Cerebration Paper for Cognitive Psychology

Midterm Examination

Title of the Film: Inside Out

1. List down 5 attention/memory concepts/perspectives you’ve seen in the film. Explain your
thoughts for each chosen concept.

A. The first concept about memory from the film I choose is the Memory Orb.
 A Memory Orbs is a spherical object that holds a memory of a particular event
within it. The emotions that were felt by the person during the memory is shown
through the color of the orb, its intensity shows how strong the emotion was felt.
Yellow for Joy, Blue for Sadness, Red for Anger, Green for Disgust and Purple for Fear.
I think this concept truly encapsulates memory in the Cognitive Psychology
perspective because it focuses on the recovery of the past memories as encoding
(Riley’s days are encoded into the spheres) and retrieval (by reading the memory
through looking directly into it or by projecting its content on the screen in
Headquarters.)
B. Core Memories
 In the movie core memories represent memories that had greater impact or
influence on Riley, and are divided into themes. This is a concept under memory
where memories should be depicted as collections of interrelated memories. I
thought this was an important piece to note because it simplified how memories
shape a person.
C. Active Listening and Processing
 This is a concept shown in a particular scene where Bing Bong has a breakdown
after realizing he is losing his place in Riley’s life. Joy tries to get him to divert away
from what he is feeling, but Sadness takes the time to listen to Bing Bong. She gives
him the space to honestly embrace his emotions and supports him for just a few
minutes. Those moments help him cope with the truth, accept that his time is
ending. My thoughts regarding this concept are that Attention is one of the concepts
that aid in the coping process of a person.
 D. The ability to choose and concentrate on certain stimuli to procure long term memories
 I regarded that this is a concept under Attention because when long term memories
are procured before sleep and sucked by the vacuum tube because one has the
innate ability to choose and concentrate as to not clog the memory storage.
E. Reconstructing Memories
 In the film its shows memories, in memory orbs as stable and complete
representations of actual events. That it is set in stone but it is not the case because
when we retrieve a memory, we reconstruct it depending on the concept of attention
and perspective during the time of retrieval. Time lapsed from the incidence is also a
factor.

2. List down/type 5 direct quotations from the film you find interesting. After each quote shortly
explain why you found these interesting.
A. The most famous line “do you ever look at someone and wonder, what is going on inside

their head?”

 I found this line interesting because it is relatable for anyone studying or already

working the field of psychology. This is because the mind, emotions and memories

are tackled in the movie and the quote itself, this is a concept that some aspects of it,

psychological professionals sometimes struggle to define or describe.

B. “These are Riley’s memories and they are mostly happy”

 This wasn’t a particularly interesting scene as this was just a part of the introduction

where Joy was taking us around the headquarters. This quote really only stuck with

me towards the middle of the movie because if the memories shape Riley’s

personality and her memories are mostly joyous then why wasn’t it reflected on her

personality? She displayed mostly sadness. It was a though provoking quote

especially with context.

C. “Each core memory powers a different aspect or Riley’s personality”

  I found this quote interesting because it was confusing, it conflicted with what he

had learned and what the movie had taught us.

D. “She did something to the memory!”

 This stuck with me in particular because it was emphasized in the film that the

memories represent only certain emotions that were felt during its conception. This

was a turning point in the movie that sparked conflict because it wasn’t supposed to

that but also it made me connect the concept of the memory to Cognitive Psychology

particularly in this scene.

E. “Have you read this one? This seems interesting. Long Term Memory Retrieval Volume 47”

 I found this scene funny and interesting at the same time, this is exactly what

Psychology Students sound like when looking for references when studying

Cognitive Psychology. Long Term Memory Retrieval is probably already a real

manual in Psychology.

3. List down 5 realizations you had after watching the film. “Realization” is defined as lessons you
have now learned after viewing the film which you did not know before. It is any
changes/modifications in the way you think.
A. I always thought that memories are directly stored in the mind when experienced but the
movie had taught me that long-term memory gets encoded during sleep.
B. I realized that in term of memories and emotions, we remember certain events through the
lens of our current emotions.
C. The process of reframing memories, we can change how we view our memories.
D. I realized that interplay between emotions were okay, I could feel sadness without hating it.
E. I realized that memory isn’t always reliable.

4. List down 5 practical applications of the realizations you had in the previous item. The
applications can be in the context of attention and consciousness, memory, or behavior as long as
you can benefit from these applications. Make sure that each of your applications must be
anchored to the realizations you identified in the previous item.
A. I always thought that memories are directly stored in the mind when experienced but the
movie had taught me that long-term memory gets encoded during sleep.
 The practical application of this realization is that sleep is an active part of the
encoding and storing and process which makes memories of all types turn into long-
term memories and can be resurfaced and dreams are shown to comprise
components of the day’s events. This shows how our minds store memories.
B. I realized that in terms of memories and emotions, we remember certain events through
the lens of our current emotions.
 The practical application of this realization is that, when one experiences a certain
event and feels intense emotions (often times sadness or joy), in the short term they
remember that memory as the intense emotion that they have felt. But in the long
term when memory has been put away for quite a while and has been resurfaced, it
is the current emotion of the person that dictates how they view the memory now.
For example, something embarrassing happened, for a while one will feel
embarrassed but after a while and processing has happened, even when joyous one
would recall this memory.
C. The process of reframing memories, we can change how we view our memories.
 The practical application of this realization is similar to that of emotions but is
focused more on the cognitive process of the person, when feeling an intense
emotion during an event, one will remember it as an embarrassing moment but
when one has processed the information from a different perspective, one could
reframe the memory into a funny story or something similar.
D. I realized that interplay between emotions were okay, I could feel sadness without hating it.
 The practical application of this realization is that when one feels a certain emotion,
they mostly focus on that emotion. When someone is sad, they regard themselves as
sad; which the same goes for other emotions. On a more practical note, one can feel
sad and happy at the same time, emotions are not exclusive but can live
harmoniously depending on the context of the situation.
E. I realized that memory isn’t always reliable
 The practical application of this realization is that when someone recalls certain
events, they could get some details mixed up or totally forgotten. This must be
because of lack of attention or error in encoding.
5. List down 5 concepts/issues that affects and memory you encounter while viewing the film. The
concept/issue must be based/related on the film and the lessons discussed. Explain your thoughts
about the chosen concepts/issues.
A. The reframing of memories
 This is a combination of memory and perspective concepts under Cognitive
Psychology. In the initial framing of a memory one captures, processes, and actively
make sense of the information that their senses receive that is in the memory
perspective and how one stores memories but perspective plays a role in the
reframing of memories because once the memories has been processed and
resurfaced, one has to deal with information once again and it creates a different
perspective on the experience depending on the current mood of the person.
B. The concept of Core Memories
 The core members in Inside Out represents past events that hold greater impact or
importance (more than the usual day to day memory) because they represent
moments that are key to the personality Riley has developed through it. This is in
conflict with Cognitive Psychology teachings because memories are not stored as
individual pieces of thought like depicted in the movie, these memories to be truly
influencing Riley’s personality then memory should be depicted as collections of
interrelated memories.
C. The concept of the memory dump
 The memory dump is a place where memory orbs are discarded because they have
become faded which means that the memory is slowly becoming forgotten or
disappearing. This is tied with the concept if encoding failures where memories
never made it into long-term memory thus is starting to fade once time passes and is
eventually discarded. Although it could be because the presence of a similar memory
where the two memories blended together, especially when there is still evidence of
prior learning.
D. The swirling of colors in the Memory Orbs
 When the memory orb was first introduced, each orb had a corresponding color
based on the emotions felt during the scene of the memory; Yellow for Joy, Blue for
Sadness, Red for Anger, Green for Disgust and Purple for Fear. This is in conflict with
the teachings in Cognitive Psychology because memory is stored as several units that
is individual from each other but makes up the reason as a whole, it becomes unit.
That not one single emotion can truly depict the emotions felt during certain
 memories, this is why during a certain scene in the movie, the memory orbs started
to form different colors in orb and swirled together which is a more accurate
depiction of how memories and emotions coincide.
E. When Riley goes to sleep her memories get vacuumed to the long-term memory
 In the movie, during the day Riley collects active memory as she goes on about her
day and when she goes to sleep, the “headquarters” shutdown and those active
memories that she collected throughout the day gets sent via a vacuum tube to be
encoded into her long-term memory. This concept is in line with the belief that in
Cognitive Psychology, the active (working) memory which one wouldn’t necessarily
encode events from their daily life because it is without a deliberate intention to
learn or remember them, the way this is depicted in the movie is when day to day
events are occurring, the emotions in the headquarters react to it but certain
memories are made into memory orbs and sent into long-term memories when one
goes to sleep and is recalled whenever needed.