Skinner and Thorndike

Edward Thorndike:

1. Explain Thorndike's puzzle-box experiment.
He placed cats in a puzzle box and analyzed the behavior which the cats exhibited while trying to escape the puzzle box and obtain the food.
2. Explain Thorndike's "Law of Effect".
The Law of Effect states that future behaviors may be determined by consequences. If consequences are positive, the same behavior is more likely to occur later. While if consequences are negative, the behavior is more unlikely to happen.
3. Explain Thorndike's "Law of Exercise".
The law of exercise states that behaviors or responses, are strengthened through repetition, practice or experience.
B.F. Skinner:

1. Explain Skinner's concept of Operant Conditioning
The concept of Operant conditioning states that factors such as reinforcement and punishment influence our behavior. These factors may be either positive or negative.
2. What does  reinforcement always do?
It always tends to attempt to maintain a particular behavior.
3. What does a punishment alsways do?
It always tends to attempt to make a behavior to decrease or disappear.
4. Explain the difference between "positive" and "negative" as they are used in opernat conditioning.

Positive refers to give something, negative means to take away something. When referring to “something”, it is being referred to either a reinforcement or punishment, which may be positive or negative.

Sources
1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Thorndike
2.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning

Ivan Pavlov and John B. Watson

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

Pavlov was studying the digestion in dogs when he discovered classical conditioning.
2. Explain (in detail) how Pavlov's experiment was conducted.

During the experiment, Pavlov and his assistants inserted both edible and non edible objects, in order to measure salivation each of these objects produced in dogs. Pavlov's findings were that the salivation process is reflexive, and that it happens automatically without conscious thought, in response of a specific stimulus. He then noticed, that the mere presence of the white coats of his assistants, produced salivation on dogs. He then decided to pair another stimuli with the meat aside from the presence of his assistants, so he used a bell. As a result, the dogs salivated when hearing the bell. He suggested salivation was a learned process, which consisted of the dogs associating the bell with the food, justifying why they salivate while the bell is ringing.

3. Identify the conditioned stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned response from Pavlov's experiment. The conditioned stimulus of his experiment, was the pairing of a bell with the food. The unconditioned stimulus was the presentation of the meat itself to the dogs. The conditioned response of the dogs was their salivation, when a stimuli was being paired with the food, like a bell, since dogs expected the food.

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

Extinction in relation to classical conditioning, means that a conditioned response either decreases or disappears. This happens when a conditioned stimulus is no longer paired with an unconditioned response.
5. Explain what stimulus generalization means in relation to classical conditioning.

Stimulus generalization relating to classical conditioning means that the same conditioned responses occur with similar but not equal conditioned stimulus.
6. Explain what stimulus discrimination means in relation to classical conditioning.

Discrimination relating to classical conditioning, means the ability of the organism to differentiate the conditioned stimuli, from other stimuli which have not yet been paired with the unconditioned stimuli.
7. Explain at least two limitations of this experiment.

The study has the purpose to describe the learning process, and this experiment only specifies responses by pairing stimulus. Rather than also describing how we learn language, or mathematics. Another limitation is that it was done on dogs rather than on humans, which should be the ones tested because we are so different and superior than animals. So, we should be tested in order to get a better understanding of our complexity.
8. Explain what Pavlov theorized about how we learn.
He theorized that by paring a natural stimuli with a neutral stimuli, we learn that the neutral will produce the same effect as the natural one. Which turns the neutral stimuli, into what is known as a conditioned stimuli.

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

The study was conducted on a male infant. Watson and his partner paired loud noise with animals or other objects which had the characteristic of being hairy. Watson first showed some of the hairy objects to the infant and noticed he felt no fear of them . Then by triggering a loud noise each time a hairy object was presented to the infant, he noticed that the little guy had developed a fear for the hairy objects. Meaning that classical conditioning is a major factor that has developed fears on humans and animals.
2. Identify the conditioned stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned response from Watson's study The conditioned stimulus were the hairy animals and objects. The unconditioned stimulus was the loud noise triggered each time the hairy things were presented to Albert. The conditioned response was that the infant felt uncomfortable in the presence of furry things and cried.
3. Explain at least two limitations of this study.

To begin with, this experiment was done on an infant rather than on an adult, which would display different responses based on experience and knowledge. Secondly, this experiment can not be repeated.

4. Explain Watson's law of frequency. Through this law Watson stated that the more two stimuli are paired, the stronger the correspondence between these two will be.
5. Explain Watson's law of recency. Through this law, Watson stated that responses occur immediately after a stimulus.
6. Explain the basic assumptions of behaviorism according to Watson.

Watson believed behaviorism was Psychology itself, meaning behavior of human beings was the basis of all Psychology according to him.

References

1. http://psychology.about.com/od/classicalconditioning/a/pavlovs-dogs.htm
2. http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/classcondbasics.htm
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Albert_experiment
4. http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/watson.htm

3 evaluations of sleep studies regarding teenagers

1.The study was led by Barbara Phillips. The title of the article which displayed the findings of the study was "Starting high school one hour later may reduce teen traffic accidents". The institution which sponsored this study was The UK Healthcare Good Samaritan Sleep center in Lexington, Ky; which is directed by Barbara Phillips. The study was done on a wide range of school districs in Kansas. School hours were delayed for one hour on these school districs. Various positive results amongst teenagers were reported from the study. Daily sleepiness diminuished, also "catch up sleep", but most important of all crash rates dropped since the school times were influenced. I believe this source displays wise and valid information. It's findings should be taken in account and applied on schools, since it would only promote the wealthfare of teenagers in general.

2. The study was authorized by Zaw W. Htwe who is the MD, of Norwalk Hospitals Sleep Disorders Center in Norwalk, Conn. The author of the study was Mary B. O'Malley. Before the study was actually performed, students filled out a survey referring t their daily sleep. They reported to sleep around 7 hours in the survey. 259 high school studens did the survey and were part of the study. Their school times were delayed 40 minutes. Students reported to feel really good with much less day time sleepiness. Also, weekend sleep decreases. I believe this study is really thorough and presents good evidence. Feeling with less day time sleepiness is really important since we humans can function much better. Meaning this study was meant for a very important purpose.

3.The study was lead by Judith A. Owens, M.D., M.P.H., of the Hasbro Children's Hospital, and some collegues of hers. In the study, 201 students of a high school in Rhode Island participated. Each filled a report regarding their sleep habits. After delaying school times for a half an hour, their was a vast change in the students. They reported less day time sleepiness, less fatigue throughout the day, more motivation and hapiness. Overall, the study proved that a delay in school hours can as a product produce a beeter mood amongst teenagers. I believe that the validity of this study is certain, because I myself have a much better mood when I get a good night sleep. Sleep is necessary, specially to youngsters and its benefits to us are endless.

teenage brain

     Recently, I watched the most interesting video that gave me a lot of insight about the human brain. It was specifically about the teenage brain. I used to have a belief that at the age of adolescence, our brains were fully developed. But, the video I saw proved me completely wrong. During adolescence, our brain is still developing, especially in the frontal lobe area. Development in our brains during these years, is strongly linked with behaviors that are particularly seen in teens. It is said that teens get a real lack of sleep. They usually get 5-7 hours per day. While they should get about 9- 11 hours a day. Throughout the whole day, our brain is functioning non-stop and it is still working although less, while at sleep. Not getting enough sleep for teens is extremely bad for their brain development meaning, their productivity in school next day will not be at their full potential. Experiments like a late start at school have been made on several occations. It has been proved that there were positive changes amongst teens by giving them extra hours for sleep. But, a late start affects after school activities that are said to benefit a person even more than sleep. Teenagers seem to be always in a bad mood, or having a terrible time. I believe this phase should be worked upon teens in order to move on to adulthood. If they are getting very few hours of sleep, teens should manage their time in a way they could get enough sleep. If parents are having a hard time with their children, they should try to be more comprehensive since it is natural for teens to act the way they do. Ultimately, believe it or not lazy teenagers are the next generation of hard working adults. Development will soon happen in their brains and they will become adults.

How our brains work

     Our human brain is one of the most interesting and complex part of our organisms in my opinion. People these days, even very intelligent people barely use a small percentage from the total power of our brains. I believe evolution might be involved on people using a more abundant percentage of their brain's power, but it is very uncertain. The brain as you probably know, is divided into two main parts. The left and right hemispheres. These hemispheres control specific actions of ours and are in charge of many diverse tasks people do every day. They are also known as the left and right sides of the brain. Each of the brain sides control different ways of thinking of people. The left brain for instance, is more logical, uses more reasoning, makes us think rationally and is more objective. While the right brain is more subjective, uses instinct and it is more random. People may be thought as left brained or right brained. But, the truth is a combination of both sides of the brain is necessary and natural in human beings. The two brain hemispheres are connected by the corpus collasum which is a large bundle of nerve fibers. The corpus collasum gives the ability to both sides of our brain to communicate. In our brain we have little specific parts that are in charge of all abilities we have. Paul Broca, a doctor who studied the brains of his aphasic patients discovered which specific part of the front lobe was responsible for our speech or syntactical abilities. He did so when he found a lesion on one of his patients in the ventroposterior part of his frontal lobe. Because of this, his patient barely had syntactical abilities and barely said the word “tan”.This part became known as the Broca's area. Roger Sperry won a nobel prize for his work called the “split brain”. In his study, he tested ten patients who had epileptics. They tested these people, by asking them to do different tasks that were known to be controlled by specific brain hemispheres. By doing so, Sperry found out each brain hemisphere had consciousness. Karl Wernicke, found out that language and comprehension deficiencies were not always due to damage or lesions in the part of the brain known as the Borca's area. He found out that damage on the left posterior, superior temporal gyrus also caused lack of language comprehension. This part of the brain is know as the Wernicke's area. Specific brain lobes are responsible for our abilities. For instance, our vision and ability to recognize things comes from our occipital lobe. The temporal lobe is most responsible for our hearing and language. The frontal lobe is most responsible for us to do math calculations. The frontal lobe is also the most responsible for our abilities of judgment, reasoning, and ability to control our impulse. I believe the brain is the mos extraordinary part in our bodies. I as a person have a goal to unlock more and more of the incredible potential my brain has.

Sources-

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

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

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

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

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

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

Phineas Gage and his extroardinary case

Phineas Gage was an American citizen who worked at a railroad. He was an ordinary and common man until he suffered a terrible accident which he surprisingly survived. It is because of this accident that Phineas Gage is well known in modern days. His accident occurred on a normal day while working at the railroad blasting rocks in order to make space for a roadbed. He was ordered to destroy a large body of rock. To do this he needed to blow it up with an explosive mixture of gun powder, fuse and sand. The explosive could not be just placed beside the body of rock for it to explode. Instead, with the help of a large and sharp iron bar he needed to place and compress the explosive mixture deep into the body of rock. But, Phineas Gage forgot to add sand to the mixture. So the explosive suddenly exploded and the iron bar flew and went through his face and front part of his brain. But,amazingly Gage did not die. In fact, he was already speaking minutes after the accident. Although their was thought not to be any damage to him in any way , there was a great change in his personality. He became a person people do not wanted to be with. He always spoke the first think that came to his mind, not caring if it was really offensive. He used to be a very responsible and hard-working man. But, because of the accident he had a very different personality. As a result he lost social inhibition abilities completely. From this case we learn that the destruction of some parts of the brain like the front cortex may not cause death. But, surely can affect people in one way or another. In the case of Gage, his great change of personality led to inappropriate behavior amongst other people. The idea of brain localization states that many individual parts of the brain are in charge of making certain actions. Meaning the frontal cortex was probably in control of the social abilities of a person. The concept of brain lateralization states that the left side of the brain and right side of the brain are responsible for different human actions and behavior. Gage's right frontal cortex was destroyed by the iron bar. Meaning the right brain is responsible for humans to think in a creative way and be social. To conclude, the case of Phineas Gage was really extraordinary and still amazes current scientists.

Athletic Abilities- Nature or Nurture?

     Have you ever wondered where traits such as intelligence and athletic ability come from? The truth is that it may vary according to the trait. What is surely known about these traits is that they come both from nature and nurture. But, there is an ongoing debate discussing whether each of the specific special traits a person has, comes more from genes or the environment. Athletic ability is amongst these discussed traits. Special abilities in sports such as basketball or soccer may have something to do with genes, but I believe nurture plays a much bigger part than nature. I do because one can be born tall, strong, or fast, but no one was born already knowing a particular sport. All professionals in any sport had to begin by learning the basics of the sport. Then they needed to find the area or position in the sport in which they play the best and are more effective. They needed to learn techniques and develop many new skills. Also, athletes have to learn from past mistakes in order to gain experience. Only then by repeatedly going through all of this things, the person will get better and better at the particular sport. So, depending on many things they may end up being professional athletes at a sport. But, I am sure that there is no way that any professional athlete had their special athletic abilities in their genes.




     Beliefs in Psychology and Science say that both genes and the environment play a large role to determine whether a person should or should not develop athletic abilities. For instance, a professional football player would have never become good enough for playing in the big leagues if he was not strong enough, tall enough or fast enough. Meaning that genes play this part since height and muscularity are hereditary. But, the question lies that even if a person had the physique of a football player but never trained, or even played might be good at football. Probably not since training sessions are the most effective on becoming a good athlete. It is not sure whether nature or nurture play a bigger role for having athletic abilities. There is a great belief in people that athletic abilities come more from nature. For instance, Bobby and Barry Bonds. Both father and son are baseball stars, so many believe that Barry is so good because his father passed his traits of being a good athlete. But, Barry's environment may have played a bigger role on his baseball skills. Since his father was a baseball star, young Barry may have seen him as a role model so he probably trained a lot since young. He never stopped training and training until he became as good or even better than his father was. Barry's strength, height or speed is surely hereditary. But, it is not for sure if his amazing baseball skills were on his genes. The truth is that scientists nor psychologist have found the answer of where do athletic abilities mostly come from since the theme is so complex. Never the less, there is a universal belief that both nature and nurture determine special traits in people like athletic abilities.



     In conclusion, there is not an answer on whether genes or environment are more effective on people in order to have good athletic abilities. Probably there will never be an answer since so complex themes like nature and nurture and creation were never meant to be understood by human beings. For sure, nature and nurture both play a great role but I believe nurture plays a much bigger role than nature in athletic abilities. I believe so because of different variations of good abilities in different sports in diverse countries. Also, because no athlete was born already playing like a professional. What is certain is that each person is unique regardless similar environments or same parents.
 
Sources-
 
1.http://www.thetech.org/genetics/ask.php?id=91
2.http://expertfootball.com/training/naturevsnurture.php
 
 
 

Bob and Barry Bonds( Father son all star baseball players)

Lionel Messi( Best Soccer player in the world)