B.R. is a good friend of mine from work. As a child he endured two brain surgeries, as an adult  he suffers from dyslexia, occasional seizures and what I believe could be an example of a Neuropsychological dissociation. We work in a grocery store and he is repeatedly being reprimanded for performing some of his duties more slowly than others, and for stocking items to the shelves upside down instead of right-side up. I have mentioned to management that perhaps he has problems recognizing the difference, he says it must be from his dyslexia, management believes he is lazy and inattentive. I shall explore some research in order to shed some light on what could be my friend B.R’s problem.

Dissociations in Neuropsychology are situations in which one function is absent while another function is present (Goldstein B. 2011) While I have not performed any experiments with B.R in order to determine whether he truly suffers from a dissociation I have observed him for some time and noticed some similarities between him and D.F. the woman Milner and Goodale studied after her brain was damaged from carbon monoxide poisoning. She had trouble matching the orientation of a card to a line when asked to do so, however when asked to mail the card she was holding she could match orientations. This indicated that there where different mechanisms for orientation and for action. My friend B.R. seems to have a similar problem. He is often seen searching for an items home location longer than it would take normally and while stocking the shelf (a similar action to sliding the card into a mail slot) he does not notice if the item is upside down or right side up, often these items are simple boxes with a picture on the front and are easily stocked upside down. However most clerks notice the discrepancy and correct the situation. (Goldstein B. 2011)

Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is characterized by difficulties with accurate and or fluent word recognition and poor spelling and decoding abilities. I see nothing in this definition of dyslexia that would indicate B.R. would have trouble determining whether something is upside down or not, but instead would account for troubles with reading, writing, and numbers mostly. Dyslexia does slow down the process of reading and symbol recognition which would slow down his being able to properly identify the correct item locations while stocking. An essential part of the stocking process is reading the item name and finding the correct shelf space based on the items tag, quick reading is an essential part of the process (Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity)

Spatial Orientation Phenomenon is a condition in which a person’s visual system does not properly flip the image taken in resulting in the person’s visual field being upside down. While I do not believe this is what is wrong with B.R. I thought it important to explore conditions that could cause and extreme version of what B.R. might be experiencing. If Bojana Danilovic can see the entire would upside down and be diagnosed by experts at Harvard with this condition, than is it not possible that B.R. can have trouble with recognizing images that are upside down. Perhaps not as extreme or as prevalent as Bojana’s condition but still a real possibility. (Smith, 2013)

In conclusion B.R has trouble with reading letters and numbers from his dyslexia which slows him down while performing his job function, and while management believes his frequency of miss-stocked items is due to inattention I believe that his childhood brain surgeries may have resulted in some damage to areas in his brain that have resulted in an inability to notice theses upside down images. He sees the mistake and his brain simply just does not register the difference.

References

Goldstein, B. (2011). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience (3rd ed.). Wadsworth

Hills, S. (2013, March 14). The woman who sees the world upside down: Rare brain condition means council worker sees everything the wrong way up | Daily Mail Online. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2293692/The-woman-sees-world-upside-Rare-brain-condition-means-council-worker-sees-wrong-way-up.html

What Is Dyslexia? * The Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://dyslexia.yale.edu/whatisdyslexia.html

good friend of mine from work as a child had two brain surgeries performed upon him. Now as an

“In the arms of the angel, fly away from here” (McLachlan, 1997).

All it took were those words, a few notes from a piano, and puppy’s eyes peering out from a filthy cage, and I was a goner. The ASPCA commercial featuring Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” haunted my nights for years: every time I heard the first few chords of that song or saw the pain in those eyes, I would have to leave the room or risk turning into a pile of tears and despondent wailing. The sight of a dog or cat in pain was too much for me to bear, and it was the mirror neurons in my brain that made me feel their pain as though it was my own.

“From this dark cold hotel room and the endlessness that you fear” (McLachlan, 1997).

Mirror neurons are parts of the brain that respond to observed actions as though it were performing those actions itself. They were first discovered when a team of scientists noticed by accident that certain neurons in the premotor cortex of a macaque monkey fired not only when it performed a manual action but also when it saw the researchers perform that same action (di Pellegrino et al., 1992; Goldstein, 2011). These mirror neurons can respond to both the sight of an action, such as a researcher holding a ball or a kitten hiding in a ball, as well as a sound associated with that action, like the cracking of a peanut shell or the cry of a puppy (di Pellegrino et al., 1992; Goldstein, 2011). In this way, the outer world becomes represented and internalized by our brain.

“You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent reverie” (McLachlan, 1997).

If reality is a projection of the impulses sent from our sensory receptors to our brain, then the actions of others can be represented by mirror neurons. This means humans and other primates understand the actions of others through mirror neurons, and only through understanding what others do can a social world emerge (Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2004). In humans, mirror neurons respond primarily to the actions of another’s hands, feet, or mouth, and by firing in response to observing these actions, a person can partake in social learning such as imitation, developing language, and empathy (Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2004; Corballis, 2009; Ramachandran, 2009). In short, mirror neurons allow us to imagine ourselves in another’s shoes–or fur–and provide a link between others in the outer world and our inner selves.

“You’re in the arms of the angel, may you find some comfort here” (McLachlan, 1997).

Mirror neurons bridge the gap between perception and action, between ourselves and others, and are thought to be instrumental in learning, empathy, and turning into a college student into an incoherent, gibbering mess at 3 in the morning. Each time I saw that ASPCA commercial, my mirror neurons responded to the pained actions of those animals–just like de Pellegrino’s macaque monkey responding to the experimenters’ actions–and acted as though I experienced it myself. My mirror neurons learned to respond to not just the image of suffering but the McLachlan song playing alongside it–just like monkeys reacting to the sound of peanuts cracking. If you’ve been up late and turned on the television within the past eight years, I venture you’ve seen this commercial as well, and you have your mirror neurons to thank at the twinge of pain at the mention of the commercial or, more likely, the remembered sound of these lyrics. And now, you can change the channel–or rather, blog post.

References

Corballis, M.C. (2009). Mirror neurons and the evolution of language. Brain and Language, 112.1, 25-35. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/science/article/pii/S0093934X09000376

di Pellegrino, G., Fadiga, L., Fogassi, L., Gallese, V., & Rizzolatti, G. (1992). Understanding motor events: A neurophysiological study. Experimental Brain Research, 91, 176-180. Retrieved from http://sk8es4mc2l.scholar.serialssolutions.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/?sid=google&auinit=G&aulast=Di+Pellegrino&atitle=Understanding+motor+events:+a+neurophysiological+study&id=doi:10.1007/BF00230027&title=Experimental+brain+research&volume=91&issue=1&date=1992&spage=176&issn=0014-4819

Goldstein, E. Bruce. (2011). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research, and Everyday Experience. 3rd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

McLachlan, S. (1997). Angel. On Surfacing [CD]. Santa Clara, CA: Arista. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/i1GmxMTwUgs

Ramachandran, V. (2009). The neurons that shaped civilization [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/vs_ramachandran_the_neurons_that_shaped_civilization?language=en

Rizzolatti, G., & Craighero, L. (2004). The mirror-neuron system. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 27, 169-192. Retrieved from http://www.annualreviews.org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/doi/full/10.1146/annurev.neuro.27.070203.144230

Have you ever found yourself complaining, “I tried calling several times, and never got to talk to an actual human being!” I’m pretty sure that you didn’t follow-up by complimenting that company’s use of artificial intelligence. When asked to define “artificial intelligence, many people think of popular movies such as “Short Circuit”, “Wall-E”, or the movie entitled “A.I.” Although the movie versions of A.I. are not too far off, the concept of artificial intelligence actually runs deeper than Johnny 5 needing more input. Merriam-Webster dictionary has defined artificial intelligence as “machines having the ability to seem like they have human intelligence,” or to “copy intelligent human behavior.” I’m going to now discuss the early history of artificial intelligence, give a couple examples of Man vs. Machine, and examine the versatility of artificial intelligence and how it’s paved the way for the world we live in now.

The artificial intelligence we are familiar with today can actually be traced back to the 1950’s with a mathematics professor from Dartmouth College named John McCarthy.   Computers had been introduced at this time, but were still very rare, expensive, and not widely used. They looked complicated, made funny noises, and took up a good chunk of the office space. McCarthy had a completely different vision of what the capabilities of computers could be. In 1956, he held a ten-week conference to explain his theory of how a computer could succeed in having human intelligence. It was during this time that McCarthy was credited with the first use of the term “artificial intelligence.” He described it as “making a machine behaves in ways that would be called intelligent if a human were so behaving,” (McCarthy et al., 1955; Goldstein., 2011. pp 14). Soon, others, such as Herb Simon and Alan Newell, took up with A.I., using their own program called logic theorist. This basically took the idea of how computers processed information, and applied human reasoning behind it. In conferences that followed, the discovery of artificial intelligence began to change how we studied humans. Instead of studying how humans behaved, people starting analyzing how the human mind works. This new revolution gave us the birth of Cognitive Psychology!!

Next, I want to give you a couple of examples of how computer intelligence battled against human intelligence. In 1997, Garry Kasparov considered by many the greatest chess player ever, took his talents and ego and accepted a challenge from computer maker IBM. IBM had created “Deep Blue,” a computer that was designed to defeat Kasparov, and the computer succeeded at this task! Kasparov felt cheated, and believed that someone must have been communicating with the computer to “coach,” all of its moves. What Kasparov didn’t know was that Deep Blue was capable of analyzing over 200 million positions per second (McPhee, Baker, Siemaszko; New York Daily News, 2015), and was able to capitalize on all of Kasparov’s mistakes. Another experiment in 2011 can be found on the famous game show “Jeopardy.” This time, another IBM creation “Watson,” was introduced to the world with a task to defeat two of the most successful contestants that have ever competed on the show. Watson faced different challenges than if it was playing a chess game. With the game’s format, Watson’s struggles seemed apparent in its reaction time to the questions. Watson seemed to fail against the one human element of anticipation.

Not only has artificial intelligence been essential in today’s technology, but it has also paved the way for advancements in other fields, such as computer science, neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy. We have benefited from the increasing computational power of computers, and also from more advanced studies of our minds and how we process information. There has been an even wider range of artificial intelligence, from various government applications, to teaching students in our classrooms. Information is at our fingertips quicker than it has ever been before. Resources are now made available to us at an astonishingly rapid rate.

I’m sure most of us are fascinated with “Siri,” and we would all be lost without the voice on our GPS navigation, and certainly life wouldn’t be as exciting if we actually got to talk to a human being on the phone in the customer service department. And sure, I recognize that there have been some compelling arguments that challenge the use of artificial intelligence. Traditionalists may believe that the importance of human development is to learn from other humans. I wouldn’t entirely disagree, but I would also like to challenge those nay-sayers and ask them not to use Google for a month. Let’s see how that works out.

The way people percept the information around in environment could be useful but tricky. Through the two perception ways of top-down and bottom-up, people could collect information around them as well as represent the information according to gained knowledge and memory (Lesson 3 Commentary, Penn State, 2015). However, the top-down and bottom-up perception ways could also mislead people. A typical instance could be my experience yesterday with a cricket.

Yesterday had a great weather in my city. I was relaxing in a park and sitting on a bench on grass. I sat there for a while, and suddenly I found there seemed to be something moved a little in the grass. There was no wind, so I was kind of sure there could be something. Therefore I moved closer slowly as well as stared at the spot, trying to figure out the thing. As I held my breath a little and moved closer, I found there was a cricket in the grass. It was not far from the bench and had the length about half of my thumb. It was totally green and hardly moved so I did not notice at all even though I sat on the bench for a long time.

referred from http://www.redbubble.com/people/jknowles/works/7098859-cri-cri-oil-painting-of-a-cricket-in-the-grass

However, it was when the cricket moved that I found its existence. That was the hint from the common fate law. According to the commentary (Penn State, 2015), common fate states that people “group objects based on movement.” During the period the cricket stayed quiet, I did not notice it. But afterward when it moved I noticed there was something in the grass and tried to figure it out. Furthermore, to me Gestalt Grouping was not the only misleading part. Top-down perception way misled me a little as well.

I have been to the park to relax for many times. Every time I sat on that bench for a while since the scene there was pretty. Therefore I was quite familiar with the place in my memory. Hence that could be a possibility that I was misled by my memory during top-down perception. It could be possible that when I perceived the environment around, I represented things base on previous memory instead of re-representing things on a new cycle. Therefore I thought there was nothing in the grass just as it was before, failed to find the existence of the cricket.

Although sometimes our perception could be tricky, it is also useful and essential to every-day life. According to top-down perception, bottom-up perception and Gestalt Grouping laws, perception helps us to live in a simpler life. Just to notice it could be tricky sometimes and be more careful every day!

Reference

The Pennsylvania State University. (2015). Lesson 3: Perception. PSYCH 256: Introduction to Cognitive Psychology. Retrieved from:

https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/fa15/psych256/001/content/04_lesson/04_page.html

https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/fa15/psych256/001/content/04_lesson/05_page.html

The cricket photo is from http://www.redbubble.com/people/jknowles/works/7098859-cri-cri-oil-painting-of-a-cricket-in-the-grass

It was April 3, 2012 4 am when I awoke to sharp pains in my lower abdominal stomach and my lower back. These pains were those of labor pains therefore knowing, this I knew I had to wake my husband right away and get to the hospital. Overwhelmed with joy and anxiety we woke our oldest child and called my sister as we headed out of the door to the hospital, we packed my daughter and everything that was essentially going to be needed at the hospital and we drove off into the misty early morning due filled air.

Okay now that the picture has been painted for you, I will now rewind back to October 13, of 2008 at 2 pm at Lake forest Hospital in Lake Forest Illinois  , a star was born.  My fist and oldest was born weighing in at 3 LBS 7 ounces, born 3 months early, you could see the terrifying look my husband and I both had as they rushed my baby girl from the room to the intensive care unit the Nicu. Such a precious moment turned into a month of worry and downheartedness . And a month of uncertainty; we were unsure if our daughter would live to see the days ahead. Moving on,So as we now fast forward she is now the smartest little intellectual 1st grader who loves to run and tumble read and write, and she is a light that shines so bright in the people she knows. Healthy and ever so inquisitive.

Maybe you can begin to see were I am heading with this, if we go back to the beginning of my blog; we can see were I began telling you about the birth of our second daughter on April 3,2012, this is were my Top-Down Processing began to kick in during pregnancy with her. A Lot of the times I do not believe we truly appreciate how our past experiences truly and undoubtedly play an extravagant part in our present day lives. This is true, in my past experience having a child born prematurely systematically came back to my  cognitive thought process, and I began to assimilate every positive thought that would end in a healthy birth for my child from my mind. By doing this I allowed my previous exposure to dictate the outcome for this birth.  The context of my situation looked the same, however something was different all I had to do was put the pieces together, what was to happen was going to happen, all we could do was pray and try to enjoy the journey.

So lets hit the  fast forward button again just a little, annnnd were back to April 3,2012 another star is born weighing in at 8 LBS 3 ounces WOW right, not to mention she was born on her due date as well. So now one can see how Top Down Processing played a role in eluding my perceptions in my situation, my thought process was obscured leaving me with what I thought was an inevitable outcome. But so glad to say what I perceived to be my reality was a figment created by what I already knew from my past exposure.

The concept of perception is broad and can cover many topics. One of the most fundamental tools of perception is called proprioception. Proprioception is defined as the awareness of ones body. This sense allows humans to move their limbs and navigate through space but more importantly it allows them to calculate how much force to apply to pick up an object or just how far away an object is.
The ability to make these calculations is facilitated by sensory receptors that are found in human tissue such as muscles, joints and tendons. Proprioception is so important that without it, a person would not be able to function. The loss of proprioception not only effects the ability of locomotion through time and space but also the sens of self or the mind. In The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, Oliver Sacks speaks of a patient, Christina, who had lost her proprioceptive sense “she continues to feel with the continuing loss of proprioception, that her body is dead, not real, not hers- she cannot appropriate it to herself. She can find no words for this state” ( Sacks pg.50)
The proprioceptive sense, sometimes referred to as the 6th sense or the hidden sense, has two components, neither of which we are aware of on a regular basis. The first is the ability to sense ones extremities when still. This part of proprioception is the part that allows humans to be able to sense where their limbs are at any time. Upon waking in the morning, the brain is able to sense that, perhaps, one foot is hanging off the bed or an arm is under the pillow. The second part of the proprioceptive sense is the ability to be aware of the movement of the extremities. This component allows for the calculations necessary to move, to walk. Without this second component it would be hard to “tell” the limbs how far an object is or how much force to apply to pick it up. Sacks says this about Christina, a patient who he called “The Disembodied Woman”, ” Standing was impossible- unless she looked down at her feet. She could hold nothing in her hands, and they ‘wandered’- unless she kept an eye on them. When she reached out for something, or tried to feed herself, her hands would miss, or overshoot wildly, as if some essential control or coordination was gone” (Sacks pg.43)  Unfortunately there is no cure for proprioceptive deficincies. Christina had to learn to do everyday tasks using her sense of sight, she still has a feeling of disembodiment and her quality of life is not what it once was.
Christina’s case is rare but studying cases like hers will hopefully tell scientists and researchers more about proprioception. The study of the brain is still very much in its infancy, hopefully in the years to come research will find solutions for people like Christina. For more information on Interesting cases like these, read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat” By Oliver Sacks. It is by far one of my favorite books and a lot of the conditions tie in with the concepts of Cognative Psychology.

Proprioception. (n.d.). Retrieved September 12, 2015, from http://cirrie.buffalo.edu/encyclopedia/en/article/337/

Sacks, O. (1985). The man who mistook his wife for a hat and other clinical tales. New York: Summit Books.

When I think of perception, and how it effects daily life, I think of Gestalt psychology.  The same length of lines just placed in different configurations changes how we see things in both shapes and sizes.  I think this concept also applies to marketing strategies when looking at the appearance of products and what might sell faster/better.  I am personally guilty of using perception hypothesis when deciding on what containers to use in my product line.

I will share an example with you on how I use perception to help me decide what containers to use in my line.  When I was getting ready to add body polishes to my product line, I wanted to chose a jar that would catch someone’s eye (because of the size) and still give them a great value for the price.  I had looked at many jar styles and had narrowed it down to two 4oz size jars.  One was a traditional jar and one was called a low profile jar.  After ordering a sample of each jar style, it was easy to see which jar I was going to use.  Both jars were the same color (clear) and made of the same materials.  The ultimate question I asked myself when trying to decide what jar to use was, “Would I pay $6.00 for this?”.  The low profile jar looks as if it holds more product than the traditional jar but they both hold only 4oz of product.

I always consider what people might think or perceive about my products when I think about the containers I use.  I have found that this can increase sales because it gives an illusion that they are getting a lot more product than just 4oz’s and they don’t hesitate to pay the price I’m asking.  This is similar to the Muller-Lyer Illusion experiment we did.  Does adding “wings” to a line change how we perceive it?  The answer is yes.  I feel that choosing the right containers will drive sales based on how people perceive the value they are getting.  I know I am guilty of looking at items this way when I shop.  I could be shopping for shampoo and one bottle really catches my eye.  It looks bigger than all of the others and the price is just a little more than the one beside it.  After looking at the fluid ounce weight, I discover they are the same size and the one beside the big bottle is cheaper.  If I hadn’t taken the time to look closer at the bottles, my impulse would have been to buy the larger bottle even though it was more expensive because my perception was that it had more product for the money.

After reading the chapters on perception, I can really see how our mind can misinterpret information based upon how things are arranged.  I find it interesting that two things with the same quantity (lines or volume) can look like a different result just by tweaking one little thing.  I think just relying on our perception could be dangerous.  Just because we perceive something at first glance, doesn’t mean that is actually the whole picture.

Cuandonoconcesbienunidiomasetehacemuydificildecifrardondecomienzayterminaunapalabra.

Have you ever heard people converse excitedly in a foreign language? Ever tried to learn a second language? If so you may be familiar with the above sentence, at least that is what we perceive. Know what language it is? You guessed it! Spanish. Can you accurately pinpoint where each word starts and ends? Possibly, if you have taken Spanish in school. However if you are visiting Puerto Rico and you are not a native Spanish speaker chances are you will not be able to distinguish when words begin or end when listening to the locals chat although they can understand each other just fine. At this point you may be thinking, “It’s impossible! How can they even understand each other? I’d never be able to learn Spanish!” When all of a sudden someone says “Hola! Como estas?”, finally, words you recognize! “Maybe” you think, “Maybe I can learn Spanish after all.”

So, what just happened? According to Goldstein you just engaged in speech segmentation, an example of top-down processing in which prior knowledge enables you to tell when one word ends and another begins (Goldstein, 2011). While reading our textbook this was a concept that really stood out to me as I have been trying to learn French these past few months.

Recently I moved to Belgium and I am living in the French speaking region. Naturally I have a great desire to learn the language so as to make our new life here a bit easier. However I was extremely disappointed to find out that I couldn’t understand a lick of French. I could read it just fine because it is very similar to Spanish but when someone spoke to me I had no clue what they were saying. I would only hear a long sentence of gibberish. In other words, I could not engage in top-down processing (speech segmentation) because I had no prior knowledge of the language.

Having lived in Belgium now for a little over six months I have noticed something remarkable. Slowly, but surely, I am starting to be able to tell when one word ends and another begins. More and more words are starting to stand out to me and I can even listen to the radio and understand some of what the local news is reporting. Today for example, I was able to order in a local restaurant and almost completely understand what the waiter was asking me! I haven’t been able to take any classes so what changed? My experience. Simply put, I have gained more knowledge by reading and trying to communicate with the locals. Now I am able to receive the same stimuli I was receiving several months ago but because of my experience I can now perceive it differently through to top-down processing.

In case you were wondering the top sentence should read:

Cuando no conoces bien un idioma se te hace muy dificil decifrar donde comienza y termina una palabra.

Which means: When you don’t know a language very well it is hard to figure out where one word ends and another starts.

References:

Goldstein, E. Bruce. (2011). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting, research and everyday experience. Third Edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.