Current Event 7

Have you ever had someone that was overconfident in themselves? I'm sure you have, this is one of my stories about someone else being overconfident in themselves. One day I was having this conversation with a group of my friends. We got into an argument on who was right. You know how girls are we think we are right now matter what. What really sucks is when you know you are right and know that the other person is wrong and you have no way of telling them they are wrong because they don't want to listen to you or what you have to say. This one friend is ALWAYS overconfident on her answer, normally she is wrong. Even if we have 5 different people telling her she is wrong it doesn't matter. In the end we found out we, the other friends, were right and she was wrong. Then she says that she said what we said along. Then we get into another argument about what she said and it goes on and on and on.

Chapter 9

This chapter was on thinking and language. There was multiple things to talk about in this chapter but the 3 main things I am going to talk about are prototypes, algorithms, and what heuristics are.

We have different prototypes for different things. We make mental images to what something is suppose to look like. For example when someone says "square" we automatically think and picture a shape that has 4 congruent sides and angles. Everyone might have a little different prototype then others. Some people might see a little different image in their head about things. Making everyone unique. Another thing is that some people might see a penguin more like a bird then a robin, it depends how much they are around each bird and their views on it.

Algorithms are a step-by-step procedures that guarantees a solution. They can be time consuming and taking a lot of work. It is pretty much like trail and error. Sometimes it could be really fast guess you are a good guesser and tried and excelled the first time, but other times it could take you for ever to figure out. For example a math problem. If you didn't know how many times 5 went into the number 2,225, you would have to try a lot of numbers to get to 2,225 (if you didn't have a calculator).

Heuristics is a quicker way to find a solution. We tend to find ways to combined things or think of ways that seem logical. For example in the math example from above, we would know that the last number would have to be either a 5 or a 0, that means we can eliminate 8 numbers it could end with. Also we know that 5 goes into 100 four times so that means there is probably going to be a 4 as well in the answer. You still have to use trial and error to find the rest of the answer but its a little quicker then algorithms.

(the answer is 445)

Current Event 6

This chapter talked about memory. Like memory loss and short/long-term memory, and the case of Clive. It is really hard for me to remember things for tests or something that isn't too important to me. When it comes to studying I study the night before and then after the test the next day I forget what I even learned. I have created short-term memory, I remember it only for a short while and then it's gone like it never existed. I HATE THAT!!! I wish I could remember everything I ever have learned! But we all know that isn't possible. So I guess I have to deal with out I have, take the case of Clive. I would rather know has much as I know now then what he does. I feel sooo bad for him. He doesn't remember ever tasting anything or even his own wife's name. I mean yeah he remembers that she is important in some way, but doesn't remember that she comes to visit him everyday or who she really is. I don't think I could really live that way, I mean I would rather live like that then not living at all, but it would defenitly be hard!
In class we did an activity, we had to listen to a list of 20 words and then write down all the words we could. The first list was pretty easy I got 17 out of 20, not bad at all for me. The next list not so good I got maybe 12 out of 20. The last list, yeah lets not go there. The reason why I did so good on the first list is because the things in the list could be grouped together. The second list wasn't all that easy with grouping, the last list before we could write anything down our teacher told us to count backwards from 21 by 3's. That would be why I didn't do too good on the 3rd one, I only got 6.

Chapter 8

Memory is very important without it we don't remember anything...obviously. Memory makes us remember things about us and about others. We could not remember tasting anything and therefore could be tasting things for the first time, so you think. We wouldn't now who we really are if we don't remember things that we do. If we didn't have a memory we would be confused almost all the time. People would talk to us like we should know them and if we don't remember things we wouldn't know why people are talking to us when they just left the room for one minuete. For Clive, he doesn't remember things when they are gone for a short time. He wasn't always like this if happened once when he had a headache and got worse as the days went on after about 5 days he started to forget things. He can remember some things like riding a bike or citing music, it is an ingraved skill in his head. He said that he has never tasted anything that he tastes things for the first time. He also doesn't remember his wife's name, but he remembers that she is important and that he loves her.

Our memory is a very important thing. I always thought well I hate my memory because I cant remember anything. Well, I take that all back now after watching Clives case. It seems like I remember a lot now. I guess I can't really relay on my memory as much as I think because something could be right in front of us and not notice it, then when someone asks if we saw something,and they now it was there, we would say no even though there was something else there. It's just like the experiment in the text book did, they told students to count how many times the basketball was passed that they half of them didn't notice something walking through the middle of the court. The idea that we don't really know what we remember is intriging because in investagations that's what the police relay on, eyewittnesses, to tell the truth and taking their word what happened. They people could think they are telling the truth but they just didn't realize what really happened.

Memory Exercises

While doing all the different exercises I realized that we like to group things together to try to remember things. With the list of words to remember the first list was really easy to remember because all the words could be divided into 5 groups of 4 different words in each. The 5 different groups were colors, directions, guys names, fruits, and different types of money. Our minds grouped them together so it was easy to remember, when the next list came it was a little harder to remember because the words didn't group with anything together and it was hard. The next list was even harder because before we were able to write anything down you got interrupted by other things that had nothing to do with the list. I could barely remember any of the words. Once our minds get interrupted it is hard to remember anything anymore.


In life I could think that I remember things just fine, but when I am tested with my memory I see that I really don't remember too much. While studying, if I don't study and look at the text for a long enough time, I could just be a waste of time. I have to look at the material for a long enough time for my mind to get the concept and remember it. When I think I'm telling the trust to others, I may just be giving them things that I saw, but there could be things that I just didn't want to look at or didn't see because my mind was mainly on one thing. I was trying to focus on one thing so I could remember that and not see anything else around me, even though it could be right next to the thing I was concentrating on.

Current Event 5

This chapter reflects in my life because it's all about learning. Without this information it would be very hard as a parent or teacher to teach kids new things. I know people haven't read this book and knew what to do to teach, like my mom hasn't read this but is a very good parent. For me to read this helps me learn how to teach my child or children, in about 10 or so years. I know it is a LONG ways away but I hope I can remember what I read.

The chapter talked about how to learn a new behavior. I think that there is 4 different steps in learning. I had to train my dog how to sit, easy said then done. The first step is to tell her to sit and put her butt done repeatedly. After about a day of putting her butt down for her i told her to sit about 4 times and then if she didn't I would put her butt down for her again on the 4th time. After of course she got the hang of that, then I switched to doing it an unexpected number of times. For example say I said it 3 times and then put her butt down, then I would say it 6 times the next to put her butt down. After she got the hang of that she was almost trained to sit, but there is one last step. The next day I would say sit randomly and she would do it, then I would say it again randomly and she wouldn't so I would have to put her butt down and say sit again for her to remember what to do. Of course after every time she sat when I said sit I gave her a treat so now she knows when I say sit she will get a treat. When she does something good she KNOWS she is getting a treat, so sometimes so will go to the bathroom outside just to get a treat and then about 5 mins later she will want to go outside again to get a treat. She's such a putts!!! But I LOVE her and couldn't live without her!!!

Chapter 7

This chapter was a lot more interesting then the other chapters in my opinion because it was on how we learned. It told me what steps to take to learn or even teach someone how to learn something new.



Classical Conditioning is something that you remember after its been done to you repeatedly. There is a stimuli followed by something good or bad, when that stimuli is repeated over and over again you remember when that stimuli happens your will trigger that something that happened either good or bad. I know I'm not good at explaining things, so I'll give you an example. When an owner of a dog abuses their dog by hitting it with their hand on the dog's head, the dog will then connect the hand going over its face to being hit. When someone else just wants to pet the dog and be nice to it, the dog will flinch afraid it will get hit again. The hand going up in the air over its face triggered the memory that the hand is the thing that hits and hurts it.

When I see this in real life, which I have before, I can't believe it. I just want to take the dog away from their owner and keep it for myself where I know it wont get hurt and abused again. I love animals and I HATE seeing them getting hurt by others.