Author: jzs495

One topic that we covered in class is sensory adaptation. Sensory adaptation is when someone experiences a stimulus and your sensitivity to this stimulus decreases over time usually to the point of you no longer even noticing it at all. In class he related it to putting on a bandaid and sometime later you can no longer feel it. This reminds me of when I got braces and all of the things that lead up to them and the things that come after them. When it was first decided that I needed braces I had to get what is called an expander. Its basically this metal bridge-like object that connects to your two back teeth and slowly pushes them apart spacing out your teeth. And once I had it everyday or every other day I had to turn it with a key which would expand it further. I remember it being extremely uncomfortable and sometimes painful at the beginning of the day and not hurting at all by lunch time. Similarly, when I first got my braces they felt really weird and awkward having all this extra metal in my mouth, but a few weeks later I wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference. Lastly, there’s the retainer and just like the the other two steps (and the couple that I skipped), the retainer is very uncomfortable when you first put it in, especially if you stop wearing it for some time, but once you wear it for some time it does not bother you at all. This is a perfect example of sensory adaptation. Thee are all things that you cannot help but notice at first and then over time you may forget that they are there at all. This is also like selective attention. Your brain assesses that these stimuli do not require any focus and neglects them in favor of more important stimuli.

I accidentally published this to the wrong site on my account initially.

Classical conditioning is where you learn to associate stimuli. This is something that happens to me all the time but one specific example is that I used to listen to a specific playlist every time I played a certain videogame. After about a week or so every time I played that game I would think of those songs and any time I heard any of those songs I would think of that game. There are still times now that I will hear a song and it will trigger memories of things I used to do when I heard it. This is a perfect example of classical conditioning. My brain associated the two stimuli and now whenever I encounter one I think of the other.

When I was younger my mom was very much an authoritarian type of parent. An authoritarian is a parent that makes most or all of their rules non-negotiable. I feel that she often over inserted herself into my choices and whatever she said goes, she did not often allow for feedback or even give any kind of justification or reasoning as to why I had to do certain things or not do others. This included the grades I had to maintain, the programs I could join, sports were mandatory (though to be honest I did not mind this one as much), and even made me play the clarinet (this one I minded a lot). But, I did it all with little to no complaint because I knew it would be futile. It wasn’t until somewhere around  high school where I noticed her attempt to transition into more of an authoritative parent , which is a parent that has structure but also room for discussion. I had more freedom in what activities and sports I wanted to participate in, while grades were still expected to be in the honor roll at a minimum, but she let me decide my college plans with only advice no rules. And I don’t feel that until college did that transition complete and I think it is mostly because she had little to no choice on what I do for the most part. But, she is not permissive, which is where rules are more of a suggestion, because I still have expectations, I just get to decide more how I accomplish them.