Thorndike and Skinner

Edward Thorndike:

1. Explain Thorndike's puzzle-box experiment.

It was a box specially made for cats so that the cats would get out of the box through trial and error. He saw that every time that cats made it more times they would get out easier.

2. Explain Thorndike's "Law of Effect".

The Law of effect says that responses closely followed by satisfaction will become firmly attached to the situation and therefore more likely to reoccur when the situation is repeated.

3. Explain Thorndike's "Law of Exercise".

It states that stimulus-response associations are strengthened through repetition.
B.F. Skinner:

1. Explain Skinner's concept of Operant Conditioning

Operant Conditioning is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior.

2. What does reinforcement always do?

Every time the mice would push the pulley he would give him food.

3. What does a punishment always do?

He at the bottom had electricity and every time the mouse would try to do something else to get food they would electrocute him.

4. Explain the difference between "positive" and "negative" as they are used in operant conditioning.

Positive is when the animal gets a reward for doing something, and negative is when the animal gets punished for doing something wrong.

Classical Conditioning

Ivan Pavlov:

1) He wanted to make a dog salivate without food, by conditioning the dog.

2) He gave the dog at first food, then he gave the dog food and rang a bell, when he conditioned the dog with this for a few weeks, he could make the dog salivate onl with ringing the bell, and not giving the dog food.

3) The conditioned stimulus was the bell or the light turned on, the unconditioned stimulus was the food, and the conditioned response was the dog salivating.

4) Extinction is a gradual weakening and eventual disappearance of the conditioned response tendency, this extinction occurs by many presentation of conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned stimulus.

5) It is a response to a specific stimulus becomes associated to other stimuli (similar stimuli) and now occurs to those similar stimuli.

6) Is learning to respond to one stimulus and not another.

7)  A) He had to re-route the salivary glands.

B) And the results with humans could be different than the ones with dogs.

8) That we learn through association.

John B. Watson:

1)  Watson chose Albert from a hospital, Little Albert was the name of the experiment, he was 9 months. At first Watson gave Little Albert, monkeys, white rat, a dog and a rabbit, even a furry mask, at first Little Albert showed no fear, then Watson gave Little Albert a small rat, he played with the rat, and didn’t show fear, but then everytime Little Albert had the rat, Watson rung a loud and annoying noise that made Little Albert cry, and doing that for a couple of months, every time little Albert had the rat he would cry.

2) The CS was the white rat, the US was the loud noise and the CR was Little Albert crying.

3) The limitations were that the experiment was unethical that it couldn’t be done again.

4) The Law of frequency says that the most times the events are linked the most strong the response will be.

5) The law of recency says that the response that has most recently occurred is the reponse most likely to be associated with that stimulus.

6) He thought that he could turn someone into whatever he wished to if he could controlled the behavior. He also believed it was all psychological.

-Rodrigo Estevez

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Albert_experiment

http://teachnet.edb.utexas.edu/~Lynda_abbot/Behaviorism.html

Article 3, Performing under Sleep Deprivation: It´s in your genes

This study was made by, Cell Press, Antione Viola, and Derk Jan-Djik. The method of this study was the following; scientists applied the two different types of genes to two different groups of people, the short gene and the longer gene. At first they were allowed to sleep, then they were only granted to 4 hours of sleep, then they asked questions to both groups and recorded the answers and made many observations. The result of this study was that the group with the longer gene did worst than the short gene in all the tests. This was a very interesting article, although I had to read it 2 times so that I could get the theme and what the article was talking about, but it was a good fact to know about, and I enjoyed it a lot.

-Rodrigo Estevez

Article 2, Being a Night Owl In High School is Linked with Lower GPA scores

One of the persons who lead these experiments was Jennifer Peszka from and American Academy of Sleep Medicine. This study was made by comparing 89 students, some that were going to start their freshman year in an art college, and others that were ending freshman year, 17-20 years. The results of these studies were that if you don’t sleep enough your GPA is most likely to be below a B and those who have good sleep are over a B. This is a very interesting article, that it could really move students a lot, I think that if every student read this article they would sleep more and have better sleep, because what every High School and College student want is good grades.

-Rodrigo Estevez

Article 1, Starting school 1 hour later reduces teen car crashes

The people that are responsible of making this study is Science Daily and American Academy of Sleep Medicine. The process of making this study was a long process; it took many students to enroll in the experiment, and 2 years of observations. This first started in 1998, were above 6,000 students made a survey in Kansas, telling how much they slept in school and non school nights, the next year above 10,000 students made the survey again. After this second survey school in Kansas was delayed one hour. So this experiment was practically just observing how students drove when school´s start was delayed one hour. The results of all of these observations were that students drove well with more sleep, and this would reduce all of the teen car crashes. When I opened this article and read the title, I found it really interesting, it only took for me to read the title so I could read the entire article; honestly this was a very interesting article and a very interesting fact to know about.

-Rodrigo Estevez 

Teenage Brain

As said in the video, the teenage brain is a very complex brain, although it has the same parts as an adult brain, all the functions work in a different form, and the last part of the brain to develop in a teenager is the frontal lobe, and this lobe is the one who controls emotions, mood etc. That’s the reason that teenagers are really confused about what they are feeling, love? They think they are in love when they are not, they feel happiness when they are not supposed too, or humor when they are not supposed too, and sadness when they are not supposed to feel sadness. Teenagers are really difficult when it comes to their mood, they may be very bipolar because of the frontal lobe that is not fully developed. Teenagers don’t use their brain at the level they are supposed because they are thinking in things they are not supposed to think while they are in school etc, that’s why teenagers need a lot of sleep, and less work, because if teenagers don’t sleep much, they are making lots damage to their brain. In conclusion, the use of the teenage brain, is as tricky to understand as a baby brain, the only difference is that it is more developed.

-Rodrigo Estevez



How Do Our Brains Work?

1.       What does the word "hemisphere" refer to when talking about the brain?

When you talk about hemispheres referring to brains, it talks about the sides of the brain, like the right hemisphere and left hemisphere.

2.       What are the major differences between the left and right sides of the brain?

There are many functions that both sides of the brain do, for example the left brain does reading skills, and right brain controls emotions and recognizing family. In general the left side does skills like reading writing, and remembering vocabulary, and the right brain stores experiences and feelings and your emotions.

3.      What is the corpus collasum?

It’s a tissue that connects the two hemispheres of your brain. It also functions as a way of communication for both hemispheres.

4.      Explain the study performed by Paul Broca in which he discovered "Broca's Area."

This study made Paul Broca famous, the discovery of Broca’s Area, this is a part of the front lobe that gives the human body the ability to talk, he discovered this part of the front lobe by studying the people that were incapable of talking.

5.      Explain the study conducted by Roger Sperry in regard to "split brain."

Roger Sperry discovered the different kind of functions of both hemispheres of the brain. There was no cure for a kind of epilepsy, just by surgery and cutting off the connection of the hemispheres (Corpus Callosum). When they cut this connection they studied their different behavior and the brain in general. This studies demonstrated that both parts of the brain are very different and that they both have very different jobs. For example the left hemisphere job is the analytical and verbal jobs, the right hemisphere takes care about music, space, and perception.

6.      Explain the study conducted by Karl Wernicke which led to the discovery of Wernicke's Area."

Wernicke’s Area is one of the parts of the “Cerebral Cortex”. The other part is the Broca’s Area, this area is responsible for audition, and speech. Wernicke saw that brain damage also caused language problems.

7.       Which lobe is most responsible for vision?

Right Hemisphere

8.       Which lobe is most responsible for hearing and language?

Left Hemisphere

9.       Which lobe is most responsible for performing math calculations?

Left Hemisphere

10.   Which lobe is most responsible for judgment, reasoning and impulse control?

The Frontal Lobe

 Works Cited:

http://www.sosimplesightwords.com/faqs.html

http://www.ask.com/bar?q=brain+hemisphere&page=1&qsrc=2891&dm=all&ab=0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fbrain.web-us.com%2Fbrain%2FLRBrain.html&sg=esq3jwfW2NavEmQTLokSz0s5v9gIYx83NXX%2BMnaQ8c%3D%0D%0A&tsp=1285097155327

http://www.ansf wers.com/topic/corpus-callosum

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Broca

http://nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/split-brain/background.html

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/split.html  

                http://psychology.about.com/od/windex/g/def_wernickesar.htm

-Rodrigo Estevez

Who Was Phineas Gage?

Phineas Gage was a handyman who suffered a terrible accident in his brain; due to this he promoted a huge advance in the study of the brain. His accident was a very rare one, he was a railroad handyman who in a job was working in a mine, they wanted to make a railroad and his job was to put dynamite in the mine and pressure it with sand with a metal tube, one day he forgot to put first the sand and he pushed the dynamite without sand with the tube, this caused a spark and this caused the dynamite to explode, and the metal tube went up in his face and went through his face and to his brain and the tube just went through his head, this made him a hole in his brain and face, he lost his eye and part of his brain, all of this happened to him, but surprisingly he survived the accident. They say that at the moment Gage was talking, he was conscious every moment of the accident. Because of the accident he was not the same person anymore, he was mad all the time and was not a person which people liked to be with. He lost his old job and couldn’t maintain one for a long time. He was not the same person anymore he changed his mood since the accident. This accident benefit science in proving that if the front lobe was damaged it could make personality changes, social skills, and emotions, before this accident happened front lobes were considered non functional part of the brain, and with no relation with the human personalities. Brain localization is a term that states that the brain controls everything in your body, such as your vision, movements, and processing information.  Brain lateralization is used when people try to separate the brain in two parts. Because both parts of the brain, the right and left side do not look alike.

-Rodrigo Estevez

Works Cited:

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

http://facstaff.gpc.edu/~bbrown/psyc1501/brain/loclat.htm

http://www.indiana.edu/~primate/brain.html 

Nature vs. Nurture- Athletic Ability

In psychology one of the biggest topics and debates is the term called “Nature vs. Nurture” this term has lots of topics, and it has to do how our environment and how our genetics affect us in our developing in life, scientists are trying to know what has more to do, if our environment or our genetics. One of these topics is Athletic Ability. This is a very interesting topic because for playing sports you need skill, attitude, and the correct body to play certain sport. For example, to play basketball you at least have to be tall, so you can play good, but you need skill and strength, because there is very tall people who are really thin and can’t play basketball, and there is tall people that are good playing basketball, but they don’t like to play it, because there environment has not promoted them basketball, they don’t have the attitude. So that’s why this term has so many variants, because everything is connected, without one thing, the other does not work, and it’s a very delicate topic. To have athletic ability, you need to have some genetic structure that helps you play sports, and have a good environment that promotes sports, and help play sports since being a toddler. Scientists, sports fans, coaches, even the same athletes, practically everyone, ask themselves since sports have been around, (always) are athletes born or prepared? Scientists and psychologists have made research about this dilemma.

There has been cases were athletes are not born but made, for Example Reggie Miller, he was born with a problem in his legs, he had to wear leg braces for years, but his legs were repaired, and he got into the NBA and played for Indiana Pacers, he made history, the most 3-point shots in history ever made. So, Reggie Miller, he was not born as an athlete, neither could play sports, when he was a toddler, he did not have an athletic environment, he worked hard to become an NBA player, so he is a made player, he had an environment of basketball, until he was an adult. “On the other hand, many people believe that genetics make up good athletes. People believe that Reggie Miller was born with athletic genes, even though he had a problem in his leg, he is 6’6 and NBA states that every great player of basketball passes the 6’4 so scientists and fans think that Reggie was born with athletic genes.

Scientists also state that some athletes are born with special genes, which make them better than the others and with more attributes to play the sport they are playing, for example muscles, respiration, their size, if they are tall or undersized, fast or slow, etc. Scientists use Lance Armstrong, the greatest cyclist of all times, they say he had a special gene, that his blood carried more oxygen, so that way he could become a cyclist, so he was a born athlete.

So in Nature vs. Nurture there is no definite answer of which affects us more, environment or genetics, or which one affects us the stronger, or the better, because there are infinite examples of historical athletes, who were born and built athletes, this is an interesting, non resolved, and never ending topic. So that's what this topic is about, one proving wrong the other, and one being right, and the other being right also.


-Rodrigo Estevez
 
Works Cited:
 
http://expertfootball.com/training/naturevsnurture.php  

Nature vs. Nurture - The Debate

Nature vs. Nurture is a term used by psychologists and scientists that explain how people are affected by their environment and their genetics. When they mean how they are affected is how much their intellectual can change, grow or not grow or be mentally insufficient, scientists and psychologists think that their environment and their genetics have a lot to do, but both of them do a huge part for people. Francis Galton was the first to use the term “Nature vs. Nurture” in the 13th century in 1874. Topics of this term are, homosexuality and obesity are a huge topic in this term, and besides this two topics there are many more, like a serial killer or every personality every person has, because everyone is different, even a topic can be a football player, to study their environment and their genetics how can they vary. The overall belief of Nature vs., Nurture is that your environment and your genetics have a lot to do in your intelligence, and many other things, and that everyone is different because everyone has a different environment and different genetics, that’s why many all scientists study twins. In my opinion Nature vs. Nurture is a very interesting topic, it makes you think about everyone and how everything affects everyone, and how everyone is different because of everything.

Works Cited:

Info gathered from:

http://www.nurture-or-nature.com/articles/nature-versus-nurture/index.php


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture  

Pictures gathered from:

http://www.doodlebuckets.com/images/photos/Twins_Baby_Gifts.jpg


http://portal.sochipe.cl/subidos/noticias/fotos/genetics2.jpg


http://eltamiz.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/sir-francis-galton.jpg

Charles Darwin and his theory of Evolution

Charles Darwin was an English environmentalist. Charles Darwin made a long trip of 5 years to the Galapagos Islands in 1831, and he found different type of species of birds and other turtles in different islands of the Galapagos. Some birds had a rounded beak and the other one had a straight and pointy beak, he found the differences of the islands, the rounded beak bird ate food like vegetables and the other bird had to get his food from the ground in holes. So he came up with a theory, that everything evolutions, depending on their environment. He called this theory, the theory of Natural Selection, this theory state that every species changes depending on their environment so they can live long enough to reproduce and that their species keeps on going. For Darwin’s bad luck in his time everyone thought that God made everything like it is, that science is not involved, everyone told Darwin that by publishing his theory, he was going to “kill God”. Everyone thought that God made the 13 species, and that no change of evolution and beak has ever occurred. But now, that out technology is more advanced since the 1970’s his theory has been proven. He was afraid of publishing his book because on those times the Catholic Church said what was true and what was not, so he was afraid that no one would believe in his theory.

Works Cited:

Pictures:

http://www.google.hn/imgres?imgurl=http://www.ebookchm.com/screen/miscelleanous/darwi52ljq5.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.ebookchm.com/ebook___literary-theory-for-dummies_.html&usg=__b4fwnXC_feEEpjW_VTCjnQMju3w=&h=464&w=323&sz=40&hl=es&start=3&zoom=1&tbnid=B3bxYEKehOwxZM:&tbnh=128&tbnw=89&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcharles%2Bdarwin%2Bbook%26um%3D1%26hl%3Des%26biw%3D1007%26bih%3D671%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1

http://anthro.palomar.edu/evolve/evolve_2.htm

Info from:

http://anthro.palomar.edu/evolve/evolve_2.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin#Journey_of_the_Beagle

Why should we study Psychology?

They say that Psychology is really interesting, you get to know people and/or animals, and their behavior, you get to know why people behave the way people behave and that helps people understand themselves and others better. That is a reason to study Psychology, so we can understand ourselves and others, so we can coexist in the same community or society, so that our social bonds become stronger. Another interesting thing about psychology is that we are to study the human brain, which is the human body's most interesting and fascinating part of the human body.

What is pyschology?

Psychology is the study and science that treats the mental processes and its behaviors, psychology is also the study of other animal behaviors and mental functions.

Info gathered from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology