Behavioral measures employed in cognitive psychology refer to the recording of observed behaviors by researchers. The focus of psychology is based on the actual actions of people instead of unobserved behaviors such as emotions, moods, and thoughts (Catling " Ling, 2011). An example is where companies give promote their best performing employees with the aim of encouraging other workers to behave in the same manner. On the other hand, the Physiological mindset is used to collect measurements of the responses from the body such as breathing rate and heartbeat under various conditions (Catling " Ling, 2011). An example is using the lie detector to either tell when one is lying or speaking the truth.
Question Two
Agnosia refers to losing the ability to recognize faces, places, voices, or objects (Konen et al., 2011). The causes of agnosia include suffering from a stroke, incurring a head injury, a disorder in the brain, or "Becker muscular dystrophy." Agnosia can be put into two categorized as visual agnosia and voice agnosia. Visual agnosia is a condition where functional impairments in a person deny them the ability to recognize visible objects while voice agnosia is where an individual cannot recognize voices (Konen et al., 2011). For pattern recognition to be possible, information from the stimulus must be matched with information that is retrieved from the memory. But due to agnosia, the matching cannot take place.
Question Three
Anterograde amnesia refers to the ability to lack the creation of new memories. Therefore, the victim is not able to recall long-term or the recent events. It affects memories formed after the event that caused the amnesia. A good example is when a person is not able to recall someone he or she has just met. Retrograde amnesia affects the ability to “make, store, and retrieve” memories (Smith et al., 2013). Specifically, it affects memories formed before the event that caused the amnesia. For example, someone not being able to recall all that happened years before a traumatic event caused them amnesia.
The hippocampus plays a vital role in memory consolidation since allows attaching of "memory and senses that go with them." Sleep enables hippocampal activity to facilitate memory consolidation, thus enabling integrating of new information to the old ones. An example of the hippocampus is when one uses the smell of flowers to represent calmness and happiness.
Question Four
Long-term memories are those memories that can be kept for an extended period. There are two types of long-term memory: declarative and non-declarative. Declarative memories, also known as explicit memories, are a list of things that we can recall consciously. Semantic memory is formed independently from personal experiences. An example is a memory on Christmas day. Episodic memories are developed based on skills and events, and a good example is when a student finds out that he was the best in their class. Non-declarative memories, also known as implicit memories, are not often recalled because they are formed as a repetition of motor events. An example is learning how to ride a bicycle.
Question Five
Prospective memory involves one remembering to perform a planned action at a future time which must also be the appropriate moment (Einstein " McDaniel, 2005). For example, remembering to read an e-mail that was received. In prospective memory, there is a transient monitoring process supporting maintenance of prospective intentions by checking clock information intermittently together with a transient post-clock checking process that is presumed to be responsible for the integration of the temporal information (Einstein " McDaniel, 2005). At the workplace, prospective memory is important because when workers forget to perform the intended actions, the consequences can be damaging. For example, an employee forgetting to reconcile the accounts at the end of the day, the figures reported shall reflect the actual position.
References
Catling, J., " Ling, J. (2011). Cognitive Psychology.
Einstein, G. O., " McDaniel, M. A. (2005). Prospective memory: Multiple retrieval processes. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(6), 286-290.
Konen, C. S., Behrmann, M., Nishimura, M., " Kastner, S. (2011). The functional neuroanatomy of object agnosia: a case study. Neuron, 71(1), 49-60.
Smith, C. N., Frascino, J. C., Hopkins, R. O., " Squire, L. R. (2013). The nature of anterograde and retrograde memory impairment after damage to the medial temporal lobe. Neuropsychologia, 51(13), 2709-2714.
