Learning

I found the section on observational learning was very interesting. Especially the antisocial effects of observational learning. It said that men who beat their wives probably had a wife-battering father. I find this somewhat confusing. I think that if you had to go through that as a child that you wouldn't want to ever put anyone through that, but then do the same thing. I think it is logical though because of observational learning; just weird though.

This chapter shed a lot of light on how we raise our children. I babysit children and I know their parents, but I can tell how they discipline their kids and how they kids learn. My nephew is very active and has learned a lot by observation, but when he throws a tantrum he knows that he has to go to his room and wait until he can be nice again. We use reinforcement on him too. When he screams he sits in his room, but when he goes to the bathroom he gets a toy. This has helped him learn how to use the bathroom. now he goes all by himself. When he eats all his supper he can get dessert. These are a few examples of reinforcement.

Classical Conditioning Questions

Classical Conditioning- A type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events.

-Ivan Pavlov

-The kids are playing, they smell dinner, mom says dinner is ready. The kids go wash their hands.

Operant Conditioning- A type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher.

-B. F. Skinner

-When a parent says "Get ready for bed" then lets their child get out of it reinforces arguing and whining.

Reinforcement- Any event that strengthens the behavior it follows.

-B. F. Skinner

- To make a child use the toilet, you can give them a treat for each time he uses the toilet.

Observational Learning- Learning by observing others.

-Giacomo Rizzolatti

-When you yell at your child, your child might yell at you during an arguement.

Sensation And Perception

This chapter, by far, confused me the most. It messed up all my thoughts on perception and how our brains work with our senses. I learned that we only analyze three sets of different colors, red-green, yellow-blue, and black-white. In the retina and the thalamus, some neurons are turned "on" by red but turned "off" by green. I never knew that there was so many parts to the ear either. I mean, I know about the eardrum and the canal, but there is so much more. I also didn't know that there was actual bone in the ear. There are three varieties of ESP: telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition. All of these interests me because it is a claim to extra senses. Precognition I think is just a guess, if even that. You can get lucky on predicting some things. Like the Packer-Viking today, I could say that the Packers are going to win and I would have a 50 percent chance of being right. So, it is really just a guess. the other two may be plausible. Sometimes I have had a bad feeling about something and later learn a family member died, which would kind of be like clairvoyance. I don't know much about telepathy. I have never experience it before.