Written words

The advance technology has shone light to us to a new way of conversation but is it better than previous method or makes human relationship get worse?

Many of us aware of the effect of social media such as facebook. It makes million miles feel like next room. Many of us also aware its negative effect. 

I would like to share a story of me and my family and whatsapp. When whatsapp arise to fame in malaysia not long ago, everyone need to have whatsapp account just like they need facebook. My family is not the exception. Frankly speaking, having indulge in the networking earlier than everyone in my family makes me not so keen to create whatsapp account but they force me to do it. Anyway, its all start with a good cause;to bring everyone that miles apart closer and to share information and to convey message to every one. 

However, the goodness of whatsapp deem and here comes the evil. Some start to use it to critics others. They call it advise (doesnot seem like one for me). For instance, my brother screw up so my other sisters give him 'advice' in that group chat. For me its like scolding a person in front of everyone and i really hate it. Its keep happening to a point where few members of my family 'advice' another member. Group scolding session. 

Why they keep doing it? Because they think its healthy, its what siblings do. Helping each other out and taking care of each other. Yes, after all the advices given they did make up. But thats not for me. I dont think its healthy. Seriously not. What they did is hindering the subject, denying anything happen and take it all as a siblings act. How about all the means word thrown out? Is it just dissappeared. Its still in that group chat for everyone to see. 

I dont understand. Maybe this is how adult deals with problem. I think its stupid and it push the relationship into a verge of breaking up. I believe that all those words written down is not gonna disappear into a thin air, someday it will come back and haunt down the one who write. 

Yes. I am a bit piss off. They misunderstood my condition and critics my reading hobby. Do they know why I read? Do they know why I hardly call my mom nowadays? Do they know why i havenot visit my mom for 2 weeks? No they dont. And i have no intention to tell them my reasons as i know they will regard it as excuses. 

They are my family and i love them but i think they have to stop whatsapping before something bad really happen. 

 

From my point of view, whatsapp is now drifting us apart if not all of us at least I am.

So readers, technology changes our method of communicating but the essence of human heart is still the same. Choose your words wisely, either its written or spoken, use it well. 

Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive psychology is a branch of psychology that focuses on the study of the higher mental processes including, thinking, language, memory, problem solving, knowing, reasoning, judging and decision making. The main focus of cognitive psychology is on how people acquire, process and store information. The term ‘cognitive psychology’ was first used by Psychologist Ulric Neisser in 1967 in his book Cognitive Psychology. According to research conducted, it has been shown that cognitive ability is the best predictors of job and education performance. Many company and schools held cognitive ability test in order to analysts their employees and students ability to learn, adapt, solve problems and understand instructions. The questions often include mathematics, language, analogies, abstract reasoning and etc.

Thinking is the manipulation of mental representations of information. A representation may take the form of a word, visual image, a sound, or data in any other sensory modality stores in memory. Thinking transform a particular representation of information into new and different forms, allowing us to answer question, solve problems or reach goals.

1.1 MENTAL IMAGES

Mental image is a representation in the mind of an object or event. It assembled in the mind from information real and imagined, mixtures of sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, opinion and mood combined with associative memories either conscious or unconscious. Mental rotation is the ability to rotate mental representations of two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects. Mental imaginary is very useful to improve many skills. 

Many sportsmen use mental imagery in their training. Basketball players may try to produce vivid and detailed images of the court, the basket, the ball and the noisy crowd. They may visualize themselves taking a foul shot, watching the ball and hearing the swish as it goes through the net. Mental image is not just visual representation, as ability to hear tunes in our head also rely on mental image. For instance, piano players who simply mentally rehearse an exercise show brain activity that is virtually identical to that people who actually practice the exercise manually. Apparently, carrying out the task involved the same network of brain cells as the network used in mentally rehearsing.

Mental image have many of the properties of the actual stimuli they represent. We are able to manipulate and rotate mental images of objects just as we are able to manipulate and rotate them in the real world.

1.2        CONCEPTS

Concepts are mental grouping of similar objects, events or people. It focused on those clearly defined by unique set of properties or features. Concept helps us classify new encountered object on the basis of past experience and enable us to organize complex phenomena into simpler and easily usable, cognitive categories. Concept can influence behavior. For instance, we would assume that it might be appropriate to pet an animal after determining that it is a cat, whereas we would behave differently after classifying the animal as wolf.

For more ambiguous concept, we usually think in terms of examples called prototypes as prototype is a typical, highly representative example of concept. For instance, although a robin and ostrich are both a bird, the robin is an example that comes to most people’s mind. Consequently, robin is a prototype of the concept ‘bird’. However, high agreement exists within a culture about which examples of concept are prototypes.

1.3        REASONING

Cognitive psychologists have begun to investigate how people reasons and make decisions and they have contribute d to our understanding of formal reasoning processes as well as the cognitive shortcuts we routinely use. There are three types of reasoning which is syllogistic, algorithms and heuristic reasoning.

1.3.1                SYLLOGISTIC REASONING

It is a formal reasoning in which people draw a conclusion from a set of assumptions. If the assumption is true, the conclusion must also be true. For example,

Premise 1        All professors are mortal

Premise 2        Dr. Rivera is a professor

Conclusion      Therefore, Dr. Rivera is mortal

However, if the premises are correct, people may apply logic incorrectly. For example:

Premise 1        All professors are mortal

Premise 2        Dr. Rivera is a professor

Conclusion      Therefore, all professors are Dr. Rivera.

1.3.2                ALGORITHM

Algorithm reasoning is a rule that if applied appropriately, guarantees a solution to a problem even if we cannot understand how it works. For example, we can find the length of the third side of a right triangle by using the formula a²+b²=c².

 

1.3.3                HEURISTICS

A Thinking strategy that may lead us to the solution to a problem or decisions but unlike algorithms may sometimes lead to errors. For example, some students follow the heuristics of preparing for a test by ignoring the assigned textbook reading and only studying their lecture notes, a strategy that may or may not pay off.

There are two types of heuristics;

Ø  Representativeness heuristics – a rule we apply when we judge people by the degree to which they represent certain category or group of people.

Ø  Availability heuristics – judging the probability of an event on the basis of how easily the event can be recalled from memory.

2    COMPUTER AND PROBLEM SOLVING:

According to the experts who study artificial intelligence, the field that examines how to use technology to imitate the outcome of human thinking, problem solving and creative activities, computers can show rudiments of human like thinking because of their knowledge of where to look and where not to look for an answer to a problem. Computer’s thinking ability comes from the capacity of computer’s programs to evaluate potential moves and ignore unimportant possibilities.

David Cope from University of California managed to fool expert musicologist by using artificial intelligence software to mimic compositions of prolific German composer Johann Sebastian Bach who was born in the 15^th century. After a variety actual Bach pieces had been scanned into a memory of computer named “EMI”, EMI was able to produce the music so similar to Bach by employing the composer “signature” that reflects patterns, sequences and combinations of notes.

Notes: This is a part of my paperwork for Psychology class taken last semester.  And as usual a quote before I ended this post.

“Every man can, if he so desires, become the sculptor of his own brain”
― Santiago Ramón y Cajal

MBTI: 4 pairs 16 possibilities

There are four pairs of preferences in MBTI and 16 possibilities of personality traits. 

The principal is followed the analogy of handed-ness. If you are right handed, it does not mean that you never use your left hand, but merely that you prefer the right. You may prefer it strongly or barely at all. Within each pair, there is only one that you decidedly prefer, that you rely upon and to which you more naturally gravitate.

The first pair is extravert versus introvert, among the first personality ever to be identifies and measured. They are polar-opposite qualities that refer to a person’s source of energy, what makes him or her feel alive and activated versus sluggish and exhausted. For instance, in a loud, lively festival, some people will quickly become excited, enthusiastic and find themselves charged up. Others however feel sapped, drained and even emotionally numb. Within the business world, extroversion has long been linked to effective sales ability and has been viewed with favor. It has also been associated with the tendency to give off clear, easily readable facial expressions. In contrast, introverts have generally been criticized as being bookish and self-absorbed and offering meager readability of facial expressions and moods. Most extroverts are in sales and public relations positions. As they enjoy participating in meeting and work teams, and generating ideas in the company of others. Introverts are sometimes regarded as shy or aloof, because they seldom initiate or participate actively in meeting, planning sessions, parties and social occasions. In the workplace, introverts have traditionally been found in the relatively solitary jobs. 

The second pair is sensor versus intuitive which refer to how we gather information about the world. Sensors seek specific answers to specific questions, enjoy practical tasks with tangible results, focus on the present, and prefer working with facts and data rather than with imagination and desire specific instruction. Meanwhile, intuitive enjoys thought experiments, speculation and theory building and they seek generalities rather than specifies. Their preference is for more figurative, random way of gathering information. Intuitive is seen as often having their heads in the clouds and being unable to focus well on practical matters.

The third pair is thinkers versus feelers which refer to how we make decisions once we’ve gathered information. Thinkers pride themselves in logic, analytic ability, objectivity and impersonality and believe it is more important to be right than to be liked and they lend more credence to logic and rationality. Almost all organization favors thinker in managerial and supervisory positions. Feelers seek harmony, tend to overextend themselves to meet the need of others and consider good decision one that takes other’s feeling into account. They prefer subjectivity and interpersonal considerations. 

The last set is judges versus perceivers which refer to how people prefer to orient their lives. Judges prefer decisiveness, planning, punctuality, order, tidiness, organizations and adherence to schedules and control. Perceivers prefer flexibility and spontaneity thus they hate structure and routine. Generally, judges are more likely to be found in hierarchical settings; perceivers are more comfortable in setting their own hours with minimal rules. 

The 16 possibilities becomes psychological shorthand for understanding each person’s basic nature and manner of functioning in variety of situations and settings. However, can MBTI be used in predicting employees’ performance?