KatherineY2023's Psychology Blog

Today, let's take a few memory tests! First, I took the short-term memory test  and out of the 12 words, I remembered 10, which was more than I was expecting, but honestly, I remembered the tip where you assign meaning or used the words in sentences to try and remember them so I'm not sure if the test was valid in testing my short-term memory, as I simply could not recall at all the two words I forgot the meaningful sentence to. In general though, it's an effective but basic way to test.  Next, I took the memory test for faces  and of the 10 parts, I remembered 6, mostly through how distinctive I originally thought they were. I imagined the test would then show pictures of the faces and ask to pick a correct one but I was surprised that we were asked to pick specific features ourselves. I think if you're taking it for the first time, the test is pretty valid because you have to remember each specific piece, and not just how the face comes together as a whole, which real...

Hi everyone! Today I'll be talking about some social psychology phenomenon in relation to politics.  Firstly, compliance is when one changes one's behavior at the request of another person or group. For instance, if one was previously not going to vote because they didn't know any of the candidates, but then a canvasser came to their home and asked them to, and the person changed their mind and went to vote, that would be compliance. Obedience is similar to compliance but is when one changes one's behavior at the direct command or request from a person of authority. In the context of politics, this could be an important political figure, such as President Joe Biden, phone calling supporters to tell them to vote for him in the upcoming election. It could also be a political parent demanding that their child vote in alignment with their family's beliefs.   Social facilitation is when one's task performance and effort increases in the presence of others. For instan...

  Hi everyone! One of the the most interesting psychological phenomenon to me is the mere exposure effect, or the idea that people tend to prefer things they're familiar with or repeatedly exposed to. The phenomenon was first introduced by Robert Zajonc, who conducted an experiment where participants read foreign words or nonsense words out loud with varying repetitions (ie one word was read 3 times, another 14, another 6, another 25, etc). Participants were then asked to guess how positive/negative they believed the meaning of each word was. The results indicated that completely unfamiliar, unread words were ranked the lowest, and those repeated more were more favored, with those being repeated 25 times ranking the highest. In another experiment, people were shown photographs of unfamiliar people, and similarly, participants claimed they'd like to meet the people in photographs they saw more often more. Zajonc also tested these ideas when images were flashed to participants fo...

Hi everyone! Today, I wanted to share a cool fact about one of our senses—sight! Your sight can actually reveal many health problems, and it is actually possible to detect diabetes through an eye exam. This is because diabetes can lead to diabetic retinopathy, where the blood vessels in the retina leak fluid or blood into the eye. In fact, this condition typically develops before diagnosis of diabetes, making it a key indicator. Eye exams such as ophthalmoscopies (magnification of the back of the eye to examine the optic nerve & retina) and optical coherence tomography (detects fluid and damage to retina that may indicate diabetic retinopathy) can uncover irregularities pointing to diabetes, which is actually one of the leading causes of blindness. Perhaps this would be more obvious to someone more familiar with diabetes, but as someone with only basic knowledge of the condition from school, I was surprised to learn of this. We typically only think of diabetes involving blood sugar...

Athena was a cheerleader and track competitor all throughout high school. However, right before her last cheer competition at Nationals, she tore her ACL in her knee while running a relay. There was swelling and it was an almost full tear, causing Athena immense pain, and she was unable to move her leg. In fact, she found moving at all very difficult. Athena was placed in physical therapy and given painkillers, but soon found herself relying too much on her medication. It was unhealthy and one day, Athena's arm began moving of its own accord (without conscious effort from Athena) and wrote her a message on her nightstand with a dry erase marker. "Recovering from this will help more than just yourself." Athena was quite afraid of what happened and tried countless times to see if her arm would move again, but to no avail. However, always a believer in a higher power and in community service, and seeing the damage her dependency was causing herself, Athena was determined to ...

Hi everyone! Today I'll be writing a bit more on my life story. I was born on April 23, 2005, in Houston, Texas. I've never lived anywhere else, so it's been many years of bluebonnets for me.  I took my first steps at around a year old, my first word was "mama," and I frequently switched between speaking English & Chinese. As a kid, I participated in countless activities. From ballet to Chinese school to watercolor and sketch classes to piano and Asian dance, I kept pretty busy, but none of these really stuck. When I was five, my brother, Owen, was born, subjecting me to a constant state of annoyance, but he can be nice sometimes.  Most of my elementary school days are a blur, but I attended Quail Valley Middle School and still believe it was a few of the best years of my life. I met many of the friends I'm still close to today, began participating in choir, and overall just had a lot of fun as I think those were the years I was most true to myself.  Durin...

  Hi everyone! My name's Katherine and here's a bit more about me :) This was the 2021 Math and Science Academy Halloween Bash the officer panel organized.  Sometimes it's hard to balance an interest in STEM and the social sciences in the academy but I'm lucky and proud of myself for finding an intersection in MSA student government. Halloween is one of the biggest MSA events of the year and a lot of work to plan, but worth it to see over 100 people come and enjoy their time. I hope to come back for next year's! Let's play 4 truths and a lie! I can't ride a bike. I don't have my driver's license. I have a cat named Chanel. I only have one dimple. I love collecting dresses, I recently got a Taylor Swift 2022 Grammy flower dress inspired piece! Thanks for reading :) KY