Application On Heuristic, Self-Referencing, Visual And Acoustic Strategies Of Learning

As I approach the date of exam two I have prepared myself by learning in different ways. I used four ideas presented in the book of “Psychology”. These four ideas helped me gather information so I’d be able to process the learning into my memory. There are many different types of concepts and memorization taken place as I learn the material covered in chapters five through eight. We have Sensation and Perception, Learning, Thinking and Intelligence, and Memory. All of these different types of concepts have very detailed information that I have to have good understanding of. As I learn the material through chapters five through eight I’m able to utilize four different types of ideas to learn the information correctly and proper.

One of four ideas that helped me prepare myself for this exam is the idea of Heuristic. It is a general problem-solving strategy where humans often use to make decisions or judgment. Chapters five through eight covers different concepts and it is difficult to be able to analyze every little aspect that each has. When learning all the concepts throughout chapters five through eight we run into the process of problem solving and the brain depends on mental strategies like shortcuts to make things easier to understand. When reading the material in theses chapters I’m able to utilize the idea Heuristic as I learn the material throughout the chapters. Heuristic allowed me to accomplish the big task of being able to understand all of the information in the different concepts there is by breaking the information into small steps. When I first started on chapter five I knew that there was going to be a lot of information to be learned and that it was going to be a big task in being able to learn everything. I had to set myself a plan and break every section of each chapter therefore I could be able to learn in an efficient way all the material I needed to know for exam two.

Another idea that helped me through the learning of the material covered through chapters five through eight is the idea of Visual encoding, which is the process of encoding images and sensory information that you see and then is temporarily stored with ionic memory right before being encoded into the long-term storage. Amygdala takes role in the process of Visual encoding because Amygdala has a primary role in processing the visual input and as well as the inputting that visual input into other structures so then it’s able to encode the negative or positive values of conditioned stimuli. The way that I use Visual encoding is by how I would draw over the words that I write down for my flashcards. The images that I would draw over certain terms provides me a unique picture of a certain term that differs from other terms, so then I’m able to process it into my memory in a way that I’m actually able to understand it and remember it. It is a pretty unique way of mine that I use to learn the material covered all throughout chapters five through eight. I have never discovered this idea of learning until this semester it has proven to me to be very effective.

In addition, I also used the idea of Acoustic encoding. Acoustic encoding is the use of auditory stimuli or hearing to implant memories. It is a way of maintaining information in your memory by the form of a sound. The way I use Acoustic encoding is in the use of my voice. I learned that if I verbally repeat and discuss it out loud I’m able to retrieve the information a better way in compared of just saying it in my brain over and over again. I use Acoustic encoding so many times as I read over and learn the material covered through chapters five through eight. As I first read through the first time I read quietly in a whisper to myself, then on the second time go around I use a stronger voice of mine as I read and take notes. Then afterwards I read those notes and transfer them into a flashcards I repeat the information out loud as I write it down. When I review those flashcards I say them out loud to myself and as I hear myself repeating what I said out loud I start remembering and understanding more and more. I also discuss the information out loud because I learned that as you have a discussion with someone else over the material you are able to analyze and perceive the material in an effective way. I also found out that as I discuss out loud what I have read and learned I’m able to realize some concepts that misunderstood. Once I hear myself speak about it and compare it to others way of interpreting a concept I realize what areas I have missed out on. Overall the sounds of me talking as well as the sounds of others resulted as Acoustic encoding that helps me very much as I learn the material covered through chapters five through eight. One more idea I used was self- referencing. The main idea of self- referencing is to make the material that you are trying to learn into personally meaningful to you. I would apply the idea of self-refencing with the material I was trying to learn with the material I had previously has learned. In the beginning of each week I would write the main ideas of the chapter I was learning in my own words. The day before on Sunday I would review the first section of the chapter and from there I would have an idea of what the chapter was going to be about. I would remember what I read Sunday night and write notes on the mirror about the chapter but also, I would connect this material with pervious learning I have had that I thought was similar. With the steps I was taking in the idea of self-referencing I was creating web of retrieval cues which are stimuli that help retrieve a certain memory.

The four ideas I used were Heuristic, Visual and Acoustic learning, and Self-Referencing. In conclusion they were very effective in my learning throughout the chapters. I did not use any of these four ideas on my first exam which is why the results were very poor. Not only did I use these ideas in this class but as well as in others. I applied each one of these ideas in various ways as I learned so now I’m able to feel prepared to take exam two.