L
Levels of Adaptation: terminology I have developed to describe adaptation to changing
circumstances.
- Nominal Level - concerns alignment of the Identity to the Enviroment running right
through the neurological levels
- Deeper Level - is to do with how vMEMES shape Values & Beliefs and influence Identity
in relation to changes in the Life Conditions in the Environment
Levels of Processing Theory: the concept developed by Fergus Craik & Robert Lockhart
that it is the depth of processing which determines how much a stimulus is remembered.
At the shallowest level, processing involves only physical characteristics - eg:
whether a word is in capitals or lower case - and does not create much memory. Phonemic
processing - eg: comparing whether two words rhyme - is an intermediate level and
creates more memory trace. Semantic processing - extracting meaning - produces the
deepest levels of processing and creates stronger memories.
Meaning will inevitably
be related to whatever vMEME or vMEME stack is dominating at the time of the stimulus.
Craik
& Lockhart drew no distinction between long-term memory and short-term memory.
Limbic System: a set of mainly subcortical structures which are represented in both
cerebral hemispheres and grouped around the brainstem. The main structures of the
limbic system are:-
- Olfactory Bulb - receives sensory data direct from the olfactory epithelium of each
nasal cavity
- Thalamus - one area relays sensory information to the cerebral cortex; it is a second
area associated with sleep which is usually considered to be part of the limbic system
- Hypothalamus - regulates homeostasis in eating and drinking and integrates the activity
of the autonomic nervous system, affecting the stress (fight-or-flight) response,
emotion and motivation
- Hippocampus - associated with memory and involved in motivation, emotion and learning
- Amygdala - associated with memory, emotion, sleep, arousal and the stress response
- Cingulate Gyrus - associated with strong emotions such as aggression; it also involved
in signalling between the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex and the caudate nucleus
Locus Coeruleus: a small area of cells in the pons related to the sleep-wake cycle
and memory.
Logical Levels of Learning: see Bateson Learning Levels.
Long-term Memory:
memory for well-processed information integrated into an individual's general knowledge
store. Such storage is thought to be relatively permanent and of unlimited capacity.
Longitudinal Study:
'Love Quiz': the 1987 questionnaire study carried out by Cindy Hazan & Phil Shaver
to test the link between styles of adult romantic/sexual relationships and infant
Attachment Types. They found a significant correlation between Mary Ainsworth's Secure,
Anxious-Resistant and Anxious-Avoidant types and the respondents' approach to relationships.
Hazan & Shaver carried out a second study a few years later and found similar if
slightly weaker evidence for the link.
Hazan & Shaver's methodologies have come in
for some strong criticisms. However, their studies do show support for assertions
from Sigmund Freud to John Bowlby and Ainsworth herself that the earliest relationships
in life form templates for those in later life. They also emphasise the importance
of the health of the PURPLE vMEME in Graves' Spiral and how damage in early life
can blight later life.