Something to Think About

Many psychology experiments have been performed with Ritalin on working memory and attention. Results have found that it does improve working memory compacity therefore would help on like difficult math tests because you would be able to have more numbers and formulas in your memory at one time.

This means that taking Ritalin before an important test such as the ACT, SAT, or GRE would improve your test scores. Is it fair for someone to take this drug while someone else doesn't? It's a controversy that I believe will continue to grow as prescribtion drugs abuse also continues to grow.

Oliver Sacks, M.D.

Oliver Sacks is a neurologist and author of numerous books about psychological disorders. He has performed many case studies that appear in many psychology textbooks today. A short excerpt from his biography:

"Sacks is perhaps best known for his collections of case histories from the far borderlands of neurological experience, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars, in which he describes patients struggling to live with conditions ranging from Tourette’s syndrome to autism, parkinsonism, musical hallucination, epilepsy, phantom limb syndrome, schizophrenia, retardation, and Alzheimer’s disease."

For more information check out his website: www.oliversacks.com

Psychology Research Humor :)

Pavlov did research in classical conditioning using dogs because he noticed they would drool before food was brought to them when they heard a bell due to an association previously made, this is a humorous cartoon of what he did.

Accuracy of Eye Witness Testimony...or not?

"A real life example of the eye witness testimony flaw is the Harris and Adams case. A police officer pulled over a vehicle at night to let the driver know that his headlights were turned off. The driver pulled out a gun and killed the officer. Suspect Harris was found a month later denying that he shot the officer. Harris claimed he picked up a hitch-hiker who was driving the car and the hitch-hiker shot the officer. The second suspect Adams who was the hitch-hiker claimed he was innocent but three witnesses claimed they saw him shoot the officer because Adams had a mustache and long hair which fit in to their description. Although Harris confessed that he stole the car and the loaded handgun, Adams was charged for the murder because three witnesses claimed they saw a description of Adams shooting the officer. Years later, the freed Harris was charged for a different murder and confessed on death row that he also shot the police officer twelve years earlier. Adams was finally released after an innocent twelve year sentence. Three witnesses pointed the finger at the wrong person."
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Accuracy-of-Eye-Witness-Testimony-and-Its-Flaws&id=328261


This shows how eye witnesses could potenitally put innocent people behind bars while guilty people go free. Eye witness testimony is very influencial in court because people like to hear what happened from other people who were there, with improving DNA testing and surveylliance hopefully we can have more accurate information about crimes. 

Lucky Number 7!

Seven is the magic number! Did you know you can hold an average of 7 pieces of information in your working memory? This is why it is easy to recall a phone number after you have repeated it several times. Experimentors have also discovered that if you chunk pieces of information together, such as remembering a list of numbers by double digits (instead of 7...9, remember 79), you can retain even more information in your working memory.

Clorox Bleach Commercial

The other day when I was watching TV therea was a commercial that came on advertising Clorox Bleach. In the commercial the man was carrying a board that had two white socks tacked on it and one had the Clorox logo under it. He then would ask people on the street which one was brighter. What's wrong with this "experimental" design?

By placing the logo under one of the white socks it ruins the idea of testing people on which sock they really think is brighter because of bias towards Clorox. If someone knows that Clorox is bleach and bleach is suppose to make things brighter then just being exposed the logo ruins your ability to eliminate bias for judging which one is brighter. For good experiments you must eliminate biases.

One Marshmallow or Two?

This video is a demonstration of delayed gratification in children. Each child is given one marshmallow and told that if the marshmallow is still there when the experimenter returns then she/he will receive another marshmallow. The children who waited ended up being more successful later in life and were more focused as shown by the follow up study years later. The children who ate the first marshmallow were described as more impulsive and less focused in the study years later. The good thing about this is that even if a child eats the first marshmallow they aren’t doomed to the fate of only doing immediate gratification. It is possible for parents to enforce techniques to help their children learn the benefits of delayed gratification.