Thinking and Language

Without language we could not be the sophsiticated race that we are today. Thinking also has brought us far, but without one we can not survive. I learned in this chapter that I have insight, a sudden and often realization of the solution of a problem. I have done this numerous times. I will be trying to figure out the solution to a problem go to bed, then wake up in the morning and it would be like someone just turned a switch. I would know how to solve the problem and it would feel like it was starring me in the face the whole time.
Second, the rule of overconfidence, the tendency to be more confident than correct. I really thought this was more of a personality trait than a function in your brain. It is funny that it is a function because now boys have an excuse to so overconfident (just kidding boys ;) ) Anyway being overconfident can be bad and tend to have not so great consequences.Sometimes in the relationships overconfidence is a quality to have.
Thirdly, I learned that is important for babies to babble when they are young. This will eventually lead to the one-word stage. This is when babies start to recognize syllable with the meaning like mama and papa. It is interesting how babies learn from our example too. They just mimic us and eventually learn the meaning. It is fascinating.

Pschism My Head Is Spinning

My train of thought was to light the candle with the end of the match. I didn't think to much about it just did it.
Participants turned the shape in their minds and each degree they had to turn it took them a constant amount of time per degree. So the larger the degree the increased the reaction time.
I think the pattern fits me. I had a longer reaction time for each degree I turned the shape in my head.
Yes the two looked very similar. My reaction time looked the same as the other graph. So, my reaction time increased as the degree increased. Yes, it showed a decrease as the degree went back down.

Memory

If we did not have a memory the world would be very chaotic. We would have no idea about anything. We couldn't hold jobs or have relationships because once something would happen wouldn't remember it. If we tried to learn something we would forget why we were there in the first place. It would probably end with people dying early because we wouldn't remember to eat, bathe, or drink.
Clive Waring knows nothing, but whatever was happening before his accident. H has no idea of time or the date. He knows nothing about what is happening in the world. He would have no idea what is going in his life. He has no part in the world around. To anyone, but his wife, he is no one.
I don't see anything different about my memory, I just understand it a bit more. I now understand how when someone says something, I say what, and as they are about to repeat themselves I am already repeating what they said. Which I do all the time.
Flashbulb memories. They are important because they can recall an important event to us. We can recall exactly where we were at that point in time. It is sometimes bad but sometimes good. Like it could help find the killer to a murder and so on and so forth.

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.

Illusions

1. Hering Illusion
-The optical illusion behind the lines would distort the lines and make them look crooked or curved. Then when you remove the illusion the lines were straight.
-I was surprised to discover that the lines were all straight.
-I don't know how my perception works now. It is very weird what this activity proved.
-I could not see straight lines sign or something to that nature is there's a type of illusion behind it.

2. Mueller-Lyer Illusion
-There is an arrow with a pointed out end and a pointed in end. There is a arrow in the middle and you have to find the middle of the 2 arrows.
-I was surprised to find that the arrow points confused me into thinking that they were evenly apart.
-I couldn't even find the middle of a line.
-When drawing a line in geometry maybe.

3. Spoke Illusion
-There are spokes and a color wheel from white to dark gray. The color wheel is turning while the spokes stay put.
-On my first look, I thought that the spokes were going counter clockwise and the color was going clockwise. But on closer inspection, I saw that the spokes stayed put!
-Well I was happy to get one right, but I think color can affect the way we see things.
-Maybe lights could make us dizzy.

4. Stepping Feet Illusion
-There are vertical lines and then to horizontal blocks going through the lines.
-It looked as though the blocks were stepping onto the horizontal lines but when the horizontal lines are removed they are going the same speed.
-I felt this was another weird optical illusion. The lines made it looked like the were stepping.
-This could effect a speeding test.

5. Sine Illusion
-There i s a sine wave with vertical black bars. All the bars are the same size.
-When I saw it I thought that they were not all the same, but they were.
-I found that the size was misjudged because of the curves in the sine wave.
-This could be used in any of the tests of vision.

6. Hidden Bird
-There is a bird that flies around behind a bunch of lines. When you stop the bird, it disappears.
-I found this to be true, when you stop the bird it disappears.
-I think this illusion could be like the clouds.
-Used for toddlers vision tests.

7. Pyramid Illusion
-When there are many squares, an oblique light cross, like a large ‘X’, appears. This cross does not really exist.
-I thought the X existed, but it does not.
-I now think that our vision has different ways to percieve everything.
-In eye tests.