Before you begin this assignment, please go to the following site and read a couple of topical blog posts that were done by students last semester at : http://www.psychologicalscience.com/perception/2011/04/topical-blog-week-14-due-friday.html#comments
Next what I would like you to do is to find a topic from chapter 1 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 youtube clips that demonstrate something related to the topic, etc. What you find and use is pretty much up to you at this point. But use at least 3 sources.
Once
you have completed your search and explorations, I would like you to
say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into the chapter, and why
you are interested in it. Next, I would like you to take the information
you found related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it, and then
write about it. At the end, please include working URLs for the three
websites.
Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
By integrating/synthesizing I mean to take what your read/experienced from the internet search (and from chapter 1 if you like) organize the information into the main themes, issues, info, examples, etc. about your topic and then write about the topic in your own words using that information. This is hard for some people to do - many students write what we refer to as "serial abstracts." They are tempted to talk about the websites rather than the topic proper. They will talk all about website #1, start a new paragraph and talk all about web site #2, start a new paragraph and talk all about web site #3, and then write some kind of conclusion. Serial means one after the other...This what you DON'T want to do!
At first it is a real challenge to get out of the habit of writing "serial abstracts," but I assure you once you get the hang of it it is much easier to write using the integration method. And besides this is the way researchers and scientists write their technical reports and findings - many of you will have to be able to do this for other classes and for jobs that you may eventually be hired for so now is a good time to learn this skill. At this point don't worry about a grade, worry about doing your best to have fun with the topic and then integrate it into your own words to share what you found and now know. We will work on citing the sources later....
Let me know if you have any questions.
After reading chapter one, I found the concept of thresholds very interesting, because as humans we experience thresholds every day but rarely put a lot of thought into what we sense and perceive. Ernst Weber tested human accuracy of detecting touch with a compass-like device. Weber could determine the smallest distance between two points that a person could recognize as two points instead of one, called the two-point threshold. He also conducted lifted weight tests that showed that the subjects’ ability to detect the difference between the standard and the comparison weights depended on the standard weight. If the standard was light, the people were better at detecting small differences. In contrast, when the standard was heavier, people needed bigger differences before they could tell a change in the weights. The difference needed for detecting a change in weight is called the just noticeable difference. The smallest change in a stimulus that can be detected is the difference threshold. This relationship is now referred to as “Weber’s Law.” Weber's Law states that the “ratio of the increment threshold to the background intensity is a constant. So when you are in a noisy environment you must shout to be heard while a whisper works in a quiet room. And when you measure increment thresholds on various intensity backgrounds, the thresholds increase in proportion to the background.”
(http://www.cis.rit.edu/people/faculty/montag/vandplite/pages/chap_3/ch3p1.html)
According to the USD Internet Sensation and Perception Laboratory, “The Difference Threshold ("Just Noticeable Difference") is the minimum amount by which stimulus intensity must be changed in order to produce a noticeable variation in sensory experience.” The expression of Weber’s Law is as follows:
delta I/I (the change in initial stimulus intensity divided by initial stimulus intensity)= K
Meaning...the size of the JND (the delta I) is a constant proportion of the original stimulus value.
(http://people.usd.edu/~schieber/coglab/WebersLaw.html)
The difference threshold is the minimum DIFFERENCE in intensity between two stimuli that one can detect. In contrast, the absolute threshold is the minimum INTENSITY of a stimulus that one can detect. An example of an absolute threshold is a standard hearing test. In a hearing test, the subject listens to a variety of pitches and tones while pressing a button until he/she hears the sound, and releases the button when the tone fades. “The intensity at which you "lose" and regain the tone is your absolute threshold for that particular tone.” For the difference threshold, if a subject starts with a standard stimulus intensity, they can increase or decrease the intensity “until one can just barely tell that changed (comparison) stimulus is either more intense or less intense than the standard.” Reaching the lower difference threshold occurs when the comparison stimulus is judged to be more intense than the standard on 25% of trials. Conversely, the upper difference threshold is reached when the comparison stimulus is judged to be more intense than the standard on 75% of trials. The difference threshold is the average of the two differences between the comparison stimuli and the standard.
http://users.ipfw.edu/abbott/120/thresholds.html
Remember, the just noticeable difference-or the difference threshold- is the minimum difference in intensity between two stimuli that one can detect. It is also the average of the two differences between the comparison stimuli and the standard. The absolute threshold is the minimum intensity of a stimulus that one can detect. And the two-point threshold is the smallest distance between two points that a person could recognize as two points instead of one point.
Terms: thresholds, just noticeable difference, difference threshold, stimuli, standard, absolute threshold, two-point threshold, lower difference threshold, upper difference threshold
You should avoid quoting when doing summaries of any kind. We want to read what you learned from the experience, in your own words. It's tough to synthesize what people have already found and are able to make sound good, but the it will get easier to summarize as you do it more and more.
From the text, I found the neurotransmitters portion to be very interesting. It is something that we are also covering in abnormal psych. This topic interests me because the reactions between neurons travel through the body so fast and that these tiny neurotransmitters can cause extensive problems for the person with the imbalance. Scientists have identified over 50 neurotransmitters in our brains and having too high of levels or too low of levels can lead to mental disorders for people. Some common neurotransmitters include Dopamine, Serotonin, and Norepinephrine. Common mental disorders that are attributed to neurotransmitter problems include depression, schizophrenia, and ADHD. Neurotransmitters are made of ammino acids, vitamins, minerals. Poor diet can attribute to neurotransmitter problems. Other things that can attribute to problems are lack of sleep, being sick, alcohol/drug use, and genetic make up. Medicines prescribed to fix neurotransmitter problems intend to regulate the amount of the neurotransmitter present, so that they are at normal levels. It is also recommended that people eat a proper diet with the appropriate vitamins and minerals, get lots of sleep, and avoid alcohol.
http://www.drjoecarver.com/clients/49355/File/Chemical%20Imbalance.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beGp8UYru2Y
http://www.improve-mental-health.com/what-are-neurotransmitters.html
Terms:neurotransmitter, neurons
Neurotransmitters are definitely interesting and important. In the future, since you are already taking the abnormal class and will no doubt talk about neurotransmitters with reference to disorders, try to find something about how neurotransmitters, for example, can influence our perception of our world, or alter our perception of our world. There is, for example, something called oxytocin that increases our eye gaze and the amount of time we spend looking at peoples faces and eyes. This no doubt plays some kind of role in neurotransmitter regulation and/or hormone regulation. The point is, try to keep your interests regarding things you learn to S & P.
I chose to research "supertasters" further. It seemed interesting to me because I personally love food, and to my previous knowledge, a lot of tasting has to do with smelling. My brother, who has lost some sense of smell from an accident says he doesn't notice a difference in his tastes.
I learned that there are little bumps on our tongues called 'papillae'. Other wise known as our taste buds. We use these to taste food. People with a large amount of them tend to be what we call 'supertasters'. Supertasters can taste food a lot more intensely than the 'nontasters'. Supertasters are sensitive to strong, bitter foods like grapefruit juice, and raw broccoli. It is said that supertasters are more picky eaters because such strong tastes seem less appealing to them. Also, supertasters need less sugar and fat to get the same enjoyment out of food, but enjoy more salty foods. Although, food scientist, John Hayes from Penn. State University believes that we shouldn't conclude that the amount of papillae is linked to genetic determinism. His thinks that we all have free will and can choose what's healthy to eat.
Also, I found an article that goes against what our book says what happens to people when tasting propylthiouracil (PROP). Jayun Lim, the assistant professor with Oregon State University's Department of Food Science and Technology, was asked if the study of individuals who could taste the bitterness in PROP were considered supertasters. Our book indicates that the bitterness of PROP makes supertasters compare the taste with the 'the most intense pain ever experienced'. Lim tells us this is a false indication. She tells us that there is just one gene out of 28 bitter-receptor families. All 28 of these work fine for depicting a bitter taste, it's just whether or not you have that specific gene, not because you are a 'supertaster'.
As for my brother. I learned that we only actually taste five flavors: sweet, sour, salt, bitter and umami (savory). Everything else we are actually smelling! The smell can not only go through your nose, but through the back of your mouth to your smell receptors. I am interested to ask my brother if he can still taste other 'tastes' besides these five!
Terms: Supertasters
http://www.oregonlive.com/foodday/index.ssf/2011/03/how_we_taste_--_and_the_truth.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127914467
http://supertastertest.com/
Good points. Supertasters are interesting. You should ask your brother about it. You mentioned it in an earlier post I read. Just ask him about it and maybe share what you learn with us via the blog. Good work.
Panpsychism is the idea that all matter whether it be organic or inorganic, living or non-living, have some type of consciousness. My interest was piqued when I was reading Chapter 1 in the book and stumbled across this idea that was initially proposed by Gustav Fechner. I then remembered that there is research out there about plants growing better if you talk to them. Fechner even wrote a book entitled Concerning the Mental Life of Plants.
After fumbling through some online encyclopedias and other websites, I have realized that the idea of Panpsychism is also closely related to theory of hylozoism which says that all matter is endowed or has life. Interestingly enough there is no real distinction between these two ideas. According to the passage I read from the newadvent website, “ancient hylozoists not only regarded the spirits of the material universe and plant world as alive, but also as more or less conscious”.
Another way to explain this theory is by saying that these two ideas or theories do not mean that everything in this world can think and have feelings. Rather it means that there are different levels of subjectivity, and that all objects experience this subjectivity, but depending on what object you are distinctly talking about, is how much experience it can have. So a piece of wood itself may not be able to experience something but those wood molecules may have some subjectivity. Our experience of subjectivity as humans is far more vast and complex than experiences from a piece of wood.
The idea that talking to your plants to help them grow has been something that has been argued over for a long time and is still talked about now. Some believe that it can have an effect on the plant. That plants need carbon dioxide to live, which is what we give the plant. In return we are given oxygen. So the idea of transferring CO2 to the plant more than normal is the main driving force behind this idea. Although this has been a more logical explanation than some, Dr. Rich Marini says that “Carbon dioxide levels do influence the rate of plant photosynthesis, but people would have to speak to their plants for at least several hours a day to enhance photosynthesis enough to influence plant growth.”
TERMS: panpsychism, Gustav Fechner,
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/panpsychism/
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11446a.htm
http://www.rps.psu.edu/probing/talkingtoplants.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJwBZMrGM4w
A couple points. First, don't quote in your summaries of what you learn. We can read the articles from the links but we want to know what you learned, your synthesis of the information. Also, tell us your opinion of the subject matter, after all it is a blog. The thing about "talking" to plants is strange because I could probably just breathe close to a or on a plant and it might have the same function. It seems like assuming that "talking" to the plant gives it growth is misleading and gives too much intentionality to the plant. The plant needs C02 and probably water, not reassurance and conversation. That's just my opinion, but see if you give you opinion it can become a debate, which is always more fun.
After reading chapter one, I found the part about neurotransmitters to be the most interesting. The books definition of neurotransmitters is; the chemical substance used in neuronal communication at synapses. The part I wanted to learn more about was when the book said that there were many different types of neurotransmitters in the brain. I wanted to know what part these neurotransmitters are having in our bodies and what effect they can have. The book also talked about how certain drugs, like amphetamines, can increase or decrease the effectiveness of our neurotransmitters. So, my main goal was to get a better understanding of neurotransmitters, their use, and what types there are.
First, I wanted to know a little more on how neurotransmitters function in our bodies. Neurotransmitters main objective is to transfer nerve impulses from one nerve to another nerve cell. Their main goal is deliver a message (nerve impulse) to parts of the body to tell it what to do. Examples of messages the brains sends in these impulses are breathing, telling your heart to beat, digestion, etc. There’s a lot more to neurotransmitters I could explain but I’m going to wait until we cover it more in class so I can get a better understanding of it.
Another topic I was interested in was the different types of neurotransmitters that are brain uses. There are a board range of different neurotransmitters that cover many different parts of our body. Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter that triggers muscle contraction and the excretion of certain hormones. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated with emotions, movement, and perception. Serotonin contributes to regulating body temperature, sleep, appetite and pain. Norepinephrine is a neurotransmitter that regulates attentiveness, emotion, dreaming, sleeping, and learning. It also helps bloods vessels to contract and increases your heart rate. Glutamate is an excitatory neurotransmitter that is associated with learning and memory. Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) controls vision and cortical functions. It also regulates anxiety.
I also stumbled upon of disorders that can be caused from abnormal levels of each of the neurotransmitters I listed earlier. Low levels of acetylcholine can cause Alzheimer’s disease. Loss of dopamine can lead to Parkinson’s disease. Low levels of Gamma-aminobutyric acid can trigger high levels of anxiety. Abnormal levels of Glutamate is associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Abnormal levels of Serotonin can lead to depression, suicide, impulsive behavior, and aggressiveness.
I was very much amazed on how much many things can go wrong if you have an imbalance of neurotransmitters. It sheds new light on why people have mental disorders. I’m excited to learn more about neurotransmitters in class when we get more advanced with it.
Terms: neurotransmitters, neuron
http://www.biotecharticles.com/Biology-Article/Neurotransmitters-and-its-types-347.html
http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/i/i_01/i_01_m/i_01_m_ana/i_01_m_ana.html
http://www.brainexplorer.org/neurological_control/Neurological_Neurotransmitters.shtml
Definitely interesting stuff. Always try to tie in what you learn to how those neurotransmitters might influence our sensation and perception of external stimuli. How might a neurotransmitter surplus or shortage affect our perception? How could the modulation of these neurotransmitters alter our perception of the world?
What interested me most in chapter 1 was polysensory areas in the brain. In most introductory psych classes, senses are given specific areas of the brain. This may be an effective tactic in teaching, for it's very generalized and simple. However, throughout my college career, if I've learned one thing it is this: the brain is rarely generalized and it is never simple. This also applies to the areas of the brain that are specified to senses. The brain is a single organ, all stimuli are recognized in the brain. Their obviously are certain areas of the brain that are more activated with certain stimuli (visual, auditory, etc.) but there are also more important areas of the brain that synthesize stimuli from different senses to form a multi-dimensional object that consciousness perceives. I looked at specific area of the brain that synthesizes auditory and visual stimuli; the superior temporal sulcus. The research shows that this area is activated with pure auditory stimuli and pure visual stimuli, but is activated more than the sum of pure auditory/visual stimuli (audiovisual > audio + visual). What makes these results so enticing is that some neuroscientists look at these areas of polysensory activation as the next step in finding the location of consciousness. While I don't personally accept that there is a set "area" of consciousness, I do accept that these areas are important in perception.
http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/13/10/1034.full
http://jn.physiology.org/content/46/2/369.full.pdf+html?ijkey=fd8e5dfd92c5bddf10a2e543bb57c86dd8a0915c&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_smJ8VbfSU
Terms: polysensory/polymodal, superior temporal sulcus (STS), audiovisual
There are definitely neural correlates of consciousness and that is where the field is headed in terms of exploring consciousness. No one area will probably be considered the "consciousness area" as conscious awareness is involved in a lot of tasks and cognitive processes. Therefore, a domain specific view of conscious is probably less beneficial than a domain general view. Critique and be skeptical of the neuroimaging data you read about. It can be informative, but it is also just measuring a correlate of actual neuronal activity. Enjoy learning more about the integration of different sensory systems and functionally connected networks of the brain.
In the earlier blogs I had mentioned how interesting it was that the sense of touch influences our decisions and gets into our brains, also known as materialism. I never paid much attention to how much touch really matters, especially when I am one of those people who feel the need to touch everything. I find all the senses to be very interesting and enjoyable to elicit a better understanding of them. But touch and mind was the winner that caught my attention. Touch and mind fall under the nativism category in our book. The paragraphs argue both sides of how touch does affect the mind and how it doesn't. I thought it would be interesting to see the research that has been done and find out which theory is correct. Physical matter is the only reality and everything we experience is due to the mind and matter. The sense of touch is extremely important to influencing our decisions, due to the fact that it is what we first learn as a baby. With touch, at any age, we are able to touch an object (something soft, hard, warm, cold) and be able to tell if we like it or if we don't. We don't have to use our minds to analize all these details about touch, but are able to understand just by simply using our bodies. Based on our sense of touch, people automatically in their minds unconsciously judge people. Descartes believes in the dualist view, mind and body exist but are not connected. Based on the websites and studies I have found regarding the two, touch and mind, I have to disagree with his studies. There are many examples supporting that touch does affect our decisions, such as having a firm handshake for interview. That is overally taught in highschool when they are attempting to prepare us for the "real world." People enjoy being warm, instead of cold so if you hand them a warm drink or have your house at a warm temperature, they will think more fondly of you. This goes the same with chairs. If you sit a guest on a hard chair verse a cushioned chair, they are going to be uncomfortable and move around a lot. Their mood is going to change and they will become irritable. Whereas if you place them in a soft chair, they are more likely to think of you as friendly and enjoy accompaning you. They will emit a behavior of coming over more often and it's interesting they are unconsiously making this decision based off of touch, or monism.
http://sensingarchiteture.com/4667/how-the-sense-of-touch-can-drive-occupant-decision-making/
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128109204
http://mentalhealthnews.org/sense-of-touch-affects-reasoning-judgment/841295/
Terms: materialism, sense of touch, Descartes, dualism, monism, emit, elicit and nativism.
Touch is definitely an important sense. I think you've intertwined touch and monism, however, because they are quite different. While touch is based on sensing pressure via mechanoreceptors, the idea of monism really is that the brain and mind are one in the same and that the mind is what the brain does or gives rise to. So, be sure to check your posts for accuracy and thoroughness.
I chose to investigate signal detection theory more in-depth. This theory fits in the chapter because it identifies how we perceive and react to different stimulus. I am interested in it because I think it is interesting how individuals react to the same stimuli in different ways depending on their awareness, and interest in the stimuli.
Signal detection theory is the concept that some will detect different things at different rates or thresholds. When determining if you have detected the stimulus, you can either have a hit, a miss a false alarm, or a correct rejection. Every person has a different criterion, or level at which they detect the stimuli.
For example if you are completely unaware that a stimuli is going to take place you may not perceive it as quickly as if you are looking for it. For example the youtube video below asks you to count the number of passes of a basketball the white team makes. In the middle of the confusion a moon walking bear walks across the screen. If you are not looking to detect it (low criterion) you will not see the bear (miss). When they re-direct your attention (high criterion) to the bear you can see it (hit). This is an example of adjusting your criterion. The first time you are asked to count the passes so your criterion for moon walking bears is basically zero… and then when they point it out your criterion shifts and you perceive the bear.
This can be related to many scenarios. I wanted to see if there were any studies about why some people wake up from sleep easier to different things but couldn’t really find anything concrete. I did find some things about mothers waking up to their babies cry easier because of hormones in the brain that make mothers more susceptible to their child’s needs.
Terms: Signal detection theory, thresholds, hit, miss, false alarm, correct detection, criterion,
http://www.cns.nyu.edu/~david/handouts/sdt/sdt.html
http://psych.hanover.edu/javatest/std/STDbasic.html
http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/70532/
http://peke.hubpages.com/hub/quickanswers1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4
It is interesting b/c some people right of the bat go for "old" or "seen before" and some go for "new" or "never seen before." Over time, people can shift their criterion to be either more liberal or conservative, but these can play out in various ways in the empirical or real world. Empirically, a speed-accuracy tradeoff can occur. In the real world, false alarms can occur which are especially problematic in the case of eyewitness misidentifications, which I'm sure you'll hear more about at Dr. MacLin's talk.
In chapter 1, the topic that caught my interest was vitalism. As I hadn’t never really heard it before found myself curious about it and decided to research it a bit further for the topical blog this week. Vitalism’s doctrine itself is that the processes of life are not as explainable by the laws of physics and chemistry alone. Rather that life is in its own right some part self-determining. So to put it simply in a way that isn’t so confusing, it is the topic and philosophical study of processes of “energy” within the body; aka the “soul”.
The history of Vitalism seems to be a slightly bit elusive in the fact that the philosophical prospect of “the soul” has been around for a while. The development of vitalism has been found to be rooted all the way back into Ancient Egypt. Eastern cultures would refer to this energy in vitalism as “qi” or “chi” which we may have heard through movies or just due to general knowledge. Vitalism original thought to have two forms; organic and inorganic. Inorganic things could be melted with heat, and returned to their original form with the removable of said eat. Where in organic materials, they could be “cooked” transforming into new things but could never be returned to its original form. This vital force, as it was often referred to as, was only in organic compounds.
Eventually with the long history it had, Vitalism did seem to die out; however, there wasn’t a complete end to it today. Rather vitialism, lead to other approaches like holism, organism, and emergent evolution. Not only that, today there is something referred to as neo-vitalism; the general basis of the doctrine remains the same but is now a way to treat individuals in alternative medicine. These alternative forms of medicine are usually referred to as energy therapy or biofield therapies. I even have a friend that is doing some alternative medicines for some of her illnesses and some of them from my understanding are neo-vitalism in nature.
http://www.eoht.info/page/vitalism
http://www.tititudorancea.org/z/vitalism.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism
But how do they really study or empirically examine the proposals of vitalism? I mean, how do we really know that we have a soul? We can believe it, but what evidence exists for this philosophical perspective? How do you sense your own soul? How do we come to know that someone or something has a soul? Is this just a more general term for consciousness or our notions of morality or something that actually might have a neural, testable locus?
After reading the first chapter I was very interested in signal detection theory. This was interesting to me because I could relate to it, and to me relating to something makes it seem more real. So when I began to research this topic I wanted to find more examples of it.
One of my sources had the same example as the text did, the shower and the phone, but it also had a couple other examples. The example I found interesting off this website was radar screens in WWII. According to the website on the radar screen it would detect enemy aircraft (signal), but also other things in the environment, like the weather (noise). A hit would be detecting the aircraft, a miss would be not detecting an aircraft when there was one, a correct rejection would be not detecting an aircraft when there wasn’t, and a false alarm would be detecting an aircraft when there wasn’t an aircraft. So in reality it wasn’t that bad when there was a false alarm, but it was in some cases a waste of time. It would be bad it there was a miss and there wasn’t a detection of enemy aircraft, this could essentially cause death.
I also found in one other source that these radar tests were one of the reasons signal detection theory was started and developed. And then later it was developed more in psychology and in sensation and perception. This is also why this topic fits into the chapter.
Signal detection theory has a criterion which was also interesting to me. According to Stanford University your criterion is based off your decision making skills. So the more important the decision the more criteria you would have when detecting the signal, meaning you may have more hits or false alarms because the signal is important to you. The example given in the website was CT scans on a patient that may have a tumor. This would also be an example of when false alarms are not bad because either way they are being tested for the tumor.
Terms: signal detection theory, hit, miss, correct rejection, signal, noise, criterion
http://psychlab1.hanover.edu/KRANTZ/STD/examples.html
http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~lera/psych115s/notes/signal/
http://psych.hanover.edu/javatest/std/STDbasic.html
The detection of the signal amidst noise is a hugely applicable problem today. My friend does research with adaptation to blur in images in which radiologists are trying to detect a tumor in the breast. They often false alarm and indicate the presence of a tumor when none exists. She's trying to see what aspects of these medical images you can zero in on to increase your accurate detection of these tumors. Pretty cool stuff. Additionally, there is some visual search research by Jeremy Wolfe about detecting low prevalent targets (aka, weapons, bombs, etc). at airport security screening stations. This stuff is applicable to the real world and by conducting the research we can try to improve the existing paradigm or change it and make it better.
I felt like I found these posts backwards of what would have been easiest for my brain to comprehend. This may have been to in-depth of a topic for my first try on this topical blog because I did not realize how advanced the research on this simple topic could have gotten. As a topic I chose to look into sensory transducers. Sensory Transducers were interesting to me because they are the way that our sensory systems pick up information from the things that we touch, taste, smell, hear, and see and turn those initial senses into a neural signal that our brain can understand by using chemicals.
I wanted to put this topic to work by seeing what new research had been done on it. What I found was a little more complex than expected, although not much new stuff has been found about the system itself researchers are expanding this property to many other areas of science and medicine. In the beginning I looked at an article that discussed how scientists have taken the first real picture of this process with an x-ray machine, using Microbial rhodophsin which moves between two points when coming in contact with light (which excites it related to what we learned in class), which shows how different helices work together in this process.
This interesting and very confusing process led me to another article that was a little easier to understand and also helped me to understand the first article because it was a little simpler and at least passed the 5 finger rule when it comes to words you know in the first paragraph. This article looked at mice that had cancer and induced three different types of pain. Then they looked at their neural impulses to determine whether the mice exhibited hypersensitivity based two specific neural transducers to figure out if there is a genetic reason that these neural transducers are essential.
Finally I found the most simple part of this topic on YouTube, I really wish I had found this one first because it showed me what the process looks like and that made the other two easier to understand. In the video clip from YouTube a man worked out a problem involving sensory transduction that required him to work out an action potential that would make it possible for a person to taste saltiness or sodium/potassium chloride. This was more of what I was looking for, a topic related to sensory transducers that actually made sense because I could relate it to my life. I taste salt every day, which makes this video very relatable.
Te man created a picture of an ion channel and then showed how the positively charged chemicals would send information to be processed by the brain through a synapse and the salty message is understood.
This was a little tough the first time and I know I can do better with the synthesizing; it’s just going to take a little bit of practice.
http://www.signaling-gateway.org/update/updates/200210/su-0210-1.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3197546/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4akLfzD4c5Q
Sensory transducer, x-ray, microbial rhodphins, helix/helices, neural impulses, hypersensitivity, synapse, and action potential.
True, it takes work and practice. Sensory transduction is definitely a heavy topic which will no doubt involve some physics, biology, physiology, and anatomy, so right off the bat you had your work cut out for you. It is interesting to know how we gain access to our external world in the form of converting that physical energy into a neural code that we can process internally to learn about the world.
The topic that I chose to explore was panpsychism. This stuck out to me because I find it pretty hard to agree with. Panpsychism is the belief that all matter has consciousness even inanimate objects. One philosopher stated that nothing can give what it cannot possess. I may have been able to not get so caught up on this idea had inanimate object not have been included in the idea.
This idea was presented in the book as being a belief of Gustav Fechner. I found out that some other notable psychologist who I learned about in history and systems also had beliefs in panpsychism. The two notable ones were William James and also Wilhelm Wundt. In my research I found out that not only was Fechner not the originator of this belief, but that those who have panpsychist believe may not necessarily believe it to the same degree. Evolutionarily speaking it is believed that mind developed out of matter. It is believed that individuals have had panpsychist ideas all the way back before systematic philosophy existed.
Another thing that I found in my research is that there is a term called hylozoism. It’s a theory that very closely resembles panpsychism. In hylozoism the belief is that all things are made up monads which in panpsychism would be matter. The differences in monads are that monads are expressed differently.
Terms: panpsychism, Gustav Fechner
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/panpsychism/#2
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11446a.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycRu9bhrWhc
The thing about "talking" to plants is strange because I could probably just breathe close to a or on a plant and it might have the same function. It seems like assuming that "talking" to the plant gives it growth is misleading and gives too much intentionality to the plant. The plant needs C02 and probably water, not reassurance and conversation. That's just my opinion, but see if you give you opinion it can become a debate, which is always more fun. What do you think about this topic?
For this week’s topical blog, I chose to expound upon neural imaging techniques, specifically that of functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. All you sports fans out there are probably familiar with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), at least at a basic level. This technique is used to scan and produce images of anatomical structure – a method often used to diagnose sprains, strains, and tears of connective tissue within the bodies of athletes. The only difference with fMRI is…you guessed it…the lowercase ‘F’ in front of the abbreviation! That stands for ‘functional’, so the major difference between the two is that fMRI goes beyond mere structure to detect changes in metabolic function among these anatomical structures. This is accomplished through use of a method termed “BOLD” imaging, which stands for Blood Oxygen Level Dependent imaging. When a neural areas is active, it receives increased blood flow, and the resultant variation in deoxyhemoglobin (deoxygenated blood protein) concentration can be detected by the fMRI machine.
Given the relative simplicity of the fMRI process, I find the number of possible applications for this technology to be quite remarkable. When searching for research in this field, a study on musicianship as it relates to brain functionality caught my eye. Therefore, I have chosen studies that all deal with musical improvisation. Each of these projects utilize functional magnetic resonance imaging to ascertain how the human brain works while composing music on the fly. Limb and Braun (2008) found extensive prefrontal deactivations that were not present in study done by Manzano and Ullén (2011). This may be due to the fact that the subjects in the Limb study were professional musicians, however the Manzano participants were also quite skilled, having completed degrees in higher musical education with extensive improvisational experience. Nevertheless it is remarkable that the Manzano study showed few functional differences between pseudo-random response generation and improvisional performance. I believe both of these studies could be improved by including a subset of less prestigious pianists in order to compare scans of professionals to amateurs under each study’s respective experimental constraints. This sort of goal is undertaken by another related study conducted by Berkowitz and Ansari (2010). Their results indicate the right temporoparietal junction may serve an integral role in creative musicianship. Scans showed this area to be deactivated among professional musicians while improvising, with no change in function for nonmusicians performing the same behavior. This may indicate an increase in goal-directed behavior brought about by years of musical training. These results jive with the Limb study, which exhibited a deactivation of lateral prefrontal areas coupled with increased activity in the medial prefrontal cortex among improvising professional pianists. These results may be used to show that top-down processing induced by technical musical training can serve to deactivate brain areas that monitor conscious awareness of goal-directed behaviors. In other words, those who are creatively proficient have the ability to stop “thinking” about playing and just play. However, once again I would like to see some sort of blend of these three experiments with comparisons being drawn between professionals, amateurs, and nonmusicians using the same criteria.
Terms: MRI, fMRI, BOLD imaging
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811909009525
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0001679
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811911007774
Nice post. I like the credibility of your sources and how you went for the empirical articles. fMRI is great, but it still only gives you a correlate of the neuronal activity. Definitely a good idea to use a novice group as a follow up to compare activity patterns. There is some older work by Dr. MacLin's former advisor Dr. Robert Solso which looked at fMRI for experts (artists) and novice artists. Pretty interesting stuff, if you're interested check it out.
My topic that I’m interested in Chapter 1 would be the firing of neurons in general. I think this fits into this chapter because it is extremely important to realize how our cells communicate with each other, and especially our brain cells, neurons. I think it fits into this chapter because it is learning the fundamentals of just exactly how a neuron fires. I thought MacLin’s lecture in regards to facial recognition and the number of times a neuron fires when seeing a person’s face compared to a stick figures face was very exciting. I’m interested in this topic because I’m also a biology major so I find this stuff fascinating. I find the actually firing the neuron remarkable, especially considering the magnitude of how many times they fire within our lifetime. I came across a video clip of a 3D animation of a neurotransmitter synapse that really breaks down the process of a neuron firing which you can find the link below. I wanted to take a closer look at side effects our neurotransmitters may have when put in certain conditions. We all know that lack of sleep makes concentrating harder and retaining knowledge more difficult. It’s that feeling when you’re up at 2:00 in the morning studying for your test the next day and you slowly start seeing the inside of your eye lids more so than your textbooks. A research was conducted by studying rats by forcing them to stay awake to test their neurotransmitters “tiredness”. This experiment resulted in researchers finding that the tiredness of a neuron may help attribute to some of the symptoms sleep deprived people may have. However not only does being sleep deprived lower the amount of times our neurons fire, they actually decrease the number of firing with age which can impact our memory. With increased age there is a buildup of cAMP which is cyclic A & P, which ultimately weakens network firing. However there is a new medication called Guanfacine which is currently being tested in a clinical trial run. During the trial it showed patients, who currently do not having Alzheimers, having an increase number of neuron firings when taken Guanfacine.
Terms: neurotransmitters, neurons, Guanfacine, cAMP (cyclic A&P)
http://www.kurzweilai.net/how-aging-affects-working-memory-neuron-firing-rate-and-how-to-improve-it
http://www.nih.gov/researchmatters/may2011/05022011sleep.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90cj4NX87Yk
Interesting. I like how you related the topic to the real world and found some information about how the mechanism can inform the way to develop the psychopharmacology to treat the disorder. Good stuff.
The topic I chose was cranial nerves because I have just always had an interest in it. Even though I don’t always understand the specific medical terms for each part of the brain, I have always just liked seeing what parts of the brain do what. Both consciously (picking up a pen) to subconsciously (making the heart muscle work to pump blood). This fits into Chapter 1 by explaining the biology part of perception. There are twelve different nerves that send information from the body to the brain.
During my research I first found that just typing in ‘cranial nerves’ would not work because it mostly just brought up maps of the brain almost exactly like the one you can find on page 20 of the textbook. After a while I was able to find some clinics that treated cranial nerve disorders but it didn’t have any new information. So I started looking at cranial verve disorders, mostly to find definitions to what exactly the disorders meant. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke website was also able to help including explaining a condition called trigeminal neuralgia, which is a condition that involves the 5th cranial nerve called the trigeminal and involves sever pain in the face. But then I was able to find one website that was easier to look at multiple different conditions without having to know their names first. Luckily, UC San Diego Health System’s Neurosurgery page was able to give me just that and how they are mostly commonly treated. Medication was listed but some did involve invasive surgery to assist in correcting the specific nerve damage in question. But with surgery being so invasive I looked for any non-invasive treatments that might be available and found the website for Tactile Communication and Neurorehabilitation Lab. They have discovered a non-invasive treatment for healing damaged cranial nerves called Cranial Nerve Non-Invasive NeuroModulation (CN-NINM). This process includes stimuli being applied to the patent’s face or mouth and sending electrical currents to nerves that have been damaged. They have also found that having the patent being exposed to certain lights and sounds also help stimulate the damaged nerves. It didn’t sound like recovery would be 100% but they were able to work with the patents until their cranial nerves started functioning on a more normal level.
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/trigeminal_neuralgia/detail_trigeminal_neuralgia.htm
http://neurosurgery.ucsd.edu/cranial-nerve-disorders
http://tcnl.bme.wisc.edu/background_cnninm.php
Terms: cranial nerves, nerves, trigeminal neuralgia, trigeminal, pain, stimuli, electrical currents.
This shows you how one thing wrong in the intricate system of the nervous system will have a cascade of effects on the body and brain. The same is true of brain damage and its impact on perception. You will probably like the apperceptive agnosia and prosopagnosia type material in the class.
The topic I decided I would like to know more about was panpsychism. According to the text panpsychism is the idea that all matter has consciousness. Panpsychism derives from the two Greek words pan, which means all, and psyche, which means soul or mind. Originally I didn’t have any interest in the topic, but later it ate at me and I wanted to know what it was exactly. I wanted to understand what they meant by ALL matter has consciousness, because it sounds very odd that something like a pencil has consciousness like a human being. Panpsychism, which was an idea originated by Gustav Fechner, was inspired by the mind/body debate after Fechner had a vision.
In a world where people need physical proof, scientists see the view of panpsychism is seen as an implausible view. They have done some studies with plants and how people talking to them and seeing how the growth rates differ to see if this idea was in fact real, but the results were not considered sufficient enough to support any claims. Through various articles there hasn’t been enough evidence to support the idea, but at the same time nobody can disprove it either. Many people can’t grasp something that doesn’t have life can have a conscious. I thought that it would be a little more interesting but the topic was actually really dry and repetitive. I imagine this will just remain an opinion based topic that we will never know if there is really a correct answer too it until science proves it to be real.
Terms: Panpsychism, Mind/Body Dualism
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/panpsychism/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism
http://www.iep.utm.edu/panpsych/
I think the important thing to do with these kinds of ideas and claims is to try to seek out alternative explanations for the phenomenon. People will read about this stuff in the media and think, "oh, it must be that talking to my plant helped it grow." But the mere fact that carbon dioxide is being released when we breathe and talk tells you that this is a possible explanation in leiu of the original theory. It's probably that the proximity at which you are emitting CO2 into the air that is close to the plant is producing these effects. Its not likely that the plant actually needs to "hear" your voice to grow harder, faster, better, stronger. Last time I looked at my plant next to my desk here in my house, there is nothing that resembles a cochlea or an ear like structure, but there are many leaf and branch like structures capable of absorbing CO2.
I first learned about just noticeable difference in an intro to psych class in high school. At the time, I thought this was a useless concept that had no real use in the real world so I dismissed it and moved on. Now, as a psych major I seem to come across this concept quite frequently, so I have decided to take a second look. Just noticeable difference is the smallest change that can be detected in a particular stimulus. The classic JND example given in the textbook was an experiment using weights of varying weight to test the difference. Researchers found that when the first weight was heavy, then participants found that they had a harder time telling the difference. As interesting as this may be, I am more interested in how to apply JND to the everyday life. I found two articles concerning the application of JND in the workplace and to college students.
One professional area that JND can be used in is marketing campaigns. This is because just noticeable difference allows for companies to make small changes in their products while controlling what they want the public to notice. This tactic can come in handy when companies want to promote improvements made on their products. They do this by making slight improvements that are just above the JND, which saves them money and additional resources because the customer does all the work, essentially. It is also helpful when they want to reduce the size of their products. The JND allows for companies to make slight changes to the sizes and increasing of the prices of their products without being obvious. In order to achieve this, they need to stay below the JND. In sum, JND is used to in marketing by controlling what the public is likely to notice-whether that be hiding unfavorable changes or promoting product improvements.
Daniel J. Ozer decided to apply the use of JND to the scoring of test scores, in particular the SAT test. He gathered TA’s into a room and they were asked to take a standardized exam. He presumed that when the scores were compared, a JND was formed. When these exams were within 2 points of one another, which is when a JND was detected. Test scores that were less than the JND were not valued as significantly as the exams that were at or above the JND. After the study was complete, Ozer concluded that JND’s are useful for interpreting test scores, as well as verifying other similar test forms. More work still needs to be done on his research, but I still believe it to be interesting and it helps me to understand JND in application to the real world.
What interested me most about JND was determining how we use it in our daily routines. This topic fits in the book because it is a notable theory credited to Ernst Weber. I had trouble finding more applicable examples, but I plan to continue looking.
Terms: Just noticeable difference, marketing campaign, standardized testing.
Sources:
http://mres.gmu.edu/pmwiki/uploads/Main/JND%20Stricker%202000.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-noticeable_difference
http://www.apa.org/research/action/glossary.aspx#j
A good application of the topic outside of our segregated field of psychology. I didn't know they were applying the JND toward that end. Interesting.
One concept that caught my attention rather quickly from the text was the concept of threshold. I was specifically interested in learning more about absolute threshold. This concept dates back to work done by Gustav Fechner, a psychologist renowned for his work in psychophysics. Absolute threshold is detecting the very minimum amount that is required to detect a stimulus. There are many different methods that can be used when detecting absolute threshold, one commonly held method is named the method of constant stimuli. One of the key reasons this technique is so beneficial for detecting absolute threshold is because of its randomization order of the stimuli presented. This helps to minimize any bias of whether the subject knows what to expect. It is typical for these experiments to have the subject respond with a yes or no answer. Then the threshold is determined by at least 50% correct responses. The detection of stimuli may be detected at some time but not at other times. Since absolute threshold refers to the absolute minimum of the stimuli it can be a confusing term to understand if all you need is 50% detection. Absolute threshold is may be experimented with using any of our five senses. An example of how we use hearing and incorporate it with absolute threshold would be by measuring a participant’s response to the ticking of a clock, for example. The minimum that is heard, assuming the room and conditions are absolutely silent besides the clock, is that person’s absolute threshold. Another way we are able to look at absolute threshold is by just noticeable difference. The nervous system incorporates messages and transforms information through sensation. Receiving receptors are limited in the amount of change that can be detected. Threshold is primarily focused with the limitations of these senses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_threshold_of_hearing
http://psychology.about.com/od/glossaryfromatoz/g/absolutethresh.htm
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/Sensory-Thresholds.topicArticleId-25438,articleId-25322.html
Terms: absolute threshold, Fechner, psychophysics, method of constant stimuli, JND.
Definately important. You have to know what people can detect in order for whatever you are working with to be useful. It's also very telling of the fact that there is so much energy out there in the world that we can't detect.
Topical Blog- I have decided to research Oliver Sacks and his findings of hallucinations and musicophilia. I have read his book Musicophillia over a year ago and I think it ties in with perception in chapter
1. Oliver Sacks is known for writing many books of sensation and perception. The T.E.D. talk of Oliver Sacks shows that a women with hallucinations would describe her experience like a movie. There would be many colors and objects flying around and she would be observing them like she was watching a movie. Perception in her brain and the process of stimuli and recognition must be distorted because she is perceiving things that are not in her environment. The disorder of hallucinations and other recognition disorders show that the patients think they are viewing objects that are in their environment. It is truly fascinating that a disorder can put images into your brain without them physically being in front of you.
http://www.ted.com/talks/oliver_sacks_what_hallucination_reveals_about_our_minds.html
2. This interview with Dr. Sacks shows the background of sensation musicophilia book. The human brain responds to rhythm and musical beats from sensation. Relating to Chapter 1, sensation and perception is carried to the brain. Music perception and sensation is important to humans and fires stimuli to the brain for enjoyment. This is all taking place without many people realizing. However, patients with disorders have difficulties igniting certain parts of the brain. Visual pacing is movement of perception that allows one to feel the music being “alive.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vickie-karp/third-screen-an-interview_b_129114.html
3. Musicophillia shows readers that there is not one single music center in the brain that is triggering sensation or perception of music. There are 20 to 30 complex networks spread to analyze pitch to melody. Perceiving music can bring a person to tears or having set of tunes stuck in their head. Alzheimers is a disorder of memory but can affect perception and sensation. According to this book, perceiving music was easy for an Alzheimer’s patient but had no idea what he did for a living. The power of perception is truly amazing what people can perceive and sense.
http://www.npr.org/2007/11/13/16110162/oliver-sacks-observes-the-mind-through-music
This week, I chose to do my topical blog on adaptation. I love learning about adaptation. As I said in my other post, I had to do a lot of adapting in my transition from small town Iowa living with my parents to Cedar Falls/ Waterloo by myself. I had to adjust myself to my surroundings and make sure that I was fit for those surroundings by learning and coping in new ways.
I decided to go about this post in more of an evolutionary psychology approach and almost look at evolution as a part of adaptation. Adaptation plays a key role in evolution and I thought it would be interesting to see what I could find out! Adapting isn’t just a random change, it is an improvement to what was already there. I hadn’t really thought about this concept before but it is so true! Each time a species makes a change, like humans deriving from apes into actual humans, there is a reason behind it that supports what is going on around them in nature. These changes can be ways of disguising so you can blend into your surroundings, trying a different diet because your old food source isn’t available, or even completely changing forms to make transportation easier. Adaptation isn’t always natural, however. We can see adaptation in our modern world in forms of technology. My grandparents are now being forced to carry a cell phone whenever they leave their house. They don’t know how to use it other than to dial numbers and call. They hate that we make them do it, but its for safety. 20 years ago, that wouldn’t have been an option. Because of the fact that the world is constantly changing, no species is exempt from the power of adaptation. Most of the time, adaptation occurs through natural selection or when a trait dies out in a population overtime because it is not as effective or beneficial to that species. No matter what the case, adaptation is the basis behind survival of the individual as well as a species. The youtube video showed several different animals that have features that they have gained through adaptation. One of these would be the giraffe. This animal has gained long necks overtime because they are the only ones who have survived by being able to reach the tops of the trees for food. Adaptation is way more complex than some people believe and much more science is behind the subject.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIIE5Adaptation.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRX2JtKFUzk