One of my all time favorites.
Click here for trailor: http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3945071385/
Click here for trailor: http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3945071385/
Friday, May 7, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
05.06.2010
Already, I have found 2010 to be an awful year: personally, financially, and emotionally. I hope the year changes, for the better, soon.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Schemas
Let's do (well, actually replicate, thanks to Bransord and Johnson-- gotta cite those sources). I want you to read this passage and, without cheating, memorize as much of it as possible. Better yet, just try to understand it:
The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange things into different groups. Of course, one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go somewhere else due to lack of facilities that is the next step, otherwise you are pretty well set. It is important not to overdo things. That is, it is better to do too few things at once than too many. In the short run this may not seem important but complications can easily arise. A mistake can be expensive as well. At first the whole procedure will seem complicated. Soon, however, it will become just another facet of life. It is difficult to foresee any end to the necessity for this task in the immediate future, but then one never can tell, After the procedure is completed one arranges the materials into different groups again. Then they can be put into their appropriate places. Eventually they will be used once more and the whole cycle will then have to be repeated. However, that is part of life
Okay. Now memorize it. I'll wait...
Not happening, right? Now I'm gonna let you in on something. This passage was about laundry. Now that you know this, go back and read it again. And see if you can understand/memorize it.
Better?
It's called schemas, or conceptual representations of our world. You see, memory is much more than mere, memorizing, for lack of a sufficient word. It's pretty cool. How many times have you gone into a classroom? Yet, I bet if I took you into a completely different classroom in a completely random town and you saw the desks, the board, etc., you'd know where you were. You'd also know how to behave (don't talk, raise your hand, learning environment). We have this "classroom schema" that kicks in, letting us know these things. This is how our brain operates, this is how we make sense of the world. There's more on this, but I have Finals to study for...
-Chastity M.
The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange things into different groups. Of course, one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go somewhere else due to lack of facilities that is the next step, otherwise you are pretty well set. It is important not to overdo things. That is, it is better to do too few things at once than too many. In the short run this may not seem important but complications can easily arise. A mistake can be expensive as well. At first the whole procedure will seem complicated. Soon, however, it will become just another facet of life. It is difficult to foresee any end to the necessity for this task in the immediate future, but then one never can tell, After the procedure is completed one arranges the materials into different groups again. Then they can be put into their appropriate places. Eventually they will be used once more and the whole cycle will then have to be repeated. However, that is part of life
Okay. Now memorize it. I'll wait...
Not happening, right? Now I'm gonna let you in on something. This passage was about laundry. Now that you know this, go back and read it again. And see if you can understand/memorize it.
Better?
It's called schemas, or conceptual representations of our world. You see, memory is much more than mere, memorizing, for lack of a sufficient word. It's pretty cool. How many times have you gone into a classroom? Yet, I bet if I took you into a completely different classroom in a completely random town and you saw the desks, the board, etc., you'd know where you were. You'd also know how to behave (don't talk, raise your hand, learning environment). We have this "classroom schema" that kicks in, letting us know these things. This is how our brain operates, this is how we make sense of the world. There's more on this, but I have Finals to study for...
-Chastity M.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Maybe I do Love New York after all
So I went to my poster presentation in Chicago yesterday and it went pretty well. Nairne (the guy I based my research on) was actually there and gave me a run for my money. Boy was that intense! I'm not too sure if he liked that I put so much emphasis on levels of processing and not evolution. Oh well.
The best part of my trip, though, was the ride home (I got a window seat). I love sitting by the window on airplanes. It's something about flying above the clouds that I find so relaxing. Kissing Heaven, I call it.
I guess the pilot took the scenic route this time, or maybe it was just the direction we were coming from. Either way, I found myself overlooking Manhattan, cruising over the Hudson, gazing at Liberty's everlasting flame. Beautiful. The colors, the infamous grid lines that shapes downtown, those lights. It wasn't until then that I realized I Love New York. All of my life, I've taken for granted the beauty of the overcrowded city. Scowled at the traffic, the pollution, the loudness of life, the random tourists taking pictures of buildings I've seen a thousand times. But as I flew over the city last night, I grew nostalgic. For the first time, I wasn't a part of it. I was thousands of feet in the air, looking at it from a distance.
And then the pilot did something interesting. He turned the plane so we can reach our destination. The thing is, when a plane turns in the air, one side goes down, and the other up. So as that right wing tilted downward (and I was on the left side), I could see my city no more. I was forced to stare at the blank black sky. New York City was taken away from me. Or did I abandon it? Did I just say goodbye to the town I've known all of my life? Just walked away, leaving Times Square and forgetting to turn the lights off. Goodbye New York. I love you.
Chastity M.
(This image is one that I took on the plane yesterday)
Thursday, April 29, 2010
talk about selective memory! - a seemingly really long entry
I guess it wouldn't be right (or myself) if I didn't throw some psychology into this blog... I'm currently in class, obviously not paying any attention. I'd rather prepare for my presentation tomorrow- I'm being flown out to Chicago to present some research I did out in Colorado. This was the first study I conducted on my own from start to finish, and let me tell you. It was amazing to see how the mind works. We think our capacity for memory and what we actually remember varies with each individual, but you'd be surprised at how similar it is. Let's talk about my study...
Craik & Tulving (1975) showed that the "deeper" information is thought about (called levels of processing), the more likely the person is to remember it. So, for instance, if I asked you "is POTATO spelled in capital letters" (shallow processing), "is a horse a type of animal," (deep processing) and then told you to list those words, you'd remember horse better than you'd remember potato. Get it?
Nairne, Thompson, and Pandierada (2007) built on this finding, suggesting our memory systems have been fine-tuned by evolution to specifically help humans survive. Therefore, humans will remember information relevant to their survival better than they'd remember random information. To show this, they had participants rate words based on their relevance to specific scenarios. The experimental condition went something like: how relevant is "aunt" to surviving in the grassland. The control condition asked: "how relevant is "book" when moving, or even "how pleasant is the following word: chair". And sure enough, participants remembered the random words from the survival condition better than anything other condition. Isn't that interesting! These are random words, carefully selected to have NOTHING to do with the condition (they didn't ask how relevant is a moving man when moving to a new city" and still the survival processing is best.
This study was revised to compare other conditions to survival in the grasslands and something interesting was noticed: not only was survival processing best, but survival in the grasslands in particular produced the best recall. Hmm. "We already think memory systems survived evolution for survival purposes, could it be that its even better in the grasslands because of that's where humans probably evolved in the first place?"
My lab screamed "no way! You can't make such an assumption when you haven't even compared the scenario to other conditions with equal levels of processing." Do you really think as hard about moving as you do about surviving? So that's just what we did. We compared memory for survival processing in a grasslands to survival processing in other naturally occurring scenarios, such as the desert or the jungle, that pose the same threats, and that are both relevant to evolution (like grasslands and jungle) and that aren't (like space or desert) so we can really see if evolutionary scenarios have something to do with it.
Guess what... it didn't. Survival processing still produced higher recall than the control (pleasantness) but it didn't matter whether it was evolutionarily relevant or not. So why the difference? Levels of processing. Thinking about survivng in the wilderness of mother nature makes us think harder, and therefore remember better, than thinking about something man-made.
But, as all studies show, survival processing produced highest recal rates. So maybe, Jamil, when you're studying those African Kings, think about how relevant it would be to surviving in the Sahara desert, and maybe you'll remember it beter!
Chastity M.
Craik & Tulving (1975) showed that the "deeper" information is thought about (called levels of processing), the more likely the person is to remember it. So, for instance, if I asked you "is POTATO spelled in capital letters" (shallow processing), "is a horse a type of animal," (deep processing) and then told you to list those words, you'd remember horse better than you'd remember potato. Get it?
Nairne, Thompson, and Pandierada (2007) built on this finding, suggesting our memory systems have been fine-tuned by evolution to specifically help humans survive. Therefore, humans will remember information relevant to their survival better than they'd remember random information. To show this, they had participants rate words based on their relevance to specific scenarios. The experimental condition went something like: how relevant is "aunt" to surviving in the grassland. The control condition asked: "how relevant is "book" when moving, or even "how pleasant is the following word: chair". And sure enough, participants remembered the random words from the survival condition better than anything other condition. Isn't that interesting! These are random words, carefully selected to have NOTHING to do with the condition (they didn't ask how relevant is a moving man when moving to a new city" and still the survival processing is best.
This study was revised to compare other conditions to survival in the grasslands and something interesting was noticed: not only was survival processing best, but survival in the grasslands in particular produced the best recall. Hmm. "We already think memory systems survived evolution for survival purposes, could it be that its even better in the grasslands because of that's where humans probably evolved in the first place?"
My lab screamed "no way! You can't make such an assumption when you haven't even compared the scenario to other conditions with equal levels of processing." Do you really think as hard about moving as you do about surviving? So that's just what we did. We compared memory for survival processing in a grasslands to survival processing in other naturally occurring scenarios, such as the desert or the jungle, that pose the same threats, and that are both relevant to evolution (like grasslands and jungle) and that aren't (like space or desert) so we can really see if evolutionary scenarios have something to do with it.
Guess what... it didn't. Survival processing still produced higher recall than the control (pleasantness) but it didn't matter whether it was evolutionarily relevant or not. So why the difference? Levels of processing. Thinking about survivng in the wilderness of mother nature makes us think harder, and therefore remember better, than thinking about something man-made.
But, as all studies show, survival processing produced highest recal rates. So maybe, Jamil, when you're studying those African Kings, think about how relevant it would be to surviving in the Sahara desert, and maybe you'll remember it beter!
Chastity M.
Ogun, Osanyin, Eynile
Ogun- the lord of iron and war, is significant to all who use metal. In rituals and scrap may honor him. In honor of Ogun, the axe made from wood, iron, pigment is used. It represents dignity.
Osanyin is the source of herbal medicine. The staff is used in his honor.
Eynile is a local orisha of hunting, rivers
Osanyin is the source of herbal medicine. The staff is used in his honor.
Eynile is a local orisha of hunting, rivers
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