Learning Reflection 3 by Satrih - TLT 401

The idea of Sigmund Freud as in Nadel (2008) that “the mind is composed of something, which we are conscious and of all the other stuffs, which we are not conscious,” which is illustrated like an iceberg, is obviously true. I am inclined to believe that all human being is born with this asset called brain in its normal capacity to create conscious as well as unconscious consequences in a human life, unless there has been a damage before the birth. However, when talking about how much of the “thinking or “perceiving” that we do is conscious and how much is mysterious because it is unconscious, I am inclined to believe that our unconscious thinking or perceiving process depends on our conscious thinking or perceiving process.

For instance, when I am thinking of when and how I began to understand English especially the grammar, which was a completely foreign language to me, all I can remember is that I did conscious things like doing exercises on textbooks given by the teacher, I tried to memorize words from dictionaries, I copied sentences examples from any sources to a special notebook for that, which happened to be borrowed by a friend that never came back again and so I lost it forever. Besides, I have been so much interested to learn English since the first time I met it on my 7th grade. Some of my friends who eventually liked after a dislike and were able to after being so difficult to understand English also tried their best to do similar conscious activities either with pleasure or not. So, Medina (2008) was true when he said that “exercises boost brain power. Exercise specifically affects brain function.” In this case, the exercise is not that kind of aerobic things. It is more about reading and writing exercises as I am talking about learning a language.

I believe that when I did all those noting or writing, reading, listening and other activities in my effort to understand English, by intention or not, did affect or reach out to my unconsciousness. I remember many times I unintentionally found a dictionary somewhere and read some words in it without any intention to memorize them, were actually stored in my memory and I just realized that they were there when I met them again and a recalling process happened. Bruning, Schraw and Norby (2011) stated “often the record of our earlier experience is not available to our consciousness, but still affects our behavior.” They called it “implicit memory”. According to Jacoby & Witherspoon (1982) as cited in Bruning et.al (2011), “implicit memory is an unintentional, nonconscious form of retentions in which our actions are influenced by a previous event but without conscious awareness.” What I understand from this definition of implicit memory when I relate it to my English learning process is that, I know I had been used to make contact with English things so intense that it kept controlling my behavior even when I did things unintentionally. Hawkins (TED, 2003) in his theory of real intelligence explained that “memories are stored and recalled as a sequence of patterns”, which is why a song for instance, has to be repeated again and again to allow the memory storing process. So if I relate this repetition to the implicit memory, it can be said that the process of memorizing can happen in our consciousness as well as in our unconsciousness.

Regarding perception, I believe certain groups of individuals may have a same perception, which is different from other certain groups of individuals just like some individuals may have similar taste and traits, which are different from some others’. This also happens in a language class. We study the same foreign language, the same grammar, same vocabularies, but we may apply them in very different ways due to very different understandings or perceptions. Everybody seems to believe that they are grammatically correct and has chosen the right vocabulary when they produce a sentence, that can sound funny or even stupid to everybody or somebody else. However, confusion or in Wolpert’s words “noise” or “uncertainty” (2011) is there to help us finding out the correct one. The more confusions or uncertainties we have, the more curious we are about something, and I believe that happens to neuroscientist too in their search for the most accurate brain theory.

References

• Bruning, R. H., Schraw, G. J., & Ronning, R. R. (2011). Cognitive psychology and instruction. Prentice-Hall, Inc., One Lake Street, Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458.

• Hawkins, J. (February, 2003). How brain science will change computing. TED Talks. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_hawkins_on_how_brain_science_will_change_computing#t-3263

• Wolpert, D. (2011). The real reason for brains. Lecture at TED Global, Edinburgh, Scotland, July. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_wolpert_the_real_reason_for_brains

• Medina, J. (2008). Dr. John Medina. Talks at Google. Mountain View, California. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK1nMQq67VI

• Nadel, L. (2008). Building brains, making minds. College of Science and Minds Lecture Series. Tucson, Arizona. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCrYwtnzCQA

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