In this week’s lesson, we learn about perception which is defined as the recognition, organization, and interpretation of information from our sensory experiences. The process where information is gained from our senses as environmental energy and converted into action potential and sent to the brain is called the bottom-up process. We gain this information or energy from receptors in the sensory organs. The top-down process occurs when we generate perception through our past experiences, knowledge, and expectations. From the definition of these two processes, you can see the differences in the flow of the process. The names of the processes make it easy for us to remember how the processes are.

The bottom-up process starts when we experience sensation through the receptors in our eyes, skin, tongue, nose, and ears (Mack). This sensation or environmental energy is then converted into action potential, which this process is called transduction (Mack). There are many examples of bottom-up processes that we experience daily. The first one is when we accidentally step on a sharp object on the floor. The receptors in your skin detect the pain and send this information to be processed by the brain. Our brain will then perceive the sharp object as a piece of shattered glass, a nail, kid toys, or other sharp objects that could be lying on the floor. Next, when a person is walking in town and smells freshly baked bread, the receptors in our nose detect the odor that is then sent to the brain. The brain will generate perception such as there is a bakery nearby, or we will quickly think of the bakery good that we like the most.

The top-down process occurs when we assume something that we don’t know about using our knowledge, experience, or expectation (Mack). For example, when a person is hiking at Yellowstone National Park and sees a black figure that is not moving 100 yards away, he perceives the blurred figure as a grizzly bear since that place is famous for its wildlife appearance. As he approaches the figure, he realizes that the figure is a big stone and not a grizzly bear. Other than making assumptions based on past knowledge, the top-down process also includes concluding limited information, interpreting what we hear based on context hints, and predicting the missing information (“The Top-Down Processing”). Thus, top-down processes are most likely generating biased perceptions (“Bottom-Up and Top-Down Processing”).

As we can see now, the bottom-up process and the top-down process have some important distinctions. Through the bottom-up process, the information travels from receptors up toward the brain. And the top-down process is the opposite since the information comes from our knowledge, experience, or expectation. Although, these two processes generate the same result that we call perception. Understanding these two processes is important since we are making perceptions in everything that we do every day. And perception is not just hearing, touching, seeing, smelling, and tasting. Perception is our ability to respond to the sensations that we gained through the interaction with environment.

References:

Mack, Jason. “Bottom-Up Vs Top-Down Processing.” Study.Com, 17 Sept. 2021, study.com/learn/lesson/bottom-up-processing-in-psychology-definition examples.html#:~:text=Bottom%2Dup%20processing%20is%20when,be%20processed%20by%20the%20brain. Accessed 27 May 2023.

“Bottom-Up and Top-Down Processing.” JackWestin, jackwestin.com/resources/mcat-content/perception/bottom-up-and-top-down-processing#:~:text=Bottom%20up%20processing%20is%20when,brain%20where%20it%20is%20processed. Accessed 27 May 2023.

“Top-Down Processing.” Practical Psychology, 1 Feb. 2023, practicalpie.com/top-down-processing/#:~:text=Report%20Ad-,What%20is%20Top%20Down%20Processing%3F,experiences%2C%20expectations%2C%20and%20emotions. Accessed 27 May 2023.

“Did you know Distracted driving claims about eight lives per day — approximately 3,500 per year (CDC)” (Distracted driving statistics in 2023/the zebra). However, what are the main types of distracted driving? The main types of distracted driving are visual, cognitive, and manual distractions (Distracted driving statistics in 2023/the Zebra).

The first main distraction is a visual distraction. A visual distraction is looking at anything other than the road. Whether that is a cell phone, someone else in the car, or the scenery outside. “Texting is the most alarming distraction. Sending or reading a text takes your eyes off the road for 5 seconds. At 55 mph, that is like driving the length of an entire football field with your eyes closed” (Distracted Driving). Texting and driving also ties into the second and third main distractions as you are thinking about what you are reading and how you will respond, as well as removing one of your hands from the wheel to respond if you are not using “talk to text.”

The second main distraction is cognitive. Cognitive distraction could be conversing with someone else in the car or on the phone, daydreaming, or thinking about the million and one things you must do that day. Have you ever been driving somewhere you have traveled to a hundred times, and you park your car and think, “how did I get here?” It becomes an automatized evolution. Your mind and body do not have to think about what to do or how to get there; it is all just “muscle memory”. This type of automation can be a great example of cognitive distraction because you are not actively engaged in the task. It can cause your reaction time to be significantly slower because your mind is busy daydreaming or thinking about something else entirely.

The final main distraction while driving is manual distraction. Manual distraction involves anything that requires you to remove your hands from the wheel. Texting, eating, and fixing your makeup are all examples of manual distractions. If your hands are occupied with something else instead of being on the steering wheel, you are less likely to be able to avoid an accident if something around you happens. You are also more likely to jerk the wheel to avoid an accident if you are not fully engaged with the driving process.

To sum it up, avoid using your cell phone while driving despite the pressures you may feel to respond to a text message or email. Avoid all three distractions to help yourself and others on the road arrive alive. Nothing is worth your own life or the life of someone else. As an added tip, you could set your phone to “do not disturb” while driving so you do not see the notifications appear and feel pressured to respond. Let us make the roads safer.

References

Distracted driving statistics in 2023 | The Zebra (2023) Distracted Driving Statistics. Available at: https://www.thezebra.com/resources/research/distracted-driving-statistics/ (Accessed: 26 May 2023).

Distracted driving (no date) NHTSA. Available at: https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/distracted-driving (Accessed: 26 May 2023).

As a kid, do you remember how you felt when getting off a spinning ride, like the Gravitron, at an amusement park?  Did you find yourself stumbling around, unable to walk straight?  Well, imagine trying to fly a plane in that state.  The dizziness you experienced is an example of spatial disorientation.  Spatial disorientation occurs when you are unable to determine your position in relation to the surrounding environment (“Spatial disorientation”, 2023).  At the amusement park, we can simply re-orient ourselves by pausing for a moment and anchoring ourselves to the ground once again.  However, this condition can be fatal if it occurs to a pilot while in flight.  There have been several high-profile cases in the news where spatial disorientation was cited as the cause of a plane crash.  Namely, Kobe Bryant’s and JFK Jr.’s planes both crashed due to spatial disorientation of the pilot causing many fatalities.

Since vision is the dominant sense in which we orient ourselves, misleading visual inputs can result in spatial disorientation (“Spatial disorientation”, 2023).  In our lesson 3 commentary, we saw how we use knowledge of our environment to create a representation of our environment.  In the example of the basketball rolling across the court, the basketball appears to be changing its course when its shadow is positioned differently.   That is because we have an assumption of where the basketball must be positioned to create that shadow.  The basketball looked as though it was in an upward trajectory or even bouncing when, in fact, it was following a straight line.  This illustrates how other objects in the environment can influence our perceptual experience.

In flying, the horizon is the standard by which the pilot judges what the plane is doing.  It is the anchor point, in a sense, just as the ground serves as an anchor point for us when walking.  If visibility gets low while flying, the pilot can no longer rely on visual references such as the horizon and must switch to relying on their cockpit equipment.  This can cause the pilot to become disoriented.  For example, they may think they are gaining altitude when, in fact, they are descending.  The pilot may react with a sudden unnecessary over-correction which they cannot come back from (YouTube, 2020).

There are many examples of plane crashes that resulted from spatial disorientation.  Spatial disorientation causes 5-10% of all aviation accidents, 90% of which are fatal (YouTube, 2020).  One notable instance was when a plane piloted by JFK Jr. on July 6, 1999, crashed into the water on its way to Martha’s Vineyard.  The NTSD, U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, concluded that the crash was a result of spatial disorientation.  Other pilots on the same flight path that evening said that there was no visual of the horizon.  The haze and dark conditions were cited as key factors in the crash (Lear-Olimpi). Another notable example was the helicopter crash on January 26, 2020, which left Kobe Bryant, his daughter and six others dead.  Similarly, the pilot hit a wall of clouds, lost visibility with the ground and became disoriented.  This caused the pilot to react and take a nosedive into the hillside (Leonard, 2021).

We often say, “seeing is believing”.  The phenomenon of spatial disorientation illustrates that we shouldn’t be so quick to believe everything we see.  In cases where our brain is deceiving us with incorrect perceptions, the best thing we can do is to rely on different data.  In the case of spatial disorientation when flying, the pilot must ignore what his or her brain is telling them and rely on the plane’s equipment to guide them.  This begs the question, what if you don’t have other data to rely on?  Or, what if you don’t realize you are being deceived?  Just being aware that perception isn’t necessarily reality is a good start.

References

Lear-Olimpi, M. (n.d.). Spatial disorientation cause of Kennedy plane crash. Logistics Online.       www.logisticsonline.com/doc/spatial-disorientation-cause-of-kennedy-plane-0001

Leonard, E. (2021, February 25). Cause of Kobe Bryant’s Helicopter Crash Finalized in NTSB Report. NBC Los Angeles. https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/national-international/kobe-bryant-helicopter-crash-cause-finalized-ntsb-report/2536402/

Spatial disorientation. (2023, March 19). In Wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_disorientation

[YouTube]. (2020, February 25). How ‘Spatial Disorientation’ Can Be Fatal To Pilots In Flight [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi9Oaon_7d4

In our daily life, we tend to group the information for better understanding and getting along with. Gestalt psychologies came up with the laws to conclude humans’ normal grouping methods into five dimensions. According to my own observations as a senior user of several social media in China, there are also hidden strategies used by developers intentionally or unintentionally which is related to Gestalt Laws. Information of a user that can be overt is grouping users together in different ways. Since a social media contains so many contents in various of fields while it is also a place where people gather and listen to each other, the way to find the right details and right person to talk about is important. (Narayan, 2013) This article will go through similarity, connectedness, and proximity that can be observed between users in Chinese social medias.

First is similarity, which means people tend to group things or others that are similar to each other in some characteristics, especially the interests in this case. Because for personality, experiences, or genders, people may prefer to know more on other sides apart from the category they belong to. But for interest, It is kind of hard to find someone physically around you having the same interest as you. At least I don’t. I don’t have friends or family who like playing video game that much like I do. I can’t find anyone to play Lego together. I make quite a lot friends online who can do these things with me or just discuss about them. The personal profile, chat groups, tags which can attach to the posts have the same function – to gather people based on their interests. It increases the cohesion between users and the attachment to the platform.

Second, proximity, which means people tend to group things or others that are close to each other. In this case what is close is based on physical location. This may be unique in China because every users’ IP address is required to show in his or her profile, post, and comment. It is originally for letting users aware that they have to be responsible for their speak online. (add reality element in virtual society) But now there are some phenomenon or problems derived: stereotype distinguished by cities is deepened, and people tend to having stronger bond with others (have support from or support those) in the same city. The way of personal attack has evolved to regional attack. It is not a good trend.

Third, connectedness, which means people tend to group things or others that are connected. This is related to information grouping more, and combine some elements of similarity and proximity. Recently, a new mechanism on social media is that a new lists next to the ranking of topic popularity would provide you with the tag which your friends (online friends refer to the person and you follow each other) and intra-city users have viewed these days. It connects the Information you may be interested in with that the people around you are interested in. In addition, the social medias use big data to feed you those related to your past preference, especially the short video platforms which is really popular nowadays. It is a way to increase adhesiveness of users.

In conclusion, we can recognize several Gestalt Graphing Laws in social medias. And indicated from this, we cannot live without categorizing just like we cannot live without social medias.

Reference

Narayan, Bhuva. (2013). From Everyday Information Behaviors to Clickable Solidarity in a Place Called Social Media. Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal, Vol.5, No.3. pp.32-53. Retrieved from https://search.informit.org/doi/pdf/10.3316/informit.944336060096770

As we learned in lesson two, there are distinct parts of the brain that have individual functions and affect one’s life. While one area may be affected, it does not mean the brain will be damaged: only that specific area. Although research has mostly proven this true, when has it ever been tested out? Well, in January 2020, Dagmar Turner had surgery and in the middle of it was woken up to ensure that the surgeon avoided the section that would damage her. Why would she want to put herself through this risky surgery and what are some benefits of this? 

When it comes to the localization of brain functions, we have all heard about the famous Phineas cage case. Due to his tragic accident psychologists were able to discover that despite his terrible injury he could still perform normally in some daily activities. Therefore, a theory was implanted that individual parts of the brain are each responsible for certain functions (Goldstein, 2019, p.38). The brain consists of a cerebral cortex divided into 4 different lobes: occipital, temporal, parental, and frontal. The occipital is responsible for processing visual information, the temporal lobe receiving area for the audition area, and encoding for memory, the parietal has the somatosensory and sense of direction, and the frontal lobe directs voluntary movements, expressive language, fine motor control, and executive functions. 

Dogma Turner, a violinist, decided to undergo surgery after she had a seizure during a symphony. Everybody knows that brain surgery is no easy task and for a person like Dogma whose hand motor skills are her most precious possession in life – undergoing this type of surgery is very risky. Dr. Keyoumars Ashkan, the head neurosurgeon who was also a musician, could understand why she would want to preserve her musical gift. In Ashkar, who plays piano and has a music degree, she found a neurosurgeon who understood her worries. The medical team prepared for a tricky operation; mapping parts of Turner’s brain involved in her music and language skills (Knowles, 2020). 

Long before the surgery Dogma was diagnosed with a small tumor in her right frontal lobe – and since radiotherapy unfortunately did not work, she decided to undergo the surgery. The procedure would be the following way: after mapping and identifying the sections that were active while she played the violin, as well as sections that dictated movement and language. Then, halfway through surgery, the patient would be awakened to play her violin so surgeons could avoid the sections of her brain that were active as she moved her hands to play (VOA News, 2020). If she were unable to play the violin or do any movement, the surgeon would know they had touched an area of the brain that would affect her overall.  

In the end, Dogma’s surgery turned out to be successful, and because of this outcome surgeons are now using this technique when it comes to functions like speech or movement. In retrospect, keeping patients awake while the surgeon is operating on them is an exceptionally good innovation because this way they know when they have damaged a nerve or touched an area of the brain that should not have been messed with. For example, Dr. Ashkan says that King’s College Hospital, which treated Turner, often gives people language tests during such surgeries. Before when one would hear about news like this, they would think it was just a fictional episode on a television show like Grey’s Anatomy- but creativity and technology have advanced a lot since and we are now seeing those advances.

References

Goldstein, E. B. (2019). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting mind, research, and everyday experience (5th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Knowles, H. (2020, February 19). Watch this woman play the violin in the middle of brain surgery. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/19/brain-surgery-violin/

Voice of America (VOA News). (2020, February 20). Woman plays violin during Brain surgery. VOA. https://www.voanews.com/a/science-health_woman-plays-violin-during-brain-surgery/6184607.html#:~:text=Then%2C%20halfway%20through%20surgery%2C%20Turner,as%20the%20tumor%20was%20removed.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, significant progress was made in understanding the anatomy and function of neurons. However, it was not until the 1920s that scientists discovered the electrical signals neurons use to communicate with each other and the body. These signals, known as action potentials, are the foundation of cognition, and their role in neuronal communication is very important. 

We have discovered a vast amount of information on action potentials and know exactly how they work. When a neuron is at rest, there is a higher concentration of sodium ions (Na+) outside the cell, while potassium ions (K+) have a higher concentration inside the cell. This concentration gradient creates a resting potential, which is typically around -70 mV. Input into the dendrites of a neuron causes changes in membrane permeability, allowing certain ions, particularly Na+, to pass through. If the input is strong enough, it can raise the membrane potential to the threshold level. When the membrane potential reaches the threshold, the structure of ion channels in the membrane changes, and Na+ ions rush into the cell. This causes depolarization, resulting in a spike in membrane potential. Once the membrane potential reaches its maximum value, Na+ channels close, and K+ channels open. This allows K+ ions to rush out of the cell, causing repolarization and a rapid drop in voltage. 

Action potentials play a crucial role in the nervous system, as they underlie all our thoughts and actions. The intensity and nature of action potentials are comparable to firing a gun, like in our notes. Just as a gun either fires or doesn’t based on the force applied to the trigger, a neuron either fires or doesn’t based on whether the membrane potential crosses the threshold. Similarly, the intensity of an action potential remains constant, analogous to a bullet leaving the gun with the same force and velocity regardless of how hard the trigger is pulled. This simple yet fundamental process of ion movement across the cell membrane forms the basis of all cognitive functions. 

The discovery and understanding of action potentials revolutionized our comprehension of neuronal communication. Action potentials enable neurons to transmit signals and form the basis of cognition. By diving into the mechanisms of dendritic action potentials, researchers continue to unlock the mysteries of the brain, contributing to advancements in neuroscience and our understanding of human behavior and perception. 

New research has uncovered something that leads to the thickening of L2/3 dendrites, fundamental to action potentials and the human body. Albert Gidon and his team utilized advanced techniques such as somato-dendritic patch clamp and two-photon imaging to examine the functioning of L2/3 dendrites in brain tissue. They discovered unknown information about neurons that revealed L2/3 to be able to solve problems we didn’t think they could (Neuroscience News, p. 1). 

References: Neuroscience News. (2020, January 2). Newly identified dendritic action potentials give humans unique brain power. Neuroscience News. https://neurosciencenews.com/dendritic-action-potential-15380/ 

For just one moment I’m imagining a world of bliss. A world where I never experienced heartbreak, betrayal—hardship of any kind. What would that be like? We often hear that it takes the dark to appreciate the light, the bad to understand the good. But is that folklore? For instance, if I’d grown up in an environment filled with trust and warmth, would I only perceive trust and warmth within every environment thereafter? Would such environments be a figment of my perception, or would my perception quite literally be the catalyst to create those environments? Let me ground us a bit. The topic I’m referring to is experience-dependent plasticity, which states that our brain structure is altered through experience. In what follows, I will first give a bit of background on the theory, and then explain why experience-dependent plasticity has crucial implications for people’s perception of the world around them. Such implications are demonstrated by the effects of social-media exposure, relationship experiences, and daily contingencies like automobile accidents.

In 1970, researchers Colin Blakemore and Graham Cooper conducted a study about how feature detectors in kittens’ visual cortexes might influence perception (Goldstein, 2019). When a kitten is born, its visual cortex has neurons capable of detecting both vertical and horizontal orientations (as well as other attributes like length and movement). However, let’s say a kitten called Jake is raised in an environment where he only experiences vertically oriented bars. Jake’s brain will change shape as a result of this experience, losing neurons that were capable of detecting horizontal bars. This is an example of experience-dependent plasticity. Jake’s brain was “shaped to respond best to the environment to which [he’d] been exposed” (Goldstein, 2019, p. 34). This has important implications regarding perception because it illustrates a way in which neural representation is determined. For instance, Maguire et al. (2000) found that London taxi drivers had structural changes in short-term memory and spatial navigation areas of the brain (Gamma, 2023). This demonstrates that experience-oriented neuroplasticity exists outside the lab, beyond kittens and early age.

That being said, let’s take social-media exposure into consideration. Social media breeds an altered reality that influences the way young people perceive the world. My younger cousin, Juliette’s first word was “lickstip;” this was kiddie jumble for “lipstick.” She joined social media in second grade, and squealed with excitement looking through makeup tutorials, Sephora unpacking videos, and before-and-after photos. Now whenever I see her, she’s wearing a full face of makeup, complete with eyelash extensions and Botox. Ask her and she’ll tell you this is how everyone looks day to day. It’s clear as we sit on my grandmother’s porch that no one in her vicinity is decked out quite like she is. But like the kittens that were unable to see horizontal bars after being raised in a vertical-only environment, Juliette seems unable to detect this difference. Her exposure to social media, particularly make-up tutorials on YouTube and influencers on Instagram has taught her to see herself in comparison to fully made faces. It doesn’t matter how the adults around her look. She grew up saturated by a certain standard of appearance.

Another example of experience shaping perception is seen in the way our relationships affect our experience of trust. As a little girl, I had a best friend named Courtney. We spent every waking hour at each other’s houses, complete with sleepovers, carpools to school, and matching outfits. One day I came home to a message on our answering machine. It was Courtney calling from a new number to tell me she’d moved across the country. Just like that. The thing is this wasn’t the first time this had happened to me. Courtney was my new best friend. As a baby, I was raised with my neighbor, Susie, who eventually moved away. My godmother always brought her children around until she had a falling out with my parents. My kindergarten best friend, Cameron, moved two states over in the middle of the school year. Over and over my little world flipped on its lid. Unfortunately, once Courtney moved, I spent the rest of elementary school distant from my friends. When I switched schools for middle school, I didn’t say goodbye. To this day, I have to make a cognizant effort to recognize and keep friends; it feels a bit like an obliviousness to friendship. Perhaps this is due to a form of neural pruning (Gamma, 2023). Like the Blakemore and Cooper (1970) kittens who never used neurons capable of detecting horizontal bars, I underutilized whichever neural connections we use to form relationships.

One final example of experience-dependent plasticity is seen in Dr. Hillary L. McBride’s recent car accident-related PTSD. One day while stopped in traffic on the freeway, McBride (2021) looked in her rearview mirror and witnessed a pickup truck slam into her. Two months later when she was physically able to drive again, a car swerved into her lane during icy conditions sending her into a tailspin. Minutes later, as the ambulance approached, she screamed in terror because she thought the ambulance was going to crash into her too. Perhaps this shows that PTSD is a form of warped neural representation; our mind recreating a prior scene even though the context may be different.

In conclusion, experience-dependent plasticity appears to have vital implications for brains young and old, both in and out of the lab. Though I can’t establish causation and it may be a while before we truly understand the many layers of this phenomenon, it remains fascinating to explore. Whether studying the effects of social-media exposure, relationship experiences, or PTSD, our experiences are associated with our perception and neural representations of our surroundings.

References

Gamma, E. (2023, February 8). Brain Plasticity (Neuroplasticity): How Experience Changes the Brain. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/brain-plasticity.html#Functional-Plasticity

Goldstein, E.B. (2019). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience (5e ed.). Cengage.

McBride, H.L. (2021). The Wisdom of Your Body. Brazos Press.

The acronym CVA stands for cerebrovascular accident which is the medical terminology that refers to a stroke (Stroke Association, 2012). Strokes occur due to a lack of blood flow to the brain, which is detrimental to human life. Blood provides our brain with oxygen and important nutrients, without adequate blood flow to the brain, brain tissue dies. There are two types of strokes, while each has a unique pathophysiology, they both have very similar clinical manifestations and can result in long term complications that affect various parts of an individual’s brain and inadvertently, as we have learned in this lesson, affect the person’s ability to perceive information and to complete everyday tasks.

As previously mentioned, there are two different types of strokes: hemorrhagic and ischemic (Stroke Association, 2012). A hemorrhagic stroke occurs when an individual is experiencing blood loss from a vessel and as a result, blood is unable to reach brain tissue (Stroke Association, 2012). An ischemic stroke occurs when there is a physical blockage, such as a blood clot, in the blood vessel which prevents blood flow from adequately supplying the brain (Stroke Association, 2012).

Both ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes have similar symptoms, all of which stem from the CVAs effects on the brain. In nursing school, we are taught to “BE FAST” when we suspect that our patient is having a stroke; this acronym reminds us to evaluate the patient’s neurological status by assessing balance, eyes, to assess for facial drooping, arm weakness, slurred or altered speech, and finally it reminds us time is of the essence when working with these patients.

CVAs have the potential to effect either side of the brain. To understand the effects a stroke can have on the body, it is important to understand that the left hemisphere of the brain controls the right side of the body and vice versa (Stroke Association, 2012). For example, if the left hemisphere of the brain is affected by the stroke, then the right side of the body will also be affected. The left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for language, logic, and mathematics (Constant Therapy Health, 2023).  If the left hemisphere of the brain is affected by the stroke, then Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area will likely be affected. Broca’s area controls our ability to articulate speech and Wernicke’s area controls our ability to comprehend speech. As a result, people who have a CVA that affects the left side of their brain may experience long term effects including, but not limited to weakness or paralysis of the right side of the body, the inability to speak and comprehend what others are saying to them, and the inability to perform basic mathematic calculations (Johns Hopkins, 2023). The right side of the brain affects “visual awareness,” “emotions,” and “spatial abilities” (Constant Therapy Health, 2023). Thus, if the right side of the brain is affected by a stroke, then the patient will likely experience long term effects including left sided weakness or paralysis, vision deficits, impaired ability to make decisions and control emotions, and impaired depth perception (Johns Hopkins, 2023).

All in all, a stroke is a very serious medical event that can result in the death of brain tissue if not treated in a timely manner. Nevertheless, even if a CVA is treated in a timely manner, patients who experience a stroke will likely suffer from various long term effects depending on which area(s) of their brain was affected.

References

Constant Therapy Health. (2023). Right brain injury vs. left brain injury: Understanding the impact of brain injury on daily life. https://constanttherapyhealth.com/brainwire/right-brain-injury-vs-left-brain-injury-understanding-impact-brain-injury-daily-life

Johns Hopkins. (2023). Effects of stroke. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/stroke/effects-of-stroke

Stroke Association. (2012, December). What is a stroke? https://www.stroke.org.uk/sites/default/files/What%20is%20a%20stroke.pdf

Cognitive psychology and anxiety within themselves are complex like a rubiks cube. We look at anxiety and recognize that it is different in terms of how/when/where it manifested, what triggers it and how different people get affected/interpret it. We then look towards cognitive psychology to help us better understand and potentially treat if not solve the triggers within our brains that cause anxiety.

As dumb as it may sound I personally find the fact we can help treat anxiety with medications to be incredible. With that being said there are pros and cons to each side of the coin. Some examples of the medications are SSRI’s (Selective serotonin reputake inhibitors) such as Lexapro, Paxil, Zoloft and Celexa and SNRI’s (Serotonin-norepinephrine reputake inhubitor) such as Cymbalta, Effexor XR, and Pristiq. These medications are great to help combat the effects of anxiety but as for any medication they do have side effects and may not work for each person.

Anxiety occurs when your brain senses a threat real or imagined and floods your body with a hormone, also known as a stress hormone called cortisol, it also produces adrenaline which can help make the body stronger and faster. A saying i’ve heard throughout the years is “mother lifts car to save her child”, this helps us understand the “real threat”. When we look at the imagined threats with anxiety we can think of how or what a person is thinking that may not be a real threat but seems real through imagining the worst outcome of any given situation. Some examples of this can relate to traveling, such as “the plane may crash”, “a car can swerve into me and cause an accident”. Some of the other examples i wanted to add come from personal experience. My anxiety arose from thinking that going to school was going to be worse than it was, down the road i found out that i wasn’t anxious about school, i was more anxious about what happens at school such as test scores/homework, getting to the bus on time and even peer opinions. This wasn’t a real threat but overtime i would make each aspect of school to be the worst which caused my anxiety to get worse and worse each day.

With cognitive psychology we can learn more about how the human brain works and how it interprets certain events, ideas or environments. Obviously i would be naive to think that cognitive psychology played the majority part in anxiety when its a culmination of different respective parts such as evolutionary, child developmental and neurological psychology. Each carries a specific weight in specific problems but they are all different in their own ways.

References:

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (ssris). SSRIs – Tests & treatments | NHS inform. (n.d.). https://www.nhsinform.scot/tests-and-treatments/medicines-and-medical-aids/types-of-medicine/selective-serotonin-reuptake-inhibitors-ssris

Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. (2019, October 5). Helpful for chronic pain in addition to depression. Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/in-depth/antidepressants/art-20044970