THORNDIKE AND SKINNER

Edward Thorndike:

1. Explain Thorndike's puzzle-box experiment.

Edward Thorndike put a cat in a puzzle box. Outside there was food so the cat had to figure out how to open the box so it could reach the food.

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

The law of effect is when a result from something is good, the individual is more likely to repeat it.

3. Explain Thorndike's "Law of Exercise".
The stimulus and the response are related with each other more frequently the response is followed by the stimulus. This is that no one can learn by only watching it is better if the individual can practice the skill.

B.F. Skinner:

1. Explain Skinner's concept of Operant Conditioning
a method of learning that comes with rewards and punishing.

2. What does  reinforcement always do?

Helps behavior increase.

3. What does a punishment always do?
It strengthens the behavior positively or negatively

4. Explain the difference between "postive" and "negative" as they are used in opernat conditioning.

Positive reinforcement  is when something is given, and negative reinforcement is when something is taken.

WORKS CITED
http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/introopcond.htm
http://www.answers.com/topic/law-of-exercise

THEORIES OF PSYCHOLOGY

Ivan P. Pavlov

1. What was Pavlov actually studying when he developed his theory of classical conditioning?

He was studying the digestive system of mammals.

2. Explain (in detail) how Pavlov's experiment was conducted.

The dog was brought food to measure salivation. Dog salivated before food arrived. Why? He was associating the noise as the food was brought with actual food.
3. Identify the conditioned stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned response from Pavlov's experiment.

Conditioned stimulus: the bell

Unconditioned stimulus: the food

Conditioned response: salivation

4. Explain what extinction means in relation to classical conditioning.

A gradual weakening and eventual disappearance of the CR tendency. Extinction occurs from multiple presentations of CS without the US.

5. Explain what stimulus generalization means in relation to classical conditioning.

A response to a specific stimulus becomes associated to other stimuli (similar stimuli) and occurs to those other similar stimuli.

6. Explain what stimulus discrimination means in relation to classical conditioning.

Learning to respond to one stimulus and not another.

7. Explain at least two limitations of this experiment.

-Pavlov had to re-route the dogs salivary glands surgically.

-To prove this was also applied to humans he had to test it on humans.

8. Explain what Pavlov theorized about how we learn.

Learning by association.

John B. Watson:
1. Explain (in detail) how Watson's "Little Albert" study was conducted.

First when little Albert was 9 months old he was exposed to a white rat, rabbit, dog, monkey, masks with and without hair, cotton wool, burning newspapers etc. Two months later when Albert was 11 months old he was placed in the middle of the room and exposed to a white rat that he was allowed to play with. While little Albert was joyfully playing with the rat Watson and his assistant made a loud noise by hitting a steel bar with a hammer. Little Albert was very scared after this.

2. Identify the conditioned stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned response from Watson's study

Conditioned stimulus: white rat

Unconditioned stimulus: loud noise

Conditioned response: crying

3. Explain at least two limitations of this study.

It was unethical, and it could never be tested on another person again.

4. Explain Watson's law of frequency.

The more frequent a stimulus and response to occur in association with each other, the stronger that habit will become

5. Explain Watson's law of recency.

The response that has most recently occurred after a particular stimulus is the response most likely to be associated with that stimulus.

6. Explain the basic assumptions of behaviorism according to Watson.

Watson said that psychology had not anything to do with the mind or human instead with the behavior , this way people could be studied objectively like lab rats.

WORKS CITED:

http://nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/pavlov/readmore.html

http://www.forerunner.com/forerunner/X0497_DeMar_-_Behaviorism.html

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

SLEEP ARTICLES

sleeping in a comfortable bed is part of sleep hygiene

The Associated Professional Sleep Societies was talking about how sleep hygiene helps your GPA in college. People with poor sleep hygiene lower their GPA when they enter college by .98 and people who did not have that problem only dropped my .69. Sleep hygiene includes things like having a regular bed time and a regular wake time, and sleeping in a comfortable bed. I believe this article is important for people going to college because no one likes to lower their grades, especially when they are entering college. Reading this article makes me think of all those people studying until 5 in the morning and not getting a good grade, i also believe like they said in this article that there should be chats in school about sleep hygiene so people can improve their grades instead of dropping their GPA. Sleeping is very important so people reach their expected grades.

This article was about a later school start, the investigation was conducted by Zaw W. Htwe, MD, of Norwalk Hospital's Sleep Disorders Center in Norwalk, Conn. It explained how delaying school start by 40 minutes made kids more awake in the day. This increased the sleep time of children and it is recommendable that teens sleep at least 9 hours at night. The results of this investigation were that kids reported to be less sleepy during the day. I believe that it is very important that teens sleep at least nine hours because the brain develops through these years of life. I also believe that our school should change their entering school hours because most of the student’s at school seem very sleepy during the day, I believe that is because of their sleep deprivation.

This article was about how delaying the schools start time, would help students behaviors. The study was conducted by Judith A. Owens, M.D., M.P.H., of the Hasbro Children's Hospital, Providence, and colleagues. What they did was delay the schools start time by 30 minutes and have students take an online survey before and after the delay. Before people showed that they were very depressed and had bad days, but after the delay people seemed happier and less depressed. The results were that the delay helped people be less depressed and happier. I believe that all the school in the world should have AT LEAST a 30 minute delay in school start time. This would help teen agers by having them in a better mood, but it would also help teachers. I believe this would help teachers because being with someone in a good mood is better than being with someone in a bad mood and that is depressed. I believe teachers would have a better temper. Delaying a schools start time would be the best option for teen agers behavioral issues.  

Works Cited:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100705190532.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080609071202.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100705190532.htm

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/24/88/80/very-comfortable-bed.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotos-g34438-d87084-Miami_International_Airport_Hotel-Miami_Florida.html&usg=__VNJ2ZUbOtFgZNFcP_drs7Q0dI24=&h=412&w=550&sz=27&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=AglEJYoaoDJtBM:&tbnh=145&tbnw=183&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcomfortable%2Bbed%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-US%26biw%3D1259%26bih%3D615%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=129&vpy=117&dur=716&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=170&ty=123&ei=uInXTMSDG8OC8gbk3LmKCA&oei=uInXTMSDG8OC8gbk3LmKCA&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=16&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i.ehow.com/images/a04/fl/id/overcome-sleepiness-200X200.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.ehow.com/how_4707917_overcome-sleepiness.html&usg=__iNvjxoDOUOe5mThdC3SD8F35VIc=&h=200&w=200&sz=37&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=G0xSPqC4pV5NlM:&tbnh=151&tbnw=151&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsleepiness%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-US%26biw%3D1259%26bih%3D615%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=745&vpy=360&dur=741&hovh=160&hovw=160&tx=74&ty=146&ei=_YnXTLizOIP_8Abi8MWECA&oei=_YnXTLizOIP_8Abi8MWECA&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:15,s:0

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://ihasahotdog.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/funny-dog-pictures-dog-is-in-a-good-mood.jpg&imgrefurl=http://shaycv.wordpress.com/category/dogs/&usg=__l23GO7eE61kLw0ismp-gfOfUJ34=&h=432&w=499&sz=64&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=4cyw6nJYMJoS5M:&tbnh=157&tbnw=181&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgood%2Bmood%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-US%26biw%3D1259%26bih%3D615%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=515&ei=movXTM3iDsT48AaMgYmBCA&oei=movXTM3iDsT48AaMgYmBCA&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:14,s:0&tx=95&ty=36

teen brains

This video spoke about many interesting things in teen age kids. The things that interested me most were how many hours the brain needs of sleep.  This intrigued me because I never get that much time to sleep because I have too much homework and finish until late hours of the night. I am very worried about this a swell because my brain will not develop in a correct way if I do not sleep a lot of time, and if my brain will not develop then I will be in great trouble. I connected with the people in this video because the first kid was very sleepy and took him a lot of time to wake up. This happens to me almost every morning and is connected to not having enough sleep at night. I also connected with another teen that had mood swings, sometimes I am very mad or sad and then I become happy and bubbly, I don’t understand why this happens. Another thing that interested me from the video where the MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) experimental results. This interested me because teens and adults interpreted images in different ways, like facial expression. Teens identified moods such as anger and adults interpreted them as If a person was scared.  All these topics where very interesting and I liked learning about them because I am a teen and this video was about our brains.

what is our brain?

1.    Hemisphere refers to the side of the brain, left or right, divided by a little space.

2.    The major difference between the left hemisphere of the brain and the right one is that the left specializes in learning and hard tasks and the right specializes in the less hard parts of life like feelings and emotions.

3.    The corpus collosum is a wide flat bundle of neural fibers used to connect the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

4.    Pierre Paul Broca studied 2 brains of dead people who had speech impairment and could only pronounce a few words. He then found a lesion in the frontal lobe while performing an autopsy on these patients.

5.    Roger Sperry helped many epileptic people in the 1960s. He cut the corpus collosum so there would not be any type of energy transfers and the patient would not be able to have an attack.

6.    After Paul Broca, Karl Wernicke heard about his findings he became interested in this and found out that speech was also connected with the temporal lobe.

7.    The occipital lobe is the most responsible lobe for vision.

8.    The temporal lobe is responsible for hearing and language.

9.    The frontal lobe is responsible for math calculations.

10. The frontal lobe is responsible for judgment, reasoning and impulse.

works cited

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-brocas-area.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broca's_area

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernicke%27s_area

notes from class

PHINEAS GAGE

1. Phineas P. Gage is a very famous person known by all psychology students. He was a survivor of severe brain damage. His face was trespassed by an iron bar or a tamping iron. After the accident he fully recovered from his injuries, but after the accident people noticed that his personality changed due to the frontal lobe damage. After this psychologists discovered the brain localization.

2. Phineas P. Gage was a foreman of a railway construction so he was using a tamping iron to move explosives around and an accidental spark made everything explode, then his tamping iron entered through his left cheek and then through his eye socket and finally went out through the front part of his brain, a tragic accident.

3. As a result to his severe injuries Phineas Gage survived but he had a drastic change in his personality. Before the accident people liked to work with him and be close to him, but after this he became irritable and had a very unpleasant personality.

4. After this accident Phineas was involved in psychologists and other scientists learned about how we worked with different parts of the brain.

5.  Brain localization is a term used to explain what the different parts of the brain are assigned to do specific jobs. Parts as the occipital lobe or the temporal lobe have different jobs.

6. Brain lateralization is explained like this: the brain is divided into two hemispheres so this means that specific tasks are just done in one side of the brain. Example: the left side controls the right side of your body and vice versa.

WORKS CITED

http://www.deakin.edu.au/hmnbs/psychology/gagepage/Pgstory.php

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

CRIMINAL MINDS

Criminal behavior is influenced by both, nature or biological features, and nurture, the environment people live in. First of all I believe criminal behavior is influenced more by nurture or the environment and where you live in, because people become aggressive when they are exposed to these situations like being raped, victim of domestic violence, etc. or being a witness of these types of things. Nature may influence criminal behavior when the person is born with damage in the brain, but very rarely. I think this because I don’t believe a person can be born and be a criminal because they are babies and they don’t know anything of the world where they live in, only if they are born with a dysfunction. Instead I believe that they turn that way because of what they see or what they feel in their lives. These are my opinions and my beliefs of criminal behavior.


After researching I found out many interesting things. A recent study using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed that many of the criminals had a frontal lobe dysfunction. A frontal lobe dysfunction has many symptoms including apathy, aggressiveness, epilepsy, depression and many more. This neurological dysfunction can arise when the person is inappropriately euphoric or depressed, excessively argumentative or passive, and vulgar. As you can see this problem does not arise from a biological issue, instead it arises from the way you are or the way you are treated.

When studying the backgrounds of many of the criminals it was found that they were exposed to a lot of violence in their lives. It was found that 4 out of 5 criminals had been exposed to rape or witnessed it and that 3 out 5 had been a witness or experienced domestic violence according to law.jrank.org. These are high rates because almost everyone was mistreated. The other percentage of the criminals where unattended by their family or they did not pay attention to him that is why he got depressed and then was exposed to the frontal lobe dysfunction.

This believes are obtained from neurological sciences or studies of the brain. These studies showed that depending on which side the brain is affected that is what changed you. Like if you were damaged in the parietal lobe it would make you feel numbness, and if you were affected in the temporal lobe your memory would be affected. And like I said before damage in your frontal lobe may cause your personality to change to a less social person and I would make you much more aggressive.

In conclusion I found out that criminal behavior is not affected by biological features instead by environmental issues. I believe this is true because the frontal lobe dysfunction is rarely obtained since birth, and it is mostly created by your environment. Criminal minds are not easy to understand, and every day with the new studies we grow in knowledge of these terms.

Works cited

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/foundations_psychology/90977/2

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

http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec06/ch082/ch082b.html

Nature vs. Nurture

Nature Versus nurture is a nonstop scientific debate about what really influences humans…their genetics (or nature) or their environment (their nurture). The first scientist to come up with this term was by English Victorian Polymath Francis Galton. He was influenced by the book The Origin of Species wrote by Charles Darwin, his cousin. The topics regarding Nature versus Nurture are endless some like: intelligence, homosexuality, personality, ability to sports etc. My belief in taking part of this debate is that how we behave and what we do in life is due to what we are surrounded because if we never where exposed to some kind of experience in life we would not be able to portray it. Like people love to imitate Hollywood stars we are what we are because of our surroundings.

I think that this debate should end. Even though scientists come up with more proof that we are all genetic it would be impossible because there is already a bigger proof of nurture. There are twins that have been studied. Twins are genetically identical but their personality traits are completely different. This would be the biggest proof to the world that our personality and ability traits come completely by our experiences in our environment.

http://genealogy.about.com/cs/geneticgenealogy/a/nature_nurture_2.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture#Are_the_traits_real.3F

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-nature-versus-nurture.htm

Who is Charles Darwin????

Charles Robert Darwin was the son of very wealthy and known men in England. He was born on February 12 1809 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. Charles Darwin was the creator of the theory of evolution. Darwin embarked the HMS beagle with captain Fitzroy, a journey that lasted about five years. The ship went all around the world, travelling through all the coasts. In south America he observed many species of organisms that where looked similar but had significant different characteristics.

Charles then came up with the theory of natural selection. He believed that all animals reproduce in order to produce offspring and pass on their genes. All animals had different traits that helped them collect food, or fight but mainly survive. This brings to the survival of the fittest, the species that had the most helpful traits would be the one that will survive.

In the days of Charles Darwin everyone believed in the theory of creationism,and it said earth was created in seven days and no one could oppose that. Anyone that thought differently was accused of heresy and was punished severely. That is why Darwin was so afraid of publishing his book that contained his entire theory of evolution because it would contradict his wife, the church and it would change how people would look at him. Charles Darwin was a great scientist even though during his time not all people supported him.

LINKS

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/darwin_charles.shtml

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

http://www.biology-online.org/2/10_natural_selection.htm

charles darwin facebook status!

What is psychology? Why is it helpful in our lives?

"Psychology is the study of mind and behavior"(St. Augustine). I believe Psychology is important because it helps us understand in a better way why people react and do things the way they do. It is also important because it can help us understand diseases that are bad to our health and help us find cures. In conclusion psychology is integral in our lives.

Link 1
http://www.st-aug.edu/academics/divisions/socialscience/psychology/whatispsychology.htm

Link 2
http://hubpages.com/hub/Psychology-and-its-Importance