The Action Potential

Imagine you placed your hand on a burning stove but you did not realize it. You would immediately pull your hand away before your brain even processes what just happened. That is how fast messages travels in a persons nervous system. Your brain thinks for you before you even have the chance to think about what you are doing. When your hand is on the stove, your sensory neurons sense the heat causing an action potential to travel throughout your body. This action potential is an electrical charge that jumps from neuron to neuron towards the brain in order to tell it to move your hand. But the part thats really cool is that these neurons dont even touch. The action potential travels at speeds up to 200 miles per hour. That's like going from Memphis to Nashville in just about an hour. This is one of the many things about psychology that amazes me.

This past week we learned about activation energy. Activation energy is the amount of electrical energy it takes for a neuron to fire. This reminded me of something I learned last year and it also happened to be in science class. Near the end of the year we started learning modern physics. We learned about this experiment called the photoelectric effect. Basically it says that when a photon hits an electron it can make it jump to a different energy level if and only if it hits it hard enough, or with the right amount of activation energy. The more I thought about it the more I realized that this concept is not just in science.; it is all over the place. I find that the hardest part of doing something is starting to do it. Once you start it just keeps on going, just like our neuron. Once the neuron has enough energy to start its gates open and depolarizes. This causes the next step of re-polarizing and eventually leads to the opening the gates farther down the axon. This process continues until it reaches the end. All it needed was a little help in the beginning. That big jolt of energy gets the ball moving and it won't stop till the end. Kinda like this post. It was hard to get it started but once I sat down and forced myself to start I just went with it.

Why

Why Do We Care?

Why do we care about what goes on inside of us? When I'm living my everyday life I have no desire to know why I'm breathing, or why I do it involuntarily. I'm just happy I'm doing it. I understand that since Psychology was born many scientific breakthroughs have contributed enormously to the overall well being of the world, but what made the fathers of Psychology think of these ideas? What would lead a person to wonder what's going on inside of them when it's so much easier to be perfectly content with things running the right way. This may seem like a basic, stupid question. You may respond that it's common to think about how you work, but it's only common because somebody did it first. As far back as Plato and Socrates people have been studying people. What motivated that? Who thought it would be a good idea to tear apart a human body to examine it? What savages. It's the norm now, but if this wasn't common practice, if Psychology did not exist, it would be nothing short of barbaric.

 I sure do love to propose questions on this blog, I wish some people would try to answer them though!

A body based society?

What exactly makes a perfect society? It would need something to provide information on what is happening around it and messengers that are sent from the governmental center to the workers. The message system would have to be fast and accurate, always ready to deliver. There would need to be a solid infrastructure that would keep the necessary things like electricity and water running without stop. The system would have to be adaptive, aware of the changes in usage and able to make adjustments as needed.

Isn't it interesting how the perfect society seems to exist right inside of us? That's correct. The arrangement described above is a near perfect description of how our bodies work. The efferent neurons carry commands from our brain, the governmental center of our body, to the muscles. The afferent neurons tell the brain what is going on outside of the body, somewhat like security cameras. Our automatic nervous system keeps our heart pumping and our lungs breathing, all without any conscious effort on our part. The parasympathetic nervous system adjusts for situations that might require extra energy, such as a robbery, and makes sure that we have the energy needed to complete the tasks we carry out. The neurons are the ones that carry all the messages for these various actions. A message starts out in the soma of the neuron and goes on to the dendrite. The dendrites send and receive the commands that are coursing through the body. Axons, surrounded in myelin sheath much the same as ethernet cables being covered in rubber, transmit the signals from one neuron's dendrite to another.

The body does this millions of times a day, all without fail and all incredibly fast. Perhaps the presidential candidates should be taking tips from within rather than looking for those to blame on the out.

No Pain, No Gain

          My opinion that without pain, life would be so much better, was shut down instantly by Mrs. Perl and the rest of you guys. Now I understand why. Before that class discussion, I always wondered how people could even say that pain is a good thing. It's pain! It hurts! Why is it a good thing to get hurt?! 
               Now I understand that the reason that pain is a good thing is because if we did not feel pain, then we would not know when we would need to be treated and we could possibly end up dead without any idea of it being imminent. Without pain, we could also end up looking very ugly because of huge bruises, scars, and/or burns.
               Even after hearing the class's idead of the importance of pain, I still have one more argument left. There are other people in this world to tell you when you need to be treated, and thanks to the technology today, pretty much anything could be treated very quickly. It would be great if we didn't feel pain. We would never get and if we got a bruise, gash, or burn, somebody would tell you if you needed to be cured. 
               The only thing that pain is good for now is appearance. However, I would definitely trade temporary aspects of my appearance for no pain. My classmates would say, thank god for pain; however, I say thank god for other people/doctors!!!

Identical Personalities?

As a student in elementary school, I was actually taught that identical twins only look the same, but deep down, they really aren’t all that similar. And then David Myers came around and proved my schoolteachers wrong! You see, identical twins are very much alike. You could say that it’s because they grew up in the same environment, but think about what would happen if identical twins were separated at birth. Along with the example covered in Benjamin Kampf’s blog post, where the identical twins separated at birth were so alike that the only noticeable difference was how each spelled his son’s middle name (although it was the same name), an example that blew my mind was the one of Oskar Stohr and Jack Yufe, a Nazi Catholic and a Caribbean Jew, respectively. They were separated at birth, and despite their completely different environment, they both shared identical traits, from the foods they liked to the particular tics they shared. So how can you tell identical twins apart? The main difference is that one will be healthier than the other, usually because no two people can ever share the exact same source of nourishment and number of copies of genes in the same womb. I don’t have an identical twin brother as far as I know of, so I can’t really apply this stuff to myself. However, my mom is a triplet and is almost physically identical to her sister (scientifically speaking, two of the triplets have to be identical). So I tried thinking, is my mom healthier than my aunt, or vice versa. The answer is possibly, since my aunt and my mom have gotten sick in different ways as they get older. Upon further thinking of my mom and her sister, I realized that they really aren’t alike at all, thus proving Mr. Myers wrong and proving my schoolteachers right. For example, my aunt is generally worried about everything, but my mom is a total chiller. Looking to the childhood stories my mom has told me, I have come to believe that my mom and aunt’s differences developed due to nurture, or how the environment affected them. Despite everything I said in the first two paragraphs of this blog post, it seems that the environment CAN make identical twins different.

Twin Telepathy?

Two men, Jim Lewis and Jim Springer, are very alike. They both like watching stock-car racing, drinking Miller Lite, building furiture, and sitting in their trucks. Both of their dog's names was Toy. They didn't even know each other until Jim Springer found out that they were twins, set out to find Lewis, and they talked on the phone for the first time. What happened was that they were genetically identical twins who were adopted by different families 37 days after they were born. After that talked on the phone they were tested by Thomas Bouchard who is a University of Minnesota psychologist. After the results came in, they found out that these two men, even though they were separated at birth were basically the same person.
Some question the fact that identical twins being very similar is no coincidence. They posit that if you walk down the street and find some random person you have never met, you will most likely find some very interesting similaraties between the two of you.
This whole arguement is based on the debate of nature-nurture. In the example of the twins, it seems clear that nature is what really decides who you are because these people are twins who do not live together, and they are incredibally similar.
From my experience, it seems like the case of the twins is correct because, the twins that I see walking around all the time tend to be very similar in personality, and these sets of twins live together. Kal v'chomer, for twins that don't even know each, and still have so many things in common, it just strengthens that opinion.
We probably will not know for some time if the twins case is the outlier or the norm, but it does point fingers to the fact that we are based off genetics.

What is Actually Happening During a Big Decision

Ethan Cooper

What is Actually Happening During a Big Decision

     The Tennessee Titans are up by 3 points in overtime. The Detroit Lions have a decision to make. It is fourth down and inches and they can do two things: kick a field goal and tie the game up, or potentially go for the win and make a play on fourth down. Coach Jim Schwarz of the Lions stopped for a second and made a decision. Let's look at the science behind the decision in great detail.

     A stimulus changes the permeability of the cell membrane to sodium and potassium ions. This alters the distribution of charge in the cell body, and if this stimulus is big enough, it triggers the action potential that moves down the axon. Voltage gated channels open and close when a neuron stimulus occurs. Sodium Ions will come into the cell making it more positive on the inside. Then they close and voltage gated potassium channels open, allowing potassium ions to come out. This changes the polarity in the membrane. When the sodium was rushing in, depolarization was occurring. When the potassium leaves the cell, the cell is re-polarizing and once it reaches -93mv, it is in a refractory period. What is important to note that this whole process in all or nothing, meaning either the aforementioned idea will all occur at once or it won't occur at all. This process repeats itself as the chemical and electrical process go from one axons to the next. 

     So when Schwarz decided to go for it on fourth down resulting in a Titans win, he essentially created an action potential to stimulate the thought that he was going to go for the win, which ended up not working out.   

To fight of flight, or not to fight or flight. That is the Question.

     If you are being chased by a bear, what are you going to do? If you are Usain Bolt, you will probably run for your life since running would serve you best. But if you are a big, tough guy, like Hulk Hogan, maybe you'd try to fight the bear. Whichever response you choose, it can be classified as your flight or fight response.
     But what exactly controls how you respond when you decide to either stay and fight or run away? That all comes down to the autonomic nervous system (regulates your glands, muscles, organs, etc.), which is split up into 2 parts: the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system.
     So what do these 2 nervous systems do? The sympathetic nervous system mobilizes your body for action. So while you are prepared to either run away or fight the bear, it is getting your body ready and amped up. It is making your heart pump faster, dilating your pupils, and inhibiting bladder conrtaction, just to name a few things. Basically, the sympathetic nervous system is getting your body ready by focusing on what you need for your fight or flight and inhibiting what you don't need (for example, it is not allowing you to go to the bathroom right then and there so you can focus more from defeating the bear).
   And the parasympathetic nervous system is trying to calm everything down; it's conserving energy. It is working in opposition to your sympathetic nervous system by slowing heartbeat, contracting your bladder, etc.
     So what I want to know is, what would happen if you took out a person's parasympathetic nervous system? What would happen to their body? Would they get too overworked by their sympathetic nervous system? Would their heart start beating way too fast without anything to stop it; would their pupils dilate over their entire eye?
Also, is it even possible to take out someone's parasympathetic nervous system? Is it similar to taking out someone's corpus collosum or is it more intertwined in a person's body?

What do you guys think?

Kids

While being in Philadelphia pressed with time and helping with the family cook for Rosh Hashanah, the holiday ends and I am with the cutest baby in the world. From here, I actually learned a bit of Psychology without being in the class. My two little cousins Akiva and Ezra, both brothers, are interesting kids. One of them is really sensitive and his name is Akiva and he's 7 years old, his brother Ezra, who is 5, doesn't care about anything and isn't sensitive. Their personalities are very different and I see that one of them gets the sensitivity from their mother and the non sensitive one gets his non sensitive, humorous personality from his dad. If they were twins would they have the same personalities or would they still be opposite from another?

This is not the only fascinating thing about my cousins, what fascinates me as well is cognition, how when at first when they were little kids, they couldn't comprehend or even build a lego set. Yesterday I went to the store with the kids, and my 7 year old cousin built a rocket ship, what fascinates me is him reading the directions on the manual and knowing which pieces to put where. While I am also fascinated by the fact that this child didn't know how to read when he was very little, I realize the fantastic part of cognition, being able to process information from reading a book, from looking at pictures that tell you where certain pieces belong, and to processing the motion signals one can give off, when shaking their head or waving. Cognition takes place in every second of our life.

Our own little experiment

I recall the night before the test I was apprehensive; almost fearful for it as I tried not to imagine what sort of test would come from the difficult assignments we'd been getting. So it was with trepidation that I walked into the classroom and sat down at my desk. I expected a similar sense of agitation from my fellow classmates but was surprised when several of them expressed a calm demeanor and said that they felt fine. It was then that I began thinking how interesting it would be to research the differing study habits of the class and see what causes varying degrees of test anxiety among us.

As we learned, it is important to make an operational definition for the anxiety we would be measuring.  I think that I would measure the number of times a person fidgets: pumps leg up and down, taps pencil, etc. I would also look at the number of hours spent studying and how late we each went to bed. Personally, I had one hour and 45 minutes of sleep the night before and I feel that that may have contributed to my uneasiness on test day. To be thorough though, and to fit with our biopsychosocial approach, I would also want to observer the Amygdala. An in-depth look at the amygdala would allow me to see the neurological effects the studying times and sleeping schedules were having on the brain and how it effected the anxiety I was measuring. The optimal researhc mode I would want would be a case study so that I would be able to record everything that might lead to greater anxiety levels.

Perhaps based on what I found I would be able to find a way to make test taking less stressful. It might help all of us students for us to engage in this case study.

Bill Gates and the Mean.

I was reading yahoo news and an article about the Forbe's 400 richest people in America came up. Looking over this list reminded me of how information we are given could be very skewed. After looking over some numbers and doing some math I was really able to understand where this information could be applied.
In 2010 the United States Census estimated the average household annual income in the US was $51,914. Bill Gates, named the richest man in the United States by Forbe's, made more than $2 billion. Gates made more than 40,000 times the average annual income. While he is not able to affect the average annual income for the other 308,745,537 people in the United States the rest of the 399 people on Forbe's list really do.

Cerebellums: Some are simply "better" than others

Messi dribbles down the baseline cuts it back to the left, Messi going! Messi shoots from 100ft .... Goooooaaaaallllll!! Messi! What a shot! He bent it beautifully! (scream with English accent)
For those of us that are watching this shot, we sit back and wonder, how does he do that? Why can't I do that?
The answer to the question is the cerebellum. It is a portion of our brain that controls balance, movements, coordination, and a lot of other things that are associated with motor movements and sports.
In Drivers Ed with Max Maxwell, on the last day of the week, we did a lot of fun things one of which is a test where you have to walk in a straight line with these drunk goggles on. The point of it is to simulate a test that the police would give you if they suspect you as a drunk driver. It is not easy. That is how it feels to walk if you have no cerebellum because you do not really have any balance.
Another example, of the cerebellum is NFL quarterbacks. Every thing they do is like second nature because they practice so much, and part of the reason why is because of muscle memory (which is linked to the cerebellum). Their throwing motion, footwork, timing, etc. all have to be perfected if they want to play at a high level, and all of that stuff is associated with the cerebellum.
As we said today in class, some cerebellums are better than others. There is nothing we can do to change that. Lionel Messi's cerebellum is at a very high level (whatever that means), and Benjamin Kampf's is not. Some people are born with certain traits that others are not born with.
A couple of questions I have:
1. Is the cerebellum genetic? Meaning if my father has a good cerebellum, than do I have a better chance of having a good cerebellum?
2. What does it mean that someone's cerebellum is better than someone else's?
3. Can one develop the cerebellum?
I loved reading about the cerebllum in the book, and can not wait to learn more about it in class. It truly is fascinating.

Aphasia - aisahpA

I like toast.

That's all.

No, but really. One of the most fascinating things I have learned this year has got to be, hands down, Aphasia. It's an disorder caused by brain injury that drastically affects our ability to speak. Being a mute is not interesting, how could not being able to talk be cool? What I thought was really intriguing were the various types of Aphasia than can result in amazing disorders. In one form of Aphasia, one loses the ability to speak normally, only being able to communicate through song. Can you imagine having to walk around singing everything you need to say? It'd be fun at first, but I would surely get tired of it. Another form is quite confusing. One may lose the ability to read, but is still able to write and visa versa. This phenomena makes absolutely zero sense to me. Being totally lost in a subject may discourage some people, it may even drive them away from wanting to learn more, but when I'm confused by a disorder in Psych I have the strongest urge to chase down some answers. I guess that's why I'm enjoying this course. It's encouraging me to learn more than is actually necessary.

As reflected in my domination of test number 1. Just saying.

Stay classy Memphis.

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia

     After studying the brain a little bit in this past chapter's assignment, I came across a few psychological illnesses when reading the textbook and through various other readings I've done outside of class and the concept of Schizophrenia sparked my interest. 

     Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by delusions, perceptual distortions, disorganized thinking or speech that affect emotions and cause an individual to be out of touch with reality. There has been a plethora of genetic research findings in order to further understand the idea. For example, it has been shown that the prevalence of schizophrenia is pretty much the same across various cultures. Another interesting find is that when studying twins, identical twins are more likely to show higher concordance rates than fraternal twins, shedding light on the disorder. 

    There is what is known as the dopamine hypothesis that explains the origin of schizophrenia. This hypothesis shows that schizophrenia is related to over-activity of dopamine. Dopamine is a compound present in the body as a neurotransmitter and a precursor of other substances. Drugs that block dopamine decrease the symptoms. Medications used to treat schizophrenia are designed specifically to decrease the amount of dopamine. This prevents dopamine from being released at the time synapse. 

    It is clear that schizophrenia is a unique disorder that can affect cognition, the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. If this perspective is blocked off from psychology, it is difficult to live an ordinary life.

Loving Linguistics

Reading through Unit 3B, I noticed that one section of the unit really stood out to me: the part regarding the hypothalamus. For those who are unaware, the hypothalamus is a neural structure lying below the thalamus. It directs several maintenance activities like eating and drinking and helps govern the endocrine system through the pituitary gland. However, the part that really got me was the idea that the hypothalamus is linked to emotion and reward. Why did this stick with me? The answer can be found in James Olds and Peter Milner's experiment in 1954. Their goal was to implant an electrode in a rat's reticular formation. However, they misplaced an electrode, putting it in a section of the rat's hypothalamus. When the rat discovered a button that stimulated that electrode, it continuously returned to that button to receive that stimulus, even crossing an electrified grid that it wouldn't cross to get food or water. The doctors realized that they discovered a center that, if stimulated, can cause extreme pleasure in animals. What's scary is, later scientists have been able to use this pleasure center to practically control animals, almost like they're remote controlled toy cars. Of course, the book asks if humans have this "pleasure center" in their hypothalamus as well. It turns out we do, but it works better by itself than when stimulated from an outside source. However, one can have a genetically disposed deficiency called reward deficiency syndrome, which causes somebody to become addicted to something like alcohol or drugs in order to replace whatever pleasure they feel they're missing in their hypothalamus. This section about the hypothalamus both freaked me out and amazed me. Never before have I thought that mind control was technically possible, even if it's used more on animals than on humans. Could humans be controlled through the hypothalamus, is it possible that those with reward deficiency syndrome can be controlled more easily than others, and would it be ethical (in fact, is it ethical to control animals like rats)? Now I'm pumped to cover this section in more depth as a class.

From the Abused to the Abuser

          Since we just finished taking a test, I decided that it would not really be beneficial to write about something we have already done so I decided to research and write about a correlation that I have always been wondering about.
          Is it true that those who were abused tend to end up being the abusers and if so why? This is a similar question in regards to the nature-nurture debate. Are you born an abuser, or does it develop based on nurture; based on experience?
         There definitely are cases in which people have medical conditions in which they are more likely to become abusers; however, in most of the cases I found, the abusers say that it is primarily because of nurture and experience. The obvious reason is because those who have been abused think that it is not fair that only they were abused so they take it out on other people. Also, it is because they have been around abuse all of their life so they think that abuse is the norm.
         A way to test this is by getting a group of people who have been abused and get a group of people who have not been abused and observe the way hey act towards their kids. Most likely, the group of people who have been abused will abuse their children a lot more.

Dismantling a Common Misconception

     We've all heard it. "Humans only use 10% of their brains." I have heard this comment often throughout my life, but I was always too lazy to find out if it was true or not before coming to this class so I just accepted it. But how true is that comment really? Is 90% of our brain really just a pile of mush that fills up space in our skull? This is not true at all.
     However, after finding the truth to this concept, I can understand why people would say such a thing. But keep in mind, that still does not make it correct. It could be plausible that someone could think such a thing because our motor and our sensory cortex make up approximately 10% of the area of our brain. These are the parts of our brain that actually perform direct functions.
     The motor cortex is the area in our frontal lobes that controls voluntary movement. Any time you want to move part of your body, you are activating your motor cortex to send a message to your body to perform that action. And your sensory cortex is the area in your parietal lobes that registers and processes body touch and movement sensations. So, for example, any time someone pokes you, your sensory cortex receives that sensation and informs your brain that you have been touched.
    So what makes up the rest of the brain? Here comes the kicker. The other 90% is made up of association areas, no, not empty mush. These areas do not have direct motor or sensory functions, but rather they are used in much higher mental functions, such as learning, remembering, thinking and speaking. Like the example of Phineas Gage in 1848. He had severe damage to his frontal lobe in a gun powder accident, yet he was still able to sense and function just fine. However, he damaged a specific association area, and he lost all morality in his behavior.
     Two things can be learned from this. 1: You do use almost all, if not all, of your brain for many functions besides sensing and moving. And 2: If something sounds so ridiculous and simply does not make any sense, don't believe it! You end up looking like a clueless, ignorant person who does not know what he or she is talking about whatsoever.

The Cortex

While I was reading through the textbook one thing that i came across that really amazed me was the cortex. The cortex is the part of the brain that controls our senses and movements. The motor cortex, located towards the back part of the frontal lobe, causes us to move our muscles. Just like the motor cortex sends messages out, the sensory cortex, located parallel and directly behind the motor cortex. receives messages. The sensory cortex controls the sense of feeling. The visual cortex, located on lower part of the occipital lobe, controls the sense of sight. Finally, the auditory cortex, controls the sense of hearing.
There are two things that I found really interesting about all of this. The first is that the left hemisphere of the brain is related to right side of the body and vice versa. This means that either side of the brain controls the opposite side of the body. The second thing I found interesting is that all of these cortexes, which cause every one of our movements and senses, only take up one fourth of the brain.  This just shows how much more there is left to learn about the brain.

          The book asks many interesting questions but there is one in particular that caught my attention and really made me think. It went something like this: if person A had person B's brain, would he be person A or B? There is no way of knowing and I do not know anywhere near enough information to even take a guess but it made me wonder what makes me who I am. I came to the conclusion that it was not my bosy because if I lose my arm, I am still me. If I lose the entire lower half of my body then I would still be me. Even if I lost everything neck down I would still see me as me. You can take off more and more but when I think about it I can almost see a point somewhere inside my head that captures who I am. But if it not my body than what is it? Is it just my consciousness? Am I only me because I consciously  or subconsciously tell myself I am? If I could somehow tell myself that I was someone else, Would I be him? So many questions and so answers but answering the books questions may lead to answering a few of mine.

Can it be done?

This past week as I was frantically reading the textbook so that I'd have time to finish the project I found myself getting easily distracted. I figured it had to do with the detailed descriptions of the brain and its functions and decided to preserve so I could go to sleep and just get the grade. Close to two hours after the midnight oil had burned out, I was ready to call it quits, until I reached the experiments conducted on those with split brains.

As I began to read about the various experiments that have been conducted on the split brain ones, such as the HE*ART experiment, I was fascinated with the possibilities and questions that such a situation brought up. I was especially interested in the statement of how "it is almost like having two brains."

The idea of a brain transplant has always been a theoretical one, destined to the pages of science fiction until the future. As interesting as a brain transplant may be, I was far more engrossed in the idea of half-brain transplant. What if someone, when they died, donated both halves of their brain as two separate donations. What would happen if we were to put just the left-hempisphere of the brain into a body. Would the body be able to function as it normally did? Would the person be able to comprehend deeper thoughts or move half their body? What if the right-hemisphere was transplanted? Is it possible to live with only one half of a brain? Unfortunately, modern science is unable to test such things and we must wait for future science.

Another somewhat fantastical idea that this chapter made me think about was the possibility of creating a human. Would it be possible to study the brain to such an extent that we would be able to build an artificial working brain. If it were, could they be controlled? Would we be able to engineer a genius? What about a dutiful servant? Are the possibilities endless?

Right hemisphere? Left hemisphere? It doesn't matter as long as you have a corpus callosum

        Akiva Somer

            How crazy it is to know that if we did not have one feature of our brain, the corpus callosum, we would  would not be able to function even remotely properly! The corpus callosum is so powerful and without it, the two hemispheres of our brain would not be able to communicate with each other, and we would not be able to function. People without corpus callosums supposedly have "split brains." This concept may be very confusing, so bear with me as I try to explain it in the best way as possible.

            When a person with a split brain looks at two words at once, the right hemisphere of the brain sees one word and the right sees the other word. When you ask them simply what they saw, they would say that they saw the word that the left hemisphere saw. When you ask them to point to the word that they saw, they would point to the word with their left hand that the right hemisphere saw because the right hemisphere of the brain is in charge of the left hand's movements. 

            There was another experiment done in 1998 by some scientists to further the explanation of how a split brain works. They placed a picture in front of a person with a split brain. On the right side of the picture, there was a chicken's foot, which is what the left hemisphere saw, and on the left side of the picture, there was snow covering the ground, which is what the right hemisphere saw. Then there were cards placed in front of the person; one card had a picture of a shovel, and it was on the left side and the other was a picture of a chicken coup, and it was on the right side. Then, he was asked to point to which card corresponds to each picture in the big picture. Since the right hemisphere saw the snow picture and it controls the left hand, the left hand pointed to the picture of the shovel on the left side. Furthermore, since the left hemisphere saw the chicken's foot, the right hand pointed to the chicken coup o the right side. Then, the experimenter asked him why he was pointing to the shovel on the left side. Since the left hemisphere controls the talking and the left hemisphere saw the chicken's foot, he got really confused and was not able to explain why he was pointing to the shovel when he saw the chicken's foot.

           I find it so interesting that our brain could interact so well and so quickly just because of one feature of the brain. The corpus callosum enables us to realize that we actually saw both of the words and that we saw both of the pictures, and it also helps there be no noticeable separation between the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere. 

For many years I have always questioned statistics. I would always wonder, how can they account for every detail when doing their research? When we were learning about surveys and different research methods, I was able to come to the understanding that I was correct to question the popular statistics that are published. To conduct an accurate research study takes so much accuracy only the best professionals can come up with reliable results. Many of the statistics that are published to the public are very often made up, or driven from unreliable sources. When studying the results of experiments it is very important to be sure they are legitimate.

For many years I have always questioned statistics. I would always wonder, how can they account for every detail when doing their research? When we were learning about surveys and different research methods, I was able to come to the understanding that I was correct to question the popular statistics that are published. To conduct an accurate research study takes so much accuracy only the best professionals can come up with reliable results. Many of the statistics that are published to the public are very often made up, or driven from unreliable sources. When studying the results of experiments it is very important to be sure they are legitimate.

Surveying: It's all in the word(ey)ing

We all love to take polls and read surveys that come our way, but how much is really involved that can change the outcome of a survey? Are there any things that can skew the results?
On ESPN.com they always have great polls for an avid sports fan. I always love to read them, and I never really paid attention to the wording of these polls. I always just read them and answered what I thought. But today, while skimming through the polls on ESPN.com/sportsnation, I found one that had certain wording that could change ones answer if they were to word it differently. The question read: "Is Alex Smith an ELITE quarterback?" The reason why I capitalized the word elite is because that is a strong word, and it can easily make someone change their thoughts. For example, I think Alex Smith of the San Fransisco 49ers is a very good quarterback, but do I think he is elite, probably not, so I would answer no even though I do think he is very good.
Wording isn't the only thing that can skew the results of a poll. The population sampled is also very important. When we did the M & M's sampling in class we found that the more M & M's we sampled the closer we were to the actual percentages released by the company. It is the same with surveys. The more people you have (to a certain extent) the better chance your survey will be accurate and represent the entire population of the world. Also, you need different people with different backgrounds. If we are going to do a survey on block scheduling and we wanted to get the views of the whole school, but didn't want to sample the whole school and we only polled the people in our class, the results would not represent the thoughts of the whole school.
There also has to be random sampling, which is that every person has an equal chance of being chosen. So back to our class. If we just sampled our class we would not have random sampling because not everyone in our school would have an equal chance of being chosen.
Responder bias can skew the results of a survey and wording can have something to do with it. It is when the responder to the survey answers according to what he think the poller wants to hear. The way that wording can have something to do with it is because if the survey is asked in a way that leads the responder in one way or another than the responder will answer accordingly.
Clearly, wording has a huge impact on the results of a poll, and it is imperative that the wording is proper so the results are not skewed in any way.

The Right Experiment

Me, always wanting to get an experiment right and prove some weird theory that pops up in my mind, I didn't realize that there was so much to getting an experiment right, as well as getting accurate results. Not only did I learn that I can't find the answer to why something happens, but there is so much to reconsider when doing an experiment. We have to think of everything that has the potential to ruin an experiment, like for example, when I am going and doing some sort of environmental experiment, and it's supposed to be a nice clear day, and then suddenly, clouds come in and it's thunder and lightening. There goes my experiment! So I kind of no longer have an interest in any environmental experiment from that, and so why not do some experiment that involves statistics! Where can I go wrong from there? Why don't I mail out a personal survey to a hundred people asking them questions about how much energy they consume? Well, it's not that simple, because I have to give everyone an equal chance of getting the letter. So why not do random assignment? Everyone get's an equaled chance of being chosen! One thing that I have to realize when sending out a survey is my word choice and experimenter bias. Two great things that have a great effect on whether or not if I am to get accurate results. When it comes to communication, your word choice is very important. When asking a certain question, you have to consider if it was a biased question. When trying to get results, and you ask someone a question, it's about phrasing the question, "How many people do you think consume just as much energy as you do?" When I ask that question, it's not too accurate, but if I phrased the question in a different way, "How many people do you know of that consume just as much energy as you do?" Just by the switch of words, I just avoided getting statistics that could have been very off! Although, I don't think I can be too biased with a statistics experiment, I have to take into acknowledgement Experimenter bias. When doing an experiment, everything I do for that experiment matters! When reading Isaac's post about Pampers, there is so much I could do, even though I don't realize it, it changed the results! With doing things the correct way, without experimenter bias, random assignments, enthusiasm, and many other things taken into consideration, I could do the RIGHT experiment!

Mind Boggling Psychology

So it’s been three weeks. Three weeks covering the very basics of Psychology. Three weeks learning all about the pioneers of Psychology. So far nothing has quite blown my mind up until this past week. When doing my work for unit 3b, I came across something called the Amygdala. The Amygdala controls our aggression. When our Amygdala is removed, we lose all of our aggression. When it is stimulated, we’re ready to throw down. The Amygdala itself is not what’s fascinating; the fact that it can control our behavior is what’s so amazing. If an artificial stimulation can change our behavior, then what control do we have? If something man made can take our emotions out of our control, what do we have left? Do we really operate our brain? Or does our brain operate our brain? If things can be rewired and stimulated to alter our entire personalities and behavior, what does that make us? Puppets? Is the brain the puppet master? Everything is so mind blowing of late that I want nothing more than to find some answers. I just thought I would share my feelings. 

Double-blind Diapers

When I was in fourth grade, I had an excellent science fair project. At least it seemed that way to me since my hypothesis was true. I thought I was a genius. I had predicted which of four diaper brands was the most absorbent. I hypothesized that Pampers would be able to absorb the most, and in fact the Pampers diapers were the most absorbent. But looking back, I do not know if I gave a fair shot to all the other brands. I may have let the Pampers diapers soak in the water solution for an extra few seconds. Or maybe I made sure to take the Pampers diapers off the dripping rack first to make sure they had the best shot at being the most absorbent diapers.

            After this week, I now better understand why my experiment was flawed. I also understand why experimenters often do not allow themselves to be in on the information they are experimenting with - even when they are the ones doing the actual experiment!

            This is a method called a double-blind experiment. A double-blind experiment is where both the experimenter and participants are prevented from knowing certain information that might lead them to a bias. If they are biased, they could do something consciously or subconsciously that could invalidate their results. For example, if an experimenter knows which group of people took a certain drug that he believes leads to better test scores, he might subconsciously give that group information to help them perform better on the test. In this case, his results would not be valid.

            So in my experiment, I could not exactly have made it a double-blind experiment, for my “participants” were diapers. However, I could have applied the same concept to make myself unbiased in my experimenting, in which case I would not have known which diapers were Pampers, and I would not have been biased.