Teaching

I taught my ex-girlfriend when it was ok to touch my car radio and other such controls. By using operant conditioning with positive and negative reinforcement I was able to teach her when I like the radio station changed or the volume adjusted. For example we were driving down the road while the song Black Water by the Doobie Brothers was playing, this is one of my favorite songs. She being the girl she was did not enjoy the song and reached up to change the station. I simply slapped her hand away. After doing this you would expect her to not want to touch the radio dial at all, however when a commercial was on I would simply politely ask her to change the station and when she did I would thank her and smile. After a few car rides she learned not to touch the radio while a song is playing and she also learned so well that the second she heard commercials she would change the station.

Classical Conditioning

Unconditioned Stimulus: Tough hardworking cowboy
Conditioned Stimulus: Marlboro
Unconditioned Response: Wanting to be cool or tough like the cowboy
Conditioned Response: Thinking smoking Marlboro will make you tough and hardworking like the cowboy

Scientific Analysis

Practice really does make perfect

1. The research was about how multiple skills and single motor skills can be more quickly learned by adding a follow through to the motion. This means that by adding a follow through, what you do when swinging a bat or golf club, a motor skill will be more easily committed to memory.
2. The article does not say.
3. The article does not say.
4. The article does not say.
5. The subjects grasped a robotic arm and made a stroke motion through a force field at a target while continuing into and unopposed follow through motion to one of two separate targets.
6. The experiment found that there was less interference in the brain when a follow through motion was added to the original stoke motion.
7. Yes it is already known that our memories work by preparing us for a future action, by adding the follow through it gave a future action for the subjects to focus on.

Monkeys can learn to see themselves in the mirror

1. Monkeys can be taught to self recognize.
2. 7
3. no
4. The article doesn't specifically say but they are monkeys so it is probably pretty general.
5. The monkeys were sat in front of a mirror and irritated with a laser. The monkeys learned to touch the part of their face that was being irritated by the laser.
6. The monkeys seemed to start learning self recognition
7. Yes

Humans speech's surprising influence on infants

1.  speaking to children affects their learning process
2. the article didn't say
3. the article didn't say
4. the article didn't say
5. In multiple labs conducted infants were found to advance quicker when spoken to like actual people.
6. Infants not spoken to progressed slower than ones that were.
7. Yes

Favorites, Least Favorites, and Psychology

1. Favorite word – maybe
2. Least favorite word – government
3. One thing I like about my life – procrastination
4. One thing I don’t like about my life – government
5. Profession I would like to attempt – Law Enforcement
6. Profession I would never attempt – Government Teacher
7. What 3 words best describe me – Sarcastic, nonchalant, conniving

 

I believe that psychology will be a very interesting class. I hope to gain many things from the class. First I hope that I will be able to learn the reasons people act the way they do. I hope to learn they the human brain handles the challenges of life. I also hope to learn about people who are born with psychological diseases such as sociopaths and psychos. I also hope to learn how classmates would react to things like The Devil’s advocate and how they would process choices like; if a two year old and a 50 year old are drowning and neither of them know how to swim but you can only save one which would you save? I also look forward to this class because I am going to have to take psychology or a similar course as part of my college classes. I believe I could greatly benefit from this course. I will be honest I am also in this class because there are not really any other options of other classes for me to take. I hope to learn a lot from the twisted yet analytical mind of Mr.R.