assignment 2: March 2012 Archives

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.