Thorndike & Skinner

Thorndike

1.      Edward Thorndike placed a cat in a puzzle box. The cat was required to figure how to get out of the box to reach the food.

2.      Law of Effect: This law states that if a result is positive than the individual is more likely to repeat it.

3.      Law of Exercise: The response is followed by the stimulus hence they are related. This law informed individuals learn better from experience than from watching.

B.F. Skinner

1.      Operant Conditioning: method of learning due to rewards and punishments.

2.      Reinforcement helps behavior to increase.

3.      Punishment reinforces the behavior positively or negatively.

4.      Positive Reinforcement: something is given Negative Reinforcement: something is taken away.

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

Article

Article #4

This study was conducted by Jennifer Peszka, PhD, psychology department chair at Hendrix College in Conway Ark., her goal was to find the difference in GPA score from students with poor sleeping habits and those with good sleeping habits. Te results were drawn out from data from 80 students (between the ages of 16 and 20).

Article

Article #2

               The study was authored by, Zaw W. Htwe, MD, of Norwalk Hospital´s Sleep Disorders Center in Norwalk, Conn., and Mary B. O´Malley, MD, PhD was a corresponding author of the study. This research focused on 259 high school students; they were given the School Sleep Habits Questionnaire. The answers reported how much time students slept before and after the delayed school start time. The findings of this study show that a 40-min delay in the school start time increased a 33min of sleep for the students of the institution. Surprisingly the students used the extra time for sleep not for socializing or other extracurricular activities; wake up time was delayed not bed time.

Theories of Psychology

Ivan Pavlov

1.       Pavlov was studying the digestive system of mammals.

2.       The dog would get food and its saliva would get measured. Pavlov found the dog would salivate before getting the food. This was because he would associate the sound as the food was brought in.

3.       The conditioned stimulus was the tone in Pavlov’s experiment. The unconditioned stimulus was the meat powder. The conditioned response was salivation.

4.       This is the gradual weakening and eventual disappearance of the conditional response tendency. Extinction occurs from multiple presentations of conditioned stimulus with ought the unconditioned stimulus.

5.       Stimulus generalization is when a response to a specific stimulus becomes associated to other stimuli (similar) and how other similar stimuli occur to those other similar stimuli.

6.       Stimulus discrimination is learning to respond to one stimulus and not to another.

7.       Pavlov should have had to re-route the dog’s salivary glands surgically, and should have experimented with humans.

8.       Pavlov concluded that when you pair a neutral stimulus with a stimulus that has natural meaning (US) the neutral stimulus takes on the same meaning and becomes conditional.

http://web.mst.edu/~psyworld/classical_conditioning.htm

John B. Watson

1.    At 9 months of age, little Albert was exposed to a white rat, rabbit, dog, monkey, masks with and without hair, cotton wool, burning newspapers and other similar items. After this, at 11 months he was exposed to a white rat which he played with. While little Albert was happily playing with the rat Watson and his assistant made a loud noise by hitting a steel bar with a hammer. Following this, little Albert became frightened to these objects.

2.      Conditioned stimulus: white rat; Unconditioned stimulus: loud noise; Conditioned response: crying.
3.    This experiment was unethical, therefore should not be tested again.  

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

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

6.      Watson stated psychology was the study of behavior, instead of the human mind. Therefore people could be studied objectively like lab rats.

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

The Teenage Brain

We usually tend to believe our brains go through  change and development only during the early years of our lives. At least I did, but in our Psychology class we watched a video on the teenage brain this week and learned other wise. Apparently when we reach adolescence our brain isn’t fully developed yet, and the frontal lobe overcomes many changes during these years especially. Because of the changes occurring teenagers tend to feel and behave in ways their parents don’t get. The typical behaviors reported on teenagers are, thinking nobody seems to understand them (because they don’t), forgetting certain tasks they were asked to perform, and most teenagers suffer from sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation is a huge damage to the brain, especially in a teenager’s brain since it needs the rest because of its changing. According to studies an adolescent needs 9hrs of sleep per night; when they don’t you can tell with their moods and performance.  Another characteristic of teenagers is there pursuit for thrill; this leads them to poor decision making, teenagers are reckless and irresponsible (that seems to be the stereo type). Do to this quest for thrill adolescent years is a time of high risk, since decision making is very impulsive. These decisions may lead to lifelong consequences; therefore parents should be cautious when dealing with a teenager.

Picture:
http://www.google.hn/imgres?imgurl=http://kevinbeirne.webs.com/Drug%2520graphic.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.dictionaryfordads.com/drugaddictionprevention.htm&usg=__XwOKXSyTNNRqhs72vL4ClZLHJCQ=&h=374&w=374&sz=46&hl=es&start=0&sig2=1HnZ1Mth7lF_H080R02hpQ&zoom=1&tbnid=50XMQAsKiwaqCM:&tbnh=128&tbnw=127&ei=xAWkTK-QFMH78Abj7KjLCQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dteenagrs%2Bdrugs%2Band%2Balcohol%26hl%3Des%26biw%3D999%26bih%3D307%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=300&oei=xAWkTK-QFMH78Abj7KjLCQ&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=10&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:0&tx=82&ty=60

How our Brains Work

1.      The brain is divided into two hemispheres; they both work together but have different functions.

2.      The main difference from one side of the brain to the other is creativity and logic. The left side of the brain deals with logic, sequential rationality, and analytical objectivity. The right side of our brains is more random, intuitive, holistic, synthesizing, and subjective. It is also important to note that the left side of our brain looks at parts as for our right brain which looks at things as a whole.

3.      The corpus callosum is nervous tissue which connects the left and right sides of your brain; by this arched bridge both hemispheres to communicate.

4.      Paul Broca had a patient who could only say tan, therefore he called his patient ‘’Tan’’.  When Tan died he studied his brain and discovered his left frontal cortex was damaged. This part of the brain is now known as the "Broca's Area."

5.      Roger Sperry made a breaking change in medicine, the life for epileptic patients changed because of him. In the 1960s he changed epilepsy by cutting the corpus collosum, this way he was enabling any energy transfers, this way the patient would not suffer from any epileptic attacks.

6.      Karl Wernicke, following Paul Broca’s studies, became involved and discovered speech was also related to the temporal lobe.

7.      The occipital lobe of your brain is responsible for vision.

8.      Hearing and language is controlled by the temporal lobe.

9.      The frontal lobe is responsible for math calculations.

10.   As well as for math we use our frontal lobe for judgment, reasoning and impulse control.

Sources:

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

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_corpus_callosum

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

http://www.google.hn/imgres?imgurl=http://www.brainhealthandpuzzles.com/images/labeled_diagram_human_brain.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.brainhealthandpuzzles.com/diagram_of_brain.html&usg=__ODAhzybZTYAVn9-OXv0F6Zni-Ec=&h=330&w=440&sz=25&hl=es&start=0&sig2=i67CtLlk2mMh4-P4pn0bkQ&zoom=1&tbnid=oulaeW5N8SRm-M:&tbnh=126&tbnw=167&ei=046eTN6IAoT58Abu5MCBDQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dthe%2Bparts%2Bof%2Bthe%2Bbrain%26hl%3Des%26biw%3D666%26bih%3D205%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=500&oei=046eTN6IAoT58Abu5MCBDQ&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=8&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0&tx=27&ty=44

notes from class

Phineas Gage

In the mid 1800s a man by the name of Phineas Gage worked on a railroad. One day, while sealing a hole with sand and pressure with a tamping iron the dynamite which he was tamping caught fire. This caused the rod to penetrate his left cheekbone, into his eye, and out his skull going threw his frontal lobe. Luckily Gage survived this dreadfully accident. According to the people who knew him before and after the accident Phineas Gage’s personality changed drastically. But most people ask themselves, how did he survive something so drastic? Scientists today tell us it’s because we can live without function from parts of our brain; as Phineas Gage who lived the rest of his life with his frontal lobe damaged and without function from his left eye.

sources:

http://www.google.hn/imgres?imgurl=http://ettf.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/phineasgage.jpg&imgrefurl=http://ettf.net/archives/6593&usg=__hN0krSVgISp8z351Dw_2jarO5UE=&h=499&w=450&sz=73&hl=es&start=32&sig2=VjgnhtdudkCeecIxKqVsog&zoom=1&tbnid=po8GkpP64QLT5M:&tbnh=117&tbnw=104&ei=cKCaTIntH8uNjAfz9NiACg&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dphineas%2Bgage%26hl%3Des%26biw%3D666%26bih%3D227%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C1029&itbs=1&biw=666&bih=227&iact=rc&dur=109&oei=pJ6aTIfPB8OI4Qbug-H1Dw&esq=4&page=4&ndsp=10&ved=1t:429,r:8,s:32&tx=94&ty=36

http://www.google.hn/imgres?imgurl=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif_klye462-RSG0hdtAjWfBdxWAniP8ukqz0O1H4nexYD8ekIYd34QHh6VcGKi0vPj6gBWtRftIwAqzs-bu1fPsSTDzaF1i5YDVkSYtHGfDMbKeDm3AImIeawpVGfI34MwNSqhKT1wQ_in/s400/Phineas+Gage.jpg&imgrefurl=http://desdeelmanicomio.blogspot.com/2009/07/phineas-gage-el-hombre-que-cambio-de.html&usg=__DcPsJJBTb5h-0QB0OhqnvCKDggI=&h=400&w=294&sz=22&hl=es&start=0&sig2=__QgTmxb4PTYv2hjnPFlFA&zoom=1&tbnid=do4RDccQBEyl3M:&tbnh=124&tbnw=84&ei=TaGaTLu6EpT_4AbYqLEG&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dphineas%2Bgage%26hl%3Des%26biw%3D666%26bih%3D227%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=1501&oei=TaGaTLu6EpT_4AbYqLEG&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=11&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:0&tx=51&ty=42

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