Factitious Disorder

I am factitious disorder. The only cause of my disorder is my yearn for attention. I always feel the need to have people focused on me. All of the symptoms I experience are created by myself to recieve the attention of others. Some days I like to fake sick, other days I like to break my arm. Many people like me inflict damage or hurt their bodies in order to win the attention and sympathy of the people around us. Sometimes I pretend to be sick so I don't have to go to school and my mom can stay home and take care of me. I have become very good at faking the symptoms of the flu and know exactly what to do to get my mom to bring me to the doctor. I like when people feel sympathy for me and give me attention to my needs. My disorder is linked with kids who were abused and had parents that were ill all the time growing up.

Personality Test Reactions

The personality tests are a good judge of my personality. Many of the questions on the tests asked fair questions based on realistic situations. They were easy to relate to and I could easily and swiftly come up with answers. However, there were questions that might have tested intelligence. I was unsure what the dice questions had to do with anything or how they related to the personality test at all. This could be like the ink blot, judging a person's personality based on how they view the dice and answer the question. I don't think this is a fair judgement of personality. Many questions that directly related to situations, however, gave me realistic test results in the end results. I could agree upon all of the final test results that the tests came up with. The Big Five Trait test was far more accurate and reliable than the other personality test. I feel like the questions asked in the second test did not relate to anything what-so-ever and I could not personally relate to the questions from experience. The questions were weird and made no sense. This test exactly relates to the inkblot test. It cannot be proven that certain thoughts are associated with a person's personality.

Universal Emotions

Today, anyone can recognize the emotions of the people around them. Easily recognizable emotions are happy, surprised, angry, or sad. At one point in time, emotions were thought to be different in varying cultures. Paul Ekman, a graduate of the University of Chicago and New York University discovered that facial expression of emotions was universal throughout all cultures. This was an important finding because this proved that emotions were not determined by culture. Ekman went on to study a tribe of people from Papua New Guinea. He studied their facial expressions and made cross-cultural connections to facial expressions of emotions in other cultures. From this, he was able to make the connection that facially expressed emotion is universal throughout all cultures.

Next, Ekman began to study "micro-expressions." Micro-expressions are very brief, involuntary facial expressions of emotion that occur during moments of emotion felt. For instance, if i saw something funny on TV, my eyes might show very slight signs of happiness or the eyebrows might move very briefly in accordance to a happy expression. Ekman started a study with another psychologist called the "Wizards Project." This project evaluated the abilities of over 20,000 people and their abilities to read micro expressions. Microexpressions can be used to detect lies in the individual being surveyed and questioned. The 20,000 people that were evaluated and tested of their abilities to detect lies included attorneys, psychologists, law enforcement officers, secret service officials, and so on. Only 50 of the 20,000 people tested had the unique ability to detect lies. These people have the ability to hone in on emotional, expressional, and behavioral inconsistencies. These inconsistencies last no more than a split second. This is a rare ability to have. These people will also use tone of voice and other keys to the deception of the truth from the individual being watched. Below is a good video I found that shows what exactly these micro expression readers look for when trying to detect lies. They look for wrinkles, movement of the mouth, eyebrows, eye direction, anything that cues a lie.
Paul Ekman has also written a system to detect lies using facial expressions. It is allied FACS or Facial Action Coding System. This takes into effect the different movements of facial muscles, the eyes, body movement, and any other factors in order to detect if a person is lying or not.

Intelligence Tests

Intelligence testing is going to vary by location and race. It is very hard to have a standardized test in the United States with the amount of people, different cultures, different races, and different living and educational conditions throughout the U.S. Standardized tests such as the ACT and SAT are going to show much different results in intercity school systems than in wealthy suburbs. Curriculum and teachers, as well as teaching tools and technology, are much better in wealthy suburbs than those of intercity schools. The fact is, it is hard to even the playing field of standardizing a test for everyone. Intelligence testing is not a fair type of testing. Some classes offered in wealthy suburbs cannot be taught in intercity schools, perhaps from lack of funding or cognitive level of the students attending the school. 

The quizzes we did in class are a perfect example of why intelligence testing is not fair. The first test I took directly applied to my lifestyle and culture. I easily got a 9 out of 10. The second test, however, was quite different. It was the Original Australian Test of Intelligence, not relevant to my life what-so-ever. When answering these 10 questions, I was 1 for 10 correct. This goes to show how much I actually knew about a different culture from around the world that I was never faced with in my life. I didn’t know that you could not eat a kangaroo because it would make children and adults sick. I had no idea that you could eat water. The culture I live in is quick to think that other ideas are stupid and don’t make sense, where as in the Australian culture, this makes perfect sense and they would think we were stupid for saying that we drink water or that flour and water-lilies are not related closely to sugar. 

These tests greatly prove that intelligence tests may be able to be standardized for a specific culture, living style, or location, but not for the whole world, or multiple cultures. I was on a cruise last year and I was talking to a girl from Arizona. I referred to something that was “sweet” as in cool or rad. She looked at me as if I was weird. She had never heard that before or ever though about using that in the context I had used it. It goes to show that location and culture do matter.

Face Blindness

In class we have talked about prosopagnosia, otherwise known as face blindness. This disorder prevents people from being able to recognize faces of people the have met or know. Some people are even unable to recognize their own family members unless a cue is put to their face. Prosopagnosia is a disorder inherited through genes. About 2.5% of people in the world are believed to have this disorder through genetic inheritance. A small part of the underside of the brain allows people to be able to recognize faces. Damage to this part of the brain causes people to lose the ability to recognize people's faces and develop prosopagnosia.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/face-blindness-super-recognizer-try-online-tests-205200765.html

In the link posted above, it shows two sides to the disorder. The first video shows multiple people with prosopagnosia. One woman in particular was shown a picture of her daughter's face. At first she was told it was someone she knew. Then she was told it was someone in their family. After much thinking, she could not recognize the face. She was finally told that it was her own daughter. She was surprised she didn't get it, but after it was mentioned that it was her daughter, she said that she saw it. This is the brain trying to compensate for the damaged part of brain. It is using auditory parts of the brain to link faces to recognition rather than visual to faces. This disorder demonstrates the danger in any damage to the brain. I cannot imagine being unable to recognize my own family members.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, one woman is called a super recognizer. She has the ability to recall any face she has ever seen. The second video does a good job of showing how well she does this. She is shown a series of "before they were famous" celebrity photos. She clearly knew them right away seeing them. Once she revealed the name to us, we could finally link the face to the name. Try these two pictures for instance. See if you can guess them without looking at the answers below.

Vince Vaughn and Brad Pitt.

I will be willing to bet that it took you a while to recognize the faces or recognize them at all. But as soon as you read or hear the names, you can automatically recognize the face by relating it to present day faces. Crazy stuff the brain pulls on us.

Memory

This week we learned about memory. Memory goes through three stages: Encoding, Storage, and Retrieval. In encoding, the brain determines if information is important to remember. If not, this information is discarded within minutes of hearing it. If the brain decides that the information is important, the brain stores this information, either as short term, long term, or sensory memory. Once this memory is stored, the information can be later accessed through retrieval. Retrieval of information is easier to recognize than it is to recall information in any given situation. For instance, if you are given a list of numbers to remember, you will have a higher correct percentage if you are given a list of numbers to choose from. If you are asked to recall the numbers, the likelihood of remembering the numbers better than recognizing the numbers from a list is vastly lower. Two ways information is encoded efficiently is through rehearsal and spacing. An example of spacing would be, instead of cramming the night before a test, studying over the course of a couple of days before. Rehearsal is also an effective way to encode information for storage. The more you repeat something, the more likely you are going to remember it. The movie Finding Nemo clearly uses this form of memory encoding. Dory uses repetition of the address on the back of the swim goggles, P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney.

http://www.hark.com/clips/hkfcgctrkm-im-going-to-p-sherman-42-wallaby-way-sydney


Fast Forward to Minute 7

Dory repeated the address over and over again until it was stored in her memory. When she read Sydney on one of the underwater pipes, she recalled the address, using recognition. This is the perfect example of recognition and memory. The use of repetition as well as recognition better helped her remember the address. To this day, even I remember this address because it has been imprinted into my long term memory for no use of any relevance to anything besides the fact that I know its from Finding Nemo.

Classical Conditioning

This week’s chapter was about learning and the different ways our brains learn. In class, we focused greatly on classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning is taking a neutral stimulus and turning it into a conditioned stimulus. The original test that Ivan Pavlov conducted for classical conditioning was with a dog and its response to food. When the unconditioned stimulus, the food, was presented to the dog, the unconditioned response was salivation. Pavlov then tested the neutral stimulus, the bell, which had no connection to the dog food and came to the conclusion that the bell had no effect on salivation in the dog. When the bell was rung with the presentation of food, the dog would salivate. After conditioning, the bell became the conditioned stimulus, and when rung without food, the dog would salivate. Pavlov thus discovered that a neutral stimulus could be conditioned to be a conditioned stimulus. The video I posted represents classical conditioning.

In this video, the unconditioned stimulus is the slap to the head. The unconditioned response is pain to the individual being slapped. The neutral stimulus is the song on the phone. When the song on the phone was played, the guy in the video would slap the other guy. Eventually on the fourth day, the other guy reacted by trying to protect himself. Thus the conditioned stimulus became the song on the phone and the conditioned response was defense from being slapped or not wanting to experience pain from the slap. Another example would be giving a nickname to a friend. For example, my friends name is Matt, but everyone calls him Coop. When he was first given the nickname, he did not react to it, but as more people called him Coop, he responded to it. Now he is called Coop so often that he thinks getting called by Matt is weird. This is a perfect example of classical conditioning. 

Favorite PSA

Out of the many great videos from both AP psych classes, my personal favorite was the video created by David Yonda, Taylor Wagner, and Dan Caylor. Below is a link for the video. One of the reasons I liked this video the most was because it caught my attention. An important part in getting a message out to the public is to make sure they public is watching the announcement, otherwise the time to create the message was all for nothing. One aspect of the video that made it easy to watch was the fact that it was short and straight to the point. The video was short enough to keep my attention, but long enough to cover the information necessary to provide the viewer with a good idea of why families should move to Ashwaubenon. This group also offered a sense of humor as they created their video, making the video easier and more fun to watch. This group's video covered many general aspects of cognitive development such as playgrounds, churches, the schools, and the nursing homes, but also incorporated other unique cognitive development ideas to the video. I myself never thought once about incorporating the Humane Society, Gnome Games, Barnes & Noble, and Chuck E. Cheese to my video. Each of these locations can play a large role in how a child or adult cognitively develops in Ashwaubenon.

Development Through Life

This week was all about how we as humans develop through our lives. Piaget's four stages of cognitive development help us to better understand how the human brain develops through the course of life. Sensorimotor is the first stage. This stage consists of infants from birth to about the age of 2 years. The main way of learning is though the senses, such as: touching, feeling, hearing, seeing, and tasting. Within this stage, babies develop object permanence. This is the ability to realize that just because something is covered, it is still there. The second stage is Preoperational. This stage is from 2 years of age to about 6-7 years of age. This stage is more imaginative than any of the others. Children develop animism in this stage. This is the ability to give lifelike qualities to objects that are otherwise inanimate. This explains why 2-7 year olds are able to use their imagination when playing. This is also the stage where theory of mind develops. Children will think that the world sees everything through their eyes and no other way. It is hard for a child at this age to look at a situation through someone else's shoes. Towards the end of this stage, children finally are able to develop the ability to see things from the point of view of a different person. The third stage of Piaget's four stages of cognitive development is the concrete operational stage. This stage starts around the age of 6 or 7 years. Mathematical comprehension is at full steam during this stage. Children can process the fact that just because you have a certain amount of something, and you break it into more pieces, you don't have more. A good example is if you have two glasses of water with the same amounts, and one is poured into a skinnier taller glass, the child knows that the amount of liquid has not changed pouring it into the skinnier glass. This is much different from the pre operational stage because in the pre operational stage, children are likely to say that there is more liquid in the taller glass, inferencing that there is more liquid in the taller glass because it is taller. The final stage of cognitive development is formal operation.

This stage is entered at around the age of 12 and continues throughout adulthood. Logic and reasoning develop more thoroughly through this stage, allowing us as adults to interpret complex thinking situations. These stages of cognitive development tie into genetics and social environment. Genetics play a large role in the development of any abilities in life. But the living environment you are exposed to growing up in is also a large factor. As talked about in the previous chapter, a child can catch on to many of these stages quicker if exposed to situations in their environments. Children in more enhanced environments will develop faster than someone in a poorer environment.

My Name Is Cory….And I’m an Ice Cube Addict

From this simulation, I have learned that being addicted to a substance can really manipulate your life. During the simulation, I almost had to keep a low profile to keep people from asking me about it. People in the simulation easily spotted me by my bracelet, but others not in it delved deeper into their investigations. The hardest part of the simulation was having access to the so-called “drug” in a public location. At home, the ice cubes were easy to get and were in abundance, but when I really needed them during the day at school, they were very hard to get or come by because they would melt. At some points in the day, I would find my mind thinking about ice cubes and how I could get more of them, or what the best way to get them was. This obsession of ice cubes started to take over my thoughts as the simulation went on and became harder.

A few times I caught myself trying to hide my exposed bracelet from others. It was a rarity that I had to lie to people about the bracelet. Most of the time my bracelet was exposed was when I was at home. In the comfort of my home, I was busy by myself doing homework where I could easily expose the bracelet without being questioned. Being winter, it was acceptable for me to wear long sleeves to school in order to hide the bracelet. I feel as though I did a good job of keeping my cool in not having to explain the bracelet or the ice cubes. My parents were gone most of the time during the simulation to notice any difference in my behavior. I do understand, however, how some parents are surprised to find out their kids are doing drugs. Behavior will change dramatically and it will definitely be a drastic and easily observable change.

I have learned a lot from this experiment in that addiction is a real thing and it happens all around us. Its easier to get an idea of what addiction is if you are exposed to a minor simulation of it. I know one thing for sure. I never want to look like this guy....or lady...I can't tell.

That's a Lovely Accent

Today, we talked about the different parts of the brain and their functions. Each part of the brain has a specific function.  As we talked about the different lobes, the functions of the frontal lobe caught my eye. The frontal lobe is responsible speaking, reasoning, and voluntary movement. Within the left frontal lobe is Broca's area. Broca's area is the language center of the body which controls speech production. As I was thinking about this in class, I came to remember hearing about a woman that went to bed one night and woke up with an accent of a different country. This is called Foreign Accent Syndrome. What happens is a person suffers from a stroke, trauma, brain damage, or a tumor. This new accent is developed  over night. In the video, it shows a woman that received an oral operation and woke up after speaking in a new accent new accent. Originally, she had the typical American accent, living in Oregon, but after the surgery, it seems as though she speaks with a British/Scottish accent.

Foreign Accent Syndrome is a rare phenomenon. There have been less than 100 cases since the 1940's. Although this may seem like it is just a rare occurrence, scientists have linked FAS to brain damage. Accent does not belong to a specific part of the brain. The frontal lobe, however, controls much of the final output of speech and tongue and mouth movement during speech. We can infer that the frontal lobe is largely responsible for accent in humans because of its correlation with speech output. There is no known cure for this syndrome. In some cases, it has been reported that FAS went away within several months, while in others it went on for years, or never came to an end. Speech therapy also has very minimal effect on getting the original accent back.

Foreign Accent Syndrome is a perfect example of displaying the effects of brain damage on mental and physical capabilities. Damage to a certain part of the brain can have severe or just silly effects. We can also see the direct effects a tumor or stroke in a certain part of the brain can play on future mental processing.

The Bubbler Theory

For my blog post this week, I decided to discuss the social-cultural aspect of psychology. This topic came to me after listening to Mr. Fischer lecture our physics class on the first day of the term. He began to speak about how he was from Upper Michigan. He brought up the difference in use of vocabulary saying "youse guys" or "eh" and even his difference in pronunciation of words. Even being so close to Wisconsin, Michigan has a very different social-cultural aspect to it. This got me thinking about the classic arguments of, "Is it soda or pop"or "jimmies or sprinkles". I found a picture chart that would make any Wisconsinite proud.  If you're from Wisconsin you probably say your going to go get a drink from the bubbler.

As the chart shows, bubbler is a word used strictly in wisconsin. The west coast refers to the bubbler as a drinking fountain and the south, midwest, and east coast refer to it as a water fountain. This says a lot about the social-cultural aspect of Wisconsin and the rest of the U.S. If the rest of the United States uses either water fountain or drinking fountain, why does strictly Wisconsin refer to it as a bubbler. Not only to cultural-social differences occur in the United States, but the rat of the world as well. I have included a video that explains common hand gestures in the U.S. and compares their meaning with other countries throughout the world. 

A simple thumbs up in the U.S. means good job, but in other countries means something very different. These hand gestures and their meanings give us a better idea of the social-cultural differences that are present throughout the world. If hand gestures and words can be interpreted so differently, it explains how different cultures really are in this world, even though we all have the commonness of being human.

Chapter 1

The greatest expectation I have for this class is to learn about the behaviors of myself and others around me. I am interested in learning the parts of the brain that control different behaviors and emotions. Sometimes I look at some people and wonder why they react to a situation the way they do or think a certain way about something. One topic I am excited for is identical twin personality. I have been shown articles in other classes and heard from other students that identical twins have grown up in different places and still maintain the similar personality traits. I want to know if outside forces really impact your true personality. I believe that AP Psych will be unlike any of my other classes this term. I think I will be able to learn things and directly apply them to every day life. Many topics that will come out of this class will be interesting to learn because of this direct application to daily life.


One interesting topic I have come to encounter in the recent years is the Power Balance Bracelet and the placebo effect. Power Balance claims that this bracelet is able to improve strength, balance, and flexibility with a holographic chip that sends positively charged ions through the body. In order to "prove" that the Power Balance works, they test the individual first without the bracelet on, and then with the bracelet on. The individual tests better with the power band bracelet after he has been exposed to the initial test. He is given an advantage of knowing the test a second time through, but is convinced that the reason he "dramatically" improved was because of the power balance bracelet.

Could these tests be performed in reverse order and produce the same results? Likely not. If the individual did each of the tests with the power balance on first and then without you would see the second round of test results improve. The placebo effect of the power balance bracelet played a factor in how the individual performed in the tests with it on. He gets a feeling and sense of improvement from it and believed that it was actually working. "Scientific evidence" is enough to fool many people with this product. This product works as long as people are willing to believe it does.