Final CogBlog

The semester is coming to end so i decided to reflect on my experience with this When I started this class roughly 12 weeks ago, I didn't think that cognition would be as complex of a topic as it is. As more elements were presented and pulled apart to explain each individual section in class, the more complicated my overall picture of cognition got. I didn't realize some parts of cognition where even parts of cognition (or that they even had their own separate categories within themselves) and that daily interactions that seemed so normal where much more complex than they appeared to be when you know how many cognitive processes happen as you go through life. Something as simple as moving my fingers across the keyboard to correctly type my choice of words out while listening to music and my roommate talking in the background has multiple different aspects of cognition being used at once. Safe to say, I was not expecting my entire idea of cognition to be flipped around, but that was pretty much what happened.

With each section of cognition that we covered in class with perception, attention, decision making and problem solving among others, I was given new ways to explain why someone may think or interact with something in the way they do. It didn’t just explain the behavior of others, it explained some of my own. Whether it was from theories presented by those in the field or by observing these moments in real life, it all gave me a new way at looking at how unbelievably complex cognition is, even on an easy day where we don’t seem to ”do anything”. Just sitting in a room and staring at a wall is using cognition. You have to use attention to perceive that there’s a wall in front of you and you could decide if you want to stay and keep looking at the wall some more or walk away to find something more entertaining. This whole act used cognition to decide on each action you make during this scenario.

One of the reasons this class was so effective and interesting for me was it’s setup as a hybrid course. Each week with the canvas discussion posts we had to make, we were able to put our ideas about the topics we were covering in class before our other classmates and vice versa. These discussions where interesting and informative with a group of people all having their own opinions on these topics. Sometimes the comments from other classmate helped me look at the topics in a new light and other times I had a moment of “ah-ha!” where the concept ‘s main point or idea clicked fully in my head where it had been unclear before. The comments that we left for each other helped each of us develop better understandings of the source material, and I think that the is a very good element have in a class like this where the focuses is on a process of the mind. Because cognition can be utilized differently for each person in the same scenarios, seeing the ways that other people processed the material and thought about the topics was an eye opener and it at times felt like a big study group was taking place in a discussion tab. By seeing how each one of us was using cognition to explain each element of cognition differently helped make the course more engaging overall and I feel that I remembered information better due to this being a part of our weekly assignments. I would definitely consider taking more hybrid classes like this in future based off of what I got out of from this class.

I really liked all the discussion posts that we did. Having what felt like a big roundtable talk was helpful in learning the class  material.

I also found the CogLabs and CogBlogs to be helpful with reinforcing the material from the course. The labs for the most part were fun to do and they made me think about how the different parts of cognition worked in real life (sometimes at my own pain and expense). I like to write so I had fun making my blog posts and used them to force myself to apply cognition to daily life issues such as my story about my stomach issues or what would happen if our abilities to attend to different senses at a concert where missing . Both assignments forced me to apply what I was learning to real life and by doing that I understood the material better. Whether it was the attention lab with the blink effect or researching the case of Tan, I learned more about cognition while also finding ways to remember what I was learning better.

The brain of Tan from one of my favorite blog posts

Overall, I enjoyed this class and took away a lot from it. I do feel that I can apply what I have learned about cognition to my future career and I can even use it on myself to try and understand my own actions. I have come to really appreciate how complex cognition is as a process and I know that I have a lot more about it to learn. I don't think I would have realized how many parts make up cognition as a whole and I wouldn't have the appreciation I have for it now if I haven't taken this class. I love what I have learned, and I know I still have a lot left to learn. And that excites me.

Cognition is a complex term to understand. I'm glad I understand it a little better now. :)

CogBlog 13: Rationalizing

It's not always sour grapes, but sometimes you have to have that mindset when rationalizing between buying something frivolous versus something you'll need.

If I had no self control, I would be in a lot of trouble. The amount of money I would spend on anything and everything would be off the charts. My schoolwork would suffer. I would probably eat a LOT more sugary foods with no regulation. I'd probably own a lot of things because I had the money for them at the time, but then when the bills for the month come in I would be lacking in funds. I know some people who don't seem to have any kind of impulse control and I have seen this kind of living come back and bite people. I had to develop an ability to use self control when I was young and I think that it has served me well into adulthood. Still, that (unfortunately) doesn't mean that I am immune to falling into to situations where I have to start rationing things whether it be money, time or food.

While rationalizing food and time is something that I do everyday (do I eat the pizza for lunch or the salad?, Do I work on that homework assignment or go play video games with my friends?), the more important piece of my life I need to rationalize and use good judgement on at the moment is my money. I don't make a lot of money right now as a student worker with a limited amount of hours I can work per week, so I have to watch my spending all the time (safe to say, I like the word ‘free’ a lot).  At the end of every month I have bills to pay and I never know if I’ll have to make any sudden emergency payments out to something. However, I am subjected frequently to the temptation of buying so many things all the time thanks to emails from stores and websites and websites like Etsy, which doesn't help keep my temptation to buy things down.

Screenshot from my own "junk email" account where I get emails that are from stores, websites, concert promoters or general junk mail. This is a sample of what I get just about everyday.

Another huge factor with spending money in my case is concerts. While most metal shows are decently priced per ticket, sometimes the tickets are a bit to afford when they go on sale because of how much money I have to spend on material objects for that month. Especially if I’m covering for a friend when I buy them so I’m owed money that I might not get until the date of the show (which could be months later). Around this time of the year especially, I'll have to balance out what I need to buy for others for holiday gifts and what I want to buy for myself. Typically during the months between October and January, my spending is heavily rationalized and monitored for that reason.

When I want to spend money on something, first I think of what else I have had to spend money on during the month whether it be things I needed or things I wanted. If I've already spent a lot of money that month (say I've bought around $100 worth of something), I'm more likely to only buy something if it is a necessity such as a hygiene product. With clothes and shoes I am generally frugal when I can be. I see no reason in why people would spend hundreds of dollars on articles of clothing, accessories or one pair of shoes, that's just me as a person. Usually my shopping for clothes involves the "sale" or "clearance" sections. These days in particular, I've been trying to buy clothes that are more "workplace attire" instead of comfy and casual due to already having plenty of the comfy type but not nearly enough of the professional type. By shopping in the sales section, I rationalize that I can buy the clothes because I'm not paying full price for them and I need them for my professional wardrobe.

 The same applies to shoes. I just bought two pairs of boots in a clearance sale that I will be using as shoes I can wear to my internship even though it was very tempting to also pick up a pair of boots that I could wear to a concert during that day. I had to make the rational decision that because I already have a pair of boots that I wear to shows, I don't I need another pair. But I did need shoes for my internship, so those pairs of shoes won out. I always look at the sales sections before the rest of the store and if I'm shopping online, there has to be a really good sale going on for me to go in and buy something. I do not like paying full price for anything, so if I can find something cheaper at another location online, I will ration with myself that whatever the shipping cost ends up being will make up for the money I am saving due to the discounts (which is why I ironically will pay for Amazon prime every year).

This kind of discount is usually what it will take for me to go shopping online. Sales like this are how I rationalize spending money on things that are not necessities.

If there is something that I don't consider a necessity such as huge concert coming up that I want to go to and the tickets will be a bit more expensive (such as festival tickets), my rationing becomes different. If I buy the tickets, there will be no excessive spending on anything for at least two months to recoup from the cost. If I have to buy a necessity, they are bought in smaller amounts. I willing take the gamble that if anything else that would require me to spend money during that recovery period comes up, then I'll have to skip it because of the judgment call I made when I bought the tickets.

Months of saving is my way of rationalizing large purchases like this. By my judgement, being extra frugal for some months will be worth it in the end.

Bottom line, when it comes to whether or not I will buy something for me comes down to a few factors. Do I need it for something or do I just want it? If I want it how much money is it? Will I still want that as much tomorrow as I want it today? Can I afford that right now?. If I answer no to any of those questions, I grit my teeth and skip over buying the object. I have done this multiple times in my life but in the end, by not spending money then I have had more money to use when I really needed something. At times I will be at aware with myself with rationalizing my money, especially with large purchases. When it is one of those big purchases, I will justify buying it by being more frugal for a period of time, even if its not the best idea I've had. Is it a perfect system? No. I fall off the wagon sometimes and don't realize that I need to watch where my money is going until I have a decently sized bill to pay off. Most of the time, my rationing of my money and what I spend it on dose help me keep my money in my bank account. I just need to remind myself that there are reasons why I shouldn't and why I should buy something every time. Those rationalizations and judgement are how I shop and if they weren't there, I have a feeling I would be in one giant money hole by this point in my life.

Using good judgement and rationalizing what I spend my money on is a skill that I will need to use for the rest of my life. Practicing how to use these elements of cognition now will only benefit me in the long run.

Cog Blog 5: Problem Solving

When I have to solve a given problem, how I approach it depends on what the problem is. If it's something I've had experience with before, I might have an idea where to start when trying to solve it. For example, if my cat got something in her fur that needed to get washed out, past experience tells me that trying to get her clean using a bathtub will only result in an angry, writhing cat and my arms becoming covered in scratches. So if I'm in a situation like this, past experience tells me to try something different due to a previously attempted method not working very well (using a washcloth works much better for the record, much less angry animal attacks). If a problem is completely foreign to me, then trying to figure out how to solve it could become harder. I’ve had multiple problems occur in my everyday life and  while some issues were quick to fix, others took time to figure out. I would believe that most people like me prefer the quick to solve problems a lot easier, but sometimes you get thrown a problem that you have to think on to try and solve in life. In other words, it's far from simple.

I have good story about how I’ve used different tactics to try and solve a complex problem. Fitting for Halloween, it's something of the bizarre mystery kind that might scare some people. Something I've had a long trial and error process with figuring out how to solve is a certain issue I have with my health. I noticed many years ago that at random times at night (and only at night), I would get these horrible stomach aches that made me feel as if I had swallowed a ton of needles. I unfortunately still have them happen today. The only way I can make the pain go away is to lay down on my back and press something weighted like a pillow down on my stomach. I have to stay in this position for at least a half an hour and if I get up too fast the pain returns quickly.

What my stomach pain feels like

I couldn't figure out why this was happening, so I started thinking. Looking back on this issue now, I realize I was using analytical transfer to try and solve this problem. Based on how I have gotten stomachs in the past, I first tried to apply knowledge of my past source problems to my current situation to solve the new target problem. My past experiences would say that I would be having the stomach pain because I had gotten sick, I had food poisoning or it was a symptom of my period arriving soon. However, none of these source problems were behind why the pain was occurring and my attempt to use analytical transfer failed. When I realized none of my past experiences could explain what was happening, I started paying attention to what I was doing right before the stomach aches started up to see what new elements that were not factors in my past experiences could be in play.

Eventually, I noticed a pattern occurring. The stomach aches only happened when I drank water later at night. It wasn’t caused by drinking any other liquid such as juice, milk, or even tea (which is just water infused with leaves!), just normal water caused the stomach aches. Back then when I figured this out it baffled me (and it still does). I tried applying more information from past source problems to try and explain this bizarre occurrence, but again nothing made sense when up against the target problem. The water wasn’t contaminated with bacteria, water from different sources had the same effect and it was a consistent occurrence only at night (this has never once happened during the day). So when I couldn't figure out what was causing it, I switched gears to “how can I prevent this?” as an attempt to solve the problem.

According to my stomach after a certain hour,  it is deadly

It took more trial and error to figure out, but eventuality I found that to prevent the stomach aches I had to do one of two things. I have to either constantly eat small snacks as the night goes on because even if it was something as small as a cracker, the pains would not occur if I drank water right after. Or I would have to make sure I constantly drink water all night around every fifteen minutes to half an hour to "keep my body used of drinking water" (that is the best term I can come up with to describe it. I don't really know what else to label it as). 

I have talked to doctors about this issue and none so far can tell me why this could be happening (as soon as I mention how tea doesn't cause the aches, they have no idea what to tell me). So to spare myself nights of pain, I had to be my own problem solver and find a solution to it myself. Realizing now that there is name to the process I used to try and solve this issue makes me feel a little bit accomplished with how the problem was solved the best it could be. While this experience was unlike anything I had dealt with before, figuring out that my past knowledge wasn't helping me assisted me in solving the bigger picture by making me develop new problem solving skills. Sometimes when it comes to solving problems, especially the complex ones, you never know what information will help you solve it whether it be known or unknown.

CogBlog 4: Attention

I grew up in the generation that had a half and half childhood. We grew up having to entertain ourselves with both the outdoors and the constantly evolving technology of the world. As I grew up, the bounds in technology in the terms of computers, cell phones, AI, video game systems and other technology based advances were being made. I remember watching as using the internet involved cutting off the functioning of the phones in the house thanks to dial up (and causing a lot of yelling from my parents about it) to it being virtually everywhere we go at the use of a router and a password. Technology has helped create better ways of treating illnesses, working more efficiently in both office and blue collar settings, education, television, video games and movies and how we get news and information about what's going on in the world around us.

Along with the advances in technology, there have also been a fair share of cognition-related issues with it. Personally I believe that technology is a double-edged sword when talking about cognition. On one hand, there have been major developments in using technology to not only learn better but there are programs out there that are designed to help people strengthen their cognition. Whether they are online classes, tests or brain games like Luminosity, there are technology based creations out there designed to help people improve cognition in some way. The technology evolution has also benefited the medical world, giving us better and more efficient techniques and tests that involve using or testing cognition. Some of these breakthroughs include concussion tests, vision and hearing tests and the development of different body/brain scans that have helped shed light on how our bodies function in many ways well past just cognition.

On the other and, some technology has become a bigger hindrance in parts of cognition like attention. In this modern era of many people owning personal cell phones and TV’s in every room, I think it has become harder to use the skill of attention. It’s harder to pay attention to what is going on around you when you have a movie playing in the background or your phone that’s connected to the internet is in arm's reach. So many people are so obsessed with using their personal technology devices that they fail to notice what is happening in the world around them. Students on their phones miss parts of their classes or are constantly using them while doing homework or studying which could affect their grades and knowledge base. Someone walking down the street while looking at their phone isn't fully paying attention to what is in front of them and they could very well walk into something or have someone hit them on accident from their obliviousness and divided attention. Someone who decided to text and drive is committing an extremely hazardous behavior by taking their eyes off the road which could cause an accident from the divided attention of the phone and their surroundings.

I'm not a fan of texting and driving. I get upset and paranoid when I'm in a car with a driver who uses their phone at the wheel.

What has happened in the evolution of technology that has caused cell phones and other mobile devices to become such large beacons of  attention that those using them forget to actually pay attention to what is around them? I think much of it has to do with the multiple types of social media that we have access to today. Depending on who you ask, the creation of social media is one of the best or worst things to befall our society. While they allow us to literally talk to people all over the world, they have shown to be very addicting and people can spend disproportionate amounts of time on them. There are social media accounts for everything these days from networking with employers and friends to looking for relationships and hookups on a Friday night. Especially in my age group and younger, I've noticed how much of a distraction these apps can cause in students when they are trying to study or when they are talking to someone else at the same time. Their attention becomes transfixed on the social media post they are on and whatever is going on in the background becomes secondary to them.

This constant divided attention can have overall negative effects on a person because you aren’t fully taking in your whole environment. When you divide your attention between multiple things, you won't be able to attend to them each as easily versus if you focused on one thing at a time. It’s this distracted behavior that is so problematic to people who are glued to social media, or technology in general. Its very easy to miss something when you aren't directly focused on it. You could have read a chapter in detail that would help you give a good response to that essay question on your upcoming test, but instead you briefly skimmed over a section in the textbook because you wanted to see what your favorite celebrity just posted on Facebook. Or someone might be asking you an important question and you either don't register what they said or give a simple “uh huh” because you are checking how many likes you got on your last post (which depending on the situation could be very offensive and show a lack of care to the other person).

I’ll admit that sometimes it's hard to balance the two out. I catch myself rationing out study time versus checking my phone (read one chapter for five minutes of phone time for example) so sometimes I have to remove my phone completely when I know I have to get stuff done so my attention is kept on the material I need to to be focused on. But I don’t feel like everyone else tries to utilize some kind of technique to help them pay attention. It has become such a norm in modern society to be glued to our electronics that some people actually undergo extreme stress when separated from their phones for too long. I believe that because technology has become so prevalent in our lives that the disconnection of attention it causes has slipped under the radar due to it being considered “a norm” by some. This is a bad habit to have for proper working cognition (not to mention general life skills) and I feel that over time it’s just going to get worse unless there is another interference from technology itself. Technology is causing this issue in attention, so it would make sense if it was the only thing that could stand a chance at trying to reverse it.

Technology isn't everything. Use it wisely.

CogBlog 3: Perception

Duck or rabbit? It's all in how you perceive it.

Perception as a whole is caused by our senses being stimulated. Everything we touch, see, hear, smell or taste from our environment has to be perceived by the brain for us to identify what is going on around us. In some situations, all or most of our senses are used to accurately perceive a single or multiple stimuli we are presented with. With complex environments that require this kind of perception, it can be like a multi-piece puzzle. For example, entering a busy restaurant invokes multiple different stimuli that can be perceived as soon as walking through the establishment’s door. You can see the restaurant's decor, hear music and people chattering, and smell the aroma of the food. When all theses different stimuli  are perceived together, we get a picture of what the restaurant is overall as an environment.

So what would it be like to encounter an experience where one or more of your senses was unable to work properly? How would these missing senses affect how you perceived the environment? I am a very active concert goer in the hard rock and heavy metal scene. I love going to live music performances and I attend multiple concerts a year. For me, concerts are full-sensory experiences, with all of my senses typically being stimulated in someway during the course of the event. Taking away even one of my senses during an event like this would impact my ability to accurately perceive what is going on around me, although differently with each individual sense.   

Without sight, I couldn't see the band, the crowd of attendees or the venue the show is being held at. This is a huge impairment that would require my hearing and touch to work overtime to make sure I was going in the right direction when walking around, or even worse; making sure I don't walk straight into a mosh pit or a spot where one is likely to occur.

Without being able to see or hear, staying clear of mosh pits at concerts could become more difficult.

Without the ability to hear, attending a concert would be completely redundant. I could visually perceive the band on stage, the lights, the crowd, and the venue, but without knowing the tune of the music, a large part of the entertainment of the concert is gone. Not being able to hear the crowd is also a disadvantage at metal shows in particular as the sounds that come from a crowd can be warning signs of where mosh pits are opening up or where crowd surfers are traveling in the mass of people (trust me, that is an element you always want to be aware of at shows so you and the others around you don't get injured on accident). My perception of sight would become my most important asset in this situation as it would be the next best sense to use for detecting what is happening around me.

Without the ability to touch/feel, I might not know if I am getting uncomfortable by where/how I am standing or if I have gotten injured by a multitude of possible things such as other people or flying objects from others in the crowd. Smell and taste might not always apply to a concert I am attending, so losing my ability to perceive these senses would be the least damaging to my experience. That being said, being able to smell different things in the air such as food, smoke and various scents wafting around (especially at outdoor concerts) and being able to distinguish if you are drinking water or alcohol from a cup can be important stimuli to perceive if the situation calls for it. In that case, my perceptions of sight and hearing would be utilized more to make up for a lack in these senses.

Overall, losing any sense that contributes to overall perception would have a negative effect on a concert setting. In this particular setting, the inability to see and hear would cause the most sensory impairment which would alter someone's perception greatly towards the event. Even some senses such as taste and smell that don't seem readily important in an environment like this could be crucial to have in case something happens. The perceptions we perceive with full sensory experiences such as concerts use up more factors than some realize we use in everyday life. It's amazing how the removal of just one sense that we use to interpret our environments can alter our entire perception of something. This alteration could mean that our other senses have to go into overdrive to compensate for the holes in our perceptive field. It is also important to keep in mind that everyone perceives their environments differently. Something that might be an annoyance to one person might not even phase another. So many elements go into creating our own perception abilities and you never know how it all could change until part of your sensory abilities aren't there anymore to contribute to the forming the big picture.

CogBlog 2: Brain Injury Case Study of Louis Victor Leborgne (aka "Tan")

For this CogBlog, I wanted to look into a case study about an individual who suffered some kind of brain injury that altered their cognition. There was one example of a case of someone’s cognition being changed by some kind of brain damage mentioned in chapter two that interested me. The man known in psychology textbooks as “Tan”. He was given and remembered through history by this name because for a number of years it was the only sound he could make to try and communicate. I had heard of Tan before but I didn’t know much about why he was given his name besides that his condition lead to the eventual discovery of the Broca’s area of the brain. I wanted to learn more about this man’s case and how his impaired cognition occurred.

What I found when I did some research was that Tan, whose actual name was Louis Victor Leborgne, was an epileptic. Apparently he had been living with seizures for a long time in his life and until the development of his speech loss at age 30 he had been dealing with the seizures rather well. Knowing that he was epileptic could explain how Mr. Leborgne’s frontal lobe became damaged. Seizures occur when something interrupts the normal signal processing in the central nervous system. These interruptions, depending on where they occur in the brain have different resulting side effects, the most commonly known being the muscle spasms in generalized seizures. One type of seizure is the complex focal seizure which occurs in the temporal lobe, the area in the brain where Broca’s area is located.

Louis Victor Leborgne's brain. Damage can be clearly seen on the brain's frontal lobe.

Considering the above, it would probably be a reasonable reaction to say that the seizures must have done some damage to Mr. Leborgne’s Broca’s area. However, while doing research, I found another interesting factor in the state of Mr. Leborgne’s damaged brain. Many years after Mr. Leborgne’s death and subsequent autopsy in 2007, it was discovered that the damage in Mr. Leborgne’s brain was far more severe then was originally thought when Broca conducted his original autopsy in 1861. A team of researchers at the University of California lead by Nina Dronkers put the preserved brain through a high resolution volumetric MRI scan and found that alongside the damage to the Broca’s area there was also damage to the brain’s superior longitudinal fasciculus, which connects both the anterior and posterior language regions of the brain.

The results of the 2007 high resolution MRI of Leborgne's brain

This discovery would imply that Mr. Leborgne’s brain damage that resulted in his loss of speech might have been less extreme if only the Broca’s area had been affected. With this new evidence bringing more language related areas of the brain into the picture, it shows how extensive the damage to this man’s brain became over time and what damage to the language areas of the brain can do to a person. It is unknown to w

hether or not Mr. Leborgne’s many years of seizures were the sole cause of this brain damage, but with no recorded history of other serious trauma I would guess that in one way or another they were involved. Overall, the case of Mr. Leborgne is a fascinating case study to look at and serves as reminder of what can happen to even the most basic forms of cognition when the brain is damaged.

When I picked out this class during registration last spring, I wasn't sure what I was going to be getting myself into. I had heard that the class was not the easiest class out there and it was a class where I was going to have to work hard for the assignments. But knowing that it was a level 400 class, I was expecting a bit of a challenge.

On top of that, the topic is very interesting to me. I had the ideas of behaviorism and conditioning repeated and preached to me in so many different psychology classes, I was curious to what kind of views the field had towards the mind itself. You can condition a behavior in someone, sure. But what does that look like when it is being processed in someone’s head? How do we decide to react to the stimuli we do from the viewpoint of the mind? How do elements such as attention, memory and what we perceive from the stimuli effect how we react? This is a side of the field of psychology I’m not really knowledgeable about, and wanting to be a well-rounded student in the study of psychology I decided this was a topic I wanted to learn more about. So here I am, sitting on my bed writing this cog-blog as a result.

This semester I hope to expand my knowledge in the field of cognitive psychology and have a better understanding of how the mind plays a role in how we think, process, and act on given stimuli based on previous experiences or stored information. My goal is to leave this class with an understanding of cognitive psychology that I can apply in the field when I am a practicing mental health worker in a way that benefits my skills and my clients. I feel that having an understanding of this branch of psychology is important in being an effective mental health worker because the mind is a person’s most powerful and self-destructive method. With a better idea of how the mind functions in a psychological light, it will allow me to look at presented issues with a set of tools that could mean the difference between giving a client a quick fix and a permanent set of tools that will benefit them for years to come.