PSYCH 102!!!!!

[lunaburr]

Professur Burr smiled. These kids were good. It made him proud. "Excellent try Olivia. Very good. The answer was psychodynamic. Everyone, good work!" He clapped his hands together, ready to move onto the next part. "There will be one more section on the brain, then a quiz."

He began to walk up and down the isles, handing out papers, placing them face down on the tables. "These are quizzes, do not turn them over until I say. If I catch you peeking, it will result in an immediate zero. Don't push me." He glanced around at the students as he spoke, a sense of pride filling him. These great students wouldn't try to cheat would they? No. They were good students... <3 He paused at Aurora.

" Umm.. How was this supposed to work... He couldn't have another student help her... He would just have to do it <3 He leaned down next to her. "I'll come and read the quiz to you, and you just answer when it's time, alright?" Then he shuffled on to continue the lesson and hand out the rest of the papers.

"Alright. The brain." He returned to the front of the class. "It's the most important thing in Psychology. It's where it all starts and begins. This isn't a biology class, so I'm not going to cover things like the Medulla Oblongata, or the cerebellum. Were going right into the interesting things. Memory." Again, the slides would begin to flick across the screen.

Memory - The process by which we encode, store, and retrieve information.

How do we remember?

• Encoding - We must attend to an item to encode it. We pay attention to a stimulus so we can encode it and remember it. The more links you make, the more likely you will be to remember it. For example, making little songs and jingles to remember lists.
  
• Storage - You retain information over time. The more you rehearse or practice something, the more likely you will be to retain the information.
  
• Retrieval - The ability to gain access to what you have stored.

3 Systems of Memory

• Sensory Memory - The initial, momentary storage of information, lasting only a moment.
  - Echoic Memory - Stores auditory information coming from the ears
  - Iconic Memory - Reflects information from visual systems.
  
• Short Term Memory - AKA Working Memory. This is memory that has meaning. It holds information for approximately 15-20 seconds. It can hold approximately 7+/-2 Chunks of info (A chunk is a meaningful group of stimuli that can be stored as a unit in short term memory. Chunking is the act of grouping items together in a meaningful way.)
  
• Long-Term Memory - Info in long term memory is encoded and filed so that we can retrieve it when when we need it. There are two kinds: Declarative, and Non-Declarative.

Declarative Memory - AKA Explicit Memory. Memory for factual info. 2 Parts:

• Semantic - Generic facts that are true for everyone. Independent of personal experience.
  
• Episodic - Autobiographical memory (persons perceptual experiences). Based on time and content.

Non-Declarative Memory - AKA Procedural or Implicit Memory. This is the memory for skills, habits, and the product of conditioning. This is memory that we are not conscious of, like writing. It is the blueprints of behaviour.

"So, now we know how we remember. But memories are not always accurate, remember that. Have you ever believed something happened with all your heart, but people say it didn't happen that way? The reason is the personal spin we put on things. Memories are built, in part, in a constructive process. They are also influenced by the personal meaning we give them. For this reason, memories can easily be distorted. Now we are going to look at why we forget."

Why do we forget?

• 1) Encoding Failure - A memory was never formed in the first place. We didn't pay attention and therefore did not form the memory.
  
• 2) Decay - Memories are lost over time due to disease.
  
• 3) Aging - Getting older influences the ability to remember. Hormonal changes, plaque on nerves, cells die.
  
• 4) Cue-Dependant forgetting - memory cues are missing when you go to retrieve a memory
  
• 5) Interference - Proactive/Retroactive (See next slide)
  
• 6) Retrieval Failure - Information cannot be located when needed.
  
• 7) Motivated forgetting - Information is hidden from consciousness for a personal reason.
  - Repression - Unconsciously preventing painful/dangerous thoughts or pushing unwanted memories out of awareness.
  - Suppression - A conscious effort to push something out of the mind.

Proactive Interference

• Information learned earlier interferes with recall of newer information. What you learned yesterday is interfering with what you are trying to learn today.

Retroactive Interference

• Later exposure to different material blocks ones ability to remember information presented earlier. What you learned today is interfering with what you learned yesterday.

"The two are EXTREMELY confusing. Even I, to this day, get them mixed up. If you want to find out what sort of Interference you are susceptible to (also serves as a good example) make a list one day. The next day make another list. On the third day, if you can't remember the first list, you have Retroactive memory. If you can't remember the second, you have Proactive. Now. Amnesia."

Memory Dysfunctions
Amnesia - Memory loss that occurs without other mental difficulties.
2 types:

• Retrograde Amnesia - Memory is lost prior to a certain event.
  
• Anterograde Amnesia - Memory loss occurs after the event.
  A helpful picture <3

"And now, for the first quiz. You may turn the papers over. You have 10 minutes. Please, there are no trick questions, just answer to the best of your abilities, all the information was covered in the slides. There are 10 mutliple choice question. You may begin."

The students were turn over the papers and begin their quiz.

Quiz
1) What is the difference between repression and suppression?
a) The words.
b) Suppression is conscious and repression is unconscious.
c) Repression is conscious and suppression is unconscious.

2) The act of speaking is ____________ Memory.
a) Declarative
b) Non-declarative
c) Amnesia

3) Chunking is:
a) Chopping potatoes
b) Grouping items together in a meaningful way
c) Memory loss that occurs without other mental difficulties

4) Retrograde Amnesia is:
a) Forgetting your whole life story
b) A hippie way of living
c) Memory loss prior to an event

5) The 5 Perspective are:
a) Biological, Humanistic, Psychodynamic, Cognitive, Behavioral
b) What perspectives?
c) Biological, Cultural, Freud, Cognitive, Human

6) The three types of Neurons are:
a) Sensory, Active, and Motary
b) Connector, Motary, and Dead ones
c) Sensory, Connector, and Motary

7) The right side of the brain controls:
a) The body
b) The right side of the body
c) The left side of the body

8) Lateralization is:
a) The way the world is divided into time zones
b) The way we talk
c) The dominance of one hemisphere over the other.

9) The left side of the brain is:
a) Smarter then the right half
b) Is artistic
c) Is responsible for complex movements

10) When we remember we:
a) Encode, Store, Retrieve
b) Chunky stew
c) There's an elephant in the way...

OOC - Sorry for stretching the page ><"
Please just answer the questions in list format, I'll figure it out. Example, your answers should just go:
A
B
C
A

Thirteen, assume he asks you the quiz aloud.

[Demetra Katsaros]

[OOC: Edited post.]

Awww. The teacher never called on me! Donkey balls!

I was stuck in the mindset of a kindergartner (except for the donkey balls part; I imagined they weren't quite as explicit). Still, the only interaction I had received so far was a kid bumping into my desk, which I didn't say anything about because he didn't seem to be doing too well.

At least there was a quiz. This was my chance to prove to myself my true understanding of psychology, or at least my ability to pay attention and stay focused for decent periods of time. Hey, I was an active researcher--I knew how to absorb information.

I flipped the paper over. Wow, a lot of it was pretty easy. Everything was taken from the slides he showed, so as long as I remembered those, I'd be okay. There were even some joke answers to aid in the process of elimination, if I needed to resort to such. But I didn't. I was just that awesome.

1. b
2. a
3. b
4. c
5. a
6. c
7. c
8. c
9. c
10. a

Hmmm. A lot of "c"s. But I didn't doubt my answers. I was very confident in myself.

[Victor "Break" D'Armond]

Victor's doodles once again became notes as he began to copy things down. The analysis made the human brain seem like a computer, break didn't particularly like that. soon he was looking at the quiz handed out on his desk, he flipped it over

Quiz
1) What is the difference between repression and suppression?
a) The words.
b) Suppression is conscious and repression is unconscious.
c) Repression is conscious and suppression is unconscious.

2) The act of speaking is ____________ Memory.
a) Declarative
b) Non-declarative
c) Amnesia

3) Chunking is:
a) Chopping potatoes
b) Grouping items together in a meaningful way
c) Memory loss that occurs without other mental difficulties

4) Retrograde Amnesia is:
a) Forgetting your whole life story
b) A hippie way of living
c) Memory loss prior to an event

5) The 5 Perspective are:
a) Biological, Humanistic, Psychodynamic, Cognitive, Behavioral
b) What perspectives?
c) Biological, Cultural, Freud, Cognitive, Human

6) The three types of Neurons are:
a) Sensory, Active, and Motary
b) Connector, Motary, and Dead ones
c) Sensory, Connector, and Motary

7) The right side of the brain controls:
a) The body
b) The right side of the body
c) The left side of the body

8) Lateralization is:
a) The way the world is divided into time zones
b) The way we talk
c) The dominance of one hemisphere over the other.

9) The left side of the brain is:
a) Smarter then the right half
b) Is artistic
c) Is responsible for complex movements

10) When we remember we:
a) Encode, Store, Retrieve
b) Chunky stew
c) There's an elephant in the way...

1.B
2.A
3.B
4.C
5.A
6.C
7.C
8.C
9.B
10.A

He didn't look at his notes at all, nor did he look on anyone elses paper, though he would admit to having inferred a lot of the answers as apposed to actually knowing them...

[Gabriel Seran]

Gabriel sat complacently his eyes ever so slightly being distracted turning over to Olivia for short moments only getting a portion of the information, though he figured he'd end up in a field of Phycology he expected this class to be a bit more fun kinda like the interpretation of where a doctor sits on the chair and we all go to the couches while he replies, "How does that make you feel?"

If only it were that easy. Though it would seem as if he'd been handed a test, he concealed a short groan before setting off to work on it. Freaking pain, hating tests.

Quiz
1) What is the difference between repression and suppression?
b) Repression is unconscious and suppression is conscious.

2) The act of speaking is ____________ Memory.
a) Declarative

3) Chunking is:
b) Grouping items together in a meaningful way

4) Retrograde Amnesia is:
c) Memory loss prior to an event

5) The 5 Perspective are:
a) Biological, Humanistic, Psychodynamic, Cognitive, Behavioral

6) The three types of Neurons are:
c) Sensory, Connector, and Motary

7) The right side of the brain controls:
c) The left side of the body

8) Lateralization is:
c) The dominance of one hemisphere over the other.

9) The left side of the brain is:
b) Is artistic

10) When we remember we:
a) Encode, Store, Retrieve


Sighing at the end when he was finished he realized the fact that it wasn't all too hard to begin with, most seemed to have a humorous edge to them. Why even test them? It would seem as though the test itself was just an experiment as to see who would automatically cheat without looking at the answers to begin with...

[Olivia Green]

Of course Livi felt reaaaallly stupid, but meh, she will live. She survived all 17 years hadn't she? She would catch Gabriel looning at her, when she was guilty of doing the same thing to him.

Then a test was handed out.

UUUM!

1)b
2)ba
3)b
4)c
5)a
6)c
7)c
8)c?
9)b
10)a

Olivia bit her nails, waiting for the teacher to collect their work. Hopefully the teacher wouldn't humiliate her infront of everyone. Her eyes shifted to Gabriel with an apparent look of distress. She mouthed the words "I think I failed it..." she leaned back in her chair and sighed. LAME!

[Aternity]

Thirteen smiled just silightly. At least Mr. Burr had a heart to help her a little bit. She knew all the answers, to whatever he might ask, but you know...she also had some witty answers to go with the regular answers.

The vocal test went as follows:


1.) B
2.) It's declarative, unless you talk in your sleep...
3.) I love potatoes, but the answer is B.
4.) I can't remember. (See what I did there?! The answer is B.)
5.) It's A: Biological, Humanistic, Psychodynamic, Cognitive, Behavioral!(Shazam!)
6.) Sensory, Connector, and Motary!
7.) Ironic how the one side of your brain controls another...
8.) My dominance over the left side of my body... =)
9.) The left side of your brain is the logical portion, the one responsible for complex moves. The right is your creative.
10.) Like a hard drive...code, store, read. The answer is A.

Done done and done!

Bring on the other stuff!

[Trizen Takano]

'Ah damn it...' Trizen thought to himself as he still had one hand to handle everything. Not to mention he hoped he answered well with the short-term memory thing. He hoped so.

'Let's see...' With one hand, he turned the sheet over, then he looked at the sheet and swallowed hard. 'Oh boy...'

Quiz Time!

1. b)
2. a)
3. b)
4. c)
5. a)

Then Trizen paused. 'Uh oh... I was grabbing another tissue when he was talking about this part... and I'm confused... oh.. uh...'

6. a)
7. b)
8. c)
9. b)
10. a)

Trizen sighed. He was done. The boy was certain he didn't do bad, but he didn't do well either. His father was going to have his head if he got less than 90%. And even then, that wasn't enough. But what was he to do?

[Sam Ballerino]

Sam sighed in relief. She'd gotten it right. She grinned proudly to herself as she continued taking notes, trying very hard not to look at the quiz paper before he told them to. It was tempting... but there was far too much information to write down to be distracted by it for long. And soon enough he told them to turn it over.

A couple of the multiple choice answers made her smile; she was glad the guy had a good sense of humor.

1. B
2. A
3. B
4. C
5. A
6. C
7. C
8. C
9. C
10. A

She was pretty sure she'd done all right. She turned the paper back over and patiently waited for the rest of the allotted ten minutes to be up.

[lunaburr]

Professor Burr look to the clock. There was still a few minutes left before the quiz was over, but it seemed that everyone was done. He walked slowly around the class collecting the quizzes, then he placed them on his desk. He looked out at the students. It would take only a moment to mark them.

"Please, just sit tight for a moment, you may talk amongst yourselves. You'r quizzes will be marked momentarily." He pulled out his pen and began to mark the quizzes. After he was finished, he smiled. They had done well. He handed them out quickly and returned to the front of the class. "Let's go over the answers quickly."

The answers to Quiz 1:

b
b
b
c
a
c
c
c
c
a

"Alright, there will be two other quizzes during this class, so don't be to concerned. Moving on, we're now going to look at learning."

LEARNING - A relatively permanent change in behaviour brought about by experience.

3 Approches to Learning

• Classical Conditioning
  
• Operant Conditioning
  
• Cognitive Approaches

Classical Conditioning

• Founded by Ivan Pavlov
  
• Learning in which an organism learns a new association between two stimuli.
  
• A neutral stimulus comes to bring about a response after it is paired with a stimulus that naturally brings about that response.

"This is a confusing concept. The best way to describe it is with an example. You have a dog. The response you want is for the dog to salivate. Naturally, a dog will salivate to food. In classical conditioning, you will attempt to make the dog salivate by... ringing a bell. By conditioning the dog, he will begin to salivate at the sound of a bell as opposed to the food itself."

Classical Conditioning

• Unconditioned Stimulus (US) - Stimulus that produces a response without learning. This would be the food in the case of the above example.
  
• Unconditioned Response (UR) - Reflex response. In terms of the example, it would be the dog salivating. It is the response observed by the introduction of the US.
  
• Conditioned Stimulus (CS) - A neutral stimulus that is paired with the UCS. Does not bring about a response on its own. This would be the bell in the example.
  
• Conditioned Response (CR) - The response to the CS. It is the exact same response at as the UR, but is in response to the CS, not the US.

Principles to Classical Conditioning

• Acquisition - Higher order conditioning
  
• Expectancies - Informational view - Look for associations and create expectancies about how events are connected.
  
• Extinction - The CR eventually disappears after no further pairings. If you stopped bringing the food when you ring the bell it would eventually stop working.
  
• Spontaneous Recovery - The reappearance of the CR without any new pairings of the two stimuli. The dog would for some reason begin to salivate again at the sound of the bell.
  
• Stimulus Generalization - The automatic extension of CR to a similar stimuli that has never been paired. The dog would begin to salivate at the sound of something similar to a bell, like a ring.
  
• Stimulus Discrimination - Learning to respond differently to stimuli that are different then the CS on some dimension.

---

1. Gabriel Seran 8/10
2. Olivia Green 8/10
3. Samantha Ballerino 9/10
4. Trizen Takano 6/10
5. Thirteen Silivasi 9/10
6. Victor D'Armond 8/10
7. Demetra Katsaros 9/10

OOC - It's not the complete class >< next post will lead into the next quiz... i think... ><" blargggg, ok questions for everyone!!

Professor Burr clicked off the slides and looked around at his class. They were such a good class. No one had interupted, no one had caused trouble. As much as he would like to congradulate himself and his amazing slides for that, he couldn't. This was just a good class. But it was time for a break from slides to answer some questions. "Alright Gabriel, who is Ivan Pavlov? Olivia, what is the UR? Samantha give me an example of a stimulus generalization. Trizen, what is learning? Aurora, explain extinction please. Victor, what is spontaneous recovery? And finally, Demetra, what is the CR?

[Demetra Katsaros]

[OOC: This might be out of proper post order, but oh wells. I was the one who encouraged the teacher to post... XD]

WHAT? I got one wrong?! No way. I was incredibly confident in all my answers. I scrolled my eyes down the corrected quiz paper. Speaking isn't declarative memory? Hmmm. Actually, that makes sense, since non-declarative memory incorporates tasks like writing, so it should also include a conditioned skill like talking. The word 'declarative' just happens to be so misleading, probably because it has the word 'declare' in it. Well, everyone makes mistakes, and I'm not exception. I'd rather learn something in the course than get perfect marks and not retain anything, and I was certain to remember this little fact.

Besides, even if I wanted to, it wasn't a smart idea to fume or mope about the grade, since the professor (wait, isn't professor a term used for college teachers? Or is it now used for all instructors in general? Must look that up) was moving on to another lesson. Wow, this was pretty cool. All this information in one day, in one period! The class would know the basics of psychology by the time we walked out the door.

And finally, I was asked a question. I could complain that some students got asked questions twice, but hell, I wasn't REALLY in kindergarten. I could be mature, right? Even if I was the last one. Saving the best for last!

"The 'CR,' or the conditioned response, is the reaction to the conditioned stimulus, which initially needs to be paired with the unconditioned stimulus before it is taken away so only the conditioned stimulus will elicit the response by itself. The conditioned response is the same reaction as the unconditioned response, but it has different stimuli to reach that reaction. With Pavlov's experiment, the conditioned response would be the dog salivating upon hearing the bell ring after having the bell ring paired with bringing food. Pavlov could ring the bell without bringing food and the dog would salivate because he has been conditioned to do so." Even though I blabbed my mouth off, I still felt like I could say more. I hated this fucking experiment. I saw a video of it recreated, and they drilled a hole in the side of the dog's mouth in order to stick in a tube to measure the amount of saliva. It pissed me off.

[Victor "Break" D'Armond]

a B? really? wow, that blows, break thought maybe he missed one, but at least thats still an A. he began writing down the new notes from the slides, the graphite wiping swiftly onto his paper, conveying what his eyes saw in a neat little script. He heard the teacher begin asking qustions again.

"Victor, what is spontaneous recovery?"

oh cool, he got a question this time, and conviniently he had just jotted down that note. "Spontaneous recovery is when a conditioned response is brought back from extinction by reintroducing the stimuli, but not making any new pairing with another stimuli... I assume this doesn't happen very often" he said in his rich voice, little hand motions pointing to the slides and commanding a small air of attention.

[Trizen Takano]

Trizen got his sheet back. He saw the score. Sort of. His hand was still on the tissue which covered the majority of his face. His head still tilted back so the blood would stop dripping. Not working. What's worse is that at the end of it all, Trizen had a bad score. He got a C. His father was going to kill him. Well, if he caught him.

"Hm?" The teacher was asking him a question. "Alright well...

"Learning's got a few things going, I guess. Like you said, it's a relatively permanent change in behaviour brought about by experience. Or in short, what we do is what we learn.

But there's three kinds or uh.. what was your word... "approaches" to learning: Classical Conditioning, Operant Conditioning, Cognitive Approaches. But I'm not saying anything more. I don't think you need me to answer all that... right?"

[Gabriel Seran]

Professor Burr didn't seem to be the one to slow for them to relax before long the grades where redistributed and another layer of questions. Gabriel's gaze nodding off to Olivia was quickly jolted as he jumped a bit in his seat feeling horribly awkward now. He thumbed through the notes quickly trying not to feel like the dumb kid in the class. He wasn't dumb simply... distracted.

"Would that be the founder of Classical conditioning," He said with a calm confident grin though he tried resisting a hesitant question of sorts.

Gabriel would sit down calmly. His gaze a bit forward still as his cheeks flushed childishly. He usually had no problem with standing up forward but his thoughts had to be displayed all over his figure at this point. Too obvious to be missed. He turned to Olivia again with a joking smile squinting his eyes to avoid whatever look she'd been giving him. He didn't quite know how he'd felt about her but his mind felt as though it went blank each time he came up with the courage to speak.

[Olivia Green]

Olivia would casually glance to the side where Gabriel sat. He was looking at her and it was making her blush, though maybe he wouldn't notice.

Then their names were called out. Well, her attention shot to the hairy teacher and so did Gabriel.

"Unconditioned Response UUUMMMMMM a a a reflex response??" she tapped the table three times with her finger tip, out of nervousness, and looked back at Gabriel. He was smiling, and she returned his smile. She felt like a dweeb smiling that big, but she couldn't help it with Gabriel. That and she felt stupid for looking at him in the first place. School work is hard when you can't get your mind off boys!

[lunaburr]

OH NOES!! THE FIRE ALARM WENT OFF O=

CLASS HAS BEEN CUT SHORT O=

Everyone who participated recieves 3 EXP for tests and questions

1. Gabriel Seran
2. Olivia Green
3. Samantha Ballerino
4. Trizen Takano
5. Thirteen Silivasi
6. Victor D'Armond
7. Demetra Katsaros