Recently in assignment 2 Category

My girlfriend informed me yesterday that her neighbor was having a baby. I was like, "that's great!" assuming that it was the mother who lived next door. Then she told me it was the 16 year old girl who lived across the street and explained to me that her mother had had her when she was 16 also. So I thought, "wouldn't you learn from your parents mistakes?" I think it's safe to say that having a baby at the age of 16 really isn't a great idea unless you really want to be on MTV. This lead me to do a little research on how often and why children make the same bad decisions as their parents.

It goes deep into the nature vs. nurture debate. Some say it's caused by a constant exposure to the actions of the parents. Even when children aren't paying close attention. Their brain is subconsciously recording information and many children have a desire to be like to be like their parents. On the other side of the spectrum, some believe that genes are the root of our life choices. Maybe there are specific genes that affect your choices. I personally believe that it's some combination of the two. There is definitely a positive correlation between your your actions and your parents. If a parent ends up in prison, your chances of incarceration go up. If a parent abuses drugs, likewise. So what do you think about the choices we make? Many people aspire to be nothing like their parents, but do our parents have a much stronger effect on us than we think?

The internet is great. I'm sure many people can agree to this fact. It can be used for homework, research, blogging, shopping, and most commonly, social networking. Having that in mind, people are aware of online predators that use the web to deceive other people into a false transaction or some other worse scenario.

The artwork in this ad is fantastic: the colors are appealing and the pictures are detailed. The juxtaposition of the two pictures attempts to call out the harsh contrast of the pictures, and the emotional connotation of these pictures is highly increased. When looking at this ad, I first notice its appeal and the truth behind what the advertisers are implying- the internet is a dangerous place. The advertisers place their claim at the bottom right-hand corner. This is effective because it doesn't take away from the art, but is likely to be read after people examine the picture and wonder what it's all about.

It might be hard to tell, but this advertisement is promoting an internet protection plan that helps avoid scams and such. They use several fallacies including emotional appeal, juxtaposition, scare tactic, and slippery slope. Being aware of this, I am curious to know exactly what this company offers. This makes me wonder how I would promote a malware and internet protection product. It seems that a play on emotion is fairly effective.

The most interesting part of BBC's The Secret You in my opinion was the self awareness/ mirror experiment. In this experiment, a red mark is placed somewhere on a baby's face. The baby is then placed in front of a mirror. IF he is self aware, he will move to touch his own face and investigate the mark. I learned that only humans older than about twenty months and chimps pass this test.
I once did an experiment with the cat in which I held him in front of a mirror to see what his reaction would be. The result? Nothing. He did not react as if seeing another cat nor did he act as if he recognized himself. I'm not sure that he recognized that the image in front of him was even different than the rest of the wall. Young babies in front of mirrors react similarly: the 16 month old baby did not seem to even realize that the image in front of him (his reflection) represented another living creature. This brings me to the title of my blog post: What do cats and babies have in common? A lack of self awareness, that's what. This begets a whole other list of questions. Without being self aware, what do cats and babies think about all day? Do they think? How do they think without language? It is questions such as these that I wish our class explored more in depth.

Web design is a huge factor in our daily lives. Probably a larger factor than most of us realize. Everyone in this minute-by-minute world is online, using the internet, and experience the structure of websites. It's important to be aware of the psychological concepts behind a good design versus a poor one.

An example of web page improvement to Google and Facebook:

First, web designers take into account the psychological effects of color. They recall how blue tends to be calming, red ignites passion or drive, grey feels neutral and balanced, etc. They apply these colors to their website appropriately. The use of these colors will determine the length of a users time, how they feel when the open a page, and even how much they spend, if they website is selling something. Imagine opening Facebook and having a black screen with yellow text. Although, this would still be legible and an effective way of reading, it would not be efficient or comfortable. Users would not engage with Facebook nearly as often, because of how uncomfortable it made them.

Secondly, being aware of the web-sites target audience is an important aspect to be aware of. Obviously, reaching an audience of 9-12 years old is different than reaching an audience of 18-23 years old. Knowing more about the interests and mental abilities of the targeted audience will improve the experience of that user on the website. An example would be Nickelodean's www.nick.com versus Abc's www.abc.go.com.

Thirdly, perceptual sets would be used in a good web design. Understanding the way a person will perceive the website, what parts he will chunk together, the way he reads the pages (which is in a 'Z' formation), and the expectations a viewer already has of a website. The concept of perceptual set will create an efficient layout for a viewer. It is the most critical aspect of designing; it allows the important things to be noticed and the less important to be available, but not overwhelming.

Ultimately, if web designers ignored the psychological ideas and principles of perception, us users would be stuck with uncomfortable, mis-formulated layouts, that would hinder our ability to use the internet efficiently and happily.

--I found this article and chapter 4 of the textbook helpful in writing this blog entry. --

I am not aware how many people at my age (22) have been affected by drug addiction. The lecture that was given a few weeks ago by Professor Peterson really gave me some good insight as to how so many of my friends while I was growing up became addicted to drugs. As of right now, 7 people I regularly interacted with while growing up have lost their lives to drugs; while a good number of them are still to this day addicts or (on a better note) recovering addicts.
I never understood addiction from the scientific or psychological standpoint. Now that I do, I still have lingering questions of whether or not the emotional effects of the environment surrounding these people I care about could be a cause for the use of drugs in the first place. The question of whether the somewhat premature economy and environment in the state of Utah has something to do with the high rate of drug addiction that exists there is a question that is highly popular among many residents.
Drug addiction is something I feel strongly about simply because I believe it is important for us as the next generation to be aware of in times of economic turmoil. With all the stimulation that is formulated from technology and other changing environmental factors, our generation does feel and our children to come will feel a lot of pressure to be successful and turn our economy around. It is up to us to be educated, aware, move forward, and flourish in the rapidly changing world.
I have attached a URL to a video clip that was made about the astonishingly high drug addiction statistics in Utah. The man that started the process of making this movie and the organization that would follow the release of this movie was from my hometown and attended the same high school as me. He suffered from drug addiction and nearly died from overdose. His family was told he would be a vegetable if he survived. He has made full recovery and has dedicated his life to helping those with addiction problems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUi-KUnsALc

Many people, including many of ourselves, have experienced sleepwalking or have known someone who has sleptwalk. Although it is not like shown in the movies where a person in a zombie-like trance is walking around, it can still be very dangerous. People have been known to drive cars, turn on electronics, and well as make love to people when they are sleepwalking. But in the course of history, someone possibly committed murder while sleepwalking. The real question is, can this be justified and used as a valid arguement for legal defense. It almost seems too hard to falsify, and absolutely unethical enough to test. It seems like having a trial with defense like this could really complicate things where the court-room could end up at a standoff and obstacle. I wonder if this will ever pop up again in court, and if it does, i am very interested to see how it turns out.

Alzheimer's is a very unforgiving disease that takes away a person's memory and mental function until the world that they live in no longer makes sense. A combination of genetic, lifestyle, and environmental factors that build up and take effect over time are to blame for the tragic loss of brain cells and connections.

While there is no permanent treatment of Alzheimer's disease, there are ways to temporarily improve symptoms, maximize function, and maintain independence. It is also a good decision to seek social services and support networks. There is also no proven way to prevent Alzheimer's, but it is a good idea to stay active and do the same things as one would to prevent heart disease, as the two are believed to have many of the same factors.

As someone with Alzheimer's, things become more and more difficult to do. Even simple and mundane tasks become next to impossible after a while. The world becomes more and more nonsensical as it becomes harder to form complete thoughts and sentences and to understand those around them. It is also extremely heartbreaking for the loved ones of those experiencing Alzheimer's to watch them suffer from the incurable and irreversible disease.

Alzheimer's is a very unforgiving disease that takes away a person's memory and mental function until the world that they live in no longer makes sense. A combination of genetic, lifestyle, and environmental factors that build up and take effect over time are to blame for the tragic loss of brain cells and connections.

While there is no permanent treatment of Alzheimer's disease, there are ways to temporarily improve symptoms, maximize function, and maintain independence. It is also a good decision to seek social services and support networks. There is also no proven way to prevent Alzheimer's, but it is a good idea to stay active and do the same things as one would to prevent heart disease, as the two are believed to have many of the same factors.

As someone with Alzheimer's, things become more and more difficult to do. Even simple and mundane tasks become next to impossible after a while. The world becomes more and more nonsensical as it becomes harder to form complete thoughts and sentences and to understand those around them. It is also extremely heartbreaking for the loved ones of those experiencing Alzheimer's to watch them suffer from the incurable and irreversible disease.

There are countless movies about memory loss and amnesia. From Jason Bourne to The Notebook viewers have been fascinated with the loss of memory. One movie in particular takes amnesia to the next level. In the 1987 film Overboard , a filthy rich housewife falls off her yacht and is found washed ashore only to have forgotten everything she knows about herself. Numerous media stations marvel at this interesting find and her pictures are posted everywhere posing the same question, "Who is this woman?" Her husband sees the news reports and decides not to go after her, instead he wants to live his life as a free man. What does happen is that a lowly carpenter, to whom the rich housewife owes money to, claims her as his wife so she may pay off her debt to him. He takes her home and begins reconstructing her memory, making her believe that she has 4 kids, lives in a dingy home and has questionable moral character. This is where psychology plays a role. The housewife knows something is not right but everyone is telling her the same thing. This is similar to Elizabeth F. Loftus' ideas on suggestibility and the malleability of memory. If the people around you whom you trust (or in the movies case, the only people you know) are all telling you the same thing you are eventually going to believe it. While I do believe this movie goes a little 'overboard' (pun intended) by romanticizing amnesia (at the end of the movie the carpenter and the housewife fall madly in love), in the real world amnesia is a much scarier and stressful thing. Our fascination with memory loss has led to numerous films and books about the subject, but has our fascination led us astray from reality? Have we forgotten the pain memory loss and caused from such things as Alzheimers and short term memory loss? Do you think our society is more obsessed with the romanticized version or the real world version?

When I was younger, we lived on a farm out in the country in rural Southeastern Minnesota. Neither my mom or dad worked on the farm but it was family owned and that is where I grew up. There was a plot of woods a half mile down the road from my house that my cousin and I always said we were going to run away to someday. This chunk of woods was huge and plentiful and would be the perfect spot for us to run away to because it is within walking distance and nobody would ever know we were there given the size and majestic qualities of this plot of woods. One day, my parents and I got into an argument about something I can't even remember so I decided to pack my things and make a run for the woods. To make a long story short, I got a huge lecture by my parents after this whole thing happened because they were worried about me and it was irresponsible of me. A couple years ago, though I brought this memory up to both my parents and they proceeded to tell me that the whole thing never happened. I never ran away from home and it must have been a dream. On top of that, I have since gone back to where that huge, majestic woodlot once was, and it was hardly a wood lot. You can almost see through the entire thing because it's only 50 feet wide, maybe. When I asked my dad what happened to it, he told me that's the way it always has been. Weird, I guess things are not how I imagined it when I was younger.

Alzheimer's is a disorder that has an impacts over five million families, including my own. My grandma was just recently diagnosed. She is in the early stages but some signs that I have noticed from her is forgetting names, asking the same questions multiple times, and having the same conversations over and over. "Alzheimer's disease is an irreversible degeneration of the brain that causes disruptions in memory, cognition, personality, and other functions that eventually leads to death from complete brain failure." There are a lot of risk factors that contribute to Alzheimer's. Age and genetics are the biggest. Most people diagnosed with Alzheimer's are over the age of 65. Most cases are because of age and some are caused by hereditary factors. This fact is hard for me to accept because that means that I have a heightened chance of getting Alzheimer's when I am older. According to the Alzheimer's Disease Research website the main ways to prevent Alzheimer's is diet, exercise, building brain reserves and social engagement, and high levels of estrogen. There is still no cure for Alzheimer's but there are many treatments patients can do and medications they can take. Therapy is one treatment offered for people with Alzheimer's. A few symptoms people with Alzheimer's will display include; confusion, disturbances in short-term memory, unexplained mood swings and more. For those who are diagnosed, they may experience depression, poor performance on cognitive tests, irritability, and memory loss.

Everyone knows of movies or books similar to Ground Hog Day where one person has to relive the same day over and over again. Some of us may have even fantasized about this occurrence happening to ourselves, but then soon after dismissing it, because it could never happen in real life. How could it? Well I'm here to tell you that it is possible though highly, highly improbable. Our readings from this week were about memory and one sickness that stems from memory loss is amnesia. Amnesia comes in two forms, retrograde amnesia and anterograde amnesia. Retrograde amnesia is the form used by Hollywood the most; it's when a person loses some or all of their memories of the past. Anterograde amnesia is when we lose the capacity to form new memories, and this is the form of amnesia that could produce our ability to relive a day over and over again. Now for this to happen it would take a world plague of some sort that attacks all or most of people's hippocampuses so that they suffer from anterograde amnesia. Though for some reason, the virus doesn't work on you. Now everyone, everyday is thinking it's the same day that the plague occurred, let's pretend it was ground hog day, except for you, your able to form new memories still and so know that it is not still ground hog day. This could very well be the cause of being able to live the same day over and over again. Truthfully, have you ever even considered this being able to happen in the real world? Well now you know it could happen, though the chances of it ever happening are astronomical.

The thought of a secret animal language has always enticed me. When I was very young, my parents had me convinced that at exactly midnight on Christmas morning, all animals could talk for one hour. I tried so hard to stay awake, to maybe catch the whispers of my beloved cat, but never quite managed it. Since then, the thought has never escaped my interest. I have been training horses and endurance racing my entire life and I even worked at a vet's office for about 5 years. Experience has taught me that if we are going to limit language to the definition of civilized, human speech, then no. Animals do not "talk". However, they do communicate and, with some patience, observance and training, they will communicate with you too. I've often found that animals tend to express emotions more than anything. If you know what to look for, it becomes incredibly easy to discern what a horse is feeling. Anger/fear is often the the most expressive and obvious emotion in animals and this is because it is a necessity from a survival standpoint. I grouped anger and fear together purposefully because oftentimes intense fear is what causes anger in animals. Everyone has heard of the basic instincts of "fight or flight" which are even more highly tuned in other animals then us humans. When an animal feels threatened or cornered or as if it's choice of flight is taken away, anger will emerge. Horses express this by pinning their ears to their head, elongating their neck and snapping their teeth at the source of their anger. They will also resort to kicking in extreme anger or rearing up on their hind legs in extreme fear. This is just a minuscule sample of what you can learn simply by observing animal behavior. Whether you classify it as language or not completely depends on your definition.

Birds singing, dogs barking, and humans talking are all forms of communication in the own right. Everyone recognizes human communication as having a distinct language in both spoken and written forms, but there arises a controversy when determining if animal communication can also be classified as their own language.

An interesting case is made for animal language when studying the vervet monkeys. These monkeys have alarm calls to alert the other monkeys when a predator is approaching. At first it was believed that the variety of the vocal call arose from the severity of fear the monkey exhibited. However, after further observation occurred, the realization was made that there were three distinctive calls that elicited three distinct actions by the other monkeys. The monkey would give one call when it saw a snake which prompted the other monkeys to stand on their hind legs to scan the ground. The next call sent the monkeys into the safety of the upper branches of trees when a leopard was spotted. Finally, if an eagle was seen by a monkey it would cling to the base of the tree out of sight. Each hiding spot was specific to the predator spotted. A common dialect and understanding is clearly present among these monkeys, so maybe the term "language" would be appropriate. I don't think grammar rules and symbols to express specific words are necessary for a language to exist.

They say that when an addict is in treatment they can learn to manage the negative emotions that specifically trigger the abuse of the drugs. As stated in lecture, after repeated actions of using a specific drug, one can build up a drug tolerance where then the person has to take more to feel the same effect. According to Shepard Siegel's Pavlovian Theory of Drug Tolerance we can think of the drug in much of the same way as we think of unconditional stimuli, in the sense that they are natural compounds that have a natural impact. When the drug is administered in the same manner, it created a response, then a CR begins to form. But as he stated, the unusual part is that it is a compensatory response, which triggers systematic changes in the body, which are opposite from the drug UCS. When we look at how it affects the body, our goal is to train addicts to resist the triggers and in a sense create new triggers to not do the drugs. As new research continues to come out, we can find that scientists are coming up with new ways to help treat these addictive behaviors. According to additive treatment magazine, there is new memory boosting drugs that can help formulate new memories of responses, in order to not relapse. But yet all the studies say that it is easy for someone to relapse, especially once being put into the past environments that helped them build these addictive behaviors. Similar to the video in the lecture on Feb 24, it is possible to resist these urges and show signs that prove they are no longer addicted. But was this only in the single study they looked at? Is it possible to find better and advanced ways to help cure addicts of their disease, or is time truly the best test, and the only way to know what truly works is to wait and see.

Addictive Treatment Magazine:
http://www.addictiontreatmentmagazine.com/addiction-treatment/memory-boosting-drugs-could-be-effective-in-treatment-for-cocaine-addiction/

As seen in the final section of the video (47:53-end) from BBC Horizon-The Secret You, Marcus de Sautoy provides intriguing evidence that we may not have as much free will as we believe we do. He attempts to find an answer to the question, who is in charge of your decisions, your conscious self or ????? When his brain activity was scanned while he was randomly selecting buttons, neuronal activity could be seen before he was even consciously aware what he was going to select. As he pointed out, that means the bystander observing the brain scan knows what we are going to decide before we even do.

But Sautoy's experiment was done on a very basic level with the simple act of randomly pushing two buttons. This makes me question how true this holds in complex decision making. Can the neurons of our brains process and make decisions for us without any involvement of the consciousness? Most situations we face in life aren't black and white like the pushing of buttons, but rather they are intricate and require what often seems is a lot of time to come up with a decision on.

All of this makes me wonder; if decision making is the result of neuronal activity why is it that some decisions require a much longer time for us to come to a consensus on? And are our decisions truly inevitable?

What does the difference in consciousness between waking and sleeping tell us about our sense of self? Good question. Frankly, the communication between the different areas of my cerebral cortex is lacking a bit at the moment, so I can't quite give you an answer that fully encapsulates the opinion of my awoken self.According to this rather interesting fellow with a peculiar accent, this communication is what distinguishes consciousness from a state of sleep (~41:00-47:00). So they found that our brains communicate slightly less when we're asleep... so what? I could probably have guessed that. It's the primary reason that when I fall asleep in class I don't retain much of the information that is presented (a tragic design fault in our brains, really). However, what if this lack of distraction, and somewhat more focused nature of the brain during sleep helps us figure out what makes us... us. The lack of white noise could be rather helpful in examining our personality, intelligence, memory, and pretty much everything else. And would there be a way to identify these communication channels within our brain and activate them selectively, enabling us to see how the brain talks to itself? Or even use those channels to help us listen while asleep (i.e. sleeping in class, and still learning stuff?). Once one of you figures out how to do that, shoot me an email, so I can throw my name on that study.

You're driving home from school and spontaneously decide to take a route that you usually don't take. You have a random and compelling urge to call a friend or loved one. You take a hopeful guess on a test question. All of us have experienced those strange gut feelings that cause us to make decisions one way or another. We've all heard of the advice to, "go with your instincts" when making hard choices. I know in my personal experience, I find that listening to such advice generally results in a good outcome. Why would this be?

From the information presented in the article, The Role of Emotion in Decision Making, it begins to be apparent what exactly these intuitive feelings are and what their role is in the process of decision-making. Decision-making occurs not only in the rational and logical weighing of pros and cons performed by the conscious self, but also in a sub-cortical process that involved the amygdala (emotional brain center). When the brain is faced with a decision, it automatically weighs the possible outcomes on an emotional and unconscious level. Somatic states that were triggered for specific behaviors in the past become triggered again as the brain processes all of these possible plans of action, and that "gut feeling" is produced as a compilation of the many emotional outcomes the brain has quickly processed.

This understanding of that intuitive decision-making tool we all utilize at some point is a fascinating thing to think about. Many people like to logic their way rationally through decisions because it is a way to consciously see the future outcome. It appears that intuition is really a result of the same pro/con process, except for emotionally, without you being able to consciously compare those outcomes. It seems like learning to follow these gut feelings could lead to a better decision-making process, but even this brings about more questions. Are there situations where following intuition is not good, or even dangerous? Is this intuitive neural process the same that allowed the researchers to predict Marcus du Sautoy's behaviors 6 seconds before he acted (BBC, The Secret You). Do animals that have no sense of self live a life where every action is orchestrated through the same gut-feeling sensation? If so, to what extent does the presence of that second rational/logical pathway define our human self? Do apes that also demonstrate having a sense of self act on both logic and gut feelings for decision-making?

Image from http://www.ipgcounseling.com/growing_4.html

When I was younger, I used to watch ants scurry around my driveway. I would always think they ran around mindlessly doing absolutely nothing except for be creepy-crawly and scary. The video below shows that ants know a lot more then we give them credit for.
Now I realize the video is a little longer than necessary, and the music is pretty annoying, but if you watch it, you can see the ants learning while trying to cross between the two posts. First the ants try to reach across alone, then others start to pile on top of one another. Some may look at it as they are just hording together, but if you watch, you can see the ants realize that just two of them are not stable enough and they add more ants to the bridge. Through all the animal videos I watched I thought this was a good example of animals learning on their own, rather than just doing some sort of trick for a treat. The ants were faced with a problem, crossing the fence, and combined their brain power to come up with a solution, building an ant-bridge to get across.

The given snap shots show a television advertisement for Carl's Jr, where sex icon, Kim Kardashian, is highlighted sensually eating a salad to arouse emotion in the audience watching it. After discussing conditioned stimulus, unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response and conditioned response, I can see how the ad was made to spark a feeling of lust and wonder in the targeted demographic. I've identified each component of classical conditioning as follows:

Unconditioned Stimulus: Sex icon Kim Kardashian
Unconditioned Response: Feeling of lust and sexuality
Conditioned Stimulus: Carl's Jr new line of Premium Salads
Conditioned Response: Feeling of lust and enhances sexuality

By identifying and looking at the four key components of classical conditioning, one can see that Carl's Jr used the advertisement to target women and men by luring them into desiring their product with the sexuality and sensuality presented in the ad.
Is the ad a little overboard? Many will argue yes. But then again, it's supposed to be. In the trend of advertising, I've noticed that a lot of companies use a form of over-exagerated sexiness and humor to spark interest in the audience (prime example- the Old Spice commercials). I'm not saying that it is impossible for one to get turned on by Kim Kardashian rubbing a juicy apple over her lips and then flashing a close up of her breast, but the average adult can see through the demure behind the commercial.

This is what brings me to my question- What does this commercial (and the infinite more that use similar tactics) say about our culture?

Drugs. They are a sin for some and a death sentence for many. What do you think of though when you hear someone talking about drug abuse? Does meth come to mind? A group of potheads in a dark alley? Maybe even bottles of prescription drugs spilled all over the counter? Here's the scoop on what's really going on.

Whether illegal or legal, drugs can bring satisfaction to many abusers. They take you away from the stresses of the real-world putting you in a sense of euphoria. All emotional and physical pain is relieved but only temporary. Once the feelings wear off, users feel a need for more. They become tolerant to an initial dosage and require more of the drug to experience the same "high" feeling. Depending on the drug, receptors in the brain will either inhibit or permit the drug to pass through the nerve receptors and on to the brain. From here, the brain will interpret the drug and respond accordingly. As expected, many drugs come with different side effects: some allow for hallucinations while others are pain relievers.

To relate, I have seen a large gamut of drug abuse. I have family and friends that choose to overdose on legal and illegal drugs. It personally pains me to see them harm themselves in this way. In my opinion, I don't agree with the usage of street drugs or the abuse of prescription medications. I think that this is not only harmful to the user but to their family and friends as well, especially consider the health risks and psychological damage.

For my blog entry I decided to chose an ad and analyze how they manipulated people's emotions in order to sell their product. Being that I work as the receptionist for an advertising agency, Fallon, I decided to choose one of their commercials. I am around an advertising environment and I get to see how ads are used in order to manipulate their audience. I believe the Cadillac SRX I commercial demonstrates classical conditioning very well by showing the younger generation that Cadillac's are not only for older people.

As the commercial opens you see a Cadillac driving up Pike's Peak without defeat. In this situation Pike's peak itself is the conditioned stimulus and the Cadillac SRX is the unconditioned stimulus. Before seeing this advertisement Cadillac cars were stereotyped as an old person's car and therefore many younger folks had no intention of buying one. However, after seeing the car make it to the top of Pike's Peak with no struggle at all, it poses as a powerful and sophisticated car. The agency tries to manipulate a younger generation into thinking that the Cadillac Brand is truly for them.

This advertisement uses the steps of classical conditioning by pairing the conditioned stimulus with the unconditioned stimulus in order to produce the conditioned response. I am fascinated with how classical conditioning is used in so many different ways to manipulate different factors in life.

How do parents explain to their other children that their brother or sister has autism? When a child in the family has autism, it affects the whole family. Parents who have to care for a child with autism are often met with extraordinary time constraints, leaving little time to give other children in the family what they need. In most situations, the other children are most likely aware that their brother or sister is different, so it is best to be honest and give the child information that is appropriate for their age level. This often initiates a feeling of responsibility in the non-autistic child and also encourages them to understand and care for their autistic sibling. Something very interesting that I found was that younger siblings are often very understanding and accepting of their autistic siblings. They often find ways to communicate and play with their autistic sibling.
However, older children often struggle with feelings of anger and embarrassment because of their autistic sibling. They become frustrated by having to make sacrifices for their siblings and may feel embarrassed towards their behavior. This is bound to occur but it is best to work through it and many siblings are able to get over these feelings with time. In fact, many siblings of children with autism often have a special connection with one another. Compared to other children their age, they tend to be more mature, more compassionate, and have developed coping skills which will help them for the rest of their life. Keep in mind though that correlation does not infer causation but there is a strong suggestion that siblings of autistic individuals tend to have these characteristics.It would be interesting to compare the dynamic of autistic sibling relationships with those of conventional siblings.

Going to high school with a bunch of pranksters had its ups and downs but one of the more memorable moments was in my chemistry class my sophomore year. A few of my classmates had the "mosquito" ringtone on their phones and decided it would be fun to play it. All of the students in the class heard it and thought it was funny but the older teacher couldn't hear a thing. The interesting thing about this was that there was a TA in the class helping out and he could hear it. Eventually he got sick of it and let the teacher know. He then confiscated all of our phones, even the people who weren't involved.
To me the fact that the TA could hear the noise but the teacher couldn't was weird. At the time I thought it was a sound that no adult could hear and to me the TA was an adult. I later found out it is after a certain age that a person becomes unable to hear it. After taking this introductory psychology class I started wondering if this phenomenon was purely because of a physical change as we get older or because of something else like our conscious changing. I really want to learn more about this and research it to see if I can find an answer.

There is a substantial controversy over whether or not vaccines are the cause of autism. Many parents are convinced that the mercury in a vaccine is the root of autism in their children. This is because that up until the age of 6-24 months, these children progress at a normal rate. They are alert and cheerful, they are interested in the world surrounding them, start crawling, play with their toys, and begin to babble, then gesture, then talk. But this is also the period of time when vaccines begin for these children. Shortly after the vaccines, children have been reported to begin regressing. These regressions are similar to effects of mercury poisoning, another case for the supposed consequence of vaccines. It is hypothesized that certain children are more susceptible to the mercury in the vaccines, which could lead to mercury poisoning like disorder. These topics have led to the argument that vaccines are the source of this disorder.
According to the "Autism Science Foundation" there is no truth to vaccines being the origin to autism. They have conducted tests among children who had received the various vaccines, those that didn't, and those that had them at a different time or rate than the typical child. It was concluded that there was no correlation between the vaccines and whether the child developed autism.
With the relentless parents and impeccable timing of this disorder occurring in such a short time after the vaccines, this debate will continue on. But what do you think?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/autism-vaccine-_b_817879.html
http://www.monheit.com/thimerosal/t_faqs.shtml
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002494/
http://www.autismsciencefoundation.org/autismandvaccines.html