Author: pjh5535

When I was first tasked with the idea of positive and negative reinforcement, I struggled with the concept that it was not good and bad. To help me understand the concept I turned to real-life examples to help me fully understand. The example that I found to be most helpful was the idea of studying. I wanted to increase productivity while decreasing distractions. In order to increase behaviour, I decided to use positive reinforcement. I would set a goal of what I wanted to get done before I was allowed to do anything else. If I achieved that goal, I would add a positive stimulus by treating myself with a piece of candy. In order to decrease distractions while doing the work, I used negative punishment. If I checked my phone, talked to a friend or changed topics in any way I would withdraw the describable stimulus of listening to music. Since I was trying to decrease the behaviour of getting off-topic and I was taking away desired stimulus I was using negative punishment. I am now able to understand reinforcement and punishment much better because I have a real-life example to connect to and have practiced using it in my daily life.

Along with using reinforcement and punishment in my life, I made a flow chart to help me decide which type of punishment or reinforcement is being used in other examples. My study habits helped me to learn the basic idea of punishment and reinforcement but I was still having trouble deciding in other examples. This flowchart allows me to establish if the behaviour is increasing or decreasing, from there I can what type of stimulus is being added or removed, leading me to the type of reinforcement or punishment. This chart helped me to break down what was originally a very daunting topic into 3 easy steps.

When I was young, I loved trivia games. I used to have flashcards, books and computer programs with different trivia games. I haven’t played trivia in years but I can still remember a lot of the facts. If you asked me to share a fact, I learned playing those trivia games I could not tell you anything, but sometimes when certain topics come up, I know loads of information about them. When these facts come up people almost always ask me how I know the information and then proceed to Google the information to check if I was right. I am almost always correct but I never know where I learned the information. This is an example of source amnesia.

Source amnesia is the ability to recall information but the inability to recall the source of information. I learned a lot of information while playing trivia games and I am now able to recall the information, but I don’t remember where or when I learned the information. Source amnesia can be an encoding failure. Since I learned the trivia in a casual setting it wasn’t important for me at the time to focus where I was learning from.

The nervous system is divided into many sections with a variety of functions. One section of the nervous system is the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system controls bodily functions such as heart rate, respiratory rate, digestion and pupillary response. The autonomic nervous system is then divided into two more sections, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems. Each division enables the opposite functions. The sympathetic system arouses your body causing your heart rate to increase, your respiratory rate to increase, your digestion to slow down and your pupils to dilate. The parasympathetic nervous system does the opposite to all of the bodily functions.

When I was younger, I had an extreme fear of any medical facility, which is ironic considering I am now in nursing. I would avoid going to all medical appoints. When my mom would make me go to the doctor I would burst into tears and beg her not to make me go. One day I had to go to the hospital with my mom for her to drop off a sample, she convinced me I would be fine because I was not going to be a patient. All I had to do was walk to a desk, drop off the sample and go back home, seemed simple enough. This small task caused me such distress that when I was walking to the desk my sympathetic nervous system started to engage. My palms were sweating and my heart was racing. When I finally got to the desk the nurse asked me my name but I could not respond, I tried to hand her the sample but the next thing I knew I was on the ground. I fainted and fell straight to the floor. This small task of going to the hospital, caused fear to take over my body and my parasympathetic nervous system to overcompensate for the situation I was in. To help me calm down my parasympathetic nervous system lowered my heart rate, slowed my breathing and caused the blood vessels in my legs to dilate causing blood to pool in my legs. My parasympathetic nervous system slowed my down my bodily functions to such a degree that there was a lack of oxygen in my brain which caused me to faint. Luckily, I was in a hospital so almost everyone around me was qualified to help me increase my heart and respiratory rates back to normal levels.

Most people consider your autonomic nervous system the “fight or flight” response, what they fail to explain that there is also a freeze section of that system. Sometimes when the level of stress you are in is too overwhelming, you freeze because your parasympathetic system takes over for your sympathetic system.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-06-people-faint.html#targetText=The%20body%20reflexively%20compensates%20by,oxygen%20%E2%80%A6%20and%20you%20lose%20consciousness.