Edward Thorndike
Thorndike used cats in his puzzle-box experiment to observe their behavior to be able to get his food by escaping. They obtain their food trying to escape through trial and error. They were able to open the box by pressing a lever and as more trials were done they were more successful at opening the box. This can be called the Law of Effect, which states behaviors were often learned when they had rewards or good results. Then, Thorndike’s Law of Exercise states that a behavior is often stronger when it is repeated

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http://tip.psychology.org/thorn.html

 B.F. Skinner
Operant Conditioning is a way of learning in which the response is due to reinforcement. Reinforcement always helps us learn through positive conditions what is right to do. On the other hand, punishment negative condition that doesn't make us learn what is right and what is wrong. It just makes us understand that we did something wrong, but usually it won't affect the child. Positive in this case is when we are given or rewarded something. For example in Skinner's box the rat got food by pressing the lever. Then, negative means that something is taken away. When the rat pressed the lever the electrical shocks ceased. 

http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/proj/nru/opcond.html

Learning Theories of Psychology

Ivan Pavlov:

1. What was Pavlov actually studying when he developed his theory of classical conditioning?  

A. Pavlov was actually studying the digestive system through the dog’s salivation when he develop his theory of classical conditioning.

2. Explain (in detail) how Pavlov's experiment was conducted.

A. The dogs he used for his experiment were given food after the ringing of the bell. The dogs began associating their food at the ringing of the bell. They then began to salivate knowing the food was coming even though he could not see or smell his food. The dog’s salivation was recorded in surgical tubes in their cheeks where the saliva was stored.

3. Identify the conditioned stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned response from Pavlov's experiment.

A. Conditioned stimulus: the bell; unconditioned stimulus: food; conditions response: salivation for the bell’s sound.       

4. Explain what extinction means in relation to classical conditioning.

A. Extinction is when Pavlov presented the conditioned stimulus without presenting the unconditioned stimulus repetitively.

5. Explain what stimulus generalization means in relation to classical conditioning.

A. Stimulus generalization is when a stimuls that is similar to the conditioned stimulus produces a conditioned response.

6. Explain what stimulus discrimination means in relation to classical conditioning.

A.  Stimulus discrimination is when the new stimulus is very different to the first conditioned stimulus that causes the effect a person wants.

 7. Explain at least two limitations of this experiment.

A. Since the tubes were surgical and Pavlov was forced to alter the glands, it is very difficult to redo the experiment.

8. Explain what Pavlov theorized about how we learn.

A. We learn by responding to a stimulus.

http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/psychology/pavlov.html

http://www.eruptingmind.com/pavlov-classical-conditioning-theory/

http://nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/pavlov/readmore.html

John B. Watson:

1. Explain (in detail) how Watson's "Little Albert" study was conducted.

A.       Watson presented to “Little Albert” furry animals like a white rat to which he reacted happily. Then, Watson presented the animals with a loud noise that made the baby cry. “Little Albert” became scared of the furry animals because he associated them with the loud noise. This is called behaviorism.

2. Identify the conditioned stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned response from Watson's study.

A.       Conditioned stimulus: loud noise; unconditioned stimulus: furry animals; conditions response: scare for the animals.      

3. Explain at least two limitations of this study.

A.       Watson only made the experiment with one child which is not enough evidence and every child has a different reaction. Also, this experiment may not be repeated due to unethical means.

4. Explain Watson's law of frequency.

A.       A stronger association will be created among a response and a stimulus if someone responds often to the stimulus.

5. Explain Watson's law of recency.

A.       The Law of recency states that the response that happened closest to the stimulus is the response that will probably be acquire.

6. Explain the basic assumptions of behaviorism according to Watson.

A.        He theorized that behaviorism can be determined by our environment by behavior and not by mental processes.

http://teachnet.edb.utexas.edu/~Lynda_abbot/Behaviorism.html

Articles About Sleep High School Students With A Delayed School Start Time Sleep Longer, Report Less Daytime Sleepiness

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS WITH A DELAYED SCHOOL START TIME SLEEP LONGER, REPORT LESS DAYTIME SLEEPINESS                                                                                                                     

259 high school students completed the School Sleep Habits Questionnaire by Zaw W. Htwe, MD, from Norwalk Hospital's Sleep Disorders Center in Norwalk in Connecticut. The results of this questionnaire consist of an increase in sleep time in these students which helped them with no problem in school. The school started 40 minutes later than usual (from 7:35am to 8:15am ) which increased 33 minutes in the teenagers sleep time on school nights. In my opinion, schools should start about 40 minutes later as shown in the method so learning is more successful. If students are having problems in school it may be regarding their sleep time and therefore schools should be concerned about a student's health as they care for their learning. 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080609071202.htm

BEING A NIGHT OWL IN HIGH SCHOOL IS LINKED WITH A LOWER COLLEGE GPA:

Many students have been experiencing deterioration in sleep hygiene during their high school and college years. Jennifer Peszka from Hendrix College of Conway, Arkansas made a research with 89 beginning their freshman year in college and other who had finished their freshman year in a liberal arts college. The results were surprising. They consisted on students sleeping 41 minutes less than other classmates and their GPAs were decreasing below a B (evening types) and above a B (morning and intermediate types).  In my opinion, if teachers want to see an academicals improvement in these students, victims of sleep deterioration, they must help them, especially those in evening types who don’t receive the sleep they need by educating them on this issue.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090609072813.htm


WHY DOES LACK OF SLEEP AFFECT US DIFFERENTLY? STUDY HINTS IT MAY BE IN OUR GENES:

Namni Goel from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia preformed a study regarding DQB1*0602, a gene variant. 92 healthy adults and 37 adults with the gene variant were held for two nights with 10 hour sleep and five nights with a sleep restriction of 4 hours. The adults with the gene variant had less sleep desire and spent less time sleeping than those without the gene variant during the different nights. Though, people with this gene don’t have narcolepsy (a disorder that causes mayor sleepiness during the day). In my opinion, I think this article is very interesting since I learned that functioning with the time you slept has to do with your genes. I believe that people with the gene variant DQB1*0602 are very special because they can function properly sometimes even though they haven’t had the desire or the time to sleep.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101025161023.htm

Teenage Brain

According to a television program called "The Teenage Brain", teenagers typically need nine hours and a half of sleep because the less time we sleep the more damage we are causing to our brain to be able to develop and learn. Most teenagers sleep seven hours and a half, which complicates a student´s learning in school. Therefore, as a student and as a teenager who doesnt get much sleep, I claim less homework because too much homework delays a teenager´s sleep hour. We should be given homework for subjects that need to be practiced daily like math, reading and/or writing, but without the teacher exceeding. If teachers did a fairly good job explaining new lessons, then there is no need to always be assigning homework. Doing this will help us balance our extracurricular activities with school projects and homework. For instance, I am part of extracurricular activities in my school like sports but I can’t set them apart of my schedule for homework because I am willing to help my school and to take care of my health. I confess I have missed basketball and volleyball practices due to group projects, but that doesn’t mean I can always miss practice because I may not make it in the team. Therefore, we should have a limited amount of homework that requires good but not exaggerating hours of practice because practicing school stuff helps us as well in the future for college and jobs. Having a good basketball practice with my team and solving math problems daily for an hour or so makes me feel balanced and satisfied.

Also, schools in the United States have come up with another solution do to the lack of sleep of students. They decided to start school an hour later. Students and some teachers noticed a positive difference in students. For example, they were more aware of what was going on and as a result they participated more in class. That may as well help my school which starts at 7:30am.

How Our Brians Work

Our brain is divided into two halves or hemispheres. Each hemisphere controls numerous function of our body. For example the left hemisphere controls mostly the logical, analytical, rational, and objective part of our body such as math, science, speech, and language. Besides that, the left hemisphere controls the right side of our body. On the other hand, the right hemisphere controls mostly the creative, intuitive, and subjective part of our body. For example, it controls our spatial abilities, face recognition, artistic ability, our visual imagery, and of course, the right side our body. The corpus callosum is "an arched bridge of nervous tissue" that allows the communication of both hemispheres by connecting them together.

The study of a French surgeon and anthropologist named Paul Broca discovered the speech center which is also called after him: the Broca´s area. The neuropsychiatric study of Carl Wernicke discovered the receptive language area named the Wernicke´s area.

Slip-Brian Experiments carried by neuroscientists such as Roger Sperry consisted in cutting the corpus callosum, which prevented information being carried out from one hemisphere to another. One of the experiments they used on patients was chimeric figures or a half-and-half picture, like the one at the right. They located a dot in the middle of the forehead and the patient would focus on that point. When he/she was asked what the picture was the patient would usually say that it was a man because the information of the man went to his/her left side of the brain which controls our speech. Though, if the patient was to point what was the picture, he/she would have pointed the woman because the right hemisphere controls our visual imagery.

Besides the two hemispheres, we have four lobes that also have an important role in the function of our body. For example, the occipital lobe is responsible for our vision and the temporal lobe is responsible for our hearing and language. Then, the frontal lobe is responsible for judgment and reasoning and exact calculations while the parietal lobe is responsible for approximate math calculations.

WORK CITED

http://www.funderstanding.com/content/right-brain-vs-left-brain

http://www.answers.com/topic/corpus-callosum

http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n02/historia/broca.htm

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

http://library.thinkquest.org/J002391/functions.html

Phineas Gage

Phineas Gage was the head of crew that worked on a railroad construction in Vermont. It was on September 13 of 1848 that Gage had a dreadful accident consisting of a 13 pound iron rod passing below his left cheekbone and into his head during an outburst of charged explosives that damage a big portion of his front lobe. Unbelievably, he was conscious right after the accident and fortunately, he survived the tragic explosion. He ended up being blind from his left eye but he was verbally and physically active. Though, his behavior was different than before. He was rude and intolerant with the people around him. During the 13 years he lived after his death, he worked as a freak in an exhibition where he was paid to show his face and the rod. Sadly, Gage died from epileptic seizures in 1860.Phineas Gage’s case was helpful to neurologists to study personality as part of psychology and for the first operation of 1885 of tumor removal. In class, we discussed Phineas Gage’s accident and a House episode related to Gage amazing story. We learned that people can survive serious brain damage. Also we discussed what brain localization is. Brain localization is in simpler words where different parts of the brains are located. Each located part carries out an important function that helps our body work correctly. For example, a part of our brain includes function like auditory, vision, movements, etc. These parts may be located in two different brain hemispheres that are separated along a longitudinal fissure. This is called: brain lateralization.

http://www.neatorama.com/2010/03/08/the-strange-tale-of-phineas-gage/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateralization_of_brain_function

Nature vs Nurture: Athelitc Ability

There have been debatable and controversial topics in Psychology in terms of nature vs. nurture. In class we have been discussing these topics, which are not easy to get into a conclusion. One of the topics I was interested was athletic ability because I am an athlete. I think it involves both environmental aspects and genetic aspects. I believe it may be both because my school is nationally into basketball, soccer, and volleyball. Also, I believed it was genetic because my father was a great athlete as well. Though, environmental aspects have a related to environmental because I my mother wasn’t an athlete, my father had interests in other sports, and because both my parents have encouraged me to play sports for my health and for fun.

Studies say it may be genetic because to be able to be a great athlete like a basketball player or a gymnast, the height required, which is a genetic characteristic, has to be at least 6 feet. Other studies say it may be environmental because you may live in an athletic environment in which daily you are taught and motivated to play. I believe that both nature and nurture have an effect on athletic ability, though I believe it is more environmental than genetic for the following facts and reasons.

I must say, it makes sense why athletic ability is genetic. Parents who were into sports end up having athletic children. Though, it makes more sense to me that since parents were involved into sports, it is obvious that environmentally, children will be taught and motivated into sports like their parents. Therefore I believe that both nature and nurture impact athletic ability though nurture impacts more. Darrell, the author of the website called Nature vs. Nurture in Sports, has convinced me more than I was convinced that that athletic ability is more related with the environment. An example I found in the website was that a great 3-point shooter NBA player named Reggie Miller had leg deformities. Fortunately, he was treated and became a great basketball star. Therefore, he was not an athlete at birth. He had the potential to be one for his height and for his concentration in basketball.

A characteristic of nature is height. Reggie measures 6’6, which a great height that enabled him to play basketball. The previous website had an interesting question: “If Reggie was 5’6, would he have made it into the NBA?” The answer was: “he would have never made it”. I strongly disagree. 5’6 in not a height required in basketball. However, if his environment strongly motivated him to play basketball, he would certainly not be genetically tall in height, but he would be huge environmentally at playing basketball. What I am trying to state here is that if his environment had presented him basketball, Reggie becoming a star would depend on his reaction toward basketball, if we wouldn’t base it on height. He could be talented even though his measure wouldn’t reach 6 feet because the environment impacted his motivation to basketball not his height.

I measure 5’5, which means I am not qualified as a basketball player or a volleyball player. Though, my environment at school encourages me into sports by providing basketball and volleyball practices as well as soccer practices. My school also hosts national tournaments. I represent my school nationally in volleyball and basketball for the encouragement I get in my school and not because of my height.

In conclusion, both the environment and the genetics have to do with athletic ability. Though, I have concluded that athletic ability is pulled more toward the nurture side than to the nature side. If our environment encourages us to practice a sport, we may succeed without being based in height. If your father or your mother was a huge athlete it doesn’t mean you are going to end up being as great athletes as they were if your aren’t motivated. Therefore nature and nurture have an effect on athletic ability, but nurture overcomes nature in this topic.


work cited:
http://expertfootball.com/training/naturevsnurture.php