Tulving

Here is a link to a website about psychologist Endel Tulving:

Tulving website

The site & short video clip mostly talks about the difference between encoding and retrieval. Tulving is also known as one of the researchers who distinguished between episodic and semantic LTM (Tulving, 1972).

You may remember the study by Craik and Tulving (1975) which shows that a word (e.g. 'pig') is better encoded to LTM if you ask a meaningful question about it (e.g. is it a kind of animal?) rather than focussing on sound or appearance (e.g. does it rhyme with 'fig'?).

He also developed the encoding specificity principle, which states that cues to memory need to have some connection to the context in which something is learned. Recognition is usually easier than free recall, but can be harder when things are out of context (e.g. seeing your neighbour at a nightclub in Ibiza).

Poggendorff Illusion

A real 'classic' illusion, this is where people find it hard to judge whether the lines outside the rectangle/central stripe will meet or not.

The union jack flag allows for this effect by offsetting the lines of the Saint Patrick's Cross (the red diagonal lines) so that they appear to match up - when actually they don't:

Look at the white spaces (or check them with a ruler!)

Study skills article

Amazing article on study skills:

New York Times article

BBC memory article

Article about how memory changes with age:

Here

Welcome to the new S6 psychology!

Welcome

Hello! Welcome to Higher Psychology at Hutchie, I hope you enjoy the course, learn a lot and have a fun year.

Rather than give you yet another handout, I have put course information onto this blog. You can click on the label 'course info' (see the labels at the bottom of this post) to find all the info, or search for something specific using the box at the top.

A couple of general points here:

Course structure & assessment

This is a one-year crash higher. It is assessed by project work done in winter-spring, and an exam in the summer. You also need to pass internal assessments (NABs).

Homework

For each topic, you will be provided with a topic handout which includes homework assignments. You will be given deadlines for these assignments during the course - roughly one assignment per week.

Study materials

You should find a suitable way of taking and organising notes and handouts, such as filing them by topic in a large ring binder. You will be given a booklet for each topic, and you should also take notes in class. A jotter or loose A4 paper would be fine for this. Homework should be handed in on a separate sheet of paper (i.e. not your jotter), handwritten or printed, or can be emailed as an attachment. It is also strongly recommended that you implement a system of summarising your notes and handouts for revision purposes, perhaps using a separate notebook for this.

Textbook

Booklets will include a basic summary of each topic, but for full information on the topic you will need a suitable textbook. The recommended textbook for the course is ‘Higher Psychology’ by Williamson et al (2007).

Communication

It is essential for the smooth running of the class that you can be contacted by email, so please check your school email address regularly. You can contact me at firthj@hutchesons.org, or come and see me in room C8 (top floor, same floor as economics & art).

Dealing with anger - BBC news article

We have all felt like bashing our heads against brick walls when we cannot get what we want as a consumer. Conversely, many of us have suffered awkward customers. So how do we stop irritation boiling over into anger?

(Article link)

Procrastination

Good article from 'Psychology Today' - you can follow them on Facebook if you like this sort of thing:
Procrastination: ten things to know