The Cortex

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

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

Can it be done?

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

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

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

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

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

        Akiva Somer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Right Experiment

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

Mind Boggling Psychology

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

Double-blind Diapers

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

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

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

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