A+B=C

In psychology, learning is defined as a permanent change in an organism's behavior. This is obviously a lot different than our understood definition of the word, and the underlying difference is the word behavior. Learning in our common definition does not need to affect someone's permanent personality to be considered learning. David myers defines learning as a relatively permanent change in an organism’s behavior due to experiences, so he would say that you didn't learn unless you got through experiences. Classical conditioning is one type of learning and it is when you learn to associate two stimuli and to anticipate an event. For example, I learn to associate thunder and lightning and that thunder always follows lightning so I anticipate an event (take cover and get ready for the loud noise). A (thunder)+B (lightning)=C (take cover and get ready). Pavlov did an experiment to prove that classical conditioning works. He measured how much dogs salivate and noticed that there is a natural tendency for dogs to salivate. Over time, he realized that the dog not just salivated when he ate the food, but when he saw the person coming to give him food as well (the salivation of when the person enters to give him food was learned). From this, he proved that classical conditioning does work. A+B=C!

A Case for Marijuana

I noticed while reading the book that it had little negative to say about marijuana. I brushed it off and figured that maybe good ol' Dave Meyers got lazy and didn't want to finish on a negative note. But then we got to class and Mrs. Perl had the same problem. She had a very tough time putting marijuana down. I am here to prove that these two occurrences were no coincidences. Marijuana has been used medicinally as a way of shrinking tumors, coping with pain, and most notably as an aid to chemotherapy patients. If marijuana is so bad, then how could it be prescribed by the very people that are paid to tell us what is good and bad for our health? Additionally, a number of states have legalized marijuana for not only medicinal use, but for recreational use as well. How could something so bad be so accepted by entire states? I don't know about you, but I'm having a very tough time figuring out how marijuana is in any way a bad drug.

Extinction and Spontaneous Recovery

After learning about extinction and spontaneous recovery in class, it made me think back to when I was a kid. As a child, I would tease my friends by pretending to throw things at them. For example when they would see a ball approaching them (unconditioned stimulus) they would naturally flinch (unconditioned response). Soon they learned to associate my arm motion towards them (conditioned stimulus) with the ball approaching them. Therefore, they flinched as they did before. Flinching now became the conditioned response. If I would pretend to throw the ball they would still flinch. But after doing this several times in a row, they would stop flinching. They had stopped anticipating the ball coming towards them. They had gone through extinction. But the next time I actually would throw the ball at them, and they did see it approaching them, they went through a spontaneous recovery. They relearned to flinch when they saw my arm movement because they reassociated the arm movement with the ball approaching the them.

drugs

Our book mentioned a few different types of drugs: halogens, depressants and stimulants. I wanted to talk a little about a stimulant our book did not mention: Ritalin.
There are many drugs similar to Ritalin, and they are all stimulants. For most people They act as normal stimulants but for a select few things are different. For a small portion of people taking certain stimulants will actually calm them down. These select few kids have a little disorder called ADHD. The number of people diagnosed with ADHD or ADD is increasing every year. The number of people diagnosed rose over 5% each year from 2003 to 2007. While it might be helping a lot of them it is certainly hurting a lot more as well. There are so many pills flying around now that it is an easy drug to acquire. These drugs are becoming more ond more of a problem each year. Kids who are diagnosed are selling their meds to their peers. For their peers it is a fun experience. But it is also a dangerous one. Our book told us all about the side effects of taking stimulants. Most of them do not seem very pleasant and the bad outweighs the good in my mind. Besides the long term effects there are many immediate side effects as well. Perhaps the scariest of them all is the possibility of overdosage. I have heard a few stories about kids being rushed to the hospital because of Ritalin, or similar drugs, and I do everything I can to make sure that it is not me or caused because of me.

Meth and Ecstasy = Bad

Arguably the two worst drugs are meth and ecstasy, and they are both discussed in this chapter. In Drivers Ed with Max Maxwell, he showed us some pictures of people who addicted to meth, and how it completely changed their physical appearance. It is insane to see because it takes average-looking people and makes them look revolting. 
Lets just go through a quick overview of these 2 drugs:
1. In terms of methamphetamine, the effects are wide-ranging including irritability, insomnia, hypertension, seizures, social isolation, depression, and violent outbursts, and not to forget that it is highly addictive and makes you look old and decrepit. The reason why some crazy people use this drug is because when you use the drug, you release the dopamine, and that stimulates brain cells that enhance energy and moods, and it is so worth it because you end up looking like the person on page 201, which would not be fun.

2. Ecstasy is one of the weird drugs because it is a mixture of a stimulant and a hallucinogen, and it does 2 things 1) triggers dopamine release and 2) prolongs serotonin’s feel-good flood by releasing stored serotonin and blocking its reabsorption. This brings two results 1) when mixed with dancing it can lead to overheating, high blood pressure, and death and 2) an emotional elevation where you feel as if you love everyone. Clearly, Ecstasy can have its advantages and major disadvantages, but it is clear that neither of these stimulants are good for your body in the long run.

2 Stimulants - 2 Bad Results

     Drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes seem like 2 different actions in 2 totally different ball parks. One is generally much more socially acceptable than the other. However, their results seem very very similar. In all honesty, if you take out the terrible causes of what the tar in cigarettes can do to your lungs, the effects of cigarettes and coffee are right with each other. I mean, look at life 30 years ago. The harmful effects of cigarettes to your lungs were not known, so it was just as common for someone to step out for a puff than it was to pour yourself a cup of Joe. The reason for this lies behind the similar overall effects of nicotine and caffeine. 

     First, I want to define what a stimulant is. A stimulant is a drug that stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, excites neural activity, and speeds up body functions. Caffeine and nicotine are both stimulants. Given they operate in different ways, they still lead to these same results that all stimulants share.

     How does caffeine work? Well, it is an antagonist - it stops the reuptake of a neurotransmitter. What it does is it binds to a neuron's axons, triggers the release of the stimulating neurotransmitter dopamine, and then stops the reuptake of dopamine, causing a person to be energized for a certain period of time and if not restimulated results in a crash.

     Nicotine works in a different way. It is an agonist - it triggers the release of the neurotransmitters epinephrine, norepinephrine, acetylcholine, dopamine, and glutamate, which, similarly to caffeine, causes one to feel a high or be energized for a period of time. 

     The stimulation is not such a bad thing. It is what results from this unnatural way of stimulating your body that is not good for you. Once you start, you don't stop so easily. Once you feel this stimulation, your body craves it along with the fact that your neurons are not able to produce the same neurotransmitters by themselves due to the manipulation you have put them through. Therefore, your body requires more and more nicotine or caffeine even to be just normally stimulated. And when you stop drinking coffee or smoking cigarettes, you go through a terrible withdrawal.

     Therefore, my advice is to stay away from cigarettes and coffee in the first place if possible. Being dependent on a substance will prove to be unfavorable down the line.

Drugs Are Bad, M'Kay?

As a class, we've officially reached every student's favorite section of Psychology: drugs. There were three kinds of drugs: a) depressants (i.e. alcohol, opiates, barbiturates) inhibit the sympathetic nervous system, b) stimulants (i.e. caffeine, nicotine, cocaine) excite the sympathetic nervous system, and c) hallucinogens (i.e. LSD, marijuana), which distort perception and conscious experience. The drug I want to specifically talk about is marijuana. You see, when we all read about these drugs, we also read about the disastrous side effects, which can help persuade any teenager to stay as far away as possible. But marijuana doesn't seem to have any MAJOR side effects. Sure, if smoked, you can cause some lung damage, but it's not addicting and it doesn't scar you for life (unlike LSD, which can bring back nightmares if one has a really bad trip). So what are the side effects to marijuana? I did some outside research of my own (*COUGH* Wikipedia *COUGH*) to answer this question that has been bothering the class. According to research, people who have addictive personalities actually CAN be addicted to marijuana. Not only that, but those who consume to much can have permanent damage to memories, intelligence, and normal brain functions. In fact, too much marijuana consumption can lead to mental disorders like schizophrenia, psychosis, and depression. So, to quote Mr. Mackey, a school official from the show "South Park," "Kids, drugs are bad, m'kay?" And marijuana is no exception. Sure, at first sight it may be harmless, but one night of fun may lead to many nights of fun. And everybody knows that marijuana has acted like a "gateway drug" in the past, leading users to want a stronger high by administering cocaine or heroin. Although I've never personally smoked marijuana, I feel that I can still tell you all to try to avoid it, because it won't do you any good, even if Mrs. Perl's TV documentary about drugs indicates otherwise.

Hypnosis: Is it for Real?

Hypnosis: Is it for Real?

     Psychologists maintain that hypnosis is a state of heightened suggestibility to which people are subject in varying degrees. My question is as follows: Is it real, or is it all an act?

     Hypnosis, which I did not believe earlier in the week, is actually legitimate and can be performed if a participant is willing to be participate. Hypnotized people, like unhypnotized people, may perform unlikely acts when told to do so by an authoritative person. Highly hypnotizable people can focus attention totally on a task, become imaginatively absorbed in it, and entertain fanciful possibilities. According to an article I was reading in Business Week, Hypnosis has gained more credibility as a result of more and more research showing that subjects have altered sensory perception as indicated by PET scans, MRIs, and EEG scans. Hypnosis can be a major breakthrough in terms of medical advancements in that you can alter a patients state of consciousness. People hypnotized for pain relief may show activity in brain areas that receive sensory information button in areas that normally process that information. Those who reject the hypnosis-as-altered-consciousness view believe that hypnosis is a by-product of normal social and cognitive processes and that the hypnotized person is unknowingly acting out the role of “good subject.” 

    Hypnosis, I therefore maintain, can be achieved if the participant is willing to be hypnotized. I personally do not really understand it, and I feel that I couldn't be hypnotized, but it would be too big of a conspiracy for hypnosis to not be real.

My Sleep Deprivation

I average about 4-5 hours of sleep a night during the school week. I start the week off with maybe 7-8 hours on Sunday night and then head full stick into the lower sleeping amounts. Some nights of the week are even worst. For instance, on Wednesday night I make the CYHSB Weekly and typically go to sleep around 4 or 5, thus getting only 2-3 hours of sleep. Thursday night I try to make some of that back and push myself to get to sleep around 10-10:30. Unused as I am to going to sleep that early, I always take Nitequil to put me to sleep so I can get a few more hours of shut eye. I consider getting to bed during the week at 1 to be early. As the week carries on, I progressively get more depressed and tired, until Friday night I am ready to collapse. I normally only really wake up around 11:30 AM during the week, dozing through the first couple classes of the day.

I always took the fact I could still function with all the above a strength, a sign of greater productivity. But after learning about sleep in Psych I'm not so sure. We learned that REM sleep is necessary for sorting out the day's events and storing memories. I cannot get much REM sleep what with the amount of sleep I get. This is probably only further expounded by the fact that I go from waking moment to sleeping time in front of some form of a glowing screen. That means even when I go to sleep, my brain will still be up for awhile longer. What is scary is the fact that I do forget things. I often forget entire conversations that I supposedly had during the day. I am always forgetting which assignments are due.

But the effects are more lasting than that. I have constant shadows under my eyes. My mood shifts from moment to moment, fluctuating at alarming rates. I often seem to get down, always when I am at my most tired. I am more irritable with the small amount of sleep I get. Unless I am constantly engaged, I just start to doze off. I now seem to have an aversion to sleep, unable to get to bed early even if I try. Whenever I do want to go to bed early, I need to take Nitequil to put me to sleep. That has its own problems, such as often suppressing the much needed REM sleep.

I always just put all these things to the side, assuming that there was nothing wrong with them since I could function, for the most part, fine. But now, after learning the Unit of sleep in class I am quite worried for both my mental and physical health. Yet I am unable to do anything about my sleeping patterns. Going to sleep earlier means not completing all the assignments I need to do. Going to sleep earlier means not fulfilling all the obligations that I need to. Going to sleep earlier means missing school work and earning bad grades. Being in school has created a damaging cycle in which, to finish the work that I need to, I stay up to all hours of the night. This, however, is sacrificing my health for my grades. I am lately wondering if this is worth it, but cannot give myself in to falling behind on work.

When I read Mrs. Perl's email abou Einstein's brain I got aggravated. After reading the article I got the feeling that the scientist's were trying to say that his discoveries were a fluke, just a mistake. I also got the feeling that they were just trying to reassure themselves that in fact they are smart and that Einstein just got lucky. The more I think about it, the angrier I get; they are insulting one of the greatest scientists  to ever walk on this earth. Anyway I could not write a whole post on this while staying appropriate so I am going to talk about the brain. The article mentioned that he had extra grey matter. I had no idea what that was so I used the power of the internet and found some really cool stuff. Grey matter is where all the mental processing takes place. There is also a thing called white matter; its job is to connect the different parts of the brain. Studies show that pathological liars actually have 25 percent more white matter in their prefrontal cortex. This does not mean their brain is bigger it just means that they actually have 14 percent less grey matter. This makes them better liar because they can have information jump around their brain really quickly but there is one downside: grey matter is where critical thinking takes place so their ability to think critically diminishes. Just a little about grey matter and white matter. :)

Reasons for Dreaming

Since the beginning of the semester, I've always notice people consistently asking the same question over and over: What is a dream? Why do we dream? What's going on in our brain when we dream? Unfortunately, the answer is very anti-climactic: we honestly don't know. However, that hasn't stopped us from theorising what a dream is and why we dream. We've basically narrowed it down to 5 possible answers: 1. According to Sigmund Freud, dreams are forms of wish-fulfillment. His explanation of dreams are that they provide ways of expressing what would otherwise be unacceptable feelings and that what you see in a dream--the manifest content--really has a layer of latent content, or the hidden meaning of the dream. 2. According to the information-processing theory, dreams help us sort out the day's events and consolidate our memories. The example we gave in class is just like a business person might clean up his or her desk and office and store everything away neatly, our brain takes the information processed from the day and stores them neatly in different parts of the brain. We see this mental process through our dreams. 3. Dreams are a physiological function that help to preserve neural pathways through regular brain stimulation from REM sleep, and what we see in our dreams are the results of neural pathways being fired. 4. The activation-synthesis theory sort of combines the last two theories. It claims that REM sleep triggers neural activity that evokes random visual memories, which our sleeping brain weaves into stories. In other words, the neural activity helps our brain make sense of visual memories, and the dreams are results of this neural activity. 5. Although it doesn't address the neuroscience of dreams, the cognitive development theory suggests hat dream content reflects the dreamers' cognitive development, or their knowledge and understanding. So which theory would you say is true? These theories really can't be tested, so it's up to the individual to try to understand dreams. I personally think that the activation-synthesis theory makes the most sense, but then again, that's just me.

Sleep ≠ Total Shut Down

There is a lot going on when you go to sleep. Previously, I simply thought that you are either awake or you are asleep. I thought if you are awake, you are involved and aware of things, but if you are asleep, your brain is basically shut down.

            My simplicity of thinking was flawed. There are so many stages of sleep, and so many processes going on while you are asleep and unaware of their occurrence.

            Stage 1 of sleep is not even truly sleep. It is the stage where one dozes and has hypnagogic sensations. A hypnagogic sensation is where your body creates a sensation without any light or stimulus. Personally, my hypnogogic sensations in school are pretty intense. I often doze into stage 1 without even knowing it, and then my head will suddenly jolt forward without any stimulation.

            Stage 2 of sleep is legitimate sleep. The brain waves are a bit increased in amplitude, but it is still not deep sleep. A person in stage 2 of sleep is still pretty easily woken.

            Stage 3 and 4 of sleep are similar to each other. This is where you are really out of it. Your brain waves contain delta waves, which are long, deep, relaxed brain waves causing a deep, relaxed state of sleep. The main difference between stages 3 and 4 is longer delta waves in stage 4. In any case, it would take a lot more pokes on the shoulder to wake someone in stage 3 or 4 than someone sleeping lightly in stage 2. 

            And then, after cycling thru the stages and making it back to stage 2, you enter REM (Random Eye Movement) sleep. Your brain waves are similar to those when you are awake. Isn’t that weird? You are not awake, but your brain waves are moving like they are awake. You might even call it a paradox. And that is why it is called paradoxical sleep! You brainstem blocks these REM sleep brain waves from reaching your body; otherwise, you would be all over the walls. This brain stimulation leads to dreams, and your REM sleep periods get progressively longer as you sleep longer.

            So I was very flawed in my previous thought. Your neural activity does not by any means just shut down while you sleep. It is still churning out brain waves. Your brain is always busy.

Sleep Disorders

There are four main types of sleep disorders: insomnia, narcolepsy, sleep apnea, and night terrors. Insomnia is a disorder in which you can either not be able to fall asleep or if you are able to, you cannot stay asleep for very long. This is very detrimental since we need REM sleep and sleep in general to regenerate our body and our bones. However, fortunately there is medication for it that helps you fall asleep but that medicine blocks REM sleep so you still cannot regenerate. Narcolepsy is a genetic disorder in which your body goes into cataplexy or body paralysis. You just fall asleep in random places and at random times. This is extremely dangerous for example when you are driving on the road, and you just fall into deep REM sleep. These people with narcolepsy usually lack hypocretin so there is medication that gives them more of it. Sleep apnea is a disorder that is common in overweight people in which your airways get constricted for about a minute or so, and you are not able to breathe in that time (you are considered asleep). After that minute, you take a huge gasp of air because you were not breathing and the lack of oxygen causes you to wake up and take the gasp of air. The "funny" thing is that you don't even know when it happens or know what is flying when it happens. The not so funny thing is that it could lead to heart attacks, diabetes, and worse. They treat you with ridolin, which keeps you awake to help you. The disorder that sounds by far the worst, night terrors, is actually not bad at all. It is when you just freak out and go nuts for a few moments in the middle of the night. It seems like you are terrified, but you are really not. You scream so much, it is as if you are being murdered. You talk, you scream, you eyes are wide open, yet if someone asks you something, you do not respond at all. You cannot be woken up at all when you get the attacks. I think that narcolepsy is the worst disorder because you could just fall into deep sleep randomly and potentially get killed, and I think that night terrors are the least detrimental but most interesting disorder.

Stage 4 Sleep

When I have a lot of work to do for school, I stay up late into the night to finish it and I sometimes I hear voices coming from other rooms in the house and I say to myself, "He must be in stage 4 sleep right now." This is the stage, in my opinion, that is the most interesting because it is the stage where people sleep walk and sleep talk.
My brother once slept walk into the shower and then took a shower, went downstairs and watched a movie, and did not remember any of it the next day. Gabe shared the story that his dad sleep eats sometimes, and I wish I was able to do that because that just seems boss. Anyways, from all of these great examples you can see how interesting this stage of sleep is but I also have a couple of questions about it:
1. How can you move around (talk and eat) without remembering it the next morning?
2. Why do these things take place in this stage?

P.S. I am sleep writing this so I must be in stage 4 sleep right now but I probably will not remember this tomorrow.

REM Sleep

REM sleep stands for Rapid Eye Movement sleep. During this stage of sleep, your body is essentially paralyzed. You are absolutely incapable of moving your limbs. The only thing you're able to do is move your eyes back and forth. This stage of sleep was particularly fascinating to me because I always thought that the deepest stage of sleep was the one you sleep walk and talk in. I thought REM sleep was the deepest stage in which you are in no control of your actions whatsoever. That point is true, you are in no control, but you can't sleepwalk or sleep talk. It's literally impossible. I remember numerous times where I attempted to wake somebody up, but it took me forever. I now understand that it was because they were in their REM sleep, the deepest sleep. Now I'm going to make sure to look for the rapid eye movement during this stage of sleep. But this sleep begs me to ask why animals shake when they're sleeping. My dog always kicks the air like she is running in her dream. Do dogs have the same sleep cycle as humans? Where do their dreams occur? Are they not paralyzed when they're dreaming?

motion sickness

Have you ever been riding in a car while trying to read? After a few minutes you most probably start to feel sick. Why is that? When your eyes are reading the words the light bounces off the paper goes into your eyes. The lens help it land on the retina where it is transduced into a neural message by the rods and cones. When your brain receives this message, it sees the paper as standing still; it is not moving. But your ears are telling your brain a different message. The semicircular canals in your ears play a huge role in keeping a person balanced. There is liquid in the canals that sloshes around to tell us we are moving or off balance. While we are in the car we are bouncing so our ears tell our brains that we are moving, but like I said before the eyes told the brain everything was still. The brain does not know how to interpret these two bits of info and it causes the person to feel nauseous. 

interestingly enough the liquid in your ears is what also make s a perso dizzy. When you spin around the liquid in your ears goes nuts and it tells your brain your are spinning but when you stop spinning it takes time for the liquid to calm down. Dizziness is the state where you have stopped spinning but your ears tell your brain that you are still spinning because the liquid is still moving around. 

Inception: How Accurate Is It?

Inception: How Accurate Is It? 

    Clearly, the concept of inception, or planting an idea in someone else's mind and having them believed they were the creators of the idea is impossible. But as I was watching Christopher Nolan's masterpiece the other night, I couldn't help but notice how many things were totally inaccurate based on what we learned the other day in AP Psych class. I will try not to spoil the plot because I know Mrs. Perl hasn't seen it yet. 

    We learned that there are several stages to sleep in the 90 minute sleep cycles. There are 4 stages, and one period known as REM sleep. Each stage entails a new concept. Stage 1 is really light sleep, and the pattern is a tight and short line when looking at EEG scans. Only until stage 4 do we get to deeper sleep. We also know that REM sleep is where you dream and are paralyzed. Let me take down two myths of the movie that have to do with REM sleep. 

    In the movie, when one of the characters is dreaming, he is constantly moving and shaking. We know that when one is dreaming, they are in REM sleep, and REM sleep is accompanied by paralysis, so shaking would be impossible. Only in the other 4 stages is shaking possible. Another myth I would like to shoot down is that when something happens to you when you are sleeping, it won't necessarily happen in the dream. What I mean is the following: Often, characters in the movie fall asleep, and those who are awake will often splash them with water. In the characters dreams, it will automatically start storming and raining intensely. While this is possible, it is based on the unconscious drive, and is not automatic. A third thing I want to debunk is that when the characters fall asleep in the movie, they go straight to dreams. We know that this is impossible, and that one will certainly face the Non-REM sleep first. I think it is also obvious to say that you can't create a dream or determine what the dream will look like. One last thing: In the movie, a dream within a dream is a common occurrence. I don't see that as being possible, though I could be wrong.

   

Selective Inattention

    We are amidst a very exciting unit (and if you can't sense my sarcasm, then please do so as quickly as possible) dealing with perception and sensation, where we are learning about sensation, a process by which sensory receptors receive stimuli that change the energy flow (through transduction) into a neural impulse for our brains to interpret.
    I wanted to focus on selective inattention. Selective inattention can be described by the following example. You are watching at a movie theater watching a very intense movie that you have been anticipating for a while. During the movie, a man in the theater faints and people are screaming and calling 911. However, the movie is still playing, and as a movie-addict, you don't realize a man is having a heart attack in the theater because you are so focused on the movie. Selective inattention can be defined as follows: when you are so focused on one thing, you tend to not focus on other details going on elsewhere. Another concept that goes along with selective inattention is change blindness. Change blindness says that humans are so confident that we see everything but we will often not realize a change elsewhere. What I find so fascinating about this concept is demonstrates the human tendency to display overconfidence. In a video shown by Mrs. Perl in class, we were asked to count how many passes total thrown by several females as they tossed a ball. Most people counted the correct number, but very few noticed that while they were passing the ball, a gorilla walked in and the curtain behind the females switched colors. Everyone in the class was so confident we were correct about the total passes, that we were blind, so to speak, to the rest of the details.

Illusions in Life

I would like to start by apologizing to everyone for posting this so late. The dorm did not have Internet over the weekend and I could only get to this now. I hope no one missed it too much.

I was quite fascinated by the illusions that we studied in class. I have a, possibly unhealthy, interest in the manipulation of the mind and it was interesting how such simple changes to imagery can confuse our processing. For instance, the Ponzo illusion, merely by placing the parallel lines through the picture turned our processing abilities on their head (figuratively of course). The identical line segments were changed, the higher one now looking longer than the one lower down in the picture. Linear perspective and relative height were manipulated into deceiving our perception abilities. The Moon illusion also tricks our mind, placing the moon next to buildings we know our mind compares it to.

Learning about these illusions made me think about the world at large, and what exactly is real and not. I wasn't thinking about pure illusions, such as the Mueller-Lyer illusionary effect I potentially could witness during my day. I was thinking about the illusions of how we see the world, what we think is really important compared to what actually is. What we are led to believe and what is actually true. How the wool is pulled over our eyes.

I thought of our education system. We work ourselves to the bone in high school, striving to achieve 5's on the APs and straight A's. As important as it is for the system, what we learn in school is hardly essential to our futures. With all due respect, but I will not need psychology or World History later in my career. The schooling system, from my perspective at least, seems to condition us to be so focused on such unimportant things. We should be focusing on the paths that our career will require.

The True Art of Art

When we were in class observing the image that Mrs. Perl so graciously printed in black and white, I truly understood how difficult it must be to be an artist. An artist that strives to make an image come alive must deal with the incredibly difficult task of making a 2D image appear to be 3D. By using figure-ground, light-shadow, interposition, and a whole array of different perceptual procedures, artists somehow capture the 3D element of an image in something that is nothing more than a flat image. Artists have to appeal to our depth perception to give us a sense of what is near and far in the painting. I was never one for drawing, nor will I ever be. But even if I was a skilled artist, this would be a lot on my plate, especially for all of my paintings. Learning about these different perceptual procedures gave me a new understanding and appreciation for even the simplest artwork.

Monocular Cues

When you look at a picture of a scene, you can imagine (and basically see) the different distances of the different objects even though it's just a two dimensional image. Did you ever wonder how this is possible? Well, it's all thanks to our monocular cues. There are so many different ways that we can perceive depth even just by looking at a two dimensional image. One way is known as relative height, which means that the higher up in our visual field, the farther away that part of the image is. Another way is known as texture-gradient. This means that the smaller and less detailed a picture is then that part of the picture is also farther away. Also the dimmer an object is we perceive as farther away. Interposition is when we perceive something as closer because it is blocking or it is in front of another object. These are just a few ways that we can perceive distance in a two dimensional image, but there are many more.

Choice Blindness

I think that choice blindness is really interesting. It is so cool to be able to deceive someone like that. For example, let's say someone is given an option between object A and object B, and the person chooses object A. When the person is asked later on why he chose object B he will actually start to explain why he likes object B better. That is amazing. The person didn't even like that option yet he starts to explain why he would have chose it (which he believes he did). Furthermore, most people don't think that they would fall for that, but yet again, most people are overconfident. In fact, when actually tested, the people that believed that they would not fall for choice blindness all did end up explaining why they chose what they did not choose. This is a great way to trick someone, and it's really cool.

dreaming

While reading the chapter about dreaming I was intrigued. It seemed as id we had little to no control over what we dream. So I searched the web to find out. As it turn out, we usually have no control over our dreams or if we remember them but that can be changed. The idea of a lucid dream is a dream that we know is a dream and therefore can control it. By taking a few steps we can control our bodies to enter a lucid dream. Once you have trained yourself to do that you can take it a step further. You can actually train your body to fall asleep while keeping your mind awake. Because you are sleeping, you will experience sleep paralysis, but thats normal for any person in a stage of sleep where they are dreaming. While in this awake/sleep state you can experience hallucinations which may make you feel any emotion. With the advancements of science we can now use this knowledge for sleep therapy. Because of science we can also ask if thinking about doing something is the same as actually doing it because after all when looking at the neuronal activity of the brain they are the same.

Our brains are capable of doing so many things, why are they not able to decipher an illusion?
In class this week we looked at different illusions and the science behind why we see them in a certain way. When looking at the dog house, none of it made sense. It looked like the planks were complete and going behind other planks when in fact they should have been in front of them. Our brain was able to convert the image into neural pulses, including processing the color, depth, and size of the house, but it was not able to see that there were holes in the planks of wood. The bottom down processing used when looking at this picture hindered our ability to accurately see it.

How We Hear

Hearing is one of the most interesting thing that happens to us. People speak or sounds are made, and we are able to hear what is going on and understand it. When I watch any sporting event, I love to listen to what the commentators have to say especially Gus Johnson because this man goes nanners. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I74BG0YFKUc.
Anyways, I want to know what is going on when I hear my man Gus calling out a play and how am I hearing it.
1. Vibration of Eardrum
2. Vibration of middle ear bones
3. Vibration of oval window
4. Movement of fluid in cochlea
5. Vibration of basilar membrane
6. Receptor hair cells bend
7. Influz K+ ions into receptor hair cells
8. Receptor hair cell voltage becomes positive
9. Increased action potentials generated in auditory nerve
10. Action potentials relayed to the brain
11. Hearing Occurs!!!! Finally!
So next time when I am watching a sporting event with Gus Johnson doing the play-by-play and a big play happens, I know how I am actually hearing what is going on.

My Own Private Illusion

This week, we learned about 5 different kinds of illusions. The first is the moon illusion, which suggests that if a large object (i.e. the moon) is seen only by itself, it won't look any larger than a nickel. But if said large object is seen in contrast to other large objects (i.e. a city skyline), the object will look MUCH larger than one is used to. The second illusion we learned is the Ponzo illusion. This suggests that if you see two different lines placed at a substantial distance from each other against two other converging lines, one will look farther away, and therefore it'll look smaller. The third illusion we learned about is the Ames Room. If one looks into a room slanted like a trapezoid, one may think that the room is normal. Therefore, if one person is standing by a lower part of the room's ceiling than another person, the first person will look taller, even if the two people are the same size. The fourth illusion is the horizontal-vertical illusion. The best example of this is the St. Louis archway. The arch is famous for being the same distance vertically and horizontally. But because the bottom part is normally seen against buildings and the top part isn't, the arch looks longer horizontally than it does vertically. The fifth illusion is the Mueller-Lyer Illusion. You can have two different, same-sized lines parallel to each other. But if both lines have arrows on each side, one line with arrows facing outward and one with arrows facing inward, the line with arrows facing outward will look longer. Since we just learned about these illusions, it didn't feel like coincidence when, while driving on Riverdale Rd today, I noticed a natural optical illusion. Although I knew I was on Riverdale, I saw a street sign that showed Riverdale and another street (I forget which one). Because of my visual angle, it looked like the signs were saying that I was on the second street, and that I was passing Riverdale. It wasn't until I got closer that I realized that my mind was playing tricks on me. Who here can explain which illusion I was experiencing?

CJ2K in Action

    Running back Chris Johnson of the Tennessee Titans stands in the backfield on 1 down and 10 yards to go. In the huddle, the play is called for him, and Johnson knows that the game is on the line. As Chris Johnson stands 5 yards behind Jake Locker, the quarterback, what exactly is he doing?
     Transduction is the process by which we receive light energy and transform it into neural messages. Lets first look at transduction in the eye. Light will first go through the pupil to the lens, where the image will reflect off the retina. There, the energy triggers a chemical change that sparks neural signals, activating neighboring bipolar cells. The bipolar cells in turn would activate the neighboring ganglion cells. The axons of the ganglion cells converge to the axons where the optic nerves will carry the information to the brain. This is all happening to Chris Johnson as he wants to see the field ahead of him. Now that he can see (he also sees color due to the cones via the Young-Hemoltz and the Opponent-Processing Theory, which I will not delve in to), how does he really begin to perceive exactly what is going on? In order to be a good running back, you need to find the hole in the defense and scan their formations. You need to know where you want to head and recognize the defenders. Through Visual Information Processing, the brain will use feature detection to differentiate between varying edges, lines, and angles. Next, Parallel processing occurs which will lead to recognition. Johnson will also note unconsciously some other important principles such as understanding the relative height of the safeties, the linear perspective to figure out where the endzone is, and will understand relative motion in terms of the movement of the defense.
      All of these factors occur in a split second, many of which are done unconsciously. They all help make Chris Johnson the player he is today.

Inhaling the Memories

I have had a peculiar sensation all my life. I often will smell a certain smell and it will take me back to a place I was in recently; or not so recently. For example, we used to have these fantastic Pesach trips in Scottsdale, AZ. The hotel had a particular scent. Now, whenever I smell anything similar to that scent, I'm brought back to those magical days in Arizona.
This is such a weird sensation; what is the reasoning behind it? Well, it has to do with the process of smelling. Smell is the only sense in your body that bypasses the thalamus (the Fedex shipping system of your brain). When you smell something, that smell binds to receptors, which go to the olfactory bulb, which are then relayed to higher regions of the brain via converged axons.
The key element of this process that relates to me and my smell=memory phenomenon is the olfactory bulb. The olfactory bulb is where the transduction of the smell to a neural impulse takes place. But the olfactory bulb is also related to the limbic system. The limbic system accounts mainly for memory, emotion, and experiences.
So this is the explanation to my phenomenon. When I smell a scent I've smelled before, it goes through my limbic system and brings me back to that experience. Pretty cool.

True or Just Seemingly True

Illusions cause us to perceive and interpet things to be different than what they really are. There are many different types of illusions including the moon illusion, the ponzo illusion, the Ames Room illusion, the Horizontal vertical illusion, and the mueller lyer illusion. These illusions are used as techniques in modern art and help intensify our belief that some features of the image we are looking at are different than what they actually are. The moon illusion is when you see the moon in the sky and say it is so tiny, but when it comes closer to you, you say it is huge. The reason for this is because when it is far away, we have nothing to compare it to, but when it gets closer and we compare it to buildings, it looks huge. This tactic is used in art sometimes when the artist paints the moon very close to buildings to make the moon look very big. The ponzo illusion is very hard to explain but basically, the artist draws, for example railroad tracks converging as they go up the page (farther from you), and then if he draws two lines that are the same size, but one of them is inside the tracks at the bottom of the page (closer to you), and one of the lines overlaps the edges of the track at the top of the page (farther from you), it looks like the one at the top of the page (farther from you) due to this illusion.  The Ames room illusion is when a room is constructed so that from the front it appears to be an ordinary cubic-shaped room, with a back wall and two side walls parallel to each other and perpendicular to the horizontally level floor and ceiling. However, this is a trick of perspective and the true shape of the room is trapezoidal: the walls are slanted and the ceiling and floor are at an incline, and the right corner is much closer to the front-positioned observer than the left corner (wikipedia). This results in us perceiving that someone standing in one corner is a giant, and someone standing in the other corner is tiny. The horizontal vertical illusion is when we overestimate a horizontal line if it were outside if the horizontal line and the vertical line were to be the same size. This is because we can compare the horizontal line to how much space it takes up on land, but in regards to the vertical line, we cannot compare it to anything because it is up in the air. If there are buildings nearby, then this illusion would not work as well because there would be things to compare the vertical line to. Finally, the mueller-lyer illusion is the idea that when there are arrows pointing in on a line, you perceive it to be shorter, and when they are out, you perceive it that the line continues until the arrow opens. I think that the Mueller-lyer illusion is by far the coolest illusion that I named. The line with the arrows pointing out is longer than the line with the arrows pointing in: Is it true or does it just seem to be true. The power of illusions!

The Invincibility of Man

It was interesting learning about the various different forms of sensory perception and the experiments commissioned to discover our abilities. I was not surprised when we learned that we tend to be overconfident in what experiments would work on us and how we would not have the 'wool pulled over our eyes.' Although some would call this bold stupidity, I think it is what has allowed the human race to advance to such incredible proportions. If not for our thoughts of invincibility, we would never venture into the unknown. We would not venture past our comfort zone-failing to discover so much of what the world has to offer. It is this thought process that led to the Titanic and Lance Armstrong's 'small step.'

Pioneers

The Young-Helmholz Trichromatic Theory suggests that we see different colors based on the interaction of three main cones in our eyes. The theory has its problems, but no problems that couldn't be fixed by a simple solution. The fascination I have with theories such as this one is how. How do these people come up with these things. You could give me a full, in depth image of an eye and I will never be able to come up with something like that. I could study eyes for a year and still be completely lost. But Young and Helmholz came up with a theory that solves the fascination with how we see an array of colors with only three color specific cones. The best part of the theory is that when a solution came up (how can there be red-green color blind and not yellow if red and green make yellow) it was easily solved with another theory: the Opponent Process Theory. I find it amazing that people take the little things in life for granted. The complexity of looking across the room is something to cherish. Some people aren't so lucky.

Pay Attention!

Selective inattention is defined as, "The screening out of stimuli that are threatening, anxiety-producing, or felt to be unimportant." It is basically when you are paying attention to and focusing on one specific thing so much that you don't realize when other things happen. There are 5 different examples of selective inattention. One is inattentional blindness. Inattentional blindness is when you are not paying attention to something but it is happening and you don’t realize it because you are paying attention to something else. For example, the basketball passing/gorilla video we watched in class. Change blindness is when for example, I am giving you directions and another guy comes by with a big board and I switch with that guy so now he is giving you directions. You would not realize that I switched places with him because you are so focused on the directions. Choice blindness is when for example, I give you a choice, "which paper do you like better: red or blue?" You tell me red and the next day I ask you why you like the blue paper better. Even though you said you like the red paper better yesterday, since I make it seem like you said you like the blue paper better, you begin to tell me the reason why you like the blue paper better. Now, the obvious response to learning about choice blindness is, "There is no way that I would do that when given two choices." That is a clear example of choice blindness blindness. Choice blindness blindness is the overconfidence to say I would never perform choice blindness. Last but not least, deaf blindness is when someone is talking to you and someone switches places with him, you wouldn't realize they switched places because you were so focused on what they were saying. Selective inattention comes in many forms and applies to our everyday life.

Color Blindness

When I am watching an NFL game I always wonder if the green turf that I am seeing is the same color as the turf that my buddy next to me is seeing. What if he detects a different color than I do? Well, the simple answer is that one of us would be color blind, which is the inability to see colors that the rest of us can see.
The reason why some people are color blind is because there was a problem with the development of the retinal cone that percieves color.
I am especially engaged in this because I would like to put myself in the shoes of someone who is color blind for one day, and see how different the world would be.
You go shopping and you can't tell what color the shirt you want to buy is. You take cheese out of the fridgerator and you can't tell if it is moldy green or not. You are watching a Boise State college football game and you can't tell what color the field is (by the way, it is blue). So many things that we take for granted like percieving color, someone who is color blind can not do. It is sad, but at the same time it must be cool for 2 guys who are color blind to go walk around with someone who is not and they just look at random objects and try to guess what color they are, and the guy who is not color blind can tell them if they are right or not.
Next time you look around, try to think about what the world would look like to a color blind person and be grateful that you can see colors because not every one can.

Color blindness

I always wondered, how would a person know if they are color blind? Even though they see a different color, they still call it the same thing we do. Even though my question was not answered learning about colorblindness was very interesting. Learning about how we have three sets of color partners that go to the brain fascinated me: black and white, red and green, and blue and yellow. The colors a person would be blind to always seemed random, but after leaning about it this week everything was so much clearer.

Complexity of Color

     Every second of every day, as long as your eyes are open, you are seeing color - unless of course you are red-green or blue-yellow colorblind. But otherwise, you are picking up on many of the discrepancies in life through their different colors. Before last class period, I did not really understand how an object can be one color and not another, how different objects can have the same color and be different shades of that color, as well as how some colors can be noticeable brighter than others. Well, this past Wednesday I found the answer. 

     First let’s analyze how an object becomes a certain color. It is all based on the wavelengths of each light energy wave, which is the distance between the top of one wave and the top of the next wave. For example, longer wavelengths, like 700 nanometers long, are the color red. But shorter wavelengths, like 5 nanometers long, are X-ray wavelengths and are undetectable by the human eye. 

     Amplitude determines a color’s brightness and intensity. Amplitude is the height of each wave. The taller the wave, the more intensely bright the color will be.

     And lastly, the purity of the color is determined by Saturation. Saturation is the simplicity of each wave, which is the degree to which the wave is perfect and symmetrical. The choppier the wave, the less pure the wave color will appear. 

     Next time you open your eyes, notice how you’re not just seeing “color.” Rather, you are seeing a combination of the wavelength, amplitude, and saturation of a wave. 

falling asleep

After learning about how neuron communicate I was wondering what makes a limb "fall asleep". My initial thought was that it had to do with cutting off the circulation in the arm. But i was not so sure how loss of blood could effect the neurons because we never mentioned anything like that in class. Still since I knew that by laying on my arm I was cutting off the blood flow from my arm and that by laying on my arm my arm fell asleep so I thought that one caused the other. After researching it a little I realized I was wrong. I also realized that I assumed causation when I only measured correlation. Classic mistake. I found out that just like the circulation is cut off, the neural impulses are cut off with the pressure. I didn't know that could happen. The pressure squeezes the pathways and blocks the signals. When re opened some cells do not fire at all cause while others just fire randomly, this causes the tingling. What is also really cool is that you reaquire the ability to move you arm before you have feeling in your arm because your motor cells are thinner than your sensory cells. The thicker the cell, the longer it takes to be able to retransmit the information.

A New Theory

In class this week, we learned about a theory called the Young-Helmholz Theory, also known as the Trichromatic Theory. The theory basically states that there are 3 different types of cones, each one sensitive to a different color: the S-Cone, which is sensitive to blue, the L-Cone, which is sensitive to red, and the M-Cone, which is sensitive to green. The problem with the Young-Helmholz Theory is that it doesn't explain two phenomena. The first is the negative afterimage. After long stimulation of looking at colors, we tend to see a continuing image in reversed color when we look at a blank page. We participated in an example of this in class, when we stared at an x surrounded by four different colors for 20 seconds, and in the split second that the four colors disappeared, another four colors, each one a "reverse" of the color before, was visible for a very brief moment. The problem is, according to the Young-Helmholz Theory, is that we shouldn't even be seeing the "reverse" colors. However, the phenomenon I want to focus on is the second phenomenon: colorblindness. People who are colorblind can't tell a distinction between certain colors. There are two kinds: red-green and blue-yellow. So if you can't see the difference between red and green, you can still see yellow, which contradicts the Young-Helmholz Theory, which suggests that cones are stimulated based on wavelengths of light. So how can the Young-Helmholz Theory be reconciled with the contradiction of colorblindness? Easy: the Opponent-Process Theory, which states that with colorblindness, there's a problem with the channels leading to the brain, not with the actual retina itself. There. Problem solved. But if you've been paying attention in class, people like Bradley and Ethan have been trying to develop their own theory/law, especially after learning about the genius-ness of Weber's Law. So I've decided to come up with my own law: Addess's Law. You see, we know that the Opponent-Process Theory is a way to coincide with the problems seemingly present in the Young-Helmholz Theory. However, there's no law/theory that actually states the previous sentence. Therefore, Addess's Law states that the Opponent-Process Theory is a way to address the problems seemingly present in the Young-Helmholz Theory. So obvious, yet nobody's officially said it before...

Selective Inattention

    We are amidst a very exciting unit (and if you can't sense my sarcasm, then please do so as quickly as possible) dealing with perception and sensation, where we are learning about sensation, a process by which sensory receptors receive stimuli that change the energy flow (through transduction) into a neural impulse for our brains to interpret.
    I wanted to focus on selective inattention. Selective inattention can be described by the following example. You are watching at a movie theater watching a very intense movie that you have been anticipating for a while. During the movie, a man in the theater faints and people are screaming and calling 911. However, the movie is still playing, and as a movie-addict, you don't realize a man is having a heart attack in the theater because you are so focused on the movie. Selective inattention can be defined as follows: when you are so focused on one thing, you tend to not focus on other details going on elsewhere. Another concept that goes along with selective inattention is change blindness. Change blindness says that humans are so confident that we see everything but we will often not realize a change elsewhere. What I find so fascinating about this concept is demonstrates the human tendency to display overconfidence. In a video shown by Mrs. Perl in class, we were asked to count how many passes total thrown by several females as they tossed a ball. Most people counted the correct number, but very few noticed that while they were passing the ball, a gorilla walked in and the curtain behind the females switched colors. Everyone in the class was so confident we were correct about the total passes, that we were blind, so to speak, to the rest of the details.

New methods of learning

When I first learned that we were going to have block scheduling I was quite disappointed. I had read the studies that showed it didn't work and was not looking foward to the long periods. However, in AP Psychology the classes are not all just lectures. Mrs. Perl has had us do several projects that I thought were particularly useful in helping me learn the information. Without the longer period times we would not be able to do these projects.

When we were learning about the parts of the brain, such as the medulla or the parietal lobe, we had time to build a model brain out of playdoe. Hesitant at first, eager after the beginning, I found the project to be a particularly effective method of learning the location of the specific areas. At the end of the class I was quite confident in my ability to map out the brain, allowing my right-hemisphere to work its spatial magic.

The second project we did required a lot more writing and was in fact labeled as an assignment. I found it fun nonetheless and was glad that we were given in it. For the perception and sensory section of our books we had to formulate real-world examples of situations that each keyword would take effect. The setting for the examples was at a play, giving me lots of free room for my imagination to run wild. I had quite a bit of fun with this one.

Although I am still not a fan of the block scheduling system, I do appreciate and enjoy being able to do activities in class.

Our brain compared to those of other animals

Our brains are tiny when compared to our body and what it is able to accomplish. A small pink thing roughly the size of two fits is able to control our body sub consciously, consciously, allow us to think, move and so much more. When comparing our brains to those of other animals it is interesting to think about how the small differences in our brain size make so much of a difference.
Most animals have the basic brainstem which controls the basic necessary movements in our bodies. Humans have them and they are responsible for controlling our subconscious necessary actions such as breathing, alertness,  interpreting information sent to the brain, and more. Most other animals have brainstems doing similar tasks. The main difference between us humans and other animals is our outer lobes. They are significantly larger then the brainstem and older parts of our brain. The outer lobes allow us to think deeper, hear and see better, create a language and so much more. These abilities really set us apart from the rest of the animals in this world.

Psychology the newest science

We began the year learning about the ancient roots of Psychology but when thinking about it the majority of psychology and the facts we have learned so far are fairly new. When learning about the medical imaging devices and how they allowed us to advance our knowledge of the brain we were really able to understand the age of all these facts. These imaging devises such as the MRI, fMRI, CT scan, and PET scan were only made in the past century or so. Since then psychologists have been able to study patients with these devises to accurately map out the brain and the functions of each part. Thinking about this really allows us to realize how fast our world is moving.