TASK –

the assignment should be primary research.

Identify four concepts/theories in Psychology that you found the most interesting and/or the most though-provoking. Briefly describe each of the four concepts/ theories in your own words.

Psychology

Name of the student

Name of the University

Author Note

Table of Contents

Part A.. 2

Flashbulb memories. 2

Theories of dreaming. 2

Memory failure. 3

Short term and long term memory. 3

Part B.. 4

Flashbulb memories. 4

Theories of dreaming. 4

Memory failure. 5

Short term and long term memory. 5

References. 6

Part A

Flashbulb memories

Flashbulb memories are circumstances of moments of vivid snapshots, which recalls a consequential and surprising memory. These are the indiscriminate memories and are not however complete. It suggests the brevity, indiscriminate illumination, detail and surprise of a photographic moment. Although flashbulb memories act as photographs that capture the scenes of a moment, they are regarded as incomplete records of the moment (Roehm, 2016). These memories can remain in the brain even years after their occurrence and can sufficiently retain the information about the products and brands present on the situation (Hirst et al., 2015). Maintenance of these memories are dependent on the number of rehearsals done during a period of time and the recurrence occurs by verbal communication. One of the striking feature of these memories is that they start as articulate and powerful memories but often fades away with time (Conway, 2013).

Theories of dreaming

Dreams include the emotions, thoughts and images, which are experienced and seen virtually during sleep. Dreams can be vague or vivid, frightening images or happy emotions, confusing or understandable. Researchers have often compared sleeping minds with walking minds. So dreaming does not have any unique mental system or process. Cognitive psychology may provide the knowledge required for mental processing and represent the peculiarities of the dreaming process (Foulkes, 2014). The teleological function of the process of dreaming is the protection of sleep from disturbances and has been proposed as a rational hypothesis (Kline, 2014). Sigmund Freud designed a dream model which has been regarded as the benchmark for psychoanalysis. Two testable conjectures can be deducted for the scientific examination of dreaming, dreaming gets triggered due to sleep arousals and sleep disruption may happen due to nondreaming (Fabian et al., 2013),

Memory failure

Memory failure, as often referred to as forgetting, is not the actual loss of information from the long-term form of memory. It happens when the memory retrieval process fails to act. The information lies somewhere in the long-term form of memory, however the brain fails to remember and retrieve it. Failures of the retrieval of the memory are often due to misunderstanding or inattention of the experience. Retention is the ability of information storage after coding for over a certain period (Anderson & Bower, 2014). However, this stored information may be lost due to the acquisition of competing and new material. Recall or retrieval is a search process and is at its best when the cues of retrieval match closely with the initial codes of memory storage (Unsworth et al., 2012). Memory failure can be experienced by anybody, which leaves an impression of the cognitive capability of the individual. The individual with more incidences of memory failure is viewed as lesser competent than the individual with lesser incidences (Wingfield & Byrnes, 2013).

Short term and long term memory

Short-term memory can be referred to as the brain’s capacity to hold a small piece of information in an active and available form for short periods like a few seconds. On the contrary, long-term memory is the brain’s capacity to store information for longer periods or indefinite time. It is also known as reference memory (Warrington, 2014). Short term memory is labile and is based on the feature of acoustic code whereas long term memory is stable and based on the features of associative or semantic code (Cowan, 2008). Short term memory reflects the contents of the current past whereas long term memory reflects the memories of the remote past which needs a retrieval process for bringing back to consciousness. The forgetting patterns differ between the short term and long term memories. Relearning is required for keeping items in the short term memory whereas long term memory is quite passive and interruption does not disturb (Rose et al., 2010).

Part B

Flashbulb memories

I can remember an incident of a car crash that I witnessed a few years back and can still recall it with utmost clarity. We were on a road trip to a distant place and a car on the same lane as ours was over speeding. It went past our vehicle at a random speed and a little while later, it went out of control and hit the central reservation. The hood got crumpled like paper and the back end was lifted. The car got lifted in the air and fell back on the ground in a dust cloud. Everything happened within a few seconds and so the details might have faded away. However, the emotional load and stress, the shock and fear, are still so vivid in my mind.

Theories of dreaming

It was during our last year family vacations that we went out for the oceans. It was a nice day out with surfing the waters and engaging in several water sports. We were all very much exhausted and went on for an early dinner followed by a sound sleep. Suddenly I found myself in the middle of the oceans with no one in the vicinity. I was swimming through the waves with enormous efforts and trying to save myself from drowning. All of a sudden, I felt a pull on my right leg and something was dragging me down to the floor of the ocean. I was trying hard to get out of this but found myself more and more captured in the jaws of the beast. I was running short of strength and breath and was terribly horrified. At that moment, my sleep was disrupted and I woke up. I was all confused and drenched out only to realize that it was a dream.

Memory failure

I experience a number of memory failure incidences in my daily life. I get forgetful about locking the door. This mostly happens when I am thinking about something else while locking the door and not paying proper attention. So I walk down the road a few steps and when I recall the fact, I come to recheck my door. Sometimes I miss responding back to mails and messages or that I have already responded, yet cannot recall. This happens especially on the hectic days and follows with a rechecking process. There are several other incidences like carrying the keys, paying the bills, packing my bag, turning off the power before leaving, etc. which I often fail to recover regarding their happening or completion. All these incidences of memory failure are just the reflections of the problems of reality monitoring, which is a state of confusion regarding an action whether it is done or only thought about it.

Short term and long term memory

During exams, I often come across these situations of short term and long term memory differences. The lessons that I study the night before exams go to the short term memory storage whereas the general information of the subject is retrieved from the long term storage. Similarly, during my daily life activities, I often experience a blend of short and long term memories. Driving to my familiar places is done by my long term memory storage and visiting a new place needs the help of short term memory as the information still needs to get feed into the long term storage. In addition, the same thing implies while swimming. New strokes learned are applied with short term memory rather than the old ones.

References

Anderson, J. R., & Bower, G. H. (2014). Human associative memory. Psychology press.

Conway, M. (2013). Flashbulb memories. Psychology Press

Cowan, N. (2008). Chapter 20 What are the differences between long-term, short-term, and working memory?. Progress In Brain Research, 323-338.

FabianGuénolé, GeoffreyMarcaggi, & Jean-MarcBaleyte. (2013). Do dreams really guard sleep? evidence for and against Freud’s theory of the basic function of dreaming.Frontiers in Psychology, 4 doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00017

Foulkes, D. (2014). Dreaming: A cognitive-psychological analysis. Routledge.

Hirst, W., Phelps, E. A., Meksin, R., Vaidya, C. J., Johnson, M. K., Mitchell, K. J., & Mather, M. (2015). A ten-year follow-up of a study of memory for the attack of September 11, 2001: Flashbulb memories and memories for flashbulb events.

 Kline, P. (2014). Psychology and Freudian theory: An introduction. Routledge.

Roehm, M. L. (2016). An exploration of flashbulb memory.Journal of Consumer Psychology, 26(1), 1-16.

Rose, N. S., Myerson, J., Roediger, H. L., & Hale, S. (2010). Similarities and differences between working memory and long-term memory: Evidence from the levels-of-processing span task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36(2), 471-483.

Unsworth, N., Brewer, G. A., & Spillers, G. J. (2012). Variation in cognitive failures: An individual differences investigation of everyday attention and memory failures. Journal of Memory and Language, 67(1), 1-16.

Warrington, E. K. (2014). The double dissociation of short-and long-term memory. Human Memory and Amnesia (PLE: Memory), 4, 61.

Wingfield, A., & Byrnes, D. L. (2013). The psychology of human memory. Academic Press.