Edward Thorndike:

1. Explain Thorndike's puzzle-box experiment.
Thorndike placed a cat in a puzzle box. he would place a hungry cat into the box, then observing its behavior as it tried to escape and obtain some food. At first, they worked by trial and error. As the cats would start finding their way out by trial and error they would then become quicker and remember the way they originally took.

2. Explain Thorndike's "Law of Effect".
The Law of Effect is that: Of several responses made to the same situation, those which are accompanied or closely followed by satisfaction to the animal will, other things being equal, be more firmly connected with the situation, so that, when it recurs, they will be more likely to recur; those which are accompanied or closely followed by discomfort to the animal will, other things being equal, have their connections with that situation weakened, so that, when it recurs, they will be less likely to occur. The greater the satisfaction or discomfort, the greater the strengthening or weakening of the bond.
3. Explain Thorndike's "Law of Exercise".
The Law of Excercise is that: that those behavioral responses that were most closely followed by a satisfying result were most likely to become established patterns and to occur again in response to the same stimulus.
B.F. Skinner:

1. Explain Skinner's concept of Operant Conditioning
Skinner's theory is based upon the idea that learning is a function of change in overt behavior. Changes in behavior are the result of an individual's response to events that occur in the environment. A response produces a consequence. When a particular Stimulus-Response pattern is rewarded, the individual is conditioned to respond.
2. What does  reinforcement always do?
Reinfocrcement is making the subject want to repeat the action they did because they were rewarded for the thing they did.
3. What does a punishment alsways do?

4. Explain the difference between "postive" and "negative" as they are used in opernat conditioning.

Ivan Pavlov:1. What was Pavlov actually studying when he developed his theory of classical conditioning?
Pavlov was actually studying the digestive process of dogs.
2. Explain (in detail) how Pavlov's experiment was conducted.
Pavlov preformed a surgery on the dogs and input a tube that would drip the saliva into the tubes. He then would test the dogs and give them food every time a bell would ring. When the dogs would hear it and they would salivate and receive food. Now all the animals when they would hear a bell would salivate even with out the sight or smell of food.
3. Identify the conditioned stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned response from Pavlov's experiment.
The conditional stimulus is the bell. The unconditioned stimulus is the food with out the bell. The response is that every time the dog would hear the bell he would salivate for food.
4. Explain what extinction means in relation to classical conditioning.
5. Explain what stimulus generalization means in relation to classical conditioning.
A dog who has been conditioned to salivate to the sound of a bell of one tone, may well salivate to a similar sounding bell or a buzzer. Stimulus generalisation is the extension of the conditioned response from the original stimulus to similar stimuli.
6. Explain what stimulus discrimination means in relation to classical conditioning.
An animal or person can be taught to discriminate between different stimuli. For example, if a dog is shown a red circle every time he is fed, then he will salivate at the sight of the red circle alone. But initially, the dog may generalise and salivate at circles of any colour. If the dog is only fed when the red circle is presented and not when other colours are shown, he will learn to discriminate between red and the other colours.
7. Explain at least two limitations of this experiment.
Two limitations of this experiment were that the dogs had to have a surgery to input a test tube to hold their saliva. Also, he only used the same breed of dog each time.
8. Explain what Pavlov theorized about how we learn.
We learned that by training specimens to a noise they will react to it after a couple repetitions, meaning that the after a while the animal would react to that noise even without a treat after it.
John B. Watson:
1. Explain (in detail) how Watson's "Little Albert" study was conducted.
Little Albert was brought into a study lab and was introduced to a white rat. At first Albert liked the rat, but when the rat was with him the doctor would hit a huge brass bar and startle Little Albert then he would cry. After this happened Little Albert would start to cry just at the sight of a rat. After a while, Albert would cry at the sight of anything with fur.
2. Identify the conditioned stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned response from Watson's study.
The conditioned stimulus of the study was the rat. The unconditioned stimulus is Little Albert.
3. Explain at least two limitations of this study.
Two limitations of the study are they only used one baby instead of testing it on many people. Also, when he tested the animals with Albert he should have used more then one dog or more then one type of a certain animal.
4. Explain Watson's law of frequency.
The more frequent a stimulus and response to occur in association with each other, the stronger that habit will become.
5. Explain Watson's law of recency.
The response that has most recently occurred after a particular stimulus is the response most likely to be associated with that stimulus.
6. Explain the basic assumptions of behaviorism according to Watson.
His basic assumption is that learning is a result of environmental events.

Class Articles

In the article written in sciencedaily.com, science studies have shown that High Schools that start only one hour later are less likely to have teens fall asleep behind the wheel. When classes were starting an hour later students were averaging around 12-30 more minutes of sleep. In 1999, over 1,000 teens had automobile accidents either before or after school. With school starting later, the crashes were reduced greatly. Studies show that adolescents as they are becoming older tend to stay up later as well, causing more issues in the morning.

Source Cited:

American Academy of Sleep Medicine. "Starting High School One Hour Later May Reduce Teen Traffic Accidents." ScienceDaily, 17 December 2008. Web. 3 November 2010. <http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2008/12/081215074351.htm>.

Darwin and the Origin of Species

Who was Darwin?
Charles Darwin was an english naturalist who was the first to have the theory of evolution. He was born in Shropshire England on Feburary 12, 1809. In his childhood, he he was already developing a taste for natural selection.

How did he arrive on his theory?
Darwin arrived on his theory during his trip on the HMS Beagle. On this trip, Darwin noticed how on each island there was the same type of bird with a different type of beak. By noticing this, he asked was it nature that changed the birds. He noticed that if the birds had a certain type of food on the island the birds beaks that were too big couldn't eat the food and soon died out. Out of this observation, he came upon his theory that we all evolved from earlier species.

What were some of the issues he faced?
Some issues Darwin faced were mostly related to stress and religion. His wife being a devoted Catholic believed that God created man and there is no evolution. He was chastised by the people of his town because they believed that with his theory he no longer was believing that God even existed! Out of all the stress he had, he was hallucinating and having extremely bad dreams of his deceased daughter.

What was his anguish?
Darwin's anguish was many. One being that his family and friends did not like him because of their religion. His theory was a total opposite of God and many people did not appreciate that. After his daughter died, he would have so much stress that he would have visions of her leading him around. He would have so many issues, he even go sick at one point.

Teenage Thinking

In the video we are watching in class, it brings up many good points about the teenage brain. One idea people have is that as teenagers we need 8 to 9 hours of REM which is time where your body is completely asleep. The tests people have done prove that people with less REM time, end up doing very bad at tasks assigned to them. Also, many teenagers are not able to completely tell the difference in others peoples emotions. When doctors showed a picture of a persons expression many adults answer that the person was confused. Where as teens stated that the person was mad. The last point made was that teenagers have many mood swings. Many teens have no reason to their emotions but this is showing that their brains are not fully developed enough to control their own emotions. Many teens are always confused. I myself am constantly confused. Life at this point in time is very difficult for many people.

Our Brains!

Hemisphere refers to the two different sides of the brain. It states that the two sides of the brain control different parts of the body. There are two sides the left and the right side. The left side of the brain controls the right side of the body and it processes all analytical thinking. The right side of the brain controls the left side of the body and also controls peoples feelings. The corpus collasum is the the layer of neutrons that connect the two sides of the brain and allow them to interact with eachother. Paul Broca's research concerned the comparative study of the skulls of the races of humankind, work that aided the development of modern physical anthropology. He originated methods to study the brain's form, structure, and surface features and sections of prehistoric skulls. His discovery of the brain's speech centre was the first anatomical proof of localization of brain function. In the early 1950s Roger Sperry set out to find how a creature would behave if all such commissures were severed resulting in a ‘split brain’. To his surprise he found that monkeys and cats with split brains act much the same as normal animals. However, where learning was involved the creatures behaved as if they had two independent brains. Thus if a monkey was trained to discriminate between a square and a circle with one eye, the other being covered with a patch, then, if the situation was reversed the animal would have to relearn how to make the discrimination. Where as when he studied a 49-year-old man whose brain had been split to prevent the spread of severe epeliptic convulsions from one side to the other. He found that, though normal in other ways, the patient showed the effect of cerebral disconnection in any situation that required judgment or interpretation based on language. Sperry's work immediately posed the problem of whether there is any comparable specialization inherent in the human right-hand brain. Wernicke's area is named after Carl Wernicke, a German neurologist and psychiatrist who, in 1874, hypothesized a link between the left posterior section of the superior temporal gyrus and the reflexive mimicking of words and their syllables that associated the sensory and motor images of spoken words. This proved a theory that brain injuries caused aphasia and would effect peoples speech.

The Lobe most responsible for vision is Occpital lobe.

The lobe most responsible for auditory and speech control is the temporal lobe.
The lobe most responsible for math calculations is the left side of your brain.
The lobe most responsible for judgment, reasoning and impulse control is the right side of your brain.

Phineas Gage and Brain Localization

Phineas Gage worked as a foreman in railroad construction. At the age of 25 Gage went through a accident that would change his life and the life of many for years to come. While working Gage's job was to pack in dynamite into a hole to blow up parts of mountians. One day, while he was packing it in, a spark lit and the dynamite exploded in Gage's face. As a result, the tampinig iron he was using shot back at his face and went through his cheek bone up to tht top part of his skull. When the iron went through it took a chunk of his brain out with it. As a result of this accident Phineas went through many life changes as well. Being that he lived and had a part of brain missing, Gage became very socially challenged. His bitterness changed and everyone around him no longer enjoyed being with him. His mentality was now rude and very bitter. With this case study we learned that different parts of the brain control different parts of the body and systems. In his case, with the frontal lobe gone, he was no longer able to conrtrol his feelings or actions. After this case the theory of brain localization came. This theory states that different parts of the brain control different things and that the brain works together to control your whole body.

Brain lateralization states that the brain is sepreated into two peices and that each side of the brain is contrling the opposite sides of the body.