Self-assessment

ESP vocabulary tests

In my opinion, these tests were really useful because we should learn many new words which are concerned with psychology. On the other hand, it was really difficult to explain some concepts.

Writing summaries

Writing summaries is new for me. We had written all of them at home, so it wasn’t really difficult. Nevertheless, I made quite number mistakes and I needed time to understand the text and write summary.

Online exercises Multiple Choice & Filling in blank

This task is useful because we can revise the material that we learnt at home. Online exercises weren’t difficult when I saw into the module fairly.

Moodle tests

When I was doing these tests I was using the book. It was good because I could scan through the text one more time.

Online listening in class. Traditional listening to cassettes.

Listening was quite difficult for me. Sometimes speakers spoke too fast or their speeches were hardly understandable.

Power Point Presentation

Although this task was the most difficult and I spent a long time preparing presentation it was the most interesting too.

Speaking impromptu

I think that I was not enough active in class discussions and speaking impromptu was the hardest task for me because my speaking skills are not so good.

Short-talk (ready made speech)

This task is simpler than speaking impromptu for me because I can look for unknown words and prepare at home.

Have a nice day!

The mystery of memory

Interest in memory is not new. Scientists are trying to find out how exactly distinct brain regions and processes are working with in creating such phenomenon.

Human brain has a huge net of neurons. Every time a person tries to save new information this net becomes wider.

Scientists separate several types of memory. Firstly, there can be noticed short-term and long-term memories which term of keeping information alive. Second one, procedural (reminiscence of how to do something) that is more permanent than declarative which helps to recall material images of some object.

Also, there are such different processes as recognition and recall. Furthermore, very common from of memory is photographic memory related to people senses.

All in all, although scientists are made a lof of discoveries which reveal the mystery of memory they also have a many unanswered questions.

Richard Wiseman

Psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman started his working life as a professional magician, but now he is professor at the University in the United Kingdom. This man is well known - over 1 milion people have taken part in his mass participation experiments and his Youtube channel has received over 10 milion views. Professor Wiseman has written three best selling books: „The Luck Factor“, „Quirkology“ and „59 Seconds“. Ofcourse, he has written more books, but these three are bestsellers.

Richard Wiseman is an author of the unique worldwide experiment. He has invited people from around the world to send the most favourite joke to his website. Scientist‘s aim was to find the joke which is the funniest in the world. Although, some jokes are popular only in some countries, Richard Wiseman considered that there are universal joke that is liked by all people and now, when this experment has finished, we can read the funniest jokes on the Internet (in Richard Wiseman‘s website or in wikipedia). Of course, we can read more about this experiment in Wiseman‘s book Quirkology.

All in all, we can clearly see that proffesor Richard Wiseman is really active psychologist. His experiments are interesting and original and he is liked by a lof of people.

References:
http://www.richardwiseman.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Funniest_Joke_in_the_World

The Significance of dreams

The significance of dreams is explained in different ways. This phenomenon is not well explored so researches are trying to explain it.

To begin with, some people think that dreams may reflect waking experiences. Researcher Robert Stickgold in his experiment tried to prove it. Participants of the experiment play Tetris before going to sleep and when they were awakened during sleep more than half reported seeing falling Tetris objects in their dreams. Other research shows that thoughts that is tried to disguise can fall into sleeps. So the more people want to suppress thoughts the more likely to dream about that.

In addition, some research believe that people use dreams to help solve problems and it is thought that many artists have created their famous works inspired by dreams. However, the most important is that good night’s sleep helps to feel better and enhances cognitive abilities.

All in all, although scientists do not know why people are dreaming it is the fact that dream is an important part of the life.