Here we are, still learning about body parts. Gah it's gross. The reason i didn't take a science/anatomy class this year is so i could try to avoid this topic, but here we are. Learned about the brain in C3, but it gets more gruesome now that we've reached the eyeballs. Thankfully, C4 doesn't open with diagrams of body parts just yet.
We have our 2 founders of C4: Sensation & Perception. Sensation is our senses taking in the stimulus and perception is our brain decipering the stimulus. An illusion is our incorrect perception of the stimulus. Put into psych terms, transduction is merely what we're seeing and the action that happens because of the stimulus inside our head among the neurons' activities. The Just Ntoicable Difference is the lowest point in which we can acknowledge a stimulus. Ok you get it, lots of vocab initally. Sorry, we'll move on to the cool stuff.
Synesthesia is pretty neat. You've probably heard of variations of this. It's when a person has a cross modal experience--a.e. hearing colors in music, tasting colors, whatever, it's crazy but totally real!
A lot of this chapter tests our own vision and brainpower. Like lengths of lines in comparison to seemingly longer ones, optical illusions essentially. A good way to prove to the readers that our own perception isnt always right.
Aha, persuasion! Subliminal persuasion/perception. Messages that are so subtle that we ourselves don't necessarily pick up on, however our brains subconciously process the information. One of the examples in the book is a total scandal, a gin bottle advertisement spells the words "SEX" in ice cubes. Clever, i must admit. Other examples exist during commercials with quick, lightning-fast images that influence our moods and desires.
Ok, gonna pick this up here. Eyes: Because we rely on it so much, it's the most common way we are fooled by our own perception. We have rods and cones. Rods allow us to see shapes and differentiate different objects from others. Cones add color to our vision. Humans have 3, most mammals have 2, and some freakishly perceptive people have 4 cones. The difference? Mammals, like cats and dogs, are colorblind to red, humans can see the ROYGBIV spectrum, and some can even see more intense shades and hues of red. This kind of bedazzled me. Insects being able to see ultra-violet, aka sun rays, but i'm not sure how many rods or cones they have. Light is divided into three colors. Red, blue, and not yellow but green lights all make up what we see. Colors work by, and i'm sure you've already heard this from your mothers, every color making it up and creating that specific hue. The absence of the color itself creates that color. funky, huh? The Gestalt Principles seemed important so i'm going to tackle these. They're like the rules of objecs in space. 1.) Proximity acknowledges that objects bunched together "appear" as one, unfied whole. 2.) Similarity has to do with order of objects. Does one side compliment another, is there a pattern that we can decipher, is this pattern important? 3.) Continuity of objects seems like proximity but isn't. We close objects, make shapes connect in our heads, almost like forcing proximity. For instance the shape in the book shows + sign. Yet we percieve an | and __ overlapping eachother, yeah? well, why couldn't it be four halves connected as one single +? We see things as one. That's what Gestalt means in German, "whole". 4.) Closure implies that when we see objects that appear to have a corner block, our memory serves us by "filling in the blank" so that we can make sense of the partially blocked image. 5.) Symmetry appears similar to similarity but describes 2 halves creating a single unit rather than a grouping of multiple shapes mirroring one another. 6.) Figure-ground has to do with those silly optical illusions. Why they fools us? Because we initally look at the image that's in plain sight, we percieve it, but then after a while our perceptions expand to the backround and we see that the shape itself is being composed of another image. Like the old woman in a hood or a young woman in a hat picture. Google it if you have no idea what i'm talking about. Gestalt princples overlay the rules our vision abides to and the way we percieve objects.
Ok, that seems pretty solid. I'm going to let my peers tell you about the rest of the senses. Thanks for reading!
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Chapter 3, sooo glad this wasn't THAT boring
Gotta admit, i was a little nervous about reading 40 some pages about brain activity. However, the multiple parts of the brain was pretty cool. I think it was the buzz-killing first couple of pages that tried to describe the activity of neurons and synapses that turned me off. Thank goodness for Prof. Gewirtz who explained that section thoroughly because i would not have learned a thing from the text. Anyways, let's get down to the nitty-gritty.
What stood out to my, and what i enjoyed reading the most from this chapter, was how our nervous system was categorized. There is so much here! The Central Nervous System was viewed by me as sort of the structure, the facts we had to know, the 2-D knowledge parts that have only one definition. The hippocampus does this, the frontal lobes govern that, and so forth. However the Peripheral Nervous System has depth! It describes actions. For example, the Somatic is voluntary movement, things we can't control that are reflexes to stimuli. Of course this is all explained by the CNS but what's super cool is how the two work together. The Four F's of Auntonomic PNS make us sound so inhuman, like machines wired to commit to a routine via the sympathetic and parasymptathetic systems. This is something that i'm almost positive will come back in later chapters.
Now, i don't want to leave synapses completely out of this blog because how drugs affect our nervous system really intrigued me. Of course it's common knowledge that drugs are either stimulants or depressants, but i didn't know exactly how or what they affected. Its the synapses, uhderr! They either heighten or inhibit neurotransmitter release, block receptors in the axon or channel, and so on and so forth.
I never thought the brain was so divided as it is. It's sort of odd to think about us thinking about our brain... Anyways, If the lobes are just one homogeneous material of ooshy, gooshy pink stuff, than why is it divided? I'll just have to live with it. What i don't fully understand is why we get dizzy. It must have nothing to do with our brain, because when we spin around, our head, or at least the rear of the brain, stays pretty centered. The occipital lobes and cerebellum would hardly move, but is it in the eyes that translate the blurry image...but then we'll close our eyes and still feel dizzy while we spin. i'm so confused.
All that jazz about MRI's and PET and whatever else there was, totally lost me. And that's where i pretty much zoned out for the rest of the time, good riddance chapter 3. Nah, just kidding. That sub sect. on heratability was interesting. It almost seems like "luck of the draw", biology. It's being made more and more apparent that Psych is very much a science rather than a socio-study (if that's a word).
Hopefully this first exam won't totally ruin my grade, i feel enlightenened after reflecting on all this passed-learned content besides my failure to correctly capitalize all my I's. This chapter has definitely been eye-opening for me. Till next week, adieu!
What stood out to my, and what i enjoyed reading the most from this chapter, was how our nervous system was categorized. There is so much here! The Central Nervous System was viewed by me as sort of the structure, the facts we had to know, the 2-D knowledge parts that have only one definition. The hippocampus does this, the frontal lobes govern that, and so forth. However the Peripheral Nervous System has depth! It describes actions. For example, the Somatic is voluntary movement, things we can't control that are reflexes to stimuli. Of course this is all explained by the CNS but what's super cool is how the two work together. The Four F's of Auntonomic PNS make us sound so inhuman, like machines wired to commit to a routine via the sympathetic and parasymptathetic systems. This is something that i'm almost positive will come back in later chapters.
Now, i don't want to leave synapses completely out of this blog because how drugs affect our nervous system really intrigued me. Of course it's common knowledge that drugs are either stimulants or depressants, but i didn't know exactly how or what they affected. Its the synapses, uhderr! They either heighten or inhibit neurotransmitter release, block receptors in the axon or channel, and so on and so forth.
I never thought the brain was so divided as it is. It's sort of odd to think about us thinking about our brain... Anyways, If the lobes are just one homogeneous material of ooshy, gooshy pink stuff, than why is it divided? I'll just have to live with it. What i don't fully understand is why we get dizzy. It must have nothing to do with our brain, because when we spin around, our head, or at least the rear of the brain, stays pretty centered. The occipital lobes and cerebellum would hardly move, but is it in the eyes that translate the blurry image...but then we'll close our eyes and still feel dizzy while we spin. i'm so confused.
All that jazz about MRI's and PET and whatever else there was, totally lost me. And that's where i pretty much zoned out for the rest of the time, good riddance chapter 3. Nah, just kidding. That sub sect. on heratability was interesting. It almost seems like "luck of the draw", biology. It's being made more and more apparent that Psych is very much a science rather than a socio-study (if that's a word).
Hopefully this first exam won't totally ruin my grade, i feel enlightenened after reflecting on all this passed-learned content besides my failure to correctly capitalize all my I's. This chapter has definitely been eye-opening for me. Till next week, adieu!
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Chapter 2 blog, here we go
Heuristics, heuristics, heuristics! That's the word to know from Chapter 2. This word speaks even greater to the teens who they they know it all-- yeah, I'm guilty. I like to think I know what's best, in any given scenario. I absolutely would have said Reno, NV was northwest of San Diego, however though my geography skills would have failed, I'm pretty sure I would have caught myself at the murder rate for Michigan and Detroit...even though, that would prove the Hindsight Bias theorem, so I guess there's no way to really tell but it sure is easy for me to say that I would have known the answer to that question after the fact. Oh, Lillenfeld, you're sucha smarty pants.
I want to know the difference between external and internal validity within Naturalistic Obersation, because I have always believed that observation within a society proves most valuable, or in other words,the emic approach. Jane Goodall has to know the internal validity of chimps, even though i have no idea what that could possibly be, she's got to know it, she's observed them for how long? decades?
What's great about the rest of this chapter is that I learned EVERYTHING from my Stats class. Research and survey gliches, distorted polls and such--their evil intentions. I really wish there was something cooler you could say to describe the "Halo Effect" because it is so true and should be defined better than to say something cheezy like Halo Effect, come on! Correlations and all that gib jab was neat, but the addition of the Correlation vs Causation caught my eye because not all things are related. That ice cream/crime rate was a great example of a C factor.
The reason I don't take medicine is because I think every pill i would take will be a placebo and that, "Yes, it's all in my head. Why bother with meds?" Also the Nocebo, which i've never heard of but was easy to comprehend, reminds me of being scared during a scary movie, or even how I jump at every little thing that occurs.
The whole section on morals and ethic guidelines grossed me out. I skipped over the "Tuskegee/Spinal Tap" because i just cant look at that picture. But i think we live in a better world because of all the things that we can't do. But what i don't understand is the difference between researchers' deceitfulness and demand characteristics. If its not ok to be deceitfulful but ok to mask experiments, than who is right and who is wrong? I completely understand if the experiment is harmless but something surgical will definitely raise some eyebrows. All I have to say is thank goodness for cute little animals instead.
Mean, median, mode. Yeah i know what it is, i'm a college student, whaddup. Also, the mean can be skewed by outliers which can affect results and assumptions taken which is why the mode and median sometimes offer better data. See, i know what i'm talking about, no sense in reading things I already know right, Lillenfeld? Thanks for dishin out the difficult research procedure questions at the end. I thought i was doing pretty well till the end.
Golly, short chapter. Gonna hop onto C3 manana. Exam One, here we come!
I want to know the difference between external and internal validity within Naturalistic Obersation, because I have always believed that observation within a society proves most valuable, or in other words,the emic approach. Jane Goodall has to know the internal validity of chimps, even though i have no idea what that could possibly be, she's got to know it, she's observed them for how long? decades?
What's great about the rest of this chapter is that I learned EVERYTHING from my Stats class. Research and survey gliches, distorted polls and such--their evil intentions. I really wish there was something cooler you could say to describe the "Halo Effect" because it is so true and should be defined better than to say something cheezy like Halo Effect, come on! Correlations and all that gib jab was neat, but the addition of the Correlation vs Causation caught my eye because not all things are related. That ice cream/crime rate was a great example of a C factor.
The reason I don't take medicine is because I think every pill i would take will be a placebo and that, "Yes, it's all in my head. Why bother with meds?" Also the Nocebo, which i've never heard of but was easy to comprehend, reminds me of being scared during a scary movie, or even how I jump at every little thing that occurs.
The whole section on morals and ethic guidelines grossed me out. I skipped over the "Tuskegee/Spinal Tap" because i just cant look at that picture. But i think we live in a better world because of all the things that we can't do. But what i don't understand is the difference between researchers' deceitfulness and demand characteristics. If its not ok to be deceitfulful but ok to mask experiments, than who is right and who is wrong? I completely understand if the experiment is harmless but something surgical will definitely raise some eyebrows. All I have to say is thank goodness for cute little animals instead.
Mean, median, mode. Yeah i know what it is, i'm a college student, whaddup. Also, the mean can be skewed by outliers which can affect results and assumptions taken which is why the mode and median sometimes offer better data. See, i know what i'm talking about, no sense in reading things I already know right, Lillenfeld? Thanks for dishin out the difficult research procedure questions at the end. I thought i was doing pretty well till the end.
Golly, short chapter. Gonna hop onto C3 manana. Exam One, here we come!
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Chapter One went a lil somethin' like this:
I gotta say, the first 10 True/False questions got me; Lillenfeld made us check our egos at the door, very clever. What I think I really like about learning about the things we already know but don't have labels for yet. The lists of biases, for example, were things we subconciously paid attention to but not something we could openly address. "Oh yeah, that's what they call it these days" was a imageless thought scrolled through my head quite frequently. I also really enjoy how this textbook is written, so many things to look at, to catch our attention, to keep us interested... it's as if these psychologists authors had known exactly the best way to translate their knowledge to us based on their own knowledge of information conception. Genius. This is why math sucks. I'm talking about the crazy pictures, you know, the Obama one and then the differences between American and Chinese visual focus one--loads of good stuff, can't miss it and yeah i feel intrigued. Good job, Lillenfield. But here's where it picks up.
Relgion, now that's a touchy topic. I love how respectful they are of it, too. Like, its not scientific, it cannot be proven because its based on faith, but it even has its own cute little definition: metaphysics LOL. If I didn't know better, (and believe me, there is definitely a God) but i'd say that because there is no way to PROVE religion, no evidence and they're basically saying religion is crap. Almost like a branch of pseudoscience. But to show their seperate values, we have a cute little diagram: Nonoverlapping realms, thank god for Gould, created some equality around here. And slyly, the authors divert and transist into Psuedoscience, yeah lets pick on the diet plans and superstitions. "uuuh, ok. I know you didnt like the religion jokes but you're gonna love these! ummm-- what about those horoscopes, eh guys? like, is that science or what? hehehe wow, tough crowd." Lillenfeld, you're killin us, man.
These examples of pseudos are harsh, but they address each variation pretty well. I am really going to start paying more attention to these clear-skinned teens in those Proactive ads, they coulda just used a marker to blotch up those pretty little hollywood faces. It really went on about how oblivious we are to temptations. That Lincoln/Kennedy chart blew my mind, but it was so cool. We are so quick to look at the similarities and quick to dismiss nonrelations. I'm sure we could conjure up a billion differences between the two assassinations and they wouldn't mean anything because i'm already hooked on this divine calling for presidential souls. Next we have the Big 6 (Scientific Thinking Principles), which are also very helpful throughout the book, que bueno. Kinda overdooing it here, lets cut this blog a lil short today. I'm sure Ms. Osmundson doesnt have time for all of my random shinanigans. But i'm almost done!
Taking a crack at Modern Psych was a wise move, highlighting what IS scientificly accepted and what isn't will breed independent thinkers with the aid of the Big 6, not customers of cultural bs. Learning about the Fathers of Psych was a tad confusing but i'll get over it. Something tells me we will be criticizing Freud a lot in this class. Lets top this Chapter 1 banna split with a little cherry of psychology application and how it functions in society via advertisements, educational placement tests, and suspect line-ups. Please, spare us the fire trucks! We've been taken over by a coffee sipping, scarf wearing, fedora bearing, people-watching illuminati. excellent.
And that's a good way to rap Chapter 1 up, tie it into our daily lives via our predecesors in this wonderful field and BAM you sir have yourself the best psych textbook in the state of minnesota. So far, feelin damn good about the content, about the class, and how this is going to further affect the tough decisions i'll have to make in my undetermined life, but better yet, how it will mold my decisions for a more productive second semester in Psychology 101. Hows that for tying THIS BLOG into my daily life? Take it, Lillenfeld!
Relgion, now that's a touchy topic. I love how respectful they are of it, too. Like, its not scientific, it cannot be proven because its based on faith, but it even has its own cute little definition: metaphysics LOL. If I didn't know better, (and believe me, there is definitely a God) but i'd say that because there is no way to PROVE religion, no evidence and they're basically saying religion is crap. Almost like a branch of pseudoscience. But to show their seperate values, we have a cute little diagram: Nonoverlapping realms, thank god for Gould, created some equality around here. And slyly, the authors divert and transist into Psuedoscience, yeah lets pick on the diet plans and superstitions. "uuuh, ok. I know you didnt like the religion jokes but you're gonna love these! ummm-- what about those horoscopes, eh guys? like, is that science or what? hehehe wow, tough crowd." Lillenfeld, you're killin us, man.
These examples of pseudos are harsh, but they address each variation pretty well. I am really going to start paying more attention to these clear-skinned teens in those Proactive ads, they coulda just used a marker to blotch up those pretty little hollywood faces. It really went on about how oblivious we are to temptations. That Lincoln/Kennedy chart blew my mind, but it was so cool. We are so quick to look at the similarities and quick to dismiss nonrelations. I'm sure we could conjure up a billion differences between the two assassinations and they wouldn't mean anything because i'm already hooked on this divine calling for presidential souls. Next we have the Big 6 (Scientific Thinking Principles), which are also very helpful throughout the book, que bueno. Kinda overdooing it here, lets cut this blog a lil short today. I'm sure Ms. Osmundson doesnt have time for all of my random shinanigans. But i'm almost done!
Taking a crack at Modern Psych was a wise move, highlighting what IS scientificly accepted and what isn't will breed independent thinkers with the aid of the Big 6, not customers of cultural bs. Learning about the Fathers of Psych was a tad confusing but i'll get over it. Something tells me we will be criticizing Freud a lot in this class. Lets top this Chapter 1 banna split with a little cherry of psychology application and how it functions in society via advertisements, educational placement tests, and suspect line-ups. Please, spare us the fire trucks! We've been taken over by a coffee sipping, scarf wearing, fedora bearing, people-watching illuminati. excellent.
And that's a good way to rap Chapter 1 up, tie it into our daily lives via our predecesors in this wonderful field and BAM you sir have yourself the best psych textbook in the state of minnesota. So far, feelin damn good about the content, about the class, and how this is going to further affect the tough decisions i'll have to make in my undetermined life, but better yet, how it will mold my decisions for a more productive second semester in Psychology 101. Hows that for tying THIS BLOG into my daily life? Take it, Lillenfeld!
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