For this assignment please find a topic that relates to this class and find three good sources of information about your topic. These can be books, internet sites, or journal articles.
Next:
State your topic.
State why this is an interesting topic and why it interests you.
State how the topic relates to the class.
List source one and briefly discuss why it is a good source and what you learned about your topic from that source.
List source two and briefly discuss why it is a good source and what you learned about your topic from that source.
List source three and briefly discuss why it is a good source and what you learned about your topic from that source.
At the bottom of your post provide links or reference for the three sources.
List the terms and concepts you used in this post.
Let me know if you have any questions.
--Dr. M
The topic I choose to research is selective attention. I chose this topic because I wanted to know more about why we pay attention to the things we do. Plus, the question on the exam I felt it would have been more beneficial to know more information on the attention process.
The first source I found was a journal on selective attention. I learned that a fundamental aspect of our cognitive activity is selection, by attentional mechanisms, of a portion of the vast amount of information we are confronting at any moment. At any moment in time, a vast amount of information impinges upon our senses. Many studies show that we cannot fully process all information, and that some of it appears to be lost. One trademark of a limited system is its need for selection. Given that not all the impinged information can be processed, it is mandatory to select which portion of it will be preferred. In theory, the selection can be random. Any type of selection presupposes the availability of some information in order to perform the very selection. Thus, some pre-attentive processing must be performed prior to the operation of selective attention, and its output is used for the selection.
The second source I found was the same video with the gorilla walking through the people by the elevator and the goal is that your supposed to be counting how many times the ball is being passed to the people in the white shirts. As you watch this video you are using selective attention and missing the gorilla walking through, because we are selectively watching the players pass the ball to each of the white shirt players. Just shows how we don’t see everything that goes on around us do to what we choose to see.
The last source I found was the description of what selective attention is and what disorders are related to it. The issue of why people pay attention, how much they do and to what is often more referred to as selective attention. In any busy scene, be it a classroom or a freeway, it’s virtually impossible to note everything at once. What a person pays attention to in these circumstances is what they select to pay attention to, though it may be noted that selection is not necessarily conscious. Selected attention can then be viewed as the process by which people find something upon which to concentrate, and the level of concentration they can continue to exert as distractions arise. Degree of selective attention may vary depending on people, and some people have low attentional levels, particularly if they have certain learning disorders. Conditions like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can make it challenging for students to stay appropriately focused and any distractions may make a student lose focus. It’s hard for the ADHD child to remain in touch with a single thing, though at times they can also exhibit hyper focus. In a slightly different fashion, those with forms of autism can have focus difficulties too, though principally the difficulty has to do with selection. Autism is sometimes described as receiving “all channels” on the radio station, where the person is possibly paying attention to nearly everything. Trying to filter out most of the channels to pay attention to one thing is often the challenge of those with disorders on the autism spectrum; in other words, they can’t tune in to a single channel and are flooded with too many choices. There are many other potential conditions that may inhibit selective attention. Poor sleep makes people easier to distract, and shift workers in particular can have this problem. Any form of brain injury can also reduce attention level, too.
Terms & Concepts: Selective attention, attention, per-attentive processing
http://micro5.mscc.huji.ac.il/~acohenlab/files/ency_final.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-selective-attention.htm
I chose the topic of music and speech perception because I was very interested in it and music has been a big part of my life for a long time. Chapter 11 discusses music and speech perception, and actually, we discussed a little bit about different tones and music in class today. I believe that music and perception of music can be very interesting and play a role in anyone's life today.
The first source I found on music perception was by Diana Deutsch. It discusses how we can interpret so many different sounds coming from an orchestra. We can take apart the violins, flutes, and other instruments and put them altogether to make a beautiful song. Tones that are produced by these instruments have a specific harmonic relation to each other which create the harmonies in our ears. Also, when different tones are presented with different ranges of pitch, we as listeners can perceive two different melodic lines in parallel. With ambiguities of pitch, there are things such as octaves, which are notes that are the same note only higher or lower on the scale. Notes that are played alone can have a different effect than when they are played in harmony. I thought this was all very interesting, because we really can have different perceptions of these ranges of music!
In my second source I found that music contains many different things such as melody, rhythm, harmony, and repetition. Like we discussed in class, words and sounds can have a melody as well, it doesn't have to be purposely to make music. Things can also have a rhythm in everyday life such as your heart. We can read and react to these differences in different ways, which creates music perception.
In my third source I found it interesting that audiences can react to music differently as well. They may sing along, dance, clap, tap their feet, etc., in a physical manner. Emotionally, however, they may "feel" the music. They may romanticize, reminisce, and things like that. Cognitively, people may learn, experience, stimulate thought, and process information. I found it pretty amazing that although music isn't tangible, it can stimulate someone physically, mentally, and emotionally. The meaning of music may also differ in different cultures which I thought was interesting as well.
www.philomel.com/pdf/frontiers.pdf
http://www.psychologicalscience.com/perception/2011/04/topical-blog-week-13-due-friday.html#comments
http://www.musicstudies.org/first%20issue/FULL/Associative_Structure_EROL%2886-96%29.pdf
I like the fact that you brought in information from another culture. I feel that in the United States that we celebrate music during festivals and cultural fairs and not much in our our family circles.
The first source I found was a journal on selective attention. I learned that a fundamental aspect of our cognitive activity is selection, by attentional mechanisms, of a portion of the vast amount of information we are confronting at any moment. At any moment in time, a vast amount of information impinges upon our senses. Many studies show that we cannot fully process all information, and that some of it appears to be lost. One trademark of a limited system is its need for selection. Given that not all the impinged information can be processed, it is mandatory to select which portion of it will be preferred. In theory, the selection can be random. Any type of selection presupposes the availability of some information in order to perform the very selection. Thus, some pre-attentive processing must be performed prior to the operation of selective attention, and its output is used for the selection.
I have always been told that I have selective attenetion but I think everyone does. I can tune out what I don't want to hear or I am just daydreaming, in which a lot of us do during the day.
My topic of choose is on the cognitive effects of odor perception.
This topic is interesting because although it is generally accepted that the adaptation/habituation of odor perception is influenced at both the peripheral (receptor) and central (postreceptor) levels previous studies reporting the effects of cognitive manipulation have not sufficiently controlled experimental conditions with respect to the peripheral and central properties of odor perception. It is extremely difficult to study intrinsic biological processes in olfactory perception in terms of the relative contribution of the peripheral and central processes to the adaptation/habituation of perceived olfactory sensations.
This topic is interesting to me because I work in a restaurant, live in a town with factories and wear perfume. Those three don’t sound like they go together but they do because they all have very distinct odor. The ability for me to notice these smells differ by the amount of time I spent near the odor. This phenomenon is called cognitive habituation. When you live with an odor we cognitively habituate to it and no longer react to it, or we show very little response to it. The restaurant I work at is Carlos O’ Kelly’s and when leaving you smell like Mexican food really bad. I never notice but the second I get home my friends suggest that I get rid of the clothes. A few hours later my room is filled with the awful smell. The receptors in my nose though had adapted to the smell but after a short break I regained the ability to smell what they smelled. This is called receptor adaptation. The town I live in is the same way we have a cookie factory on one side and a satellite factory on the other. One factory smells good and the other bad but I never notice them in the summer but when I come back for breaks the smells are almost overwhelming. This is also receptor adaptation but is spaced out more over time. Now my perfume is another story. I have a friend that gets headaches from perfume so when I am around him I cannot wear it. I can safely say that any perfumed odor would rank very high in the unpleasant category on the odor hedonics. The odor hedonics is a test that is a rating for how unpleasant, familiar, and intense a person finds a given odorant.
Chapter 13 in on olfaction which is the sense of smell and that is how it relates to sensation and perception.
•JM Wolfe, KR Kluender, DM Levi, LM Bartoshuk, RS Herz, RL Klatzky, SJ Lederman, & DM Merfeld (2009), Sensation & Perception, 2nd Edition, Sunderland, MA: Sinauer [ISBN#9780878939534].: This source is that sensation and perception book and I used it for word definitions. I know that the definitions will be what we are talking about in class instead of an untrusting site like Wikipedia.
•http://chemse.oxfordjournals.org/content/33/2/163.full.pdf: The source was a journal article that was on a study that investigated cognitive effects on odor perception. The study demonstrates the effect of the cognitive state on the perceived intensity by developing an experimental setting wherein the peripheral adaptation process was reduced and central olfactory processes were emphasized. This source states that the effects of cognitive manipulation have not sufficiently controlled experimental conditions with respect to the peripheral and central properties of odor perception.
•http://www.gamequarium.org/dir/SqoolTube_Videos/Science/Human_Body/Smell/magic_school_bus_makes_a_stink_9694.html: The magic school bus show is great for learning about different topics, including smell. Flora Whiff, the famous expert on smell - whose nose knows - comes to school to judge the First Annual Smell Search. Ms. Frizzles class creates a unique smell that is bound to take first prize, but Janet, determined to win herself, changes their smell to an odor only a skunk could love. The kids discover the secret to what makes things smell. Now can they find a way to make sure their creation doesn’t make a big stink? Ms. Frizzles class explores Janets nose to learn how we smell. Your kids investigate how well their own odor detectors can identify smells.
TERMS: receptor adaptation, cognitive habituation, odor hedonics, cognitive manipulation, odor perception, olfaction
JM Wolfe, KR Kluender, DM Levi, LM Bartoshuk, RS Herz, RL Klatzky, SJ Lederman, & DM Merfeld (2009), Sensation & Perception, 2nd Edition, Sunderland, MA: Sinauer [ISBN#9780878939534].
http://chemse.oxfordjournals.org/content/33/2/163.full.pdf
http://www.gamequarium.org/dir/SqoolTube_Videos/Science/Human_Body/Smell/magic_school_bus_makes_a_stink_9694.html
The topic that I picked was psychology and music. Being a musician or at least trying to be a musician has sparked my curiosity on the psychology behind music. There are a large numbers of area of research that can be conducted in this area such as Perception of musical sounds, Perception of sound patterns, memory for music, everyday music listening, and the specific skills and processes involved in learning a musical instrument, just to name a few. Music is something that has been a part of our lives from a very young age. Mothers often sing to their infant children, this could be a result of the fact that infants have excellent musical abilities that are hard to explain with learning. This could mean that music is in our genes. When looking at how our brains process music it is difficult to get a grip on how we do it because it is a very complex task. When we are actively processing music there are numerous parts of our brain that are being used, for example there are certain cells in the right hemisphere that respond more to melody than to language. Music can be very beneficial to our brains, as evidence suggests that long term musical involvement leads to cognitive improvements in language skills, reasoning and creativity. Playing an instrument, involves vision, hearing, touch, motor planning, emotion, and symbol interpretation, which all activate different parts of the brain. So, you could look at music as a workout for numerous brain systems. Finally, music psychology has helped to contribute to the field of music theory, or the study of how music works. By investigating the perception of musical structures such as melody, harmony, rhythm, meter, and from data can be gathered to help further the understanding of how music works.
Source 1
The first source I used was the Wiki page for music psychology. I used this page as a jumping off point to find other information. This was a good source because I did not overly rely on it for information.
Source 2
The second source I used was an article from psychology today. This source provided me on what part of the brain is involved in music, as well as what parts of the brain benefit from music. I also learned about how it is difficult to study music because of the numerous brain processes that are involved. I felt that this article was a good source because it was written by a professor of psychology, with a Ph.D, at a university.
Source 3
My third source was a web page that I used to find some areas of researching in music psychology. I felt that this source was a good one because it included numerous citations at the bottom of the page to other resources.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_psychology
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200009/music-the-mind
http://www.uni-graz.at/richard.parncutt/musicpsychology.html
I decided to choose a topic about sense of touch. Our textbook includes information about it in chapter 12. Mainly the author introduces the information about touch from physiological point of view, how our brain does recognize the touch sense, from our skin to brain. He also talks about different kind of touches such as when we feel pain, pleasant touch or sensitive.
The topic is interesting to me because it is connected to our feeling and emotions that are very important for people to understand the sense of it; through touch we can "see" or understand what other people feel, how we feel about something, or even touch could be a good medicine as well.
The sources that I took the information from introduce some good example of how touch can be helpful in our everyday life. The video shows that blind people can pain very well by using the sense of touch!
Another website talks about how sensitive our fingers are; it can detect a surface bump just one micron high."No wonder we rely on touch rather than vision when confronted by a new roll of toilet paper and its Abominable Invisible Seam."According to this website, touch is the mother of all sensory system. The single cell organism can feel when something brushes up against them and will respond by nudging closer or pulling away. For instance, people in coma who cant see, smell, hear, but can response through when touched by a nurse.Touch is often ignored by people but when we think about how much touch can tell us about ourselves, environment other people and things we will be surprise.
i really like what neuropsychologist at the Helmholtz Institute of Utrecht University in the Netherlands, Chris Dijkerman said “Touch is so central to what we are, to the feeling of being ourselves, that we almost cannot imagine ourselves without it,” It’s not like vision, where you close your eyes and you don’t see anything. You can’t do that with touch. It’s always there.”
touch is our most active sense.There are also many distinct classes of touch-related receptors: mechanoreceptors that respond to pressure and vibrations, thermal receptors primed to sense warmth or cold, kinesthetic receptors that keep track of where our limbs are, and the dread nociceptors, or pain receptors.According to this article, touch can fool us as well. It is called Pinocchio illusion. For instance, if they vibrate the tendon of the biceps, many people report feeling that their forearm is getting longer, their hand drifting ever further from their elbow.
Next source is interesting as well. i have learned that our body has about twenty differnt types of nerve endings that all send messages to your brain.The most common receptors are heat, cold, pain, and pressure or touch receptors. The least sensitive part of our body is the middle of our back.However, the most sensitive are :hands, lips, face, neck, tongue, fingertips and feet.
terms
:sense of touch, receptors:pressure, cold, heat, pain,epidermis, dermis, tactile recetors, somatosensation, kinesthesis.
Sources:
http://library.thinkquest.org/3750/touch/touch.html
http://www.hometrainingtools.com/skin-touch/a/1388/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTiQKB8p-IY
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/science/09angi.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
The topic I decided to discuss for this topical blog is the interaction between the senses. I was interested in this topic after discussing the McGurk effect in class. The McGurk effect occurs when our eyesight takes over our hearing to interpret the movement of the mouth and what sound is being said. I was interested in what other instances this may occur either naturally or from a disorder.
The first source I used for this topic was a Scientific American article. Scientific American is a well-known magazine that provides brief articles on scientific topics. I like using this source because they often explain complex scientific topics in more laymen terms so that it is easier to understand. They are what could be considered a popular magazine however which some point out make it less credible. I still feel it is a good site to start the conversation and then look more specifically in other research-based sources. This article was on taste called “How does the way food looks or its smell influence taste?” The perception of taste is actually reliant on our smell and sight. According to the article “taste is actually a fusion of a food’s taste, smell, and touch into a single sensation.” Flavor is the combination of pure taste (sweet, salty, sour, bitter) and what is called retronasal olfaction. Retronasal olfaction is where we receive information on smells through the back of the mouth and which influences the flavor of the food we eat. We receive pure tastes from taste buds that contain cells which are activated when we place food or drink in our mouths. This is why when we hold our nose while eating something we do not “taste” the flavor but we may pick up on sweet, salty, etc. Our tongue also has cells to perceive temperature, spiciness, or creaminess. Taste and smell are very much tide to one another and influence the way we perceive food.
The second source I found was from MIT. MIT is an elite research university that is revered in the scientific community. I feel that the site I found, which discusses synesthesia is good source because of MIT’s rigorous scientific standards. Synthesis means “together, to perceive”. According to the site synesthesia is the sensation produced at a point other than or remote from the point of stimulation. In other words it is an involuntary mix of senses that is perceived as reality. Synesthesia violates conventional perception and is a neurological condition. The site provides demonstrations for different types of synesthetic experiences. Most of the people explain the perception is not overwhelming and that “it’s just the way [things are]”. They are not bothered by seeing letters in color, or seeing music in color.
The third source I found was another Scientific American article called “Hearing Colors, Tasting Shapes”. This article discussed synesthesia which is a condition where a person experiences a blend of two or more senses. Although the article isn’t extremely informative I found it interesting because of its description of what people experience when they have this disorder. Some people with this disorder may see colors when playing musical notes, others may have a taste sensation when they touch something, and some may see a color associated with each letter of the alphabet. It is amazing to me how our minds can confuse and mix sensations.
TERMS: McGurk Effect, taste, smell, sight, flavor, retronasal olfaction, synethesia
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=experts-how-does-sight-smell-affect-taste
http://web.mit.edu/synesthesia/www/synesthesia.html
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=hearing-colors-tasting-sh-2003-05
The topic that I choose to research for this weeks assignment is synesthesia.
Synesthesia is condition where senses get mixed up. Some examples of this are being able to see color in sounds, see color in letters, or taste colors. the reason why I decided to research this topic is because I find it interesting. I want to know more about it and how it works. The first website that I consulted for more information is the CNN website. Here I found an article about how synesthesia, particularly being able to see color in sounds, could be genetic. This article discussed a study that was done on those who have this kind of synesthesia. They expected to find a single gene that synesthesia was linked to. However they found that there are at least 4 different genes that appear to have an involvement. This leads researchers to believe that discovering the cause of synesthesia will be a lot more difficult than previously thought.
The second source that I used for this assignment was an article that was printed in The Economist in 2000. This article focused on a little girl who associates a certain number with a certain color. She was having a hard time understanding math problems because she was trying to focus on the numbers and ignore the colors. She was also a participant in a study that was trying to figure out weather an external factor was needed to illicit the color response. The researchers had the girl partake in several different trials. After all of them were complete, they concluded that an external stimulus is not necessary for the color to appear.
The third article that I chose to read for this assignment was the original study that was sited in the previous article. At this link, you can find a more detailed description of the tasks that the girl had to complete and learn how the researchers came to their conclusion.
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-02-09/health/synesthesia.genes_1_synesthesia-brain-regions-visual-areas?_s=PM:HEALTH
http://www.mixsig.net/resources/articles/PaintingByNumbers.php
http://www.mixsig.net/resources/articles/FivePlusTwoEqualsYellow.php
The topic that I choose to research for this weeks assignment is synesthesia.
Synesthesia is condition where senses get mixed up. Some examples of this are being able to see color in sounds, see color in letters, or taste colors. the reason why I decided to research this topic is because I find it interesting. I want to know more about it and how it works. The first website that I consulted for more information is the CNN website. Here I found an article about how synesthesia, particularly being able to see color in sounds, could be genetic. This article discussed a study that was done on those who have this kind of synesthesia. They expected to find a single gene that synesthesia was linked to. However they found that there are at least 4 different genes that appear to have an involvement. This leads researchers to believe that discovering the cause of synesthesia will be a lot more difficult than previously thought.
The second source that I used for this assignment was an article that was printed in The Economist in 2000. This article focused on a little girl who associates a certain number with a certain color. She was having a hard time understanding math problems because she was trying to focus on the numbers and ignore the colors. She was also a participant in a study that was trying to figure out weather an external factor was needed to illicit the color response. The researchers had the girl partake in several different trials. After all of them were complete, they concluded that an external stimulus is not necessary for the color to appear.
The third article that I chose to read for this assignment was the original study that was sited in the previous article. At this link, you can find a more detailed description of the tasks that the girl had to complete and learn how the researchers came to their conclusion.
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-02-09/health/synesthesia.genes_1_synesthesia-brain-regions-visual-areas?_s=PM:HEALTH
http://www.mixsig.net/resources/articles/PaintingByNumbers.php
http://www.mixsig.net/resources/articles/FivePlusTwoEqualsYellow.php
A few years ago my sister told me one of my nieces was diagnosed with sensory integration disorder. At that time I looked into it briefly just to get a feel for what she was dealing with. But I felt that it was a great topic for this blog so thats what I'll be going into tonight.
The first source I looked at was from a website called brighttots.com. This organization was created to educate the population about childhood disorders primarily autism. They deal with several other disorders on the website as well including SID. "SID is a neurological disorder that results from the brain's inability to integrate certain information received from the body's five basic sensory systems." Once the brain receives the sensory information it processes it to help us appropriately react to our surroundings. The term used to describe this interaction between the brain and our behaviors is sensory integration. When this interaction doesn't occur as it should it results in SID.
Generally, SID is noticed at a young age. When a child is unable to respond appropriately to sensory information a survival technique called fright, flight, and fight may occur. In these situations the response of the child is often noted as extreme. Some symptoms of SID are over or undersensitivity to touch, movement, sight, or sound, difficulty transitioning between situations, unusually high or low activity levels, impulsivity, inability to unwind, and being easily distracted.
To diagnose SID evaluations are done by an occupational or physical therapist which includes standardized testing and structured observations. SID doesn't go away as the child gets older but the severity can be lessened through self-management techniques. Additional signs of SID are difficulty managing anxiety and stressful situations. SID is sometimes associated with disorders such as pervasive developmental disorder, learning disabilities and anxiety disorders. Some of the behaviors that may be exhibited are not liking messy things or being dirty, not liking to be touched but liking to touch other objects or people and frequently putting things in their mouth.
There are different forms of SID including under-sensitivity, over-sensitivity, sensory modulation disorder, sensory discrimination disorder, postural-ocular disorder, and dyspraxia. The normal treatment of SID is therapy with occupational therapists. This is a very structured therapy that often includes a "sensory diet" that is developed specifically for each child's nervous system. An alternative treatment that may be used is body brushing. This utilizes a body brush that is used to make firm, brisk movements over the body followed by deep joint compression. This is often done as many as 6-8 times a day for 3-5 minutes at the beginning but can be reduced as the child begins to respond to touch appropriately.
The second source I used was from the sensory processing disorder foundation. This site refers to the condition as sensory processing disorder but to make it less confusing I'll continue to use the term SID. This site explains SID as "a condition that exists when sensory signals don't get organized into appropriate responses". An occupational therapist and neuroscientist by the name of A. Jean Ayres gave the analogy that SID is like a neurological traffic jam, in that it doesn't allow parts of the brain to receive information needed to interpret sensory information correctly. Research on SID is varied with one study showing that 1 in 20 children are affected and another showing it's as many as 1 in 6. SID can affect one of a person's senses or all of them. SID can appear in many different forms: oversensitivity to touch including even finding some clothes difficult to wear, undersensitivity to any stimulation even extreme temperatures, impaired motor skills or an extreme appetite for stimulation. SID is often misdiagnosed and leads to medication that is unnecessary.
The causes of SID are believed to be a mixture of both genetic and environmental factors. This is currently being studied by researchers.
Because children with SID often exhibit issues with motor skills and other necessary abilities they often suffer from low self-esteem and other social and emotional issues. This often results in academic problems, poor self-concept disruptive behaviors and the inability to be part of a group.
As I mentioned previously, treatment of SID is generally done with an occupational therapist. The goal of OT is to teach children to respond appropriately to sensations in an appropriate way to become more functional in general settings.
The last source I chose was an article from Time Magazine entitled "The Next Attention Deficit Disorder". The article starts out by telling the story of a boy, Matthew, who struggled with noise, speech and coordination. Matthew was tested for autism and ADHD several times but the testing always showed that he was negative for both. Eventually, Matthews family found the Sensory Therapies and Research Center (STAR). STAR treats about 50 children a week for different sensory disorders. SID is relatively unknown to the general population and even many doctors. However, occupational therapists have been treating this disorder since 1972 when Dr. Ayres (mentioned above) wrote a book on the condition. People with SID have problems dealing with information that come through our normal 5 senses but also the proprioceptive and vestibular senses. Currently SID is not listed in medical texts or the DSM causing it to be a very long and difficult road for families who are affected. Sensory issues are acknowledged as common symptoms or other disorders such as autism and ADHD but are not recognized as it's own disorder. The head of STAR is trying to get SID added to the fifth edition of the DSM which is due out in 2012 which would help families greatly because being recognized as a disorder would allow families to get help with the cost of treatment. Current research is limited because it's been hard to get grants to study a disorder that doesn't technically exist. Studies at the SPD research institute have have neurological differences between kids with SID and "normal kids". Dr. Carter, a professor of psychology, believes that SID is too vaguely defined to be part of the DSM. It's her belief that it should be listed in a section at the back of the manual for disorders that need further study. This way research grants can be received and more about the disorder can be found, of course if this happens it's possible that SID could be added to the DSM 6 which is supposed to come out around 2025.
Until then families are having to use treatment that has not actually been validated. The therapist and families develop a "sensory diet" to help the child function better at home and school. Treatment is individualized and often involves getting the kids to participate in activities they struggle with.
As I mentioned at the beginning, my niece, Riana, was diagnosed with SID a few years ago. When this was done she struggled with interactions, refused to do anything in school and had terrible anxiety. Riana got involved in therapy and was tested for several disorders. Her school wanted to hold her back because they believed she had learning disabilities. After being tested it was discovered that she was actually far ahead of her class intellectually but struggled socially. She was placed into a special school with fewer kids and highly trained teachers and continued therapy. After 2 years of this she is about ready to rejoin normal classes and participates in social activities such as Tae Kwon Do.
Here's the rest of my post...
After watching Riana benefit from her treatment I firmly believe that more research needs to be completed and treatment needs to be made available for kids with this disorder because with treatment their lives can be made much easier.
http://www.brighttots.com/sensory_integration
http://www.sinetwork.org/about-sensory-processing-disorder.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1689216-2,00.html
Something that stuck with me from the chapter was thinking about how we describe a smell. The website “How to Describe a Smell” states that smell seems to defy words. Our smell is limited and underdeveloped compared to animals. The website states there are different steps to help building the concept of a smell. First use words to associate with the smell, similar to the way we associate clean with “lemony”. However, as the book states that even though we might be able to build an association, it is merely a mental image associated with the word. Like with a Hershey’s Kiss, and we might start salivating when we think of a Hershey’s Kiss. However this is not because we smell the chocolate in our noses, it is an association between the mental image and a natural reaction to food.
The website “Wine Aromas: What is the @##****@@ Smell?” states that people wine aromas clear memories and past associates between places, events, and people’s faces.
The article states that it is hard for people can only name common odors within wine aroma about 40-50%. This is tip-of the-nose phenomenon. However it is common that a smell will remind us of a memory, 67% of people are able to recall a memory that is associated with the wine aroma.
Lastly, we talked about how there a concept cross-modality is matching the sensation with another. A pleasant taste, with a pleasant physical sensation. The article “Cross-modal correspondence between vision and olfaction: The color of smell” sparked my interest. The article states that color cues can bias odor judgment, in order words there are colors we associate with odors. The article found that appropriate colors increase odor, where inappropriate colors decrease the strength of the odor
http://www.wikihow.com/Describe-a-Smell
http://www.aromadictionary.com/articles/winearomasidentification_article.html
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1423010?seq=3
The topic chose is synesthesia. Synesthesia is when two senses are basically joined together and the individual perceives things together. For example, a person with this condition may see the letter “f” as green or “o” as red. I think this condition is so interesting because it almost doesn’t seem like it could be real. Being able to have a totally different perception of the world would be exciting. This topic relates to this class because this condition directly affects the perception of a person’s senses.
The first source I found is http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/syne.html. I think this is a good source because it comes from a college in Washington and it contains many references to make the information reliable. From this source, I learned that there are several different ways to diagnose someone with this condition. One guideline is that it’s involuntary. The synesthete (person with this condition) has no control over their perceptions and they don’t consciously think about them. Another guideline is that the perceptions are projected, which means that they see things out in the world rather than in the “mind’s eye”. A third guideline is that the perceptions are durable and generic. This means that the perception happens every time and with specific objects, not whole scenes. The fourth guideline is that the perceptions are very memorable. The last guideline is that the perceptions cause an emotional reaction, like pleasure.
The second source I found is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia. I think this is a good source because it contains a lot of information and is a commonly used encyclopedia. It also has several references to back up the information. From this source, I learned about the five different forms of synesthesia. Those are: grapheme, sound, number, personification, and lexical. Grapheme is the most common form of this condition. It consists of seeing numbers and letters that are paired with certain colors. Sound form is when individuals see colorful shapes arise when sounds are present. Sometimes the experience is limited to music, for example. Number form is when the individual sees a sort of mental number map whenever they think of numbers. Personification form is when thinks like numbers and letters are associated with certain types of personalities. For example, a person may think the number 5 is shy. Lexical form is very rare. It consists of being able to “taste” words or phonemes. For example, a person may be able to taste sherbet when the sound of “f” is said.
My third source is http://www.lurj.org/article.php/vol2n1/synesthesia.xml#documentHeading-NeurologicalFindings. This is a good source because it’s a research journal and has many references. From this source I learned that there have been some neurological findings to help explain this condition. The article explains that the left side of the brain has five visual cortex areas: V1, V2, V3, V4, and V5. For people with grapheme form, the V4 is activated but the V1 and V2 are not. This means that there is some cross activation between the areas because it was once thought that there could be no vision without activity in V1. A hypothesis for this condition is called the “neonatal hypothesis” which says that we’re all born with the neurological workings to be a synesthete but that the natural pruning of the brain fixes it. Therefore, the individuals that didn’t experience natural pruning have this condition. The cause of this lack of pruning may be caused by a gene mutation in the X chromosome.
Terms: synesthesia, visual cortex, V areas, vision
My topic was attention
I chose this topic because I find the process very interesting and find the things that go wrong in the process to be very interesting as well. Without attention even something as simple as going to the grocery store would prove difficult.
My first source was a good one because it was published in a respectable journal and provides evidence for the importance of the fusiform face area in attention of faces. From this source I learned that the attention to facial stimuli required the fusiform face area where other attentional processes didn’t require this area showing the selectivity of the area.
http://www.tsolab.org/nrjclub/040602/kanwisher04.pdf
My second source was a good one because it was published by researchers with experience and knowledge about the disorder Prosopagnosia. From this source I learned that although the fusiform face area might be the primary area in facial recognition other areas may play an important role as well.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T0D-4GYH9V6-1&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F2006&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=gateway&_origin=gateway&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1727883174&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=c1a470d3eb05210217fca1e0e3cee2d7&searchtype=a
Terms: Attention, prosopagnosia, fusiform face area, stimuli
I am interested in Phantom limb phenomena. When a limb is amputated sometimes the brain perceives sensory input in areas associated with the removed limb and creates an illusion of sensation in the missing part of the body. Often this is experienced as pain, and is a problem that medical science has been trying to conquer.
When we experience pain special receptors with bare nerve endings send signals to the spinal chord then to the brain. These nociceptors respond to damage to tissue as well as stimuli that are potentially damaging such as sharp or hot objects. We experience this as pain. Two kinds of nociceptors create our perception of pain. A-delta fibers respond as tissue damage is occurring and are fast adapting. They produce a sharp sensation of pain, a sort of alert to inform the brain that tissue has or is being harmed. The second nociceptor type are C fibers. These nerve endings are slow adaptings and are unmyelinated. Messages travel from these receptors slower than the myelinated a-delta fibers. These receptors are responsible for the throbbing pain that we experience after the sharp initial pain subsides. This type of pain acts as an indicator for the body, informing the brain the extent of the damage and how long the damage is present. If we move or act in a certain way that may exacerbate the damage we are reminded with pain and probably will discontinue that activity.
Phantom limb pain may occur when the area in the brain responsible for sensing the missing limb experiences an increase in activity for some reason, or even the random firing of the neurons may create the perception of the limb. The brain may interpret random firing as pain because once in awhile the pattern of random firing may closely resemble the pattern the brain expects for pain. In this case the brains expectations have caused it to incorrectly perceive random firing as stimulus. Perhaps without the counterpart of the nervous tissue in the limb itself the brain has no system of checking to see that the firing is indeed random. The book describes cases in which amputee patients experienced sensation from their missing limbs when their face was stimulated as well as the site of amputation, such as higher up on the arm. Perhaps the brain is undergoing an adapting process, converting the areas assigned to the missing limb to areas for other operations. We see the activity in the brain after exposed to touch stimuli moves from the thalamus to sensory area 1 in the parietal lobe, then to sensory area 2 in the lateral sulcus of the temporal lobe. So the brain is dealing with touch stimulus on at least two levels.
Web MD attributes the cause to nerve endings at the amputation site rather than activity in the brain that was misinterpreted. It also says that if phantom pain persists for a long period after the limb was removed prognosis for the patient is not good, they may experience the illusion of pain for the rest of their lives. Some treatments suggested are heat application, relaxation techniques, sometimes surgery and a procedure called transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation. This process involves electrically stimulating the nerves at the amputation site. This procedure is becoming more widely used for many types of pain and the mechanisms it works on are still heavily debated. Not many controlled studies have been done with this technology so it is difficult to determine if it is very effective or just selectively effective.
One proposed mechanism that may explain the success of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation is that is causes presynaptic inhibition in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord. According to gate control theory the dorsal horn of the spinal chord is the universal route pain information must take to get to the brain. If stimulation in one area overpowers (literally produces greater neuronal activity) an area in pain the dorsal horn of the spinal chord will allow the greater stimulation through, thereby ending the pain stimulation before it can reach the brain and cause the experience of pain. Often we experience cold or high amounts of pressure as temporarily reducing pain, this is because the dorsal horn is already flooded with information from the more powerful stimulus and will not allow signals communicating pain to pass. If transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation inhibits the dorsal horn or the synapses before the dorsal horn then no signal can be transmitted to the parietal lobe to be interpreted as pain. If this is associated by the brain with the same area that has undergone amputation perhaps by behavioral adaptation alone it will no longer recognize the pain signals. It is also postulated that TENS stimulates nerves in such a way that they release transmitters that may act as natural analgesics. Nerves seem prone to releasing what we call endorphins when electrically stimulated. Another theory is that TENS directly inhibits nerves at the amputation site that are constantly sending pain signals. Nociceptors in the amputation area may continue to send pain signals because they may detect the removed tissue as severely damaged tissue. Finally TENS may restore input to the brain from nerves that can no longer provide input themselves. The brain seems to work on a sophisticated system of checks and balances perhaps the nerves in the missing limb acted as checks to ensure the brain that random nerve firing in the sensory area responsible for the removed limb is not actual stimulation, just random activity.
The most interesting treatment for phantom limb pain seems to be fighting illusions with illusions. The mirror technique employs mirrors and asks the patient to move their remaining limb. The mirrors make it appear as though the removed limb is there and also moving. It is thought that the brain registers this visual information and incorporates it into the sensory experience of moving. Perhaps the pain is a result of the brain trying to make the missing limb act, and seeing the limb act, even though it is not really there, may satisfy the neuronal activity and cause it to stop. It is obvious that the brains perceptual experience can be influenced by things other than the actual stimuli we are trying to perceive. This visual stimuli seems to affect greatly the perception of pain, maybe in the same way visual stimuli affects our perception of taste.
http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/guide/phantom-limb-pain
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/325107-overview
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=88097