Monthly Archives: February 2014

Cerebellum Damage

cerebellum11

Although the brain takes up a small volume of the human body, the impact it has on our functions and processing are hugely significant. The Cerebellum is one such part of the brain that’s impact and function on the body can produce devastation if damaged. Looking at the Cerebellums function, a young man’s struggle with Cerebellum damage and regions of the cerebellum we will explore the importance of this part of the brain.

Located at the back of the brain, the Cerebellum controls a number of bodily movements and visual signals dealing with movement. It provides timing control for the body’s movements making one’s motor function highly reliant on the Cerebellum. Moving objects or personal movements signal the Cerebellum to analyze such events and calculate the speed of these movements, adjusting motor commands according to the movements.

At just sixteen years old, a family friend of mine had his whole life change after damaging his Cerebellum. My childhood summers were spent on a beautiful lake near the Cape of Massachusetts surrounded by family and friends, one of which was Mark. Jumping and diving off of the wooden docks was a common occurrence, however for Mark one jump would drastically change his life. Ambitions of joining the Marines and becoming a fire fighter were changed after a simple dive off a four-foot high dock and into the water. Mark hit his head in such a way that day, that his cerebellum was damaged and his life in jeopardy. Mark spent the next several months in the hospital and his dreams of the Marines were tragically lost as his body movements were significantly delayed. He would often reach for objects but would reach too far and miss the objects entirely. His memory and language had severe impacts and finishing high school took him years to complete due to these obstacles.

The Cerebellum is divided into three regions, the archicerebellum, the palaeocerebellum and the neocerebellum. The archicerebellum is connected to the inner ear and has a large role in balance. Often times when someone has an inner ear infection, it can affect this balance. The paleocerebellum is connected to the spinal cord, which significantly influences muscle and postural activity. The neocerebellum is the largest of all three regions. It coordinates voluntary movements as well as, putting the breaks on one set of muscles while the other is in motion. This helps the body not fall over or convulsively initiate all muscle movements at once.

All in all, the Cerebellum is an important part of both the brain and human body. It plays a significant role in our mobility as humans and damage to it has cruel consequences in many instances.

 

References

“BrainFacts.org.” The Cerebellum, Web. 31 Jan. 2014. http://www.brainfacts.org/brain-basics/neuroanatomy/articles/2012/the-cerebellum/.

Childhood Behavior Disorders

I recently saw a film on childhood behavior disorders.  Out of all the disorders the film discussed, I felt autism was the most interesting one, however the film did give a lot of useful and educational information on other behavior disorders.

In the film, Paul, a fourteen year old boy, had a bout of conduct disorder that eventually led to his removal from home and being placed in a juvenile detention center.  Conduct disorder involves behaviors like fighting, running away from home, stealing, etc.  It affects about 1 out of 12 boys and signs generally begin to appear when the boy is ten or eleven years old. Initially Paul and his mother had a horrible relationship.  They both had tempers so when they would fight it would become a yelling match and get nowhere without reaching any solutions.  Paul’s negative behavior started off small but eventually snowballed until he was arrested for stealing cars.  Conduct disorder results from a neglectful or harsh family life and treatment involves both the parent and the child.  For the section where treatment was talked about, they mentioned a point system that seems to be effective in treating CD where kids get points for good or normal behaviors, simple things like getting out of bed in the morning, eating breakfast, etc.  This seems very mundane, however according to the film, for children like this it is an incentive.  I was surprised by this piece of information because I find it incredible that something as simple as that can be effective in treating conduct disorder.  This lead me to question why this point system was effective at all.  What exactly about it causes children to want the points and fall into a more structured lifestyle?  This is something I wish the film would have explained a little further.

Separation Anxiety was also very interesting to me.  I can understand why a young child would have problems with this disorder, however, according to the film about 3% of children have separation anxiety at some point in their lives.  Although this doesn’t sound like a lot, I personally feel it is. Because of the nature of this disorder, it is not surprising to me to find that it is caused by parental behaviors and reactions.  One thing I found interesting about the segment on separation anxiety was that psychologists believe it is an adaptive behavior.  I can somewhat understand this, however, at this day and age, some of the more intense severe cases seem more detrimental than helpful even at an instinctual level.  I also was a little surprised to hear that separation from the parents is corrective in many cases.

Autism was the most interesting to me because not a lot is known about the disorder, although the field is making progress in learning more about it’s causal factors and treatment.  Another thing I found remarkable is that the boy in the film, Wesley, was never formally taught to read or write, in other words he taught himself.  Initially his parents believed he was retarded because he could not communicate in any understandable way.  However I think the fact that he taught himself to read and write is amazing and displays intelligence.  So is autism a matter of lack of intelligence or an inability to communicate?

“Scientists also have discovered irregularities in the brain structures themselves, such as in the corpus callosum (which facilitates communication between the two hemispheres of the brain), amygdala (which affects emotion and social behavior), and cerebellum (which is involved with motor activity, balance, and coordination). They believe these abnormalities occur during prenatal development.” (Watson, 2007)

In conclusion, childhood behavior disorders seem to be somewhat difficult to treat and diagnose because every child is different.  However, children tend to deviate from the norm, it doesn’t necessarily mean psychopathology. It can simply mean the child isn’t ready to talk.  With proper treatment, the child will more than likely develop into a normal perfectly functioning individual.

 

Works Cited

Autism Basics, Watson, Stephanie (2007) (http://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/autism/autism3.htm)

Is it ‘really’ love?

Have you ever been in love?  How did you know?  Have you ever seen a couple you thought must be in love or told you they in fact were?  Were they really happy and in love or was it something they or you perceived as love?

Is it love?

Love, by definition, means a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person or a feeling of warm personal attachment, as for a parent, child, or friend.

In Psychology the meaning of perception is a single unified awareness derived from sensory processes while a stimulus is present.

When we meet someone and instantly feel the butterflies in our stomach, the sweaty palms, the increased heart rate, the adrenaline coursing through our veins, flushed cheeks, etc. we put those feelings together and define them in our minds as possible love.  We have perceived those physical attributes to mean something different than those of a heart attack, panic attack, stroke, or any multitude of other physical ailments.

So how can we think that we can see love?  We might notice a couple holding hands, kissing, walking side-by-side, talking intimately, or laughing together and perceive THAT as love.  While those small simple acts can be traits of love, they don’t prove it.  Many people walk side-by-side, holding hands, laughing, talking and kissing but aren’t truly in love.  Maybe you, yourself, have pretended those things.  Maybe you’ve wanted it to be love, or didn’t want to tell the truth, didn’t want to hurt someone, or wasn’t sure if it was love or not.

We can perceive most anything to be something it is or isn’t.  We can make almost anything seem what we want it to be.  Our minds are very good at helping us view things how we expect them to be, how we hope they will be.  To see and feel what is real might be the ultimate challenge in life.  I believe this is the path to true love and happiness.  Seeing things for what they really are and not only how we perceive them.

 

Love. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved February 02, 2014, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Love

perception. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved February 02, 2014, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/perception

Operant Conditioning in a Work Environment

During the early stages of my career, I was newly assigned to a role as the kitchen manager of a popular up and coming restaurant.  I struggled in the development of my team considering we had a large amount of turnover in a short time period and needed to find ways to increase motivation in order to maintain stability.  I took on an approach that was similar to operant conditioning, which uses positive reinforces to strengthen positive behavior, and focused on rewarding positive performance with prizes such as gift cards, free meals, free merchandise, etc.  I did not focus on negative behavior and simply used mistakes as a coaching tool in which improvements could be made.

I was learning which rewards worked best with my team and which reinforcements were the most motivating in order to continue to build cohesion and harmony.  During this time, we had changed upper management and our divisional manager had come in to the restaurant as a routine visit.  He took it upon himself to “reward” the entire staff with a dollar raise in order to increase moral.  This had negatively affected the impact that I was trying to make as the team had interpreted the raise as a positive reward and the prizes that I had given seemed insignificant and meaningless.

My initial goal was to start by using small rewards over a long time period to spark the team’s interest and building to bigger prizes ultimately ending in a raise to satisfy and celebrate our achievements together.

The raise given to the team during the beginning phase of our operant conditioning experiment had caused a negative impact.  We could no longer use smaller rewards as reinforcement because they had been given the end result and no longer had a personal goal to achieve which caused our work-related goal to become unimportant.

Life with dyslexia

When I was little I hated reading. I struggle with reading till I was about 8 years old. I was able to reading better at 8, but I still struggled with spelling. I was diagnosed with dyslexia about 3 years ago. As a child I never struggled with Math. I thought there was something wrong with me. Most children could read, and write perfecting. While other kids struggled with math, I understood it. I thought I was a freak as a child.  I hated reading out loud as child because I would mess up words. I would stumble over most of the words, and my teacher would get mad. I went through my entire elementary, middle school, and high school education without knowing I had dyslexia.

Researchers from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered a link between the size of a language-processing area of the brain and poor pre-reading skills in kindergartners. With this research and a new MRI technique psychologist can diagnosis dyslexia earlier. A study was published in the Journal of Neuroscience that uses research showing that adults with poor reading skills have a smaller, less organized arcuate fasciculus.

The researchers also link Broca’s section of the brain, and Wernicke’s area of the brain.  We learned in chapter 2 that the Broca section of the brain is where speech is production. We also learned that Wernicke area of the brain is how we as humans understand both written and spoken language.

According to the article diagnosis of dyslexia may soon be done with a brain scan before children begin to read. Researchers believe that for some dyslexic children, offering early training with phonological skills can help with their reading skills later on. This latest study builds on a 2011 study, also from MIT, which revealed that phonological impairment could cause dyslexia

I hope no other child has to struggle like I did. I wish I was diagnosed earlier instead of my early twenties. I have struggle for long, without knowing what was wrong with me.

 

Reference

 Ellis, Marie. “Dyslexia Could Be Diagnosed by MRI Brain Scan.” Medical News Today. MediLexicon International, 14 Aug. 2013. Web. 02 Feb. 2014.

 

The Mind

The mind is a very extraordinary part of the human body and has many functions. After reading the text, the mind is defined in many different ways. The mind creates cognition, “the mental process such as perception, attention, memory…that are what the mind does” (Goldstein, 2011). I always remember my grandfather telling me “to think and use your mind because you need to stimulate your mind.” As I watch my niece and nephews mature, I began to realize how valuable and remarkable the mind really is; I would describe the mind as one’s own personal gem.

I remember being my niece’s age, six years old and in first grade and think of how my mind has advanced over the years and continues to develop every day. I’ve learned how to understand my perception, and perception of others’ in different situations. I’ve had to use my mind more now than ever before; I’ve learned new languages, felt different emotions, and much more. My perception of life has drastically changed, as it should because I’ve become more exposed to the outside world and experienced much in life than I would’ve at the age of six.

After viewing the text definitions of the mind, the main definition I believe applied most to my personal experiences and exploration is the mind “a system that creates representations of the world so that we can act within it to achieve our goals” (Goldstein, 2011). The mind actively works to act upon and achieve goals, but does not tell us how it is done. As I’ve began to explore many career options, everything from fashion design to pastry chef, psychology was my final decision. Most importantly, the process of achieving this decision is unknown. The mind works in mysterious ways and can “change course” throughout life. I believe the mind will never be able to be fully understood; everyone’s mind is different, some may function normally or abnormally. Now, I’m able to express to my niece the importance of the mind.

References:
Goldstein, B. (2011). Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience. 3rd Edition.Wadsworth, Inc.

Prosopagnosia

What exactly is prosopagnosia? A good start to find out more about this condition would be to start by finding out the roots of the word itself. The word prosopagnosia comes from the Greek prosop for “face” and agnosia for “ignorance.” This is a condition characterized by the impairment in the ability to recognize other individuals’ faces, even for people they know well such as family, coworkers, and friends.  What is interesting about this condition is that people who suffer it have no problem whatsoever recognizing other objects, and have a well functioning cognitive function and memory (Goldstein 30).

So, what causes prosopagnosia?  This condition can be caused by brain damage, more specifically to the occipito- temporal region (Harris).   The impairment of some cognitive systems, like perception or memory, could be what is causing the failure to recognize familiar faces.  As for the neural systems that are affected, Harris explains that prosopagnosia is frequently associated with bilateral damage to the visual cortex, particularly the fusiform gyrus.  Recent studies have suggested that people with developmental prosopagnosia have no lesions on the fusiform gyrus, might have a subtle alteration of the white matter connections in this region.

In case report presented by Bornstein, we can learn about A.G., a man aged 64, who was a clerk. He was well, no problems with his health or anything, until one night he woke up suddenly from his sleep because of sever dizziness that made him unconscious, but that did not affect his daily routine the following day. However, a similar episode happened two years after. He woke up with severe frontal headache, and he had an appointment with a doctor on the same day. On his way there, the headache intensified, so he decided to go back home. During that time, something odd happened: he knew exactly where he was but the streets seemed strange to him. He took the bus he always took home, but he couldn’t recognize the streets, and even had trouble distinguishing men from female passengers.  Once at home, he decided to wash his face, and when he stared at the mirror, the face he saw looked strange.  Days later, when his son visited him, Mr. G did not recognize him until he spoke.  He was then admitted to a hospital, where he explained that he had found difficulty in appreciating the facial features and expressions of people he had known for several years.  Bornstein and Kidron came to a conclusion about this patient’s diagnosis. Since the patient had mentioned that he had lost consciousness twice probably caused by small thrombotic processes, which caused him to strike the right occipital lobe of his brain.

There also have been physiological studies performed in primates that have “identified cells that respond specifically to faces, prompting the search for similar tissue in humans,” as well as  “blood flow studies with recently developed neuroimaging techniques and the electrical activity of the brain that show that this is also the case in humans (Puce). Still, with all these advances, there is still plenty of research to be made to specifically detect what causes prosopagnosia.  The results might not pinpoint to a single area that is associated with this condition, but rather to an association of different areas and neurons that might cause it.

 

Works cited:

BORNSTEIN, B., & KIDRON, D. P. (1959). Prosopagnosia. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 22(2), 124-131. doi:10.1136/jnnp.22.2.124

Harris, A. M., & Aguirre, G. K. (2007). Prosopagnosia. Current Biology : CB, 17(1), R7-R8. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2006.11.04

Puce, A.Face recognition: Psychological and neural aspects. (pp. 5226-5230) Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/B0-08-043076-7/03500-2

How To Entertain a Child for Hours

How to Entertain a Child for Hours

Hand them a M.C. Escher art book to browse through.  As a child, I found myself spellbound by the perplexing images contained within the pages of just such a book.  What was it about the images that held my attention?  I suspect it had something to do with the process of perception.  How so?  Let’s explore.

See image below:

http://worldofillusions.weebly.com/mc-escher-paintings.html

What do you see?  I see 3 figures in the clouds standing on a floating platform, overlooking a balcony.  . It’s perceived as floating because it’s placed in the blue sky and the shading is below.  We try to make sense of things based on what we know or understand about our environment.  “One of the assumptions that we make about our environment is that light comes from above” (PSU WC, 2014, p11).  We pick up clues from what we see and try to interpret it based on what know. So far, the top portion of the image makes sense.

But as my eyes move down I begin to see a new image emerge.  Now I see figures standing on a platform that is firmly planted on the ground.  However, these images do not fit into my understanding of how things naturally occur in the world. “The reason our perception changes is that we use regularities in the environment to build our perceptual experience” (PSU WC, 2014, p11).

So, my eyes move up again to try to figure out how these two pieces fit together.  They appear to be one connected platform because the Gestalt Law of Similarity is at play here.  The law suggests that items such as these gray tiles that are similar in color appear to us as one unique object (Goldstein, 2011, P60).  Furthermore, the tiles are of the same shape and again appear to fit together to form one platform.

But because this scene cannot occur in nature, our mind continues to go back and forth, looking for more clues.  I think that we are trying to reconcile the physical regularities we perceive with the semantic irregularities present.  “Physical regularities are regularly occurring physical properties of the environment” (Goldstein, 2011, P63).   “Applied to perceiving scenes, semantics refers to the meaning of a scene” (Goldstein, 2011, P64).

Perceptions can change as we go through a reasoning process to try to figure out and make sense of what we are seeing (2011, Goldstein, P49).  My child’s mind was captivated by the process of cycling through the mechanisms of perception.  At first glance I see something, but wait, now it’s something else.  Hold on a minute, these two things can’t occur at the same time!  It’s like a riddle without an answer.  Our mind keeps processing to make sense of nonsense.  Therefore, the mechanisms of perception do indeed appear to contribute to the intrigue and mystery of MC Escher’s masterpieces.

 

REFERENCES:

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

Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2014). PSYCH 256 Lesson 3: Perception. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp14/psych256/003/content/04_lesson/05_page.html

Websites: The World of Illusions http://worldofillusions.weebly.com/mc-escher-paintings.html

 

Perception and Action

At any given moment, we are acting in response to our perception of our surroundings. When you swerve to avoid an aggressive driver, you are acting in response to perceiving the car getting too close to you. When you are cooking and suddenly lower the heat, you may be reacting in response to a burning smell. Most of our daily activities are a series of actions in response to our perception of our environment. Although these activities are done without so much as a second thought, there is a great deal going on in our brains to make this happen.

 

As Goldstein (2011, p. 70) noted, Crystal’s act of picking up the coffee cup is not as simple as it seems. First, she had to identify the cup from a tray filled with several other items. Once she identified it, she had to reach out her hand to pick it up while using her perception to avoid knocking the other items over. Once her hand reached the cup, Crystal had to grab hold of the cup while perceiving how to grasp the handle. Next she needed to bring the cup to her mouth while perceiving how full the cup was so that she didn’t spill the coffee. Even the simplest of activities, such as drinking coffee, take processes that people are normally unaware of.

 

Thanks to research that began in the 1980’s, we now know even more about the connection between perceiving objects and how we interact with them (Goldstein, 2011, p. 71). “This research has shown that there are two processing streams in the brain – one involved with perceiving objects, and the other involved with locating and taking action toward these objects.” (Goldstein, 2011, p. 71) These two processing streams are know as the what and where pathways (also referred to as the perception and action pathways), and can be identified in all perception-action examples.

 

Another example of this is driving. When getting in a car, you direct your key (what) into the ignition (where) so that you can turn the key start your car. Once the road is clear and you are ready to drive off (perception), you take your foot off the brake and put the car in drive (action). At the end of the block, you turn your wheel to the right (what) to make a right turn (where). When you see that you are coming close to a stoplight (perception), you start to press on the brakes to ensure your car stops on time (action).

 

The relationship between what we perceive in our surroundings and how we react to them is a part of everything we do. Whether it is our perception or action, there is always one of our mental processing streams at work. From eating to showering to brushing your teeth, even the simplest of acts takes a mental process that goes largely unnoticed.

 

References

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

Wernicke’s Aphasia

Ashley Roomsburg

PSYCH256

Michael Romano

02/01/2014

WERNICKE’S APHASIA

Wernicke’s Aphasia effects many people who have incurred damage to the Wernicke’s area of the brain. This area of the brain is the center of localized function of speech and understanding other’s speech. Patients with Wernicke’s Aphasia can often speak with proper grammar, but most of their speech is nonsense. There are often “made up” words and words that do not make sense within the context on the sentence. Patients also are unable to repeat what they have previously said. They cannot properly repeat or understand the speech of others. This paper will discuss a patient diagnosed with Wernicke’s Aphasia that was studied at the University of Wisconsin (“What is Wernicke’s Aphasia?”).

 

The patient studied within the video has obvious trouble making understandable speech. This becomes apparent when the patient attempts to do math in order to answer the question of “How long were you a dentist?”. He starts adding numbers that do not make sense, as well as creating imaginary operations that do not exist. This is a great example of the nonsense speech associated with Wernicke’s Aphasia (Schnupp, et. al).

 

In the recording, it is also apparent that the patient is having trouble understanding the speech of the researcher. He often repeats questions he hears from the researcher, which can be an attempt for him to have a better understanding of what she is saying. The patient also is unable to process some of the questions to come to a logical answer to them. When he is asked where he lives, he repeats the question with great difficulty. The patient then gives an illogical answer of “around here” while pointing to various parts of his face (Schnupp, et. al).

 

The patient also seems to make up words during the interview. While answering many of the questions, he is able to form complete sentences but mixes real words with made up words. Many of them are hard to distinguish, especially when the patient begins to trail off trying to figure out how many years he had worked as a dentist. He will say a number correctly, then add a word that is not within the bounds of the english language. The patient seems to understand to himself what he is saying, but it is not apparent to those that are around him (Schnupp, et. al).

 

Wernicke’s Aphasia is highly damaging to the localized function area in the brain that handles comprehensible speech and the ability to comprehend the speech of others. The studies done of patients with damage to this area of the brain all produce similar results, which show the significance of the localization of function within the brain. Now that researchers know which area these symptoms arise from, they are able to begin researching how to repair the minds of person with Wernicke’s Aphasia. These types of studies are great ways to discover more about the brains inner-workings and the importance of having a fully functional brain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References:
Schnupp, J., Nelken, E., & King, A. (n.d.). Auditory Neuroscience. Auditory Neuroscience. Retrieved February 1, 2014, from http://auditoryneuroscience.com/wernicke_aphasia

What is Wernicke’s Aphasia?. (2012, January 31). The Aphasia Center. Retrieved February 1, 2014, from http://www.theaphasiacenter.com/2012/01/what-is-wernickes-aphasia/