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Exam Review [ The Happy Hour Archive | obereed.net ] You might be wondering why happy hour is being held at 5 instead of the customary 4:30. This is because of the big exam review. As you may know, next week is the first PSY 340 (Intro to Cognitive Psychology) exam of the semester. I hope everyone has studied, because a poor grade will certainly mean years of turmoil and depression as you wonder what might have been. To make things easier for you, we here at Happy Hour Central have come up with a helpful review technique. We call it the mnemonic method(tm). It's pretty straight forward, we simply develop easy-to-remember strategies for difficult concepts. Learning these concepts should be effortless, and your test performance should reflect the care and diligence you put forth in this endeavor. If you still have trouble on the test it means that you're dumb. Mnemonics ========= The Brain The 4 lobes of the brain are the Parietal, Occipital, Temporal and Frontal. You can rely on the acronym POTS to remember them. P=Parietal, O=Occipital, T=Temporal, S=Sex, which is one of the four "F's" of the hypothalamus, and Frontal starts with F too. The Neuron The most important part of the neuron is the Axon. The axon carries the signal when a neuron "fires." Axon kind of sounds like Axl, as in Axl Rose who is the lead singer of the rock group Guns N' Roses. If Axl had a real job, there is no doubt he too would be "fired." Vision The retina consists of two types of photoreceptors, Rods and Cones. Only cones respond to color, and although both words begin with C, a better strategy would be to remember that "Rod Stewart is color-blind" - therefore, it isn't true that RODS RESPOND TO COLOR. Don't remember that Rod and Red are spelled almost the same, and that Red is a color, because that would lead you to believe that RODS ARE USED IN COLOR PERCEPTION, and we wouldn't want that. So, whatever you do, don't REMEMBER THAT RODS ARE USED IN COLOR PERCEPTION. Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down Processing Bottom-up processing means that meaning is in the world, whereas top-down processing means that the user ascribes meaning to stimuli. "Bottom's Up" is something you say when you drink. Drinking may lead you to fall Down. Members of fraternities often Drink Up and then Throw Up and Fall Down. Frat boys in a convertible may drive with the Top Down and try to moon sorority girls by sticking their Bottom's Up and taking their pants Down. The sorority girls might put the frat boys Down and tell them to grow Up. So, think about the Greek system and Top-Down and Bottom-Up processing should be a breeze. If you have any other questions, stop by your GSI's office hours (Today at 5 at Charley's), sit Down and ask them to look Up the answers. |