Author Archives: Megan E Butter

How Do We Pick The Wrong Person?

bp & rc Eye Witness testimony is key for the criminal justice system, but sometimes it has it’s down sides. I had to watch an eye witness video for my psychology class and it was about a woman named Jennifer who was raped, but then sent the wrong man, Ronald Cotton, to jail for 11 years. She went to the police and was given photos of suspects, and Cotton was one of those photos. After 5 minutes of studying them she picked Cotton as the man, and then during the photo lineup, she picked Cotton again. After she identified Cotton twice, they told her that he was the same man that she picked in the photos, and Jennifer thought, “I got him.” That reinforcement was key. During the trial Jennifer looked Cotton in the eye, pointed at him and said, that’s him, he’s the one who raped me. Cotton was them sent to jail for 50 years to life. Years later another inmate who looked similar to Cotton came to the jail, his name was Bobby Poole. People started to mistake Cotton for Poole in the prison. Finally Cotton heard that Poole was overheard saying that he was the one who raped Jennifer and another one a few years ago. Cotton got a retrial with Poole in the room, but Jennifer still identified Cotton as her rapist. Finally 11 years later Cotton gets another retrial and this time, he has DNA on his side. The sperm showed that Poole was indeed Jennifer’s rapist and Cotton was innocent all along. How could Jennifer sit in the same courtroom with both men, the one who raped and the one she accused of rape and still get them confused? How could she pick someone who wasn’t even her rapist and accuse him of raping her? Part of this was that Poole was not in the picture pool of suspects, so Jennifer naturally picked the guy who looked almost identical to her rapist. Then during the lineup when she picked the same man again she was reinforced that this was her guy so during both trials without DNA she always picked Cotton because he was the guy she was picking all along.

It’s scary to think that sometimes our own memory can play tricks on us, and that it isn’t always reliable. Eye witness testimony is used in courts because it has an impact on the jury. It is someone saying they were there and this is what happened. Just picture yourself in that courtroom with Jennifer so confidently pointing at Cotton saying this is the man who raped me.   “Memory is malleable, full of holes, easily contaminated and susceptible to suggestion” (CBSNEWS, 2009). When looking at lineup photos of suspects if you are 100% sure the suspect is in those pictures memory recognition will kick in, in 5 to 6 seconds. When Jennifer looked at those photos it took her 5 minutes to pick out Cotton. That there is a key part as to why Cotton was not the rapist, because Jennifer did not instantly recognize him in the photos. Now what they are starting to do at some police stations is have a computer system do the lineup and show only one photo at a time. Also during the lineup they want the person conducting it to have no idea who the suspect is so they don’t have an influence on the victim. Jennifer was reinforced at the lineup that Ronald Cotton was indeed her man, by one of the officer’s on the case.

Our memory can play mind games on us. Sometimes when we recall certain event we may change a few details and not even realize it. Our memory is never perfect and can be tricked based on other factors. There was a study conducted at Stanford where participants had to look at a car crash and whenever the word “smash” was brought up they said that the participants said they saw broken glass on the ground when they did not. (Stanford). Multiple factors can influence and that is something that needs to be taken to heart in courtrooms across America.

Work Cited:

http://agora.stanford.edu/sjls/Issue%20One/fisher&tversky.htm

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/eyewitness-how-accurate-is-visual-memory/5/

1,2,3, Repeat, 1,2,3, Repeat: Superstitions

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Right shinguard first, then left, then right sock then left. Same seat on the bus, same songs on repeat, same color pre wrap. This was my routine for every high school soccer game I ever played. It’s not much but it was my routine, my superstitions. I also kept my same banged up cleats that I had since 7th grade because I didn’t want to get new ones senior year and then not play how I wanted to, how I was expected to, they were my lucky cleats. Most athletes and sports fan have their version of superstitions, that they carry out of game day. If your favorite team wins then you might do the exact same thing every game day, or wear the same jersey, hat, or t-shirt every time they play. Athletes sometimes don’t wash certain things if their team is on a win streak (sometimes it’s underwear, but hey if you winning, to each it’s own). But why do we do it. Wearing a certain article of clothing or going the same route to the rink every day has no effect on how we play, but yet we think in our minds that if we do just the slightest thing different, the world will come crashing down.

Superstitious behaviors often include rituals (an action that is repeated because of “symbolic nature”) to give us the outcome we desire (Whitbourne, 2014).  This explains why we do certain things. Since rituals are symbolic, athletes and fans do them to symbolize winning, but why does this at times ludacris behavior make us think that? Whitbourne explains that it has something to do with operant conditioning. “When an action causes a desired consequence, we repeat the action,” (Whitbourne, 2014). An example would be if you’re taking a test and use a pencil designed with soccer balls on it, and then get a 100% on that test, for every other test, you’re going to want to use that same pencil because it was part of that 100% and you think if you use a different one, you will do far worse.

There was a study done at Kent University where they wanted to find out, “the notion that when people are unsure about an outcome, they try to find a way to control that outcome,” (Whitbourne, 2014). They said that one reason could be since the fans themselves can’t control the outcome, they believe their superstitions can, and that in return will reduce their anxiety. It makes them feel a since if control in an uncontrollable situation. Wilson goes on to say that the sports fans who identify strongly with a local team are the ones who engage in the superstitious behavior because they are invested in the team, win or lose. They feel that their activities can help the team win. I know during the Penguins Playoff run I wore only my Malkin jersey because they won the first round and I thought if I changed it that they would lose (which they ended up doing anyways).

A CBS article says that over 50% of Americans believe in superstitions (knock on wood, don’t open an umbrella indoors, good luck charms, etc), while only 40% believe in evolution (CBS, 2012).  “The mind just registered that when he put his socks on that particular day, something good happened. And therefore that becomes hard to ignore,” (CBS, 2012). Gilovich says our brains our wired to believe our superstitions because of “cause and effect.” Another scientist, Whitson also says that superstitions help reduce anxiety when we are not in control of the situation.

So overall while these superstitions may not actually work they do reduce anxiety. They are like a placebo, they don’t actually work in a scientific sense, but  you believe that they do and it helps.

Work Cited:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201410/the-psychology-behind-our-common-superstitions

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/superstitions-why-you-believe/

The Story of a Drug Addict told by his Daughter

 

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A hot topic lately has been the legalization of marijuana in a few states across the U.S. The group that seems to most support this issue is young adults, like us. While I know the benefits of medical marijuana and am totally for that, I am not so sure about it being legal for recreational use. I grew up in a family where drugs were not an option and not even allowed a second a thought. I was lucky if I saw my dad once a month growing up because he was in and out of rehab dealing with his drug abuse struggling to stay alive. You don’t know the struggle as kid and every time you hear the phone ring you run to hoping it’s your dad, just so you know that he is alive, and only to listen in on your mother’s conversation with his sister saying he’s back in the hospital, they thought he was a goner for sure this time.

Addiction is a brain DISEASE (a lot of people say it isn’t but it is), because the drugs change the brain’s structure and how it works. Addiction is different for everybody some people could go years without suffering but for others they can get hooked the first time. When you use drugs, you are receiving higher levels of dopamine in your brain, which causes pleasure and then makes your brain crave more. In Maslow’s Pyramid Hierarchy food and water are the basic needs for survival, but when you become an addict, you can add drugs to the list. Since your brain’s structure is changed you also have changes in your judgement, normality, thinking, and behavior (Drug Abuse and Addiction, 2014). I can attest to this because the last time I talked to my dad, he was high on the phone and I could within a second. At times he wasn’t making sense, and was talking about throwing some kind of party and having the whole family (including his ex wife and son who did not speak to him), there. Also calling your daughter while high is probably not the best decision you should make. When you are an addict, it is hard to admit it. Everyone around you will see but yourself because your mind will tell you others because it depends so much on the drugs. It took my dad a while to admit that he had a problem again, and it took him even longer to admit it to his kids.

Marijuana is from the Cannabis Sativa hemp plant and is a mixture of green and brown dried flowers, seeds and leaves from the plant. The chemical that makes it addictive (yes it is addictive people) is tetrahyrdocannabinol, otherwise know as THC. THC goes after the cannobid receptors in our brain and over activates them causing our coordination to be impaired, not being to think/problem solve normally, and having troubling learning and remembering. Marijuana has a similar effect as drinking does, meaning when you’ve had too much you better not drive. The common user of marijuana is teens/young adults, and they are the ones who it affects the most. When you smoke weed daily, you affect your attention span, capability to learn and verbal communication skills (and all for the worse might I add). Teen Marijuana users are also more likely to be depressed and have suicidal thoughts (Above The Influence, 2014). Given all the facts it is totally up to you if you wanna roll up a joint or not, I personally don’t do it, but do not judge others that do because it is a real problem that society does not take seriously.

I feel like Drug Addiction is kind of like the Monty Hall Problem, no one knows why it happens. Drug Addiction is like the the 3 doors, the two goats represent you becoming a drug addict and the car is the prize, when you can smoke all day long and not become addicted. Monty opens one door and it’s a goat. You either switch and have a better chance at the car (or not being an addict) or stay on your path keep your door. A lot of Americans stay on the path they are on and don’t go for the other door when they are addicted because they are already in too deep and just don’t get the concept that when you switch, you win.

Work Cited

http://www.helpguide.org/articles/addiction/drug-abuse-and-addiction.htm

http://abovetheinfluence.com/drugs/marijuana/#facts

http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugs-brains-behavior-science-addiction/drug-abuse-addiction

 

“Savior Siblings”

PGD I’m sure many of you have seen, “My Sister’s Keeper” but if not I’ll catch you up on the basic plot of the movie. The girl in the family had a type of cancer where she needed bone marrow and no one in her family was a match (mom, dad, and brother, Jesse), so the doctor suggested that the couple have another baby, and he could make it where she would be the perfect bone marrow match for her sister. Fast forward a few years later and the movie takes on a hollywood plot where the “savior sibling” sues her parents for the rights to her own body because she doesn’t want to do it anymore. I personally loved this movie, but thought that there is no way this plot could be true. Do people really have a child and mutate it’s genes so that they can be a medical match for his/her sick brother or sister? The answer to that is yes.

There is a big ethical debate over whether PGD is the right thing to do when having a child because you are essentially, “playing God,” but I won’t get in to that here, we’re just gonna take a glimpse at the science behind the whole process.

PGD stands for “Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis.” That is when you have kid using IVF, instead of the natural way and doctors look at the embryos and study the genetics in them before plantation into the uterus. The doctors stick a needle in the woman’s vagina to retrieve the egg from the ovary and then fertilize it with the male sperm. After 3 days they do a biopsy of the embryo and then choose the best ones to implant into the mom to be’s uterus. (Penn Medicine, 2014).

PGD is not just used to have “savior siblings,” a lot of times it is used when a couple doesn’t want to pass on a gene that they carry. If a woman has the BRCA1 gene she can use PGD so that she won’t pass that gene on to her unborn child. I feel that PGD can kind of be like the Texas Sharp Shooter scenario, the doctors do all these tests on the embryos looking for anything abnormality with, and I’m sure that they find at least one thing wrong in at least on of the embryo’s. I know this isn’t quite to that extent but it might help i you look at it that way to see the plus sides of PGD.

Another thing that PGD can do, that is extremely controversial is give the option of choosing what gender child you would like to have. You can use PGD for sex selection if there is a risk you are going to pass on a gene that only affects one gender if they get it. For this to happen, you go through the same procedure as above, but the doctors then exam which chromosomes are making up a male embryo and which ones are making up a female embryo. 1-3 embryos of the choice sex are then implanted into the uterus. There are some risks to this, the embryos can be damaged in the process, there may only be the unwanted sex’s embryo’s and this procedure is not 100% effective.  This here defeats the purpose of natural selection because you are choosing what sex you want. It may sound absurd but it helps save the lives of countless children who could be born with terrible diseases everyday. (PGD, 2014).

A lot of woman that use PGD are of advanced maternal age (over 35), have had a series of miscarriages, and have had previous implantation failures. PGD has only been around since the 1990’s so it is relatively new, and all of the embryo’s that go unused are sometimes donated to science.

In a case study of PGD, there was a family who had a daughter who suffered from, Fanconi anemia (her body couldn’t produce enough red blood cells), and the parents had another child, a son who helped save his older sister’s life. Jack and Lisa Nash decided to go through with IVF and have a child who would not carry the gene of Fanconi anemia and who also was a HLA (Human Leukocyte Antigen) gene match for his sister Molly. Baby Adam was born in August of 2000 and the doctors’ saved his cord blood from the placenta and then started Molly on chemotherapy to destroy her bone marrow so they she could get a transfusion of her brother’s cord blood a few months later. Molly now is Fanconi Anemia free, thanks to her younger brother. (Rivard, 2013). If it wasn’t for Adam, Molly most likely would have been dead and The Nash;s would be childless. Just because Adam was born with a purpose, does not make him any less loved. This procedure is becoming more and more popular in the world today and I think in the future we will be hearing a lot more about it as it continues to marvel our minds at it’s scientific wonder.

 

Work Cited

http://www.nature.com/scitable/forums/genetics-generation/case-study-in-savior-siblings-104229158

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/designer-babies-preimplantation-genetic-diagnosis-pgd/

http://www.pgdscience.com/pgdscience-genetic-testing-who-needs-pgd.htmlp

http://www.pennmedicine.org/fertility/patient/clinical-services/pgd-preimplantation-genetic-diagnosis/

http://www.hfea.gov.uk/preimplantation-genetic-diagnosis.html#10

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C1CHWA_enUS602US602&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=HLA

Hi my Name is Megan, and I’m a Pepsi Addict

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The discussion about sugary drinks in class sparked my attention, since I have been known to kill a bottle or two in a few days time. I consider myself a caffeine addict, and when I don’t have my fill by a certain time of day, I start to suffer from withdraw headaches. I could quit at any time, I just don’t want to. Anyways, I thought for a minute about switching to diet pop, but then I remembered hearing stories on the news and health channels about how diet pop can lead to cancer, and if you ask me, I’d rather be fat than have cancer. I decided to take a more in depth look at the situation to see if there was any truth to this or not.

If you drink 2 or more diet pops a day, you chances of being obese go up 57% (Chavarria, 2013). So if you are an avid pop drinker, like myself, what’s the point of switching over when you still have over a 50% chance gaining weight anyway. The only time diet pop actually helps you loose weight is if you drink a glass or less a day. That’s not really worth it for the people that are considering switching over because they most likely are already over weight and there chances of becoming even more overweight are still significant even when drinking diet pop.

The ingredient being called into question on whether or not diet pop can cause cancer is aspartame. Aspartame is an artificial sweetener. It is made when amino acids, aspartic acids, and phenylalaine are joined together. It is 200 times sweeter than sugar, and lowers the calories of the drink (cancer.org, 2014). To determine if a substance causes cancer, two types of studies are done. One is an experimental lab study, where animals are given large amounts of the substance to see if it causes health concerns. The an observational study when you look at two groups of people, one would be the group who drink diet pop and the other would be people who don’t and you see the cancer rates of the two groups. In the lab studies done, researchers could not find any health concerns to the animals when they were given aspartame in amounts greater than 4,000mg/kg per day. But the site does say that two italian researchers published studies showing that high amounts of aspartame increased rats rate of getting blood cancers. The FDA and EFSA called the studies into question based on the lack of important data (cancer.org, 2014). The observational studies in people mostly concluded that aspartame does not link to cancer. The only significant one was how the high amounts of the chemical in men linked to the cancer, lymphoma, but they ruled that by chance.

So overall the risk of diet pop is pretty much the same as regular, unless you decide to drink less than one cup a day. If you only consume one glass of pop a day, I would suggest you go diet, but if your like me and that one glass a day doesn’t cut it, I would continue with regular pop since you still have a chance of gaining weight from diet pop as well. The Italian study that was mentioned earlier does spark some interest because it doesn’t say what data was not included in the study, and such. As we all know a lot of times when something bad happens, people like to cover it up, and who knows this could be the Beverage Association protecting themselves and their profits. If you are still scared of the risks of diet pop I would stick to regular but then this chemical has been around since the 1980’s and no one has died from it yet.

 

Work Cited:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/expert-answers/diet-soda/faq-20057855

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/artificial-sweetener

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/athome/aspartame

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/20939173/diet-soda-dangers-new-study-may-link-aspartame-to-cancer

 

He Loves me, He Lusts me

download Everyone has questioned whether the feeling they have towards their significant other is either love or lust. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference, especially at the start of a relationship. Luckily for us, some researchers have done some digging, and can tell if your partner loves or lusts you.

 

Students at the University of Geneva, were part of a study that determined eye movement shows exactly what your romantic interest is after. The study showed this, “People  tended to visually fixate on the face, especially when they said an image elicited a feeling of romantic love. However, with images that evoked sexual desire, the subjects’ eyes moved from the face to fixate on the rest of the body. The effect was found for male and female participants” (Ingmire, 2014). So now you can tell that if you significant other is looking at your face, then he/she is interested in love, but if his/her eyes start to wonder then you know their is no future there, The hope for this study is to help couples when they go to therapy because the clinicians can study the eye movement of the couple.

There are other ways to tell if your partner is looking to rush to the alter with you or not, some of them are if they stay the morning after, and just hit it and quit it. If someone is looking for love then he/she will stay and if your lucky, cook you breakfast in the morning. Also the person you love should want to have a conversation with, meet your family/friends, and spend time together. A person who lusts after you, just wants to spend quality time with you in the sheets and not the streets. A lot of times when we lust after someone, we get a feeling in the pit of our stomachs that something isn’t right, if you ever have that feeling, run with it because it most likely is true. You need to be able to feel comfortable with who your with and be able to trust him/her.

It is hard to tell the difference between love and lust. As we learned in class our intuition is lousy and we can see faults in other people more than we can see faults in ourselves. It is easier to look at someone else’s relationship an tell them what is wrong and what they should do to fix it, but when it comes to our own, its just not that clear. Humans are more prone to looking past their own faults and see themselves as perfect or at least pretty darn close to it. That is why it is hard to tell if the person you are with loves or lusts after you because you don’t want it to be the latter. All the signs can be there but you just don’t want to believe it because if you, it’s a game changer.  Just how we learned in class about the millions of galaxies out there and how the Milky Way might collide with one in about 4 billion years, if the milky way can find another galaxy in the 100 billions of them out there, you can surely find someone in this world as well.

Sources:

http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2014/07/17/eye-movements-reveal-difference-between-love-and-lust

http://www.eharmony.com/dating-advice/relationships/is-it-love-or-lust/#.VDRUDvldUy0

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/emotional-freedom/201108/lust-vs-love-do-you-know-the-differenc

To Ink or not to Ink, That is the Question

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By Megan Butter

Tattoos are becoming more and more popular everyday. Almost every where you go see one person in the room with a tattoo or two. Tattoos tell a story, whether they’re honoring a loved one that passed away, or were a trip to the parlor at 2 A.M. after too much to drink. They also tell a lot about the person wearing them, and shed a glimpse of light into their life. The big debate today is if they are professional for the work place or not. I feel that as time goes on, tattoos are going to become more accepting and you will see a business man with his sleeves rolled up and tattoo on his forearm. It’s going to be the norm, and people are just going to have to accept it, because there is nothing wrong with it, it is a form of expression of oneself on their body.

A recent study shows that 15-38% of Americans have some form of body art on them (Karim, 2013). Another said that 1 in 5 Americans admitted to having a tattoo (Kelly, 2013). Tattoos are a means of expressing yourself, and usually the people that get them are more extroverted than introverted. Men and women that have tattoos were shown to, “…had higher body appreciation, higher self-esteem, and lower anxiety right after getting new tattoos,” (Karim, 2013). Tattoos can give people higher self esteem because they want to show off their new ink. They feel better about themselves because they are letting out their artistic freedom. My friend, Alexa, has 3 tattoos. All of them mainly covered (2 on her back and one on her thigh). All of her tattoos have meaning to them, and she always has a big smile on her face when she talks about them and why she got them. The one she recently got was the birth flowers of all the members of her family and she was so excited to show it off. She is proud of her ink and it shows that having tattoos can be a conversation starter and confidence booster for those who have them.

A graduate student at Yale University, Mark Celano wanted to study tattoos and how people react to them. He himself has 2 tattoos and wanted to conduct this experiment to see how people reacted to those with body ink. He had people in a lab some with tattoos visibly, some without any tattoos. He wanted to see if the people without tattoos treated the ones with them any different based on body language, etc. “The study is specifically designed to assess if and how the presence of visible body modifications affect interpersonal interactions,” (Celano, 2014). While his research is not done yet, he is hoping to get some answers on to how society views tattoos.

Tattoos don’t mean that someone is uneducated, an alcoholic, or anything like that. They are a form of self expression, and if someone wants one then they should be able to feel the freedom to get it . They shouldn’t be judged because a lot of successful people have tattoos you just might not know. They shouldn’t change your opinion of anyone and if they do, you need to look in the mirror and think that you yourself is the one that needs the change.

 

Sources:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24296713

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/reef-karim-do/psychology-of-tattoos_b_2017530.html

http://www.yale.edu/graduateschool/publications/news/201210/research-psychology-tattoos-celano.html

“Turn That Frown Upside Down”

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By Megan Butter

When I was younger (and hey I still catch the reruns from time to time), like I’m sure many of you did, I watched Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide. I remember one episode when Ned wanted to spread his positivity to the “negative charged” girl in class. While his efforts went unsuccessful because a positive and a negative makes a negative, I wondered is smiling contagious?

To answer this question, yes smiling is contagious. First we’ll take a look about what happens inside of you when you smile. Smiling releases neuropepdtides that fight off stress. So if you’re ever feeling that you wanna scream, just let out a smile and see how it feels. Dopamine, endorphins and serotonin are released when you whip that smile across your face. These neurotransmitters “relax your body, but it can lower your heart rate and blood pressure,” (Riggio, 2012).  The endorphins are a pain reliever and the serotonin is an anti depressant. Smiling is a cost effective way to lift your mood without messing with the chemical balance of your brain!

Want another good reason to smile? Smiling is scientifically proven to make you more attractive! “A study published in the journal Neuropsychologia reported that seeing an attractive smiling face activates your orbitofrontal cortex, the region in your brain that process sensory rewards. This suggests that when you view a person smiling, you actually feel rewarded,” (Riggio, 2012).   There was also a study done in Scotland where men and women hate to rate people based of their looks, and the people who were thought to be more attracted, were the ones that were smiling.

Finally science does prove that smiling is contagious. “The part of your brain…responsible for your facial expressions…resides in the cingulate cortex, an unconscious automatic response area. When the picture of someone smiling was presented, the researchers asked the subjects to frown…It took conscious effort to turn that smile upside down,” (Riggio, 2012).

Now it’s your turn to try. Next time you go walking around campus, make sure you have a smile on your face and see how many people smile back at you in return. I bet you’ll make a lot of new friends that day too.

Source:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/201206/there-s-magic-in-your-smile

 

Studying The Beat

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By Megan Butter

Music surrounds us all the time, and I can’t name one single person that doesn’t listen to it. It is  a part of our culture and everyone can relate to it some way or another. Recently studies have been conducted to see how exactly music effects our bodies.

Music stimulates our brain, and has a positive effect on our bodies. According to an article on CNN there was a study done with people who were about to undergo surgery, some were given a pill to calm their nerves, while others were told to listen to music. “The patients who listened to music had less anxiety and lower cortisol than people who took drugs,” (Landau, 2013). Music has a calming effect on the body and if some patients can be treated with music rather than drugs before surgery, then that is a great new cost effective way to help patients cope with the anxiety before surgery.

Also for some people music can give them chills. I know for me when I am in the zone and listening to a really good song by Eminem, I can feel chills, but I also feel that is because I can relate to the words that he is speaking in his rap.  According to Silvia and Nusbaum, “openness to experience was the strongest predictor of the typical experience of chills during music….Several markers of people’s experience and engagement with music in everyday life…did mediate openness’s effects,” (Silvia, Nusbaum, 2014). Hearing your life experiences in songs is incredible and can cause an overwhelming feeling to just come over you.

Finally, music can make miracles happen. There was an experiment conducted with stroke patients whose vision became impaired. The study happened in the UN and they used 16 stroke patients who had recently suffered their stroke (within a week). They had the patients either listen to classical music, white noise, or nothing. And surprise, surprise, the group with the highest score during the Behavioral InAttention Test were the patients who listened to classical music. The scientists concluded that, “listening to classical music may improve visual attention in stroke patients” (AJOT, 2013).  That is an amazing find! They want to do more studies to solidify their findings, but it is promising for all stroke patients, since majority of them suffer some sort of vision problems.

Music is universal and brings all different kinds of people together. It also has a huge influence on our health, and can change our mood in an instant. Next time you’re feeling blue you can either turn on a sad song and relate or you can turn on an upbeat jam to pump you up. Music is endless and is always changing and it will interesting to see what else scientists find it can do to our bodies and mind.

Sources:

http://www.spring.org.uk/2013/09/10-magical-effects-music-has-on-the-mind.php

http://ajot.aota.org/article.aspx?articleid=1851684

http://spp.sagepub.com/content/2/2/199

http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/129/10/2528.full

http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/129/10/2528.full

 

The Aftermath of Divorce on the Kids

By Megan Butter

blogWhen I was 4, my parents divorced. I don’t have any memories of them, my brother and me together as a family, but I do remember what was my “normal,” which was living with my brother and my mom and seeing my dad on the weekends. 89.4% of children live with primary live with their mother (Bowles III) My parents never talked about their divorce nor did they bad mouth each other in front of my brother and me, in fact they usually only talked about the good times with us. They would come together on Sundays for soccer games, and for holidays and some birthdays, but other than that my parents didn’t speak or see each other. I decided for this blog post to research the affects that divorce has on children, after watching the movie “A.C.O.D. Adult Children of Divorce”, starring Adam West Scott.

The divorce rate in America is 50%, and in many of those failed marriages, children are involved. First I want to take a look at Bowles III’s work because he had an interesting take on how children are affected by their parent’s divorce. For me when I see marriage, I see it as just a piece of paper. If you love somebody and are happy then who cares if you have a certificate saying that you’re mr. and mrs. so and so, that doesn’t matter, what does matter is how you feel about each and a piece of paper doesn’t determine that. Hell I could rip that piece of paper up easily and nothing would change, the feelings are still the same. Bowles III’s research seems to agree with my statement because he says that most children whose parents have divorced are a bit weary towards marriage themselves. Also according to Bowles III, we don’t fear of having successful relationship, we just fear about having successful marriages. We don’t want to follow in our parents’ footsteps. He says that we have gaps in our “relationship template” which is true since the only marriage we would be able to compare our own relationship too, would have been a failure, and who wants that. Children whose parents have divorced can also have trust issues, especially if one of the parents had completely vanished from the picture. I know from my own personal stand point that I have a closer relationship with my mother because she was the primary custodian of me and my brother. As I got older and got into relationships of my own, I noticed that I didn’t  have trust issues my with partner but I wouldn’t take him home and introduce him to the family. The only person to ever meet any one that I dated was my cousin and I feel I did that because I may not have felt secure in those relationships, as Bowles III has pointed out children of divorce parents don’t have a “relationship template.” A lot of the marriages in my family, expect my cousin’s have mainly ended in divorce. Which that could be why I only introduced my boyfriend at the time to my cousin because she has a successful relationship, one that  I can look up too and have an example of, one that I was lacking as child.  Bowles III goes on to say in his research that sons are more likely to resonate their absentee father and daughters are more likely to have “daddy issues.” Speaking from personal life, my brother does hold a grudge against our father for leaving and making promise that he couldn’t keep. I on the other hand did not hold a grudge over my father but I did do things that I knew he wouldn’t like to get a rise out of me. Children in divorced families tend to show more feelings than other kids and are more attached to their primary parent (Bowles III).  Now while all this research may seem daunting, it doesn’t mean that children of divorced parents are any less successful than those who come from intact families.Divorce mainly effects kids in the short term but in the long run they’ll be okay and can/will find someone were there not afraid they will become just another statistic with.

Source:

http://www.mckendree.edu/academics/scholars/issue6/bowles.htm

 

Hockey: Man’s Toughest Sport

By Megan Butter

Crosby

Concussions are a problem is every sport, but they have been on the rise in hockey. In fact Pittsburgh Penguins Captain, Sidney Crosby, is the poster boy for concussions in the NHL. It all started for him with a hit in the 2011 Winter Classic against rivals, the Washington Capitals. David Steckel hit Crosby and then four days he suffered another hit against Tampa Bay’s Victor Hedman. Those about did it for him, and he had been battling the issues since this past season. He did make a short lived comeback only, to be sidelined again after a game verse Boston that resulted in another blow to the head.

Concussions are a seriously head injury and need to be taken seriously. Concussions happen when the brain comes in contact with the skull and changed the way have brain cells work. They mainly occur in contact sports such as hockey, football, and soccer.

Their are several signs of a concussion and some of the prominent symptoms are: being dazed/confused, headache, sensitive to light, vomiting, loss of conscious, slurred speech, and poor concentration. If you think you have a concussion there are some tests that you can go through in order to determine if you have sustained the injury:  if you are in a game situation a common thing to do is to ask who you are playing, what the score is, and what period/half/quarter it is. Also just talk normally and see if they are paying attention to the conversation or if they are too distracted (poor concentration), and touching a finger to the nose a few times is also a common idea that people do to evaluate a concussion (http://www.minnesotahockey.org/concussioneducation). Of course if you think that a player on your tea does have a concussion, seek medical attention immediately.

As for treating a concussion, they is not much you can do but rest until the symptoms stop. Also a lot of times some doctors will recommend that patients stay away from tv’s, computers, and electronic devices because those can trigger headaches.  After the symptoms have stopped, the player can go back and get evaluated by a doctor and they can start them on light exercise routines until the player can get back on the ice/field.

For hockey there are a number of steps that can be taken to ensure that concussions don’t happen and those include: making sure the helmet fits properly, no hits from behind, no hits to the head, and getting a correctly fitted mouth guard (http://cdn.agilitycms.com/hockey-canada/Hockey-Programs/Safety/Concussion/Downloads/concussion_card_e.pdf).

The New York Times published in article in February stating that hockey player’s who experienced concussions had “acute micro structural changes in their brain.” They studied 45 male and female Canadian College Hockey Players. They had to undergo M.R.I.’s before and after the season, but if you received a concussion you were given additional M.R.I.’s 3 days, 2 weeks and 2 months after the diagnosis. The 11 players that suffered concussions that season had, “microscopic white matter and inflammatory changes in the brain,” (Klein, 2014).  These players are showing what happens to athletes when they get injured during the game they love. While you might be saying well everything is microscopic, this affects them later on in life. The article goes on to say that hockey players who had concussions developed chronic injuries due to the head trauma they suffered for the concussion later on in life.

The brain is the most important part of the body and we need to protect, and sports these days are getting hit wit concussion lawsuits left and right. There needs to be a new system in pace to protect player s from concussions because it affects them  not only on the ice but off it as well.

While this research was very well done I think that more needs to be done on children playing hockey that are dealing with concussions. Studies on children can show how their brain changes upon the impact of the hit and the aftermath of having a concussion. Your brain is not fully developed until you are 25 and doing studies on children when their brain is the most fragile would be highly beneficial to the ongoing research on concussions.

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/04/sports/hockey/study-finds-changes-in-brains-of-hockey-players-who-had-concussions.html?_r=1

http://cdn.agilitycms.com/hockey-canada/Hockey-Programs/Safety/Concussion/Downloads/concussion_card_e.pdf

First Post

Hi my name is Megan and I’m a communications major. I am taking this course because I needed to fill a gen-ed science credit and I absolutely hate science. An adviser told me that I should take this class since it is for non-science majors, and that Andrew makes the class really interesting and fun. I am not going to be a science major because science freaks me out. I never liked the whole dissecting thing and once my high school anatomy teacher showed us a video of a knee transplant and I almost puked my guts out. Plus I hated memorizing all the equations in chemistry and physics. It’s just not my thing.  My dream job is to work for the Pittsburgh Penguins since I am a huge hockey fan and be a fan-event coordinator for the team.

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