Topical Blog Week #2 (Due Wednesday)

After reading the first chapter in the cognitive book, I was really interested in the idea of case studies. I decided to try to find a well known case study and learn about it. I found a case study about the child Genie, and decided to use her as my topic.

Genie is the pseudonym for a girl who was locked in a room by herself from age 2 until she was 13. She was often strapped onto a toilet without any clothes on and received almost no interaction. Her father locked her up to keep her safe from the outside world, which he deemed dangerous. When Genie was found she was unable to talk or walk and had the cognitive abilities of an infant.

Genie was not discovered by the authorities until her mother accidentally took her into a social services building while running errands. The workers there knew something was wrong with her almost instantly and Genie's parents were arrested. Genie became a ward of the court and was taken to the hospital.

Doctors decided that Genie's mental age was that of a 13 month old, the age at which children start learning language. Because of this, they tried teaching her to speak. Genie would respond to 15-20 words, but was unable to speak and could only make some whimper-like noises. Genie had no signs of a mental disorder and was said to have memories of her mistreatment.

James Kent was assigned to Genie as her therapist and went along with her to all of her appointments as well as on her walks. He thought that if Genie had a stable person in her life, she could learn to form relationships with others. During this time she learned to repeat several words after Kent would say them. After four months, Genie could say over 100 words.

Jean Butler, Genie's teacher at the hospital, petitioned to have Genie as a foster child. Genie stayed with her for a time, but Butler's petition was denied. David Rigler, one of the scientists studying Genie, was named her foster parent. Genie lived there for four years and during that time her speech decreased and her behavior regressed. She did improve over time, eventually even learning how to do some chores around the house.

After staying with the Riglers, Genie moved back in with her mother. Genie's mother found she was unable to care for her and Genie was placed in numerous foster homes. Genie eventually became a ward of the state and lives at an undisclosed location.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2112gchild.html
This website gave information about Genie's care after her rescue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_%28feral_child%29
This website told about Genie's abilities and growth cognitively.

http://samanthakatepsychology.wordpress.com/2011/10/14/genie-%E2%80%93-research-or-exploitation/
This website talked about the possible exploitation Genie experienced by having a scientist as a foster parent.

This week for my topical blog I chose to conduct more research on behaviorism but more specifically the work of Edward Tolman and the cognitive map. Chapter one highlighted the rise and fall of behaviorism in just a few short pages, but more specifically looking at page 9, Edward Tolman’s interpretation of a developed picture was called a cognitive map. From the book I remembered them starting to talk about how after time a picture was developed of the environment which was later used to find the goal. Which for the book’s example was looking at the rats and the finding of the food for the environmental object. I remember when reading this part in the book that I was hoping that it would go farther into detail about how this picture is developed. I was particularly interested in this topic because when looking at all the different species on earth there are many witch humans are not able to communicate with. Often times with this map I feel that we would be able to understand more of what these others species are feeling and will be able to communicate more with them over time as we develop more cognitive maps.
Often times we look at our physical environment and perceive things differently than those around us. Most researcher see this and say that this is how we gain knowledge is based on experiences and this is helped to build our mental map of our environments. This is true in saying that our cognitive map is our internal view of our physical environment. One of the first psychologist to take a look at the cognitive map was Edward Tolman, he did an experiment with rats and a maze to develop a cognitive map within the rats to develop an environmental stimulus to the end result of the maze.
One thing that I found interesting when looking at animals and the cognitive map is that animals will not remember moving landmarks but they will often remember a series of events that led up to something that is in the end a favorable result for them like a reward. As animals are moving around they are remembering these goals witch they have received a reward for which in the end is leaving them with a cognitive map and an environmental experience of the “maze”. Which in result humans often look at paper when developing their cognitive maps as they look at a map of where they need to go where the animals are strictly going by what they have experienced and what the rewarded outcome has been. One example that I found interesting was looking at the different cognitive maps of those of people with different environmental experiences, with something like homelessness and other types of poverty struggles it is often difficult for someone with those backgrounds to have the same cognitive map as someone who has maybe never experience some type of hardship. Over all I feel that the cognitive map is something that we will never know everything about as there are so many different views and differences that could come about with each person’s environmental point in life and how they view each situation.
http://ehis.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=fd254bcc-33ac-49e5-86e1-2dbb4d39f424%40sessionmgr113&vid=3&hid=104 I found this article to be more factual than some other articles because it was found off the Rod library website, I used information from this article to gather insight about the history of cognitive maps and my example of homelessness
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/199/1/219.full.pdf - article was published and peer reviewed, I used this article to find out more information about animals and how they used the cognitive map to view their environmental processes and to see how that resulted back to the humans.
http://books.google.com/books?id=la6mSK9vyIgC&pg=PA289&lpg=PA289&dq=internal+representation+in+cognitive+psychology&source=bl&ots=C1QTISrGNm&sig=gNwHSBazJk7wE4CjiSI2M6nl0v4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XdLeUvDYNKfB2wXhzoGwBg&ved=0CEkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=internal%20representation%20in%20cognitive%20psychology&f=false – was a published book in 2008, I used the book to gain more information about Edward Tolman and the history of cognitive maps and how they were important to the study of psychology.

JMM

After reading chapter 1 I became very interested in neuroscience and especially different case studies that have been done. In my blog earlier this week I spoke about Phineas Gage and how his unique case was perfect for psychologists to study because it opened new doors to research. I have always been particularly fascinated with our brains and how much they can be affected. I always love revisiting the case of Phineas Gage and I have never really researched the topic so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity.

I want to start by just giving some background information as to what happened to Phineas Gage. He worked as a foreman on a crew of railroad workers. One of his jobs was to drill holes in rock that was in the way of the railroad and fill it with dynamite, pack it down after placing sand in the hole and then it would explode the rock. However, on one particular day Gage forgot to put the sand in the hole and the tamping rod he was packing the dynamite in with came back up and entered up through his left cheek bone and actually exited through the top of his head. His crew members found the rod a little ways from him and it was covered in blood and pieces of Gage’s brain. Now after hearing just this information most people would assume that Gage had no chance of surviving. Miraculously, he not only survived but it is questioned whether he even ever lost consciousness. If he did it was for a very short time because he was walking, talking, and responding within a minute of the incident.

Gage was seen by a doctor and he did have a few complications but they were just due to not having the best technology available at the time (1848-1849). He was able to survive everything and within four months Gage was leading a relatively normal life. That is all interesting and crazy to believe but the part that I’m really interested in is the change in Gage’s personality that soon became apparent. Before the accident Gage had been known as a good worker, polite, responsible, and overall good tempered. However, after the accident he lost his job because he was not able to work effectively. He began swearing constantly and had never been that way before the accident. He was so markedly different that his friends said he didn’t even seem like Gage anymore.

Gage’s body after he died was excavated and studied again by neuroscientists. They found that his frontal cortex had been damaged and that is what had resulted in his loss of social reserves. He simply didn’t understand what was acceptable public behavior. Interestingly the tamping iron had practically performed a frontal lobotomy on Gage.

It continues to be argued what parts of his brain were actually injured. The exit wound hole was much bigger than the actual diameter of the tamping rod which leaves some area for confusion. Some computer-generated reconstructions showed that both his right and left cortices were damaged but that the damage to Gage’s brain was limited to only the left hemisphere. There was a lot of uncertainty about what parts of the brain were necessarily damaged but they were all able to agree that Gage’s personality changes were significant.

I would assert that the prefrontal cortex most certainly had to have been severely damaged. This is the part of the brain best known for containing our personalities. It can be found in the frontal lobe which is the area of the brain most likely to be injured and just so happens to be the part of the brain that the tamping iron passed through. Another interesting thought is that our frontal lobes are the last part of our brains to develop and it contains much of our higher functioning thought. It involves planning, problem solving, organizing, selective attention, as well as our behavior and emotions. Knowing this makes Gage’s symptoms seem almost obvious. He lost his job because he couldn’t pay attention to a task; he would keep moving on to something else. He had no planning or problem solving skills either. His behavior also became erratic and unpredictable.

The story of Phineas Gage and the research that was able to be done due to his injury has helped neuroscience grow tremendously. It clued researchers in on the importance of our brain and the idea that some functions of the brain are localized, which had been an ongoing debate.

The Incredible Case of Phineas Gage
http://neurophilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/12/04/the-incredible-case-of-phineas-gage/
I used this article to increase my knowledge of the background information as well as the case study information of Phineas Gage.

Youtube Video: The Curious Case of Phineas Gage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeGqMTJlc04
This video gives a short summary of Phineas Gage's story and it's important to neuroscientists.

Frontal Lobe Info:
http://www.waiting.com/frontallobe.html#anchor266669
This source was helpful in refreshing me on the functions of the Frontal Lobe.

Terminology:
Neuroscience, case studies, research, Phineas Gage, consciousness, personality, brain, frontal cortex, lobotomy, left hemisphere, prefrontal cortex, frontal lobe, behavior, emotions

This week I chose to look further into cognitive mapping because I thought it was really interesting and the book only gave a bit of background into it. In the first chapter the book talked about how Edward. C Tolman was the first to really introduce the idea of cognitive maps, and he ran a series of experiments based on this idea to try and understand how rats and presumably people viewed and understood navigation. The book discussed briefly the results of his experiments and told of how rats, instead of processing every turn of the maze as a new stimulus, they moved in the general direction of their food and then processed each new obstacle as a separate problem.
After doing some research, I discovered that the mazes that Tolman used to test his rats were extremely complex and he used not only a complex maze design but also doors and curtains to confuse the rats and provide them with many obstacles. As I read further into his study, he also describes the different conditions under which the rats navigated the maze in the “training” part of his experiment. One group always found food at the end of the maze, the second never did during training, and the third received food on the third day and on until the training was over. He observed that the rats who were not fed in the maze at all seemed to learn nothing, suggesting that we only pay attention to our location or surroundings when it is necessary. Similarly, I discovered that when humans judge distances or relative distances they often use landmarks, much like the rats in Tolman’s study.
However, we don’t just use any landmarks, we often use the most memorable or the most important land marks. For example, if I were to describe where my home town is, while I’m in Cedar Falls I always ask people if they know where Omaha is, because I’m form Council Bluffs (right across the river, similar to how Cedar Falls and Waterloo are), however if I’m on the west side of Des Moines I’ll usually just say Council Bluffs then if someone doesn’t know where there is, reference Omaha as a secondary point because Council Bluffs is the next biggest city on I-80 west of Des Moines. However, when we use reference points like this, often times we tend to overestimate the distances of things that are close to us, and underestimate distances that are far away. So going back to my CB example, if I were in Atlantic, Iowa (about an hour and half from CB on Hwy 6) and I asked people to tell me how far CB is, they would over exaggerate the distance, whereas if I’m in Cedar Falls (a four hour drive from CB) anyone who knew how far Omaha was, would under exaggerate that distance. The Stanford University psychology department demonstrated this effect by telling one group of students to pretend that they were on the East coast and a second group to pretend they were on the West coast. They then gave them blank maps of the US and asked them to place certain landmark places in US. They also found that it was much more difficult to estimate where things in the middle of country are rather than cities or landmarks closer to the coasts.
We also demonstrate the importance of landmarks when we are asked to map out things much closer to home for instance our towns or our homes. As it happens, when you are asked to draw a map or layout of your home, you will only include the things that you deem important. For example, if you are very tall, you might include all the doors especially if you duck under them, those in wheel chairs will include things such narrow doorways, tall counters and other obstacles such as lamps and decorations that are in the middle of the rooms that most of us wouldn’t consider. Overall I learned a lot of new things about cognitive mapping and how psychologists apply it, test it, and what we know about the limitations of it.

http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/sommerb/sommerdemo/mapping/cogmap.htm
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/sommerb/sommerdemo/mapping/strengths.htm
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/sommerb/sommerdemo/mapping/summary.htm
These three links are just separate pages of the same set of information. I chose this link because it focused on the application and limitations particularly where humans are involved of cognitive mapping, and gave some very good examples. This link contributed to many of the examples in my post, as well the majority of information about home cognitive mapping.

http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~bt/space/papers/cogmaps1993tversky.pdf
This is a study that was conducted by Stanford in the psychology department and I chose this study because I knew it would provide adequate and accurate information on cognitive mapping, and it might give me some insight to how they test and process data for cognitive mapping. This link contributed most to the understanding and explanation of landmarks and relative distance judgment in my blog post.

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Tolman/Maps/maps.htm
This is the actual published study of Tolman’s work with lab rats in mazes. I chose this link to not only better understand his experiment set up, but also to understand what his hypothesis was and how he believed it would apply to humans. This link contributed to all of my information about Tolman’s experiments outside of what the book provided, and very little on what the possible implications for humans could be.

After reading chapter 1 I became very interested in neuroscience and especially different case studies that have been done. In my blog earlier this week I spoke about Phineas Gage and how his unique case was perfect for psychologists to study because it opened new doors to research. I have always been particularly fascinated with our brains and how much they can be affected. I always love revisiting the case of Phineas Gage and I have never really researched the topic so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity.

I want to start by just giving some background information as to what happened to Phineas Gage. He worked as a foreman on a crew of railroad workers. One of his jobs was to drill holes in rock that was in the way of the railroad and fill it with dynamite, pack it down after placing sand in the hole and then it would explode the rock. However, on one particular day Gage forgot to put the sand in the hole and the tamping rod he was packing the dynamite in with came back up and entered up through his left cheek bone and actually exited through the top of his head. His crew members found the rod a little ways from him and it was covered in blood and pieces of Gage’s brain. Now after hearing just this information most people would assume that Gage had no chance of surviving. Miraculously, he not only survived but it is questioned whether he even ever lost consciousness. If he did it was for a very short time because he was walking, talking, and responding within a minute of the incident.

Gage was seen by a doctor and he did have a few complications but they were just due to not having the best technology available at the time (1848-1849). He was able to survive everything and within four months Gage was leading a relatively normal life. That is all interesting and crazy to believe but the part that I’m really interested in is the change in Gage’s personality that soon became apparent. Before the accident Gage had been known as a good worker, polite, responsible, and overall good tempered. However, after the accident he lost his job because he was not able to work effectively. He began swearing constantly and had never been that way before the accident. He was so markedly different that his friends said he didn’t even seem like Gage anymore.

Gage’s body after he died was excavated and studied again by neuroscientists. They found that his frontal cortex had been damaged and that is what had resulted in his loss of social reserves. He simply didn’t understand what was acceptable public behavior. Interestingly the tamping iron had practically performed a frontal lobotomy on Gage.

It continues to be argued what parts of his brain were actually injured. The exit wound hole was much bigger than the actual diameter of the tamping rod which leaves some area for confusion. Some computer-generated reconstructions showed that both his right and left cortices were damaged but that the damage to Gage’s brain was limited to only the left hemisphere. There was a lot of uncertainty about what parts of the brain were necessarily damaged but they were all able to agree that Gage’s personality changes were significant.

I would assert that the prefrontal cortex most certainly had to have been severely damaged. This is the part of the brain best known for containing our personalities. It can be found in the frontal lobe which is the area of the brain most likely to be injured and just so happens to be the part of the brain that the tamping iron passed through. Another interesting thought is that our frontal lobes are the last part of our brains to develop and it contains much of our higher functioning thought. It involves planning, problem solving, organizing, selective attention, as well as our behavior and emotions. Knowing this makes Gage’s symptoms seem almost obvious. He lost his job because he couldn’t pay attention to a task; he would keep moving on to something else. He had no planning or problem solving skills either. His behavior also became erratic and unpredictable.

The story of Phineas Gage and the research that was able to be done due to his injury has helped neuroscience grow tremendously. It clued researchers in on the importance of our brain and the idea that some functions of the brain are localized, which had been an ongoing debate.

The Incredible Case of Phineas Gage http://neurophilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/12/04/the-incredible-case-of-phineas-gage/

Youtube Video: The Curious Case of Phineas Gage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeGqMTJlc04

Frontal Lobe Info:
http://www.waiting.com/frontallobe.html#anchor266669

Terminology:
Neuroscience, case studies, research, Phineas Gage, consciousness, personality, brain, frontal cortex, lobotomy, left hemisphere, prefrontal cortex, frontal lobe, behavior, emotions

1a) State what your topic is.
Evolutionary Psychology
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
Evolutionary psychology is briefly discussed in the chapter as well as a few of the functionalist like William James and John Dewey.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
Evolution and where we came from as humans has always interested me and when I saw the section for evolutionary psychology I immediately wanted to know more. While reading the section in the book I could not help but think how far humans have come in a very short amount of time. According to the evolutionary perspective every trait or cognitive attribute we have has come from 10 million years of evolution. For much of human history we were hunter gatherers and the problems we had to once solve for food and survival are much different from the problems we do today.
2) Evolutionary psychology is best described as several theories that ask what function a particular cognitive process serves in relationship with physical and social evolution. It also examines psychological traits like memory, perception, and language to try and identify which traits might be evolutionary adaptations. Some evolutionary psychologists have even argued that many human behaviors are the output of psychological adaptations that evolved to help us solve recurrent problems throughout our history. Functionalists like William James and John Dewey examined many of these mental processes in terms of their function and how they help us to adapt to the changes around us. Dewey was known for asking why we have memory and how does it help us survive. Dewey and James both thought that if the body had been constantly improving and adapting to the environment the brain and our mental processes had as well. Many philosophers have considered the mind to have a broad range of faculties like reason and lust; evolutionary psychologists however describe evolved psychological faculties as narrowly focused to deal with certain issues like choosing a mate. Many other faculties come into play when choosing a mate but also when detecting a cheater or liar. Many of us know when someone is not being honest with us and evolutionary psychologists believe this was a trait that had to be adapted in many humans long ago for survival, it might also explain why some of us are compulsive liars and others can’t tell a lie to save their life. Although the humans were thought to have evolved on the African savannahs, the environment of evolutionary adaptation does not take happen at a certain place or time, it is continuous. In my opinion this is why we all have many of the same traits but there is huge variation among the human population and their mental abilities.
At the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. For each URL you have listed indicate why you chose the site and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology
This site was helpful in giving me tons of background on the topic of evolutionary psychology as well as some its supporters.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evolutionary-psychology/
This site was helpful in explaining many of the different hypotheses within evolutionary psychology.
http://www.cep.ucsb.edu/primer.html
This site gave some criticism of evolutionary psychology which helped me to think about the topic more objectively.

The topic that I thought was the most interesting throughout chapter 1 was the section on cognitive maps. I liked reading about cognitive maps because there were interesting to read about, and in that sense I retained the information well. I wanted to know about cognitive maps and some more research that may have been conducted on them since Edward Tolman. When I was in the History and Systems class a couple semesters ago I would talk about the person behind the theory because I wanted to know more about them. I did that for a couple of weeks and found out that most of these brilliant psychologists had pretty interesting upbringings. Usually a major event in their lives lead to what they wanted to research. So for this weeks topical blog I want to do more research on Edward Tolman. I want to know why he became a cognitive psychologist, and what ultimately lead him to his research about cognitive maps. I know that the book gives a brief description about the man and his research, but I intend to find some more.

The first article that I came across in my research was about Edwards early childhood, and then it eventually feel back into his research later in his life. Edwards upbringing was about the same as anyone else for that time period. His dad was the company owner of a manufacturing business and wanted both Edward and his brother Richard to continue the family business when they were of age. Edward and his brother on the other hand did not want to do this so they both decided to go to college at their fathers disapproval. Edwards brother became a world renown chemist. Edward started in a similar field, electrochemistry. He did not like what he was studying and decided to change his major when he was a senior. He took some courses in psychology and ended up getting his masters. Edward then became a professor at Northwestern University, but did not stay long. He later went to California Berkley and stayed there. There he created the cognitive learning theory. Thsi theory challenged the likes of John Thorndike and his trial and error theory. Edward did not believe that the mouse in Johns experiment was getting through the maze based on repeated attempts. Edward conducted many experiments and concluded that mice remember where they rewarded and not the movements it took to get them there. I really enjoyed this article. It gave me a good description on Edwards upbringing, and a better understanding of how he came about his research. I think that it is important to know this information because it gives me a reason to remember the famous psychologist. I continued my research and wanted to know more about the experiment that Edward conducted, and some of the results that came about. This article talked about Edwards interests in Gestalt Psychology, so maybe in my research I can find why and if that was a major part in his research influence.

In the second article that I found while doing my research I came across information that had to do with Edwards research. I learned more about cognitive maps, but most of the information was already mentioned in the book or in the last article that I had read. I did however find some new information on some of the other work that Edward did in his life. I learned about latent learning. Latent learning came up when he was doing the research for cognitive maps as well. Edward would put the rat in section A and would put cheese in section B. Once the rat found the right way to get to section B from section A he would then put the rat in Section C and put the cheese in Section B again. If the rat went into Section D, he would know that the rat is not using cognitive maps, but if the rat went to section B where the cheese was, he knew that the rat was using cognitive maps. Therefore, the rat remembered where it was going and the information was then latent. Another thing that Edward discovered while doing his research on the rats was intervening variables. Intervening variables are things that you can not see. The article mentioned that hunger was an intervening variable. Edward said that intervening variables blinded researchers from some truths in their experiments, and research was forever changed. Had I not done more research on Edward I would have never found out this information. It is for this reason that I choose to do the blogs about the person behind the theory because there is always something more that they accomplished that the book talks about briefly or does not talk about at all. I am glad that I came across this article. There was something else in the article that I found interesting and will continue to research throughout the blog, but it had mentioned that Edward was big on treating the rats humanely. The book did not mention this probably because it may be unrelated. I may try to find an article about this because it is one of those things that I find interesting.

Turns out that there was not much information on whether Edward was very humane or not. There was mixed information that suggested that he hated the rats in his early years, but then was a big activist for humane treatment towards the end of his career. What I did find on the other hand was a youtube clip of a rat going through one of Edwards traditional mazes. I was not sure what to expect when I youtubed it, but it was actually interesting to watch. You can see that the rat remembers where to go in the maze based on the cognitive maps that it had created. This particular video shows a rat going through a smaller maze but the experiment was still done properly. There were a ton of videos of the experiment being done so you can tell that the research was very important to the psychological field. In some of the other videos I saw some latent learning that I found in my second article. The rat would briefly look into into one corner or remember that the ball was not there and immediately keep moving forward to the cheese block.

I enjoyed the research that I found on Edward, and am once again glad that I decided to look farther into the man behind the theory. I gained much more information about cognitive maps by going with that route. I look forward to seeing what chapter 2 has to bring and hopefully there is someone just as interesting as Edward to research more about.

http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/tolman.htm
In this article I learned more about Edwards early life and what lead him to his research in cognitive mapping.

http://faculty.frostburg.edu/mbradley/psyography/edwardtolman.html
This article taught me more about cognitive mapping, but more importantly about what else Edward did in his research. I found about latent learning, intervening variables, and his humane treatment of his rats.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBB_3WG81fo
This third link is a youtube video that I found. It showed me what the experiment actually looks like and how it is applied. It was very interesting to see how it worked because it gave me a better understanding of cognitive maps.

I wanted to do some more research on imaging studies. In the first chapter it just briefly described it, but didn’t talk a lot about it, so I wanted to find out more. I am interested in this, because I like to learn about neurology, and I find brain imaging very interesting.
I learned that there are different ways that these image tests can be performed. Some of these ways are: sound waves, radioactive particles, magnetic fields, or x-rays. These change into images after they pass through the body tissue. These types of test are used in the mental health field, to ensure that there might not be another health problem that could be causing the same or similar symptoms, an example given was brain tumors.
Some imaging techniques that are used in the mental health field are: Computed Tomography scan (CT scan), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Positron Emission Tomography (PET), and Single Photon Emission Computerized Tomography (SPECT). CT is scan that shows a cross-section part of a person’s body. I read that a dye is usually put into the body to better see the difference and see the images that are clearer than x-rays. MRI’s also show cross-sections of the body, but these use magnetic fields rather than radiation. PET uses a type of sugar that contains a radioactive atom. These scans are good for brain imaging, and can show the difference between the brain of a person who have a mental disorder and those who don’t. This scan helps researchers see the activity of serotonin and dopamine in the brain. This scan helps researchers determine what might be the cause behind a person’s eating disorder, because usually these disorders are caused by another one, whether it be anxiety, depression, ect. SPECT helps diagnose disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
The growth of these imaging studies is going up, but at different rates for each one. Certain testings are used more than others.
Imaging test can be done to discover different things in the body, but these are some of the ways it relates to psychology.

http://www.minddisorders.com/Flu-Inv/Imaging-studies.html
The reason I chose this website, was because it gave a list of different scans and told a little about what they do and how they work.
http://eatingdisorders.ucsd.edu/research/imaging/
This website talked about PET scanning and how it allows researchers to see the different activity of the serotonin and dopamine in the brain, to look at what is the cause of a person’s mental disorder, and how it could be associated with an eating disorder.
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1182858
Talked about the rates they are being used, and the difference in the testings.

1a) State what your topic is.

I decided to look more into computer science and how it relates to psychology.
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.

The chapter identified four distinct perspectives in cognitive psychology that have been very influential in the development of the discipline, and computer science was one of them.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
I think it’s interesting to try to think of the brain like a computer that works on predetermined mathematical rules. This kind of cold, rational perspective appeals to me for some reason.
2) Next, we would like you to take the information you read or viewed related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about the topic in a knowledgeable manner. By integrating/synthesizing we mean taking what your read/experienced from the internet search organize the information into the main themes, issues, info, examples, etc. about your topic and then write about the topic in your own words using the information you have about the topic.
Computational Neuroscience was a term first used by Eric L. Shwartz at a 1985 conference that he put together for the reason of introducing the discipline. The first graduate program in computational neuroscience was founded later that very year as the computational and neural systems Ph.D. program at the California Institute of Technology. The basic goal of study in this discipline is to construct working artificial models of brain processes on computers. There is a clear understanding behind this, that if you can make an artificial brain work the same as an actual human mind, based solely off digitized mathematical inputs, then you can fully understand the human mind. In an attempt to understand this better, I actually signed up to watch lectures on computational neuroscience from an online education source called Coursera. Coursera is pretty incredible, in that they offer free college level classes online by putting up weekly lectures and quizzes and making them available to anyone. After watching all the introductory lectures (which pretty much gave a basic understanding of neurobiology with an emphasis on neurons and synapses) and several of the other lectures, I can definitely say that this a complex field. In the text for this class, we discussed working models, and in computational neuroscience they explain all of these models with formulas. It’s somewhat tedious and complicated and I don’t think I would be able to get as interested in this field as I am in other areas of psychology. When reaction time was attempted to be measured by Galton, as mental chronometry, he tried to make an equation that accounted for every variable, such as discrimination reaction time. This is very much what computational neuroscience is, except with the addition of more advanced functions. Computational neuroscientists typically find their research falling into one of the following seven categories: Single-neuron modeling, Development axonal patterning and guidance, Sensory processing, Memory and synaptic plasticity, Behaviors of networks, Cognition discrimination and learning, and Consciousness. For the sake of learning, I decided to look more into one of the categories, and I chose the smallest one possible: The single-neuron model. A biological neuron model, or spiking neuron model, is the mathematical description of the functions and processes of single neurons, with the intent of accurately describing and predicting biological processes. There are many types of biological neuron models, each more intricate than the last. Crucial variables change from model to model, such as neurons firing either consistently or exponentially. Sadly, I feel I will not be able even summarize most of what I read, but I encourage you to look at the link and witness the utter complexity of a neuron as you assuredly have numerous times before, but from a mathematical standpoint.

https://www.coursera.org/course/compneuro
This link contains free lectures and quizzes regarding computational neuroscience. It’s very interesting, and although it leaves me incredibly confused, I will likely return to this link in the future.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_neuroscience
This was just the Wikipedia page for computational neuroscience to give me the broad understanding of what it is, as well as the history of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_neuron_models
This link contains all of the information about biological neuron models that I could not adequately explain above.

1. The topic I chose for this assignment was the cognitive revolution. This relates to chapter one because it is what brought about the study of cognitive psychology. The cognitive revolution also brought a variety of different fields of study together to create cognitive science which is also discussed in the chapter. I was interested in learning more about the cognitive revolution because it is the base that brought about cognitive psychology and explains how we have changed views about psychology throughout time. I found it very interesting how this revolution sparked cooperation and collaboration among fields.

2. The time prior to the cognitive revolution psychology had been focused solely on behaviorism. It was thought that since the brain could not be studied than it did not have a significant impact on how we act and live. The cognitive revolution brought down behaviorism and allowed for many doors to be opened in the field of psychology. Its been claimed that this revolution can be attributed to the advances in computer sciences and technologies. Around this time people were working on artificial intelligence and have computers be able to run. It was claimed that the way that this technology worked was similar to the human brain and though it was an overly simplistic idea, it led to advances in drive to understand what role the brain plays and how it works. The computer couldn't follow the rules of behaviorism which helped to bring it down in the psychological field. Cognitive psychology became a study of its own but also worked its way into other areas of the field as well. Behavioral psychology is still a respected field and now is paired with cognitive psychology to provide effective forms of therapy. In the subfield of social psychology cognitive psychology also made its way into study with what is referred to as social cognition. The cognitive revolution made it understood that the brain plays a part in everything that we do and everything that happens to us in some way which is why it must be considered in every area. The cognitive revolution also brought about the launch of the study of neuroscience.

The cognitive revolution not only integrated areas in the field of psychology, but it also brought together different fields of study to form what is known as cognitive science. This study brought together the specifics that each field studied to get a complete understanding of how the brain works and influences out lives. Areas such as anthropology, psychology, philosophy, computer science, and linguistics are included in this broad area if study.

Terms used: cognitive psychology, perspective, cognitive revolution, behaviorism, cognitive science

http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~rit/geo/Miller.pdf
This website gave a personal account of a student that saw the cognitive revolution play out in the United States. It explains the process of depleting behaviorism in psychology and how the revolution brought together many different fields.

http://general-psychology.weebly.com/how-did-the-cognitive-revolution-take-place-in-psychology.html
This website explained how cognitive psychology became a field of study. It also explains how the advancements of computers generated a spark for cognitive psychology.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/481700/psychology/288095/Impact-and-aftermath-of-the-cognitive-revolution
This website went into details about how the cognitive revolution impacted other areas of psychology to include a cognitive perspective.

1) My topic that I wanted to research more on was of case studies that are mentioned in the chapter. There are several other types of studies in the chapter that are actually experiments, but there are certain studies that are observable. These studies are known as clinical case studies, and these studies are much more unique for they happen to such a small fraction of the population. The chapter briefly mentions about case studies, and the example it gave in the book was of soldiers who had brain damage from shrapnel. The the example from the book is a very interesting topic there are other case studies which I believe to be much more interesting. Feral children have been one of my top five most interesting case studies. The reason I find feral children such an interesting topic is because you get to see how a person with very little or no human interaction develops as the years of strenuous attempts to rehabilitate them is usually almost never completed.

2) In today's society the average person is taught that humans are able to communicate with the help of many different languages. Humans can also use tools to help them complete tasks, and being able to teach others our ways of life. Not only can we teach others of ourselves, but we also can learn about ourselves because humans have a consciousness. Feral children were used in the case studies because they're minds are untainted by the human way of life. One of the earliest known feral children was Peter who was found in 1724.

Peter was captured and was brought to a hospital then he was given the basic necessities of people of the time. Peter showed to be very interesting since he may not have liked much of the clothes that were given to him to wear, but he did like a hat. Peter also learned to wear clothes and shoes, but other than that he did not first agree with them. There were some possible signs that Peter may have been raised for a certain amount of time with humans because he was conditioned to fear a cane when it is waved at him threateningly. Peter even as the years went by was unable to learn how to speak.

Unlike Peter who was raised in the wild by other animals there are other forms of feral children. There are feral children who were not even raised by animals. Some feral children can be just neglected to such an extent that they do not even show animal instincts. In the early years of a child they need to have some. Feral children with no socialization from any source have a much more difficult time trying to be rehabilitated back into society. Much like Peter these children could not fully learn how to speak even the simplest of words, but the completely neglected children did not even know how to take care of themselves. Peter at least was able to acquire food for himself.

There have been very few feral children that have been able to be rehabilitated to be like a normal human. Oxana who was raised by dogs for most of her life has been shown to be converted from her animal behaviors to being more like a normal women. The reason for Oxana being able to be almost completely rehabilitated back into society, except for she is at a care center still, is because she had been able to receive some human socialization till she was about 6 years old. Oxana only adapted to being like a dog because it was the only way she knew how to survive.

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=RYG_CAWZZ4sC&oi=fnd&pg=PR15&dq=Feral+Children&ots=ezeEv-6SW1&sig=xN6TDnIGP0pmgYzret1LcImAwxo#v=onepage&q&f=false
This article had a lot of information on different feral children throughout time that sciences were trying to understand about the brain.

http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/the-girl-in-the-window/750838 This article provided information on an example of a feral child that had been completely neglected and had no form of comfort from humans or animals. This extent of neglect shows that these feral children are almost virtually dependent on others.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93HymGXC_wM This video was part of a documentary on feral children. Oxana was able to almost completely become rehabilitated into society, but not completely due to her having human interaction throughout her life even if they were brief. This video provides a visual example of a feral child.

1.A. The topic I will discuss for this week’s topical post are the effects of life experiences on brain anatomy and behavior. More specifically I will focus on life experience of stressors impact on brain anatomy and behavior.
1.B. In chapter two, we are presented with material that covers some of the basics of brain anatomy and functioning. The chapter also describes what various researchers have discovered with respect to the brain’s relationship with behavior and emotion. Therefore, a discussion focused on something that can alter brain anatomy/functioning and behavior seems especially germane to the topics covered in chapter two.
1.C. I am interested in this topic because of its implications for how people experience our lives. If our brains are vital component in how/why we think, feel and behave the way we do then whatever can alter the brain seems to be an important threat or benefit to any human. Life stressors such as childhood abuse seem especially troubling for a few reasons. The reason for which I believe childhood abuse is the most concerning is how easy it is to experience. Brain alteration in textbooks is usually presented in the form of railroad spikes flying through one’s head or accidents resulting in a very specific kind of traumatic brain energy. With life stressors such as childhood abuse, simply being treated in one manner, as opposed to another has the potential to alter how we think, feel and behave. While a very dark subject, I feel understanding our environments ability to influence our brain anatomy is extremely important to human’s wellbeing and interesting.
In a video of a presentation on effects of early childhood abuse, the MD presenting explains the process through which stress can alter volume in areas of the brain and what the effects of anatomical changes to the brain are. He even discusses how neural pruning is different in those who have experienced childhood abuse. This appears to be very important, this would mean that in a sense, early childhood experiences can cause you to be ‘wired’ differently. It may be that in the midst of a stressful environment early in life, physiological responses as well as the brain may have evolved to morph the brain’s anatomy. If true this would be evolutionarily advantageous as it would give it the best possible chance to meet the demands of a physically or psychologically threatening environment.
These strengths may be viewed as weakness to some or in more common situations. For example in my second source it claims that experiencing multiple kinds of trauma in childhood can alter the brain such that one has difficulties with affect regulation. However, if one a child is experiencing trauma at the hands of adults, the power differential may necessity immediate and strong reactions if they are to cope with or combat whatever abuse is taking place. If the child finds a supportive environment it would likely be a detriment to their relationships, but nonetheless it may have at one time and value in surviving an abusive environment. This source even claims that if a childhood experiencing this stress does have some positive support in some area of life that they can go on to be highly resilient in when they encounter stress.
My previous sources have also highlighted cognitive and learning deficits encountered by those who have experienced abuse. While this may be true, there is still some hope that children can cope and be successful in learning tasks. In a New York Times article on resiliency and child abuse, the author claims that resilient children are not entirely passive in being resilient. Some of the children who are resilient become skilled at developing “beneficial” relationships with adults. This could be due to the brain’s being wired differently and causing a child to be better at certain skills or make a child feel a need to learn. Abused children may appear to possess many deficits, when thanks to the brain, it may the case that the wrong measuring sticks are being used to evaluate them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6_nindqsTs I searched for a source such as this first because I felt it was important to find evidence that abuse can impact brain anatomy and behavior. It provides a foundation of knowledge about how the brain operates and how its functioning can change in the event of early life stressors which is a necessary point to illustrate as I continue to make the case that the brain is restructuring such that it is creating misunderstood cognitive and behavioral strengths.

http://www.rtc.pdx.edu/PDF/fpW0702.pdf This source was somewhat less about the biological ramifications of abuse and more about social, emotional and behavioral impacts of abuse. This helped me share that there both positive and negative consequences to experiencing childhood abuse. It also allowed me to introduce the notion that given the right environment some weaknesses influenced by brain anatomy may be strengths.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/magazine/30abuse.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
This article allowed me to make my final point that the brain may be capable of influencing a child to think more about honing positive skills that many researchers may not be think to evaluate. Overall I wanted this last source to help me illustrate the adaptability and competence the brain can have in some of the more harrowing, unfortunate and demanding environments a human can experience.

After reading this chapter something that i thought that i might be interested in looking at a little more is eye tracking. maybe seeing how this might effect dyslexia. it relates to the chapter cause the chapter touches on it a little.
Eye tracking is looking at how the eye moves compared to the movement of the head. when they are studing the tracking of the eye they are looking at what the eye is really looking at at different points. when a person reads their eyes don't move smoothly across the page they make a series of small jumps called saccades. these jumps are normal everyone has them. with eye tracking you can see these jumps and also where the eyes are going when they do jump. sometime some children aren't able to control these saccades or eye tracking and their eyes really jump. this can cause some reading and comprehension problems with the children. i think that this is were dyslexia comes in to play. the link from the eyes and the tracking has a short in it. a child reads slowly carefully and maybe uses their finger to follow along but not knowing so the eyes have jumped here and there and who knows what you are reading. in the video it shows how when a person reads where the eyes go.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_tracking
from here i just got general information about eye tracking and some back ground
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwNNij89qro
this video showed me how the eyes tend to move while reading
http://www.childrensvision.com/reading.htm
how eye movements effect comprehension