yang2545: October 2011 Archives

Have you ever eaten something then got sick from it then never it ever again? If so, then you have experienced CTA. conditioned taste aversion. It is when you have had bad experience with food and because of that, you never eat it again since the food has caused you to become sick the first time you eaten it. CTA occurs in 3 ways, it only takes one try, delay between CS & UCS, and only sick when see that specific product in which that made you sick but not sick when you see similar products.

Here is a link to a video that demonstrate CTA : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLYw_g4F8lg

I chosen to blog about CTA because l too, have experienced CTA. In this case, it was McDonald. I had eaten McDonald 3x and gotten sick all those times. At first, I thought it was probably the place/ area = unclean or something, then in a different type of location I tried again, and I got sick. This time I thought that it was the weather and that time of the year to be sick. Then sometimes has gone by, I went in for some McDonalds, and I got sick again. So after the 3rd time getting sick, I quit going to McDonald. Yes, it only takes 1 try to activate CTA, but I was in denial that McDonald can't possibly make me sick because other similar food didn't. It was just too weird to explain and I was willingly stubborn to try for 3x to be actually convince. Now, I understand why I can't stand McDonald's food, it's because of CTA. I think it's important to know what is happening to your body or mentality. So, you won't turn out like me, getting myself sick 3x; knowing/ understanding CTA can save you from illness.

What's your CTA experience?

Do you ever wonder why you can't remember something when you just saw it a moment ago? Well, the answer lies within the stages of memory. To be more precise, it's mainly the short term memory that's causing that. Short term memory is the second stage of The Three Stage Model. The STM is a cognitive workplace or in other words, it is a working memory system/ base. Within this stage, your memory last for 10- 15 seconds before the information fades. As for the capacity, it is 7 plus or minus 2 meaning that you remember 9 to 5 bits of information given an amount of time. Thus, in the STM capacity, it is restricted or has a limited of space explaining why we can't remember everything we saw within a given amount of time. So to make things easier for our brains and improve the STM, we get involved with CHUNK. Chunk means to regroup more than one thing making it easier to remember or regrouping it in ways that it is "meaningful" to you.
**TEST OUT USING CHUNK. First, look at the row of numbers below for a given amount of time then close your eyes or look away from the numbers and write as many numbers as you can from memory.
--> 1020110214102209061024
How many numbers did you get correct? If you got within the range of 5 to 9 then you just experience 7+/- and chunk. A way of using chunk in this case, look below
10/2011(month & year) 02/14(valentine's day) 10/22(homecoming ends) 09/06(first day of school) 10/24(psy final); see how easy that was!

During the memory lecture by Professor Fletcher, I was fascinated by what I learned about memory. To be more specific, the second stage of STM (short term memory) about "chunks" and how it can improve your memory. I have short term memory when it comes to remembering things, so that is one of the reason why I found CHUNK and 7+/- so interesting. Plus, during lecture we were experimenting with stage 2, and it was difficult at first but when Professor Fletcher showed us what CHUNK was, it was so EASY! Due to this, I believe I will use this method to enhance my memory. It just makes life a little easier.
What do you think about STM- stage 2 of The Three Stage Model?

Do you ever wonder why you can't remember something when you just saw it a moment ago? Well, the answer lies within the stages of memory. To be more precise, it's mainly the short term memory that's causing that. Short term memory is the second stage of The Three Stage Model. The STM is a cognitive workplace or in other words, it is a working memory system/ base. Within this stage, your memory last for 10- 15 seconds before the information fades. As for the capacity, it is 7 plus or minus 2 meaning that you remember 9 to 5 bits of information given an amount of time. Thus, in the STM capacity, it is restricted or has a limited of space explaining why we can't remember everything we saw within a given amount of time. So to make things easier for our brains and improve the STM, we get involved with CHUNK. Chunk means to regroup more than one thing making it easier to remember or regrouping it in ways that it is "meaningful" to you.
**TEST OUT USING CHUNK. First, look at the row of numbers below for a given amount of time then close your eyes or look away from the numbers and write as many numbers as you can from memory.
--> 1020110214102209061024
How many numbers did you get correct? If you got within the range of 5 to 9 then you just experience 7+/- and chunk. A way of using chunk in this case, look below
10/2011(month & year) 02/14(valentine's day) 10/22(homecoming ends) 09/06(first day of school) 10/24(psy final); see how easy that was!

During the memory lecture by Professor Fletcher, I was fascinated by what I learned about memory. To be more specific, the second stage of STM (short term memory) about "chunks" and how it can improve your memory. I have short term memory when it comes to remembering things, so that is one of the reason why I found CHUNK and 7+/- so interesting. Plus, during lecture we were experimenting with stage 2, and it was difficult at first but when Professor Fletcher showed us what CHUNK was, it was so EASY! Due to this, I believe I will use this method to enhance my memory. It just makes life a little easier.
What do you think about STM- stage 2 of The Three Stage Model?

How focus are your eyes? What do you see? A big cat or lots of cats? The answer lies within your visual perception on what you saw first. Either way, you are able to recognize those cats in the picture due to the neurons from the lower temporal lobe that responds in recognizing faces and etc. Our brain is able to interpret these images/ things into meaningful information that could help us understand what we are seeing or experiencing. In other words, due to our visual perception, we are often fool by these illusions when our brain is multitasking. As you have experience in the picture to the left, you either see the makeup of cats or one huge cat and trying to see both at the same time would be complicated since your focus would be unstable.
I think this is interesting because I find it remarkable that pictures like this can manipulate the eyes and the brain. This whole illusion of the Cat example and the concept reminds me of a quote that many of you know, "don't judge a book by its cover,'' because people tend to see what they want to see on the outside but once they look deeper in depth, it's amazing to what they find out just like this cat illusion.
To finish this visual illusion, check out this clip-->Impossible Balls Illusion! - YouTube it demo the same or a similar concept. Enjoy!