language

I wanna talk a little but about our native language: English. English is the number one most spoken language. It has over 1 million word and continues to grow every year. Since so many people speak English from all over the world, accents start to develop. Turns out young children are the best at mimicking accents. When talking about recreating accents what part of the brian is used? When dealing with a spoken language there are two areas that we need to talk about. Wernikes area and brocas area.
Wernikes are is the part of the brain that helps us understand speech while brocas area send the impulses to move the muscles to form the words. So by strengthening the neural pathways in these two areas a person will better be able to listen and understand a specific persons accent then duplicate it by sending the correct impulses to the mouth. An interesting case I heard about was a story of a woman who had a stroke and suffered damage to her left hemisphere. After testing the woman who was able to speak and understand language perfectly they realized that she could no longer understand numbers. I find this interesting because I would think that numbers are just a part of language. But evidently not. What is even more interesting is that she could not read words like "two", and if she was able to sound them out she did not know what they meant. This means that our brains to no interpret the word "eight" as a word but rather as a number.

The Theories of Emotions

You overslept. "Oh, no!" you think. "I'm going to be late for school." You get dressed quickly, grab your keys, and begin to drive to school. You're driving so fast that you hear sirens, and you immediately begin to react fearfully. Fortunately, the sirens pass you, and you don't have to worry about the police. So what exactly made you react the way you did? We covered three of them in class. The first one is the James-Lange Theory. This theory suggests that the stimulus (here, the police siren) causes your body to react (i.e. your heart begins to pump faster), which then causes you to react emotionally (you squeal in fright). It makes sense, and it explains what literally causes the emotion, but there's no cognitive element involved, a major flaw in this theory. The second theory we covered is the Canon-Bard Theory. This one suggests that once the stimulus appears, the body and emotions work with each other to react. In other words, once you hear the police sirens, if your heart doesn't pump faster, you won't feel scared. Though experiments (remember the "Confederates") shows that this could be true, in general this doesn't show any cognitive element and it doesn't explain what actually causes the emotion and the bodily reaction. The third theory is the Schachter-Singer Theory. This theory suggests that, since the body can act in similar ways for different emotions, there must be a cognitive element (an awareness that you are afraid) that appears at the same time as the body's reaction, which then causes the emotion. This theory makes the most sense, but its biggest problem is that it focuses too much on the process of the autonomic nervous system and not the central nervous system, which carries a heavy amount of importance. We decided in class that none of these theories makes 100% complete sense, and it seems stupid for the AP to include them as topics on the exam. However, it helps to remember that if you're ever freaking out when you see a question about one of these three theories, just think about what you're experiencing, and it may help you remember what each theory suggests.

The Drive-Reduction Theory

I found the drive-reduction theory a little obvious. You have a need for something, and in order to get it you have a drive. In order to get rid of the drive, you must get what you need. The most obvious example is eating. Your body needs food for energy and in order to function. Your body gives you a drive: it tells you that your hungry. The drive-reduction theory is pretty much what it sounds like. Believe it or not, its when the drive gets reduced. In this case, since your hungry you get food in order to get rid of your hunger. But lets say I'm at Mrs. Perl's house (yes, I'm using this example again), I'm hungry, and she says I should go take food. The only problem is that I'm too lazy to get up. How will my body get the food. Often times there will be an incentive. For example, if Mrs. Perl says that if I don't take food I'm not allowed back.

Hunger

Usually I post about something I find interesting, and something that I can apply to myself. This time I decided to switch it up and talk about something that I find boring. Hunger. When most people look at me they say that I am skinny because I don't eat. But I say no. I am skinny because I don't get hungry. When we were filling out the eating survey in class, I realized that I never really get hungry. I realized the only times I eat are just when I want to procrastinate, when I have nothing else to do, or when I'm at Mrs. Perl's house and she forces me to eat or else I don't get invited back. Seriously. I was about to start writing this but I decided it probably would be "better" if I ate some chicken before I started, and that's what I did. I do eat. Because I understand the importance of eating. Food provides energy for your body. But I am just not as naturally hungry as other people.

Judaism's Acceptance Problem

This past summer I had the unique experience of working for the Sierra Club, helping arrange their summer programs. As part of my internship I attended one of the week long summer camps that I organized, coming as a participant. I was surprised to find out that over half of the other attendees were part of the LGBTQ community, openly identifying with their orientation. Having always been part of the sheltered Jewish community, the experience was quite eye-opening. I learned quite a lot about the LGBTQ community and what exactly it means to be part of it.

When I returned from my intern experience I set about researching why exactly the Orthodox Jewish community has such a negative response to LGBTQ members. I had expected a good track record considering the centuries of abuse we have suffered by the hands of our oppressors. I had expected that we would have done a exemplary job on accepting LGBTQ members considering that they were thrown into the crematoriums with us. I had expected to find that the renowned Jewish kindness would have extended to accept and support these people.  I was quite shocked at what I found. Orthodox Jews, it turns out, seem notorious for bad treatment of LGBTQ members. Students that have come out in schools have been kicked out and community members have been ostracized for revealing their true selves. It was with disgust that I read about the lawsuit against JONAH and what the organization had done. The archaic behavior of the religion does not seem to fit with the values that it apparently upholds.

Orthodox Jews have an acceptance problem. We, of all people, should not be discriminating against people. We need to move past our prejudices and accept these people for who they are, just as others accept us for who we are.

Eating Disorders

I want to take the fair position on 2 issues that are often seen in very negative lights. Two of the most prevalent eating disorders in the world are Anorexia and Bulimia.  People often overlook that these are actual psychological problems that the person suffering cannot solve by just "eating again." It is unfair and unreasonable when people think, "well, why don't they just start eating? What's so difficult?" These people don't know the truth. These are real problems that can't be fixed "just like that."

Anorexia is an obsessive desire to lose weight achieved by refusing food. In it, a person's weight drops below 15% of their normal weight, and they still feel overweight. It is more common in prominent White cultures where people want to show control over their environment. But still, it is a psychological issue that is potentially very harmful. Therefore, it should be discouraged and ended as soon as possible but NOT mocked.

And bulimia is a medical condition where one has insatiable eating. It is a process of binging and purging. Some people with bulimia only do the binge aspect, but the majority both eat great amounts at one time and then force themselves to vomit. This is another issue that should be dealt with seriously for it is also a psychological disorder. 

Sensitivity is really what I'm stressing. People have these problems, and they know it, and they aren't happy, so there's no need for others to make them more unhappy.

Social Motivation

Peer pressure is the darndest thing. So much of what we do is motivated by what others do. Last year in Gov we learned about political socialization. That's the process by which we develop our political views. We develop much of our political opinion based on the political opinion of others. This is just one of many examples that displays society's affect on who we become. We are motivated to wear certain clothes, listen to certain music, eat certain foods, all by society. We're all puppets in a world controlled by one grand puppet master. That master isn't God, it's some narcissistic dude who eats pancakes and plays video games all day, only breaking to check in on the human race. Ah, I'm rambling now. Anyway, it's sad how much our lives are controlled by society. I wish it wasn't this way.

Nature vs. Nurture Continued

     Earlier in the year, Mrs. Perl mentioned that the debate of nature vs. nurture was an ongoing debate that has many sides to it. The debate actually continues when looking at Skinner vs. Chomsky's contributions to the nature-nurture debate over how children acquire language. Skinner, a pro-behaviorist, takes on the nurture side to the debate of language-development. He says that we learn language by the familiar principles of association, where we put things of similar sights and sounds together to make words. He also focuses on imitation of words and syntax that we model after others and reinforcement, where we are smiled and hugged by our parents when we correctly say something.
     On the other hand, Chomsky takes on the nature position, and believes that we are born with language acquisition devices that are biological and that prepare us to learn language. His evidence lies in the species-wide presence of language and its underlying universal grammar. Children have an incredible capacity to learn new vocabulary, and this is a uniform sequence in the stages of language development.
     The nature-nurture debate lives on...

Hierarchy of Needs

When originally studying Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs we discussed how once a person is able to fulfill their drive to complete the first part, they continue on to the second. The pyramid with physiological needs, than safety, than social, than ego, and finally ending with self actualization. We originally said a person begins with the basic necessities in life, and then slowly develops more complicated drives. When looking at this with more detail I had thought of a slightly different concept. A person begins by developing a drive for human necessities, such as hunger and thirst. After assuring himself these necessities he continues by gaining a drive for a sense of safety. Some may see this as a completely different drive, but I see this as an assurance that the first step will always be there. The same is for a sense of belonging. A person develops a circle of friends who, no matter the situation, will be there to help him out and ensure he will be safe. To be sure he always has a circle of friends, the person is required to build up an ego, other people looking up to him. This way there will always be a group of people who want to join his circle of friends. Finally the person must accomplish things so he will always have a high ego. This is done through completing challenging tasks and creative projects.

I Want to Create a Language

Before I make a language, I have to think to myself, "What types of rules and sounds do I need to create to make my language successful?" Well, every language has letters, whether the letters are a, b, c, d or alef, bet, gimel, daled; it doesn't matter, but every language needs letters. Every language also needs phonemes, which are the most basic sounds, and morphemes, which are the smallest unit of sound that still has meaning such as a prefix or a suffix. For example, in the word "absolutely," there are supposedly 3 morphemes: ab, solute, and ly. My language also needs grammar or a set of rules so that everybody can be able to understand the language and communicate with one another. Looks like I'm good to go. I've got the basic parts of language down; now it's time to create it.