synesthesia

Earlier this year we all learned what synesthesia was. Just in case anyone forgot it is a phenomenon where multiple senses are joined. The book makes it seem like this rare disorder that only very few people have but while surfing the web i found out otherwise. It is true that in the true sense of the word it is rare but it is closer to the average person than we think. Jinhyun Jeon designed cutlery that is supposed to revolutionize the way we taste foods. He uses oddly shaped cutlery made with starenge materials. By experiencing different colors textures and temperatures while eating different foods we will actually have different experiences; by changing even one of those things the food will actually taste differently. This happens because our sense of taste is a very complex sense. We are use to experiencing every food in a certain way so changing the way we eat each food will change the way we taste the food because everyone is a little synesthetic. Every body's taste is combined to other senses. It is not so rare like we think.

i recommend everyone check this site out 

 

http://www.dezeen.com/2012/11/18/tableware-as-sensorial-stimuli-cutlery-by-jinhyun-jeon/

Automatic Processing vs. Effortful Processing

       Encoding is one step to memory; it is when we take the information in. Automatic processing is when we effortlessly process things without conscious thought. We automatically process information about space like how the classroom is set up, about time like when we know approximately what time it is usually, frequency like when we realize later how many times something happened; for example, I am likely to remember later how many times I passed someone in the hallway automatically if I rarely hardly ever see them. The last type of things we automatically process are bits of well learned information like driving a car; we are not focusing on how we drive, we just drive.
       Effortful processing is when we are aware/conscious of what we are processing. Visual processing is when we are only looking at visual information. This is the hardest form of processing to remember later. Acoustic processing is when we are only hearing something. Semantic processing is when we remember things better when they are of more meaning to us. The self-reference effect says that we remember things more clearly when they are similar to us because then they are of more meaning to us (semantic). You need to remember the following principal: the more meaning something has to you, the longer and better you will remember it.

The "Heisman Moment"

There are very few things that I consider to be less exhilirating than watching a psychology video about memory, but for this one, I took notes that I would like to share with the rest of the class:

• Memory is the essential feature that enables uas as humans to exist 
• Learning - the acquisition of knowledge --> everything learning is memory
• Three levels of memory
• 1) Sensory Memory
• 2) Short-term memory
• 3) Long-term memory
• Most memory is stored in the hippocampus

I'm not going to bore you with the rest of my notes... Wait! I forgot one last point I took while watching the video:

Heisman Predictions

• Manti Te'o - LB/Notre Dame
• Collin Klein - QB/Kansas St.
• Johnny Manziel - QB/Texas A & M

There you have it, folks! Kampf strikes again with another spot on prediction of the heisman trophy winner. But wait, I will now correlate my most important bullet point I took on the video with psychology and memory. You see, throughout the year I come home every saturday night and check the college football scores and stats of the day, and I always make sure to pay extra attention to any players that could be potential heisman winners. So, when I get home when saturday night and see that Johnny Football, a freshman no less, has defeated the seemingly invincible Alabama Crimson Tide, I am shell-shocked and at that moment I knew he was going to win. Every winner of the heisman must have that "Heisman Moment" or what we call in psychological terms flashbulb memory. That one play or game that stands out due to an emotional significance that most other games do not have, and that game against the Tide had its major emotional effect and probably single-handedly won Johnny Manziel the heisman trophy. So, as I sit watching the film, and deciding who I should pick as the heisman winner, I was not sure until one of the psychology dudes said that an event that is emotional we will remember more, and, at that point, I knew that Johnny Football was the unequivocal front-runner.

Chunking

Around the same time everybody did the 7A assignment, I noticed that students were particularly interested with the term "chunking." And by interested, I mean obsessed: some students loved it so much, they thought that it was included on the Units 5 and 6 test we took this week. Chunking is organizing items into familiar, manageable units. Chunking often occurs automatically, and so we take it for granted. For instance, if you're studying for a vocabulary test, you may find yourself remembering words based on similar spellings and definitions that your brain can group together. A personal example would be when I'm studying for an APUSH test. My notes are divided into slides, so I may find myself chunking the information into different sections of my notes or different time periods. It's an interesting memory technique, and I'm glad we got to delve into it a bit this week.

Learned Helplessness

When it comes to Unit 6, there's A LOT to learn and discuss. But within all the talks of operant and classical conditioning, one topic that really interests me is the idea of learned helplessness. What's learned helplessness? According to HaRav Dovid Meir, learned helplessness is the hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events. The classic example is when you (unethically?) take a test subject--a dog, per se--and place it in an enclosed environment. The dog is able to escape, but each time it tries to escape, it's shocked. After a few tries, you choose to let the dog escape without a shock. But each time the dog sees the chance to escape, even if you don't shock it, it may run as far away as possible and cower in fear. Can I apply this to real life? I'm sure I can. When you're a Freshman, and your Seniors include the likes of Avi Goldstein and Sam Rapp, you sort of learn to instinctively hide in a corner and cower in fear when a Senior nonchalantly walks through the hallway with a crowbar and/or a lead pipe. A Freshman's reaction to such a Senior class can definitely be described as learned helplessness.

video games

When talking about observational learning, more specifically, antisocial behavior both you (Mrs. Perl) and the book put video games in a terrible light. Yes, you said the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth but you only gave half the story. There are many positive things that can come out of video games. Here are my top ten.
1. improved dexterity- doctors who played video games were faster and less likely to make mistakes
2. education- students remember a helk of a lot more when taught by video games than by regular classroom settings
3. physiotherapy- many games nowadays have the players moving, this helps balance and speed
4. lowers stress- studies show that gamers have lower stress levels and that nongamers have lower stress levels after playing video games
5. multitasking- gamers can multitask a lot better, they can focus on 6 things while the average person has a max of about 4
6. eye sight- playing for a few hour a day will actually improve a persons eyesight
7. relationships- people who play together develop and improve their relationship (even marriage)
8. pain relief- because people are distracted they are not feeling as much pain (violent games increase pain tolerance as well)
9. increased IQ- gamers are better at spotting details and managing events (infants will develop a thicker cortex of they play video games
10. reaction time- gamers have a much higher reaction time because many games force people to think and act quickly
I could relate each one to something we learned in psychology but I will eave that up to you guys :) (some are easier than others)

Wouldn't it be nice to have more Little Alberts?

I'm sure that Little Albert (as opposed to the fat one) was a cute kid in the lab. I can picture him looking around with wide eyes at the strangers surrounding him, searching for his mom's hand and instead finding Watson's. The look of assurance that Little Albert's mother, telling him to go along with the nice scientist, must have given Little Albert the courage to go along with Watson. Courage that he would need soon against what was to become a fearsome, furry rabbit. From this experiment the world learned about generalization, an important psychological rule.

There has been an ongoing debate about the usage of stem cells in health research. The argument goes that using them will lead to donations of eggs, specifically embryonic cells. With those cells, opponents say that scientists will basically just be raising a baby in a tube and then killing it. Advocates of the research claim that the research will lead to monumental discoveries for the health of human kind. They say that saving the lives of millions, perhaps even billions, at the cost of an egg that would anyway not be used is worth it.

Ethical debates abound in the field of science regarding the testing of lives subjects, be it human or animal. I think that, assuming the person is not drastically, physically harmed, the study should be allowed to be conducted. The advancement of the human race, and the helping of millions, should not be given up at the cost of one subject.

Furthermore, if animals are grown for the purpose of being tested, then there should be no problem using them. Their only purpose in life is to be used to further the scientific field. They would not be alive if they could not be used.

Power to Animals

It is widely thought that "animals only act on instinct." I have heard this from numerous people (i.e.-my dad) all throughout my life. But, as we have proved through studies in Psych class, animals are much more advanced than they're given credit for. What most people might not know is that many animals have the capacity to learn. Whether this learning is instinctive or not, it adds a level of advancement to the demeaning opinion that is often relayed by humans.
So far we have examined classical and operant conditioning. In classical conditioning, animals can learn to have a conditioned response when impacted by a conditioned stimulus. At first - just like any human would act - a dog would not associate a tone with the coming of food. But after a the process of tone resulting in the coming of food, the dog learns to salivate just by hearing the tone.
And in operant conditioning, animals can learn operant behavior depending on the environment. Just as a human would learn to push a bar if it results in more food, so too can a mouse learn to push a bar to get more food.
Yes, humans are far superior to animals. But animals can indeed learn.That's not too shabby.

Mind Blown

This entire year has literally been mind blowing. I walk away from every class with my mind literally blown out of my head. Learning about classical and operant conditioning just strengthened that mind blowing. We don't think for ourselves. That's essentially the truth. We learn from a young age to associate things with reward and from there on out our responses come naturally. What happened to free will? According to Behaviorists who refuse to deal with Cognition, we don't really have free will. Our brain does everything for us, without us even wanted it to. But then I wonder, where are my thoughts coming from? There must be some external force that drives me to be me. Is it my soul? Let's learn about this!

Give a mouse a cookie...

I'm sure many of you heard about how Palestine was recently awarded nonmember observer state status(I think that's the correct terminology for their title now) in the UN. The vote was quite a win for Palestine, with a large majority voting yes to change its status. Britain, and several others, voted yes on condition that Palestinians would stop trying to advance it's status in the UN and return to peace talks with Israel. The successful attempt at advancing the Palestinian status reminded me of last year's similarly successful status advancement. It seems to me that the Palestinians are playing a smart game of using the UN's negative reinforcement against them. The UN attempts to placate the Palestinians by giving into their current demands, thereby stopping their pestering, for the moment at least. Their negative reinforcement is akin to that of a parent appeasing a child just to stop it from whining. The Palestinians, on the other hand, are receiving positive reinforcement. They are the child who gets what he wants when he whines. The Palestinians have learned, via operant conditioning, that if they push the UN will deliver. It will be interesting to see what will happen next year and to see if the behavior has been learned.