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  SIGN LANGUAGE AND COMPARATIVE COGNITION Research around forms of communication beyond human language has produced important information about animal communication. In this sense, there are two linguistic laws that have been observed in species other than the human species. One of them is an indirect relationship between the length of words and the frequency of their use. This law has been observed in the communication, both oral and gestural, of different animals, in addition to the human being. On the other hand, there is another law which is based on the fact that the longest communication sequences are formed from shorter elements. After observing a group of chimpanzees, a team of researchers has been able to derive the first evidence that these laws are fulfilled in the gestural communication of these animals. In addition to using gestures with their limbs, chimpanzees communicate with noises, facial gestures, and body postures. In this regard, according to the researchers,...

  EXPOSURE-BASED THERAPY VR Exposure-based therapy is a process widely used within cognitive behavioral therapy, which consists of modifying the sensitivity to stimuli that produce anguish or fear, through exposure therapy the patient is put in systematic and safe contact with the situation that affects him. generates conflict or with stimuli that trigger anxiety, fear or that produce negative emotions, with which a new learning can be established: extinction, which contributes to weaken previously learned associations, so that the person has more opportunities to elaborate an action above the initially established fear, one of its objectives is desensitization. Generally, exposure is suggested gradually and assessing different variables and personal factors of the patient, rather than a sudden immersion. As the world continues to develop new technologies, it also improves treatments in the mental health field. In exposure therapy there are several risk factors. For example, when...

 Powell et al. define learned helplessness as, "A decrease in one's learning ability that has occurred due to a repeated exposure to an uncontrollable stimulus that produced adverse outcomes" (2017). Learned helplessness is a phenomena that can occur in not only adults, but animals as well.  Learned helplessness can be present in many people with depression. They may feel as though no matter what they do, the feeling of despair and hopelessness will not go away. Therefore they stop trying to make positive changes in their life and continue on in a depressed state.   Attending therapy, journaling, talking to loved ones, or even a simple walk can help stimulate the brain of those living with depression and can help the learned helplessness acquired, dissipate. 

There are two sides to the punishment both positive and negative. Positive punishment is adding more chores to a list of chores they already have. By adding more chores to what they already have to do. Spanking them so they learn from what they have done so they can learn the season. While the negative punishment would be taking something away from them which is their phone, and television time, and restricting them from going out with their friends. The way you interact with the child can either cause the child to behave the proper way or just cause the child to continue to do what they are not supposed to do. Some parents believe spanking is a way children will learn while other people think spanking is not something that should be done. There are positive and negative effects to this kind of punishment. It is seen that punishment "often has a short-term effect and, on its own, doesn't offer information or instruction on what the preferred behavior should be" ( High 5 T...

 ADHD is a term used frequently to describe someone who has trouble staying still, or focusing on one specific task for too long. While this term is used broadly to characterize many people, it is a disorder that many people struggle with on a daily basis. Some symptoms include; inability to sit still, constantly picking or fidgeting with object around them, consistent talking, being disorganized, poor time management. There is a plethora of symptoms, and not every individual with ADHD will have every single symptom.  The pandemic made people who live with ADHD have a much more difficult time. Forcing people with ADHD to stay inside, with not much stimulation heightened the symptoms for these people, and caused above normal stress levels for this time period.  Recommendations for people during the pandemic with ADHD included; establishing a routine, getting outdoors frequently, finding enjoyable activities to do while inside, staying connected with people you normally wou...

 Media violence and the repercussions of behavior has been a topic discussed in many of my psychology classes. I remember in Intro to Psych this topic was brought up and we had to discuss if we thought violence portrayed in the media (video games, tv, movies etc.) could truly influence the viewers behavior.  Studies have shown that males react more quickly in their aggression after viewing violent media. Males are often portrayed as the aggressor as well. Showing why studies have shown that females are more accepting when males are violent, because it is something they have somewhat 'normalized' from television or movies. 

                Almost everyone can remember a time they have taken a standardized test. Some examples of standardized tests include SATs, ACTs, or state tests. They are suppose to show how smart a person. A lot of times it can help determine what kind of college they are going to. Many researchers are starting to determine that standardized tests are not the most accurate predictor of intelligence.      According to Britannica, the pro of standardized tests are that they can show how well measurement of the education of a district and gauge areas of improvement. However, the con is that the tests are aimed only for students who are good at taking the tests. There are so many factors that can influence the test such as stress, hunger, lack of sleep, problems at home, and many more. There are also stereotypes that can be threatening to students to make them think they won't do well because they are a part of a certain group...

Phobia is when an individual "learns to make the avoidance response early in the chain of events so as to minimize the effort of avoiding" ( Powell, 341). It's something that gives you an overwhelming feeling to want to avoid it due to the fear. There are different types of phobias that are seen all around the world. There are some of the weirdest to normal phobias. I actually have a sensory phobia of cotton or cotton balls. Which is called sidonglobophobia. I can hold a cotton ball and use a cotton ball but when I use a cotton ball and rip it apart I hate the feeling. It gives me goosebumps. I did some research and it was stated that the actual feeling of pulling the cotton ball apart causes friction which gives off the goosebump feeling. Something interesting that I discovered was that Micheal Jackson had a fear of cotton balls. As weird as it sounds it is the word feeling of having cotton balls being ripped apart.  https://www.fearof.net/fear-of-cotton-balls-phobia-sid...

            Phobias are things people are afraid of for no particular reason. To be considered a phobia however, they must have an unreasonable or overwhelming fear of the specific thing. A lot of people have phobias of things such as spiders and snakes. However, some people have a phobia of things that would be considered unusual such as a fear of the color yellow or holes/buttons. No matter what the phobia is, most people often experience many symptoms. Some of those symptoms include: anxiety, feeling nauseous, getting dizzy, or having difficulty breathing.      Whatever the phobia is, many people wonder how people get these phobias. According to the mayo clinic, it can be caused by the most obvious reason of having a bad experience with that specific thing. However, the mayo clinic also says that genetic factors also have to do with it as well as environmental factors. They can also develop at any age. All specific phobias have names....

     Overcoming impulsiveness and mastering the art of self control are two things that are extremely crucial in today’s age of instant gratification. However, this is much easier said than done. According to the text, “immediate consequences are generally more powerful than delayed consequences, a fact that can readily lead to suboptimal choices” (Powell et al., 2017). The task of choosing a larger later reward versus a smaller sooner reward, known as a delay of gratification, is a task where self-control is primordial. On the contrary, choosing a smaller sooner reward over a larger later reward is known as instant gratification which often results from impulsiveness. For this reason, people may find themselves in unfavorable situations due to impatience and lack of self control.      With each day that passes by, I see how impatient we as a society are growing, with a significantly declining attention span, and always looking for instant gratification not...

  PHOBIAS Specific phobias are an overwhelming and irrational fear of objects or situations that pose little real danger but cause anxiety and avoidance behaviors. Unlike a brief moment of anxiety you might feel when you give a speech or take a test, specific phobias are long-lasting, produce intense physical and psychological reactions, and can affect your ability to function normally at work, school, or social environments. Specific phobias are among the most common anxiety disorders; not all phobias need treatment. However, if a particular phobia affects your daily life, various therapies can help you process and overcome your fears, often permanently. A few years ago, I realized that I was afraid of clowns and thought it was a phobia. Surprisingly, there exists a phobia for clowns that is called Coulrophobia. Coulrophobia is the extreme, intense, irrational fear of clowns. It can be either just seeing it in pictures and videos or their presence. It is interesting how phobias ...

   For many years, people have been learning about learning styles. They teach it in Psychology 101, and I even remember learning about it in science class. Everyone had to take tests online to find out which learner they are. The most popular ones are a visual learner or an auditory learner. For visual learners that means that they learn better by seeing things and for auditory learners that means they learn better by hearing things.      Knowing I wanted to write about one of these types of learning styles, I looked up learning styles, I looked it up. I saw that they found new evidence that learning styles are not real. There is not enough evidence to prove that learning styles are real. According to APS or Association for Psychological Science, many tests have been done to try and prove that there are different types of learners, however there is not enough randomized research to prove that this is credible. "E xisting literature on learning styles and f...

     Avoidance conditioning is characterized by the development of behavior(s) that delays or prevents adverse input. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a disorder identified by recurrent thoughts, urges, and/or behaviors that are carried out in response to obsessions. When taken as a whole, avoidance conditioning can have a significant impact on obsessive-compulsive disorders, where obsessions cause anxiety to rise and can be relieved by engaging in compulsive behavior or avoidance.      This topic intrigued me because, the further I read, the more I related. Personally, I consider myself to be someone who feels the need to be in control of situations at all times, more often than not putting 100% of the responsibility on myself because otherwise I feel overwhelmingly anxious and, frankly, out of control. Although at times I feel that this has worked in my favor in certain situations such as planning events, carrying out school projects, etc., it also ...

     A schedule of reinforcement is defined as the criteria that must be met in order to obtain a reinforcement. In order to understand this, it is important to note that reinforcement, as defined through a psychological lens, is an action that influences a subject's future behavior due to a certain stimulus or set of stimuli. There are various types of schedules of reinforcement which include continuous, intermittent, duration, response-rate, noncontingent, conjunctive, and adjusting reinforcement. In this post, I will be expounding upon one of the four intermittent schedules of reinforcement that particularly caught my attention: the variable ratio (VR) schedule.      According to the text, on a variable ratio (VR) schedule, “reinforcement is contingent upon a varying, unpredictable number of responses” (Powell et al., 2017). This means that the reinforcement, or the action that influences a subject’s future behavior, is dependent on an erratic, undetermi...

 Take a minute and read these short couple sentences.                                                       Did you find it difficult? Here's what it actually says.       This example, from TedEd on Youtube, is a simulation that is supposed to show what having dyslexia is like. A majority of people believe that have dyslexia means that people with this disorder see words backwards. Example, "d" and "b". However, having dyslexia is much more complex than that. People with dyslexia can still see the same way an average person can, they just have difficulties analyzing words. Words like "schedule" can be broken down into smaller parts in order to fully be able to be understood such as "sched-u-le". This is why a people with dyslexia may be slower in writing an essay than an average person.   ...

     Doctor Ned Hallowell has a book called ADHD 2.0 where he discusses different ways of treating those with ADHD and includes ones that do not involve medicine. Those with ADHD can experience behavioral problems that average humans do not face. This may include hyperactivity and anger due to frustration with school, work, and overall life. These treatments are set to help wrangle these symptoms of ADHD and make it more tolerable. The first one he describes is cerebellum stimulation. The cerebellum is responsible for over 70% of the neurons in the brain, which seems to be overlooked in the medical community. The cerebellum corresponds to the frontal lobe in the brain which is responsible for the actions of ADHD. Hallowell says that physical exercise daily can help stimulate the cerebellum and help reduce the symptoms of ADHD which includes focus and memory.       Hallowell also reiterates finding a partner and or career that is right for the person wi...

     ADHD, or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, is a disorder many people are diagnosed with as children. Symptoms of ADHD include hyperactivity, impulsive decision making, difficulties concentrating (Johansen et al., 2009). Back in 2009, 5% of kids worldwide were diagnosed with this disorder and in 2016 the number jumped to around 10% of kids worldwide had ADHD (Johansen et al., 2009). ADHD amongst kids makes it especially difficult for them in school to learn new things. As a 22-year-old adult recently diagnosed with ADHD, I can attest to this. Paying attention in class and retaining information made it difficult for me, and others alike, to do well on quizzes, tests, homework, and even post-high school tasks. I've tried many things such as various studying techniques, medications, calendar-keeping, and journal writing to help keep my life from derailing from the tracks. There has been numerous times where these techniques have helped, but mostly didn't.  ...

 One area of the text that stood out was the phenomenon of learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is a decrease in one’s learning ability that has occurred due to repeated exposure to aversive events that are uncontrollable (Powell et al., 2017). This theory was learned through an experiment by Seligman and Maier (Powell et al., 2017). In this experiment, dogs would be suspended in a harness and exposed to one of three conditions which includes inescapable-shock condition, escapable-shock condition, and no-shock control condition. After this, the dogs were then placed in a procedure where they would have to learn to avoid the shock by jumping over a barrier. The no-shock control condition and escapable-shock condition successfully learned to avoid the shock. On the other hand, the inescapable-shock condition group made no effort to avoid the shock and would be in distress. This shows that when exposed to an event that one has no control over it can make it more difficult to lea...

 Badura has found through his research that film violence is just as effective as live violence is at producing more violent behaviors in those that see it (Powell et al., 2017). This is thought to be enhanced considering how much mass media is expanding. Many studies have found that there are sex differences between how violent video games affect them. For males, they are more likely to show effects, have a more hostile view of the world, and are more aggressive from the video games. Females are more likely to restrain their aggression for longer and are also more aggressive if aggressive model is a female too. This shows that since most of the violence in video games and media is done by males, this may explain that women have become more accepting of males being violent.   One part of this part of the textbook that really stood out to me was how violence in the media is not only making males more aggressive but may also be making females more vulnerable to being victim...

One topic from the text that I found interesting was the sign language experiments. Experimenters first decided that chimpanzees would be best to first test if animals could “talk” since they share many similar characteristics to humans. After it was discovered that chimps were not able to produce speech that was understandable, they wanted to test if they were able to perform other forms of languages. In these experiments, experimenters would teach chimpanzees sign language through day-to-day activities. Teaching through day-to-day activities allowed for it to be learned in a similar way that human children learn language. Therefore, these chimps would be raised like humans are. The first study was called Project Washoe where the chimp was named Washoe and was raised by two experimenters. Washoe was successful at learning sign language which led to more studies being conducted in order to try to replicate the findings from Project Washoe.   I found this piece to be very intri...

  Classical Conditioning, Little Albert. Page 181, Watson and Rayner’s “Little Albert”. Cited as, the importance of classical conditioning and overgeneralization in the development of phobias was first proposed by John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner. In 1920, Watson and Rayner published a now-famous article in which they described their attempt to condition a fear response in an 11-month-old infant named Albert. Albert was reported to be a healthy, well-developed child, whose mother worked as a wet nurse in the hospital where the tests were conducted. Albert was described as a “stolid and unemotional” child who almost never cried. In fact, he seemed to display an unusual level of emotional stability.                 The researchers began the experiment by testing Albert’s reactions to a variety of objects. These included a white rat, a rabbit, a dog, some cotton wool, and even a burning newspaper. None of ...

In reading our textbook I have found many indications and guidance in moving forward with the Psychology of learning course. As we start in the beginning to carve it out as a discipline of learning thru our environment and the need to change it to suit our developmental needs still, I see what nature and its beauty have given us to be respectful as such. Taken from our book “Introduction to learning and Behavior” Chapter 13, page 490, Comparative cognition, is the study of information processing across a variety of species, including humans.” Comparative Cognition as noted in chapter 1 and has become increasingly popular research amongst many behaviorists these days that have included   such topics as memory, categorization, decision making, problem solving, and even complex processes like language use and deception.                 I find this very interesting and helpful as I feel that all of our envir...