Cognitive Psychology

Perception – Gestalt Laws

• This is an apparently inborn mental law, which tends to determine the way matters were perceived.
• It therefore relies on the current happenings, and the way things are being perceived in current situations (Konurbaev, 2015).

Visual Imagery

• This is a type of a memory technique which makes the reader to create mental images while reading a certain piece of information.
• This technique is usually used by the reader in order to be able to easily remember the information at a later period (Dobbs, 2014).

Situational Model for understanding text and stories

• This is a language comprehension technique which is usually used by readers in order to remember the things they have read (Konurbaev, 2015).
• A reader may therefore use a given situation in order to remember what the short story or a text is talking about.

Functional Fixedness and Mental Set

• This is the inability to think about something, or even use past experiences in order to solve an issue (Dobbs, 2014).
• In addition, the person’s mental thinking may be limited, thus making him or her not to be able to do things in the appropriate way.

Encoding Specificity Principle

• This is an approach which basically makes one to understand how the background is likely to affect his or her memory (Konurbaev, 2015).
• In addition, memory is only improved when the information which is available for encoding is also present at retrieval.

Semantic Networks

• This is a semantic representation of networks between dissimilar concepts.
• Semantic is therefore commonly used as a system of presenting knowledge.

In the first instance, Evan’s cannot be able to understand why Clarissa is talking about the huge dunks, and the crowd standing (Konurbaev, 2015). This is so because, Evan’s cannot be able to connect the events which were taking place during the match, with any of the past events which have taken place in his life. This therefore made it hard for him to be able to understand the flow of events during the basketball match. In addition, since he does not have any knowledge concerning basketball, it made it very hard for him to be able to concentrate on the match (Dobbs, 2014). His mind was therefore carried away, in such a way that he started thinking of other things than the match while watching the match with Clarissa. Evan’s was therefore astonished when Clarissa told the server that there were a lot of dunks, when he could not even remember a single dunk. Evan’s could not therefore connect any of the events, hence making it hard for him to be able to remember.

In second instance, Evan’s could not be able to connect the flow of events, and so he was left thinking of what Clarissa had told the server about the dunks. This thought therefore kept disturbing him, a thing which made him not to think of anything else (Dobbs, 2014). When Clarissa left to make the phone call, Evan’s was still thinking about the dunk, and so this thought made his mind to be occupied, forgetting to pay the bill. In the third instance, Evan’s started connecting to the flow of events in the hotel, and so he went back and tracked the server, and paid him (Konurbaev, 2015). This consequently explains how Evan’s was lost in thoughts, and he could not therefore be able to connect the flow of events, in the basketball match and in the hotel. If Evan’s could have watched a basketball match before, then he could be very likely to remember the dunks, through connecting the basketball match with the previous basketball match he had watched.

Reference

Konurbaev, M. E. (2015). Style and timbre of English speech and literature. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

In Dobbs, S. (2014). English language, literature and creative writing: A practical guide for students.