Controversy Sourrounding Dissociative Identity Disorder

Karen Overhill, a dissociative identity
disorder patient, sketched a drawing
of her 17 different personalities. 

              Dissociative identity disorder, better known to the public as multiple personality disorder, is considered to be a dissociative disorder. Dissociative disorders entail a loss of contact with memory or consciousness; it disrupts a person's sense of identity.  This specific dissociative disorder causes a person to experience at least two different personalities which alternate control over a person's behavior.  Each of the personalities can have a different name and act entirely different from one another. There can be many personalities, but in most cases there are less than 10 personalities. The disorder causes memory gaps in which a person does not know what they have been doing. Due to this loss in memory, it can be extremely difficult to diagnose this disorder. People suffering from dissociative identity disorder are not usually able to figure out what is happening.  It is also difficult for therapists to diagnose the
problem.
               

The main character in the movie Sybil
suffered from dissociative identity disorder.

 
                


                                             Dissociative identity disorder is a very controversial topic in the field of psychology due to the fact that many people feel that it is not real.  The cause of the disorder is thought to be a traumatic experience which causes the mind to split into multiple identities in order for the person to protect themselves from the stress of the traumatic event.  Though the disorder has become well known to the public through the media, there is still not very much known about the disorder. Research has shown that 75% of therapists believe that the disorder does not actually exist. They believe that the disorder is not caused by a stressful event, but is instead artificially caused by either the therapist treating the patient or by the patient themselves.
                People see therapists for a variety of reasons, but many people who see therapists suffer from some type of mental illness.  This mental illness can often make a patient more prone to becoming influenced by their therapist. The therapist may unintentionally cause the patient to experience the symptoms of the disorder. Mentally ill patients may also pretend to experience the symptoms of the disorder in order to trick their therapist. These problems have caused a great deal of misdiagnosis which has allowed for much doubt to be cast upon the disorder.

                Many people have a hard time understanding the idea of one person experiencing multiple identities. They do not always understand the concept of dissociation. What they do not realize, is that everyone experiences dissociation to a certain degree. An everyday example would be what most people refer to as daydreaming, getting lost in the moment, or "zoning out". These forms of dissociation are very mild in comparison to the actual dissociative disorder, but these experiences could help a person understand how the concept could be possible. The disorder simply consists of a much greater degree of dissociation.  It causes a person to lose contact entirely from their memory or consciousness, whereas everyday dissociation does not allow for complete loss of contact. It may be a long time before therapists are able to agree on whether or not the disorder is real, but for now they should continue under the assumption that it is a possibility.

Short Term Memory and Technology Design

Our working memory and short term memory are key in allowing us to perform simple tasks such as working with an interface. Working memory, or sensory memory, allows us to work with the information that we take in before the information actually has a chance to enter our memory.  Short term memory allows us to store small amounts of information without having to commit it to long term memory. These simple, quick forms of memory storage give us the ability to work with technologies that would otherwise be overwhelming.

Interfaces, such as cockpit controls, are designed in a way that give a person the ability to monitor and successfully make use of the controls. An interface needs to be simple enough for a person to keep up with changes simply through the use of their working and short term memory. At the same time, these interfaces need to be able to maintain the attention of the user . It is a difficult balance that they need to reach when creating these technologies. The picture below is an example of a cockpit interface. It is easy to see how a person would need to use their working and short term memory in figuring out how to use such a large set of controls.

To earn Sona credits this semester, I participated in a study which required me to use an interface that represented that of an airplane. It was not very difficult to catch on. I figured out how to complete the task efficiently, but soon realized that it takes more than just skill to maintain control over the interface. It also required a lot of focus. Once I had mastered the task, I was very easily distracted because it was no longer a challenge.  It is clear that creating an interface is more difficult than expected.  It would be extremely important to make sure it is simple enough that it can be use efficiently, but that it won't bore the operator.

Auto interiors are a great example of a usable interface. When driving a car, you often change the music on the radio or adjust the temperature. These adjustments use simple controls that do not require much attention. This works out perfectly because the main focus of the driver in a car should just be driving. In this situation, one can see that the level of simplicity can be adjusted due to the use of the interface.

It is difficult to say exactly how to create the perfect interface, but I think that the first goal should be to create something simple. The interface is likely to be operated by many different people and these people need to be able to use it. The user should not have to be concerned with an overly complex system. The next most important aspect would be to ensure that the interface maintains the attention of the operator. The interface needs to be somewhat engaging. The key to achieving this balance would lie within our working and short term memories. These allow us to experience an interface without too much confusion. They are what enable us to catch on to how the interface operates.

Classical Conditioning in Marketing

Businesses and special interest groups use classical conditioning to advertise all different types of products.  Classical conditioning is implemented in hopes of attaining a positive or a negative response to a stimulus. In order to attain a reaction, the advertisement often uses an unconditioned stimulus to provoke a conditioned response to their product, or conditioned stimulus. This unconditioned stimulus automatically elicits an innate response.  The conditioned response is a reaction to a new stimulus that must be learned.

Fast food companies are a common source of misleading advertisement that uses classical conditioning.  The picture to the below shows the difference between the advertised product and the actual product. There is an obvious difference between each picture:


-The advertised Burger King Whopper is nicely put together with fresh lettuce, tomatoes, and onion whereas the actual burger seems to be slopped together with less lettuce and tomato.

-The advertised McDonalds Angus Deluxe has a large burger patty and cheese that melts over the side of the burger. The actual product has a much smaller patty and the cheese is too small to even be visible.

-The advertised Taco Bell Crunchy Taco is filled to the top and contains an abundance of meat, whereas the actual product contains less taco filling and the meat is not at all visible
http://idaconcpts.com/2010/10/07/false-advertisement-of-fast-food

These fast food companies know that their customers are attracted to fresh foods that give them the most for their money, so that is what they show us.  We are naturally attracted to food that looks fresh, healthy, and filling; this is an unconditioned stimulus. These companies know that we will have a positive conditioned response to this new conditioned stimulus if they include the use of unconditioned stimulus. In other words, they advertise well-liked food in order to encourage us to try their new product which includes these known foods. It is important to be aware of this dishonest use of advertisement.  What you see in the pictures may not be what you get.  A fast food restaurant's goal is to sell food quickly, not to sell healthy or filling food.

Political campaign advertisement also uses classical conditioning to influence viewers.  These advertisements use many misleading images to influence voters' opinions. The advertisement to the right depicts and elderly man, a teacher, a firefighter, and Mitt Romney.  The pictures of the elderly man, the teacher, and the fire fighter are the unconditioned stimulus in this case.  This advertisement's target audience will automatically have a positive reaction to these three pictures. Mitt Romney represents the conditioned stimulus; he is a new person that the audience has yet to form a completely negative or positive opinion towards. The use of the unconditioned and conditioned stimulus will cause the audience to form a conditioned response to Mitt Romney.  In Romney's quote the phrase, "those people" is implied to refer to the elderly, teachers, and firefighters.  The audience will respond negatively to Mitt Romney, because they do not agree with his disregard for people that they respect. The add implies that Mitt Romney said that he does not care about elderly, teachers, or firefighters.  Whether or not he does, Mitt Romney never said that he did not care about these people. The "47 percent" that Mitt Romney referred to may include some elderly, teachers, and firefighters, but it is unlikely that every single elderly person, teacher, and firefighter in America falls within this percentage of people.

It is important to think about the strategies that advertisers use in order to influence viewers' decisions and opinions.  When viewing an advertisement, make sure that you really know what you are looking at.  Be aware of the images and of how they make you feel.  Advertisers use these images because they already know how the images will affect the audience.

Animal Consciousness

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/dec/31/animal-research-alternatives

Animals rights, as related to research, have always been a controversial topic.  Many people believe that animal testing is cruel and inhumane, while others believe that animals are simply at the disposal of humans.  The deciding factor in this debate would be consciousness;  this is a being's subjective experience of the world and of the mind. The consciousness of animals has always been difficult to understand simply because of the meaning of consciousness itself.  Consciousness  is an experience of which each individual can understand only on their own terms.  According to the problem of other minds, no one could ever truly know if their conscious experience is similar to another's conscious experience. This understanding of consciousness has made it difficult to determine animals levels of consciousness.

When considering animal research, it is extremely important, yet completely irrelevant to take into consideration an animal's consciousness.  Consciousness is an important aspect to consider because it determines how aware animals are of any procedures they endure.  Concurrently, consciousness becomes unimportant when considering the level of cruelty directed towards these animals. Should lack of consciousness really justify harming another living being for research?

http://trauma.blog.yorku.ca/arts/images/Take Harry Harlow's experiments on monkeys for example.  In their infancy, these monkeys were removed from their mother and placed in isolation chambers.  Their isolation at such a crucial stage in their development resulted in their inability to interact with other monkeys correctly. One can only imagine how terrified any infant would be when removed from their mother and placed in isolation. These monkeys became socially disabled and mentally disturbed. Harlow's research had an obvious, detrimental effect on these monkeys.  Though monkeys have a lower level of consciousness than humans, it was wrong to ruin any chance that these monkeys had at a normal existence.There is little difference between using a mouse, a chimp or a dog for research.  The difference between the three is simply consciousness; chimpanzees and dogs have a higher level of consciousness than mice. This means that a chimp would be more aware of the effects of any procedure it undergoes than a mouse would.  A dog has a lower, but fairly close level of awareness to that of a chimpanzee.  Though a chimp's experience may be different from that of a dog or a mouse, each animal is still able to feel the effects of research.

 

Consciousness can occur at three different levels: minimal, full, and self-conscious. Minimal consciousness simply consists of understanding sensations and acting based upon these sensations. Full consciousness involves a level of awareness in which a person can explain their thoughts or feelings. Self-consciousness requires a level of awareness in which a person can see themselves as an object. Different animals fall into different levels of consciousness, though only a few animals are self-conscious. For example, chimpanzees are one of the few animals that are able to see and understand their own reflection in the mirror.

Though animal consciousness is not an exact science, researchers have recently proven that animals do possess certain parts of the brain related to consciousness. http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf

Advances such as these in science could greatly affect our ideas about animal rights due to the amount of information we possess about animal consciousness. New information about animal consciousness could greatly affect the way we think about animals and the way that we treat them.