Solomon Asch Experiment

The Solomon Asch Experiment demonstrated the power of conformity. In his experiment he had a total of 7 kids come into his class. 6 of the students were told the experiment and 1 of the students was not. They all were shown a piece a paper that had 3 lines that were letter A,B, and C. They then were to say which line was the longer line. The first 6 students purposely said the second shortest one. When it came to the 7th student, he knew that the rest of the students and said the wrong answer but he chose to conform with the rest of the students and said the wrong answer as well.

How Antidepressants Work (blog post 4-3)

An antidepressant is a special treatment that treats depression by altering on certain neurotransmitters in the brain and body. First step is that the message is sent across the synaptic cleft. Next during reuptake, the message is recieved and the molecules are reabsorbed. The prozac then blocks the reuptake, and the excess serotonin causes the mood to lift. But sometimes taking anitdepressants can cause bad side effects. The mixure of medications and depression can cause certain people to react in different ways. Some side effects of taking anitdepressants are: Nausea, sleep deprivation, weight gain, anxiety, sedation, and blurred vision.

Disorder Post (Schizophrenia)

I am schizophrenia.  Over 2 million american adults have been diagnosed with me but when dealt with i can cause problems for many. I get inside peoples heads and i make it hard for them to think clearly about everyday things. I make it hard for the person to distinquish wat is real and wat is just a fantasy. The person can also have a difficult time trying to make descisions and relate with others around them. I attack people who are in their late teens and 20's. I am known as one of the top 10 most debilitating diseases affecting humans. I love playing tricks with the mind; I make people have delusions or hallucinations which makes it difficult to function correctly or focus normally. I can not be fully cured but i can be treated and managed to a certain point. By taking potent medications will cause my disease to stop picking with your brain and allow me to never return. Some medications are too powerfull that cause people to slowly stop taking them, which gives me another chance for arrival.

Psychological Disorders-Andrea Yates

Andrea Yates was born in Houston, Texas where she had lived all her life graduating from high school and college. Later on she met Rusty Yates and 8 years after their marriage they had 5 kids, 4 boys and 1 girl. Yates then attempted her first suicide and was atteneded to a medical hospital where she was proscribed with an anitdepressant and was then released. Once returning home she stopped taking the drugs and then began hallucinating and asking Rusty to kill her. Andrea began to downfall from there. As her conditioned got worse she was diagnosed with Postpartum Psychosis. She was proscribed with Haldol and was sent to a medical institution. She then was released and her condition was getting better. Once she comepletely stopped taking the drugs, 2 days later she had drown her 5 kids, one by one, in a bath tub. Immediately following the incident, she was in court pleading for not guilty due to reason of insanity. The court then sentenced her to life in prison, and she was then moved to a mental instituiton in Texas the following days after her trial.

Undecided Ursula

http://www.zooburst.com/zb_books-viewer.php?book=zb0_4da30813bd9c6

This book deserves an A because its awesome.

3 Theories of Emotion

  The first theory is the James-Lange Theory. The James-Lange theory is our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to emotion arousing stimuli. For example if we see an oncoming car our first is arousal we are experiencing is pouding heart and then our emotion is fear.

The second theory is the Cannon-Bard Theory. This theory is our experience of emotion aroussing stimulus simultaneously triggers responses and emotions. For example if we see an oncoming car our pysiological response and experienced emotion are seperate but we are experiencing them both at the same time simultaneously.

The last theory is the Two-Factor Theory. This theory or also know as the Schachter Singer theory is that one must experience emotion one must be physically aroused and cognitively label the arousal. For example we see an oncoming car and experiencing the pysciological repsonse while labeling that "you're afraid" at the same time and then experiencing the emotion of fear immediately after.

Understanding Intelligence 30pt Project Chandra and Emily

Intelligence

What is Intelligence?

Intelligence is an individual’s basic learning by problem solving, adapting to new things, and learning from past experiences

Many schools using intelligence tests to measure ones’ mental aptitude

            -Other forms of intelligence tests are Stanford-Binet, IQ, and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

Achievement tests assess what a person has learned and aptitude test predict a person future

Examples of aptitude tests are SAT’s or ACT’s

Examples of achievement test are LSAT’s or MCAT’s

Important People

Howard Gardner

            -views intelligence as multiple abilities that come in packages

Ex. Logical is to Albert Einstein as Intrapersonal is to Sigmund Freud as to Interpersonal is to Ghandi

Robert Sternberg

            -more success than traditional intelligence

Analytical-being able to take apart problems and being able to see solutions not often seen (solving problems in unique ways)

Creative-how well a task is performed with regard to how familiar it is

Practical-when one makes a change within oneself in order to better adjust to one’s surroundings (when the weather changes, putting clothes on that adapt to that temperature)

5 Components of Creativity

Expertise- the more blocks we have, the more chances we have to combine them in novel ways

Imaginative Thinking Skills- ability to see thing in novel ways and make connections

Venturesome Personality- Perseveres in overcoming obstacles

Intrinsic Motivation- being driven by interest, satisfaction, and challenge than by external pressures

Creative Environment- refines creative ideas

Disorders

Savant syndrome- limited in mental ability but has a specific skill (Derek Paravincini)

            Mental Retardation- limits mental and sometimes physical ability

Down syndrome- condition of retardation that has an extra copy of chromosome 21

Standard ---à there’s a baseline (normed test)

Reliable -à taking the same or similar test and get the same or close score.

Validity --àmeasuring what it is supposed to measure. (tests)

Gender Similarities and Differences

Males and females both shared the same average for the intelligence score

Females are better spellers, verbal ability, non verbal memory, sensation, and emotion detectors

Females and males contain identical math aptitude scores

                                                                                                        

Savant Syndrome

Savant syndrome is a condition in which a person is limited in mental ability but has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing. A big example of this is Derek Paravicini. Derek was born prematurely at 25 weeks, who was also born with mental disabilities and blindness. Derek suffers from dressing himself, speaking, and even tieing is own shoes. But when it comes to playing the piano he is a genious and musical whiz. He was able to hear any song and play it with perfection on the piano, including mozart. Later on Derek began preforming concerts infront of thousands and even for Princess Diana. He was featured on Stan Les's Superhumans where his savantism and superhuman music ability was shared.

The Woman Who Can't Forget

Jill Price is 43 and has spent most of her life here in Los Angeles, and she remembers everything. Price can remember anything from what she was wearing, her emotions, or discussions she had with someone as quick as a snap of a finger. Scientist say finding a human being with memory that works with the precision of a computer would be like finding someone with bones made of steel.The difference is that she scans her past relentlessly. Every time a human thinks of something we get better at remembering it. Price has spent her whole life ruminating on the past, constructing timelines and lists, and figuring the connections between one February 19 and the next. Dates and memories are her constant companions, and as a result she's really good at remembering her past

Why We Need Sleep

We don't fully understand the importance of sleep and why we need it. Sleep is the time when our body does most of its repair work. Muscle tissue is rebuilt and restored. Also sleep is very important for our growth. While we sleep our growth hormone is secreated which enables our bodys tissue to grow and become strong. Our body is like a car. Every once in a while a car needs a tune up or check up. Not getting its oil changed may cause ur car to not run as smoothly as it did before. By not getting our sleep enables our mind to not clearly think as well as before. Sleep has big affects on our personalities and our sense of humor. We may become irritable and less tolerant. Sometimes you will notice that not having enough sleep makes you ornary to small things compared to the way you may act with enough sleep.

7 Sins of Memory

The seven sins of memory include absent mindness, transcience, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, and bias. Here are examples and situations of all 7.

Absent Mindness is inattetion to details which lead to encoding failure. A situation of this is misplacing keys. Everyday i always place my keys on my kitchen table. One day when i was in a rush to leave (my friend picked me up so i didnt drive) i set my keys down on an end table in the living room. Since i was in a rush i did not encode that i put my keys in a new place. The next day when i went to school i forgot where i placed my keys.

Transcience is storage decay over time. In this situation it would be like  learning information in a previous chapter of a text book. After periods of time you try to remember what all the information that certain chapter contained, and struggle to reunderstand what it is you learned.

Blocking is unable to access stored info. An example of this is meeting a new person and seeing the person a different time and unable to put a name to that persons face you previously met.

Misattribution is confusing the source of information. This situation would be like mistaking from hearing a story from a friend when you really heard the story by reading it from an article or newspaper.

Suggestibility is linger effects of misinformation. An example is if someone asked "Did Bobby push you?" and later the child realizes it was a false memory.

Bias is belief colored recollections. An example of this would be a freind recalling a certain feeling that you have for them such as happiness or excitement.

Persistence is unwanted memories. A situation of this is having nightmares of sharks everytime you go to bed and wanting them to go away.

Blog Post #7 Bobo Doll Experiment

The bobo doll experiment is an experiment created by Albert Bandura. The parent of the child is taken to a room that has objects placed in the room, including the bobo doll. The parent purposely beats up the bobo doll knowing that the child is watching. Then the child is taken to the same room and portrays the same behavior by beating up the bobo doll just as their parents did. By having the children watch their parents, they learned to anticipate a behaviors consequences in situations like those we are observing. Children especially immitate people who percieve as similiar to them, as successful, and as admirable.

For example when getting into an argument with your parents they may use words or comebacks like "because i said so" or "because i know better". Having a child as be aware or hearing these comebacks will most likey use the same comebacks or words on their parents. In this example the children are immitating their parents behavior.

Blog Post #6 Classical Conditioning

Ivan Pavlov discoverd classical condtioning. Classical conditionening is a type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli to anticapted events. An example of classsical conditioning is ringing a bell and emediately have a dog salvitate. Before conditioning, when you offer food to a dog it will immediately start to salvitate, but when you ring a bell it will do nothing in response. During conditioning, you will ring a bell everytime before you serve the dog food. Ater conditioning, everytime you ring the bell the dog will immediately start to salvitate. In this experiment the (US) is the food in the mouth and the (UR) is the salvitation. The tone then becomes the neutral stimulus. After conditioning, the (CR) becomes the learned response or the bell tone and the (CS) is the salvitation which is triggered by the food.

Extra Blog Post

I think the skittle lab we did in class today was very interesting. We had to taste the skittles by using our nose for scent and then plugging our nose to see if we were able to tell the flavor of the skittle. I did not think the lab was that valid because after tasting the skittles you got adapted to the taste of each skittle, so after a while all the flavors tasted the same. Another thing that i thought was invalid was the blindfold we used. I think your eyes should be fully covered so there are no possible ways of accidently seeing the color of the skittles.

Blog post #5 The Eye (how light percieves through the eye)

Eyes are the part of are body that enable us to see. The light first passes through the pupil which is the black dot in the center of the eye ball. The iris controls the pupil opening. For examply when your eyes look at a bright light your pupil will shrink in size, but when in dark areas your pupil will dilate past its normal size which enables us to see some what in the dark. Our lens which sits right behing the pupil/iris helps focus images which are percieved by the retina.  The retina sits in the back of the eye between the aqueous humor. The retina is a very important part of the eye which contains rods and cones which are our receptors that process the visual information. The rods detect black, white, and gray and helps our peripheral vision. Cones are in the center and detect color sensations. Next in line is the optic nerve, which carries the neural impulses from the retina to the brain.

Respone to Teens Before Their Time

The article Teens Before Their Time is about young girls maturing at a very young age. At the begining of the article talks about a young girl around the age of  began to develope breats, growth of pubic hair, and growth of arm pit hair. The mother nor did the doctors understand why she was developing so many years early. The doctor then proscribed the little girl with lupron which is a hormone that stops puberty. She than began to have mild mood swings. She then was taken off the drug and had full grown breast and her period at the age of 9.

Doctors than began to do studies and figured out the problem. Children who are dealing with obesity start to have this problem. Why we have our periods around the age of 12 or 13 is because our body has enough fat to support having a child and menstration. When a child is obeise at a young age they already have enough fat to support having a child, so puberty will begin early for them.

Ice Cube Addiction Response (thoughts, feelings, reactions)

In my opinion i particulary liked doing this experiement. I got a feel what its like to have a secret addiction. Having to hide ice cubes which everyone uses was kind of difficult at times when out in public but  mostly easy when at home. I also got a feel what its like when the person addicted to a certain drug is always figuring out where and who they are going to get their next suppy from. Being addicted to the ice cubes, i had to constantly be figuring out where i was going to get my next ice cubes from. Whether it was from the fridge, gas station, restuarant, or even someone elsen i had to get it right away and then hide it.

My feelings during the experiement  were awkward at times, especially when i had to ask for a non clear cup at the restaurant or make sure nobody saw me use the ice machine before getting my drink. Also when i was at home with my family, i always had to sneek the ice cubes in my cup before ne one could see, or make sure that my drink was completely full in my cup so that my ice cubes were even more hidden.

I also learned that being addicted to something you will do everything in your power to get and to keep it. By which means you will do the unordinary to hide it. It seemed that i was on a time schedule during the experiement, i always had to watch when someone was in the kitchen or people who were around me in public places in order for them not to see my ice cube addiction.

 My final reactions to the experiement gave me a little taste on what its like to be an addict. I noticed how much it changes your schedule, your life, and your relationships with your friends and family. If i were to be an actual addict i know my reputation would change and how people would like at me. My behavior and they way i would look at things would also change. Having myself change may change the way others look at me and they may decided not to be around me anymore.

Ice Cube Addiction Reflection (upon 48 hours)

The ice cube addiction was kind of tricky at times when we had to hide something so simple as an ice cube. Most of my friends especially did not notice cuz i just used a water bottle from home. It was difficult though when i ate out at restaurants. The other day when i went to Noodles and Company i had to find a way to hide the ice cubes. I had to ask the cashier if they had a small cup for water and he gave me a small cup that you couldnt see through. I got lucky there because by having that non clear cup, it enables no one to see my ice cubes in my cup. I felt very sneaky when i was at home around my parents. I always had to find a large cup that was see through in order to hide my ice cubes. I dont think my parents noticed since i occasionally put ice cubes in a lot of my drinks. By them not noticing they did not notice a change in my behavior.

Response to Left brain/Right brain Quiz

My quiz was bases of 32 random questions that were based on what i like to do, what things i prefer over another, or how i would act in certain situations. The results were either going to tell me if i was dominant on my right side of my brain or dominant on my left side of my brain. My results were even, i was dominant on both sides with a score for 16 on my right and a score of 16 on my left. I think this quiz could hace been accurate but then some quizes are based off different questions which then may lead to different results.

Neurons & Action Potential Process

Neurons are nerve cells that are within the body. There are over millions of nerves cells in our body that are broken down into different kinds of neurons such as sensory, motor, and inter neurons. Sensory neurons carry messags from organs to the spinal cord and up to the brain. Once these reach the brain the motor neurons are waiting where they recieve instructions from the sensory neuarons and then send them out to the bodys tissue. The interneurons job process this information that is sent between the sensory and motor which then cause our body to react. All these neurons contain cell bodys where action potential occurs. Action potential is a nerve impulse or electrical charge that travels down the axon. This a chemical even that occurs by a electrical charge, almost like how a battery works.

The first stage of the action potential is called the resting potention. At this early stage the axon contains positivie ions outside the axon while it contaings negacitce ions on the inside. The axon contains these small gates where it detects what is allowed in. The next stage is called depolarization. Once the neuron fires the gates are then open. The positive ions then move their way inward and the negative ions move outward of the axon. The gates open one after another like a domino effect. The third period is callled the refracting period or also known as the resting pause. The neurons then pump the positive ions back outside of the axon. This then nears the ending stages where the proccess is finally complete. Once completed, it then can fire again speedly down the axon.

Methamphetamine

Methamphetamine  also known as amphetamine or (Meth) is a powerfull droug that is usually taken by the mouth, snorted, or smoked. Meth comes in different forms whether it is a small fine powder or in pills. Meths medical use is sticked today and only used in certain situations. The main effects of meth are
-euphoria
-alertness
-greater energy
-heart, breathing, and blood levels increase
-hunger and fatigue are reduced
-heart palpitations
-mouth dry=eating difficulty
Taking meth will cause pupil dialations and reflexes will be faster. Meth mostly causes slurred speech and  immediate pysical pleausre. As the drug wears off depression will occur. This cycle causes the user to repeatedly use meth to indow happiness all the time which then leads to an addiction of the drug.

Meth binds to the nerve receptors and cofuse the brain by mimicking certain neurotransmitters. This drug is known as a agonist. When the drug mimicks the neurotransmitters, this then creates nerve cell death by shuttig down the safety mechanisms located in the brain and body.

Dopamine, norepinephrine, epinephrine, and serotonin will all be affected by meth and can suffer long lasting damages. These long term damages are
-hallucinations
-violent/agressive behavior
-permanent psychological problems
-behavior resembling schizophrenia
-brain damage
-poor coping abilities
-weight loss (depending on body type)
-malnutrition
-skin disorders
-lung/heart diseases

Bioagraphy
www.kci.org/meth_info/sites/meth_facts2.htm
www.montana.edu/wwwai/imsd/rezmeth/transmit.htm

Chapter 1 Myers Book

In chapter 1 of the Myers book of Psychology is about the need for psychological science, how psychologist ask and answer questions, and statistical reasoning in everyday life of psychology. In the beggining of the chapter explains the scientific attitude of pyschologists which requires skepticism and humility. This chapter also explains the critical thinking and using the scientific method including the meanings of hypothesis, operations, replication, and theory. Other methods that psychologist use are surverys, questiom bias, correlations, and expierements. How psychologists break down expierements is by using independent and dependent variables and control and expieremental groups. In the end of the chapter psychologists sse different research methods and calculating data by using mean, median, mode, and standard deviation.

Myers Quiz

I think the Myers quiz was kind of hard being that i thought the reading wasnt due for this day. But i tried to apply my knowledge from Psych class last year to complete the quiz.