This will be a micro-post :
1. China inks 8.7 Billion dollar deal with Germany .
2. DPRK proposes talks with ROK.
3. China land sales up by 70% .. could lead to social unrest among the poor.
4. Filial piety as law . Proposed amendment makes it mandatory for children to visit the elderly parents. ( got to love the Party )
5. Chinese vice president calls for closer ties with Mauritius.
6. Moderate earthquake hits N.E.China city .
That's it .
Saturday, January 8, 2011
The Dialectical Evolution of Psychology
Psychological thinking ,through the ages , has evolved through a dialectical progression - thesis , antithesis and finally synthesis . In this post ,I shall chart the gradual development of modern psychological theories.
The first major debate between Western philosophers was between Aristotle's "Empiricism" and Plato's "Rationalism" . According to Aristotle , reality lies only in the concrete world of objects that our bodies sense and thus research methods must base themselves on concrete objects and actions on those objects. Plato considered reality to reside not in concrete objects but in the abstract forms that these objects represent. According to Plato , the body and the mind are interactive and interdependent but are essentially different , with the mind being superior. We reach truth , not via our senses , but via our thoughts.
This debate endured through the middle ages in Europe and led to Descartes' dualism , which was the dominant idea for a long time. The last 200 years have seen a proliferation of various schools of psychological thought . I list the major ones below :
1. Structuralism : The emphasis was on understanding the mind by analyzing its component or constituent structures. This theory relied on simple classificatory principles. It could not explain complex thought .
2. Functionalism : The focus was now on the analysis of mental operations and the practical use of consciousness. Functionalists and Structuralists differed on the fundamental questions they asked. Structuralists would ask "What are the elementary structures of the human mind ?" whereas Functionalists would question " What do people do , and why ?"
3. Behaviourism : This focussed on the study of observable emitted behaviour in response to stimulus.Behaviourists viewed psychology as an objective natural science and their goal was the prediction and control of behaviour. They considered the mind and consciousness as improper subjects for scientific study.
The behaviourist taboo on the mind was epitomized by a seductive argument by B.F.Skinner which is called the " Theoritican's Dilemma " . It goes like this :
" Suppose that there are mental states that intervene between a stimulus in the external worldand a subsequent response .Then there are two possibilities -- either they intervene in a lawful way or they do not. If they are lawful , theoriticians can ignore themand formulate a law directly relating stimulus to behaviour .If they are not lawful , then theoriticians must obviously not refer to them. Either way , in framing psychological laws there is no need to refer to mental states. They are either unnecessary or unmentionable. "
The argument is flawed on two basic assumptions . The first is that the sole purpose of science is to frame laws. Science aims to explain phenomena and not just codify them into laws . Explainations can take the form of theories. Hence , if mental states exist ,a complete psychological explaination should give an account of them even if they are not included in the laws. The second false assumption is that psychology should concern itself solely from the sequence of stimulus to overt response.There are many mental processes that do not arise from stimuus or do not lead to overt response .( for instance perception )
There is a joke about behaviourism that highlights the limitation of this school of thought -- " After having sex , one Behaviourist asks his female counterpart " That was fine for you , but how was it for me ? " ".
4. Gestaltism : According to this theory , we best understand psychological phenomena when we view them as organized , structured wholes , not when we break them down into pieces because the whole differs from the sum of the parts .Both Behaviourists and
Gestaltists experimented on animals and theorized from the findings.
The contrast between Behaviourism and Gestalt psychology led Bertrand Russell to remark that the animals tended to display the national characteristics of experimenters:
" Animals studied by Americans rush about frantically, with an incredible display of hustle and pep , and at last achieve the desired solution by chance. Animals observed by Germans sit still and think , and at last evolve the solution out of their inner consciousness ."
Current psychological theories focus on Cognitive Science , which will be the topic of future posts .
Till then , adios .
The first major debate between Western philosophers was between Aristotle's "Empiricism" and Plato's "Rationalism" . According to Aristotle , reality lies only in the concrete world of objects that our bodies sense and thus research methods must base themselves on concrete objects and actions on those objects. Plato considered reality to reside not in concrete objects but in the abstract forms that these objects represent. According to Plato , the body and the mind are interactive and interdependent but are essentially different , with the mind being superior. We reach truth , not via our senses , but via our thoughts.
This debate endured through the middle ages in Europe and led to Descartes' dualism , which was the dominant idea for a long time. The last 200 years have seen a proliferation of various schools of psychological thought . I list the major ones below :
1. Structuralism : The emphasis was on understanding the mind by analyzing its component or constituent structures. This theory relied on simple classificatory principles. It could not explain complex thought .
2. Functionalism : The focus was now on the analysis of mental operations and the practical use of consciousness. Functionalists and Structuralists differed on the fundamental questions they asked. Structuralists would ask "What are the elementary structures of the human mind ?" whereas Functionalists would question " What do people do , and why ?"
3. Behaviourism : This focussed on the study of observable emitted behaviour in response to stimulus.Behaviourists viewed psychology as an objective natural science and their goal was the prediction and control of behaviour. They considered the mind and consciousness as improper subjects for scientific study.
The behaviourist taboo on the mind was epitomized by a seductive argument by B.F.Skinner which is called the " Theoritican's Dilemma " . It goes like this :
" Suppose that there are mental states that intervene between a stimulus in the external worldand a subsequent response .Then there are two possibilities -- either they intervene in a lawful way or they do not. If they are lawful , theoriticians can ignore themand formulate a law directly relating stimulus to behaviour .If they are not lawful , then theoriticians must obviously not refer to them. Either way , in framing psychological laws there is no need to refer to mental states. They are either unnecessary or unmentionable. "
The argument is flawed on two basic assumptions . The first is that the sole purpose of science is to frame laws. Science aims to explain phenomena and not just codify them into laws . Explainations can take the form of theories. Hence , if mental states exist ,a complete psychological explaination should give an account of them even if they are not included in the laws. The second false assumption is that psychology should concern itself solely from the sequence of stimulus to overt response.There are many mental processes that do not arise from stimuus or do not lead to overt response .( for instance perception )
There is a joke about behaviourism that highlights the limitation of this school of thought -- " After having sex , one Behaviourist asks his female counterpart " That was fine for you , but how was it for me ? " ".
4. Gestaltism : According to this theory , we best understand psychological phenomena when we view them as organized , structured wholes , not when we break them down into pieces because the whole differs from the sum of the parts .Both Behaviourists and
Gestaltists experimented on animals and theorized from the findings.
The contrast between Behaviourism and Gestalt psychology led Bertrand Russell to remark that the animals tended to display the national characteristics of experimenters:
" Animals studied by Americans rush about frantically, with an incredible display of hustle and pep , and at last achieve the desired solution by chance. Animals observed by Germans sit still and think , and at last evolve the solution out of their inner consciousness ."
Current psychological theories focus on Cognitive Science , which will be the topic of future posts .
Till then , adios .
Friday, January 7, 2011
China News Digest II
Today's news roundup is as follows --
1. Chinese reports suggest that economic health of the country is being hurt by smoking. Lost productivity from smoking-related health problems will hamper China's economic growth, and related costs incurred by smoking far exceed the tobacco industry's contribution in terms of profits and jobs it generates.
The report highlighted a conflict of interest concerning the State monopoly over the tobacco industry.
The State Tobacco Monopoly Administration is under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the agency in charge of the government-initiated tobacco control campaign. This setup allows the tobacco industry to use the government's authority to promote tobacco production and sales, impede adoption and implementation of tobacco control policies and laws, and publicly conduct activities undermining FCTC implementation, such as marketing tobacco brands in the name of charity, said the report.
2. Chinese foreign ministry has quashed speculation by Japanese media and said that it follows a " NO-FIRST-NUKE-POLICY".
3. A senior Chinese publicity official has urged building a better image of the country on the world stage this year and strengthening friendly relationships with foreign countries.
4. Chinese President will pay a State visit to the US from 18th-21st January on invitation from the US president.
5. The income gap is widening among different industries in Shanghai, while the proportion between residents' income and the city's GDP is declining, a survey has found.
The survey, conducted by the Shanghai Committee of the China Democratic League, one of the country's eight democratic parties (wow , 8 "democratic" parties ,i would never have guessed !), said people who work in the city's highest-paying industries earn an average of 6.4 times of those who toil in sectors with meager salaries, the local Oriental Morning Post reported on Wednesday.
And a majority of the city's residents, or about 68 percent of its working population, is employed in the lowest-paying sectors, including manufacturing, construction, catering and retail, the report said.
This concludes today's post.
1. Chinese reports suggest that economic health of the country is being hurt by smoking. Lost productivity from smoking-related health problems will hamper China's economic growth, and related costs incurred by smoking far exceed the tobacco industry's contribution in terms of profits and jobs it generates.
The report highlighted a conflict of interest concerning the State monopoly over the tobacco industry.
The State Tobacco Monopoly Administration is under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the agency in charge of the government-initiated tobacco control campaign. This setup allows the tobacco industry to use the government's authority to promote tobacco production and sales, impede adoption and implementation of tobacco control policies and laws, and publicly conduct activities undermining FCTC implementation, such as marketing tobacco brands in the name of charity, said the report.
2. Chinese foreign ministry has quashed speculation by Japanese media and said that it follows a " NO-FIRST-NUKE-POLICY".
3. A senior Chinese publicity official has urged building a better image of the country on the world stage this year and strengthening friendly relationships with foreign countries.
4. Chinese President will pay a State visit to the US from 18th-21st January on invitation from the US president.
5. The income gap is widening among different industries in Shanghai, while the proportion between residents' income and the city's GDP is declining, a survey has found.
The survey, conducted by the Shanghai Committee of the China Democratic League, one of the country's eight democratic parties (wow , 8 "democratic" parties ,i would never have guessed !), said people who work in the city's highest-paying industries earn an average of 6.4 times of those who toil in sectors with meager salaries, the local Oriental Morning Post reported on Wednesday.
And a majority of the city's residents, or about 68 percent of its working population, is employed in the lowest-paying sectors, including manufacturing, construction, catering and retail, the report said.
This concludes today's post.
Quirks of MEMORY II
Hi ,
This post shall talk about 2 more issues of memory : Absent-Mindedness and Misattribution .
Absentmindedness can be attributed to 2 causes : how deeply the memory is encoded in our brains and the attention we are paying at a critical moment .
Experiment 2 . Gorilla-in-the-frame : subjects were asked to count the number of passes in a basketball game and after some time , a gorilla costumed man appears in the frame and looks at the camers for 5 seconds while the game of basketball continues.
More than half the people could not spot the gorilla .
The experiment shows the importance of attention .
Memory encoding : The classic experiment here was carried out by Craik and Tulving (1975). They set about testing the strength of memory traces created using three different levels of processing:
Shallow processing: participants were shown a word and asked to think about the font it was written in.
Intermediate processing: participants were shown a word and asked to think about what it rhymes with.
Deep processing: participants were shown a word and asked to think about how it would fit into a sentence, or which category of 'thing' it was.
Participants who had encoded the information most deeply, remembered the most words when given a surprise test later. But it also took them longer to encode the information in the first place.
Crucially, though, participants also had to do the right type of encoding. For example pondering a word's meaning for a long time did help its recall, but putting equivalent effort into thinking about its structure didn't help recall.
Absentmindedness is not always a curse .It allows the mind to focus on the essential details , therefore abstract thinking is facilitated .
Now I shall discuss Misattribution.
It involves the creation of memories that are false in some way. When a memory is 'misattributed' some original true aspect of a memory becomes distorted through time, space or circumstances.
Common errors are misattributing the source of memories , associating a wrong face to a context and considering an imagined event to be the reality.
Although memories often have some basis in reality, whether we've mixed up some details or even the memory's source, sometimes they are just completely false. During the 1960s and 70s psychologists discovered a way of reproducing this false memory effect in the lab.
In the classic study conducted by James Deese at Johns Hopkins University, participants are given lists of semantically related words (Deese, 1959). For example: red, green, brown and blue. Later they have to try and recall them, at which point they often recall related words that were not actually presented, like purple or black.
This concludes this post . Here are some links which will help in further study :
http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/02/persistence-of-memory.php
http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/02/how-consistency-bias-warps-our-personal.php
This post shall talk about 2 more issues of memory : Absent-Mindedness and Misattribution .
Absentmindedness can be attributed to 2 causes : how deeply the memory is encoded in our brains and the attention we are paying at a critical moment .
Experiment 2 . Gorilla-in-the-frame : subjects were asked to count the number of passes in a basketball game and after some time , a gorilla costumed man appears in the frame and looks at the camers for 5 seconds while the game of basketball continues.
More than half the people could not spot the gorilla .
The experiment shows the importance of attention .
Memory encoding : The classic experiment here was carried out by Craik and Tulving (1975). They set about testing the strength of memory traces created using three different levels of processing:
Shallow processing: participants were shown a word and asked to think about the font it was written in.
Intermediate processing: participants were shown a word and asked to think about what it rhymes with.
Deep processing: participants were shown a word and asked to think about how it would fit into a sentence, or which category of 'thing' it was.
Participants who had encoded the information most deeply, remembered the most words when given a surprise test later. But it also took them longer to encode the information in the first place.
Crucially, though, participants also had to do the right type of encoding. For example pondering a word's meaning for a long time did help its recall, but putting equivalent effort into thinking about its structure didn't help recall.
Absentmindedness is not always a curse .It allows the mind to focus on the essential details , therefore abstract thinking is facilitated .
Now I shall discuss Misattribution.
It involves the creation of memories that are false in some way. When a memory is 'misattributed' some original true aspect of a memory becomes distorted through time, space or circumstances.
Common errors are misattributing the source of memories , associating a wrong face to a context and considering an imagined event to be the reality.
Although memories often have some basis in reality, whether we've mixed up some details or even the memory's source, sometimes they are just completely false. During the 1960s and 70s psychologists discovered a way of reproducing this false memory effect in the lab.
In the classic study conducted by James Deese at Johns Hopkins University, participants are given lists of semantically related words (Deese, 1959). For example: red, green, brown and blue. Later they have to try and recall them, at which point they often recall related words that were not actually presented, like purple or black.
This concludes this post . Here are some links which will help in further study :
http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/02/persistence-of-memory.php
http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/02/how-consistency-bias-warps-our-personal.php
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Quirks of MEMORY : Transcience .
This is the first of a series of posts on psychology. The themes of the post will reflect my personal study of these topics (meant for myself only) and may not be suitable for any serious student (please find more reliable sources) .
Memory : Schacter (1999) outlines 7 "deadly sins " of memory . The first one of them is " Transcience of memory " . Short term and long term memory loss affects all of us .
Exp. 1 Fast Forgetting : Peterson & Peterson -- They asked participants to memorise a three-letter sequence, then count backwards in sets of threes. Participants were then asked to try and recall the three-letter sequence after different lengths of time counting backwards.
Participants did surprisingly poorly on this test. After only six seconds of counting backwards in threes, on average half of the original three letters had disappeared from memory.
It showed that information leaks out from short term memory very quickly.
Long term forgetting is conjectured to follow a power law where the rate at which we forget decreases with time.
All memories are not equal. Cues play an important role in memory . Some scholars speculate that memories are never lost , we just lose the ability to access them. The retrieval and rehearsal of memories has been shown to enhance their storage. Interestingly there's no actual evidence in humans that memories which remain unrehearsed or unretrieved actually do dissipate over time.
The next post will deal with : Absent-mindedness.
Adios.
* I do not make any claims to originality in these psych. posts . They are the amalgamation of my personal study from books and web resources .
Memory : Schacter (1999) outlines 7 "deadly sins " of memory . The first one of them is " Transcience of memory " . Short term and long term memory loss affects all of us .
Exp. 1 Fast Forgetting : Peterson & Peterson -- They asked participants to memorise a three-letter sequence, then count backwards in sets of threes. Participants were then asked to try and recall the three-letter sequence after different lengths of time counting backwards.
Participants did surprisingly poorly on this test. After only six seconds of counting backwards in threes, on average half of the original three letters had disappeared from memory.
It showed that information leaks out from short term memory very quickly.
Long term forgetting is conjectured to follow a power law where the rate at which we forget decreases with time.
All memories are not equal. Cues play an important role in memory . Some scholars speculate that memories are never lost , we just lose the ability to access them. The retrieval and rehearsal of memories has been shown to enhance their storage. Interestingly there's no actual evidence in humans that memories which remain unrehearsed or unretrieved actually do dissipate over time.
The next post will deal with : Absent-mindedness.
Adios.
* I do not make any claims to originality in these psych. posts . They are the amalgamation of my personal study from books and web resources .
China News Digest .
This is the first in the daily series of posts carrying a short synopsis of Chinese news .
1. China signs 7.5 billion dollar deal with Spain to boost its recession-hit economy . This comes on the back of assurances that China will buy lot of Spain's debts.
2. Stephen Bosworth , US special representative for DPRK ( North Korea ) arrives in Beijing to initiate talks in order to defuse tensions on the Korean peninsula.
3. US and Chinese scientists will collaborate to buld the largest solar plant . Energy remains the chief focus of research in China . Recent successes include breakthrough in nuclear fuel reprocessing and increased oil production .
4. Chinese policy makers plan new regulations against price monopolies in the market in order to safeguard consumer rights and to curb inflation . Efforts are being made to create a consumer society .
5. " The education department of Shandong province has ordered authorities of junior middle and primary schools to select materials for reading classics carefully, especially when it comes books such as the Three Character Classic.... Though classics such as the Three Character Classic advocate the basics of Chinese traditional culture such as industry and filial piety, some opinions expressed in these books are unseasonable in the present times......But since young children cannot understand the true meaning of society, culture and social obligations, they could take some feudal ideas expressed in such classics as the real teachings of life. That's why the decision made by the Shandong education department is timely. As the cradle of Confucian culture as well as the birthplace of Confucius, it can bravely say no to such classics.
It is important to expose what some of these classics teach and protect children from blindly believing in the harmful messages that some of the classics convey. "
Yeah , right ! Children are stupid , Government needs to step in . Typical Chinese.
That's it for now .
1. China signs 7.5 billion dollar deal with Spain to boost its recession-hit economy . This comes on the back of assurances that China will buy lot of Spain's debts.
2. Stephen Bosworth , US special representative for DPRK ( North Korea ) arrives in Beijing to initiate talks in order to defuse tensions on the Korean peninsula.
3. US and Chinese scientists will collaborate to buld the largest solar plant . Energy remains the chief focus of research in China . Recent successes include breakthrough in nuclear fuel reprocessing and increased oil production .
4. Chinese policy makers plan new regulations against price monopolies in the market in order to safeguard consumer rights and to curb inflation . Efforts are being made to create a consumer society .
5. " The education department of Shandong province has ordered authorities of junior middle and primary schools to select materials for reading classics carefully, especially when it comes books such as the Three Character Classic.... Though classics such as the Three Character Classic advocate the basics of Chinese traditional culture such as industry and filial piety, some opinions expressed in these books are unseasonable in the present times......But since young children cannot understand the true meaning of society, culture and social obligations, they could take some feudal ideas expressed in such classics as the real teachings of life. That's why the decision made by the Shandong education department is timely. As the cradle of Confucian culture as well as the birthplace of Confucius, it can bravely say no to such classics.
It is important to expose what some of these classics teach and protect children from blindly believing in the harmful messages that some of the classics convey. "
Yeah , right ! Children are stupid , Government needs to step in . Typical Chinese.
That's it for now .
New Year Resolutions
Hi ,
Much water has flown under the bridge since I last made a blog post . This year shall usher in a " grand, new era" in my blogging-career , wherein I shall meticulously post every day about interesting opinions , stuff that I read , inane course-material which I must keep track of ( thanks to HS dept. free elective ) , psychological theories and economic and political views that dominate the cyberspace/national/international arena.
There will be several categories of posts for a day .
1. Economic and Political Views : Shall have a distillation of opinions and views on various issues which i read on the given day .
2. China & related posts - will have short summaries of news items pertaining to China . This is the course work that I refer to.
3. Psychological & Philosophical posts shall follow my progress in the quest to understand the intricacies of the human mind .
Well this is the plan .
So let's get started .
Much water has flown under the bridge since I last made a blog post . This year shall usher in a " grand, new era" in my blogging-career , wherein I shall meticulously post every day about interesting opinions , stuff that I read , inane course-material which I must keep track of ( thanks to HS dept. free elective ) , psychological theories and economic and political views that dominate the cyberspace/national/international arena.
There will be several categories of posts for a day .
1. Economic and Political Views : Shall have a distillation of opinions and views on various issues which i read on the given day .
2. China & related posts - will have short summaries of news items pertaining to China . This is the course work that I refer to.
3. Psychological & Philosophical posts shall follow my progress in the quest to understand the intricacies of the human mind .
Well this is the plan .
So let's get started .
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