Read my homework!

[miss_yt]

I have an assignment from my Cognition and Environment class in which I have to state principles based on 3-7 concepts from the course - and explain them - in such a way that an educated layperson - someone who had no training in psychology and had not taken the course - would understand them, be interested in them and feel they had learned from them. I talked to my professor about the assignment and he said it would be a good idea to take whatever I did, show it to a friend and see if they understood it. If they understood, then I was on the right track.

I thought about how to do this and I came up with the idea of using short poems, because one thing we learned in that course is that stories and imagery are particularly effective ways of conveying information. So, here goes...please read these and tell me what you think.

Many objects in the natural world tend to engage our involuntary attention: we become aware of them automatically and it takes little or no effort for us to concentrate on them.


Washing dishes in the kitchen sink one morning
Outside the window, a flash of bright red
My hands stop, my eyes are drawn up
To a cardinal, fluttering, pecking, on the bird feeder.
I forget myself, standing with arms in suds to the elbows
As the busy cardinal hops and eats.
When he flies away, the spell is broken
And I return, smiling, to my dishes.

We use directed attention to focus on processes and situations that we do not find pleasant or automatically engaging, and to block out distracting thoughts or external stimuli.


The workday hours drag by
My mind keeps turning to other things,
All the places I would rather be than here.
But I have to finish this project:
There's a deadline to meet, a client waiting.
With a sigh, I turn back to the computer screen
And force myself to focus
To push on through, to rein in my mind
Which like me has places it would rather be than here.

Like a muscle, our capacity for "focusing" or "buckling down" can be tired out, leading to direct attention fatigue, which results in diminished mental capacity, irritability and reduced self-control.


There's a million little things to worry about
And I can't stick with a single one
Can't make myself start or can't make myself finish
My mind is too weary to stand up.
I have no strength or will to be polite:
I snap at those who wish me well and resent everything.
After work I eat ice cream, although I know I shouldn't.
It's just been one of those days.

A restorative experience - such as sleep time spent in a natural setting - encourages reflection, reduces mental fatigue and recharges our capacity to think effectively and pay attention.


The garden is a daily ritual
My little place, girded with elm, oak and pine.
I dig in the dirt, planting bulbs, pulling weeds.
I dispense water and mulch to my charges.
With working hands, I have time for idle fancies
To sing, to remember, to take each thought one at a time.
The green of leaves, the yellow of tulips, the red of tomatoes
Caress my mind to calm, work out the tension and the knots.
When I finish my work, my soul is clean and new
And things don't seem so bad, after all.