Logic Puzzles

Yesterday was probably one of the most fun days of AP Psych. We got to go around stations and try to solve all different types of logic puzzles. The nail one I knew I had seen before but I could not remember the solution. When one of my group members gave us a hint, it all came rushing back to me. The logic puzzle was my favorite. I absolutely love to do them. The coins/people one I have seen and personally done before, so it wasn’t that hard. And finally the record puzzle. This is one I have never seen before. My group had no idea where to even start. Apparently my group ended up doing it wrong but we had an idea and just went with it.

I love to have to solve problems and think outside the box. Although at times it gets annoying and I just want to give up, it still ends up being fun. The “ahh-haa” moments (insight) are the best! I love it when you have no clue what to do and then all of a sudden, the answer just comes to you out of nowhere. This can sometimes be due to priming. When you just see one simple thing, and then subconsciously you connect that to something that helped you solve a similar problem in the past, the solution may just come to you in a burst of insight.

So in the end, this was the most fun we have had so far in this class.

A fun day!

Going through all of the stations today was actually a lot of fun. I have always enjoyed logic type problems and having to think outside the box to solve them. In the nail problem priming was used. Jason was in my group and had known how to do this. After some time, he decided to give us a little hint. From this little thing, everything came rushing back to me. I knew automatically how to do it. I swear that i remember doing this before, but I don't really know where or when. Insight was anothering thing that cam into play. When Jason had given us that hint. The solution automatically just popped into my head. Another thing that we used today was algorithms while solving the logic problem. These are some of my favorite things to do. I used to have books full of them growing up. Algorithms were used while trying to piece the clues together and solve the problems. Heuristics were another thing used while solving the logic puzzle. Using these, I was able to eliminate "solutions" from the puzzle that just didn't make sense and were impossible and quickly solved it.

While trying to solve the record problem, several things got in my way. One thing was functional fixedness. I had never really done anything like this before and had no clue how to. There weren't any instructions given so at first we were very confused. We didn't know that we were supposed to make the record play and that we could actually physically touch the record. While looking at all the pieces given to us, we had a hard time trying to think of ways to use the stuff. We just couldn't get past the functions that these objects usually have. Because of fixation and our mental set, we weren't able to solve this one. We had a hard time seeing these things in a new perspective and just couldn't get past that.

Instant Gratification

This week in class we discussed instant gratification. Instant gratification surrounds daily. All the time, teens are forced to make decisions on whether or not they should do certain things. Most the time teens would much rather have something right away than having to wait for it. The thing would have to be pretty good in order to be worth waiting for. This can be seen through plenty of examples in life. Teenagers have the choice of whether or not to wait to drink until it is legal. I know a lot of kids that are involved in underage drinking. I personally never will. Teenagers are constantly faced with difficult decision involving instant gratification.

We also discussed intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and rewards. Extrinsic rewards can work for some time but aren’t necessarily the best. Whether people do certain things for the right reasons comes into question. For example, our class wants to bring in a bunch of money to have a pizza party. The real question is then, are we bringing in the money to donate to Haiti or just for the pizza party? This is where intrinsic and extrinsic motivation comes into play. Another example would be when it comes to donating to any type of charity. I know if you were to donate to ASPCA, they will give you a bunch of free stuff, like t-shirts and book bags. This makes me wonder how many people will donate just for the free stuff or actually do it for the cause.

Classic Conditioning is all around us...

Lately in class we have been learning a lot about learning and conditioned. I have come to realize this week, that our lives are filled with classical conditioning. Every day when I come to school, I have learned and been conditioned that after second hour, I go to lunch and eat. This becomes a problem on half days. Even though second hour gets over a lot earlier than normal, I become very hungry and in want of food. Also in the world, advertisements are always using classic conditioning to make people want to buy their product. Companies may try to associate their product with things that would normally make people happy, such as peaceful beach scenes or cutie puppies. This way then when people see this product, they will become happy and will want to buy the product. Also Jason has become very conditioned in class. Now every time Mr. Dreier walks towards the door, Jason automatically shuts off the lights. My dogs are also very conditioned. My dogs have learned that whenever my dad is about to take my dogs out, he puts on his jacket. Now when he puts a jacket on, they assume they are going outside and get very excited. They have also learned to associated their food bowl with food. Now if i ever took their bowls to move them, they come running to the kitchen because they think they are going to be fed.

Since I haven’t taken any psychology classes before, I never really knew much about this. Now, after learning this, it makes a take a whole new look on the world. I can now easily find many examples of classical conditioning. And I will for the rest of my life. It’s a brand new view on the world and why we do some of the things we do.

Anatomy...

Lately it seems like we have been putting a lot of focus on the anatomy side of things. This makes sense, since we need to know the basics in order to build off of them. Don’t get me wrong though…. I am not complaining. I love learning about the body and how it functions. This is why I absolutely loved anatomy and physiology class. I catch on to those things very easily and it was shown in my grade for the unit two test in psych. This is why I am definitely considering a career in medicine. Anyways, I have been loving psych lately.

Because of what we are learning lately, there have been a lot of optical illusions it seems. Throughout my life I have loved looking at these. Every since I was little, they have fascinated me. I find them to be a lot of fun and very entertaining. I love find out how they work. In conclusion, I have really been enjoying psychology class lately.

PSA!!!

My PSA can be found at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0qoY_5ymOo

The PSA was made by me, Mariah, and Patrick.

These were two of the videos I really enjoyed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6Cz6l2IL2I
http://www.youtube.com/user/appsychology1023#p/u/0/6F09d5fzO44


I really liked the first one (Kelsey, Meghan, Allen's). They had a lot of pictures showing what Ashwaubenon has to offer. They could easily be understood. I liked how the pictures were taken by them and not just off the Internet. They were shown all around the community. They also have everything they were supposed to. All of the different pictures the video contained helped to keep my attention. The second video (Sara, Candice, and Laure's) also was filled with many pictures. It was very easy to understand them and they covered everything necessary. They made Ashwaubenon sound like a wonderful place. Overall I think these were definitely two of the best. They had everything they needed, they held my attention, and most importantly, were easy to understand.