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.

Ebola and Globalization

                I learned a lot that I did not know about Ebola. I learned that the disease is originally thought to have started in a river but it is suspected to be carried by bats. I also learned that in the United States it is more likely for a person to get struck by lightning than contracting Ebola. Our team figured out that the only thing to do to stop the virus was to quarantine it. We had to cut the host out of the environment. We realized that the reason the virus spreads so furiously in Africa is because of their poor living conditions. It is very difficult for them to avoid contact with the disease. So we figured why not remove the disease from the area. We decided to do the same thing that was done to the lepers. We decided the most effective way to remove the contagion from the environment would be to put it on an island. On the island you can control the contact with the infected ensuring no more people infect themselves.

Striking Things About Healthcare

1. That the American Dental Association is contributing $1.3 million dollars to this corruption.
2. That health professionals are spending $46.7 million on lobbying. What kind of system is it that health professionals (doctors) are spending millions of dollars in politics. 
3. The years this country went through a depression, 2007-2009, more money was spent on lobbying than in the previous 9 years.
4. People tend to think of the GOP as the greedy old men that would do accept these bribes and corruption. People wouldn't be wrong on average more money tends to be spent on republicans. However in 2008 the democratic party was paid $17 million more than the GOP.
5. I find it wrong that the American people are told that we do not have enough money for health care or that a socialized health care system would never work because we don't have the money. They tell us these things all while they contribute $1.3 million to the campaign's of politicians like Mitch McConnell.
6. I find it striking that a congressman or woman the people who are supposed to honorable and uphold the constitution of these United States can be bought for an average of $153,000.
7.  The fact that whichever party is controlling the senate is the one that is getting paid the most. However in the last 10 years whenever one party gets a raise the other party does to.
8. I find it outstanding that the top contributors spent an estimated $19.7 million on buying politicians when they could have been putting that money to good use, at least something more useful than politics.
9. I find it interesting how the amounts of money being paid out in 2014 severely dropped. Almost like after Obama won his next presidency the companies decided to give up for awhile until the next election.
10. I find it astounding that physicians and other healthcare professionals are some of the largest contributors to politicians. No private company or specific person should be allowed to buy these politicians as plainly as it happens today. 

The Cost of Health Care

               

                So, recently we watched the Michael Moore documentary Sicko. This was an enlightening documentary. I have never quite understood the American health care system. Not so much the fact that we pay our doctors or the amount checkup costs.  The things I have never understood was how much medicine cost, the cost for simple procedures such as X-rays and blood draws, and the fact that some people were denied proper treatment because they didn’t have insurance or their insurance simply denied them the care they needed. I find it wrong that we charge high prices for medications. We even charge people for penicillin a drug so easily produced that it was accidentally discovered on bread. That fact that last year my parents paid over $100 dollars for a blood draw and lab work. A blood draw is simple a nurse draws blood, they send it to the lab, a lab tech looks at a sample of the blood under a microscope and tries to determine if there are any identifiable diseases or conditions in the blood. None of this procedure is hard or should cost more than maybe $20. I find it very disturbing that health insurance companies hire doctors to evaluate cases in order to turn people down for the care they need just so the company doesn’t have to pay. Doctors take a Hippocratic Oath part of this oath is that they will not intentionally harm someone and that they will always provide care to people. By purposefully turning down people who need care just so insurance companies don’t have to pay aren’t these doctors breaking their oaths. Shouldn’t these people be punished or even imprisoned. We live in a system of fear. We need to break free.