Chapter 2

This chapter was my favorite so far! (I know there have only been 2 others, but I seriously love this stuff!) The brain absolutely fascinates me. I can't really wrap my mind around how something could be created so perfectly; to work in tune with our bodies and surroundings, help keep us alive, tell us when things go wrong, etc. etc. etc. I have read quite a bit of school material on the brain both last year in anatomy and this summer in my nursing assistant class, but I never really get tired of it!

Three things I learned from this chapter were how antagonist molecules inhibit neurotransmission, how polarization within an axon works, and about the different types of neuroimaging techniques.

I had heard of antagonist molecules being present in certain foods, like canned foods, but I didn't quite understand how they worked. Antagonists are structured similar to neurotransmitters, so they can block a receptor site but not stimulate it's receptor. Obviously, this creates a type of paralysis. When many antagonists are present, this becomes a major problem.
Neural polarization works like this: Neuron stimulation creates a brief change in electrical charge within a neuron. If the change is substantial enough, it will produce depolarization and action potential. Action potential is a brief electrical charge that travels down an axon. This creates a chain reaction to the rest of the body, helping us to detect stimuli.
Finally, I learned about the three main types of neuroimaging techniques used. PET scans(positron emission tomography) show consumption of each brain's chemical fuel-sugar glucose.
MRIs (magnetic resonance imaging) scan the brain by putting it in a strong magnetic field which aligns the spinning atoms of brain molecules. A radiowave momentarily distorts them, and they then give a detailed pictures of the brains soft tissue once they resume their regular spinning.
fMRIs (functional MRI) can tell us about the brains functioning as well as it's structure. It shows where the brain is most active by showing us blood flow. As a person performs different mental functions, esearchers can watch the brain "light-up" with bloodflow. This helps lead to discoveries about how the brain works and where it works most!

These things all interest me not only because they're fun to read about, but because they happen in my body every day. I think it's important that we all have at least a little conception of what our brain is doing or how it is made up. Without any type of knowledge about our own brains, we may underestimate (or overestimate) our abilities. It is also easier to understand why you feel certain ways when you understand things like hormones, etc.

Serendip Activities

I found the Serendip website activities very interesting and even FUN! The four I chose were Prisoner's Dilemma, Find Serendip, Blind Spots, and Ant Colonies.

I learned in Blind Spots about, you guessed it, blind spots! I wasn't really buying the fact that we had small blind spots or "white space" in our eyes, connecting to our brains, but when I did the activity, I was extremely surprised that it worked! I was able to "see' my blind spot! I had a friend try as well because I was so surprised. I learned from this activity that the brain is making up what it can't see (white space) since the eye isn't transmitting any info or visuals to the brain.

I can't really apply blind spots to every day life, so I went on to the ant colony activity. I didn't really understand the activity part of it, but the information it gave was extremely thought-provoking. It talked about how with some animal groups, such as fish or geese, there appears to be a leader. The same goes for people, governemnt officials, etc. But with ant colonies, every ant is independant; there is no director. Society is maintained through positive interactions. This really made me think, if our world could ever be this way, everyone would be so much better off. We are only stopping ourselves from letting this happen! So yes, this activity did effect my perception of the world and our interactions in today's society.

There were many things that I learned in this week's chapter, some of which changed my perception of the brain and how it works. I really actually enjoyed this chapter, because I'm extremely interested in the brain. I learned that seizures can be stopped by separating the brain's hemispheres along the corpus colossum. This was interesting to me because I HAVE seizures, and never knew this was even an option for people who have them much more frequently than me. I also learned that, through split brain research (as seen on "The Man with Two Brains") scientists have discovered that the left hemisphere is the more verbal side, while the right excels in perception and the recognition of emotion. Finally, I found it interesting that almost all right-handers process speech in the left hemisphere, which is expected, but more than half of left-handers do as well! This was interesting to me because you would think that, naturally, the left-handers would use their right hemisphere!

Obviously, there are many ways and things to learn about how we process information, but I feel that the activities really put a fun spin on this week's studies!

Current Event 2

I found my psych book, lost my pen drive.
I am still a mess.
On Friday, Heather, also in Intro to Psych, thankfully found my pen drive after I mindlessly left it in the computer at the computer lab. Now it's Monday and I've lost it again. What is wrong with me?! Between being sick and what feels like the most homework in my life, I think I'm losing it. I WILL eventually get it together, I'm just not guaranteeing that it will be soon.

So, for my REAL current event (not that losing my pen drive isn't totally intriguing) we had a volleyball tournament last Saturday, the day of our homecoming dance. Pretty normal for a Saturday, until I saw a relative that doesn't really get along with our family. It was extremely weird seeing this person, and I'm not sure why they were there. This person just kind of gave me a funny look and left. Saturday night I was too zonked out to remember my dreams, but last night I had some pretty odd dreams/nightmares about it. I'm not quite sure why, because I haven't thought about it too much since Saturday, but I would say the dreams are definitely psych-related!
We see people all the time that make us uncomfortable, but don't necessarily dream about them, so why this one person?

Current Events (in my life) #1

Before I started typing this, I realized how hard it really is to just open up and write about something, ANYTHING, happening in your life. I don't know if it's the idea of having people read this and know stuff about me or what, but it just seems...odd. I also had a really hard time thinking of something to write about, but then it just kind of hit me.

I'm having a really hard time adjusting to high school, or college within high school for that matter. This summer I took a 3 month Certified Nursing Assistant course that entailed a lot of hard work and tests. I did this while working a full time summer job, while all of my friends seemed to be having fun. When class ended and all I had to do was volleyball for four hours a morning, it was the hightlight of my summer! I was "back in the loop" and care free. No more tests! Those two weeks flew. Now I have 3 our of 4 college classes to keep up in that my future in nursing greatly depends upon, not to mention volleyball, church activities, being president of two clubs, and working on the weekends. Things are beyond crazy. In fact, to make matters worse, I lost my psych textbook! I studied last night and never saw it again. Poof. Gone. Little brother hasn't seen it, my mom hasn't seen it, and I sure haven't seen it! I'm beginning to think my dog ate it...

So, in a nutshell, these are things I'm experiencing currently. I feel very stressed and am waiting to fall into a bit more of a routine so I don't feel like a chicken running with it's head cut off anymore. I hope everyone reading this is having a smoother transition back to school!

Chapter One 9/22

The mportance of research is that, without it, we wouldn't be moving forward each day. Without knowing why, how, or when things happen, we are aren't able to learn! Psychology digs right into the idea of research from many different angles, and, for this reason, is a never ending researching process.

There are many examples of research that we can apply to our lives, but the first one that came to mind for me was medical research. I have a condition where I have seizures pretty easily but it is NOT called epilepsy. Without well researched doctors, would we have been able to rule out epilepsy and discover that it is a less dangerous condition? Probably not. Research over the years has kept people alive, as well as kept society running.

One of three very interesting things I learned in chapter one was the hindsight bias theory. This interested me because I could directly relate to what the book was explaining. the "I K=knew it all along" theory is probably something we have all experienced; errors in recollection. Common sense more easily describles what has happened rather than what will happen. We often think, I should have seen that coming!
I also found the scientific attitude interesting. It is a curious, eager attitude that I can carry into everyday thinking.
Finally, I thought it was interesting that psychologists are able to conduct so many different types of research in order to observe and describe behavior accurately. Some of these research include individual case studies, random samples of a population, and naturalistic observations. The book gave vivid descriptions and examples of all three, which I expect will be able to help me in future classwork.

Prologue 9/22

I previously believed that psychology was the study of the human mind. Basically, I thought that it "encompassed" the study of why we do the things we do. What I read in the book differed fromt his in that it was much more in depth. Psychology is the study of the mind's structure and function from various approaches (the three main approaches were biological influences, psychological influences, and social-cultural influences).

Psychology affects our lives in many ways. One way is that if something were to happen to us that affected us emotionally or mentally, we would be able to find help through psychology at the service of psychologists, psychiatrists, etc. It helps keep us mentally stable in many situations, as well as helps us to be more understanding to others if we have learned about how to think critically through psychology.
Psychology study methods also play a role in my life. When research and surveys are conducted in society, I benefit by being able to see the results and, in turn, make better/ more knowledgeable decisions.

Finally, two things I learned from The Story of Psychology were the SQ3R study method and psychology's current perspectives. The SQ3R method was something I had never heard of and it seemed like it could be extremely useful not only in Intro to Psych, but in everyday classes and activities. Psychology's current perspectives interested me because I didn't know there were so many! I realized before reading the book that psychologists made observations with a base view, but I didn't realize how complex these views were.

Why Men Prefer Direct Pick-Up Lines-Summary 9/16

Of course, I chose this article because it caught my eye. I've often wondered why guys feel the need to be so direct all the time. What's wrong with the way girls do things, such as sending nonverbal messages? Well, this article laid it out there, plain and simple.

A research was studied about how women act upon meeting a new guy in the first 10 minutes. I thought it was interesting that in the first minute, whether the woman liked the guy or not, she acted polite and, overall, the same. It was in the 4th-10th minutes that she started sending NONverbal signals. The article author stated that this was the problem: guys can't distinguish between whether a girl is being polite, or sending those signals. When I thought about it, it did seem legit. When a girl thinks a guy's cute and is interested, she usually doesn't throw herself at him within the first 10 minutes, which is the directness some guys seem to prefer. This is probably where much of the "does he or doesn't he?" confusion comes from!

This was an easy-read article that really made me think. Definitely somthing for us girls to think about!

Essenstials of Group Psychology-Summary 9/16

The first article I read on psyblog.com was called the Essentials of Group Psychology. I was immediately drawn to this article because groups are such a major part of high school. They are alla round us, and most of us are probably even a part of one.

The article first talked about our social identites, and how being a part of a group strongly influences this. I think we all know from experience that we're much more likely to speak up whe we know there's someone "on our side" to back us up.
A consequence of being in a group for a long time is the conformity effect. We start to "fall ito step" with the general ideas and opinions of the group, rather than our own. Again, I think this is a very common high school experience. Eventually, group members become comfortable enough to state their own opinions, and usually a lead "conformer" becomes the group leader.

I found the concept of "social loafing" very interesting. The article explained how when we get into groups to brainstorm, such as in the classroom, we actually get LESS done. People use the session as a social hour or are afraid of being judged by others, resulting in less ideas being put on the table. Personally, I completely agree with this idea. I work better alone because I don't feel like I'm being judged or like the "group idea" is going in one direction or another. The same goes for group decision making: it is much easier to be influenced when other people seem to be making the choice for you.

All in all, by reading this article, I realized that groups really do dull our perosnalities and creativity if we do not choose who we associate ourselves with wisely. In my opinion, it is important that we strive for uniqueness.

About Me

Hello!

My name is Hannah Imhoff. I am 17 years old and attend Edgar high school.

Something that has shaped me as a person has a actually been a someONE: my mom. Her name is Kim and she is about the most amazing person I've ever met! Of the four children in her family, she was the only one to earn a college degree. She has a been a special education teacher at Stratford elementary for years and I have learned so much from her. I greatly respect her motivation and drive. I also really enjoy spending time with her. Over the years she has taught me strong morals, such as self-respect and respect for others, honesty, responsibility, and integrity. My mom is one of my best friends and I hope that I can one day be a mom like her. Having her as a role model has definitely played a role in shaping who I am today.

I believe that it is important to study psychology in order to better understand how and why poeple are the way they are. Psychology is a study that lets us focus on who we, as well as the people around us, are. It is important to try to understand why we do the things we do, which I believe is a concept that is much more complex than it sounds.

Personally, I would define psychology as the study of the mind. It is a science that digs into the behavior of human beings and their mental abilities, tendencies, and processes. It is a never ending research of the most interesting thing on the planet: ourselves.