Skinner

Skinners experiments and findings were actually based on Thorndike’s conclusions, but skinner believed that the animals used their minds. Skinner used rats and doves in between other animals to conduct his experiments. He would place a rat inside a box and give him rewards whenever he got closer to its goal and whenever he would go to farther he would get a punishment. So the rat got to learn what he had to do to get the reward and step by step he got to its goal. With the pigeon, there were differnet cases, but it was relatively the same.

What reinforcement does is that it increases behavior and what ounishment does is to decreasse behavior. What negative means is when you take something away as a reinforcement or as a punishment and positive means that you give something as a punishment or reinforcement.

Thorndike!

A cat is placed in a "puzzle-box." The door of the box is held by a simple latch. Outside the cage is a piece of salmon on a dish. The cat moves around the cage trying to find a way out. The cat moves to the part of the cage closest to the salmon, and begins extending its paws through the bars toward the fish. The cat reaches more and more vigorously, and begins scratching at the bars. After a while these responses cease, and the cat begins to actively move around the cage. A few minutes later, it bumps against the latch. The door opens and the cat scampers out and eats the fish. The cat is placed back in the box and a new piece of fish is placed on the dish. The cat goes through the same responses as before and eventually, bumps into the latch once more. This is repeated again and again. Gradually the cat stops extending its paws through the bars and spends more of its time near the latch. Then the cat begins to direct almost all of its activity near the latch. Ultimately, the cat develops a quick and efficient series of movements for opening the latch. The Law of Effect states that if you do something that brings you positive effects, then you will keep on doing what brought you positive effects, and what brings negative effects then you will stop doing. The law of exercise states that if you want to learn an action that brings positive effects, you won’t learn by only looking but by practicing constantly. The more you practice the better you get to it.

WATSON!

         Watson´s experiments basically consisted of placing a baby , little albert, in a room where he was presented a rat, At first the baby began playing with the rat and presented no fear, but once they made a really loud sound that woud scare little albert, he would begin crying. After many times of doing this, little albert was again presented with the rat, but this time he would feel uncomfortable and scared around the rat.

          Introduction of a loud sound (unconditioned stimulus) resulted in fear (unconditioned response), a natural response.

Introduction of a rat (neutral stimulus) paired with the loud sound (unconditioned stimulus) resulted in fear (unconditioned response).

Successive introductions of a rat (conditioned stimulus) resulted in fear (conditioned response). Here, learning is demonstrated.

          The limitations of this experiment was that it was only used on one baby and that this experiment couldnt be replicated. Also this didnt aply to all people and cultures because other cultures or people could have reacted differently to or have different fears. Watsons law of frequency states The more frequent a stimulus and response to occur in association with each other, the stronger that habit will become. The law of recency consists of making a sound or an actions that affects future stimulus.

Watson thought that our behavior is determined by our enviornment and that they shouldnt study mental process becaus you cannot see it but you can see behavior.

Pavlov

Before Pavlov discovered the theory of classical condition, he was only studying the functions of dog’s saliva in their digestion. But he found something more fascinating to him. His experiment consisted of: Pavlov’s dogs, were kept in an experimental chamber, they took  meat powder to the dog and they had their saliva collected via a surgically implanted tube in their saliva glands. After some time, he noticed that his dogs began salivation before the meat powder was even presented, whether it was by the presence of the handler or by a clicking noise produced by the device that took the meat powder to them. Later, Pavlov paired the meat powder with various stimuli like the ringing of a bell. After the meat powder and bell (auditory stimulus) were put together several times, the bell was used alone. Pavlov’s dogs, responded by salivating to the sound of the bell (without the food). The bell began as a neutral stimulus. However, by pairing the bell with the stimulus that did produce the salivation response, the bell was able to acquire the ability to trigger the salivation response. Pavlov therefore demonstrated how stimulus-response bonds are formed. He dedicated much of the rest of his career further exploring this finding. The meat powder is considered an unconditioned stimulus, the dog’s salivation is the unconditioned response, the bell is a neutral stimulus until the dog learns to associate the bell with food. Then the bell becomes a conditioned stimulus which produces the conditioned response of salivation after repeated pairings between the bell and food. Extinction occurs when the conditioned stimulus is given a number of times without the unconditioned stimulus but if they keep ringing the bell without giving the dog any food (unconditioned stimulus), eventually the dog will disassociate the bell from the food and it will no longer salivate. Extinction occurred when the dog has no effect on the bell.

Narcolepsy

          "Science Daily" published an article in October 2010 recording and informing about a new discovery about sleeping disorders. Scientists have come to realize that sleeping problems are not influenced only by your neviornment but by ypur genes. This gene that some people carry is the cause for Narcolepsy. This desease makes itharder for people to be able to sleep. Narcolepsy is a disorder in which if you get too excited or altered your brain immediately shut down. I think that this article is very interesting because it informs people that it is not only the enviornemt but how you are bron with that causes trouble durnig some people's sleep. this article should show people that they shou;dnt complain about having too little time to sleep but be thankful that they are healthy and have the ability to have a good night sleep while others cant.

30 more minutes of sleep Make a difference

            Science Daily published an article in July 2010 about teenager’s sleep and how they are affected daily. The studies have proven that lack of sleep cause mood changes, fatigue and daytime sleepiness. In order to conduct the studies they asked diverse schools in Rhode Island to delay that starting school hour fro just half an hour. The results they got from this time change was that the teenagers had a better mood and they went through the day in school better and with less fatigue. I think that this article is also good but I think that half an hour doesn’t make much difference but it does help. I think that an hour would be much better because it is more sleep than what they would usually get with all the studying. I think this system should be applied in schools all around the world.

Teens Need MORE Sleep!

A Science Daily article which was published in the year 2008 stated that students were having daily life troubles because of having too little time to sleep. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine began a research in the year of 2007 to see whether students had a hard time in school for sleeping or if it was for other reasons. The major part said it was because of lack of sleep. In the year of 2008 schools changes their schedule and started one hour later than the usual. The academy of sleep medicine made another survey in 2008 and what they found this time was that the teenagers had an easier time during school and they were more rested. I think that this article is really good because it shows the people how sleep influences teenager’s lives and how they affect our school work. I think that parents and teachers should consider this and think about how hard we work and the amount of sleep we need is not being slept because of too much homework or our parents wanting us to wake up early.

Teenage Brain

     Watching a video in my psychology class has helped me learn why we teenagers act the strange way we do. It is said that throughout studies psychologists have learned that teenagers act like they do because their frontal lobe is still developing so this makes the teenager have a difficult time controlling his or her emotions. It has also come to my interest that studies have lead to the conclusion that teenagers need more hours of sleep that adults do. If teens do not sleep the amount that is required which is 9 hours, then they will have a difficult day or time. What most came to my attention was that parents don’t realize what we teens are going through and many have been informed and still don’t understand. My opinion is, that our parents see us no longer as kids but as “mature and developed people” but we are not, and they have to understand and be considerate. We teenagers see things differently as adults do. We exaggerate things but this is because of the same reason that our brain is still developing and we have to wait and try to control our emotions and thoughts until our brains get to that mature stage and that might be the stage where our lives become easier.

How Our Brain Works

      The brain has two hmispheres which means there is the left hemisphere of the brain and the right hemisphere of the brain. The major differences in between the lestf and the right side of the brain are that: first, the left side of the brain uses logic and the right side uses randomness. second, the left side is rational and the right is intuitive. third, the left looks at parts and the right looks at wholes. Fourth, left side is subjective and the right is objective. The corpus callosum is a huge bundle of nerve fibers found in mammalian brains. It connects the left and right hemispheres of the brain, and is responsible for most of the communication between the two.
       The production of language has been linked to the Broca’s area since Pierre Paul Broca reported impairments in two patients. They had lost the ability to speak after injury to the posterior of the brain.^[2] Since then, the approximate region he identified has become known as Broca’s area, and the deficit in language production as Broca´s aphasia.
    RogerSperry discovered in two of his pacient epilepsy. During this time there was no cure for this but Roger and his colegues found a cure which was to remove the corpus collosum so that the problem wouldnt spread into the other hemisphere of the brain.
     After a small time that after Borca came up with is theory Carl Wernicke came up with another theory of how malfunctioning in language or speech happens in the brain.he found that damage to the left posterior, superior temporal gyrus had effects in deficits in language comprehension. This region is now called Wernicke´s Area, and the associated syndrome is known as Wernikes affacia, because of his discovery.
     The occipitl lobe is most responsible for vision. The temporal lobe is responsible for hearing and language, but not only that it also controls memory, emotions and learning. The Angular Gyrus is responsible for answering mathematical problems or metaphores. The HindBarin is responsible for judgment, reasoning and impulse control. It is also the oldest part of the brain.

*Phineas Gage*

          Phineas Gage was a railroad construction foreman who is famously remembered because of his accident he had once while working. He was working with a metal rod to pinch the sand into the earth so that the explosive inside the earth would not escape throught the hole. Unfortunately he was distracted while executing his work and the explosive went off making the metal rod fly directly into his face and out. Phineas gage was still alive after all and his friends huried towards him to take him to a paramedic.

        Phineas had all his frontal lobe distroyed and yet he was alive. What changed was his personality, he became a grumpy and filthy man. This case turned very famous because it was the first time that someone survived from an injury that bad and it helped doctors understand the functions of the brain and they learned that the frontal lobe controlled the way you act. They also learned that there are cirtain parts of your brain that can be damaged and yet you can survive.

        Brain Localization has to do with the localiszation of parts of your brain and their functions.

                              Below you will see a detailed picture with the localizations:



           Brain Lateralization means that some functions are carried out exclusively on one side of the barain (ex. speech, wich is on the left side of the brain for most people). The brain is devided into two sides thgat are alike in some ways and very different in others. each side carries out different functions and control different parts of your body. The left side of the brain controls the left side of the body and the right brain controls the right side of the body.

Nature VS Nurture Debate (Criminal Behavior)

It is believed that we inherit many things from our parents and that we gain certain characterisitcs from our enviornment. Nature VS nurture are the two debated sides in which one side believes that the majority of the things we inherit are ffrom Nature and another from Nurture whoch is what we learn when we grow up. I personally believe that we inherit things from our parents and then when we are growing we also learn them. The topic i am going to debate is Criminal Behavior. I think that criminal behavior is NOT inherited from our parents, but learned from them or others. We have been taught not to say bad words near small kids because they will do watever we big kids or adults do, its the same thing with violence. If a child sees their parents using violence or doing bad things then they will think its right and do the same.

      According to the research i have made Criminal Behavior has been categorized as Nurture. Many of the criminals are violent because they have been molested when little. Many of the criminals that were sexually horrassed or violently treated when they were little come to be criminals because it is a way to draine their anger to life. Another reason is because when they were violently treated they ahd some brain damage. N example my psychology teacher gave my class was thatv when kids were shaken when they were kids, their brain would hit the boe and get damaged which made the brain develop wrongly and create a discontroll of emotions. Criminals usually tend to kill, but they kill in a very violent way. They usually dont get enough just to kill the person and then leave. they stab variouse times and do discusting things with the person. This is because the part of their brain that is damaged´is the part that controls your body and that tells you when to stop watever you are doing.

    in conclusion, i think that the Criminal behavior comes from nurture. Children learn what they see very quickly and if they see things that create a very tense atmosphere then they will get interested and if they see things being done by their parents or other adults then they will think it is right. Children need to be shown the irght things so that these things that are happening in the present wont happen in the future. Children need to be treated paciently so that their personality can be the same way they have seen since children.

Nature vs. Nurture!

            Nature Vs. Nurture is a psychology term related to wether you get your characterisitics from your DNA or your enviornment. It is obvious that you get your physical characterisitcs from your parents, but do you inherit hobbies or attitude or your inteligence from them or do you develop them through the enviornment you have lived in since you were little.

          Francis Galton developed the ide of Nature vs Nurture. Francis was influence by the book "The Origin of species" a book written by his cousin, Charles Darwin. The greatest dowbt about this debate is wether get characterisitcs the minute we are born or wther we develope the majority of the characteristicsbecause of the enviornment whre we live. Some of the main debate that are made because of the topic are if we get our personality from our parents or if it depends on the enviornment we live in. Another one is hobbies, or intelligence.

         This debate is a very extence one and it has been discussed a lot around psychologists, but we will never know which one wins. This is a debate that can have really good satements on both sides but we will never know the answer. I think that we gain qualities through both Nature and Nutrure. If a child is raised in a poor and violent enviornment i think the child will grow up as a violent kid or a depressed boy/girl. But many of our qualities we gain from our parents because if we didnt we wouldnt look like them or we wouldnt be as hardworking as they are.

Charles Darwin!

Charles Robert darwin was born on the year of 1809 in Shrewsbury, England. darwin is well known because of his theories of evolution and natural selection. What darwin believed was that every animal and even humans evolve during time in order to survive.

     

In 1831 darwin set out on an expedition on his HMS Beagle. On his expedition Charles darwin found fossils of extinct animals that looked very similar to animal that lived in his day time. he traveled through many islands all around the pacific ocean and he studied plants and animal and took samples so that he would study them. What he mainly noticed was that the creature he found were similar to other, they simply had minimal differences on each one of the birds or plant's characterisitcs.

     On his journey through studying the animals he came up with the theory of natural selection. Many of the creature he studied, as i told you, had slight differences and he saw that only one type of creature was in each island. Do that he studied the plants and the animals, he could se that many of the animals that werent in one isalnd were on another because of the fact that they had to adapt to their enviornment. Many of the birds had the perfect and exact features or characterisitcs they needed to be able to get the specific foods they needed. What this told Darwin was that nature had its own way of developing, and as nature developed, the animals and creature were forced to change and adapt to their food so that they would be able to survive.

    Charles darwin had developed an incredibly complex theory that took him years and years of work, but there was one big problem that stoped him from publisinh his book and it was Religion. On the times of Charles Darwin many poeple relied only on the Bible and that God created us just the way we are. if darwin were to publish his book he would offend many people, including his wife, and be sevierly attacked. he then came to a conclusion that god created this whole process. The human body and the earth are two things that are really, really complex, so why would God create something so complex so fast? by adding this to his book, people would not feel that offended.

    Charles Darwing was in the verge of finishing his book, when he find out that there is another person at the other side of the world who has developed the same theory, but darwin has more information so that gave him a lot of advantage. darwin submitted the book and was accepted. his theory is one that has made great advances in human history!

What Psychology Is!

    Psychology is one of the many topics in which students dont know what it means right away. We usually have and idea about what it is, and we understand that it is a study that has to do with the human mind and/or human body. According to Kendra Cherry, psychology is both an applied and academic field that studies the human mind and behavior. Research in psychology seeks to understand and explain thought, emotion and behavior. I think that psychology is a very important topic to see or study in our school years because it is one of the things that we have to learn to see in humans, This topic will give us the opportunity to understand the human body and other "signs" or "functions" we see in our body or minds. This topic will help us have a wider range of knowledge through learning this unit.