Extracts from this document...

Introduction

Alison Sheridan A3923376 Y163 TMA01 Task 1 part B Please read my comments on the essay plan. In this essay, I will look at how organization of thought can improve memory by discussing Mental mental images, Concepts concepts and Schemasschemas,. I will look at what they are and how they have been proven to help improve our memory with evidence from various experiments. Ok - the intro gives me some idea of what to expect, but like the plan it lacks sufficient detail to be truly useful. State the research (names/types) and examples that you will use. Firstly I I did send you an email advising you to avoid the use of subjective language, whilst some tutors don't seem to mind the use of 'I' in essays - it is not the academic norm in psychology to use language like this - you should try to be as objective as possible - I will 'correct' the next few sentences to give you an idea of what academic writing looks like will look at Mental mental Imagesimages; mental images are pictures in our mind (Icomic icomic thoughts) ...read more.

Middle

Ideally, at the end of the last paragraph there should be a brief comment that leads the reader on to the next section, otherwise it is very list like and does not make a coherent essay argument. You perhaps could have commented on how mental images work with other components of memory, such as concept formation etc... Secondly, I will look at 'Cconcepts', this is the Process process of developing categories, for example, by putting things from a list into categories, it has been proven demonstrated (the word 'proven' is avoided) that it is easier to remember items by organizing and grouping similar concepts, or related ideas, together. Arranging the material into groups helps you with remember recall by organizing the information. For example, instead of trying to remember a long list of sports that a sports centre offers you could group all of the sports into one of the following categories: a) Winter sports, b) Track and Field sports, c) Sports using a ball. Or depending on your own way of thinking you could split them into team sports, pairs or single player sports, that way you choose the categories that suit you. ...read more.

Conclusion

This proved demonstrated that without the schemas we would not know what situation to fit the information to. Again - great selection and reporting of appropriate evidence from the text In this essay, I have shown that mental images improve memory by providing extra cues about a word and are more likely to fix into our minds because we have to concentrate on the word to think of a picture to go with it. Concepts help by categorising lists therefore breaking into smaller groups that are all linked in some way therefore making it easier to remember and finally schemas by bringing up a whole file of information that is created by what we have learnt in the past. All three ways have been proven to help improve our memory, we may use all three or maybe only one or two ways will work with certain people. I think however that most people use a mix of all three without realising it. They are unconscious methods that we are mostly unaware of - however, the point is to show that they can be consciously used to aid recall. A clear, useful conclusion that states the key points effectively. ...read more.

This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our University Degree Cognitive Psychology section.