Writing 4; Section 5: May 2012 Archives

Of all the topics cover in this course so far, I think the topic most likely to stick with me is the development of language. Originally, I just figured small children learn language because they imitate their parents or society. However, in class we discovered that infants have an innate ability to detect language. The experiment that determined infants have the ability to pick up subtle changes in phonemes while adults could not tell the difference. The chapter also explained how there is a deaf community somewhere (don't remember where) that came up with their own unique language to communicate with each other. Communication of some sort, whether it be written, spoken, or just plain gestures, is necessary for a community to strive. However, it never occurred that we, as humans, are genetically born with the ability to learn language. Scientists haven't found the function of all the genes yet, so it astonishes me that a gene designated to the innate ability to communicate through language is a foreign topic to me. Hence why it will remain with me for the years to come.

http://www.6psbig3.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Thank-you-in-many-languages.jpg

If there is one area of Psychology I hope and know I will still remember not only in the next 5 years, but for the rest of my life it is the 6 Thinking Principles we began talking about all the way back at the start of the semester. We have covered an incredible amount of material and it is unrealistic to think that five years down the road I would still remember most or even hardly any of the material. These Principles, however, do not only relate to Psych but to almost every career you could think of at least a little bit. My favorite and the one that is apparent the most in my life is that one thing does not necessarily cause the other. I see examples of this everywhere from the news to overhearing people on campus. I hope to go into business and within that field it is almost a guarantee that co-workers will be assuming that a stock is going up or down due to a side factor but we all know that it may not be the case. I hope that in the future many of the other side information retains within my long-term memory, but in case it doesn't I know I'll have at least taken away something very useful in this course.