the brain.

there is a fairly new project called the human connectome. the idea behind this project is to map out all the nerves of the human brain. scientists are hoping that this will give us a better understanding of personality, memory, perception, cognitive ability, emotion, just basically who we are. they are examining different brains in different cultures to get the best picture of how they work. also when you know what is right you can know what has gone wrong. this will hopefully make curing some things easier. while working on this project they make a cool discovery. When we learned about the brain we mainly focused on neurons. but in an experiment scientists found a different type of cell that plays a huge roll in our brains: glia. these glial cells help sustain the brain by producing the myelin and distributing oxygen and all that other fun stuff. recently scientists put human glial cells into mice brains. these mice had improved memory and learning abilities. the important thing to note is that glia cells and not neurons were put into the mice suggesting that glia cells play a bigger role than we thought before.
for more information you can always check out the website: http://www.humanconnectomeproject.org/

a pic of the neurons of the human brain

robotic therapy???

When first reading the chapter I started to think that therapy seemed really complex. To me it seemed like you needed a human there to think and respond to what you say. you needed a human being to be able to understand your issues and interpret all your body language and tones. but the more i thought about it the more my original thought seemed incorrect. For the most part people use the same body language: smile when they get happy, the make eye contact and are less fidgety when they are comfortable and they stumble over their words when they do not want to talk about something. and a computer can detect all of that stuff. the next question i asked myself was how could it respond correctly? but then i realized if we had handheld devices that could respond to what we say then a therapists responses do not seem out of reach. And out of the three thing all therapies have in common, it has two: it gives the client a new perspective and hope. the only thing that it is missing is the empathetic relationship. one could easily argue that is certainly has components of it though. the robot would always be empathetic and caring, more so than a human maybe, but you just wouldn't have the same human contact which is very important as well. and after doing a little research here is what i found:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=ejczMs6b1Q4
check it out, it is really cool.

While studying for the cumulative exam I realized the applicability of the information we are learning in this class to our lives, and the way Ms. Perl applies it to her teaching method. The main example I could think of was methods for learning. As we discussed in class quite a while ago one of the best ways to learn new material is by repeating it, especially over an extended period of time. The work we are required to do for class show that this is taken into account. We are required to go over most of the information 9 times: the assignment, in class, studying for the test, correcting the test, studying for the mid term, correcting the midterm, studying for the cumulative exam, correcting the cumulative exam, and finally studying for the AP.

            Learning is not the only way we could apply this information to our lives. When discussing developmental psychology we discussed the multiple types of parenting and the affects it could have in children. As well as the way different personalities could affect our health. Applying what we learn in this class could allow us to lead more successful lives. 

Schizophrenia

When I was in Washington D.C. this summer, I was walking by Dupont Circle and noticed a man with a pen and paper writing down absolutely nothing (though making writing motions) and saying odd things out-loud (I had no clue who he was saying things to). I remember reading an article from the New York Times about schizophrenia, but I didn’t recall that there were subtypes of it. There are five subtypes of schizophrenia.

1. Paranoid- this is when the mind is preoccupied with delusions or hallucinations. 2. Disorganized- disorganized speech or behavior, or flat affect or inappropriate emotions

3. Catatonic- one who has this form of schizophrenia has trouble moving and has repetition of another’s speech or movements.

4. Undifferentiated- varied symptoms that aren’t specific.

5. Residual- withdrawal following hallucinations and delusions.

People with schizophrenia have increased receptors for the neurotransmitter dopamine, which may intensify the positive symptoms of schizophrenia. When I was in D.C., I believe this person was paranoid, as he was perhaps complaining about something he was writing. But who knows…

Dealing with an illegal test

Disclaimer: The study method and other scenarios here is not accurate and I did indeed study. It is merely suggested to use several ideas of psychology.

Today we had an illegal test, to quote Ethan Cooper. The test that was given to us was an achievement test, covering everything that we've learned since the beginning of the year. That's 12 chapters! Although illegal, there was not much that we were able to do; we were stuck having to study for it.

Studying for a 12 chapter test is no easy thing. I had to read through all of my notes, several dozen pages, as well as go over hundreds of vocab words. On top of that I needed to read through about 50 pages of review pages in the book itself, not an easy task. Only thing is, I didn't do that. In fact, I was surprised when I walked into class today and we were handed a tomb to go through.

Having finished the test, I realized what had happened. When I first heard about the test, I was overloaded with anxiety. I thought, how in the world is it possible that I will need to be taking this massive test and succeed in it. So, I repressed it. I just buried the test in my unconscious, forgetting all about it and my anxiety.

Last night, however, I was quite anxious. I had an unnerving sense of worry that something bad was coming, something horrendous. When I was going to my room to watch some TV to calm down, I told a fellow dormer, "Hey, I'm going to my room now to study for test-I mean watch TV." I couldn't figure out where all the anxiety was. When I called my parents, I shouted at them, displacing my anger towards the illegal exam on to them.

And so it was, when I walked into class, I was surprised. Surprised, but at least satisfied that I knew why I was anxious.

Psychological Disorders

The psychological disorders we discussed were pretty scary, but, for now, I would like to apply a couple of the personality disorders to kids in our class. If this offends anyone please tell me and I will take down this post, but I do not think it will for two reasons: A) no one reads this anyways and B) I'm doing it in a joking manner and not seriously. Without further adu:
You know what, I was going to do that, but I as I was looking through the disorders I realized that I could not perform this without offending someone so I've decided to take the safe way and just avoid the issue all together.
I will go in a different direction and just talk about depression because I feel like it is something that has a lot of people thinking. You know, it seems these days like depression is a world wide phenomenon, and something that has been increasing as the years go on. I blame this on social media. Someone posts something on facebook that does not get an adequate number of likes or gets mean comments makes you feel depressed so that could be one possible reason. Also, people's quality of life could just be decreasing.
Whatever the case may be, depression is certainly something that is growing nowadays and if you would like to avoid this, dont get angry at yourself and always look at the positives of life.

That schizophrenic guy on that video

I don't know why, but over the weekend, I couldn't stop thinking about that schizophrenic guy who lived in the subway that was documented in that video we watched. Just a refresher: schizophrenia is a psychological disorder with several symptoms, including disorganized and delusional thinking, disturbed perceptions and hallucinations, and inappropriate emotions and actions. This guy in the subway's reasoning for thinking that somebody is out to get him certainly fits these symptoms. But just the way he said it, his choice of words, really intrigued. Over Shabbos, I spoke to my mother, who is a nurse, about her rounds when she was in school, and she told me about some of the schizophrenic people she met and talked with. I know this sounds insensitive, but I think it would be kind of cool to observe these people. To conclude, I recently watched a movie called 'Ghost,' and there's one ghost who lives in a subway train (you can see a clip of him here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjkkKO5Gsno), and I couldn't help but think from certain scenes that he is the ghost of a schizophrenic dude. I just thought I'd share my personal thoughts about it.

Analyzing Personality Disorders

     To start off, personality disorders fall in axis 2 as opposed to the other disorders because there is nothing to do to prevent them. There is no medication or treatment.
     Antisocial personality disorders/sociopath disorder is by far the worst form of personality disorders. People with this disorder are usually manipulative and cold to another's face. The worst thing about this disorder is the fact that you don't feel any guilt or remorse after doing something deemed inhumane. One of the symptoms for this disorder is torturing animals at a young age (I hope I don't have it despite the fact that this symptom applies to me). Avoidant personality disorder is the fear of being rejected. This disorder governs every interaction with people and you can imagine how that turns out. Schizoid personality disorder is when you are eccentric. You are so eccentric that you think you are too cool for school and you won't even interact with people because you think they are on a lower level than you. Narcissistic personality disorder is when you are so self absorbed and you think everything revolved around you at all times. Histrionic personality disorder is when you say things just to get attention. Someone with this disorder is very dramatic and also impulsive. There are people in our class who clearly have these symptoms but I won't mention any names. Finally, we have obsessive compulsive personality disorder. That is not obsessive compulsive disorder. many get confused between the two. OCD is when there are thoughts in your mind that you can't get out, and those thoughts interfere with your life. This personality disorder is when you have to be orderly and neat. Nothing can be out of line. This disorder is not about intrusive thoughts as opposed to OCD.

Shout out to Isaac Graber for completely demolishing the race this morning.

Running "Intelligence"

Today Jake Pollack, Akiva, and I ran the Germantown Half Marathon. It was a really cool experience, and I made it to the finish alive, but it really got me thinking about how the winners can just run and run and run at basically 5-minute-mile paces and live to tell the story.

I still don't know how they do that, but I have come up with ways to explain their running through a psychologist with an intelligence theories, as well as a psychologist who could not reason their ability through intelligence

The key psychologist who can explain movement prowess through intelligence is Howard Gardener. Though L.L. Thurstone also split intelligence into categories (even though these were eventually still labeled "general intelligence" after correlating in tests), he only considered capacity for different thinking abilities within the mind, like verbal comprehension, memory, and inductive reasoning. Other psychologists who do not explain running "intelligence" include Sternberg, Cattell, and Spearman. Gardener's theory, on the other hand, was upheld as explaining different types of intelligence (and NOT labeled as "generalized intelligence"), for it showed that other abilities are "equally important to our human adaptability." Therefore, according to Gardener, movement is a type of intelligence.

According to Gardener, the runners at the race today were "intelligent." They were skilled at moving their bodies the right way. However, some of them may have been (another Gardener term) idiot savants for they might not be intelligent in other ways, but running and forms of exercise may be their "island of brilliance."

I am not moving at all anymore for 3 days by the way.

I'll Forever Do This Wrong

It's technically Sunday. If you have a problem with my timing, I don't care because I'm being literal Larry tonight. Anyway, I'd like to start off by saying that the Perl Bar Mitzvah service was phenomenal. Nothing was better than getting multiple plates of that delicious salad. Oh, and not to mention the delicious chicken fingers. Just a solid all around morning. Mazel Tov!

Anyway, I was thinking about Schizophrenia recently. I thought about the person I know who has it. I won't mention any names. I honestly find it to be the coolest abnormal psychological disease we learned about. Can you imagine a voice in your head perpetually misleading you? I can't imagine going through life thinking someone is always after me. This person, though, he always feels he's being watched. He always thinks the police are on to his activities, despite the fact that his activities are innocent.

What I find to be so interesting about Schizophrenia is the actual biology of it. Enlarged ventricles don't seem to be so impactful, it's just a bit of an abnormality. That's what it seems at least. In reality, those enlarged ventricles plant a misleading guide in your head forever. I don't know why this is so fascinating to me, but looking at a picture of a Schizophrenic patient is just intriguing.

For the person I know, I know how terrible it is. I know it ruins his life. I often see him riding his bike, talking and smiling to himself. It's truly heartbreaking. This is a disease I would never wish upon anyone, not even my greatest enemies.

Happy Sunday, y'all.

Which Research Method to Use on Personality

Throughout the year, we have learned several different methods of research to understand different things. When looking at personality, do we use case studies, surveys, or experimentation? The answer is that it depends on which perspective we are looking into.

Lets look at all four:

Psychoanalytic approach: This is Freud’s theory. It says personality deals with the conflict between our biological and social restraints and how we deal with these impulses.  The players in this conflict are three interacting systems: the id, the ego, and the superego. To study this, it would be best to use case-study or a survey. Not only are these less expensive, but also the results would tend to be reliable. The reason you can use this approach is because you can look in depth at an individual in a case study and understand their conscious drive, and a survey would also tell you about the person.

Humanistic: Maslow’s theory looks at positive psychology and the goodness in humans while maintaining the idea that humans are basically good. The only way to research this approach is through case studies, since it focuses so much on the person.

Trait: Trait researchers have attempted to describe personality in terms of stable and enduring behavior patterns, or predispositions to feel and act. Many effective methods can be used to look at the trait theory, including personality inventories, such as Myer-Briggs and MMPI.

Social-Cognitive: This approach applies principles of learning and cognition to the study of personality. Using observations, surveys, and experimentation are the best method of researching this perspective.

General Intelligence vs. Multiple Intelligences

      Spearman, Cattell, and Thurstone are generalists. This means that they believe that everybody has a general intelligence. Spearman said that there is a G scale of intelligence. He said that if you are intelligent, you are good at a multitude of things including mathematical, mechanical, verbal, spatial things, and if you are not intelligent, you are not good at any of those. He measured using psychometric testing. Cattell divided the general intelligence into two parts: crystallized intelligence, which is one's knowledge, and fluid intelligence, which is one's ability to see complex problems and solve them quickly. Cattell also holds that if you are good at one of Spearman's aspects, you are good at all, and if you are not good at one, you are not good at any. As opposed to Spearman, Thurstone had 7 aspects of intelligence including verbal comprehension, verbal fluency, arithmetic ability, memory, perceptual speed, inductive reasoning, spatial visualization. Studies have shown that Spearman is right in the sense that those who scored high on one thing, tended to score high on other sections as well.

      Gardner and Sternberg believed that people possess multiple intelligences. They believed people could be intelligent at one thing, but not necessarily at another. Gardner proved this based on two things: an idiot savant could have a very low IQ, but could be amazingly intelligent at one specific thing. I have a friend with autism who can tell me the day of the week any date is on. If I tell him my birthday, he can successfully tell me what day I was born on. Another way Gardner proved that people have multiple intelligences is with brain damage people, they could have brain damage in some parts of the brain, but in others, they could still be very intelligent. Sternberg held by his triarchic theory. He said that there are different ways of being smart. Analytical intelligence includes knowledge, performance, and metacognitive performance. This includes doing well in school and being good at memorizing things. Creative intelligence is exactly what it sounds like. It includes coming up with creative ideas and being able to adapt to new situations well. Practical intelligence is not just about your IQ, but it is also about how you interact and your social intelligence. If you have a mixture of all three parts of his theory, Sternberg would say you will be very successful. 


     


     

       

Erikson Development at the Sarachek Tournament

I'm sitting here on the bleachers at the YU basketball tournament. It's halftime of the DRS vs Northshore game. I was thinking of what I needed to get done for psych class. Then, I had a moment of insight. This is where one spontaneously finds the answer for what one is looking for. So know with my insight, I am writing my blog post.

I wanted to speak about two of Erikson's stages that are being displayed at the tournament. The first is the 1st Erikson stage from age 0-1. This is the trust vs mistrust stage. If not developed by caring parents in childhood, and for example regular feeding patterns as a baby, people grow up being very uptight and not trusting people they normally should. For example, I've seen some guys on our team unnecessarily locking the bathroom door and hiding their stuff.

The next stage prevalent at this tournament is the 2nd stage: autonomy vs shame and doubt, acquired between age 2-3. This is where you either develop independence, or you are very hesitant and doubtful in your decisions, developed early on by things like potty training. For example, a new kid on our team (not saying names) ordered something at Noah's Ark last night but switched his order after 15 minutes. Classic. He may not have totally finished developing during this critical 2nd stage of Erikson development.

Psychology is everywhere, and people you might think are done developing may not actually be totally finished.

Recollections of AIPAC

While I was in DC on Aipac, several different ideas from psychology came to mind. I know they don't have to do with what we have learned this past week in school, but I haven't been in school for a while, so I have no clue what's going on. Here we go:
On AIPAC, individuals who support the committee financially receive different laniards (depending on how much many they gave) which have different colors. Certain colors permit you to enter into different membership clubs and receive different benefits. The orange laniards get you into the most clubs while the blue ones do the least for you. Anyways, I noticed that a lot of different people on the convention were constantly looking at the colors their peers had, often in jealousy. This concept has to do with the adaption-level phenomenon and the relative-deprivation principle. The adaptation-level phenomenon is our tendency to assess stimuli (including material possessions) by contrasting them with a neutral level that changes with our experience. The relative-deprivation principle is our perception that we are less well off than others with whom we compare ourselves. Thus, happiness is relative to both our past experience and our comparisons with others.
Another thing I did a lot of on AIPAC was visit different museums. I went to Art Museums and history museums. I realized how much history and art I had forgotten since learning about it in school. Then I thought about Ebbingaus' forgetting curve.Encoded memories may fade after storage. From his research on learning and retention, Ebbinghaus determined that the course of forgetting is initially rapid, then levels off with time; this principle became known as the forgetting curve.
In all, I had a great trip. But it did get me thinking about AP Psych

Derrick Rose: Is he intelligent?

I haven't posted in a while, so hello everybody. I am still taking AP Psychology and I believe our teacher is Mrs. Perl...Anyways...
In order to answer the question of whether or not Derrick Rose is intelligent, we need to define intelligence. Intelligence is the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.
Before AP Psychology, I had the notion that Derrick Rose was simply not intelligent. He scored in the lowest of the percentiles on the SAT and ACTs. The question is does Rose failing these tests prove he isn't intelligence? Perhaps. The SAT requires cognitive skills that revolve around solving problems and using knowledge to adapt to new problems you have never seen before. One can argue that because Rose couldn't do these on the SAT, he isn't an intelligent individual.
However, this definition is expanded by individuals like Spearman, who argues that there are g and s factors in measuring intelligent. If you are intelligent, you are more likely to be good at mechanics, spatial, verbal, and numerical operations. He holds by the generalist ideas.
Other individuals, such as Gardener, propose 8 different types of intelligences. While Rose may lack mathematical and verbal intelligence, he may be extraordinarily intelligent in terms of movement and understanding of the natural environment around him, which are two forms of intelligence we don't see on the SAT.
In the end, it all depends on the definition and the practicalities. The fact that Derrick Rose can split two defenders and realize that he has a man who trailing behind him ready for a dunk requires a form of intelligence that a man with an IQ of 150 may not have.

America the Superficial

Although we learned it just yesterday and not last week, I still feel the need to post about the fact that our definition of intelligence is in no way assessed by common intelligence tests. Take the IQ test for example. This intelligence quotient test gauges what many to believe general intelligence. Even if this was so, which I don't agree with, it still doesn't note how we use what we learn from experience to adapt to new situations. All the IQ test does is examine one's logic.

What's more, it doesn't even only assess logic, it assesses who knows stupid, irrelevant facts. What does it matter if I know what the capital of Russia is? I don't know the answer to that, but i still feel I'm an intelligent person.

Either we need to change our definition of intelligent, or we need to find tests that actually assess what we know as intelligent.

Oh to be a savant...

One of the most fascinating things we learned so far, in my opinion, is that of the idiot savant. I find it so interesting how someone would be classified as unable to perform even the most menial task but can be so far advanced in a single skill. There are idiot savants who are capable of looking at an entire city for just a minute and then being able to draw an exact replica of the entire scene, or the one who is able to calculate what day of the week it was for any date that you ask, within seconds. The power of their minds are sort of a two -sided coin, impossibly smart on one side but then impossibly autistic on the other. It could be easy fro one of these idiot savants to tell you the first 7,000 digits of pi, but very difficult to tie their own shoe.

Researchers are still not exactly sure what causes or enables these people to have such incredible mental capabilities, but then be so restricted by their autism. However, imagine what will happen when they do figure it all out. There will no doubt be a movement to modify regular people's minds to have the same insane capabilities paired with a normal, non-autistic way of life. I know I will certainly be in line for that!

NBA Players --> Reliability, Validity, and Standardization

To play in the NBA, you got to have some serious skillz. But, on top of that, you need to have intangibles that set you apart from the rest. I am not here to discuss what it takes to make the NBA, rather, I am here to apply an NBA player to the main ways we evaluate a test, namely reliability, validity, and standardization.
1. Reliability (The extent to which scores produced by an instrument or measure are consistent) - In order to be labeled as the most reliable player in the NBA you have to be consistent and smooth. The epitome of that definition is none other than The King himself. Yes, you heard it. LeBron James. He is a consistency machine, and when he does not shoot 50% from the field with 25+ points, people often think something is wrong with the man. He is on his way to 4 MVPs in the past 5 seasons, and the label he is playing at right now is simply scary. People often say that he is not human or from this planet, and by simply looking at the man, you would think that this is true.
2. Validity (the extent to which a test measures what it claims to measure) - In order to be labeled as a player who is "valid like salad" you have to be good at one thing and one thing only. Now, a couple of years ago, I tould have put Kevin Durant under this title, but he has improved his game so much that I do not think it would be fair to label him as a mere scorer anymore. So, I choose Carmelo Anthony. Right now, Anthony leads the NBA in scoring, but that is about all he is or wants to be: a pure scorer. He does not pass well, rebound, or play great defense. He is what he claims to be. The problem with this is that with this mentality, Melo will never win the chip, he has to be multi-faceted if he wants to reach this level.
3. Standardization (Basis for comparing invidual scores) - Well, this one is pretty easy. For this decade, it would be LeBron James, but, for the purpose of this award, I am going to go back in the history books a little. Yea, I said it, MJ, "His Airness", Michael Jordan. Whenever you want to compare someone in the NBA, you compare him to the greatest of all time and that is MJ. There is no question that MJ set the standard for what an NBA player, leader, and winner should look like.

Intelligence

Many people would agree that there are usually two types of students, a math science type of guy, and then an english history person. The math and science guy is usually one who is better at logic problems and arithmetic problems and someone who is a stronger english history person is usually better at memorization, writing and will usually have a larger vocabulary. Many have dubbed the first type of person a street smart person and the second someone who is book smart. Another way to classify these two types of intelligence are the ability to learn new facts, history/english, and the ability to apply knowledge to a subject, math/science. This past week we discussed multiple types of THEORIES (please see my past post) about intelligence the second multiple theory addresses these types of students, Robert Sternberg- Triarchic theory of intelligence. He split up multiple types of intelligence into three separate categories that do not effect each other analytical, creative, and practical intelligence. Analytical intelligence is split up into three further categories knowledge acquisition, performance components, and metacognative components. A history/english student would achieve high knowledge accusation scores. A science/math student would probably achieve higher performance components scores.

The Locus of Control

There's a concept introduced in the social-cognitive perspective of personality called personal control. The concept basically asks where one's locus, or point, of control is. The locus of control is one's perception of how much control he or she has over a certain situation. The locus of control can be divided into two sides: the internal locus of control, and the external locus of control. The internal locus of control is the perception that one has complete control over his or her destiny. One that is shown to have an internal locus of control achieves more in school, acts more independently, copes with stress, can delay gratification, etc. This person's perception of being in complete control of a situation helps that person actually control it. If somebody with an internal locus of control fails a test, the person will blame his or herself for not studying enough or paying attention in class. The external locus of control is the perception that other forces one's destiny. Usually people in this category don't try that hard, because they think that, since they aren't in control of their own destiny, what they do won't make a difference. If somebody with an external locus of control fails a test, he or she will blame the teacher for not teaching the material right. I find this concept very interesting, but at the same time I'm having trouble believe that it is 100% concrete (just like almost every other concept in psychology). Why? Because just because somebody has one kind of locus of control doesn't mean he or she shows those traits. For instance, I can believe I have control over my destiny, but fail a test because I don't care--I'm not a hard worker, but that doesn't mean I'm not in control of my own destiny. Also, I vaguely remember the book mentioning something about religious people having an external locus of control. This is an ignorant assumption--just because you believe in G-d doesn't mean that you have an external locus of control. Again, it's an intriguing concept, but that doesn't make it a concrete one.