How to learn, or, how to study for a Psychology test in an odd way

In psychology, I'm learning about learning. There's several types, but the simplest form is habituation. This is a decline in one's response to a stimulus, I.E. anything that exists in your world, once you become used to it. However, there is also DIShabituation, where you renew your attention to that stimulus if if changes.

There is also classical conditioning. Consider the following; you're sitting in a computer lab and you ring a bell. After that, you offer a classmate sitting next to you a stick of gum. That person accepts the stick of gum, and the next day, you do the same thing again. After another day of this, you can ring the bell and your classmate will automatically reach out his hand to take the stick of gum. Why? he associates the sound of the bell with a reward. In math-like terms, you can pair a neutral stimulus (any noise or image) with an unconditioned stimulus (a reward or a punishment) and after several trials ANY animal - bird, monkey, human - will come to associate the two. When the association is strong, you can add another neutral stimulus before the first one and create a second-order conditioning. In the previous example, you could tap the desk or poke the classmate, etc. and eventually just a poke will do the same thing - he'll reach for the stick of gum. However, If you just ring the bell and nothing happens, the association will eventually become EXTINCT, and your subject stops responding. Wait a day or two and try it again - SPONTANEOUS RECALL! The person will make a weak effort to try and get that stick of gum. Give it to him - don't torture the poor guy.

Stimulus generalization means that the conditioned response - what you can get the person to do - can be produced by any similar stimuli. You can also teach him to DISCRIMINATE between similar stimuli, such as two types of bell tones. A high-pitched tone means gum, and a low-pitched tone means no gum. Only the high pitch one will produce the response. Now, here's what's important - the stimulus you're making the person respond to serves as a signal for upcoming events. Learning only occurs if there is a contingency - when something out of the ordinary happens. All animals, humans included, prefer environments in which things are predictable.

A more complex form of conditioning is called OPERANT conditioning. Place a cat inside a box that has a door. That door can only be opened by a lever on the inside. At first, the cat won't know what to do, so it'll scratch and meow and try everything it can to escape. EVENTUALLY, it will step on the lever and the door will open - on the other side of that door will be food or some type of reward. Put the cat back inside the box, and it'll step on the lever a little faster this time. Repeat the procedure 10 or 20 times, and it will know to step on the lever within seconds of entering the box. Here's the kicker; It has no insight as it's doing this - the cat will just gradually make the connection between the action it takes and the result.

If the task is too complex, you can SHAPE the subject to eventually complete the task. To do this, you reward behaviors that are increasingly similar to what you want the subject to do. These behaviors, and the process of 'coaching' them, is called 'successive approximations.'

No matter what you're training somebody to do, you must present a reward or a punishment. That person will have expectations about what kind of reward they'll get - if you give someone a normal amount of dessert, then all is well. If you give them a LOT of dessert, they will be happy! If you give them a tiny smidgen of dessert, they'll be pissed. In any case, their expectations for the future will increase or decrease accordingly. This is called behavioral contrast, and it also occurs if you have a choice between actions. If one action produces a bigger reward, they will ALWAYS take that action. The change of one's expectations to meet the probability of something happening is called the BLOCKING EFFECT.

Food for thought; there are two types of rewards. One kind, you can give to anyone for any reason. An experimenter rewards a subject, or a teacher rewards a student. That's external. There are also INTRINSIC rewards for doing something - that's why people draw, or write, or sing just for the fun of it. Unfortunately, external rewards often overpower intrinsic rewards, and an artist often experiences that if their careers are suddenly met with fame and fortune. At that point, Eminem or Owl City, or even Andy Warhol, will continue singing and painting only because of the money and recognition they earn. That means NEVER become a careerist!! NEVER!

If you present external rewards for something, there are many ways to do so. In partial reinforcement, you choose to reward only some of the organism's responses. This can be dictated by Schedules of Reinforcement - via ratio schedules (give a monkey a banana one out of every ten responses) or interval schedules (one reward every three minutes that the organism has been responding). The best form of training, albeit the slowest, is using a VARIABLE RATIO schedule. When training your dog, you must reward them only some of the time, and at an unpredictable rate. When you do this, the dog will keep responding to your commands even if no treats come for a long time. Likewise, a gambler will keep gambling even if no money is earned for a long time - because the reward is unpredictable. With a variable-ratio method, conditioned behaviors almost NEVER become extinct.

When a rat runs through a maze, it experiences LATENT LEARNING - no aspect of its behavior is changed, but if you place food somewhere in the maze, it will find it very quickly. You do this with your 'mental map' of your world all the time. What's the fastest way to get to your friend's house? You probably know that route so well, you could do it in the dark.

In any type of learning, you want control over your situation. It's only natural - babies even want a measure of control! Give them a play mobile, and put it in their reach. They're happy! They will spin it around and shake it and be absolutely delighted - because they can MOVE the object! Put that same mobile out of reach, however, and the baby quickly loses interest. What's the point? Can't do anything with it. This is called LEARNED HELPLESSNESS, and it happens in all situations. If nothing you do can change a situation, you give up trying. You become depressed, if that situation is important to you. And THAT is why people experience clinical depression.

Most of your street-smarts comes from Observational Learning - monkey see, monkey do. You see your parents act politely, and you will act politely as well. If your parents are aggressive, then you will likewise become aggressive. Vicarious Conditioning is when you make an association because of what someone else does. Example; a rat gets sick from eating poison. Other rats in his group will avoid the poison. Both forms of learning are based on Mirror Neurons, which are specialized cells in the brain that fire whenever an animal performs an action, and also whenever that animal watches another performing the same action.

Prepared Learning occurs without extensive training because of an evolved predisposition to that behavior. We humans can master languages by the time we're three years old. We also quickly learn to fear snakes after seeing one or two pictures of them, and seeing how others react to those pictures with fear.

All animals learn to avoid bad-tasting things VERY quickly. After just one exposure to a bad-tasting food, or a food that makes an animal ill, it will avoid that food in the future. This is more rapid and efficient than all other forms of learning, and it is appropriately called "Taste-Aversion Learning."


There are biological constraints on what different species can learn. A pidgeon can learn to peck at a target and get a reward, and it can learn to flap and hop away to avoid an electric shock, BUT, you can't easily train it to do the reverse - make it flap and hop around to get a reward. What's the point? That animal is evolutionarily disposed to running away from bad things and pecking at good things.

Regardless of how disposed an animal is to certain types of learning, the process itself is almost identical in all species. Habituation, classical conditioning, and Operant Conditioning - as well as latent learning, Observational Learning, and Vicarious Conditioning happen in ALL species. This is because all animals share certain needs. We all need to learn quickly how to get food, what foods to avoid, where to get it, etc. And we can learn all of that from our own experiences or from watching others. We need to get used to things that provide no new information - that way, you don't waste time staring at a wall or a chair when you could be doing homework!! Therefore, due to natural selection, the present species' of animals are all capable of learning along the same lines. PERMANENT learning is caused by changes in the structure of the brain's neurons. In Presynaptic Facilitation, neurons release more neurotransmitters into the synaptic cleft. In Long-term potentiation, receiving neurons become more responsive to specific inputs, which is caused by repeated stimulation. Learning to play a sport, or play an instrument, occurs because of LTP. Finally, your neurons can form new connections with their neighboring cells by growing new dendrites. With this, neuro messages are sent more quickly and efficiently to their destination.

You don't just learn SOMETHING new every day, you learn a LOT of new things every day. Unless, of course, you live under a rock and don't communicate with the outside world - shrug -. With all types of learning, however, the element of SURPRISE is absolutely key. You have to introduce something new into your world in order for you to learn from it. If it doesn't change, then you gain nothing.

What I keep trying to learn, but am failing to do, is to not procrastinate with studying and getting my assignments done. I don't seem to be punished for procrastinating, thus I keep doing it. One can only hope this doesn't continue for too long. College.. you know?

Change

Going to church without one's parents? Groovy. Playing a star role in a different church's Christmas pageant? I can dig it, man. Getting driven in a town car from New York to New Jersey? Outta SIGHT! Eating nothing but sugar all day? Oh baby. A lot of things are starting to change in my life, and most of them are for the better. For one thing, I'll start getting treatment for ADHD this week, which will improve my quality of life by FAR. Also, as every day passes, I'm getting closer and closer to my sister. We hang out, we talk, we treat each other as equals. I congratulate former me for wanting a sister for Christmas ten years ago.

I am regaining interests in Poetry, Running, playing DDR (which is more important to me than you'd think) and being with my friends. As school winds down, things are getting better and better by the day. Heck, I'm reading the Bible again - which I'd recommend for anyone going through a hard time right now. It's cathartic.

I'll find out about colleges on Wednesday, and from there my life will go on an even broader tangent. Until then, It's time to keep studying. Many tests, quizzes, and projects to worry about this week.

Push It To The Limit

I went for a run today, to start some serious training for a 15k race next week. Being the courageous idiot I am, I did the whole 9 miles after not training for god knows how long. After the fourth mile, it felt like utter SHIT. Let me tell you, the body finds devious ways to try and make you quit running. Why'd I keep going? I had time to build up to that distance, and in all likelihood I was doing more harm to my body than good. I'll tell you why I kept going - because I'm through with quitting. I'm not going to disappoint myself any longer. If I set a goal, I'm going to go through with it no matter the cost.

When I got home, I read most of the ending to "Breaking Night." In it, the main character grows up in the ghetto and loses her mother to AIDS. Her father ends up in a homeless shelter and she's left to fend for herself, skipping the first two years of high school in the process. In the section I read, Elizabeth takes four years of high school in two years' time - resolving to get a solid A average by the end of it. As with anything, this resolution was easier said than done - but she did it. She didn't want to live in the ghetto anymore, not since she saw what life was like in the Suburbs and Downtown Apartments of her wealthy classmates. She chased a dream, and she got it, earning herself admission to Harvard on a full scholarship.

The road she took to get there was hard. She had no permanent home while going through school, and often slept in stairwells or at friends' houses. She had to take part-time jobs in order to buy herself food and clothing, and she took twice the number of classes than what was required, so that she could earn a year's worth of credits in a semester. She was chronically sleep deprived. But even with all that, she found a way to make her dream happen, and today she manages her own company, which is based on helping others to empower themselves.

If she could do it, so can we.

Never give up.

Contraindications

So. I do my work, day after day, and primarily what is sacrificed is sleep. When I DO sleep, I don't get my work done. I just failed a physics test (I think) because I slept more than I should've. Where's the balance, then? There's just not enough hours in a day to do everything I want to do. The last time I ran was on Monday - I'm not NEARLY in shape for the 15k I have to do. I never practiced the french horn for the concert, nor have I rehearsed for the christmas pageant I signed up for.

To top that off, I can't be a good friend. Spending time with them sacrifices time to study, but when I study, I neglect my friends. To all who are reading this, I'm sorry. This isn't how I'm supposed to be living - It never has been. I need to ask the sages; Zaida, Andrew, and others, how they find a balance between work and the rest of life. By learning from their example, I should be able to correct this before it gets too out of hand.

I've managed to solve most problems I've ever been faced with. This, too, is correctable.

And It's correctable for you, too. I'll show you how once I get it figured out.

Poetry

Try writing a formal poem. One that follows a standard format - sonnet, limerick, couplet, haiku, etc. You will quickly find that what you could easily say with prose is almost impossible to express under the constraints of a poem. That is why poets are so revered in society - they have DISCIPLINE. They feel emotions very strongly, and they can set them down on paper even if the process takes days or weeks.

Whatever strong emotions you have felt this week, write a poem about them and post them to your blog. I will do the same shortly.

Odd

What is all this talk about Senioritis, then? Is it some communicable disease that everyone in my class will contract? Is it an excuse for us to cease work at once and become layabouts? Is it within or beyond our control? For me, it does not exist. I do my work despite the bluster, despite the partying ways of my friends. Why? Because I'm scared of failure. I've been down that road before, and it feels terrible. Parents and siblings, friends, teachers - all of society looks down upon you. On the contrary, if you work hard, you are respected. I AM respected.

I will continue to work, to sacrifice sleep, into second semester. I've only got one life to live, and it costs a fortune to send me to this school, so I need to make the most of it. God forbid I become like my peers. You ought to see how hard they strive for escapism - and fail. Drugs, parties, gratuitious sex, and slacking all around. They don't even know how good they have it! Send them to Malawi for a week - how do you think they'd fare? Or ship them across the border, to Mexico; would they learn some gratitude then? Would they grow up a little? I don't know. One of my exes took a trip to Alaska last summer for a community service project. She came back acting even younger than she had been before.

Lately I've been acting and talking like Dr. House. For good reason, I suppose. Means I'm no longer afraid of people. Hope I don't become THAT antisocial. Then again, if most people can't act their age, why be concerned? I know who my friends are, and that's that.

A Reckoning

When a man is denied the right to free speech, free press, and free assembly, there is a reckoning. It happened in Iran, it happened here in the U.S. over Vietnam and the War in Iraq, and It will happen again. This time, however, this reckoning will be global.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-wikileaks-assange-arrest-20101208,0,10353.story

Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, has been arrested over frivolous claims of sexual assault. The truth of the matter is, the sex was consensual and overage. The governments of Sweden and Britain are attempting to defame this man in order to silence him, and their ploy may succeed unless something is done about it. Something MUST be done about it. WikiLeaks and what it stands for, the dissemination of information that the government tries to hide from us, must be preserved at all costs.

You know that motto that the MTA has? "If you see something, say something?" It's true. If you see an injustice committed by ANYONE, it is your duty to speak up. Otherwise, you are condoning that act. Remember; those who witnessed the holocaust did not speak up.