Cross Cultural Studies of Memory

 Questions and Answers

1) How does culture affect memory? Use the examples here and show it.

·       2) What has been the problem in cross-cultural memory research, and what have the implications 
been?

·    3) Give some arguments for why it is not advisable to assume that memory strategies are universal 
and support it with evidence.

·      4)  If you were to test memory in another culture, how would you proceed?

·   5)  What can be learned from these studies on memory on general problems in psychological 
research?

1)     Culture affects memory in the way of schooling vs. non-schooling, or more commonly, Western vs. Non western society. Also the different kinds of ways they remember things or vital to their ability to remember things. School children can remember easier than non-school because they have leaned techniques to remember whereas the non-school just tries to remember everything without any kind of help way to remember things.

2)     The problem with this cross-cultural memory research is that westerners have more schooling than those of nonwestern and therefore remember in different ways, no necessarily better ways. Their research in Guatemala show that the children can remember things that are more familiar to them, like a diagram of a town and the different things in the town but when having to remember just a list, its harder for them because that format is not their normal way of life.

3)     Memory strategies are NOT universal because you learn them from school or from people. Schooled children learn like this but non-schooled, like the children in Liberia, learn a different kind of strategy, not one that’s helpful which, say, just a list of random words.

4)     To test memory in a different culture I would first study this culture to find out how much schooling, if any, they have and what their normal settings would be; a city, a village, alone… Then set up an experiment with conditions similar to what they would be used to, so if they were highly schooled, then a list of words, or if not then a diagram or picture.

)     Cultural biased tests are often a failure because of all the different ways that people can view memory problems and solve them and in all the different ways it would need to be used. These differences play a vital role in testing memory and each culture must have a different kind of test to make sure there is no bias in the experiments.

Does Music Help Memory?

Summary of Does Music Help Memory?

In this study, the author explores the different explanations to if Music does indeed help memory or if it’s just a wives tale. Some people believe that listening to music helps the memory and can help you better recall information. This is called the “Mozart Effect”. You might think that music is actually a distraction but music that people considered pleasurable increase dopamine, which makes you feel good or happy and promotes leaning through awards.

To finally prove or disprove it, studies conducted in Finland took 73 subjects of age 27 and picked out 3 songs that were neutral and 3 that they really liked out of 14 songs. They were then grouped into 4 different listen patterns, either positive or neutral songs, where each group had the same amount of musicians and non-musicians. The learning part was to memorize 54 pairs of Japanese characters, where one had a positive reward (smiley face) or a negative reward (frowning face).

            The results showed that more musical people learned better with neutral songs and tested better with pleasurable songs. For people without a musical background, the opposite was true. This could be because musical people would pay more attention to the music and analyze it, while non-musical could easily ignore it.

Original Website: http://www.psychologytoday.com/topics/memory?tr=Hdr_Topics

Elaborative Encoding

______________Elaborative Encoding ________________________

Elaborative encoding is a technique were you make connections to different objects (usually something ridiculous or very common to you) that allows us to make information easier to recall. Elaborative encoding can take many forms that varies with each person depending on what you think will be easiest to remember.

To use the “link system” you have to take keys words you are trying to remember and associate it to a memorable picture or sequence. When trying to remember someone’s name you can think of all the distinguishing facts about him or her or their appearance: a weird outfit, an unusual profession, the setting where you met… etc. Connecting these different details to the name will help you remember the name. Also using a sequence can help you remember. The first set is finding something like your house as your common place then placing ridiculous hints to what you're trying to remember. Next, you will need to walk through this common place several times, remembering it (it wont take long because the image sticks in your mind easily), then walk through the sequence when trying to remember whatever the words were.

 Another system you can use is Mnemonics. Here you use, instead of a key word, the initial of the words you are trying to remember and put them in an order that forms a word or sentence. A common example is the order of taxonomy,  “Kings Play Chess On Funny Green Spots” (Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species). Remembering this phrase is easy because its so weird that its hard to forget it.

Memory

Question: Identify and describe 3 techniques that may enhance memory.

- Connections to Pictures or Scenes: When trying to remember a piece of information its hard to remember if its just random and has no meaning to you. So if you connect it too a ridiculous picture its easier. Like from the World Memory Championships, some contestants, while trying to memorize pie, will connect numbers like 8 to a snowman because it looks like a snowman. Some may connect sets of numbers to pictures also. 

- Songs: Songs have been shown to have very successful stories of memorizing things like formulas. The song for the Quadratic Formula, "negative b, plus or minus square root, b squared minus for a c, all over 2 a" is fun to sing and easy to remember. If you tried to remember with out a helpful tool like this song, it would very difficult. Similarly, the reason we can remember all the letters of the alphabet is because it goes to a cheerful songs thats easy to remember. 

- Acronyms: Acronyms have been used for a long time to abbreviate long titles and names. Espeically if you have a select amount of words, you can take the first letter of the ones you need to memorized and organize it into a single word. YMCA is a common acronym used but do most people even know what it stands for? Young Men's Christian Association. Recent use of acronyms include LOL "laughing out loud" and SMS "Short messaging System", quick and easy to remember is the key.

A Summary: Why do identical twins end up having such different Lives?

Twins seem, on the outside, to be very similar and identical. But when you meet each one and get to know them, you realize they are very different from each other. The question is: Why? Is it the environment? But they have lived in the same house, mostly likely experienced similar things, and ate parallel foods for the first 18 years of their lives. For example, in one pair of twins, one sister is very confident, has been married, and has a very different fashion sense than that her twin who has serious depression issues, is more conscientious, been divorced, and suffered from leukemia. They’re still twins, but very different lives.

            Scientists have discovered that this difference in lives is due to epigenetics in the human epigenome. Epigenetics is the mechanism where environmental changes alter the behavior of our genes. Specifically, methyl, a chemical within our cells, can attach itself to our DNA and can turn down or up the activity of a gene and stop it from making certain proteins. Levels can fluctuate with all different kinds of life events like aging, diet, illness, chemicals, smoking, drugs, medications and more. So the reason these twins are so different is because some of their genes have been switched on in one case and off in another. Some are positive affects, and some are negative, like depression and susceptibility to diseases. 

Homicide; An Adaptive Behavior?

___________Is Homicide an Adaptive Behavior?_____________________

Homicide; why people do it, how they do it, and what kind of people can, are all questions that have caused controversy ever since history was first written down. Still, one has yet to be answered: Is homicide an adaptive behavior? Yes and No.

The Homicide Adaptive Theory is a theory that gives ideas, never prove, that homicide is an evolutionary tool in our genes that helped us stay alive thousands of years ago. This theory explains that humans have always and will always commit homicide. The ideas in this theory is that humans commit homicide for good reason like to protect kin of the same genetic inheritance from others so that they can pass on their genes. Humans would have had to kill in general for food resources and protection. Potential rivals would had to have been terminated to make sure they on only them could pass on their genes. Killing stepchildren was also necessary to ensure their own children would get enough resources. The list goes on and these are all very good reasons to keep the gene for homicide in our genes. Obviously these aspects don’t apply to us any more. We have supermarkets, houses and a large range of resources. That doesn’t mean that that gene won’t show up any more. This gene is still in us and will be for a very long time. Evolutionary, we will eventually no longer need it. But there may still be aspects of homicide that are slightly adaptive.

Everyone has killed that annoying fly or spider in your room but can everyone kill another human being with children, a life, a past and future? Definitely not.

Trained soldiers who have taught themselves to effectively and efficiently kill many people still have a hard time in even in times of need when their life DEPENDED on it, they still could bring themselves to do it. On the other hand many people still do kill hundreds without another though. They ADAPT and change so that they can. It depends on the person and their type of personality and abilities. Maybe that gene of violently killing without a thought has had the volume “turned down” in some people and “turned up” in others. But that gene will always be in us, to kill.

Homicide will always be questioned as to how, why, and when and there are two sides to it as well. The side were it’s engrained into our genes and we can’t not do it. And the side that indicates that it’s adaptive from our surroundings depending on who raises us and what we see. Both ideas are possible and both can never be fully proven or disproved.