Working Memory and Stock Trading at Fidelity.com
In his well-known book “The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat” Oliver Sacks (Sacks, 1998) describes a man who can see, but not interpret what he sees: shown a glove, the man calls it a “receptacle with five protuberances” – people see not just with their eyes, but their brain as well – perception involves a whole and purposive cognitive process (Duric et al., 2002, p.1286) and this paper will cite research that shows how Working Memory (WM) is a central component of this purposive cognitive process and how it goes above and beyond perception to impact behavior and adaptation. John Sweller highlights the peculiar nature of human cognitive architecture with the point that WM is limited in its ability to process new material but it is massive in its ability to process previously learned complex information in conjunction with Long Term Memory (LTM) thus enabling human beings to perform simple and routine tasks at one extreme while helping them scale intellectual heights at the other extreme (Sweller, 2003, p.215). The last few decades have seen cognitive scientists associating emotional modulation into the computational models of learning and retention – traditionally associated with memory – thus bringing in emotion, anxiety and motivation into the framework of cognitive architecture (Lang, Davis, & Ohman, 2000). This paper will begin by presenting existing research on Working Memory and its properties like capacity and duration. The paper will also talk about the emotional aspect of cognition as it falls under the purview of working memory under high cognitive load, look at Cognitive Load Theory and also focus on anxiety and motivation.
The stock market crash of 2008 in which the U...
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Pessoa, L. (2009). How do emotion and motivation direct executive control? Trends in cognitive sciences, 13(4), 160–166. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2009.01.006.How
Sacks, O. (1998). The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat and other tales (2nd ed.). Touchstone.
Schmader, T., & Johns, M. (2003). Converging evidence that stereotype threat reduces working memory capacity. Journal of personality and social psychology, 85(3), 440–52. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.85.3.440
Seery, M. K., & Donnelly, R. (2012, July). The implementation of pre-lecture resources to reduce in-class cognitive load: A case study for higher education chemistry. British Journal of Educational Technology. Wiley-Blackwell. Retrieved from 10.1111/j.1467-8535.2011.01237.x
Sweller, J. (2003). Evolution OF Human Cognitive Architecture. The psychology of learning and motivation, 43, 215–266.
perpetuate in different social groups. Stereotype threat, as defined by Steele, is “being at risk of
Steele, C., Spencer, S. J., & Aronson, J. (2002). Contending with group image: The psychology of stereotype and social identity threat. (In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 34, pp. 379-440. New York, NY: Academic Press.
The novel, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks, is a neurological and psychological journal of Dr. Oliver Sacks’s patients. He describes each one of his patients illnesses into twenty-four short stories. These short stories are split into 4 parts: Losses, Excesses, Transports, and The World of the Simple.
One of the most revered and utterly enigmatic topics present within humanity is the evolution of humankind itself. Collectively contrasting both the origins of man physically and the very beginning of complex thought processes has been an incredible task, which is currently undetermined. The exact methods of the mind and of human character are both delicate and completely beyond true understanding. The only ways
Sacks, Oliver. The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat. Touchstone Book. New York. 1985.
This essay addresses the working memory model which was proposed by Baddeley and Hitch (1974 in Smith & Kosslyn, 2007) as a response to Atkinson and Shiffrins (1968 in Smith, 2007) multi-store model. According to Baddely and Hitch the multi-store model failed to explain most of the complexities of the human memory and viewed it as being too simplistic. They argued that the short term memory store must have more components rather it being a single inflexible store as suggested previously by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968). The working memory model is therefore an enhancement of the multi store model. According to Baddeley and Hitch working memory is a limited- capacity system that stores and processes information.
Inzlicht, Michael. Stereotype threat: theory, process, and application. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2012. Print.
emergence of hierarchical mental construction skills. In, “Language” and Intelligence in Monkeys and Apes: Comparative Developmental Perspectives, ed. S. T. Parker & K. R. Gibson, pp. 97–128. New York: Cambridge University Press.
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks is a novel of which tells the
The purpose of this paper to examine the evolution of the human brain that distinguishes them from other species based on the traits that humans possess: such as language, emotional complexity and consciousness. The significance of traits are due to adaptations in humans to promote the survival of our ancestors. Professor Hamilton (2012) discusses that the evolution of the human brain starts with the idea of the Triune brain, proposed by MacLean, whereby the human brain is made up of three parts: Reptilian, Paleo-mammalian, and Neo-mammalian. Animals with the neo-mammalian brain have a more complex brain compared to the other parts, since this is where the neocortex evolved. Humans essentially have this higher brain function which is responsible for our ability to think, make decisions, promote agency, and the ability to relate with each other. This concept fits into the evolutionary process since it shows how the complex the brain has become through evolutionary processes. In essence, as humans, we “have a rich, evidence-based understanding of our behavior that can lead us to plan to be ‘better’ or ‘more successful’ people” according to Professor Hamilton (2012). Thus, shows how evolution plays a significance in understanding human behavior and comparing humans with other species.
Atkinson, R.C. & Shiffrin, R.M. (1968). Human memory: A proposed system and its control process.
According to Devine (1989), automatic processing involves the unconscious retrieval of obtained associations that develop through memory repetition; this process links with stimulus cues in the environment. The intense nature of automaticity is that an individual cannot escape or try to ignore the process (Devine, 1989). People build and enforce stereotypes through this automatic process and have no conscious control of memory retrievals. Human bodies take a lot of effort to function, but automatic processing requires little effort. People, therefore, mostly rely on automatic thinking, rather than controlled. This is why some researchers argue that automatic processing is why stereotyping is inevitable; because automaticity is easier, it does not mean controlled thinking cannot disband stereotypes (Devine, 1989). Controlled thinking is intentional and requires active participation of an individual. This proce...
Motivation and emotion are usually viewed as two psychological features that seemingly share cause-and-effect relationship. We often see motivation as something that stimulates a person to act and behave to achieve a desired goal, while emotion is the feelings that emerge from the motive or drive itself, from the actions caused by the motive and from the achievement or failure of the desired goal. However. Motivation has been defined in different ways over the years, but a common component of the different definitions is that motivation is a force that energizes, activates and directs behaviour. In 2006, Franken defined motivation as the “arousal, direction and persistence of a person’s behaviour”. Motivation has been defined in various ways
Lieberman, D. A. (2000). Learning, Behavior and Cognition (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning. [Chapter 7]
R. J. Dolan, Emotion, Cognition, and Behavior, Science 8 November 2002: 298 (5596), 1191-1194. [DOI:10.1126/science.1076358]