Saturday, September 7, 2019
Persuasive speech evaluation Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words
Persuasive speech evaluation - Assignment Example Provided that he wants to correct his mistakes in the first place. Ms. Pisani was definitely an engaging speaker as she knows how to lighten a serious discussion with humor and anecdotes that allows the people to feel relaxed and understand the seriousness of the topic without being as serious as heart attack. What is amazing about the talk that Ms. Pisani gave is that the was able to combine both the informative and persuasive patterns of speech. She managed to stay on topic while persuading people to believe in her position about sex, drugs, and HIV. She was quite effective in delivering her speech because she actively engaged her audience by using slide presentations, props such as her public health glasses, and other gimmicks that worked in her favor. Most specially, the fact that she used lighthearted words in presenting her topic, made the people more interested in hearing what she had to say. The fact that the audience was laughing while she was talking shows hos successful her speech was. She was definitely able to relate with her audience because she spoke from personal experience and the experience of friends, even giving actual condoms away in order to deliver her message of safe sex. The audience positively responded to her by clapping and laughing along with
Friday, September 6, 2019
Coraline a Wizard of Earthsea the Sense of Self Essay Example for Free
Coraline a Wizard of Earthsea the Sense of Self Essay If you see a wallet on the ground and discover there is an enormous amount of money in it, what would you do? Do you think youd return it, or possibly keep the money for yourself? How would you feel about it emotionally afterward? For the sake of an argument let us say you would keep the money. How would you then feel if someone you hate also had the same circumstance happen to them? Would you feel like them keeping the money would further prove why you dislike that person? Did you not also keep the money yourself? In the book Psychoanalysis Terry Eagleton states that Lacan permits us to explore the relations between the unconscious and human society the unconscious is not some kind of private region inside us, but an effect of our relations with one another(Eagleton 150). The unconscious is part of your self and can be negative or positive; the negative side that we produce is part of our ego. Ego is defined as the complex factor to which all conscious contents are related the ego is only one half of a whole and that whole is the self (Jung 139). Our ego is broken into three sections and the section most apparent in this case is the shadow. The reason why your peer keeping the money creates resentment in you is because of the shadow, it is a part of you that you keep in your unconscious, a part you dont like and when it is revealed to you through someone else you exchange the inward hatred and replace it with outward disdain for the person that has committed the act. Self is best described as the combination of your conscious and unconscious becoming one in a balanced state. In Coraline by Neil Gaimen and A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin the shadow becomes a physical thing, an actual entity. The genre itself, fantasy, has its own identity crisis which further adds to the lack of self in the novels. This should not make these stories any less real, the premise of both stories, of battling the shadow and overcoming the lack of identity to find the self is still a very real thing as explained by J.R.R. Tolkien fairystories deal largely with simple or fundamental things, untouched by fantasy, but these simplicities are made all the more luminous by their setting (Tolkien 20). The self being fragmented by not knowing oneââ¬â¢s unconscious is a recurring theme in both stories. The shadow becoming and entity in the stories further explains the concept of your conscious latching on to an outward vessel to express disdain for. The conscious and unconscious meld together to form oneââ¬â¢s identity, the conscious mind uses ones life experiences and natural behavior as an identifier while the unconscious mind creates the ego and the shadow, both of which create the idea of self. In order to gain an identity you much overcome and accept your shadow as part of you, then and only then will you truly discover your ââ¬Å"selfâ⬠. In Coraline a lonely and ignored little girl is an only child of two, negligent, parents. She has just moved into a new house and while exploring her new home she finds a door which sometimes, and progressively more while the story continues, leads her into an alternate world where her desire for excitement is fulfilled. While in this world the narrator states, There were all sorts of remarkable things in there shed never seen before this is more like it, thought Coralineâ⬠(Gaimen 30). This is Coralineââ¬â¢s conscious self, her excitement, her explorer, the one that doesnââ¬â¢t mind a new world, a girl who accept the oddities just so that she can discover all of them herself. This world was created by the other mother, a witch, who at this point has not revealed herself to Coraline as a soul consuming entity. Her brand new home put up an image of perfection that clouded her judgment. These illusions created by the other mother make it harder for Coraline to discover herself because she is only seeing what the other mother is allowing her to see through the filter of Coralineââ¬â¢s conscious. Jung states that The more projections are thrust in between the subject and the environment [the other world in Coralines case], the harder it is for the ego to see through its illusions (Jung 147). Because of this, Coralines newly found freedom into the other world is nothing more than an attempt by the other mother to keep her in the dark while thinking she is in control. This false sense of security doesnt allow for Coraline to discover her own self. The main plot point of the story is the more Coraline realizes shes being held back and the more she feels her sense of self coming to fruition the more the illusions put in front of her begin to dwindle until the world is revealed to her for what it really is. Although it is the other mothers world and she created it, it is the fact that Coraline hasnââ¬â¢t come to terms with her shadow or better yet hasnââ¬â¢t been forced to face it that allows her to succumb to the illusion, it is an unconscious factor [the shadow] which spins the illusions that veil [the] world (Jung 147). As Jung states here, the shadow, and this other world that has been created is her unconscious being warped through the eyes of the other mother, and her warped vision is the veil that the world hides beneath. Coralines conscious mind is her adventurous side her first two weeks in the house [were spent] exploring the garden and the grounds this is the basis of the other world, a place full of wonder and excitement, a place full of adventure (Gaimen 6). The shadow that Coraline must face is her fear. Coralines conversation with her guardian, the cat, is about her confusion of bravery and being naive. Coraline thinks that she is very brave without knowing what bravery actually is. She tells the story of her father who gets stung by a nest of hornets and in the process discovers true bravery, which she embodies as her father going back for his glasses, it wasnt brave because he wasnt scared going back again to get his glasses, then he knew the wasp were there, when he was really scared. That was brave when youre scared and you still do it anyway, thats brave (Gaimen 58-59). Once she goes through this point the world shifts for her, she sees everything for its eerie similarities of the real world but with a malicious twist. The final proof of the discovery of self in Coraline is the fact that once everything is said and done she goes back to her life exactly the way it was. Her parents still pay no mind to her and her life is just as dull now as it was when the story started but her perspective changed. She is no longer oppressed by her status because she defeats the other mother and overcomes her shadow, becoming whole. She is complete, by learning, understanding, and overcoming her unconscious she finds her ââ¬Å"selfâ⬠. The beginning of her journey is much the same as Ged in A Wizard of Earthsea, looking for her self and being too naive to find it. Ged is a boy who discovers his divine talent for witchcraft at an early age. From the moment that he saves his village from being decimated by savages he was told that he would be a great and powerful wizard by one of the great wizards, Ogion, I send you one who will be greatest of the wizards of Gont (Le Guin 48). This creates Gedââ¬â¢s conscious self, which is a hero complex, thinking that he can do whatever he wishes without consequence. Ged although very powerful is very arrogant and prideful, in an attempt to impress a women he learns to summon a dark spirit from the dead that almost kills him. He once again out of anger and pride summons the spirit of the dead in a competition of strength with a boy, jasper, one year his senior. The shadow is shown to him in many forms, these forms are of his character flaws, Like a clot of black shadow, quick and hideous it was like a black beast, the size of a young child the young child reflecting back on him when he first revealed himself to the darkness, while the beast is Gedââ¬â¢s vengeful personality taking shape (Le Guin 85). The shadow was born out of Gedââ¬â¢s arrogance, pride and narcissism. He constantly becomes angry at himself for not being stronger and as he succumbs to his anger the shadow becomes stronger, it rankled at his heart he should die, spitted on a Kargish lance, while still a boy raged at his weakness, for he knew his strength (Le Guin 11). His fear and his constant flaws give the shadow its strength putting those he knows in danger and further hiding his self from him. As Ged tries to run away for the last time the shadow manages to kill Geds pet. This is the last straw for Ged and he, as Coraline did, discovers his unconscious, his identity and seeks out to defeat the shadow. He begins to chase the shadow and becomes stronger from it, facing his inner demons and overcoming his fear. Ged learns of the connection he has with the shadow in order to defeat it, it wills to work evil through you. The power you had to call it gives it power over you: you are connected. It is the shadow of your arrogance, the shadow of your ignorance, the shadow you cast. Has a shadow a name (Le Guin)? By being told this and through all the trials Ged faces he becomes humble and learns his way through the barriers he has put up on his darkness. Through the hunt Ged finally realizes what the shadow is and even though it has his misguided qualities it has brought out the good qualities in him. Ged finally spoke the shadows name and the shadow repeated it, Ged and the shadow became one and Ged became one with his unconscious and becomes aware of his self, I am whole, I am free (Le Guin). Coraline and Ged went through hardships in order to become one. Coraline learned true bravery and defeated her other mother and though her life did not change she accept herself and her life for what it was. Ged through his hardship lost his arrogance, his pride, his ignorance and actually physically became one with his shadow. Through the hunt of their shadow they found themselves. They stopped running away from who they always were and just embraced and learned to become what they were trying to run away from. Coralines ignorance and Geds pride were defeated by the hunt for their unconscious. Their true enemy was themselves and the only thing that could defeat that was their new found sense of self.
Thursday, September 5, 2019
The Curriculum of Montessori
The Curriculum of Montessori As educators our role is to teach children through curriculum. Through the years many different types of curriculum have been created. Curriculum is defined as the learning programs, activities, school subjects, materials, plans, and topics of study (Arce). The Montessori Method was established over 100 yrs. ago and is still used in some form in todays class rooms. It is commonly associated with its popular child-size furniture in the classroom, but there is much more to Montessori Method as I will discuss detail later. The Montessori Method was created in Rome, Italy by Dr. Montessori in 1907. During this time period in the early 1900s the common age of children to start attending school was 6 yrs old. This age was determined based on the childs ability to walk and understand, or therefore deemed intelligent enough to go to school (Montessori, The Periods of Growth) . However, in the 1930s physiologists recognized that children become receptive to adult influences between the ages of 3-6 (Montessori, The Periods of Growth) . Just as it is known today children have a sensitive period for development and during this time it is more beneficial (Montessori, Education For Life) . The Montessori Method changed the focus then from how to teach children to meet the needs of the world, and focus on the child from their birth (Montessori, Education For Life). Under the Montessori Method the teachers task which was to the first thing to be done, therefore is to discover the true nature of a child and then assist him in his normal development (Arce). This is achieved through the different areas of learning; Practical Rife3 Life, Sensorial, Mathematics, Language and Literacy, Cultural Subjects, and Creative Subjects (ICME ). In most Montessori Schools the children are in vertical age groups 2 Ã ½ years to 6 years, 6 to 9 years, 12 to 15 years, and 15 to 18 years (ICME ). The exercises of practical life teach the children the importance of maintaining a clean environment, cooking and the practical skills of buttoning, sewing, and lacing (ICME ). Next is the Sensorial, the education of the senses. This is considered to be one of more import lessons and is focused on children with special needs as well as typical children. The materials used are didactic materials and give special needs children opportunities to learn through the senses and it provokes auto-education in typical children (Montessori, Education of the Senses ). Exercises within this method include children learning to recognize the differences in dimensions by assorting various shapes and sizes of blocks (Montessori, Education of the Senses ). When a child selects the wrong size they are forced to correct it themselves. Once the child has accomplished this exercise with this specific material they then have outgrown it (Montessori, Education of the Senses ). The third area is Mathematics. The materials children use in mathematics are similar materials to that of which are used in sorting. In mathematics the materials are color coded rods, pegs and virtually anything that can be sorted or counted (Montessori, Teaching of Numeration; Introduction to Arithmetic ). The fourth area is language and literacy. In the Montessori curriculum the writing is focused on learning to draw lines and shapes that eventually lead to the children writing Rife4 (Montessori, Methods for the Teaching of Reading and Writing ) . Another exercise to teach writing skills involves the children tracing the letters through materials. One lesson I found fascinating was created for children to correct themselves by using sandpaper on the outside of the letter (Montessori, Description of the Method and Didactic Material Used ). In teaching children literacy they start with vowels and then constanants to teach letter recognition. The focus is on the sounds they make and pictures of object similar to the phonics system today (Montessori, Methods for the Teaching of Reading and Writing ). The fifth area is Cultural subjects. If you notice most Montessori schools are in environments with nature surroundings. Children are able to connect with nature by taking an active role in its care. The last area is Creative subjects which include arts and craft, drama, music and movement. In art children are encouraged to draw anything that pops into their minds. Looking at other creative materials, children are given the freedom to explore with clay and coloring materials. Music was another way for a child to express themselves. With the Montessori Method the children create their own instruments as well as music (Montessori, Education of the Senses ). In order for the Montessori Method to be effective in a classroom that encourages self-teaching and the freedom to move around the class and centers freely discipline is required. Self-discipline is taught to children through exercise, these exercises teach children instead of verbally commanding them to be quiet and still. Children learn these different actions by Rife5 sitting and getting up quietly, tip toeing and the use of objects quietly, and other exercises (Montessori, General Review of Discipline ). Montessori curriculum has advantages and disadvantage in comparisons to traditional classrooms. In a Montessori classrooms children are allowed and encouraged to experiment uninterrupted in centers for up to 3 hours opposed to a traditional classroom where the child sits at their seat a majority of the day and the teacher facilitates the lesson or they are only allowed an allotted time in centers. The teachers are to mainly observe the children and let them teach themselves and not force the child to learn. However, the disadvantages of Montessori curriculum are they dont follow traditional grade scales, but conduct evaluations throughout the school year (ICME ) . Lastly, the name Montessori isnt legally protected, so schools and the training they provide can vary and may not reflect Montessori Methods (International Montessori Index) . Regardless of the curriculum teachers choose it is still necessary for them adjust the curriculum to the needs of their students. Rife6
Wednesday, September 4, 2019
Paris Peace Conference Essay -- World War II WWII WW2
It has been almost a century since the first Paris Peace Conference was hold, but even until now, it is a popular yet also controversial event in the history of the world. The Paris Peace Conference took place in 1919 involving more than 1,000 representatives from over 30 nations. The results of the Conference are five treaties regarding terms that, according to the Conference, shall prevent any upcoming conflicts among nations. Although World War II started only after 15 years, nonetheless, the treaties did function as a buffer between countries. Although many resolutions were discussed, the negotiation of the Conference revolves around four main topics, reparation from the previous war losses or limitations on the main Central Power, Germany, self-recognition, President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, and the annexation of land. The war reparation resolution was proposed by both Australia and the United Kingdom, and eventually became Article 231 of Treaty of Versailles. The article assigned complete blame for the war to Germany, required Germany to accept full responsibilities for causing the war, and must pay a set of reparation appointed by the Great Powers. The reparation impositions were considered to be retaliation to the reparation forced upon France by Germany in the Treaty of Frankfurt after the Franco-Prussian War. The recompense form of the war varies among different forms, from coal, steel, and gold, to intellectual property. According to the treaty, Germany will finish paying off the reparation in year 2020. The reparation, no doubt, is only another indirect way of limiting Germany's growth in any field possible and has added another pair of shackle on the already weakened Germany economy, some historians beli... ...ris Peace Conference, the nations which proposed an annexation of land as a resolution even reached the number of six, causing strong power struggles and tensions among nations, which defeats the original purpose of the Paris Peace Conference. The problem of Asia has also aroused in the Paris Peace Conference, whether or not China should be returned its sovereign authority from Japan. Chinese outrage this problem through a cultural movement, the May Fourth Movement that influenced China not to sign the treaty. The Paris Peace Conference ended at January 16th, 1919 with five treaties signed and eight new independent nations born. Although the Paris Peace Conference has ended more than 80 years ago, no one can deny its impact on the world after decades. The human history would've definitely be changed forever if any of the results in the Conference is different.
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
Using the Google Search Engine :: Computer Science
Using the Google Search Engine find two internet sites that provide internet resources for the study of Australian Literature. -http://www.middlemiss.org/lit/lit.html -http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozlit/ ii. Write a detailed summary in no more than 600 words of what kind of information and services the sites provide. Give examples as necessary. The first of the two websites that I looked at was www.middlemiss.org/lit/lit.html, it is constructed by Perry Middlemiss who is a lover of books, and who wishes to pay credit to those 'forgotten' Australian writers on the Web. Middlemiss begins by naming 70 Australian authors, and also provides links to those authors, and those who do not have links to other sites a promise is made that they will be provided in the future. By simply clicking on one of the authors, for example Miles Franklin, you are led to a web page that gives a brief biography of the author, and also a list of her works, some of which also have links that give a brief insight. The site also provides listings of the winners of literary prizes, and in particular The Miles Franklin Award, and The Australian/Vogel Award. Again by clicking on these we are lead to a page that provides the winners of these awards, and also those that were shortlisted. A page that provides a short description on the authors and the books that are listed are available by clicking on the links. Another form of Australian Literature that is provided is poems. Middlemiss offers his favourite poet, Victor Daley on the site, and lists some of his poems, which are all accessible. He also lists other Australian poets, all of which have further links. By clicking on the poet's name we are lead to a site that offers a short biography of the poet, for example Adam Lindsay Gordon, the site also offers a list of his poetry collections and biographies, some of which have further links that discuss that particular item. Links are also available to full texts of the poems that are listed. For example by clicking on The Trenches by Frederic Manning we are lead to the full version of the poem. Also available are links to different Australian novels, which have been segregated under different topic headings, these include fiction, drama, art, food, histories, and others. Ozlit (http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozlit/) offers more than 500 pages of Australian Literary information, and more than 1100 entries in their Books and Writers database, which is also fully searchable. A search engine is available that allows you to search the whole Ozlit site for information. There is also a links database available that allows you to search for references on writers.
Monday, September 2, 2019
Free Slaughterhouse-Five Essays: Manipulation of Time and Place :: Slaughterhouse-Five Essays
Slaughterhouse Five - Manipulation of Time and Place Kurt Vonnegut's manipulation of time and place adds a science- fiction element to Slaughterhouse-Five. Structarally, the novel is far from traditional. Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist, jumps from place to place and is in a constant time warp while on the planet Tralfamadore. Since Vonnegut uses the planet Tralfamadore and the Tralfamadorian people to take Billy from place to place and time frame to time frame, in the novel he constantly respects the phrase "So it goes," which describes the Tralfamadorians' view of death. Vonnegut's manipulation of time and place is definitely unusual. Billy, an optometrist in Ilium, New York, finds himself "time tripping" with the people on Tralfamadore. To the Tralfamadorians time does not exist. Billy can be on Tralfamadore for years, while only being absent from earth for a microsecond (26). Billy's "time tripping" also allows Vonnegut to join the three main settings and experiences of the book: the horrors of the war and Dresden, Billy's normal life in Illim, and his time on Tralfamadore. Billy has no control over his being in a time warp. In the midst of his life in New York he will suddenly find himself Tralfamadore; he has become "unstuck in time" ( 22). The Tralfamadorians eventually show Billy the important moments of his life, but they do not always show them in sequence. They do this so Billy can fully understand the true reasons for and the importance of the events. Vonnegut also uses this tactic of time manipulation. He tells and shows the occurrences of Billy's life in a juxtaposed manner which parallels the "time tripping." The "time tripping" and being "unstuck in time" allow Vonnegut to present the events of the war in a sequence through which they would have the greatest impact on the reader. Vonnegut's manipulation of time and place in Slaughterhouse-Five allows him to use the phrase "So it goes" for special impact . The phrase appears after every death scene. It allows the bridge from death to life, and it also allows Vonnegut to change the time frame or place of the action. According to one source, the phrase "So it goes" appears in the novel over 100 times (Boomhower).
Sunday, September 1, 2019
Principles That Define the Culutral Level of Analysis Essay
Explain how principles that define CLOA may be demonstrated in research. ââ¬â¢ The first Principle states that Humans are information processors. Cognition refers to the mental tasks or thinking involved in human behavior. Thinking may involve memory, attention, perception, language and decision making at any one time. Cognitive psychologists see these cognitions are active systems; In between taking in and responding to information a number of processes are at work. Information can be transformed; reduced, elaborated, filtered, manipulated, selected, organized, stored and retrieved Therefore the human mind is seen as active system processing information, and cognitive psychologistââ¬â¢s aim to study these processes. Central to this information processing approach is the computer metaphor. One of the difficulties facing cognitive psychologists is that they were trying to study processes that are not directly observable. Consequently the computer revolution of the 1950 provided the terminology and metaphor they needed. People, like computers, acquire information from the environment (input). Both people and computers store information and retrieve it when applicable to current tasks; both are limited in the amount of information they can process at a given time; both transform information to produce new information; both return information to the environment (output). This information processing approach was adopted by Atkinson and Shiffrin in their Multistore Model of memory (1968). This model sees memory as an active process. Information flows in through the sensory stage (input). It then flows to the short-term memory before it is transferred to long term memory where it can be stored and later retrieved. A further example of information processing is the organization of information into schemas in the LTM. Schemas are mental models of the world. Information in LTM is stored in interrelated networks of these schemas and these schemas can affect retrieval. Simply put, schema theory states that all knowledge is organized into units. Within these units of knowledge, or schemata, is stored information. A schema, then, is a generalized description or a conceptual system for understanding knowledge-how knowledge is represented and how it is used. According to this theory, schemata represent knowledge about concepts: objects and the relationships they have with other objects, situations, events, sequences of events, actions, and sequences of actions. A simple example is to think of your schema for dog. Within that schema you most likely have knowledge about dogs in general (bark, four legs, teeth, hair, and tails) and probably information about specific dogs, such as collies (long hair, large, Lassie) or springer spaniels (English, docked tails, liver and white or black and white, Millie). You may also think of dogs within the greater context of animals and other living things; that is, dogs breathe, need food, and reproduce. Your knowledge of dogs might also include the fact that they are mammals and thus are warm-blooded and bear their young as opposed to laying eggs. Depending upon your personal experience, the knowledge of a dog as a pet (domesticated and loyal) or as an animal to fear (likely to bite or attack) may be a part of your schema. And so it goes with the development of a schema. Each new experience incorporates more information into oneââ¬â¢s schema. The second principle of CLOA states that the mind can be studied scientifically. Cognitive processes are difficult to study. They often occur rapidly, and inside the mind so they cannot be observed directly. It is only the responses that participants make when given some cognitive task to perform that can tell us about cognitive processes. These tasks usually take place under tightly controlled lab experiments where the main aim is to isolate a particular component of the cognitive process for the study. One of the earliest and most famous experiments into cognitive processes is the Stroop Effect. The Stroop effect is a phenomena involved in attentional processes. Although we will actually focus on the process of memory this is a good study to look at. People are often introduced to the Stroop Effect in beginning psychology classes as they learn about how their brains process information. It demonstrates the effects of interference, processing speed (reaction time) and automaticity in divided attention. The effect is named after John Ridley Stroop who first published the effect in English in 1935. In his experiments, J. R. Stroop administered several variations of the same test for which three different kinds of stimuli were created. In the first one, names of colors appeared in black ink. In the second, names of colors appeared in a different ink than the color named. Finally in the third one, there were squares of a given color. In the first experiment, 1 and 2 were used. The task required the participants to read the written color names of the words independently of the color of the ink (for example, they would have to read ââ¬Å"purpleâ⬠no matter what the color of its ink was). In the second experiment, stimulus 2 and 3 were used, and participants were required to say the color of the letters independently of the written word with the second kind of stimulus and also name the color of the dot squares. If the word ââ¬Å"purpleâ⬠was written in red, they would have to say ââ¬Å"redâ⬠, but not ââ¬Å"purpleâ⬠; when the squares were shown, the participant would have to say its color. Stroop, in the third experiment, tested his participants at different stages of practice at the tasks and stimulus used in the first and second experiments, to account for the effects of association. Stroop noted that participants took much longer to complete the color reading in the second task than they had taken to name the colors of the squares in Experiment 2. This delay had not appeared in the first experiment. Such interference was explained by the automation of reading, where the mind automatically determines the semantic meaning of the word (it reads the word ââ¬Å"redâ⬠and thinks of the color ââ¬Å"redâ⬠), and then must intentionally check itself and identify instead the color of the word (the ink is a color other than red), a process that is not automatized. This is a classic laboratory experiment that involves the manipulation of an independent variable (colour or name of word) to see what effect it has on the dependent variable (reaction time). It attempts to control the influence of all other extraneous variables ââ¬â such as other cognitive processes or skills. It also allows us to establish a cause and effect relationship between task and mental process. The strengths of the experiment are that it got valid results but however was still very unethical which not usuall in psychology is. One more strength is that it is an easy experiment which does not need a lot of input to carry out. The study can be considered cross cultural as any human would act the same in this situation. Obviously the reaction times would be different but in the end anyone would take longer to read the words writte in a different colour. Cognitive processes are influenced by social and cultural factors, is the statement which forms the third principle. Although cognitive tasks such as memory and attention are universal, there are cross cultural variations in processing mechanisms. Bartlettââ¬â¢s study demonstrates how memory can be distorted by cultural schemas. Schemas are representations of knowledge based on experience. In his study in which British participants were asked to recall a native American folktale. He found that the story of ââ¬ËThe War of the Ghostsââ¬â¢ was difficult for Western people to reproduce exactly because of its cultural content which was unfamiliar to them so in fact they encoded the meaning of the story adapted to their existing cultural schemas. As a result Bartlett concluded that interpretation plays a large role in remembering events or stories. We reconstruct the past and try to make it fit into our schemata, the more difficult this is to do, the more likely it is that elements are forgotten or distorted so that it fits and remembering is integrally related to the social and cultural context in which it is practiced. Cole and Scribner (1974) studied memory skills in both American and Liberian children. They argued that cognitive processes are universal but not cognitive skills. Cognitive skills are dependent on the environment ââ¬â education, social interaction, culture and technologies make up the environment they observed the effects formal schooling / education (culture) had on memory they compared recall of a series of words in the US and amongst the Kpelle people using word lists that were culturally specific. They found that in general educated Kpelle children performed better in the recall of list than no educated Kpelle children and those overall American children performed better than Kpelle children. Although this could be interpreted as memory skills being better amongst Americans children than Kpelle (African) children such an interpretation would overlook the influence of culture. Western schooling emphasizes certain cognitive strategies such as clustering / categorizing. It is unlikely such parallels exist in traditional societies like the Kpelle People learn to remember in ways that are relevant for their everyday lives, and these do not always mirror the activities that cognitive psychologists use to investigate mental processes The strengths of this lab study are that it was carried out ethically and the with the results we can almost confirm the cross cultural validity but of course we cant confirm it with 100% as exceptions will always be there. The applications of this study are basically already demonstrated within the study as it can be used for memory in schools or even at a working place.
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