Physical Punishment

While reading about punishment in my lovely psychology book, I remembered a conversation that we had this shabbos at the Perl's house. We talked about parents hitting their children as a form of punishment. Some of us felt that it is okay to hit their own child (maybe not hurt them, just a little hit) in order to punish them. It seems to be that nowadays this type of punishment is not considered normal, but not too long ago it was used by parents and even teachers in school with their students. And, of course, there are those who continue to use this form of punishment today. I read that physical punishment can lead to aggression, depression and low self-esteem, and will not necessarily be successful. If a parent hits their child every time they swear, the child might stop swearing at home but might continue to do so out of their home. This is very interesting to me. It also upsets me. I definitely do not believe in hitting a child because it does not seem like an effective punishment to me. But, I do believe that maybe a little hit could have some sort of positive effect in some cases. Do you think that this form of punishment is effective?

Hello my dear fellow classmates,

So as we all know we are learning about sleep and dreams this lovely week. I actually discovered something very interesting about a certain person (didn’t want me to blog about that person so we will just call her CLARA) and felt the need to blog about it. Clara has had insomnia (trouble falling asleep) since she was about twelve years old. This happens to many people for many different reasons and is therefore not the thing that fascinates me so much. Clara has the ability to lie down, close her eyes, and go DIRECTLY into REM. She doesn’t have to go through the stages that we must go to in order to reach REM, it happens automatically. Therefore, she can only sleep about two hours a night and not feel tired at all since REM stage is very crucial in order for us to feel rested. I must say that I am very jealous of Clara. I always felt that we waste so much time on sleeping and I hate the fact that we need so much sleep in order to feel rested. I would love to go directly to REM for about two hours every night and then I’ll be able to accomplish so much more throughout the day while feeling completely rested. What do you think about Clara’s situation?

Are You Sleep Deprived?

On page 278 of our textbook there is a table entitled: "Are You Sleep Deprived?" This caught my eye because I often feel very tired. There are fifteen questions that you answer true or false to. It says that if you answer "true" three or more times, you are probably not getting enough sleep. Well, I did the activity and I got true for ten out of the fifteen statements. This is probably really not good. Cornell University psychologist James Maas recommends that you go to bed 15 minutes earlier than usual every night of the week- and continue this practice by adding fifteen more minutes each week- until you wake without an alarm clock and feel alert all day. This led me to my question. Statement number one of the the activity is: "I need an alarm clock in order to wake up at the appropriate time." Obviously, I answered yes to this question, but my main question is why is that important? Why does that tell you if you're sleep deprived. Maybe some people are just really deep sleepers and need a loud noise to wake them up. I always wondered how my mother can just wake up around the same time every morning and why the idea of using an alarm clock never even crosses her mind. Does any one have any ideas? Do you need an alarm clock to wake up?

Fallingggggg

I don't know about you, but I sometimes experience what I think of as dreams where I am falling into nothingness. This is pretty crazy and I often am woken up by this or jump in my sleep! It is very odd, but I always assume that it is just some type of dream and move on with my life. However, while reading about the different stages of sleep, I noticed that the idea of falling or feeling like you are floating was mentioned. Stage one of our sleep does not include dreams. It is the lightest stage of sleep and only last about five minutes. During this time we are able to experience different hallucinations. So, I learned that the sensation of falling that I feel sometimes in my sleep in not a dream, but a hallucination! This seems pretty cool to me. I usually think of hallucinations as something that happens to crazy people, but apparently it happens to many people all the time! Since it is such a light sleep, one might easily wake up with a feeling of confusion and wonder what just happened..Well now you know!

Hello my dear fellow classmates,
So as i was studying for our lovely test for tomorrow i suddenly just had to stop when i got to the sensation of pain because i just needed to blog about it.
I was always very obsessed with the sensation of pain. I am like always in pain because i have so many issues with my body its ridiculous; of course all i do is complain all the time. However, i seem to forget that there is so much worse out there than the pain i experience. I always wondered how people who are tortured can endure that kind of pain for a long period of time. I would just go insane. The book also mentioned people who are able to control their pain-mind over matter. I found that absolutely fascinating. So here a few questions i would like to start with:
1. Do you really think thatthe whole mind over matter thing works?
2. Do you think that we are all born with it or can we become accustomed to it?(Before you answer that consider the following: millions of women are able to give birth and can endure the pain without any previous training. On the other hand, you always see in movies how there are these tough men(like Jack Bauer from 24) who have been exposed to pain so much that they grew accustomed to it) so which one is it?
3. Are there only certain people who can endure intense pain? If yes why?
4. Not all of you might be able to answer this question since you might not know what im talking about but ill pose it anyway: The character Gregory from the show house MD had his muscle thigh removed and is therefore constantly in excruciating pain. He must take very strong pain killers(vicodin) to get through the day. Why cant he "control" his pain?

Colors

We learned about the different colors and how we can perceive them. We learned that there are the trichromatic colors, and that cones are in charge for colorful colors and rods are in charge of black and white.
How do we know that we all see the same color named "green" since it can be that what I perceive as "green" is actually "red", but I was taught that a certain color is called a certain word. Is it possible that all of our worlds are differently colorful? What do you think?

Stop and Stare..but make sure you don't get caught

Someone told me, that during class when she looks at someone, and the other person looks back, they end up smiling at each other. She said she couldn't help herself and that this always happens.

I believe that they do this because when they look at each other they start feeling a little squish (the new 'in word' for awkward. Therefore it happens that they smile at each other to make that awkward feeling go away.

Having learned about Psychology, reflexes and our culture can we somehow understand this behavior? Tell me what you think!

This brings somethings else to mind. There is this saying which states: "Don't feel bad if the person you look at catches you looking at him since it means that he is looking back".
Do you think that this is true or that we feel when someone is looking at us, or we see it through or peripheral vision and we therefore look at the person looking at us?

Expectations, Apples, and Potatoes

Last week, we discussed in class that if you blindfolded yourself and pinched your nose tightly, you would not be able to taste the difference between a raw potato and an apple. This is because you cannot taste, and the way things smell and look effect how it tastes. This is due to our expectations, which often make a difference in how we perceive something.

So, over shabbos, Rachel E. Tsuna and I decided to experiment. We peeled an apple and a raw potato, and then cut them into similar sizes and shapes. We took turns blindfolding one another, and as one was blindfolded and pinching their nose into nonexistence, the other would pick a piece of apple and a piece of potato for the blindfolded person to eat.

It was so cool- we could not taste the difference between the apple and the potato! However, our apple was to soft and when we ate it we could tell it was an apple and not a potato. Of course, they both tasted the same, as we could not really tell the difference. Rachel had no problem swallowing the potato. However, when I ate the potato, even though it did not taste gross or anything, I had a hard time swallowing once I realized it was potato because just the thought of eating a raw potato was disturbing.
But you really cannot tell the difference! If the apple were harder, we would never have known.

This says a lot about the way our senses work. Seeing and smelling can effect taste, as can our expectations. Try this experiment yourself to see how cool it is.

*i would like to note: Someone thought it would be funny to put hot sauce on the apple/potato slice when I was blindfolded, and I could DEFINITELY taste the hot sauce. Even though I could not see or smell...

Senses

When we learned about smell in class I thought that it was particularly interesting how when we smell something, it can immediately bring back a memory. I can relate to this very much. However, I felt that we could also remember something just as easily by hearing a song or seeing a picture. When we learned that the smells go straight from our noses into our frontal lobe. This makes it a much quicker process for it to enter the brain, unlike vision and hearing which go through long processes. Additionally, I found that the way the senses work is quite fascinating. Nobody really notices how amazing of a process it is just to hear a tiny sound or see a person! And, even though the smelling process is a lot less complicated, it is still incredible. This is an amazing miracle that happens a billion times a day and I personally think that we do not give God enough credit for making us this way.

Color and Depression

I don't know about you, but when I think about color, I think happy. Can you imagine walking in to a garden and not being able to perceive the different color flowers, trees, and bugs? The beauty of the garden is just gone.
When we were looking at the picture of Snow White and the seven dwarves, I came to realize something. Even when a simple picture like that doesn't have color, it still loses everything. It's almost like it's meaningless. This is when I began to wonder if color blindness caused depression. Think about this: Depression is often referred to as "feeling blue", and those who suffer from it are sometimes told to "lighten up". I could be sounding a little negative, but it just makes sense to me. It's almost like those cold, rainy days in school where everyone is in a bad mood. When you look out the window, all you perceive is a dreary day, and all of your negative thoughts come pouring in.
So, I searched the web and read some very interesting articles. I found that, in a way, depression is what leads to color blindness. (the opposite of what I thought) Many studies show that depressed people have reduced sensitivity to contrast, and therefore that they may perceive the world differently from others. Contrast gain is the process by which cells in the retina adapt to variance in the light intensity of a visual scene so that the amount of information extracted from it can be maximized. Neuropsychiatrist Ludger Tebartz van Elst found a significant difference in the contrast gain-related activity between depressed patients and controls. The participants diagnosed with depression displayed a marked reduction in contrast gain when compared with the controls. In conclusion, depressed people may indeed experience the world as being less colorful.