Author: mas7359

In class the last couple weeks, we have discussed positive punishment and reinforcement, as well as negative punishment and reinforcement. These are all different ways to encourage a desired behavior (via reinforcement) or to discourage an unwanted behavior (via punishment). Positive reinforcement adds a reward as a means of encouraging said desired behavior (i.e. giving a child a treat for completing a chore), whereas negative reinforcement removes an unwanted stimulus to encourage the wanted behavior (i.e. when your mom quits nagging after you have taken out the garbage). Positive punishment adds an unwanted stimulius as a means of eliminating an undesired or unwated behavior (timeouts, spankings, etc.), and negative punishment takes away a desired stimulus to discourage undesired behavior (i.e. losing privileges, getting your phone taken away, etc.).

I think everyone at some point or another has experienced some form of both punishment and reinforcement. As a kid, I know my parents positively reinforced good grades each marking period with a reward, like a movie or toy I wanted, and took my sisters and I out to celebrate at the end of each school year to dinner, dessert, or a fun activity of our choice as a way to show their appreciation for all our hard work. That being said, I also faced punishment as a kid. When I misbehaved I had to sit in timeout, or I wasn’t allowed to watch TV, or had to go to bed early. As I got older, this turned into having to give my parents my phone or not being allowed to go places with my friends.

I have also been on the other end of punishment and reinforcing. I did a lot of babysitting in high school, and one summer I consistently babysat a family with 3 small children, ranging from ages 2 to 8. The 2 year old was in the process of potty training, and was really struggling. When I started babysitting her, I made it a point to give her a special treat like a popsicle or a little piece of candy whenever she asked me to take her to the bathroom as a way to encourage her to do it more often. I didn’t punish her when she didn’t, but she quickly realized she would get a treat when she asked me to take her to the bathroom and did it on a regular basis.

One topic I have been really identifying with in class is memory and encoding. I think the idea of traditional studying has become more about being able to regurgitate information and specific details rather than learning and understanding topics. As a college student, I think this is important to acknowledge because the point of college isn’t just to obtain a degree, but to be able to walk out of college knowing you’re a well-rounded, knowledgable individual.  We weren’t meant to just memorize random facts or statistics for an exam and forget them; there’s a reason we’re supposed to be learning the information we’re given. A lot of my study habits include re-reading my notes and textbooks, making flashcards, and highlighting important words and numbers, but I’m not really learning that way.  I’m memorizing tiny details that may or may not show up on my exam that I will most definitely not remember once I walk out of the exam. This information is all going to my sensory memory, or the short-lived, almsot immediate recording of sensory information. I’m not really retaining any of the information I’m supposedly “learning”, especially if I cram, or try to study everything in one night, which is not uncommon for me to do.  As discused in class, it’s been scientifically proven that we learn better when we spread our studying out over time; re-reading our notes after class every day, writing down questions we may have missed in class, highlighting important topics to focus on daily, over a longer period of time than just a day or two. This will help the information retain longer in our brains (in our LTM, or “long term memory” rather than our STM or “short term memory”). Effortful processing, or learning information in a way that requires particular effort, is one way to achieve this. Being particularly mindful of what you’re reading rather than just skimming for big ideas, writing down ideas or other important concepts, or just going further in depth in your note taking is something that can benefit your study habits, along with beginning to review your exam information long before the exam.

This week in class, we discussed the idea of attention and all of the variations of attention, as well as how these different variaions come about. Attention is defined as notice taken of someone or something; the regarding of someone or something as interesting or important. When talking about attention, it is important to note that the world contains far too much information than what we, as indiviudals, can fully process at once. Attention, in all forms, happens in part due to mental effort. Mental effort either is or requires attention. Attention is partially due to mental effort on one’s part, is partially a natural side effect of mental effort, and is also partially effortless. The ability to deal with some particular stimuli and not others is classified as selective attention. Selective attention where you choose to or involuntarily draw your focus to. Things like bright colors and loud noises can draw your attention without your being aware of it. Or, when you are so determined to focus on something, you can completely miss something totally different happening right in front of you.

For example, on Tuesday in class, Dr. Wede showed us several videos and told us to be on the lookout or certain changes. The first video, “Monkey Business”, showed 2 small basketball teams, and asked us to focus on how many times one particular team (the one in white t shirts) passed the ball. Mid-video, someone in a gorilla costume came out in the middle of the screen, but the game resumed as normal.  While that may have been a more obvious change, not many people seemed to notice one player from the opposite team walk off camera, or the fact that the background completely changed colors.  We also watched one video where Dr. Wede asked us to count how many changes we saw in the image on the screen. The most anyone counted was 19 changes; but, as Dr. Wede noted at the end of the video, the entire image was different. And, since we were all paying attention to the video, most of us did not even notice that Dr. Wede had left the room and completely changed his shirt. These were all prime examples of selective attention.

At the beginning of the month, my roommate celebrated her 19th birthday. I was really excited to decorate our room and give her her present, and since she was gone the entire day, so I had plenty of time to do it. I wanted everything to be a surprise. I blew up balloons and put them all over her bed, desk, and our floor. I hung streamers on the walls. I wrote “happy birthday” in big letters on her white board, and finally, laid out her giant bag of presents on her bed.  My roommate came home that night from her class and extracurriculars at around 11:30, and I was sitting and waiting eagerly for her reaction. She dropped her backpack on the floor, grabbed her towel and robe, and went to the bathroom to shower without saying a word. I was astonished; our room was completely transformed and she didn’t bat an eye. She came back, put on her pj’s, and right as I was about to say something, she sat down on a balloon, and only then did she see my big birthday surprise. She was so focused on showering and getting ready for bed after a long day that she didn’t even notice her birthday surprise. Her selective attention prohibited her from noticing the transformation on her side of the room.