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.

Developing Through The Lifespan

I have always been interested in child's psychology. I find the things they say and do just fascinating. So one thing I found very interesting was the fact that as a child, we learn by assimilation and then accommodation. Our whole thought process when we are young is basically a guess and check. The second thing I learned was the whole page about autism. Autism, a disorder marked by communication deficiencies and repetitive behaviors, goes after more boys than girls. The fact that Autism makes the person unable to communicate with others, in our world, almost impossible to interact with humans. Not being able to get a thought across through words is just a hard life. The third thing I learned is Erickson's stages of psychology. I found them interesting because of the issues in each stage. I think they fit pretty well. This whole chapter was very interesting on the human brain through the lifespan. There is a little cartoon on page 223 that is called "Too Much Coffee Man". I think it definetly explains our life in like 15 words.

Nature, Nurture, And Human Diversity

I learned that fraternal twins are not completely the same, they develop from two separate eggs. They can look the same though, but not usually.

I learned that separated identical twins growing up in different environments can still psychologically be identical. The two Jims had the same names and same traits right down to the name of their dogs. That is just weird.

I learned that heritability of certain traits can be in siblings, like Venus and Serena Williams. They are both very could at tennis, but, on the other hand, having to very athletic parents doesn't mean that their child will be athletic.

In the video Natural Selection/Evolutionary Psychology I found it interesting that some of our genes have been passed down from our ancestors in the caveman era. The survival instincts are deeply imbedded into our brains, it won't come out until we are in survival mode. I just thought that it was very interesting that some certain genes could be passed that far along.

In the other video, I thought their findings were somewhat true about what we are looking for in the opposite sex. Men are looking more for a home maker and women are looking more for a provider. In our day and age though, it is getting less common because our gender equality. Still, I think that, like the survival skills, it is in our brain to think this way.

Heritability

My mother and I are good cooks. I think this is more hereditary because her mother was a good cook too. We do not have the same political views, however. She is more democratic and I am more of a conservative republican. I think that is environmental because this is how I personally feel.

I think genetics have to do with some of my traits, but I think that my environment has shaped me as a person more. I was baptized Lutheran, but I do not go to that church. I go to a Christian church with my grandmother on my dad's side. The environment has helped me be more social and outgoing as a person.

The exercises helped me realize that heritability has to do with all your traits and ones that you might have thought were your own.