Chapter 5 Discussion

I found chapter 5 to be the most interesting of the two chapters that we read this week. Learning about the different ways our brain process information through our senses and the different ways that it is stored intrigued me to learn more about it. And how as you get older you do not necessarily lose these senses, just the act of processing or recalling this information is slowed. Being that I have been diagnosed with ADD the attention and perception part in this chapter gave me more insight on my why I have trouble processing and retaining information. " Selective attention is focusing attention on the relevant information while inhibiting irrelevant information. If we pay close attention to a stimulus, the experience moves from our sensory memory to be stored in our working memory. If we are distracted unable to focus on a specific stimulus among many our ability to code the stimulus into memory is impaired (Hiller and Barrow, 2011)." This made a lot of sense to me. I have had professor stop class and accuse me of not paying attention, because I am sitting on the front row drawing, but actually if I am doing something with my hands it makes it easier for me to take in what they are saying. Or I have noticed when I am reading a chapter I get to the end and cannot recall anything thing that I have read, because even though I thought I was paying attention, my mind was somewhere else.

The next thing in this chapter was the different kinds of disorders and how they can affect different people. I never realized how many different disorders there were: Depressive - Feeling sad, low self esteem, and believing that life is confusing; Personality - paranoid, introverted, antisocial; Affective - or a mood disorder, and Organic - Alzheimer, dementia . Most of these disorders have been believed to just be an effect of aging, when you get old you are senial, however this is not the case. Only a few older people are affected by these disorders, so Dr.s you pay close attention when someone is complaining about memory loss or a mood disorder.

Hillier, S. & Barrow, G. (2011) Aging, the individual, and society. (9th ed. pp 3-28). California: WADSWORTH