Study of Psychology - Understanding Mental Images,...

Task B How can memory be improved by use of mental images, concepts and schemas (which help organise thinking)? Within this essay I am going to try and explain the defining roles of mental images, concepts and schemas. These processes are the ways in which our minds interpret information in order for us to understand, use and convey in our everyday life to aid and organise our way of thinking. The role of a mental image is to provide our memory with an almost visual aide to prompt our thoughts, to create a snapshot of information. This snapshot of information is better absorbed as pictures or images rather than words. With a mental image we tend to place it in a more familiar area or situation that we know. The stranger the images†¦show more content†¦Loftus researched and investigated something called the leading question. She showed a group a clip of a car crash. She asked the group to guess what speed the cars were at when the crash took place. Some of the group were asked what speed the cars were doing when they ‘hit’? While the remaining part of the group were asked what speed the cars were going when they ‘crashed’? The group that were asked about the ‘hit’ averaged an estimate of 34mph, where as the group that were asked about the crash averaged an estimate of 41mph. Therefore a slight change in the details caused a slight change in the answer, so from the effect of the leading question the element of remembering is clouded with regards to an eye witness schema recall. So to sum up how our memory can be improved by the use of mental images, concepts and schemas. Without the small cues or prompts we would be unable to process everyday information, as there would not be any thoughts or words therefore leading to much less communication and language. This would make any form of communication or interaction with others impossible. References 1.1 Starting with psychology course manual, Chapter 3.2 page 45 - Study performed by Michael Raugh amp; Richard Atkinson (1975). 1.2 Starting with psychology course manual, Chapter 3.2 page 53 - Experiment carried out by Weston BousfieldShow MoreRelatedHow Can the Use of Mental Images, Concepts and Schemas to Organise Our Thinking Help Us to Improve Our Memory?1740 Words   |  7 PagesHow can the use of mental images, concepts and schemas to organise thinking help us to improve our memory? Cognitive psychology is primarily concerned with the study of subjective internal mental states. However, the subjective nature of cognitive activities such as thinking, memory, learning, perception, and language make it difficult to directly and empirically test these mental processes. Cognitive psychology therefore relies on a fundamental assumption of reductionism, where the dynamic andRead MoreY183 Tma011122 Words   |  5 Pagesthe ways we organise our thinking is by using mental images. 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