Starting with Psychology Tma 01
- Submitted by: pcknights
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- Date Submitted: 10/28/2010 03:01 PM
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Introduction
How can the way in which we organise our thinking by using mental images, Concepts and schemas help us improve our memory? To help me answer this question I will be taking each of the three ways of organising our thinking and answer the following questions!
What is a mental image, concept or schema?
How can the use of mental images, concepts and schemas help us improve our memory?
What evidence is available to support this?
Mental Images
Firstly; let’s look at mental images. This is simply constructing a mental picture whilst thinking about something. Using mental images provides an additional cue for when we recall information, the more colourful, bizarre and larger the images the better it will fix in our memory; as we tend to remember more specific items rather than general items. Mnemonics is a technique for improving memory and is based on using mental images. An example of this is when we create a rhyme or some type of saying to remember something, such as the colours of the rainbow by reciting “Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain”, Each first letter of every word represents a colour; Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. Another example of this was developed by the poet Simonides called “Method of Loci”, where you link mental images to a list of items with a sequence of locations you know well. Raugh and Atkinson (1975) developed the key word technique where you create a mental image when learning a language for example, and carried out research on two groups of participants. They were all asked to learn sixty Spanish words, but only one group of participants were taught the key word technique. Those that learned the technique scored an average of 88 percent compared with 28 percent of those that didn’t.
Concepts
Secondly; we will look at concepts. Spoors et al (2007) tells us that concepts are the process of making mental representation of a group of objects or events that share similar properties. In short we...
How can the way in which we organise our thinking by using mental images, Concepts and schemas help us improve our memory? To help me answer this question I will be taking each of the three ways of organising our thinking and answer the following questions!
What is a mental image, concept or schema?
How can the use of mental images, concepts and schemas help us improve our memory?
What evidence is available to support this?
Mental Images
Firstly; let’s look at mental images. This is simply constructing a mental picture whilst thinking about something. Using mental images provides an additional cue for when we recall information, the more colourful, bizarre and larger the images the better it will fix in our memory; as we tend to remember more specific items rather than general items. Mnemonics is a technique for improving memory and is based on using mental images. An example of this is when we create a rhyme or some type of saying to remember something, such as the colours of the rainbow by reciting “Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain”, Each first letter of every word represents a colour; Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. Another example of this was developed by the poet Simonides called “Method of Loci”, where you link mental images to a list of items with a sequence of locations you know well. Raugh and Atkinson (1975) developed the key word technique where you create a mental image when learning a language for example, and carried out research on two groups of participants. They were all asked to learn sixty Spanish words, but only one group of participants were taught the key word technique. Those that learned the technique scored an average of 88 percent compared with 28 percent of those that didn’t.
Concepts
Secondly; we will look at concepts. Spoors et al (2007) tells us that concepts are the process of making mental representation of a group of objects or events that share similar properties. In short we...