What I would like you to do is to find a topic or person from this week's chapter (or from the previous week) that you were interested in and search the internet for material on that topic. You might, for example, find people who are doing research on the topic, you might find web pages that discuss the topic, you might find a video clip that demonstrates something related to the topic, etc. What you find and use is pretty much up to you at this point. Please use at least 3 quality resources.
Once you have completed your search and explorations, a) I would like you to say what your topic is, b) how exactly it fits into the chapter, and c) why you are interested in it. Next, I 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. At the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. Keep in mind that it will be easier if you keep it to one topic.
Additional instructions: For each URL (internet resource) you have listed. Indicate why you chose it and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
I chose to do more research on Jean Piaget along with his theories and contributions to psychology. The information I’ll be researching will fit into this chapter because Piaget is introduced in this chapter about his contributions through cognitive psychology, I’ll simply expand on the information that was given in the book. I believe I’m interested in being more familiar with Piaget because I’ve never heard his name throughout more courses in psychology. I’m not quite sure, but this may because he’s from Switzerland and his work took so long to contribute to psychology. However, I want to know what he’s done throughout his years as being a psychologist.
Jean Piaget was born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, as the oldest child he was quite independent and took an early interest in nature, especially the collecting of shells. He published his first “paper” when he was ten; a one page account of his sighting of an albino sparrow. This information already lets us know that he was a very bright child if he was writing papers at the age of ten. When Piaget graduated from high school he attends the University of Neuchâtel. In 1918 he received his doctorate in science.
Jean Piaget began his career as a biologist. But his interest in science and the history of science soon overtook his interest in snails and clams. As he delved deeper into the thought-processes of doing science, he became interested in the nature of thought itself, especially in the development of thinking. Finding relatively little work done in the area, he had the opportunity to give it a label. He called it genetic epistemology, meaning the study of the development of knowledge.
He noticed, for example, that even infants have certain skills in regard to objects in their environment. These skills were certainly simple ones, sensori-motor skills, but they directed the way in which the infant explored his or her environment and so how they gained more knowledge of the world and more sophisticated skills. As he continued his investigation of children, he noted that there were periods where assimilation dominated, periods where accommodation dominated, and periods of relative equilibrium, and that these periods were similar among all the children he looked at in their nature and their timing. And so he developed the idea of stages of cognitive development. These constitute a lasting contribution to psychology.
Piaget provided support for the idea that children think differently than adults and his research identified several important milestones in the mental development of children. His work also generated interest in cognitive and developmental psychology. Piaget's theories continue to be studied in the areas of psychology, sociology, education, and genetics. His work contributed to our understanding of the cognitive development of children. While earlier researchers had often viewed children simply as smaller version of adults, Piaget helped demonstrate that childhood is a unique and important period of human development.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html#sthash.oa3AOOrh.dpbs
This website held a good amount of information over Jean Piaget’s life. I chose to use this website because I felt it would help me get to know more about who he was.
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/piaget.htm
This webpage had a lot of great material. I chose to use this webpage because it was very distinctive with Piaget’s contributions, influences, and theories.
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/piaget.htm
This webpage has a lot of information about Piaget’s life, contributions and theories. This webpage contributed a lot to my blog simply because there was a lot of material here.
I chose to do more research into Kenneth Clark and Mamie Phipps Clark. I thought that it would be interesting to see what got them into their work and how growing up in this time in America as an African American affected them in their choices. I wanted to start my research from the point at which they felt the racial inequality in our country.
Kenneth Clark started to recognize the racial inequality when he started high school. He was trying to find a school that would fit his standards in education, but had a hard time with it because even his counselor told him to go a different route so that he would be safe from the racists. He decided to go against what everyone wanted him to do and go to George Washington High School in Washington Heights. At this school he graduated as one of ten African America students in his class. After high school he went to Howard University, which was an African American school, which with the help of students and facility started to lay the ground work for the civil rights movement.
Mamie Phipps was always aware of the segregation rules and that she knew what she could and couldn’t do. She went to s segregated school where she was always aware of the fact that she wasn’t allowed to do certain things or to do into certain places. After high school she too went to Howard university where she wanted to pursue math, but changed her mind to social sciences her sophomore year. That is where he and her husband Kenneth met.
Kenneth then became the first African American person to be accepted into the Columbia University’s graduate psychology department. They both were writing papers and getting them published in academic journals, which was a huge deal for them. Mamie followed Kenneth and became the second African American graduate student in psychology at Columbia University. They both worked hard to get to where they got and then used their education and research to help the racial equality movement.
Their research was a huge part in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Brown v. Board of Education. One of the research areas that helped was the doll test, which showed that most of the time no matter the race a child would pick a white doll over a black doll because the white doll was pretty and good while the black doll was bad and ugly. This case wasn’t all they worked on, but all throughout their upcoming life they would testify in courts about the consequences of segregation and what they have found in there research. They also would team up with other researchers that were working on the same topics to continue the fight for equality.
Overall I think that there story is amazing and interesting to learn about. They worked hard to get where they wanted and were able to make a difference in the fight for equal rights. They also founded the Northside Center for Child Development in Harlem that was a major contribution.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2830905582.html
This site was very useful because it was a play by play of their life and what they did together and separate.
http://www.harlemhistory.org/resolutions/KennethMamiePhilpsClarkPlace.pdf
I used this site to get some information on what they did and the major goals that they accomplished.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_B._Clark#Doll_experiments
I used this site to look at their lives, but to also look more into the doll experiments because I was curious what all came out of that experiment
For this week’s topical blog I decided to do more research on Mamie Phipps because although we learned a lot about her contributions in the Brown vs. Board of Education court case, we didn’t learn much about her upbringing and I think that this have could had a great influence on her career decision.
Mamie was born April 18, 1917 in Hot Springs, Arkansas. She was raised in a very educated family, her father being a physician and her mother, Kat, a homemaker who was actively involved in her husband’s medical practice. Mamie had a very happy and comfortable childhood even though she grew up during the great depression and during a time of great racism where lynching of blacks was very common. Her family’s wealth gave her a few privileges although she still was educated at a segregated school. Mamie graduated from Langston High School at the age of seventeen, and even though she was black she was offered several scholarships to pursue a higher education. Both scholarships were to the most prestigious black Universities including Fisk University in Tennessee and Howard University in Washington D.C. She decided to go to Howard to major in mathematics and minor in physics. At Howard she met the love of her life, Kenneth, a master’s student in psychology who convinced her to pursue a degree in psychology since the field was promising because of employment opportunities. He also wanted her to pursue this degree because she had a keen interest in working with children/child development. Immediately after graduation she enrolled in the graduate program and began working on her thesis, “The Development of Consciousness of Self in Negro Pre-School Children,” also known as the doll studies. She used this study to begin her line of research that was used to make racial segregation unconstitutional in American public schools. In conclusion she found that black children were aware of their race at a young age and were insecure about it. Shortly after she completed her thesis she was hired by a law office that was leading a civil rights movement. They wanted her to continue her work to try and fight against the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court case.
In 1943 she became the first black woman to earn a psychology doctorate and the second black person (both sexes) behind her husband Kenneth, but despite all of her successes she still experienced great difficulty while trying to find a job in New York City. Eventually she found a job that was very fulfilling and would later lay the foundation for her life’s career/purpose in the area of developmental psychology. She became a counselor at the Riverdale Home for children in New York, while employed here she conducted psychological tests/counseled homeless African American girls, this is also when she realized that there was a huge shortage of psychological services available for blacks and other miniority children in New York City and she wanted to change this. In response to this, Mamie created the Northside Center for Child Development in Harlem which was one of the first agencies to provide comprehensive psychological services to the poor, blacks, and other minority children, later on down the road this facility would also provide psychological help for behavioral, emotional, and educational problems as well to children and their parents.
http://www2.webster.edu/~woolflm/mamiephippsclark.htm
http://www.feministvoices.com/mamie-phipps-clark/
http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2938
The topic I decided to do my blog on this week was Eleanor Gibson. She was featured in chapter fifteen, and I wanted to learn more about her because she sounded like a fascinating individual.
Eleanor Gibson was born on December 7th 1910 in Peoria, Illinois. She is best known for her study of perception in toddlers and infants, and also for her creation of the visual cliff. The visual cliff showed an infant or toddlers ability to percieve depth by avoiding the deep side of a virtual cliff. With this method, she said that perception is an adaptive process. She also said that perceptual learning takes place by differentation. She is also credited with the creation of the Ecological Theory of Development. This centers on the concept of affordance and how children learn to percieve them.
She attended Smith College where she studied psycholog, and that is also where she met her husband. They married in 1932. Gibson also taught at smith college from 1931-1949. She left teaching at Smith to gain her doctorate from Yale. Then she taught at Cornell until her retirement. In 1969 she published "Principles of Perceptual Learning and Development," which argued the differential theory of perceptual learning. Eleanor Gibson was honored in recieving the National Medal of Science in 1992 by George Bush. She was the fifth psychologist ever to recieve it. She worked int he field of psychology until her death on December 30th 2002. She died in Columbia, South Carolina. She will forever be remembered most for her idea of the visual cliff, and also for her work in perceptual psychology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_J._Gibson
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/233281/Eleanor-J-Gibson
http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/07-08/gibson.aspx
I read more about Dr. Eleanor Gibson, she is best known for her work in depth perception and the “visual cliff” experiment involving babies and their mothers. I found it interesting that her famous experiment was not exactly in line her first ideas for the path she wanted her career to take. However, as happened with most women intellectuals of her time, she was forced to take an alternate path to success after she was rejected by Dr. Robert Yerkes when she asked to work in the infamous chimpanzee lab he directed at Yale. Due to that rejection Dr. Gibson was not able to work in the desired experimental lab and instead was forced to pursue the topic of differentiation for her dissertation.
When her husband, Dr. James Gibson, took a job at Cornell in the Psychology Department, Eleanor Gibson was not allowed to take a job in the same department due to nepotism rules at the university. Instead, she applied for and received research grants and spent the next 16 years as an unpaid research assistant at Cornell; the nepotism rule was eliminated and she was able to become a full professor in 1966. At one time she worked at the Behavior Farm at Cornell with Dr. Howard Liddell where she was conducting an experiment on the development and imprinting of goats at the farm. However, she had to abandon that research mid-point when her goats were given away as Easter presents. Much of Eleanor Gibson’s successes came from her ability to adapt to unexpected changes and setbacks and her tenacity in pursuing her goals.
After the incident with the goats, she partnered with Dr. Richard Walk in the lab at Cornell working with rats and the impact of environment on learning. Gibson and Walk noted that the rats were cognizant of depth no matter what the environment they were raised in, and concluded that depth perception was inherent in animals, and even inherent at birth in many. It was the work with perception in the rats (as well as observations Gibson made of her own child) that set Walk and Gibson on the research for depth perception in babies, and the results of their study were featured in the Scientific American Journal and even in LIFE magazine, one of the most popular periodicals at that time.
It was in 1966 that Dr. Eleanor Gibson was hired as a full professor and given her own lab at Cornell (she subsequently lectured on the need for female researchers to have their own labs). She had managed to take a more circuitous path to success, but being deprived of her own research facilities and a professorship likely impacted her ability to be even more successful. While studying at Yale, she was not allowed to use the lab, the library or other campus facilities because she was a woman. At that time there seemed to be efforts to prevent women from gaining too much access to educational opportunities, even barring them from attending lectures. However, Dr. Gibson did not want her accomplishments to be defined from a feminist standpoint. Gibson’s visual cliff experiments led to a greater understanding of the development of depth perceptions in infants, but also determined the effects of the mothers’ facial expressions and reassurances given as cues in determining the infants’ perceptions of the dangers of the cliff. Dr. Gibson’s work is still notable and important to this day in understanding perceptions and human behaviors.
Resources cited:
http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/07-08/gibson.aspx
http://faculty.frostburg.edu/mbradley/psyography/gibson.html
http://psychologistoftheweek.blogspot.com/2012/10/eleanor-j-gibson.html
The topic that I choose to focus in on is, George Miller and his work on magical numbers for our memory. I picked this topic because it was at interest to me as of why this is, why does our brain only remember this amount of numbers. I also wanted to learn if this can change. Is it our genetics, brain functions, or just simply our memory? Treading back to Miller he was a cognitive psychologist. He had a large impact on psychology that contributed to his numerous awards and publications. He also had a strong focus on mathematical and computational psychology. As we have learned behaviorism was on the rise around WWII. Miller was the first to take things and compute them on a mathematical scale. The main paper that he is known for is, “ The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information.” He focuses on our working memory of seven, and refers to it as Miller’s Law. The limit is very one dimensional and focussed on our short term memory. His main experiment was with ten varying tones that were paired with a response, and as he observed this he concluded that over five tones created challenges. He introduced “bits” of information, which is similar to chunking. This component categorized memory as having four to eight alternatives for memory. He not only examined sounds, he experimented with words, letters, and digits. He referred the ability to call back numbers, as memory span. He would present them with a list of stimulus and the immediately have them respond with repetition of the stimulus. One interesting thing that I learned from researching this topic further is that the working memory fluctuates based on the type of stimulus. For example, seven is for digits, six letters, and five words. It interests me to know why! The brain has specific areas for short term memory that works in a specific way and this has a specific method for use of this memory. The response of speaking the words aloud is another area of the stimulus that has an affect on amount of numbers we can remember. Words are smaller because we spend more time making a sound from a letter. This area of study is very fascinating and plays a huge role in the way things are set up in our humanistic environment. The main question I did not get answered is if we can condition our memory. If we made things longer in numbers, could we eventually evolve our memory. How similar is this with primates, maybe testing thing on animals would be of interest. This clearly has a huge neurological understanding. That is particularly over my head, however, I think it is important to gain a grasp on neurological psychology to be well rounded.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_or_Minus_Two
I used this site to break down the memory involved with the stimulus, and learn about the stimulus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Armitage_Miller
I used this site to learn more about Miller and what areas he focused on besides his one publication.
http://www.human-memory.net/types_short.html
This site taught me more about each particular memory and how each works.
Chapter 14 discussed a wide range of topics. Amongst these topics was the work that Frederick C. Bartlett completed and the influence it had on psychology and our understanding of memory formation. Specifically, in contrast to Ebbinghaus, Bartlett showed reason to believe that children actively organize information and their experiences into meaningful wholes. Memory is something that intrigues me as I work with Alzheimer's patients and I have always been an avid journal writer. Many times, when looking back through old journals of mine, I will have no recollection of the events I have written about until I actually read them, and then they come back clear as day. Also, I have always thought that I have a pretty good memory. However, my boyfriend and I have grown up together and went to school together k-12. Many times, he will be telling a story from our childhood in which we were both present but that I do not remember at all. Yet, I can remember just about everything a teacher says in lecture but he on the other hand, cannot. I have always wondered how this is.
I originally went to PyschINFO and typed "memory formation" into the search box. Tons of articles came up but none that particularly intrigued me. Then, I saw the word "autobiographical memory" in the suggested key word section and this immediately caught my eye and I went to google to learn more. Autobiographical memory is just as it seems it to be; the memory of an individual's life. It has two parts to it; episodic memory and semantic memory. Semantic memory is the general knowledge about the world whereas episodic memory is, as wikipedia says, "personal experiences and specific objects, people and events experienced at particular time and place." Together, these two forms of memory work together to create one's autobiographical memory.
During my research, I came across a woman, Mary Lou Henner, who is known as the "Memory Kid." Ms. Henner has an outstanding autobiographical memory and she says that it something she has had ever since she was a little girl but that she didn't realize that this was a unique trait until she got a little older. Ms. Henner has a written a book about how to strengthen one's autobiographical memory because she feels that "it truly is a gift." In her advice, she says that the best way to improve your autobiographical memory is to figure out what your best sense is; hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, seeing, etc... Once you figure this out, which you can do by a test online, you can then play on your strengths. I have not completed the online test, but I would guess that hearing and tasting are my two strongest senses. Most of my memories are triggered by a taste or a certain song. Henner also advises that it is best to think about your life in A-P-R; anticipation, participation, recollection. This way you get a more holistic experience and your memory can become more concrete.
Lastly, after getting background information on autobiographical memory, I wanted to research why there is a discrepancy in the strength of individuals' autobiographical memory, such as the one see between my boyfriend and I. Interestingly enough, I came across a research study that might explain why my autobiographical memory is weaker than most, sometimes even without my knowledge. This study took a sample of depressed students and a sample of non depressed students. They then examined their autobiographical memory by asking them questions and then asking their family/friends and comparing their answers. Results showed that the depressed students showed the greatest discrepancy in their autobiographical memory. Researches believe that this is due to the rumination that many depressed individuals feel. Rumination is the focused attention of bad feeling and events from the past and is common in individuals who have depressive/anxious symptoms. I have had my handful of depressive bouts and I am constantly battling with my anxiety. Perhaps this sheds some light as to why my autobiographical memory is a bit sub par.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twzX0Fo7LDs
This was a TV interview of Mary Lou Henner.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobiographical_memory
Here I got basic information about autobiographical memory.
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=4&sid=e40b7a9e-a9f0-49e9-b36a-41cd142442c3%40sessionmgr12&hid=10&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=psyh&AN=2013-03951-004
This is where I found the research study mentioned above.
I decided to do more research on Kenneth Clark and Mamie Clark Phipps. Kenneth and Mamie were best known for their research with children including the “doll studies.” In order to prevent confusion in this blog, I will refer to Mamie by her maiden name, Phipps. I was surprised to learn that even though both Clark and Phipps grew up during a time of segregation, neither suffered greatly because of it/ Phipps father was a doctor so her family was pretty well off. Though she went to a black only school, because of her father’s job and her family’s wealth, she and her family were often aloud into places that were “white only”. When Clark was five, his parents separated and his mother moved him and his sister from the Panama Canal area to live in Harlem in New York where at this time, ethnic diversity was disappearing.
Phipps originally had gone to college for mathematics but was later persuaded to study psychology by Clark were they attended Howard University. Eventually, both went to study psychology and received bachelors and masters degrees at Howard. Clark and Phipps were the first African Americans to receive their doctorates from Columbia. Clark was the first African American to be a full professor at City College in New York and was even the first African American to be president of the American Psychology Association. In 1946, Clark and Phipps opened their own agency called the Northside Center for Child Development. They were influenced by the Civil Rights movement and were expert witnesses in many school desegregation cases.
As I mentioned before, Clark and Phipps were best known for their doll studies. This study is properly called, “Racial identification and preference in Negro children” (Clark & Clark, 1947) In this study, children were presented with dolls; a female doll and a male doll with light colored skin and a female doll and a male doll with darker skin. The children were presented with questions concern9ing the doll such as: “Show me the doll that you would like to play with,” “Show me the doll that looks bad,” “Show me the doll that looks like you.” It was found that black children showed a preference for the light skinned dolls and considered the dark skinned dolls bad. There were even cases where the black children said they most resembled the light skinned dolls. It was concluded that segregation has a negative effect on black children’s self-esteem. This study really shows the effects and the stress that was and still is today put on black children. These findings were presented at school desegregation trials in Virginia, South Carolina, and Delaware. In 1954 those findings were cited in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kan., the landmark Supreme Court decision that ruled public-school segregation unconstitutional.
http://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/ethnicity-health/psychologists/clark.aspx
I liked this site because it gave the most background on the Clarks professional history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_and_Mamie_Clark
I chose this site because it gave a great description in who Mamie and Kenneth were individually, not only as a couple.
http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/remarkable_columbians/kenneth_mamie_clark.html
This site was brief but gave an overall summary of the Ckarks.
RB
For my last topical blog in this class, I have decided to do it over Alan Turing and his Turing test. The Turing test was Alan Turing’s approach at determining whether or not computers could think for themselves. This topic ties in with the chapter, as it is a subtopic of the section on artificial intelligence.
Alan Turing was born in London on June 23rd, 1912. His father, Julius Turing, was a member of the Indian Civil Service. Thus, Alan Turing’s parents were constantly traveling back and forth between England and India. At the age of 6, his parents enrolled him at St. Michael’s, which was a day school. At the age of 13, he moved on to Sherborne School, in the town of Sherborne. Early on, Turin was noticed by his instructors to be particularly gifted. Turing had a natural inclination towards math and science. At the age of 16, he not only encountered and understood Einstein’s theory on Newton’s laws of motion, but he extended the application of them. From 1931 to 1934, Turing studied at King’s College in Cambridge as an undergraduate. After successfully formulating his Turing machines, he went on to study at Princeton University from 1936 to 1938, from which he received his PhD. During World War II, Turing helped to decode the Germans secret form of communication, which proved invaluable in the defeat of the Third Reich. In 1949, Turing was appointed to the position of Deputy Director of the Computing Laboratory at the University of Manchester, where he worked on computing machinery.
In 1950, Alan Turing made his greatest contribution to the field of psychology when he developed his Turing test. The Turing test was another name for the imitation game that Turing developed to evaluate the question of whether or not computers could actually think for themselves. In this game, there is one person who sits in a room by themselves. This person is the questioner. In a separate room, there is another person and a computer. So the questioner does not know who is whom, the other person and the computer are given the labels X and Y. The questioner asks questions to both the other person and the computer. Whichever one is addressed specifically has to answer the question. The goal of the experiment is for the machine to convince the questioner that it is the other person. The other person’s job is to assist the questioner in correctly identifying which subject is which.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/
This website provided very detailed information on the specifics of the Turing test
http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/scrapbook/test.html
This webpage gave adequate background information on Turing’s life
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17662585
This webpage provided some basic information on Turing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing
This webpage provided both good background information and information on the Turing test
The topic I’m writing about has to do with AI (artificial intelligence) from chapter 14 and how it has grown and where it can or might take us in the future. It relates to psychology in a few ways, it shows us as humans what we are capable of. From a more psychological based background it brings about a problem that has been around for some time. Whether or not purely mechanical explanations are sufficient enough for understanding the human behavior and mental processors. I’m particularly interested in this topic for it is an ever growing field that continues to involve itself in our daily lives. The advances we’ve made so far in the medical field are astounding, things like prosthetics and robotic arms for performing surgeries have all improved lives. That’s not even taking into consideration military applications on both civilian and government scale, from tactical bomb robots to spy droids. At the same time this can cause a problem at the public level, where you might see an individual pushing a series of buttons in a factory may be replaced by a machine, giving rise to the ever growing problem of unemployment.
Whether we like it or not there has been tremendous strides in the field of robotics since the start of the 21st century. With modern robots able to mimic movements and reactions of humans the only challenge left is to see if robots can be taught to think for themselves and react to changing conditions. Even though AI has yet to reach that promise of thinking analytically there are in some ways technology has already impacted our life today. One of the most widely impacting of those today is that of the stupid weather. Large amounts of data are always being gathered and analyzed by meteorologists to predict the weather, but yet they are not always accurate. With advances almost every year in weather scientists may be able to predict patterns better and more accurately with the use of AI software. Which can shift through more complex data faster and predict patterns that the human eye might miss, sending alerts out faster and maybe even increase benefits in crop development such as agriculture. The next advance that is in use already is that of driverless transport. Placing cameras, sensors, and special software in vehicles allows one to avoid accidents and even in some models of vehicles, self-parking all at a touch of a button. Although not a car, Japan already have and use driverless trains that carry hundreds of passengers form location to location.
There are those out there that are both impressed and alarmed with the advances in AI. Debate whether there should be limits put in place on research that might lead to loss of human control. They say machines like predator drones, although still controlled by humans, are the closes things to an autonomous killing machine. Any further advances could cause social disruption and dangerous consequences. Pointing out things like medical systems that interact on an emotional level with patients and computer worms and viruses that seem to evade extermination can reach a level of machine intelligence that is beyond human control. A loss of control that can be placed in the employment and education of our economy. The routine jobs of the 20th century are a thing of the past, human like tasks have gradually been replaced by machines putting many out of jobs and adding to the growing numbers of unemployment. That doesn’t hold true for all, there are those that have proved challenging for AI scientists to replicate. The inability to automate many tasks that require human sensory and motor skills is an example of what AI technology has yet to reach.
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/curiosity/topics/ways-artificial-intelligence-will-affect-our-lives.htm
http://www.macroresilience.com/2011/03/15/advances-in-technology-and-artificial-intelligence-implications-for-education-and-employment/
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/science/26robot.html?_r=1&
After reading a little bit about Eleanor Gibson in chapter 15 I decided I wanted to look more into her studies because I found her studies to be recognizable from what classes I’ve had in the past. Since I had known about some of her work I remember I found most of her research very interesting and so I wanted to go into more detail with that. I chose to do this because I didn’t think the book covered her work because it was more focusing on how she overcame adversity in her profession and how that meant a lot for women in the field of psychology.
Of the work Gibson did the most important and popular would have been the work she did with perception in infants. This research on the perception of infants came to be known as the “visual cliff”. The visual cliff is an idea that was hypothesized by Gibson that depth perception is an inherent trait and that it is not a learned process. In order to test this hypothesis they set up infants on a platform that was then after a few short feet dropped about 4 feet off the edge. This was not dangerous because there was a clear plexiglas surface that went over the top of the 4 foot drop-off. During the experiment the researchers found that infants who crawled over to their mothers were usually hesitant in doing so and would touch the Plexiglas to make sure it was stable and it wasn’t just a drop-off. From this study we can see that when infants are at crawling age they are able to perceive depth already. An interesting spin on this study was done on the study of animals.
The interesting part about this was that animals that relied more on sight for survival were more likely to distinguish depth. A good example of this would be how cats are able to see depth better because they rely on sight to find prey whereas mice rely on smell to find food and don’t have as good of depth perception.
Gibson also helped author the book “The Psychology of Reading” over the process of reading that we undergo when processing sentences. This book covers topics that are involved in our process of reading from perceptual learning, the nature of writing systems, and an extensive review of the research on word recognition, to say a few. What Gibson had found out is that in order to read we must use a combination of cognitive psychology techniques that will develop over our lifespan and will make us better readers as time goes on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrzmvI6iMrE- This is a great video on an example of the visual cliff and what parts of the brain are active in using our depth perception skills.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_cliff- Background information on the visual cliff experiments with infants and animals.
http://www.psy.cmu.edu/~siegler/35pick92.pdf- This link shows background on the development of children and how they learn to read. This is helpful in showing how Gibson contributed to the study of cognitive psychology on learning.
I decided to look into the Doll Study by Kenneth and Mamie Clark. I decided to look further into this because it was touched on in chapter 15 and really interested me. I wanted to know more about it, and if it has been replicated recently.
The doll study started as Mamie Clark's thesis. It studied two groups of children. One group came from a segregated school in Washington DC and the other group came from from an integrated school in New York. The children were presented with two dolls. One had brown skin and black hair and the other had white skin and blonde hair. The kids were then asked which doll was the prettiest, which doll was the ugliest, which doll was smart, which doll was dumb. The kids were also asked which doll looked like them. The white doll was preferred in both schools, but the self-hatred of African American children was more intense in the segregated schools. This study was used in several desegregation cases, including Brown V Board of Education.
In 2006 a filmmaker recreated this study using children in Harlem. 15 of the 21 kids there chose the white doll to be the pretty, good, and smart one. In 2009 Good Morning America did the test again, with 19 black kids from Virginia. It is hard to compare this study with the others because the children were allowed to pick both or neither dolls as an answer. This study also asked the kids which doll looked like them first, rather than last. The majority of the kids said the black doll looked like them. Boys thought that both the black doll and the white doll were pretty, but almost half of the girls said the white doll was prettier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_and_Mamie_Clark#Doll_experiments
I used this website for information on the original doll study
http://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/the-clark-doll-experiment/
I used this link for information on the GMA study
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/New_doll_test_produces_ugly_results_2919.shtml
I used this link for information on the doll study done in the documentary
After reading the last chapter in the History and Systems of Pyschology textbook, I really wanted to look into the trends of psychology over time. Although psychology is a very young field, a lot has happened since its birth and it's important to see where it has led. By looking at the trends over time, I think it gives us a really broad understanding of the entire paradigm of psychology-- what makes it what it is, what binds all the different subfields together, and what makes them radically different from one another. The book listed a couple of the trends that could be noted after reading the previous chapters, but I was interested in what other sources had to say on the matter.
A number of proposed trends have made their way into cyberspace, some of them relating to ones that I read in the book. Some of the trends noted seemed anomalous, especially those proposed by random people on blogs. However, some sources were put together by scholars who have done extensive research in the general field of psychology; these sources and their respective theories carry more weight in the analysis of the field.
Across the board, the most prominent trend regarding the history of psychology has been the swift drop in psychoanalysis. While Freudian psychodynamics clearly present us with a few problems-- namely, the theory is unfalsifiable, which makes it difficult for scientists to take it very seriously, the swift drop is interesting. The way Freud practiced psychoanalysis has been criticized far more often than it has been accepted, however, this does not explain the lack of attention toward modern psychoanalytic approaches. In 1993, the percentage of dissertations with reference to the psychoanalytic school of thought was around one percent. This figure is growing at an enormously slow rate, especially considering its cult-like nature in the past.
Behavioral psychology is also on the decline, but has had a vastly different dissent from the psychoanalytic school of thought. While psychoanalysis plummeted, behavioral psychology slowly lost power after the sixties. It has had a much bumpier ride than psychoanalysis, with mentions in dissertations fluctuating greatly from year to year. The drop of behavioral psychology facilitated the popularity of the cognitive model of psychology.
The cognitive model of psychology has been the only model to steadily grow since the 1950s. In 1998, nearly twenty percent of dissertations mentioned the cognitive school of psychology, and it seems that this figure is still on the rise. This is the most prominent school of psychology and is said that it will probably remain so for the future. All sources seem to agree that this is the greatest sustained and the steadiest model of psychology looking at its history and its possibilities for the future.
While neuroscience and psychology work well together and have made much progress in the understanding of the brain, it seems to not be getting the publicity through dissertations. The trend is that its popularity has been relatively low overall with only a modest increase recently. This is incredibly surprising, especially since almost every new finding we hear about in psychology courses has to do with something pertaining to neuroscience. However, the fusion of neuroscience and cognitive psychology into cognitive neuroscience may be the most promising field of all.
Naturally, the fluctuations in prominence between the various schools of psychological thought have implications for the kinds of jobs available in psychology. This has a very real world effect for those in the field or are interested in their options after they are done with school. If we are looking at ground breaking findings facilitated through science, neuroscience is a promising area of study. But based on the emphasis placed on the various schools of thought in academia (and especially in those presented in dissertations), cognitive psychology is an increasingly promising field to those interested in the model. Either way, the APA's trends seem to indicate that psychology is an increasingly promising field for all, with something to offer to people with various educational backgrounds and various interests.
http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/faculty/gosling/reprints/AmPsych99Trends.pdf
http://www.apa.org/workforce/presentations/rmpa-handout.pdf
http://www.intropsych.com/ch01_psychology_and_science/modern_trends.html
For the last topical blog of the semester, I chose to do more research on Eleanor J. Gibson. We learned about her in chapter 15. I found her really interesting for multiple reasons. I was interested that she was a woman that was recognized for her great contributions to psychology at a time when women were not always given the credit they deserved, and because of the interesting experiments she created. The book explained a lot about her but I wanted to learn more about her and more specifically about her research.
At a very young age Eleanor discovered discrimination in her education due to her gender. It was interesting because while at Yale, she was not allowed to use the laboratories, cafeterias, or libraries. It seems to me that it would be almost impossible to complete the requirements to graduate without using these things. Although she faced some tough obstacles while in college she did report that she thoroughly enjoyed her time at Yale. I thought it was interesting that despite the extra challenges she had to face while in college she still managed to stay focussed and complete her education.
While at the Grand Canyon Eleanor developed one of her most famous experiments, the visual cliff. This cliff was used to test depth perception. Usually a child between 6 and 14 months was placed on the surface of the experiment. The experiment was made out of glass. The child would be placed on one end of the glass, which was placed on a wooden table-like structure, and a reward would be placed on the other. The child would be encouraged to cross the glass to reach the reward. The interesting part about this experiment was that 90 percent of the children six months or older refused to cross the glass where they saw that the depth changed. Not only did the children not cross the visual cliff but studies on rats and kittens showed similar results.
Gibson's differential theory was also an important part of her work. This theory explained that we could perceive stimuli after identifying features of the stimuli. This theory also explained that perceptual learning is possible from this theory.
Eleanor Gibson was a very interesting woman that greatly benefitted psychology. She was an excellent person to learn more about. I still think it is interesting how she was able to get through college and have as much professional success as she did while being a woman and thought of as inferior at the time. I think learning more about her is a great way to close out this semester of History and Systems of Psychology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_J._Gibson
This site explained the basics of the visual cliff experiment
http://www.feministvoices.com/eleanor-j-gibson/
This site talked about her work and experiments.
http://faculty.frostburg.edu/mbradley/psyography/gibson.html
This site was a biography of her life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibsonian_ecological_theory_of_development
This site was helpful because it explained the differential theory.
I decided to write about the psychology of artificial intelligence because it’s what we spent all of class talking about and we also watched part of the video “human 2.0”. It’s also something that is easy to talk about because everyone is going to have an opinion and they will all differ. Nobody has a right answer because we don’t have enough information to know what the future will hold for us and our advancements in computers.
I think that putting this talk of AI at the end of our book is very fitting. This seems to be the direction of a lot of our advancements. The world of computers constantly has this competition of who can make the strongest, fastest, and largest computers for the lowest prices. Our world is heading towards bigger and better computers (which are actually smaller in size). I predict that there will be a whole new future of psychology in the understanding of artificial intelligence. It seems like this will be a new path and possibly even a new field of study within the new future. Maybe this will develop a new thought path similar to behavioral and humanistic ideals. Only time will tell, but for now I have done some research on the current “artificial psychology”.
Artificial psychology is currently all theory based and therefore doesn’t have much to show for research. Even though there isn’t much for research; it’s been very easy to find literature on the topic. As I said before, everyone has an opinion on this stuff. There have been rules set down for what artificial intelligence really is and it has been explained by meeting two major conditions. The first condition is that the computer must make all of its decisions autonomously. It must be able to process new, abstract, and incomplete information. The AI must also be able to reprogram itself based on new data that it has encountered. The final part of condition one says that the AI must be able to correct it’s on programming conflicts.
Condition two talks about being able to meet the four previous conditions without it being in the original programming. This means that the AI would have been able to evolve past these obstacle’s on its own.
Our current technology isn’t advanced enough to be able to fit all of these requirements but there have been attempts to surpass one of the elements and wow the populations. I spent lots of time watching videos about the current AI’s and different robots of the time. I suggest looking at them if you get the chance (included in websites).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiyviOdF_ac – the robot wasn’t working very well in this one but I thought it was a good idea to present it none the less. This is a TED talks video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNL5-0_T1D0 – this video shows a robot being able to teach itself how to walk. The robot isn’t aware of it’s features and learns to become mobile. Very interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_psychology - Wikipedia gave me the bulk of the information that I had. This gave me that conditions of AI and what has surpassed it.
I wanted to do more research on Kenneth and Mamie Phipps Clark. I think the fact that they were African Americans and were able to help support the outcome of Brown vs. the Board of education was very impressive. I wanted to do more research on them because I wondered if they were only successful in the things mentioned in the books or if things like the doll studies and Brown vs. the Board of Education were just two of the things they were able to accomplish. I wanted to know about their backgrounds and their contributions to the science of Psychology.
Kenneth Clark was born in the Panama Canal Zone in July of 1914. He moved to New York City with his mother in 1919 and eventually studied at both Howard and Columbia Universities. Clark earned a PhD in psychology in 1940, and was the first black president of the American Psychological Association. He was also the first African-American to achieve tenure as a professor at the City College of New York.
Kenneth Clark aided Gunnar Myrdal with his monumental study of America's racial problems. Together with Mamie in 1946, the couple founded the Northside Center for Child Development to work with ghetto children, and published a report that unmasked the psychological effects of racial segregation in schools. The report was prominently cited in the 1954 Supreme Court ruling, Brown v. Board of Education, that outlawed segregation nationwide.
Kenneth also helped found Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited, served as a consultant to private and government bodies, was named the first black member of the New York State Board of Regents, and founded Kenneth B. Clark & Associates, a consulting firm for racially related issues. He published many books and articles on the condition of African-Americans such as Prejudice and Your Child, A Possible Reality, and Pathos of Power. Clark passed away on May 1, 2005.
Mamie Phipps Clark was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
He father was a doctor and her mother helped out with the practice. Mamie already had early life advantages and was encouraged by her parents to purse her education. She began her career as a physics and math major, but after meeting her future husband, he convinced her to switch to psychology.
Mamie balance graduate school with the arrival of two children. Right away she focused her interests on the formation of racial identity and self-esteem. In 1943, she earned her Ph.D. from Columbia University. Not only was she the only black woman in the entire program, but she also became the second African-American to earn a doctorate from Columbia, the first being her husband.
Both Kenneth and Mamie Clark contributed to the field of psychology, but more importantly they contributed to the Civil Rights Movement and paved the way for other African Americans to enter the field and to earn more advanced degrees.
In a very important experiment, the Clark's showed children four dolls (one of each gender and race). The dolls were identical in every way except for the color of the skin. The children were asked several questions including which doll they preferred to play with, which doll was a "nice" doll, which one was a "bad doll," and which one looked most like themselves. Kenneth and Mamie found that not only would many of the children identify the black doll as the "bad" one, but nearly 50-percent selected the white doll as the one they most resembled. When black students from segregated schools were compared to integrated school districts, the results revealed that kids from segregated schools were more likely to describe the white doll as the "nice" one. The experiment played an important role in the Brown vs. the Board of Education case by demonstrating the harmful effects of segregation on children. The Supreme Court went on to rule that racial segregation in U.S. schools was unconstitutional.
I believe that Kenneth and Mamie Clark should receive more credit in textbooks because they did a lot for the field. However, in the history of psychology women and minorities generally tend to be overlooked. Hopefully their contributions do not go on unacknowledged, and that they are remembered for the remarkable things they were able to accomplish.
http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/remarkable_columbians/kenneth_mamie_clark.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_and_Mamie_Clark
http://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/ethnicity-health/psychologists/clark.aspx
After looking through the chapters I decided to do more research on Walter Freeman’s procedure of the lobotomy. He is a physician that performed over 3500 lobotomies. I am very interested in the treatment of the mentally ill especially the drastic treatments like lobotomies and electro shock therapy. It intrigues me how drastic the treatments were. Freeman fits into the chapter on the treatment of the mentally ill. In the time that he was a live a lobotomy was a popular way of treating a patient who had a serious mentally illness such as schizophrenia. I am interested in this topic because such a drastic treatment was normal back then and now a days it is very rare because it is so drastic.
In 1945 there were on average of 150 lobotomies and due to Dr. Freeman that number soared to an average of 5000 a year. Dr. Freeman was also known as “The Lobotomist.” Overall a lobotomy took about three to five minutes. First the doctors would use electroshock therapy to render the patient unconscious. Then they would take an ice pick, from the kitchen. And insert in the eye right above the eye ball and tap a few times, wriggle it around severing the frontal lobes. Then they were given glasses to cover the black eyes that the lobotomy gave them. Often other doctors in the room would faint or vomit and some would just walk out. Even though it is a drastic measure there was always a supply of people that wanted the procedure.
The end of the lobotomy was due to a drug called Thorozine in 1954. It was known as the chemical lobotomy. Some of those symptoms were reduction in initiative and inhibition. They would also have decrease in cognition and detachment from society. Later in his career Freeman moved to California wanting to bring lobotomies to a new category of people. He did them on younger women and children. The children would show symptoms of ADHD and miss behave. He did lobotomies on nineteen children and on a child as young as four. In 1967 Dr. Freeman did his last lobotomy because the patient died of a brain hemorrhage on the table. He was then stripped of his license. Lobotomies are still performed today but in very rare cases of OCD but it is a modified form from the one the Dr. Freeman used.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0aNILW6ILk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Jackson_Freeman_II
For this topical blog I chose to write about Fred Bartlett. I really liked reading about his work in this chapter, and was interested to see if there was any other information on him that I could find. Since this was my last topical blog, and my last person behind the theory blog, I really wanted to challenge myself to see if there was some good inside information that I find. What I wanted to see was if there was anything about bartlett's personal life that I could find. I remember the section that we talked about Darwin. I found my best information on him just be stumbling around some articles, that is what lead me to do this topical blogs every Thursday. The book had some good information on bartlett, ut the book always seems to leave out some important information that I later find through research.
The first article that I found was actually a video on someone speaking about bartlett. He and Bartlett were good friends back at cambridge, and from what I can gather they worked together as well. The video talked about how bartlett did his different experiments. The experiment that the talked baout came directly from the book. It was the experiment when bartlett read a story to his clients, and then asked them to remember it a week later, two weeks later, and then if he could find them he would ask them to remember ther story years later. What Fred found was that people change the story to fit what is normal in society at the time. The story to begin with was odd in nature, but people were changing it because they did not what to tell such an odd story, so they made up their own. I thought that this was a very unique experiment, and an genious one at that. The interviewer then asked the man a question that was interesting to me. She asked him if perception and memory are linked together. Very blunty the man said yes because the moment we see something we connect to some past memory. What the man thought was interesting was that people who study perception and people who study memory work in two different fields. He thought that they should work together because that is how closely he feels that these two things are linked. I was impressed with this video and glad that I came across it because it gave me some good information on bartlett and his studies. I learned stuff from this video that I did not get from the book, and I always find that to be the case, so I am glad that I now have a better understanding on Fred.
The next article that I came across was very good. I was looking through different articles and could not find one that was important to this topic on Fred. This particular article was good because not only do I get to read about Fred, but I got to read about all the other important psychologists that contributed to cognitive psychology. I read through some of the names and the contributions, and was fasinated by some of their research and I realized something that I had talked about before on my blogs. As I read through the names I began to realize that all of these men and women furthered the field by looking at each others work. I said this before because I was interested to find out through reading the book that most of the psychologists build on to the field through the successes and the failures of the psychologists before them. Anyways, this article talked about Fred liked the last one did in the sense of his experiments. I have come to the conclusion that Fred was most notorious for his story experiments that he conducted. The article made an interesting point when it said that Fred did not believe that long term memory was always right. He argued the fact that once something in the long term memory is stored, it does not mean that it will be there forever, or that it will be the same memory when you need to retireve it the next time. I found this very interesting to read about because I feel that the man is right. The brain will change a memory to best fit the society or best interest of the person. We see this in rape victims will Freud and his daughter Anna. You could argue that Bartlett got some of his ideas from the work of Freud. That it the beauty of not only psychology, but of any field.
The last information that I came across was another video on Fred. The video was about his War ghost experiment that he conducted on some his clients. It is the experiment that I have talked about in the last couple of paragraphs. I am really intrigued about this experiment because of the impact that it had on the field of psychology. The experiment asks patients to remember a story about an old native american battle. The story is unlike anything that a normal person has seen because of the fact that it is a native american story. They are asked to remeber the story in week intervals. What Fred was looking for is what the people remembered and what the people misremebered. The misremebered part is what thought was the most significant information about the study. He thought that it was interesting that people would tell things that were not in the story at all, or details that were switched around. He thought that the long term memory was not as solid as everyone thought that it was. The long term memory did not remmeber every specific event or even major events when it was asked to retireve the information sometime later. What he found out was that the memory will make up memories for you to fit the society or the best fit for the person. We see this in the last couple chapters with Freud and his abuse victims that surpressed memories until adulthood. I believe that the information that I found was very helpful in my furhter understandinf of who Fred was as a person and as a psychlogists. I hate that this is my last topical blog because I really do enjoy reading about the important psychologists that are in my field of study. I am glad that I chose the route I did for my topical blogs because I belive that I got the most out of the information. Inside information that I feel no one else got to see.
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/cognitiv.htm
This article not only gave me a look at bartlett but at the other psychologists that were influencial in psychology
https://www.msu.edu/~henrikse/cep909/warofghosts.htm
This article helped me to understand bartlett and his war of ghost experiment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f1fI_Bf7WQ
this video gave me a first hand look at the experiment being done
I decided to do some research on Mamie Phipps Clark, I really just wanted to get to know her background information and personal life story a little bit better so she was more relatable and she was mentioned in chapter 15 for her studies on segregation and racism on the self-esteem of African American children. I remembered reading about her doll experiments in high school and even back then I thought they were pretty interesting and really just opened up my mind to her way of thinking. Sometimes I think it’s very common and easy for people to not think about something or the effects of something if it has no harm to them, such as racism and segregation back during her time era.
Mamie was actually born in 1917, her father owned a medical practice in the town they lived in and her mother, I’m assuming, was a ‘stay at home mother’. Since her father’s job of practicing medicine her family was able to live at a middle class level, allowing them certain privileges that other African American people weren’t allowed. Meaning, they could go in certain “whites only” sections because of their economic standing. I found that to be pretty interesting and I think it showed that even back then money played a part in how society saw you; obviously along with race. Also, I couldn’t help but wonder if the privileges she had over other African American children because of this economic standing, helped her realize that there could be an effect on a child’s self-esteem. What I mean is, she got to really live both sides, she at times was treated ‘equal’ or more equal than other African Americans because of her families wealth, but at the end of the day she knew that she was still an African American girl who in socially was never going to be equal to the other white girls running around.
I also found it interesting that although Mamie was subject to segregated schools, she still succeeded and was even offered two scholarships to very prestigious schools, in which she decided to attend Howard University. Something I didn’t realize from reading the book was that Mamie was actually a physics major, was persuaded to be a math major, and then untimely was told by her future husband to go into psychology because it was a fascinating are that offered her employment possibilities and would allow her to explore her interest of children. This just reminds me that you don’t have to have a set plan in life, you may think you know what you’re going to do and life can completely change; look where she ended up. Here she was a physics major, and then she ended up making a huge contribution to the field of psychology for her studies on children; a subject that she obviously already had a passion for but didn’t pursue it until later on in life.
In the end Mamie's study on segregation and racism in African Children can be very useful in today's world. We could actually look at many different areas; such as being gay, simply just being a female in today's society and the pressures of body image. I think untimely this study just made me think about many different groups of people in this world and how society could really effect them.
http://www2.webster.edu/~woolflm/mamiephippsclark.htm
http://www.feministvoices.com/mamie-phipps-clark/
http://digital-archives.ccny.cuny.edu/exhibits/Clark/Clark_3.pdf
Eleanor Gibson
This week I wanted to learn more about Eleanor Gibson, specifically more about her contributions to the world of psychology. However, I did also want to know more about her life and how she suffered through the discrimination.
Eleanor Jack was born in Peoria, Illinois to a middle class family. Her father was a business man who sold hardware, while her mother did not have a job. Eleanor graduated from Smith College, where she met her future husband James Gibson. James was an associate professor when the two met, and her would come to have a large influence on Eleanor's psychological career. After marrying James in 1932, which Eleanor was in process of getting her master's degree, she made the executive decision to attend Yale for her Ph.D. This is where she had hoped to do research with Robert Yerkes. However, this is where the trouble became more apparent. As Eleanor approached Yerkes about being her advisor, he strictly showed her the door and was quoted saying "I have no women in my laboratory." Although this would stop most women dead in their tracks, Eleanor simply moved on and found a different scientist to work with; Clark Hull. Although Eleanor didn't agree entirely with Hull's strict behaviorist theories, she had a strong urge to continue doing experimental work with him. Soon she would finish her dissertation on stimulus generalization and differentiation. She wrote it in such a way that she could disguise her functionalist views behind behaviorist vocabulary so that Hull would approve.
After graduating with her Ph.D. from Yale and accepting a job from Smith University with her husband, he was recruited by the Air Force not only after WWII broke out. James would be creating perception tests to select pilots. This would also mean that the Gibsons would be moving around with the Air Force to such places as Texas and then California. Once the war ended, both professors returned to Smith only to leave a few years later for James to take a job at Cornell. However, due to it's anti-nepotism rules, Eleanor had to settle for being a research associate working at Cornell's behavior farm. Sixteen years later in 1972, Eleanor finally was made a professor at Cornell.
Some of Gibson's major contributions included her "Visual Cliff" experiment which took place when she was still a research associate. Partnered with Richard Walk the pair created a visual cliff, a sheet of glass over patterned paper. On the side nearest the rats, the paper was directly below. However, on the far side, the paper was a few feet below. The theory was that if they obtained rats that were "dark-reared" the rats would have no depth perception since they never developed it in the dark. The experiment went according to their theories and the rats maintain their stay on the near side. The experimenters then took their research even further even testing it on human babies
Eleanor also played a large role in investigating infants, specifically their differentiation of the flexibility of real objects and affordances of surfaces. It was due to this that she received the National Medal of Science in 1992, an award rarely given to psychologists. Just as equally important, Eleanor Gibson made headway in career equality for women.
http://www.feministvoices.com/eleanor-j-gibson/
This site had exactly what I was looking for and seemed very reliable.
http://people.psych.cornell.edu/~jec7/pubs/EJGmem.pdf
This site was great because it was interesting to see what Cornell had to say about Eleanor
http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/07-08/gibson.aspx
this site I knew would have great information because it was from the APA's site
http://www.srcd.org/sites/default/files/documents/gibson_eleanor_interview.pdf
This site was an interview of Dr. Gibson which was very awesome to read things that she actually said about her life and research.
In class this week, we discussed the future of psychology, specifically how technology is going to manipulate how we think and interact with others. This area interests me, because by studying the behavior of humans, we can predict how they might act in given circumstances. One topic that intrigued me the most was the idea of everybody having their own personal robot who could do their work for them. I personally don't think it's very likely for that to turn into a full reality, because if there was technology to give every human a robot that is capable of doing any tasks that a human can, companies will just buy a bunch of robots and lay off all the employees. This would happen way before the average middle class worker could ever get his/her hands on a personal robot. Technology and machines have always worked to benefit the one controlling it, because it allows them to get a job done more efficiently and eliminate the need for outside help (usually unskilled, manual labor jobs), which is why robots are already in the process of taking jobs away from people in the middle class.
One important thing that we can infer as psychologists is how people are going to react to human-like robots. Researchers have found that people are uncomfortable with robots who have almost human-like features/mannerisms if they're not quite human. This contrasts with the more favorable reaction to robots that are less human-like, and to robots who do a spot-on impersonation of a human. This concept is referred to as the "uncanny valley" because the ratings of less/more human-like robots on a graph dips down in the middle where they're similar to humans but aren't quite there. Researchers have found some evidence to suggest that this is due to a person's expectations...if something like a machine can feel emotions, it is unnerving. Evidence to support this was found in a reversal study where they had participants report how unnerved they were when they saw a picture of a man and was told either that he was normal, was unable to feel emotions, or was unable to plan things. Participants in the "unable to feel emotions" tended to report feeling more unnerved, because they expected the guy to have feelings.
This says a lot about the human mind, because we tend to feel unsettled by things that go against our expectations. In a world where corporations want to introduce robots to take over lower-level jobs, it may be a lucrative career to study what would make humans accept the robots.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
This website discussed how the uncanny valley was first discovered
http://www.economist.com/node/21559316
This website talked about research that verified the inverse of the uncanny valley
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/42183592/ns/business-careers/t/nine-jobs-humans-may-lose-robots/#.UYSERcpmyuk
This site showed many jobs that will eventually be obsolete because robots will be trained to do them
BR
From this week I decided to do more research on Mamie Clark and how her research influenced the ruling of Brown vs. Education Board. Mamie Phipps Clark was born in 1917 in Hot Springs, Arkansas. She graduated from Howard University with a bachelor’s and a master’s degree as well as her husband did also. Kenneth Clark was her husband and he also did research and contributed to their studies on black children and discrimination. A fun fact about these two was that they were the first African Americans to get their doctoral degrees in psychology from Columbia University.
Clark’s passion was in developmental psychology and after receiving her degree she worked at a home for children in New York. Here she did psychological tests and was counselor for African American girls. This job was a significant part of her life because it made her realize the deficit of psychological services that were available for blacks and minorities in New York City. This experience led her to open The Northside Center for Child Development in Harlem, and this was her way of giving back to the community and in trying to give minorities more psychological services. The Northside Center ended up becoming one of the first places to give comprehensive psychological services to the poor, blacks and other minority children. Clark was making steps towards providing and making positive changes in these children’s lives. The center began growing rapidly and Mamie ended up expanding and offered educational programs for children and their parents.
Another successful attribution from Clark’s work was having her expertise used in the ruling of Brown vs. Board of Education. Mamie and Kenneth both contributed to the Civil Rights movement by testifying in multiple school desegregation cases. They were expert witnesses and used their research conducted on children from the Northside Center as proof that their esteem was being effected by segregation in schools. The Clarks came up with a doll test to show how black children’s self-esteem was being diminished. This test consisted of them asking the children to choose between a white doll or a black one, and the result was that the African American children preferred the white doll more because they thought it to be nicer and they wanted to play with that one more. Another question that was asked in this experiment was which one looked like them the most, and 44% of the black children chose the white one. These results were a huge persuasion to the Supreme Court during the trial because they showed that separate but equal schooling was anything but that.
I enjoyed reading about the Clark’s and their studies, results, and passion was really inspiring and they will forever be apart of the history of the Civil Rights movement.
http://www.feministvoices.com/mamie-phipps-clark/
http://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/the-clark-doll-experiment/
http://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/ethnicity-health/psychologists/clark.aspx
The topic I chose to learn more about was psychological and experimental research. There are some studies that we do not hear very much about, like solders under the influence of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD). The first site explains how LSD experimentation was an attempt to develop chemical warfare that would “incapacitate the enemy.” In order to study the effects, the military supplied their soldiers with LSD. This experiment was first done in Europe with German and British soldiers, eventually the US would also experiment with hallucinogenic drugs. There is a video from 1963 that shows the effects of acid on British soldiers 50 minutes after the drug was administered. The narration explains, "Fifty minutes after taking the drug, radio communication had become difficult, if not impossible. But the men are still capable of sustained physical effort; however, constructive action was still attempted by those retaining a sense of responsibility despite their physical symptoms. But one hour and ten minutes after taking the drug, with one man climbing a tree to feed the birds, the troop commander gave up, admitting that he could no longer control himself or his men. He himself then relapsed into laughter." The video was called Space Cadets and after 25 minutes the effects from LSD kicked in. Eventually the soldier’s awareness became impaired. It affected the soldiers differently, some lost control and a few probably experienced a bad trip. For the most part after taking LSD many of the soldier’s attitudes were more laid back, they would rather laugh and have fun instead of fighting or harming others in warfare.
According to this other site Dr. Van Murray Sim was a Navy veteran and also founder of Edgewood Arsenal’s program that did clinical research on psychochemical. In 1959 before the Army Intelligence expanded their work on LSD, Sim was the first person to volunteer to take the chemical VX, which is a “highly lethal nerve agent.” Shortly after Sim’s vision and thoughts became distorted. This self-experiments continued at Edgewood, with other soldiers volunteering. However the experimentations continued, but this time to see if a hallucinogenic drug could be administered in people without their knowledge. Welcome to a world where studies are kept secret with governmental “intelligence, interrogation, even torture,” Material Testing Program EA 1729 was the code name for these top secret studies. In the early 1950’s Sim and Sidney Malitz were involved in experimental military testing that was already being done at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, where patients were unethically injected with chemicals without their knowledge or consent, one patient died and the truth about his death was covered up. These experiments for chemical warfare were to see how soldiers react under interrogation. Malitz used hypnosis so false secrets could be imprinted in the minds of soldiers, he explained, “one of the hallucinogens will be administered and an attempt made to see if the patient will reveal the information.” When it came to the dangerous effects of LSD Sim noted, “In some instances a delayed and exceptionally severe response may take place and be followed by serious after-effects lasting several days.” It was decided in 1963 to suspend research on the military use of LSD.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/02/soldiers-on-acid-1963-bri_n_377579.html
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/12/us-army-experiments-with-lsd-in-the-cold-war.html
http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2010/12/01/131724898/lsd-testing
The posts I liked the best were the ones that included a good deal of input that thoroughly explained why they were interested in each topic and ones that added personal stories. I enjoyed these because I could tell that these students not only did the assignment just to complete the task but took the idea further and connected the topic to another idea. Some posts were definitely better than others. You could definitely tell who just picked a section out of the book to complete the task and probably didn’t read the whole chapter. This would become obvious as some people would be able to tie their topic to other topics previously discussed in the book while others did not explain their topic in as much detail or be trying to connect different ideas together. This kind of changed my idea of what history of psychology is since I read about a lot of people I didn’t know about and were not necessarily psychologists yet still made an impact on the history of psychology. Whereas, in most of my classes, I have learned some history of psychology it has mostly included more of the well-known psychologists like Freud and Zimbardo, etc. Based on these posts, I am curious to learn more about early African Americans’ influence in psychology since the Brown vs Board of Education was brought up several times in previous student’s blogs.
add this content
Logan Ahnquist
The posts that I liked the best were the ones that talked about clinical psych and the self actualization. I have never taken a class in clinical psych and i have always been interested in the ins and outs of what goes into clinical psych. Also I am interested in self actualization, learning about how people reach their full potential. That would be very interesting to learn about and it really grabbed my attention. There were some posts that were better than others, just in the way of how they flowed and were very easy to read while getting me interested at the same time. Reading these posts have changed what I thought the history of psych was in the way that there is so much to learn and there is so much that goes into each and every topic. Also that we will not just be learning about the past, we will be looking to the future and seeing what will be coming down the road with psych. I am interested in clinical psych and I read about the business side of psych, I want to go into HR for my career so I would love to learn more about the history of the business side of psych.
I chose to do this topical blog on the topic on artificial intelligence and psychology from chapter 14.
Many people consider artificial intelligence to be a kind of fantasy concept that could only be realistic in the far future, while the reality is that artificial intelligence is already very much a part of our society and psychology in particular. So how does artificial intelligence correspond to psychology? The quickly developing field of artificial intelligence has been utilized in the field by using voice and facial recognition technologies in therapy programs as virtual therapists, and creating programs that are personally tailored to people’s psychological needs. There are even programs devoted to teaching those interested in learning about psychology and artificial intelligence in higher education. These programs teach students the psychology, and other sciences behind artificial intelligence such as linguistics, philosophy, and neuroscience. These programs focus mostly on psychological aspects of artificial intelligence like perception and communication, but the non-human element comes into play with the teaching of students to learn to programs computer models of these processes to gain insight into human perception. Because this area of the discipline is largely theoretical and in its very first, developing stages there is debate as to the best direction in which to take this emerging science. While some argue that artificial intelligence could never replace the real human interaction in therapy, there are others who claim that taking the human therapist out of the equation could actually lead to a more comfortable environment for the client. Artificial intelligence in psychology may be just beginning in terms of its integration into therapy and education but this is definitely an area of the discipline that will most likely continue to rapidly grow in importance and scope in the near future.
Sources
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/man-talks-machine/201404/artificial-intelligence-and-the-future-therapy
This article from psychology today was written by a clinician from Oxford and talks about artificial intelligence in the field of therapy. I chose it because I knew it would be a reliable source and it offered good information and contrasted opinions with my others choices.
http://www.ru.nl/socialsciences/education/psychology_and/
I chose this article from a program of artificial intelligence and psychology because I wanted to know what these kind of programs entailed as far as curriculum.
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21612114-virtual-shrink-may-sometimes-be-better-real-thing-computer-will-see
I chose this article about an artificial intelligence program that used facial recognition and other techniques for therapy and research on it because I wanted to know what specific programs were being used today.
Chapter 14
1.Most people have heard of Milgram’s obedience experiment. It’s very popular not on for psychology in general, but focuses on the sub-category of social psychology. This type of psychology’s main focus is on how aspects in society such as people, among other things shape us into doing certain things. Milgram’s study is a great example that illustrates that we can be manipulated into doing something if we feel something is at stake. This chapter, which discusses psychology’s researchers, not only explains their work, but their work in all different types of psychology. Topics such as cognitive, personality, and perception psychology are mentioned, as well as social psychology, and I think it is important to learn about each of these sub-categories and understand the work that has been done in order to get a better understanding of psychology in general, as well as the history. I particularly do not find social psychology as intriguing as other fields of psychology, but I do enjoy learning about different experiments, such as Milgram’s to get a better understanding of what social psychology is all about.
2.Yes, Stanley Milgram was made famous for his obedience study, but amongst this, he came up with the “small world phenomenon” which is really interesting as well. This theory suggests that there are only six degrees of separation between a human being and another. I would first like to talk about his obedience study in more detail, to discuss about how he performed it, and what he used for the experiment.
The next aspect of Milgram I would like to discuss is the controversy of his study. Many thought this study was unethical not only because it could cause psychological damage to the ones shocking people, there was also no way in knowing if there was damage to the test subjects who were supposedly shocked physically or psychologically.
Lastly, I would like to discuss his theory of “small world phenomenon” that was mentioned earlier. This theory in my opinion was undermined by his infamous obedience study, but is also really important to psychology and is a great theory, that I believe is true.
3. Milgram’s obedience study was instrumental to social psychology, and just about everyone who has taken a psychology course has heard of this experiment. Milgram wanted it to be bold, to become popular, but also to contribute to social psychology. What I have learned that was not mentioned in the text book, was that behind this experiment, Milgram’s thoughts were based on World War 2 and the Holocaust. A Jew himself, Stanley wanted to know why these Nazi’s could go through killing the Jews without being sympathetic. Was there something at stake that if they did not carry out their orders they could be in danger? Milgram wanted to find out how these Nazis could transform to a loving family man at night, to a killer during the day. For his study, he had compiled people to play roles as teachers, and those as learners. The teachers asked questions and if the learner participant got the answer wrong, they would be shocked. As they were asked more questions and answered them wrong, the voltage would increase and the pain of the shocks would become more unbearable. The shocking device, that was created by Milgram used in the study went from a small shock of 15 volts up to 400 volts that would produce a very painful shock. Although, the participants were not actually shocked, the experiment ended with great results and Milgram got the answers he was looking for. If people are told to do something, they will do it. About 60% of the teachers giving the shocks went all the way up to 400 volts, which was very surprising to me, but yet they were very obedient.
Although this study produced great results for the field of social psychology, other psychologists thought the experiment was very unethical. Even though the participants were not shocked, there was no real proof that they were not harmed physically or psychologically, even though Milgram explained they were okay. There could also have been psychological harm done to the shockers. During the experiment, they would sometimes get upset after hearing the screaming after relaying the shocks. They did not know that they were not actually shocking the other person, and causing them to get upset over it seemed to most people to be unethical and wrong. At the time, performed in the 1960’s it was a good experiment that produced valid results, but today, it would never be allowed to perform an experiment similar to this one.
Milgram’s obedience study was not the only thing that he contributed to psychology. He came up with the “six degrees of separation” which claimed that there were only six degrees that separated humans from each other. This is interesting to me because I think that it is true. We could only be six people away from a famous celebrity. A lot of psychologists and researchers disagreed with this theory, but recent research claims that it might be true. The phrase “small world” can be related to Milgram’s theory that we actually do live in a small world. We can be associated to people we have never met, only by six degrees.
4.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCVlI-_4GZQ
This video was very informational. It was interesting to watch the reactions of both the person giving the shocks, and those receiving the shocks. It helped me to understand why so many people thought this experiment was so unethical.
https://explorable.com/milgram-experiment-ethics
I do believe that his experiment was a little unethical, but he did it for valid reasons to contribute to social psychology. By reading this web page, it helped me to understand why the experiment was really important despite the fact that is was unethical.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200203/six-degrees-urban-myth
I didn’t know too much about Milgram’s other work because little was mentioned in the book, but this article was interesting and helpful in explaining his other theories.
5.Stanley Milgram, Obedience Study, Psychology of Personality, Cognitive Psychology, Psychology of Perception, Social Psychology, Six Degrees of Separation, Small World Theory