Author Archives: Gavin Vanstone

Mirror Neurons and Lacrosse

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A few classes ago, we learned about observational learning and the concept of mirror neurons. Observational learning is learning through observation. With observational learning, you do not need direct experience to learn a task, you just have to witness someone else doing the task. Mirror neurons are neurons in the brain that aid humans and animals in observational learning. These neurons fire both when someone performs an activity and when they watch an activity being performed. Mirror neurons are active in parts of the brain that are involved with motor function, vision, and memory.

Observational learning and mirror neurons are very important to athletes. I played lacrosse goalie, and one of the easiest ways to improve my skills and learn new ways to play the position was to watch other people play. I always had trouble with my positioning in the net, so to get better I would watch other goalies play, whether it was on TV or in real life, and try to copy where they positioned themselves in the net. Other things I taught myself through observational learning was how to properly attack the ball when it was shot at you and how to throw the ball farther.

As discussed in class, there are four steps to observational learning. Without these four steps, observational learning is not possible. The four steps are attention, memory, imitation, and motivation. Attention is the ability to notice something is occurring and what that something is. Memory is the ability to remember whatever that something was. Imitation is the ability to mimic and perform the activity you saw. Motivation is the desire to perform the action you witnessed. With lacrosse, I did each of these things. I would watch the way another goalie was playing, and I would compare it to my own style. I would then remember it and save it for the next time I was practicing. Once I was practicing, I would try the action that I had witnessed to see if it made me a better goalie. My motivation for it at the time was making myself a better lacrosse goalie to be recruited for college, but injuries prevented me from pursuing that goal.

There are many things I learn about in class that I did, but never really understood. Mirror neurons and observational learning is another example of something I would do on a regular basis, but never truly understood what I was doing at the time.

Psychology and the Impact Test

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I’m sure everyone now knows what a concussion is and why they are so dangerous to athletes that play sports with high risks of getting a concussion. Due to the recent concern about concussions and their true dangers, most high school athletes are required to take a test called the ImPACT test. This is a computerized test that is able to determine if an athlete is concussion symptom free and able to return to his or her sport. The baseline ImPACT test is given before the athletes season when the athlete is not concussed. Then during the season, if an athlete suffers a concussion, the ImPACT test is administered to determine if the athlete reached their baseline threshold. Once their baseline is obtained, they are able to return to their sport. The ImPACT test relies on many of the same memory concepts we learned about to determine whether or not an athlete is healthy.

I played ice hockey in high school and suffered three concussions as a result of playing. They are not fun. However, in order for me to return to play, I had to take and pass the ImPACT test. Many of the activities Dr. Wede demonstrated for us in class, such as memorizing words in a sequence or saying the color of the ink of the word and not the word itself, appear on the ImPACT test. Every time he would set up one of the demonstrations, I’d be brought back to taking the damn ImPACT test (I hated the thing, it was not something you’d want to take if you had a serious concussion). The ImPACT test uses the demonstrations, as well as other tests, to help determine the ability of your short term memory after a concussion. Some of these tests were memorizing three letters, then performing a set of tasks, then being asked to remember what the three original letters were. Other tests tested for your reaction times and there were still others that tested for memory.

Psychology and the principles of psychology are even used in sports and the treatment of athletes who have suffered traumatic brain injuries. I never realized the reach that psychology had. I always thought psychology was the man in the chair sitting next to you as you laid in a sofa and he asked you about your feelings. This class has shown me how much of an effect it has on everything in the world around us, not just in the stereotypical viewpoint of it.

Pavlov and Behaviorism

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The rise in popularity of functionalism and structuralism in the early 1900s spurred a revolution in psychology. It created many of the original subsets of psychology, such as Gestalt psychology, behaviorism, and psychoanalysis. Behaviorism is still widely used today, albeit it is very different from early behaviorism. Unlike functionalism and structuralism, behaviorism did not look at the mind. Behaviorism only studies observable, measurable behavior.  One of the first experiments that studied the behavior of animals was performed by Russian physiologist, Ivan Pavlov, in the early 1900s.

Pavlov studied the effect of outside stimuli on body processes. His most famous experiment involved the salivation reflex in dogs. The salivation reflex is an involuntary, natural body process that occurs when food is in someone or something’s mouth. In his experiment, he tried to create the salivation reflex in the dogs when they did not have food in their mouth. To accomplish this, he would turn on a metronome, and then give the dogs he was studying food. Naturally, because food was in their mouth, they would salivate. However, after doing this for a while, when he would turn on the metronome, the dogs would salivate, even though they were not eating and there was no food in front of them. This is an example conditioning.

I have a very similar experience with dogs and conditioning. My girlfriend has a dog who is somewhat unruly. She loves to bark and does not listen well. In order to attempt to calm her down, I began to teach her different tricks using different hand motions. These ranged from staying quiet, to sitting, to laying down. For example, to get her to sit I hold my hand out like I am telling someone to stop, and I fold it down. Then to get her to lay down, I close my hand into a fist. To reinforce the idea that she would have to stay in these positions, I would give her a dog treat. After a few weeks, she would do what I would signal her to do without treats, however she would still expect them. After a few months, on command she could do whatever signal I showed her. Pavlov and I did not use the same method and did not control the same reflexes, however we both conditioned the dogs to do something involuntarily. Pavlov used classical conditioning, using the sound of the metronome in the background to stimulate a response.  I used operant conditioning to elicit a response. Good behavior was rewarded and bad behavior was punished.