Finding a Solution to a Problem without Having Certain Cognitive Brain Functions - Essay Example

Psychology Life is all about discovering and experiencing novel things. By providing us with the ability to think, taste, smell, touch, hear, see and speak etc, God has essentially given us the tools to explore life to its fullest. Our senses provide us with the ability to probe into the mysteries of life, delving into the secrets of the physical as well as the unchartered spiritual world. The establishment of the fact that our senses are extremely important leads us towards the issue of what would happen if we were to lose any one of these senses. In principle, the loss of any one of these senses would cause a periodic decline in our normal brain functions and eventually if not curtailed or dealt with properly would lead to a complete breakdown. The basic purpose of this paper was to simulate a situation where one had to deal with finding a solution to a problem without having certain cognitive brain functions at our disposal. Before moving on to the actual crux of the paper, I would like to mention a few salient points which will enable the reader to better understand my sentiments in regards to brain damage and neuropsychological problems. The reason why I have such strong sentiments in this case is due to the fact that one of my cousins's suffered the same fate. At the age of 9, he was involved in a traumatic accident during which he sustained injuries to the head and brain. Although the doctors were able to save his life, he lost sight in his left eye, arm and legs. His brain functions were also permanently impaired. Before the accident, he was a bright boy with much promise of the future but the accident nearly destroyed him completely. It took him years of recovery to get to where he is now. Presently, he has adapted so well to his condition that he has completed high school, went on to complete a degree at his local community college and eventually ended up working as an animator. His dream is design an animated cartoon such as Shrek. The above paragraph will define the main crux of my paper for you. My belief is that no matter how badly impaired one might be the use of proper therapy and sheer will power can help you to adapt to your impairment. In order to properly simulate the required situation, I had briefed my friend, Jessica, two days prior to our engagement so that she would be better prepared for the task at hand. Consequently, we locked ourselves in my room and accordingly, I had her write something down on a piece of paper which she then duly placed in her pocket and away from my prying eyes. Now the fact of the matter is that I've known Jessica since we were in pre-school so I was confident that I would be able to guess what she'd written. However, since we could not communicate in anyway posed quite a lot of problems which will be duly mentioned as this paper continues. At first, Jessica made no attempt to help in anyway. Therefore, for the first 20 minutes I just sat there wondering what I had gotten myself into. My decision of providing Jessica with every detail of my project was turning out to be a bad one because she would try her hardest to beat me at it. However, I've always been stubborn and therefore I was not about to give up that easily. I knew without doubt that I would have to adopt a methodical approach towards finding a solution to the problem that lay before me and that was what I did. Before we had begun the exercise, Jessica and I had agreed upon a basic method of using a modified version of charades. Consequently, I started by pointing towards different things in the room and picking them up. On some objects she would nod while on others she would just shake her head. Now it was my task to firstly figure out what sort of system she had conjured up in her mind and then to decode it in order to use it. I started off by writing down all the letters in the name of the object e.g. cushion, chair, pen etc. Now what I needed to figure out was which letters to use and which not to and in which order as well. One other possibility was also whether she had chosen a number or a sentence a word or whatever. Therefore I was completely in the dark. Statistically speaking, there was an equal probability that she would have chosen either a number or a sentence. Hence I knew that I would have to test both theories. Overall, she nodded to exactly 13 things in my room which were Lamp, cushion, chair, pen, vase, rubber, pencil, crayons, jacket, desk, ruler, computer and bed. After I had pointed out these 13 things she stopped responding to my 'object picking up' theory. No matter how many objects I pointed to she would not nod or shake her head. Therefore, I safely assumed that whatever she'd written on that piece of paper, the key to it lay in those 13 things that we had agreed upon. Now it was my task to decode the message. I was quick to note that the total number of letters were 66. But I only had 13 different objects and logically if I were to divide 66 by 13, I would not be able to get a whole number. So that obviously did not make sense. I then surmised that 66 broken down means 6 individually and therefore I thought that maybe if I could arrange the 13 objects in order, combine them together and then pick out every 6th number out of the pattern then I might be able to formulate a sentence. When I tried that all I got was gibberish. Consequently, I then tried to check the frequency of each letter in the words that I had in front of me but that eventually didn't make much sense either because the I wasn't sure what cutoff point I was supposed to use for the frequencies in the sense that I needed to know which frequency was the lowest so that all letters lying below a certain frequency would automatically be eliminated. I tried working with that idea by setting different cutoff frequencies but I wasn't able to get anywhere with my first 6 approaches and therefore I gave up because the process was cumbersome and I was already getting irritated by the fact that I couldn't figure out what my best friend had written on a stupid piece of paper. It was at this point that I started running out of patience and then I just started pointing towards the 13 different objects, trying to sort of gauge how important each object was in order to determine a system. Basically, I didn't really know what to do and I was actually trying to irritate her so that she would at least suffer through the same thing that I was going through. At first, she started shaking her head again and making stupid faces at me but when she saw that I was coming back to the same object again and again she stopped giving me any reactions. It was at this time that I finally realized what my cousin had to go through when he wanted to get things done. All this time, I used to get irritated when he would ask me the same question again and again. I would complain to my mother and would usually tell her that I did not want to hang out with him because he irritated me. But at that moment I truly realized the extent of his predicament. I now knew how difficult it was for him to understand and get his point across. Since I had already spent 6 hours on his exercise and my mother's incessant knocking essentially sealed my fate. I decided to call it quits and asked Jessica to tell me what she'd written. Since she had not been allowed to talk for a considerable time now it was difficult for me to try to get her tell me what she'd written but after a lot of insulting remarks about my intelligence, she finally gave in. What she'd written on the piece of paper was the number 66. Looking at the piece of paper all I could was laugh at my stupidity. It had been right in front of my face all along and I just didn't know it. I guess I did get a lot out of this exercise. Firstly, the most important lesson that I learnt was that I should be thankful that I have a properly functioning brain and that I should be more sensitive towards people who do not. Later that day, I said a silent prayer for my cousin and even left a message for him on his cell phone asking him to hang out with me. I knew that it would mean the world to him and to me as well. The second thing that I learnt or should I say did not learn was the ability to be patient. Patience in almost all religions is said to be a virtue and strength of character and after going through the exercise, I now knew how true that statement was. I think that this was a truly great exercise in the sense that it changed my view about disabilities. At first, I was indifferent towards such maladies and I guess you can say that I basically even looked down upon such problems but now it's completely different. From now on, I'm going to be thankful everyday to God for giving me a properly functioning brain and to keep it that way. Sources: Freides, D. (2001). Developmental Disorders: A Neuropsychological Approach. Wiley-Blackwell. Castillo, C. (2008). Children with Complex Medical Issues in Schools: Neuropsychological Descriptions and Interventions . Springer Publishing Company Mirushina, M., Boone, K., & D'Elia, L. (1999). Handbook of Normative Data for Neuropsychological Assessment. Oxford University Press. Bauby, J. (2007). The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Vintage. Couche, P. (2007). Lifelines: Breaking Out of Locked-in Syndrome. Wakefield Press. Read More