PSYCHOLOGY

How Can the Use of Mental Images, Concepts and Schemas to Organise Our Thinking Help Us to Improve Our Memory?

How Can the Use of Mental Images, Concepts and Schemas to Organise Our Thinking Help Us to Improve Our Memory?

Part A

This essay will start with exploring the method in which the human brain organises the thought process using mental images, concepts and schemes. The human brain is a complex organ with over 100 billion neurons, which are nerve cells, which send messages throughout the body, and it remembers information with the same complexity.

The essay will identify ways to improve one's memory. The essay will discuss the two halves/hemispheres of the brain, connect by 200 million, corpus callosum, which are nerve cells, and pass message between the two halves. The brain is such a delicate organ that the chances of damage are increased. The three types of memory discussed; episodic memory solely responsible for recalling the past, semantic memory for remembering fact-based knowledge and procedural memory for learning to do things such as ride a bike (Carlson, 2010).

The essay describes three ways to improve the memory, firstly using Semantic thinking which is using Mental Images for processing data integrated into the brain and the data saved if we form a mental image of it, Iconic Thinking is thinking words and Enactive Thinking is, based on the impressions we get from actions.

Part B

Psychologists who research and study the process of thinking, perceptions, learning, language and memory specialize in Cognitive psychology. Our thought process is one of the most complex processes when it comes to describing as the human brain thinks in three different ways. First is Semantic thinking, Second is iconic thought based on words and Enactive Thinking is, based on the impressions we get from actions.

Semantic thinking is the thought process using mental images for processing data that has been integrated into the brain and the data is saved if we form a mental image of it, for instance when learning languages, for remembering basic vocabulary forming images helps over having to repeat the words repeatedly. The technique, introduced by Michael Raugh and Richard Atkinson of key word is very useful where for instance the learner attaches images to different words and their meanings so that the next time they have to recall they remember the mental image and remember the basic vocabulary. The introducers of this technique experimented and tested this on two groups of volunteers who were asked to memorize sixty words in Spanish and then one group was asked to use the key word technique who scored an 88% and the other who memorized by repeating the words achieved 28% (Bartlett, 1932).

Another important method for organising our process of thinking is by categorising and dividing them into categories. This is formation of concepts and development of mental representation through the development of categories of groups of objects and situations that share common factors and properties. For instance, a common example to explain this is ...