Understanding How Mental Nodes Work, Article Review Example

The human brain functions in a two way approach, one is through responding to current situations in an immediate manner, and another is through imposing extensive response through stored knowledge. This is where the function of the mental nodes enters; the capacity of the mental nodes to reflect sensory perception of how humans tend to understand and perceive the world around them specifically defines the function of this particular factor of the brain. In relation to this matter, Meredith Shafto and Donald MacKay’s article on The Moses, mega-Moses and Armstrong Illusions does provide a clear definition on how sensory perceptions and semantic memory actually provides immediate response to seemingly easy questions presented to respondents in a random approach.

The study that MacKay and Shafto intend to give attention to is the process by which the integration of language and the comprehension of the human brain are interrelated towards each other. Relatively, such approach to the matter is defined under the condition of a human being subjected to a question that was seemingly easy to answer yet confusing to comprehend with. The Moses and Armstrong illusion as mentioned by the authors define how humans respond to personal knowledge and known knowledge in general. The way a human being responds to question such as how many animals did Moses put into the ark is already wrong in nature. Nevertheless, the response provided by the participants in the study shows that such a mistake is disregarded by the memory and replaces the name confusingly to Noah. The rendering f such mistakes often happen due to the function of the semantic memory which is explained through the node structure theory. The semantic system basically handles the phonological function of the brain which also indicates the capacity of the brain to give meaning to words as they are being comprehended upon.

In this case, the study showed that both the Moses and the Armstrong illusion proves that the brain does respond in a confusing manner when immediately asked with random questions that has something to do with information stored in the memory and a mistaken choice of words. The meaning that the brain provides to such set of questions often end up in a distinctive confusion that makes the response wrong. Comprehension then is described to be jeopardized by memory once the information is released randomly. This does not render the brain dysfunctional though, it just shows that the incapability of human individuals to specifically give attention to direct information and utilize proper comprehension is often contributed by known information which they confidently depend upon.

Reference:

Shafto, M. and Macay, D. (2000).The Moses, Mega-Moses and Armstrong Illusions: Integrating Language Comprehension and Semantic Memory. Psychological Science. University of California: Los Angeles.