Welcome to week 3! You have been doing a great job of keeping up with the lessons and activities so far. You have made a lot of progress already and you have a lot to be proud of!

Weeks 1 and 2 have given you a good foundational understanding of memory processes and how to improve your learning and memory. This week we will continue to build the foundation while also expanding into 4 new topics: cognitive control, creativity, culture, and life schemas. 

Keep up the great work and remember to refer back to the workbook to check in with yourself!

“Of all the things our minds and brains do, memory may be the most important thing.”

- Dr. Michelle Miller

Lesson: 

Cognitive control is our ability to persist in a task once it has started. Our thoughts and goals can influence our behaviors, this process allows us to eliminate intrusive actions and it influences how our working memory functions. 

The aspects of cognitive control we will focus on are divergent thinking and creative problem solving. Divergent thinking is characterized by "thinking outside the box" and is a form of problem solving in which we find multiple solutions to one problem in unique and spontaneous ways. Creative problem solving is very similar, in this case we break down the problem to understand it then again generate multiple solutions. We then evalute those ideas to determine the most effective one. 

Activity: Thinking outside the box 

For today's activity you will need to write down and also demonstrate 10 different uses for a ping pong ball. There are some obvious uses so try and get creative (think outside the box!!) 

Reflect: 

Were you able to come up with 10 uses? If not, how many did you come up with? 

Was it difficult to think of 10 uses? Could you think of more? 

How did you come up with your ideas? Did you plan them out and then test them or did you use trial and error to see what may work? 

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." 

- Albert Einstein

Lesson: 

Our memory is a creative process. The processes we talked about in day 1, divergent thinking and creative problem solving, are creative processes that we use daily. Our memory is always working so when we interact with others and go about our daily life we are constantly reflecting on past experiences and making new decisions. Memories are made from past experiences, but we use them for the future. We learn from the good and the bad and that influences our behaviors. If we have a bad experience with something, maybe you were in the kitchen while your parents were cooking and accidentally touched a hot pan, we will learn from that experience and gain new skills like hovering your hand over a pan to see if it was just used before just grabbing it. 

Instances like this allow our memory to be creative. We know the wrong way to do something based off of our experience, but maybe we never learned the right way to do it. We uses our memory along with divergent thinking and creative problem solving to find solutions to problems we don't know the answer to, but we can also use them in cases where there is more than just one right answer. 

Activity:  15 Circles

For todays activity you will need to draw 15 circles on a piece of paper. You must make use of each circle to create an image. This activity will allow you to use your creative thinking while also drawing from your memory to reflect on your own experiences. Get creative! Use color or make a story, you got this!

Reflect: 

Did you fill all 15 circles? If not, how many did you fill? 

Was it difficult to create 15 different images/ideas? Could you have made more than 15? 

How many, if any, of your circles depict events or objects from positive personal experiences? 

How many, if any, of your circles depict events or objects from negative personal experiences? 

“People are the same all over the world, I imagine, people who react like that to their countries conspiracies: turning them into tales that are told, like children’s fables, and also into place in the memory or the imagination, a place where we go as tourists, to revive nostalgia or to try to find something we’ve lost.”

- Juan Gabriel Vásquez

Lesson: 

Although everybody has a brain, memory, and life experiences we all have our own unique and personal experiences. Core values can play a big role in how and what people remember. What may be important to one person is not necessarily important to someone on the other side of the world. Some cultures do not place value on remembering events from their childhood so when asked to retrieve those memories they are not able to. Some cultures, like western cultures, use reminiscing as a valuable tool. Parents talk through experiences with their children to help develop language skills, express emotions, and understand their experiences. 

Different cultures have different views on the concept of memory and therefore believe it is more or less important based on those views. The social and environmental aspects of different cultures may also impact an individuals memory. We have different lived experiences based on where we grew up and who we surrounded ourselves with. We use our memory to make decisions and sometimes even as a survival tool so some people may depend on the storage and retrieval of memory more if they grew up less fortunate and needed to care extensively for themselves and their family. 

Activity: The game of life

Grab a pen and some paper and respond to these prompts, your answer may be as long or short as you wish. 

• Describe your most recent birthday party

• Now think back to the very first birthday party you can remember, describe it 

• Describe the last vacation you went on 

• Now think back to the very first vacation you ever went on, describe it 

• Describe your current or most recent job

• If this is not your first job, think back to the first job you had and describe it 

• Describe some of your favorite things (food, hobbies, etc)

• Think back to some of your favorite things as a child and describe them 

Reflect: 

Read over your responses to each prompt and compare your current answers to the answers about the past. 

Were you able to answer all of the prompts about your past experiences? How well were you able to describe your past experiences in comparison to your current experiences? Do you think your culture and life experiences influenced your ability to retrieve these details about your life? In what ways? 

 “Memories of our lives, our weeks, and our deeds will continue in others.” 

- Rosa Parks 

Lesson: 

A life schema is knowledge about the self over the life-span. This knowledge includes longer lifetime periods (goals, people, places, events) and shorter general events (people, activities, emotions). This information becomes an overall representation of our entire life. We use this information as "cues" in our daily lives to re-obtain knowledge and memories about previous experiences. Narrative plays a big role in our life schema. We use information about oursleves and memories from our past to create a personal narrative about who we are. When we write our own narratives we give ourselves labels and these labels stem from what we experienced growing up. One person's narrative may include a label such as "survivor" because they survived abuse or a serious medical condition. Another person's narrative may include a label such as "athlete" because they played sports all throughout their childhood and continue to participate in active/athletic hobbies into adulthood. 

Activity: Personal narrative 

First, grab a piece of paper and a pen. Write out the most prominent or your favorite memory from these stages of your life: 

• 0-3 years old 

• 4-6 years old 

• 7-11 years old (elementary school) 

• 12-14 years old (middle school) 

• 15-18 years old (high school)

• 19-22 years old (college)

• 23-25 years old 

• 26-30 years old 

• 31-35 years old 

Now, write out some of your characteristics (good or bad) that make you who you are. Write as many as you can without getting redundant! 

Reflect:

Were you able to write down a memory for each stage of your life? If not, which ones did you miss?

How many characteristics did you list? How many of those characteristics directly correlate with a memory stated in the first part? 

Ditta, A. S., & Storm, B. C. (2018). A consideration of the seven sins of memory in the context of creative cognition. Creativity Research Journal, 30, 402 – 417. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2018.1530914

Kleinknecht, E., (2024). PowerPoint Week 2

Salmon, K. & Reese, E. (2016). The benefits of reminiscing with young children. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 25, 233 – 238. 

Wang, X. & Ross, M. (2007). Culture and Memory. In The Handbook of Cultural Psychology. S. Kitayama and D. Cohen (Eds). The Guildford Press, New York & London.