Author: jzm6396

Operant conditioning is the idea or concept that learning comes from adding rewards or punishments for a behavior. An example of this would be a student doing his homework every night knowing he will receive a piece of candy once it is completed. There are different elements associated with operant conditioning, like positive and negative reinforcement, which strengthen a desired behavior. Negative reinforcement is taking something adverse away to increase a desired behavior.  Punishment refers to the idea of taking away an undesired behavior. This can happen through positive punishment, and negative punishment. Positive punishment is adding something negative in order for the behavior to decrease or go away. An example of this would be getting hot sauce to the mouth by your parents if you say a curse word. This will decrease the amount of times you are likely to curse. Negative punishment is the idea of taking away something good to decrease a specific behavior. An example of negative punishment would be taking away recess for a student who didn’t do their work. You are removing something the child likes, which will prevent the child from performing the behavior a second time. The concept of operant conditioning  is used in so many places throughout the world. Humans use operant conditioning on animals they would like to tame. An example of this would be giving a dog a treat in order for it to do a specific trick for you. There are many behaviors developed today in mature adults that were specifically derived from an element in association with operant conditioning.  There are effects directly in response to the concepts of positive and negative punishment, and positive/negative reinforcement. It is important to note that this theory has lots of evidence provided through given examples and stories, and can be used at any moment to promote or take away a behavior.

Memory construction is the concept that over time ones memory can alter/ change based on different factors. There are so many examples to help support this notion. There is no possible way to recall a memory perfectly, unless it was recorded and played out in front of you. When I used to go to my cousins lake house for vacation, I would come home and tell all my friends about my experience, as time went on, I came to the realization that every time I would tell the stories of that summer, that they would be different each time. This reflects the idea of memory construction. A story or memory can be changed over a given period. The greatest factor in this process is time. As time goes on, the less you will be thinking about that given memory. Other factors may relate to emotions or feelings about that given memory.. If one feels upset over a given memory, they may add in detail that can potentially make the memory seem worse than it actually was, altering exactly what happened. As previously stated, it is impossible to go back and recall a memory perfectly with an exact, detailed account. In class, 9/11 was brought up as a memory. People remember the day, and the event that happened, but it is impossible to go back and remember the exact details leading up to the incident or right after the incident. This allows one to distinguish elements between long term memory and short term memory. In short term, it is much easier to go back and remember what happened right before you recently, as to recalling an exact account of an incident that happened a very long time ago. Furthermore, memory construction is the notion that when we retrieve our memories, they may be altered than how they actually happened.

The world around us contains more information than we can interpret and or process at once, therefore people can focus and interpret only specific stimuli at specific timing. This notion is known as selective attention. Selective attention depends on certain factors that may hinder or help ones attention span. These factors may include ideas like mental effort, how tired one may be, and mental capacity. As a student, it is relatively easy to understand the idea of selective attention. I can provide numerous examples of myself in class undergoing selective attention. I remember my 10th grade English class vividly, while my teacher was doing a lecture on diction, I could not stop staring at a drawn picture of a duck on the white board. A student had drawn it and left his initials right under it. I didn’t put in any mental effort in trying to pay attention to the lecture on diction, but I stared at the duck for about 30 minutes out of he 45 minute lecture. It was a rude awakening when my quiz grade came back to me and now I realize that the incident directly represents what selective attention is. I was able to deal with some stimuli (the image on the board), and not other information (the lecture). The diction lecture to me was boring, so I didn’t put in any mental effort into paying attention. Another personal example I have of this was about a year ago when I was crossing a street to meet my friends. My friends were already on the other side, so I was looking straight at them. I was really exited to go get food, but I didn’t realize the enormous tow truck coming right towards me while crossing. I was so focused on my friends that I had blocked out the rest of the setting around me. This reveals that selective attention is probably used commonly, and reveals that selective attention includes factors like mental effort.