HS 3421: Science of the Mind

Minneapolis College of Art and Design

18 January, 2011

Discussion Worksheet Overview

The purpose of the worksheets for this class will be to direct you to a limited number of important concepts in each chapter. The worksheets will ask you to identify a specific place in the book that addresses that concept and to explain what your chosen passage says about the concept. In some cases, there might be several different places where the book addresses that concept. If that happens, pick your favorite passage or the passage that is easiest for you to write about. BRING AN EXTRA COPY OF YOUR WORKSHEET TO CLASS WITH YOU! One copy will be turned in to the instructor for grading. You will keep the other copy to use during the discussion. In class, you will split up into small groups and each group will consider one of the questions from the worksheet, and you will have time to talk about the different answers that your group has come up with. After you have had some time with your small group, we will work through the worksheet as an entire class. That way, each question on the worksheet will have a few students who have discussed that question in their small group. Any student can comment on any question, but the group that discussed that individual question will hopefully have a higher comfort level in sharing their ideas with the whole class. This overview contains three questions based on the introduction to Schacter, and examples of how they could be answered. (1) Find a page where Schacter discusses the significance of __3__ memory in evolution: Explain in your own words why memory is significant in our evolutionary history:

Memory helps animals adapt to their environment, for example, by remembering the locations of food or what to do in a dangerous situation. Thus, animals with better memory had a survival advantage, and accurate memory functions were selected for during evolution.

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(2) Find a page where Schacter describes the importance of __4___ subjective experience in remembering: Explain in your own words why researchers have come to believe that subjective experiences must be accounted for in memory research:

As researchers realized that memories could not be studied purely as pieces of information in a retrieval system, they realized that they would need to examine the individual experiences of people in the act of remembering in order to uncover the processes that form and recall memories.

The three disciplines are Cognitive Psychology, Clinical Psychology/Psychiatry, and Neuroscience. Clinicians work in a medical setting, and so they study people with memory problems that can illuminate how memory functions. Neuroscientists have developed experiments that can associate psychological processes (such as forming a memory) with activity in the Nervous System.

(3) Find a page where Schacter discusses the three scientific _6-7__ disciplines that are contributing to modern memory research: Name the three disciplines that schacter lists, and describe what at least one of them is contributing to memory research:

HS 3421: Science of the

Name _____________________________ Due: 25 January, 2011 Mind

Minneapolis College of Art and Design

Discussion Worksheet: Schacter, Chapters 1 & 2

Reading: Searching for Memory by Daniel Schacter: Introduction and Chapters 1 & 2. BRING AN EXTRA COPY OF THIS WORKSHEET TO CLASS WITH YOU! One copy will be turned in to the instructor for grading. You will keep the other copy to use during the discussion. (12 points) Answer the questions below based on this reading: (1) CHAPTER ONE: Find a page where Schacter defines and explains the concept of Episodic Memory: _________ Explain the distinctive features of Episodic Memory and why it requires investigators to consider the experience of the rememberer.

(2) CHAPTER ONE: Find a page where Schacter discusses Field Memories and Observer Memories: _________ Explain the difference between these two types of memories, and the circumstances under which each type is more likely to occur:

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(3) CHAPTER TWO: Find a page where Schacter describes the principles of how memories are encoded in the mind: _________ Choose one of the principles Schacter presents and describe it in your own words:

(4) CHAPTER TWO: Find a page where Schacter describes the process of Elaborative Encoding: _________ In your own words, explain one aspect of elaborative encoding from the book and describe what effect it has on a memory.

(5) CHAPTER TWO: Find a page where Schacter discusses the significance of the stimulus or situation that prompts recall of a memory: _________ How does the event or situation that triggers the recall of a memory affect the way it is remembered?

(6) CHAPTER TWO: Find a page where Schacter discusses the difference between Asociative Retrieval and Strategic Retrieval: _________ Explain in your own words the process of Strategic Retreival. What role does Associative Retrieval play within Strategic Retrieval?