In chapter nine, something I found really interesting was the thinking critically article entitled "The Fear Factor--Do We Fear the Right Things?" This article pointed out 4 main points about why we fear things we do.
1) We fear what our ancestral history has prepared us to fear.
2) We fear what we cannot control.
3) We fear what is immediate.
4) We fear what is most readily available in our memory.
I think that this article is totally true about our fears. I am afraid of things such as spiders or snakes that put our ancestors at risk years and years ago, even though spiders and snakes are barely dangerous at all today. I fear losing important people in my life because I cannot control who stays and who goes. We all fear immediate threats. Finally, we fear the most vivid memories. For example, if you witnessed a horrible car crash, you may be afraid of riding in a car even though you weren't before the incident occurred.
I think that I am creative. I love photography and I like to draw. I believe everyone has to use their own creativity all the time. Being creative isn't limited to art or writing, either. Creativity is expressed through clothes you wear or decorating your bedroom or locker. I think being creatively intelligent is very important because if a person weren't creative, they wouldn't be original or unique. Everyone would be exactly the same if no one possessed any creativity.
In Chapter ten I found it interesting how they talked about the size and proportion of Einstein's brain. It turns out that his lower parietal lobes were 15% larger than other areas of his brain. This section of the brain is a center for processing math and spatial information. The book says that this explains why Einstein was slower at learning how to talk but was so exceptionally smart in math. I found this interesting because I remember hearing somewhere that the size of our brains doesn't determine how smart we are. Apparently, in the case of Einstein, the size of certain sections of our brains can relate to how well we do in certain subjects.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Memory is very important because it becomes a defining part of who we are. We remember how our actions and learn how to behave through others’ reactions. If we don’t remember, then we can’t determine how appropriate our behavior is. Our memory helps us understand how we feel about eachother Our encounters with other people build our feelings toward them. Each encounter strengthens our feelings for love, hate, fear, sadness, etc. If we can’t remember each encounter and build upon the previous encounters, then we cannot develop any type of relationship or determine how we can act around them. Without memory, we wouldn’t understand our world and wouldn’t know how to interact in it and with everything. We wouldn’t know sadness, sorrow, or happiness because we would not have any memory of what would trigger such emotion. For example, if someone you cared about died, you would not feel sad because you would not remember your relationship and times you’ve shared with them.
In the Clive Wearing situation, Clive really is no one He has no background knowledge to develop a character. He essentially is a new person each day. Clive’s wife is handling his situation with hope and faith. She believes he does remember in his own way and is optimistic that his condition will improve. In my opinion, she handles the situation really well. She keeps a positive attitude and does not show any sad emotions even if deep down she is feeling sad. She is brave and strong to be able to handle the situation like that. If I was in her shoes, I would be very devastated and very frustrated. I don’t know if I would be able to handle the pressure of my loved one not remembering the times we’ve shared. It would be very frustrating to put up with. It's hard to know that he doesn't remember anything, but you know it happened and you have the memory in your head.
This gives me a new appreciation of my own memory. It is something we take for granted and never imagine losing. Even though it gets frustrating to deal with bad situations, I know that I can learn from them. .
I never thought about how memory worked before. I only knew that we remember a lot of stuff even the things we don't want to. I know that my brain works to piece my memory together and is able to pull out pieces of information that my brain has stored during times of need. In this chapter, I noticed episodes of people having memory loss. For example, Aubri will repeatedly tell me stories, then tell me that she doesn't remember ever telling me them. I now see my own memory as bits of data stored in a computer. It is an extremely organized mechanism. Another example is the Human Memory: Recall activity that I took. In this activity, you were supposed to listen to person reading off a bunch of words. After they have been said, you were supposed to write down as many words as you could. Even though I heard the words called, I forgot to write them down on my paper. There were also a few words I wrote that I heard wrong. During the reading of words, I made the connection that some of the words were fruits, directional terms, names, or money forms. I wrote down a wrong answer even though it associated with the type. For example, I wrote down dime because it associated with currency, but it was not said out loud. This whole process demonstrates that our memory can be forgetful even if you are trying hard to focus and remember something.
In the Clive Wearing situation, Clive really is no one He has no background knowledge to develop a character. He essentially is a new person each day. Clive’s wife is handling his situation with hope and faith. She believes he does remember in his own way and is optimistic that his condition will improve. In my opinion, she handles the situation really well. She keeps a positive attitude and does not show any sad emotions even if deep down she is feeling sad. She is brave and strong to be able to handle the situation like that. If I was in her shoes, I would be very devastated and very frustrated. I don’t know if I would be able to handle the pressure of my loved one not remembering the times we’ve shared. It would be very frustrating to put up with. It's hard to know that he doesn't remember anything, but you know it happened and you have the memory in your head.
This gives me a new appreciation of my own memory. It is something we take for granted and never imagine losing. Even though it gets frustrating to deal with bad situations, I know that I can learn from them. .
I never thought about how memory worked before. I only knew that we remember a lot of stuff even the things we don't want to. I know that my brain works to piece my memory together and is able to pull out pieces of information that my brain has stored during times of need. In this chapter, I noticed episodes of people having memory loss. For example, Aubri will repeatedly tell me stories, then tell me that she doesn't remember ever telling me them. I now see my own memory as bits of data stored in a computer. It is an extremely organized mechanism. Another example is the Human Memory: Recall activity that I took. In this activity, you were supposed to listen to person reading off a bunch of words. After they have been said, you were supposed to write down as many words as you could. Even though I heard the words called, I forgot to write them down on my paper. There were also a few words I wrote that I heard wrong. During the reading of words, I made the connection that some of the words were fruits, directional terms, names, or money forms. I wrote down a wrong answer even though it associated with the type. For example, I wrote down dime because it associated with currency, but it was not said out loud. This whole process demonstrates that our memory can be forgetful even if you are trying hard to focus and remember something.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Blog Post #8
Classical conditioning is a kind of learning where a person connects two or more stimuli and anticipate events. Behavior can be conditioned by providing an influence that causes a reaction. In classical conditioning, the subject cannot control its response. An example, is when a dog hears a bell and starts to salivate because it knows food is coming. He cannot control his salivation because it is involuntary. Operant conditioning is a kind of learning in which behavior is encouraged when followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher. Reinforcements increase behavior. Punishment decreases behavior. For example, a child who is praised for doing good work will purposely do good work to get the praise. In classical conditioning, the subject cannot control the events and in operate conditioning, the subject can control the behavior and events. In classical conditioning, the response is involuntary and in operate conditioning, it is voluntary. In classical conditioning, conditioning is acquired by associating events. In operate conditioning, the behavior is acquired by associating a response with a consequence.This applies to my life because our animals are conditioned. For example, when my dog or cats pee on the floor they get punished, but when they go outside or in the cat box they get a reward. The punishment may change his behavior.
Positive reinforcement is a way to change behaviors by presenting positive stimuli, such as food, compliments, or desired behavior. It needs to be presented after a response in order to strengthen the response. Negative reinforcement is a way to change behaviors by stopping or reducing negative stimuli. An example of this is, when you pull on a horse's rein, the bit is loosened after the correct stop. Punishment is designed to decrease the frequency of behavior. There can be positive punishment, which is giving an aversive stimulus and negative punishment, which takes away a desirable stimulus.
An example of positve reinforcement in my life is getting a good job and getting the pay for doing a good job, or getting good grades on an assignment that I worked hard on. The intended outcome was to continue doing my homework and chores without complaining.
An example of negative reinforcement is when I constantly get told to do something such as things like scholarships. I realized that if I do them, they will stip nagging about it. The behavior was not doing scholarship applications, the reinforcement was the constant nagging of my parents, and the intended outcome was me doing the applications. An example of punishment in my life was not being able to go on my very first date, because I lied to my mom. The behavior was lying, the punishment was taking away my priviledge of going on my very first date, and the intended outcome was me no longer lying to my mother about boys.
The most interesting thing I learned in this section, is that there are two types of motivation; intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is the desire to perform a behavior for its own sake. Extrinsic motivation accomplishes a task for external rewards or to avoid punishment. It seems like most education is for extrinsic motivation. Students want to receive good grades as a reward or they want to avoid the punishment of low grades, staying in for recess, or a disappointed parent and teacher. Only when we are allowed to choose can we truly say our learning is from intrinsic motivation.
Positive reinforcement is a way to change behaviors by presenting positive stimuli, such as food, compliments, or desired behavior. It needs to be presented after a response in order to strengthen the response. Negative reinforcement is a way to change behaviors by stopping or reducing negative stimuli. An example of this is, when you pull on a horse's rein, the bit is loosened after the correct stop. Punishment is designed to decrease the frequency of behavior. There can be positive punishment, which is giving an aversive stimulus and negative punishment, which takes away a desirable stimulus.
An example of positve reinforcement in my life is getting a good job and getting the pay for doing a good job, or getting good grades on an assignment that I worked hard on. The intended outcome was to continue doing my homework and chores without complaining.
An example of negative reinforcement is when I constantly get told to do something such as things like scholarships. I realized that if I do them, they will stip nagging about it. The behavior was not doing scholarship applications, the reinforcement was the constant nagging of my parents, and the intended outcome was me doing the applications. An example of punishment in my life was not being able to go on my very first date, because I lied to my mom. The behavior was lying, the punishment was taking away my priviledge of going on my very first date, and the intended outcome was me no longer lying to my mother about boys.
The most interesting thing I learned in this section, is that there are two types of motivation; intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is the desire to perform a behavior for its own sake. Extrinsic motivation accomplishes a task for external rewards or to avoid punishment. It seems like most education is for extrinsic motivation. Students want to receive good grades as a reward or they want to avoid the punishment of low grades, staying in for recess, or a disappointed parent and teacher. Only when we are allowed to choose can we truly say our learning is from intrinsic motivation.
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