Chapter 9~ Thinking and Language

This chapter wasn't my favorite but the part I was most interested in was the section on animal thinking and language. I was always interested about how animals communicate with each other. I learned that animals are smarter than we think. Chimpanzees are said to have brains like humans. Chimps can remember and tap numbers in ascending order. They are very good problem solvers and have become natural tool users. What I found really interesting and surprising was when I read that dolphins use marine sponges to protect their noses when digging through the sea floor for fish. I also learned how animals communicate with each other. For example Vervet monkeys have different alarm cries for different situations or predators. Dolphins use eco location to find each other and some species of penguins use sounds to identify their babies after a long trip. I know that dogs can also communicate with each other and humans. People who have severe seizures own trained dogs that can sense when they are about to have a seizure. When the dog senses a seizure coming on they bark or howl a certain trained sound. I saw on Riples believe it or not a dog that could talk. I remember it said I love you and hello. The dog reminded me of Scooby-do.

Chapter 7~ Memory

1. This chapter was very interesting because I got to test my memory, which I learned is not very good at all but that is old news to me. In the memory activities we did in class, I noticed that the one she made us count down from 21, I couldn't remember any words from that activity. I knew that once I had to count from 21 to 0, my mind would be taken off the words that I just tried to memorize. When I watched the eyewitness testimony I was shocked that she got her rapist wrong. You would think that because she studied him during her rape, she would know every detail about him and she would be able to pick him out in a crowd of millions. She did indeed pick him out twice; once in a picture line up and once in a live lineup. It turned out that her memory led them astray and she chose the wrong guy. He spent 11 years in prison because of it. I wasn't able to watch the eyewitness testimony part 2, the one that explained why she mixed them up, but I am guessing that her memory mixed up certain details about her rapist. This makes me wonder if my memory has ever done this to me and I didn't know it. The fact that our memory can mess up observations just scares me because if I was ever in the position of the woman in the eyewitness testimony, who knows if I could give the police the right information.

Chapter 7~ Learning

This chapter, so far, is my favorite because I like to study how people learn and my second career choice is teaching. I learned that people and animals learn by observation. For example if I see my older brother burn himself on something hot I will know, through observation, not to touch that thing because it was hot. Children also learn through imitation. They may see their dad yell at the dog because it peed on the floor and five minutes later the kid will yell at the dog for no reason. Kids also learn swear words and other words from observing and imitating. I also learned that our bodies and minds are conditioned and are on a schedule. Scientist have learned to train fish to feed by using a tone. They sound a tone before they give the fish food and after three days the fish know the tone resembles food. The scientist hope to release the fish into the ocean and once they are big enough to eat they will sound the tone, net the fish, and eat them.

Chapter 6~ Sensation and Perception

In this chapter I learned about thresholds. For example an absolute threshold is the minimum stimulation needed for detection 50 percent of the time. The other threshold is the difference threshold. This threshold is the minimum difference between two stimuli needed for detection 50 percent of the time. I also learned about different laws and theories; like Weber's law and the signal detection theory. What I found most interesting about this chapter is the part that teaches us about the eye. My mom had laser eye surgery to perfect her vision and ever since then I have always been interested in the eyes. I also enjoyed reading about all the senses and how they work. What was really interesting in this chapter was ESP. I have always been intrigued by ghost stories and scary movies so this part of the chapter was interesting to me. One of the varieties of ESP is clairvoyance and there is a local band called clairvoyance; I just think that is interesting and now I know what the band name stands for!

Chapter 4 Blog

Did anyone get the heritability website to work? I didn't see any of the graphs; it showed a box with an x in the corner. After reading three articles for the twin studies I learned that when one twin dies the other co-twin suffers more than normal siblings do. And what was interesting is that identical twins take a loss of a co-twin harder than fraternal twins. One article was about mistaken identities and twins getting mixed up at birth. Twins would be given to the wrong parents in the nursery and the hospitals would get sued for millions of dollars. This freaks me out because if I have twins I will be making sure the nurses give me the kids I gave birth to. I learned that separated twins share the same characteristics as if they never were separated. For example, two girls were separated at birth, one lived in England and one live in the United States. They haven't seen or known of each other for fifty years and fifty years later they somehow cross each others path. Both twins have the same hair style, wear the same clothes, husbands have the name. I also learned that each culture had different norms. For example personal space; in America we like our space but in Italy even men hug and kiss as a greeting.

Chapter 4~Nature, Nurture, and Human Diversity

In this chapter I learned all about twins. In our high school we have four sets of twins. The set in my grade is a set of fraternal twin girls. I remember in kindergarten, when they looked allot alike, they switched classes and their teachers didn't figure it out until lunch time. In this chapter, the book asks if we think its right if twins should be split up in school and I guess I don't agree. Chelsey and Robin, the twins in my grade, did just fine being split up. I think they liked it better that way because they got more individual attention. I think it is interesting how twins, that have been separated at birth, turn out to still like the same things. I saw a show on TV once about twins that were separated and later found each other. They had the same style of hair, same style of clothes, they liked and disliked the same foods, and they had the same style in men. In a way that is just creepy how twins sisters hadn't seen each other for 30 years and they have so much in common. I agree with the book when it states that children will grow up to be just like their parents; look at all of the doctors, allot of their kids turn out to be doctors as well.

Chapter 6~ Sensation and Perception

In this chapter I learned about thresholds. For example an absolute threshold is the minimum stimulation needed for detection 50 percent of the time. The other threshold is the difference threshold. This threshold is the minimum difference between two stimuli needed for detection 50 percent of the time. I also learned about different laws and theories; like Weber's law and the signal detection theory. What I found most interesting about this chapter is the part that teaches us about the eye. My mom had laser eye surgery to perfect her vision and ever since then I have always been interested in the eyes. I also enjoyed reading about all the senses and how they work. What was really interesting in this chapter was ESP. I have always been intrigued by ghost stories and scary movies so this part of the chapter was interesting to me. One of the varieties of ESP is clairvoyance and there is a local band called clairvoyance; I just think that is interesting and now I know what the band name stands for!

Illussions Blog

The first illusion I looked at was the stepping feet. It looked like the blue box was slowing down but it turned out that the yellow and blue boxes were going at the same pace. When I changed the color of the lines to gray the boxes didn't change pace. The second illusion was Stereo kinetic Phenomenon. The yellow circle apparently wasn't moving but it looked like it was moving to me. The third illusion I viewed was the Hermann Grid. this one was interesting because when the grid had strait lines i saw black circles in the crossings but when the lines curved the circles vanished. The fourth illusion was the Pyramid Illusion. It started of with two squares and more and more squares appeared. In the end it looked like there was a big x on the screen but it was just really really small squares. The fifth illusion was the Rotating Snake. When i focused on one circle that circle wasn't moving but when I looked at all of them with my peripheral vision all of the circles were moving. The sixth illusion I looked at was the Flash-Lag Effect. When i looked at the cross in the middle a blue circle would rotate around it. It would change to yellow every once in a while but when you actually look at the cross you would see a crescent in the circle but it changed color completely. The seventh illusion i viewed was the Enigma. When I stared at the purple circle in the middle for about a minute the black and white stripes seemed to rotate but they really weren't. The eighth illusion I observed was the Perceive your eye moments. This one was interesting because when i looked at the illusion the middle circle looked as if it was moving back and forth but it wasn't it was just in place.