Last one...

So now there is the final blog post. I don't really know if we have to make one but I guess I'd rather be safe than sorry. We aren't really doing much now so I think I'll just reflect on the class in general.

Overall, I did enjoy the class. I thought it was very interesting and I learned a lot. The netbooks was a very good experience, especially since next year I'll have my own at college. After using them however, I think I'll stick to the old pen and paper. The internet just gets way too distracting and I feel like I take in notes a lot more when I write them instead of typing. Because many times, I can type something without actually consciously thinking about what I am typing. Hopefully I did good on the AP test. Adios!!

A.P. Test

So the A.P. test was yesterday. Overall I think that I did pretty good. The multiple choice was by far the most difficult. I don't know why but there were questions that were a lot more in depth than what were on the practice tests. The essays were a lot more common sense than what I though, at last that was what I thought.

Right now we're watching a movie. I forgot what it was called but still, even though it is an old movie I really like it. Except I don't know what his motive is right now, for proving the things that he is trying to prove. I guess we'll just see what happens...

So the rest of the movie. It was much better than I expected. The idea that medication could bring a person like that back to life is pretty remarkable.

Culture Shock

I've traveled to my fair share of countries in my life. In one year alone, I went to France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Costa Rica. The countries in Europe did not seem all that different from America. But in Costa Rica, it was shocking to see the kinds of conditions that many people live in. The shacks that they live in really is unbelievable, especially to think the types of homes that we live in here in the states.

We also did a relaxation session. Before every big meet the swim team does something similar to this. We lay on the pool deck and relax every muscle in our body. THen we envision our swims, because it goes along the principle that if you think you can, then you can.

This Week...

To start out, this week was really nice because I had no reading. So hopefully by going over my notes now that I took over spring break I will better understand everything. I thought the most interesting thing this week was about hunger. Particulary why people that are obese have a very hard time keeping that weight off. I never realized that a big difference between someone obese and someone that isn't, is not just because the fat cells are larger but also because there are more fat cells in the body.
Yesterday we talked about sex...ya...
Today was about facial expressions. I knew that the eyes tend to give away whether or not the smile is genuine or not, but I wonder how many times people display fake smiles? I'm pretty sure that most of my smiles are real, but obviously there are some situations where I display a fake smile.

Borderline Personality Disorder

Before these past few days, I thought that depression described just about every personality disorder. When people are moody or cut themselves, I thought they were depressed. Now that I've read this article I know that this is definitely not the case. Borderline personality disorder (BPS) is the disorder that doctors fear most. 75% of the people diagnosed with BPS hurt themselves and 6% end up committing suicide. The elements that make BPS so scary to psychologists is the patient's inablity to calibrate their feelings and behavior. The polar opposites in behavior that someone with BPS shows is astounding. They may react to something with either no emotion or they may become so enraged that they hurt people.

The reason why psychologists are so afraid of people with BPS is because there are so many problems going on in the mind that he/she is not able to focus on just one particular thing to cure. So often times, people with BPS are overmedicated. Many times, these drugs create feelings that do not allow the person the many feelings. Meaning that they are so distraught that they have no emotions and are not able to feel any physical pain. So they are desperate, which causes them to hurt themselves in way or another. Overall, this article is about people with BPS and how many more people are affected by this disorder than many think. And the more society changes, the more people are going to feel left out. So many psychologists are coming up with ways that will help people suffering from BPS.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1870491-2,00.html

Awakenings: Schizophrenia

This article is a huge eye-opener to all those that are not very knowledgable about schizophrenia, including myself. It starts out talking about how in New York, an organization was holding a prom; for anyone and everyone. Because for many people with schizophrenia, they were either not able or not willing to attend their own prom when they were in high school. It talks about how most people do not have any memories before the age of 20, because all they remember darkness and fear of some foreign object that only they can see, hear, or feel. However, within the past few years, researchers have discovered a new drug that has the potential to help those with this disorder. People that have taken this drug and have gotten better say that it is like they are re-born again because now they don't have something haunting them.

Over 1/4 of the nation's hospital beds are being occupied by those that have schizophrenia. Whether that be because of drug or alcohol abuse, they are still taking up a lot of beds. Schizophrenia is a disorder that causes the person to sometimes hear voices telling him/her to do something. Sometimes hit the parents, take drugs, run away, act like a new-born infant so that that the mother or father has to diaper him/her again, and many other things.

If the researchers would be able to produce a drug that cures schizophrenia, it would cause much less chaos in the world today. So hopefully, someday someone will because after reading this article I realized that schizophrenia harms a lot more people than one might realize.


http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,975910-3,00.html

Superstitions vs. OCD

I've always wondered whether someone that is superstitious has some sort of psychological disorder, but after today I know the answer is no. People that are involved in sports, band, or some other activity tend to have one if not more superstitions. Most know that I have been pretty heavily involved in swimming for many years. Before each meet, I always listen to ACDC. If I don't, I feel like I'm not going to swim as well as I am able to. One of the meets this year my iPod froze and I immediately didn't think I would do well. Turns out I did. Also, before every one of my races I take one drink of Gatorade and then one drink of water. I don't know why I do this, but I must have done this one time and the end result was good.

Today, I figured out that to be superstitious does not mean that you have OCD. Someone that is OCD is not able to perform a particular action, while a person that is superstitious is still able to do something, they just don't think they will be able to perform as well. Superstition is solely mental that people are able to control, OCD is also mental but they're not able to control the way they think or act about something.

Spring Break Reading

So the thing that I love most is reading the wrong hundred pages over break. At least I'll have those chapters done when those are assigned. But still. I guess I'll just talk most about those chapters because I liked those more. It talked about motivation and why people do what they do. Most of it was pretty obvious. But I thought that learning about why people become obese and why it is so hard to keep the weight off was really interesting. When a person becomes obese, their fat cells multiply and grow. When that same person attempts to lose weight, the number of fat cells stay the same, but the size of them get smaller. So it is really hard to keep off the weight because there are still so many fat cells still there.

But going to Chapter 3 which we are reading now. All about sleep. So it was really hard to ready at 11:30 at night because all I want to do is sleep. I think that is is really neat how even when a person is unconcious, their mind is still functioning. Also, about dreams, what happens if I honestly cannot remember any of my dreams? How am I supposed to do these assignments with just a handful?

Spring Break

I think the coolest thing we read about this week was learning about the savant syndrome. Even though when people think of a savant, they think of people that have some form autism, I think that it is possible to be a savant even when you are not autistic. Everyone has one thing that they are good at, so wouldn't that mean that we all have some sort of savant ability? Maybe not to the extent of autistic people, but we all have something that makes us unique. One of my friends somehow knows every little useless fact about life and is able to quote every movie after seeing it only once. But this doesn't mean he is necessarily a savant. Still though, I think that the studies done with savants is really cool.

This Week (5??? [I don't know where four went])...

Learning about how memory and how we think really interested me this week. I've always felt like I have a fairly poor short term memory so to learn why that is kept me attention. Perhaps when people are telling me things or I am telling others things, I tend to lose focus causing me not to encode the full message. I am trying to make a concerted effort to pay more attention in all aspects of my life. But connecting this info to class, I defintely noticed that because of the netbooks I tend to lose focus with what the discussion is in class. Its almost like I have to be 100% on task to fully grasp what is going on, this definetely holds true in Spanish. In that class too, I tend to zone out and it is super hard to get back on track especially because it is a different language.

Stations:

Priming - when I was first told of the "nail activity," I didn't know what I was supposed to do, but as soon as I saw the device, I remembererd what was needed to be done

Insight - during the human jumping activity, I didn't really know what to do. But after looking at it for a while, the solution suddenly came to me

Algorithms - the step by step instructions/clues that were given to us in the puzzle helped me figure it out. Well it at least was supposed to, I'm still trying to figure it out...

Mental Set - I was in DI this year and we do a lot of things that are similar to the record activity. So when I started messing around with it, I thought I knew what I was doing because it had worked for me in the past

Cognition - to do all of these activities, much less live our every day lives, we need to think and that is exactly what cognition is

Overconfidence - with the puzzle that was given to us; I was positive that I was right with one of my answers, turns out after being shoed a different thought process, I was actually wrong

This Week (3)...

This week, the topic that got me thinking most was when we were discussing whether or not whawt we do is intrinsically or extinsically motivated. I am involved in a lot of things, but I am both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated to do just about everything. I have been involved in swimming for a very long time. I am in it not only because I want to stay in shape, but also because I want that feeling knowing that I am doing something good. I'll admit, the main reason I am in AP Psych is to get college credit. Thats how it is with most AP classes. However, with a class that I took last semester, CCE 101, I was actually in it because I wanted the knowledge of how to write a good paper, because in college it is highly probable that I will be writing many many many papers. Overall, I'm really starting to like what we are doing in this class because now it seems more like Psychology instead of Biology.

This week (2)...

We did a lot of things this week. Monday, W's dad came in and I thought that it was very interesting. I remember hearing about some of those things when I toured Madison, but I didn't know what exactly they were talking about. Tuesday was the test, besides the fact that it was kind of ridiculous that there were 15 or so questions from the last test, I thought it went well. The past two days, we have talked about learning. For some of the examples for both classic and operant conditioning, I was a little confused. At home, there are definitely examples of conditioning. The best example would be with my cat. My cat likes food, actually he REALLY likes food. His food dish is in the bathroom which is right by the garage. Whenever someone in our family walks to fill up his dish, the floor creaks. Now whenever we walk to the garage, causing the floor to creak, he comes running because he thinks he is getting food.

I understand that this is conditioning, but what kind, operant or classic?

This week...

This week was probably the most interesting, yet confusing. All of the biology and anatomy things was somewhat new and interesting, but I especially enjoyed learning all about perception. All of the pictures in the book were awesome to look at. I had either seen those pictures before or had heard about a certain theory, but I never actually realized just how fascinating some of it may be. Like the blindspot, where we would hold the paper out in front with one eye close and depending on where you held the paper, the X would disappear. I thought that was very cool. The other thing that I learned that was very cool was the green and yellow flag. I've always noticed before how when you look at red for a long period of time, that green would show up after. But I never knew why. Overall, even though I did pretty bad on the quiz, I definitely enjoyed this week and I REALLY hope the test goes better.

ASG's PSA

Ali, Stevie's, and Grace's PSA was also done very well. The beginning caught my attention so that must mean it was a good hook. Each one of their slides was very timely so that kept me interested. And each one of the stages was described both so someone that is scholarly (like me) and someone who is not could understand them.

Noah's PSA

Noah's PSA was done very well. It was very comical, with a lot of dry humor so that was entertaining. He used the scholarly words that I think would appeal to the parents wanting to move into Ashwaubenon. The slideshow was very timely, because as soon as the topic was done, a new picture was brought up. Every single one of the slides had humor, yet the humor made sense because it talked about all about Erikson's stages. All in all, very entertaining.

MAITE - Enough Said

After watching Mariahs, Patricks, and Katie's PSA announcement, I'll admit I am a little embarrassed the way ours turned out. We thought ours was good, but the commentary was probably not what it could have been. I think the thing that confused us the most was the fact that it was hard to decipher whether or not we should talk more scholarly, or more basic. Because most of the public doesn't know who Erik Erikson is. Anyways...

The PSA that Mariah and co. made was very well done. They incorporated the information needed so that it sounded scholarly while also talking about the places in basic terms. I liked the use of going around town to various places to tell which places in Ashwaubenon are for various places. Even the basic ones, like drawing, were different because most people don't think of that as an activity.

Although I am kinda confused as to why Mariah was wearing her swimsuit outside, while you were wearing clothes inside the pool area...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0qoY_5ymOo&feature=related

Social Clock

We talked a lot about the social clock today and I never realized how true it really is. Even when we are young, children are expected to play sports, have friends, do well in school. If not, everyone asks why? I know that me personally I really dislike it when people ask me these types of questions. Then again, i'm guilty of asking these questions. Everyday, people ask me what I'm doing with my life, where I'm going to college, what I'm going to major in. And I definetely know that I am sick of it.

All around us, there are these types of things that people are expected to do. Right now, the juniors are getting asked about prom. The seniors about college. Once we get to college, the question over and over again is what are you majoring in. After college, there is career questions, marriage and kid questions. Everything is supposed to come in a specific order and even though people say it doesn't matter when these things happen, it really does. When I am asked about college, I tell them I don't know, because that is the truth. But they raise their nose and somewhat don't accept my answer. So recently I've started to make it up. They don't know that I am partly lying, they accept any answer.

Old Brain, New Tricks

The tongue is the one of the most sensitive areas in the body. When the tongue feels something, it is sent to the sensory cortex on either the left or right hemisphere depending on which side of the tongue the feeling is coming from. However to get to the brain, it travels from the tongue to the spinal cord via the sensory neurons. The sensory neurons travel from the spinal cord tothe thalamus. From there, the sensory neurons would relay to the messages to the interneurons, which are sent to the frontal lobes where the sensory cortex is located. After this, the message would be sent to the occipatal lobe where the eyesight is located. Once the occipatal lobe receives the message, the individual using this apparatus is able to see.

Amphetamine

Amphetamine is known to produce increased wakefulness and focus during a time of decreased fatigue and appetite. Amphetamines are used to treat ADHD, symptoms of traumatic brain injury, and daytime drowsiness. However, there are other potent drugs that are associated with amphetamine such as met methamphetamine, levoamphetamine, and dextroamphetimine. Amphetamine affects the neurotransmitters that have to do with the reward experience. This neurotransmitter mostly being dopamine; however in the regions of the brain that form new memories, such as the hippocampus, the drug does not affect dopamine.

Most of the time, amphetamines would be considered an agonist because it increases the levels of dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine throughout specific parts of the brain. However, a recent study has suggested that amphetamines are both agonists and antagonists. This is because when the amphetamine is released into the body, it acts on a protein that is a part of the DAT (the dopamine transporter). By acting on this protein, it not only causes the dopamine levels to increase, but it is also inhibits the reuptake of dopamine.

Amphetamines have been found to contain specific proteins that he brain already creates naturally, causing the number of these proteins to raise. The presence of amphetamines most directly affects Phenylalanine and β-Phenethylamine, which are formed in the peripheral nervous system as well as in the brain itself. These molecules are thought to modulate levels of excitement and alertness.

When used correctly, amphetamine can be a very useful drug. However, it is being used in many ways that was not intended. Many gangs use it to create an artificial high for a short period of time. Tolerance is developed rapidly in amphetamine abuse, thereby the amount of the drug that is needed to satisfy the addiction needs to be increased at regular intervals. This is how the addiction that many users have today is created. If an addiction is created, the user needs to take a different drug that also increases the amount of dopamine levels so that it feels as if the amphetamine is still being used. However, with the use of a different drug to create the same effects, the user won't feel it necessary anymore to Tolerance is developed rapidly in amphetamine abuse, thereby the amount of the drug that is needed to satisfy the addiction needs to be increased at regular intervals. But when amphetimen is used correctly, it does many wonderful things. The main thing that it does is that it increases alertness when the patient is either drowsy, depressed, ill, etc.

Dead or Not?

We first tried to make this video last Thursday. It was funning while we were filming but it was very frustrating when we were trying to upload the video on the internet. We tried everything possible, we went to both of our houses to try both computers, we tried multiple chords, and we tried all of the TVs but for some reason it didn't work. So when the due date was pushed back we decided to re-film our interview using the video camera on a computer. This worked much better and it was much for efficient. Overall, I liked doing this project and it was an interesting way to learn about a psychologist.

Technology???

When I first heard that we were going to use Netbooks, I was very excited. But then I started thinking more and realized that maybe I won't like it all that much. I have always used the standard pen and paper to take notes, so I was a little worried about how this new teaching tool would work for me. I am still a little worried but after hearing what we will be using this Netbook for, I am very excited. It would be so cool to Skype with other people around the world. So ya, I'm pretty excited about using this Netbook for the class.