Law of Effect and Operant Conditioning

Edward Thorndike:

1. Explain Thorndike's puzzle-box experiment.

The experiment was that he put a cat in a puzzle box with a and food outside of the box. After first trying to reach through and try to get out and get the food, the cats only way out was by pressing the lever. Every time the cat came out he placed him back in and them timed him, and every time it was less and less time to get out of the box to get the food.

2. Explain Thorndike's "Law of Effect".

Law of effect: Actions bring a consequence and that determines future behavior

3. Explain Thorndike's "Law of Exercise".

Law of Exercise:  the behavioral responses that were followed by a pleasing result are most likely to occur again in response to the same stimulus.  

B.F. Skinner:

1. Explain Skinner's concept of Operant Conditioning

Skinners concept of Operating Conditioning is that reinforcement and punishment change our behavioral tendencies

2. What does  reinforcement always do?

In reinforcement the behavior increases.

3. What does a punishment alsways do?

In punishment the behavior decreases.

4. Explain the difference between "postive" and "negative" as they are used in opernat conditioning.

That in positive you give something wether good or bad, and in negative it is the opposite you take away something.

Work Cited:

http://www.kidsdevelopment.co.uk/BFSkinnersBehaviouralTheory.html

http://tip.psychology.org/skinner.html

http://psychology.about.com/od/lindex/g/lawofeffect.htm

http://www.nvc.vt.edu/alhrd/Theorists/Thorndike.htm

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

Ivan Pavlov:

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

Pavlov was originally studying and researching about the physiology of digestion. In his expirement he studied the silavery in dogs digestion.

2. Explain (in detail) how Pavlov's experiment was conducted.

Pavlov idea was actually to make the dog salivate without having the food right in front of him. So what he did was that he got the dog and gave him some food and he was salivating, after that he gave him food and rang a bell. As a result every time the bell was rang the dog started to salivate even though the food was not there because he knew that after the bell the food came.

3. Identify the conditioned stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned response from Pavlov's experiment.

the conditioned stimulus was the bell

the unconditioned stimulus was the food

the conditioned response was the salivation of the dog.

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

Extinction is a gradual weakening and eventual disappearance of the conditional response tendency.

5. Explain what stimulus generalization means in relation to classical conditioning.

Stimulus generalization is the tendency for the conditioned stimulus to produce similar responses after the response has been conditioned

6. Explain what stimulus discrimination means in relation to classical conditioning.

stimulus discrimination is the ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli that have not been paired with an unconditioned stimulus.

7. Explain at least two limitations of this experiment.

The limitations is that it was used in dogs and for humans it would of be a different procedure, and that Pavlov had to work on the dogs glands for the salivery.

8. Explain what Pavlov theorized about how we learn.

The theorized we could conclude that the way we learn is by association

John B. Watson:

1. Explain (in detail) how Watson's "Little Albert" study was conducted. Watson was using the study of how behaviorsim works. So he used Litlle Albert to test. He places many animals to little albert and nothing seemed to really scared him or make him cause and bog noise, after some months later they presented little albert some animals again and one of them was a furry white rat, while albert had this animal infront of him Watson and the expirimental made a sound so it scared Litlle Albert, after this happended every then any furry object was near Litlle albert he screamed and cried a lot because he was scared.

2. Identify the conditioned stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned response from Watson's study

   Condtioned Stimulus: The rat.

    Unconditioned Stimulus: The noise.

    Conditioned response: Baby crying.           

3. Explain at least two limitations of this study.

The limitations were Unethical means and it cannot be replicated

4. Explain Watson's law of frequency

The law of frequency states that the most often events are linked, the more powerful will be the association.

5. Explain Watson's law of recency.

the law of recency states that the response that has most recently occurred after a particular stimulus is the response most likely to be associated with that stimulus.

6. Explain the basic assumptions of behaviorism according to Watson.

Behaviorism: all behavior is determined by our environment. Should not study any mental process because it cannot be observed – only behavior can be observed so it is the only reliable subject for study. How we act in.

·      Work cited:

·      http://teachnet.edb.utexas.edu/~Lynda_abbot/Behaviorism.html           

·      http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/misc_topics/pavlov.html

·      http://nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/pavlov/readmore.html

·      http://www.mysdcc.sdccd.edu/Staff/Instructor_Development/Content/HTML/Laws_of_Learning.htm

ARTICLES

ARTICLE #1

Why Does Lack of Sleep Affect Us Differently? Study Hints It May Be in Our Genes

The American Academy of Neurology, was the whom made the experiment, or research about how every one was the different kind lacking sleep effects. They made the study of poeple who the the varient that there is a sleeping desseas which is called narcolepsy, that it is excessive daytime sleeping. This found out and exmpirimented with the gene variant called DQB1*0602, having these doe snot mean it you will have the diserdor, but as they made there expiriment they got that 38 percent of poeple who have this varient do not have the diserdor and are concidered that they have a healthy sleep. Students were used through the expiriemnt they gathered 92 healthy students withour the varient and 37 with the varient, but without the sleeping disorder, which later they made their expiriment of tessting hours and sleeping till 10 hours and then oly through 4 hours. at the end researches could conclude that the ones with the gene varient were more sleepier than the other ones. At the end there were many things that varied with the two diffrent kinds of poeple. in my opinion i think its a good article cause it taught me things i did not knew before, and it was intresting to know about the diffrent types and how it varies. 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101025161023.htm
http://www.topnews.in/files/Lack-Sleep-5783.jpg








ARTICLE #2

Starting High School One Hour Later May Reduce Teen Traffic Accidents

Senior author Barbara Phillips, MD, director of the UK Healthcare Good Samaritan Sleep Center in Lexington, Ky.

"It is surprising that high schools continue to set their start times early, which impairs learning, attendance and driving safety of the students,". In this research it was tested that if the school es delayed one hour all many things as car craches will decrease, they will get better grades, functions better, etc. In the first year Highschool strated school at 7:30 had the ones form middleschoool at 8, they thought it was too early and they had to delay the time of strat. For the next year the highschool entered at 8:30 and the middleschoolers at 9:00. Through their researsh expirminets and testing, reseaerchers could conclud that yes with a delayed time start that is a good sleeping studnets function better, and yes it does decreas the teen traffic accidents. In my personal opinion I support this researcha lot because i think we as studnets really need to have a good time sleeping so we can really functions, and at genereal all should have a good sleep to prevent traffic accidents. 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081215074351.htm

http://www.driversedguru.com/wp-content/gallery/beth-images/major-car-accident-with-assistance.jpg

 

ARTICLE #3

Delayed School Start Time Associated With Improvements in Adolescent Behaviors

The delay of 30 minutes improves the behavior of the students. Judith A. Owens, M.D., M.P.H., of the Hasbro Children's Hospital, Providence, and colleagues, studied 201 students in grades 9 through 12 attending an independent high school in Rhode Island. After the 3o minutes delayed studnets had to fill up a survey given, that before students had a diffeent mood like for exmaple unhappy. Afterwars their mood changed and it had a better challange for them, and they had even more energys and had a real postiive open mind towards the activities.  I think that delaying the time for studnets its kind a good idea because you get to school with a postive mind and a hapy attidude and things will work out excellent, and in the other had if you come to school angry and negative things will fail. 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100705190532.htm

http://www.teradyne.com/hr/images/common/students.jpg

Teenage Brains

As known teenage is a time in your life were your starting to change in all aspects physically and emotionally. This is a stage were you think that since you’re a teenager you feel big and think that parents are simply annoying and they just bug you when they are simply trying to help, but when you are a teenage you do not understand that way. This has much to do with the development of the Frontal lobe because this is the part that controls your behaviors, manners, actions toward others etc., so you can conclude that in a teenage time when you think this way of your parents is that your immature cause still your frontal lobe has still yet not fully developed.  In some occasion parents just do not understand “teenage” and they get angry and then the teenage get angrier and then this big fight starts. But well, scientist have the idea ad think that one of the causes why teenagers ages are like this is because they actually do not have the right and correct time of sleep, and the time of sleep is very important because it influences the development of your brain. to be on time, to be responsible, and to be on task you must sleep. No one other than teenagers could understand, that’s just a time in life that everyone passes through but eventually by the time you grow and the experience life you get more and more mature as well your brain starts to develop even more.

 picture: 

http://neuroanthropology.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/leslie-cober-gentry-on-teen-brain-in-harvard-magazine-oct-08.png

Nature vs Nuture

            For over many years this topic of nature vs. nurture has been debated. As know nature is something that you bring with you from birth that is caused by your genetics, and nurture is what you form through your life and the environment you grow. Where does your intelligence come from is it nature or nurture? In my opinion I think intelligence has a great part of nature, something you come with, that its an ability to have a bigger capacity to store things in your brain, or even have the ability of learning things faster and that they actually stay in your brain, for example an ability of having photographic memory cause that’s something that I think you develop through your growth. In the other hand I cant leave behind nurture, I also think intelligence my included a small percent of nurture, because through life you learn knew things and makes your brain practice or even just makes you a disciplined person. Its hard to identify were does intelligence comes from.

            After researched of many types of debate and scientist opinions I could come to a conclusion that Scientist have been debated this topic for many years. Some scientist actually state and confirm that intelligence comes from Nature because of what some scientist tested and sated that “On the genetics side, a great deal of adoptive study has provided evidence of a degree of genetic influence to our intelligence. Using studies that involved twins separated at birth, and those separated and adopted, psychologists were able to eliminate many of the confounds that had previously caused other studies to fall apart. These studies found that adopted children tended to have more in common as far as IQ with their biological mother instead of their adoptive parent”, what we can tell about this investigation that yes intelligence may be partially genetic because cause you should can get born with their intelligent of mathematics for example. Not living behind the best example is Albert Einstein which they found a specific part of his brain was larger relating to spatial intelligence, and this made him be higher of intelligence in this designated area. This can support my idea of thinking that intelligence really does come from your genes, but eventually through time your intelligence may get higher or lower depending the type of environment you start to develop yourself since your little, cause its said that your brain captures more when you little than when your older. We have so many capacities in our brain that we don’t even use half of it. All of use have intelligence the difference some of us are born with a higher lever and keep on developing through your growth and other simply are born with a small level and just doesn’t care on getting to practice it.

In conclusion from the research I can conclude that intelligence is from nature but you have partial and short amount added by the nurture and by what you learn from your environment.

Phineas Gage

Phineas Gage was a minor man, who has been a survival of such a brain damage. The story of these famous man consists in that he had this accident in which was performing his usual work when an accident occurred. His routine was to add gunpowder, fuse and sand together then compress the mixture with a large iron rod, Phineas forgot to add the sand one time and the explosive mixture blew to his face resulting in the iron rod piercing his head. It entered the side of his head and went out at the top. The iron rod was driven completely through his head, destroying much of his brain's left frontal lobe, and for that injury's reported effects on his personality and behavior—effects so profound that friends saw him as "no longer Gage." What we can learn from this accident is that the frontal lobe controls your emotions, manners, the way of treating other, etc. I can tell this because before the accident Gage was a kind man whom everyone liked to be around, and after this incident that he damage the frontal lobe his actions toward people started to change as said people couldn’t even recognize him. Brain Lateralization is the idea that the two halves of the brain's cerebral cortex -- left and right -- execute different functions, and the Brain Localization different parts of the brain carry out different functions (e.g., vision, control of voluntary movement, understanding speech, etc.) and, conversely, that not all parts of the brain do the same thing

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

http://facstaff.gpc.edu/~bbrown/psyc1501/brain/loclat.htm

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

The Brain

1. What does the word "hemisphere" refer to when talking about the brain?

When talking about the brain “hemisphere” refers to the two different ways the brain is divided the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere.

2. What are the major differences between the left and right sides of the brain?

The Right side:                  

·       Intuition

·       Creativity

·       Art

·       Music

The Left side:

·       Analytical thoughts

·       Logic

·       Science

·       Math

3. What is the corpus coliseum?

Are the two parts of the brain (left and right) that connect to communicate and interact with each other

4. Explain the study performed by Paul Broca in which he discovered "Broca's Area."

The Brocas area is located in the frontal lobe and it is responsible for speech production. language processing, and language comprehension, as well as controlling facial neurons. First discovered in 1861, Broca's area was named after Pierre Paul Broca. Broca discovered the area after studying the brain of a patient with a speech impairment after his death.

5. Explain the study conducted by Roger Sperry in regard to "split brain."

This has to do with the corpus collasum. Robert Sperry was who conducted the landmark split-brain experiments. He discovered that human beings are of two minds. He found that the human brain has specialized functions on the right and left, and that the two sides can operate practically independently

6. Explain the study conducted by Karl Wernicke which led to the discovery of Wernicke's Area."

Wernicke's area is the region of the brain where spoken language is understood. Neurologist Carl Wernicke is credited with discovering the function of this brain region whom he examined a patient after his death. Which is located in the temporal Lobe

7. Which lobe is most responsible for vision?

The occipitial Lobe

8. Which lobe is most responsible for hearing and language?

The Temporal Lobe

9. Which lobe is most responsible for performing math calculations?

The Frontal Lobe

10. Which lobe is most responsible for judgment, reasoning and impulse control?

The Frontal Lobe

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-brocas-area.htm

http://biology.about.com/od/anatomy/p/wernicke.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain 

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro00/web1/Vasiliadis.html