Memory

This week, on Monday, we had a lecture on memory. There were two different kinds of memory--short term and long term. We went over how people usually try and find the best way to remember things by chunking, spacing, etc. I usually never do spacing, which isn't good. It was interesting to do some of the memory tests displayed for us. An example would be how many sets of letters a person could remember in four seconds, or remember a set of numbers only read to you once, and remember certain words from a bunch after only looking at it for thirty seconds. For this one, it felt like I could remember a lot of them when I was looking at the words, but when it came time to writing them down from memory I drew blanks on over half of them. My short term memory probably isn't the best. Also, we learned about a lady who can basically remember everyday of her life. That was just amazing to me. However, I wouldn't want to have that "power." And lastly, the thing I found most amazing was the man with the thirty second memory. That was just unbelievable to me. His wife would walk in and say something to him, and he would forget it in seconds. To me that would just suck! So far I gotta say that AP Psychology is one of the more fascinating classes I've ever taken.

The Four Activities

The first station my group was in, we had to read a story about brain plasticity, and how it can heal itself. They gave some examples of people who experienced this as well. We also had to try and figure out, on a worksheet, out of five universities, five people, five rewards, and five cars, who drove which car, where did they go to school, and how much was their reward. It was extremely difficult, and my group and I didn't finish. Some may have taken it home and worked on it for fun, but I didn't. I had no perseverance in this station, although some of my other group members did and almost got through it.

The second station was dealing with three people on each side trying to get across sides by not skipping, turning around, and they had to be facing the opposite way from when they started. I did something like this is my chemistry class, as well as the others, so we already knew how to do it. You could classify all of us as having insight before doing this because we obviously already knew the answer, and just had to recall it.

The third station was trying to balance ten nails on top of one nailhead. At first we had a heuristic way of thinking. We wanted to think in a more speedier way so we could beat the record time of four minutes that was set by the previous group. After the four minutes had passed, we realized that we couldn't beat it, but instead went for more balancing nails. We were able to end up balancing 26 nails. I'm pretty sure we had the best in the class.

The fourth station was trying to get a record to play using only like tape, a pencil, some candy, a needle, a record, and a piece of paper--I think. At first we had the right idea because we had a certain mental set already developed. We knew how to do it, but we had to get it to work. We ended up sticking the pencil through the hole in the record, and making the paper look like a funnel used as a speaker. Then we just stabbed the needle through the end of the small side of the paper to go on the record. As Joonho spun the pencil, the record spun around and around as the needle stayed in one spot, in contact with it. The paper acted like a speaker, which amplified the sound coming off of the record to the rest of the class. Apparently we had the best success with this activity.

Rewards or No Rewards

Today we talked about how people do things they love because they love it, or they do it because they want more rewards whether it be money or something else. It seemed like we never really got to a definite conclusion about how someone begins to like something whether it be sports, reading, etc. So it made me, and probably others, left thinking and pondering what makes us motivated to like something and do it. For me, I like to play basketball and tennis, and I don't like reading, however I do find a passion to read the Bible. So I guess those would be my main hobbies, if you will. Those are the things I've grown to like in my life, and I guess watching basketball and tennis all the time on ESPN has conditioned me somewhat to want to play it, and then I just found a liking towards it. And since I was little, I always went to church and would look up texts and just found a love for Jesus, and part of that is reading the Bible. So to me, finding what you like in life starts at a young age, and a person then can grow off of that. Maybe their mindset will change towards ideas and styles, or maybe not, but I believe what you will be like is determined early in life. And how you become who you are can be influenced by countless people, places, things, etc.

Learned Habits

These past few weeks have been interesting to read about and listen to lectures in class because all the stuff we are learning about is relevant to our lives outside of school. This week, I learned about how habits and unconditioned responses are formed. The generic overview about being used to something at first, but then a new stimulus comes into the picture and the original idea you had about something will change, and you now have new feelings towards that "object or situation." A certain example for me would be smelling gases or exhaust fumes. Before I would never really worry about smelling gas, but then when I did smell it once and became sick I really didn't want to smell it anymore. So now when I walk past a car and smell its fumes, especially in winter, I scrunch my nose and hold my breath until I'm in the car, or away from the fumes. Just a little habit I have.

Blog Post #2

This week we had an in-class discussion about subliminal messages. These messages are signs or messages that are in our presence but not consciously recognized by us. It's weird not-knowing that something is in plain sight but yet you can't see it because it blends in with the surroundings. This subject, subliminal messages, reminded me of the Disney movies and their sexual subliminal messages. For the longest time I didn't know that they would throw those purvirted scenes in there, and now that people have pointed them out to me and then I look back and watch the movie, those things are right in plain sight. It seems when I think or watch those movies, I only think about those parts because it is so weird, but yet now so obvious to me.

Favorite Video

My favorite video was the video done by Mariah, Katie, and Patrick because it made me feel like I was actually watching a news or public service announcement broadcast. It was very informative, and the places they were talking about for the different stages of development they actually went to, and reported on the spot. I loved it, and thought it was very interesting to watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0qoY_5ymOo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXGchM91NNU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I1L6LT_0NE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MI5J3FX-0E