Psych. Blog Post # 4

I listened to the one radio program called Teens and Sleep. It was about how teens now a days are getting less sleep than is what is required. Some possibilities are that teens are biological more alert and active in the evenings. The people on the radio also stated that teens don't render the thought that the day begins in the morning they actually think the day begins at four in the afternoon; due to the fact of school hours and extracurricular activities. It's like your brain works on a clock. Also the new electronics are a big impact on when we go to bed, especially if the electronics (like computers and TVs) are in the bedrooms of teens. Of course all of this is relevant to me because I'm a teen. This information is based off of people in my age group so I can relate more to these statements.

I learned many different things. I've learned that teens should get at least nine hours of sleep at night, and that eight or less is considered inefficient. The fact was brought up in a survey that was done was that about twenty-eight percent of the students said they fell asleep at least once a week. That was then estimated to be 737,000 students falling asleep a day. Which is a lot even considering that this was a nationwide survey. Also it was stated that teens that got eight or less hours of sleep tended to get B's and lower, where as those that got more than that had a higher tendency to get more A's. I thought the more you stayed up and studied the better your grades to be, but according to this that isn't the case. So basically if I get an efficient amount of sleep my grades might improve a little bit.

What suprised me the most was that trying to catch up on sleep on weekends doesn't necessarly work. The reason being that our brains are set more like clocks so if we sleep in til noon on the weekends our brains will actually reset and during the week we will think that we should still be sleeping during school. So if you try and catch up on sleep on weekends you should only extend your sleeping time by two hours.

I completely agree that technology has a great affect on when we go to bed and how much sleep we get. One clear fact to this reasoning is that if you look on facebook or any other type of website you will see people that post things or are on at like eleven or twelve o'clock at night. Another example is of people who stay up to watch a show that is later at night, and some delay getting their homework done because of this. I'm for sure one of those types of people.

Psych. Blog 3

The first activity I did was with the one tiled "Seeing More Than the Eye Does." The activity was to close the left eye and look at this cross with the right eye. You were supposed to recognize the black dot on the right side of the screen, but you can't look at it only with prefural vision. You were to start a couple feet away and get closer to the screen while looking at the cross. As you get about a foot or so close to the screen you will notice the black dot disappears for a second and reappears as you get closer. The next activity was with "Ambiguous Figures." Ambiguous figures have more than just one meaning. For example one of the pictures was of a skull one way and a woman looking in a mirror with her reflection. What you did was look at all sorts of pictures and see if you can find the other meaning.

One thing I learned from completeing the activity was that we don't truely see with our eyes but with our minds. Also that each eye has a blind spot, so that when the other eye is closed the mind will make up something for the blindspot.

This information suprised me because from little on we're taught that we see with our eyes. So know when I look at something weird I'm going to wonder if my mind is making up or if I'm actually seeing what I'm seeing.

It's really different to realize some one has two brains, and that they somewhat think differently.

Psych. Blog #2

Research is very important to how we find correct answers, or as close as we can get. Without research there is no proof to what we say or even write. So, in that sense we do not know what is fact or fiction.

I read "Brainstorming Reloaded." In it it states that when brainstorming is done in groups to help create ideas doesn't really work. More quantitative ideas are presented instead of qualitative ideas which is more desirable. This information is relevant because for school projects we are to work in groups and to brainstorm ideas. Sometimes we can come up with many ideas with only a few select ones that have any quality that fits the project standards.

I've learned that it's very important to not be bias in your research. If your research is biased it may turn to one direction rather than including more directions. For further clarification, if you are doing research on marriage life for example and have a majority of the people asked being male you are being gender biased. This effects your results, which would include only men for there was a minority of women that were asked. I also learned that psychologists can be skeptical to others work. Why? Well, I thought that you needed to be open to others opinions.

Pyschology Chapter 1

1. I thought psychology was just about helping people by talking and giving suggestions on the issues people talk about, observing how people act and think, and by helping find a diagnoses for illnesses of the mind. Now I know that there are different methods used in observing not only the mind but the behavior as well, and the different experiments used to find the answers.
2. Psychology affects my life by just being curious. By wondering why does everyone have different opinions, why do they think that way, or why do they act that way can all be reasoned with psychology and figuring out answers to those types of questions.
3. First I learned what a case study was and that it's used in this branch of research. Secondly I found out that psychology is not value free. I first thought in order to study psychology you had to be very open minded and accepting to both sides of an argument to truly understand something.

1.) Name: Amanda Carl
School: Stratford High School
Age: 17

2.) My family has shaped me to be the person that I am by giving me the foundation for what I believe in, love, and fight for. With out their love and support I'd would not be who I am today.

3.) Studying psychology is important because it gives us the opportunity to study the mind and make sense of what we hear from others and what we ourselves think, and be able to have a better understanding.

4.) Psychology is the study of the mind and spirit, and having a better understanding of one another.