is now not available or is not accessible. It is in terms of availability and accessibility that the importance of forgetting, with regard to demonstrating separate stages in memory is to be approached. Failures of availability and accessibility include encoding failure occurs when data is not stored in the short or long term memory. Trace decay involves the physical form of memory disappearing with time due to neural decay; it explains sensory memory, short term memory forgetting and the effect of rehearsal.
There are seven explanations as to why we forget information that we have stored in memory. These include: decay, interference, failure to retrieve, repression, construction error, failure to store or consolidate, and infantile amnesia.
To minimize forgetting information that we just learned, we can use a number strategies to store the information. If we organize information in a logical way, it will facilitate retrieval and minimize forgetting. Encoding is a process of storing information in memory by modifying it in someway as to make it easier for recall at a later date. One type of encoding is the use of acronyms. This is an advanced cognitive strategy where people devise unique ways to remember stuff. For example, if I want to be able to remember the concept of conceptual knowledge, I can devise this simple formula.
DK + PK = CK
Where DK represents declarative knowledge, PK represents procedural knowledge, and CK represents conceptual knowledge. This formula represents a way of remembering that when people integrate their declarative knowledge and their procedural knowledge, it results in conceptual knowledge.
Encoding strategies such as acronyms have helped me in remembering concepts for long periods of time, as is the case with the KASH model. The KASH model was a concept that I first learned about in a course on Human Resources Development. It was a way of teaching people how to turn what you just learned into a habit so that the task becomes second nature. KASH was an acronym that stood for knowledge of a better way, ability, skills, and habits. Acronyms such as these are easy to pronounce. If you are reading a list of words and they are easy to pronounce, you will have a better chance at remembering and recalling it later.
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The Nature of Memory
Posted by Nick Roy in Psychological Foundations of Learning Sunday, 30 November 2008 16:27 No Comments
The nature of memory can be explained as a set of stages that are necessary but not sufficient for memory to have taken place. These involve “input” -registering or encoding information, where a memory trace is formed from translating the sensory data, “storage” which is either temporary or permanent and “output” which involves retrieval – memories would be useless unless they could be retrieved. It is these stages that form the fundamental characteristics of the process of memory and in order for this to occur it is necessary for the data to become engaged in the memory structure. Memory structure can be separated into three distinct categories, sensory memory input store where the sensory data remains unchanged in the mind for a brief time but is rapidly lost through decay; short -term memory- which has a relatively limited capacity approximately seven items with rapid decay being prevented through rehearsal and finally long-term memory which is a relatively permanent storage system with an apparent unlimited capacity with information being held in enactive, iconic or symbolic form. The evidence for separate stores comes from empirical studies of duration, capacity, coding differences, serial position effect, brain damage and forgetting.
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Coping With PTSD
Posted by Nick Roy in Psychological Foundations of Learning Sunday, 23 November 2008 02:53 2 Comments
After experiencing a traumatic event, the mind has been known to horde away the details and memories and then send them back at unexpected times and places, sometimes after years have passed. It does so in a haunting way that makes the recall just as disturbing as the original event. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is the name for the acquired mental condition that follows a psychologically distressing event “outside the range of usual human experience” Bernstein, et al . There are five diagnostic criteria for this disorder and there are no cures for this affliction, only therapies which lessen the burden of the symptoms.
The root of the disorder is a traumatic event which implants itself so firmly in the mind that the person may be shackled by the pain and distress of the event indeinately, experiencing it again and again as the mind stays connected with the past rather than the present, making it difficult to think of the future.
The research on this topic is all rather recent as the disorder was only added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-III in the last twenty years. Yet, the disorder is quite common, threatening to control and damage the lives of approximately eight percent of the American population 5 of men and 10 of women . Any person is a potential candidate for developing PTSD if subject to enough stress. There is no predictor or determining factor as to who will develop PTSD and who will not. Although all people who suffer from it have experienced a traumatic event, not all people who experience a traumatic event will develop PTSD. Each persons individual capacity for coping with catastrophic events determines their risk of acquiring PTSD. And not everyone will experience the same symptoms; some may suffer only a few mild symptoms for a short period of time, others may be completely absorbed, still others who experience great trauma may never develop any symptoms at all Friedman .
More than any other psychological problem, symptoms are a reaction to an overwhelming external event, or series of events. From a historical perspective, the concept of PTSD made a significant change in the usual stipulation that the cause of a disorder could be outside of the self, rather than some inherent individual weakness Friedman .
There are many situations that may lead to developing PTSD, including: “serious threats to one’s life or well being, or to children, spouse or close friends relatives; sudden destruction of home or community; and witnessing the accidental or violent death or injury of another” Bernstein, et al .
Characteristic symptoms include re-experiencing the event, avoidance of stimuli associated with the event or numbing of general responsiveness, increased arousal not present before the event, and duration of the disturbance for at least one month Johnson .
When a bomb exploded the Oklahoma Federal building in 1996, hundreds of lives were affected. Not only are the people who were in the explosion in danger of re-experiencing it over and over, but so are the people who witnessed the aftermath, from bystanders to the rescue workers on scene. The surviving employees not only were physically injured in the blast, but saw the deaths of their coworkers and children. Surviving a horrific trauma that many others did not is enough to cause serious emotional harm. For the rescue workers who arrived, many of them saw death and people who they could not help; feeling helpless and guilty may manifest into intrusive recollection and nightmares.
To explain further, the first criteria is that the person was at one time exposed to a traumatic event involving actual or threatened death or injury, where the response was marked by intense fear, horror or helplessness Pfefferbaum . This event may have taken place only weeks ago, or as far back in memory as forty years. The disorder is most commonly found among survivors of war, abuse and rape. It also occurs after assorted crime and car accidents, as well as after community disasters such as hurricanes and floods. Workers of rescue missions are subjected to situations of severe stress frequently. Many emergency response workers police, nurses, and medics may become overwhelmed by the trauma they see so many people go through and end up with intrusive recollections themselves.
Secondly, the trauma is re-experienced in the form of nightmares, flashbacks, intrusive memories and or unrest in situations that are similar to the traumatic experience by an associated stimuli Pfefferbaum . Auditory or visual stimuli can evoke panic, terror, dread, grief or despair. Commonly, in the case of war veterans, the patient may be mentally “sent back” to the time and location of the original traumatic experience. A veteran who hears a startling noise like a car backfiring may “hear” gunfire and it will trigger flashbacks. These flashbacks can last a little as a few seconds, minutes, or up to days where the person behaves and reacts to everything as if they are in that original traumatizing setting.
Thirdly, there is a numbing of the emotions and reduced interests in others and the outside world. The person is attempting to reduce the likelihood that they will either expose themselves to traumatic stimuli or if exposed will minimize the intensity of their psychological response Pfefferbaum . For this reason, it is extremely difficult for people with PTSD to participate in meaningful interpersonal relationships.
Forth, there are random associated symptoms including insomnia, irritability, hypervigilance and outbursts of rage. The natural startle inhibitor may be dulled and the patient is easily surprised or upset by unexpected stimuli.
Lastly, symptoms of each category must show significant affect on the person’s social vocational abilities or other important areas of life. Which appears to be an unavoidable effect if a person is in fact experiencing the symptoms listed. All of these symptoms must persist for at least one month
An example from the textbook Psychology introduces a 33-year-old nurse named Mary who suffered severe trauma in the weeks following an attack in her apartment by an intruder who raped her at knife point Criterion one . In the weeks after the attack Mary suffered from an immense fear of being alone in her apartment the second criterion , and preoccupied with attack, she feared it could happen again. Her worry developed in to an obsession with protection and she installed numerous locks on all her windows and doors, eventually Mary became so overly preoccupied with the attack that she could no longer go out socially or even return to work Criterion three and five . She became repelled by the idea of sex. Her associated behaviors encompass criterion four.
In the seven years since the Gulf War, three percent of United States Soldiers have so far been diagnosed as having Posttraumatic Stress Syndrome. Those with greatest exposure to combat are the most likely sufferers, which lends to the idea that the more severe a traumatic event are more difficult it is to overcome. Additionally it develops predominantly in soldiers who were categorized as having the least “stress resistant personalities” coupled with low levels of social support. Essential to recovery of any stressful event is the knowledge that the sufferer is not alone or unique in the grief and that others care about his or her recovery. Those soldiers who returned from war with no one to share their experiences with are likely to re experience warfare in the form of nightmares and flashbacks. After witnessing the deaths of both enemies and comrades those without social support are likely to internalize their pain which have a good chance of escaping out of the body in the symptoms listed Bernstein .
“Acute” PTSD occurs within six months of the traumatic event, while “Delayed On-set” PTSD occurs anytime afterwards. In some instances, patients have developed symptoms decades later. Holocaust survivors, experiencing terrifying nightmares of events they thought they had buried so long ago, have been diagnosed forty and fifty years after the attempted genocide of the Jews with PTSD.
PTSD can become a chronic psychiatric disorder that can persist for decades and sometimes a lifetime. Chronic patients go through periods of remission and relapse like many diseases.
Some problems associated with leaving PTSD untreated are clinical depression and addictions, such as alcoholism, drug abuse, and compulsive gambling. Addictions are a common way of “self-medicating.”
There are instances when a person suffers from involuntary recall of events that they cant quite place or understand. Sometimes adults who were abused in some form as children do not fully know what is tormenting them but still struggle with similar symptoms. For these people hypnosis in a controlled environment is beneficial. After hypnosis the patient and doctor will discuss what has come out and together deal with what has been learned. Drugs in general are not a cure for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but they can calm the patient long enough to rationally discuss what is torturing them. Also it is possible that children who survived the Oklahoma bomb blast may not be told for some time what they lived through. Their first recollections may be hazy pictures that only hint as to what happened. Hypnosis may bring out the details that the mind isn’t willingly sharing. When the details are known the patient then has the opportunity to accept them and develop an understanding and an acceptance if they are lucky enough to get that far of what they have survived Foy .
Therapy is the only known method of treatment, but there have not been substantial gains in this field for recovery of patients. After four months of intensive treatment, Vietnam veterans showed no long term effects of their therapy in a study conducted by the “National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder” in New Haven. The men received individual and group psychotherapy and behavior therapy as well as family therapy and vocational guidance. Although they left reporting increased hope and self-esteem, a year and a half later their psychiatric symptoms had actually worsened. They had made more suicide attempts and their substance abuse was dramatically increased Johnson .
The Harvard Mental Health Letter published February March of 1991 asserts the important result of therapy of any kind is the enabling of the patient to think about the trauma without it taking over and being able to control their feelings without systematically avoiding or diverting their attention. People who are afflicted with PTSD never feel safe because they are controlled by their fears; nightmares and flashbacks only confirm their perceived helplessness and remind them of how they were unable to protect themselves from the event. Healing has taken place only when the person can invoke and dismiss the memories at will, instead of suffering the intrusive involuntary recall Johnson .
References
Bernstein, Douglas A., Alison Clarke-Stewart, Edward Roy, Christopher D. Wickens. Psychology. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997
Bower, Bruce. “Exploring trauma’s cerebral side.” Science News. 149.20 1996 : 315
Foy, David W., ed. Treating PTSD : cognitive-behavioral strategies. New York: Guilford Press, 1992.
Friedman, Matthew J. “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: An Overview.” National Center for PTSD. Dartmouth Medical School, 1997.
Johnson, David R., Robert Rosenheck, Alan Fontana. “Post-traumatic treatment failure.” Harvard Mental Health Letter. 13.9 1997 : 7
Matsakis, Aphrodite. I Can’t Get Over It : a handbook for trauma survivors. Oakland.: New Harbinger Publications, Inc., 1996.
Pfefferbaum, Betty. “Posttraumatic stress disorder in children: a review of the past ten years.” Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 36.11 1997 : 1503-12
“The Harvard Mental Health Letter.” Feb. Mar. 1991. Online. Internet. 14 Oct 1998. Available. http: www.mentalhealth.com mag1 p5h-pts2.html
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Piagetian Theory
Posted by Nick Roy in Psychological Foundations of Learning Sunday, 23 November 2008 00:41 No Comments
Definition/Role of learning
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development explains how human cognitive function differentiates as a child grows. From birth, a baby starts to interact with his surrounding through his sensory and motor activity. From 2 years, a child begins to represent the world through language. From around 7 years, he/she operates on objects. From 12 years, a child is able to think formally and logically without concrete objects. This developmental sequence doesn’t change. Each stage comes from the earlier stage and it is also basis of the next stage. For cognitive development, there should be four factors, such as maturation, social interaction, environment and equilibration. At each stage, the importance of each factor is different and each factor interacts with each other.
Increase in learning
Piaget’s concept of learning occurs in five stages. The first stage, sensorimotor stage consists of infants experimenting with their world through the use of their senses. The second stage, preoperational stage is most know for children having problems solving the conservation problem. This stage consists of the play years for children. By age 6 or 7, children are entering the school years, and marks the concrete operational stage.
Critics of Piaget state that children do not develop through stages. However, we can use Piaget’s theory as a baseline to see how children are developing. Some children can move through the stages more slowly or more quickly than other children. Children that move more slowly can indicate either a learning disability or neurological problems. One extreme can be the case of a child who is 15 who is locked in a closet with little environmental stimulation for a number of years and thus causing the child to have a mental age of 5. On the other extreme, children of two income families where both parents are in the workforce are developing at much younger ages.
Goal of learning
The goal of learning reflects a desire to learn new skills, master new tasks, or understand new things. Typically, in order to learn new skills, students often go through a phase of confusion, failure, and discomfort.
5 main points of Piagetian Theory
1. Children are active and motivated learners
2. Children organize what they learn from their experiences
3. Children’s learning occurs when there is an interaction with their physical surroundings and with other people.
4. Children adapt to their environment through the processes of assimilation and accommodation.
5. Teachers must emphasize the critical role that experiences–or interactions with the surrounding environment–play in student learning.
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