Psychology Taste and Smell Lab

Written by P. A. Owens on September 8, 2018

Taste and Smell Lab

Problem: According to entnet.org, “The complicated process of smelling and tasting begins when molecules released by the substances around us stimulate special nerve cells in the nose, mouth, or throat. These cells transmit messages to the brain, where specific smells or tastes are identified. Smell inherently impacts how we taste things.” (N/A, 2018, paragraph 2). Keeping this information in our minds, how much does our sense of smell input into the tasting of foods?

Hypothesis: If the participants are bind folded and fed different foods, first while holding their noses, we can determine how much smell factors into tasting. The same for when they are allowed to smell the food before eating again, with noses unplugged.

Materials:

peanut butter

tortilla chip strips

cool whip

gummy bears

pita bread

a blindfold

Experiment: While blindfolded, each of my five participants, (Just as some extra information, they were all family members, so this experiment was great fun and got quite hilarious at times. There may or may not have been a few very, very sour looks from the strange taste of peanut butter and spitting out of gummy bears because of strange textures. Needless to say, it was a barrel of laughs for everyone involved.) held their nose and were given a small bite of each food listed. I gave them each of the five foods, telling them to distinguish each food without being able to see or smell the food. Unable to distinguish the foods, I then held each food up to their noses and let them smell the foods before eating them once more.

Data:

Identification Without Smelling
	Peanut Butter	Tortilla strips	Cool whip	Gummy bears	Pita bread
Participant 1:	Recognized	Recognized	Not recognized	Recognized	Recognized
Participant 2:	Not recognized	Not recognized	Not recognized	Recognized	Recognized
Participant 3:	Recognized	Recognized	recognized	Recognized	Not recognized

Participant 4:	Recognized	Recognized	Not Recognized	Not recognized	Recognized
Participant 5:	Recognized	Not recognized	Not recognized	Recognized	Recognized

How did you recognize the foods you tasted, without seeing or smelling them?

Participant 1: taste more than texture

Participant 2: Taste more than texture

Participant 3: taste and texture

Participant 4: texture more than taste

      Participant 5: texture more than taste

Identification With Smelling; no taste
	Peanut Butter	Tortilla strips	Cool Whip	Gummy bears	Pita bread
Participant 1:	Recognized	Recognized	recognized	Recognized	Recognized
Participant 2:	Recognized	Recognized	Not recognized	Recognized	Recognized
Participant 3:	Recognized	Not recognized	recognized	Recognized	Recognized

Participant 4:	Recognized	Not recognized	recognized	Recognized	Not recognized
Participant 5:	Recognized	Recognized	Not recognized	Recognized	recognized

Conclusion:  In some cases, the data in the hypothesis was supported in the experiment, but in others, it was not. Smell and texture were both very important for my participants to distinguish what the food was that they were given to taste or smell.

Communication: While texture was an important part of recognizing the foods, smell played an important role as well. For a few of the participants, it was harder to smell and recognize the substance than taste it, because taste and texture play such prominent roles. While taste and texture are important, for my participants, smelling the foods was actually more useful to identify them than tasting them was. As one can clearly see from the tables above, smell and texture were almost equal in the participants executing the correct guess of the foods they were tasting or smelling. All in all, this experiment showed that either texture and smell, or texture or smell, are both great way to find out what you are eating when blindfolded. And of course it showed how the brain can sense what the food is with or without texture and smell because of the familiarity of the foods, and common knowledge.

Citations:

2018 American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery. Smell and Taste.

Retrieved on September 8, 2018 from:

https://www.entnet.org//content/smell-taste

Psychology Sleep Lab Journal

Written by P. A. Owens on September 13, 2018

Sleep Journal

Problem: What is my general sleep cycle?

Hypothesis: I tend to wake up at night only if I am too hot or cold or have to use the restroom, and typically other than that I will sleep through the night entirely. I typically have very few dreams if any.

Experiment: Keep a sleep journal over the course of four days and record what is observed.

Data:

September 9, 2018	●     In bed at: 10:50pm ●     Fell asleep: 2:25am ●     I slept through the entire night, probably because I went to sleep so late. For some reason I could not fall asleep easily that night at all, hence the 2:25am time frame. ●     I woke up for school at 9:00am; I stayed in bed for about 20 minutes. I am not at all a morning person and I always need a little time to wake up and become my normal, more assertive self. ●     I remained drowsy until about 1:00pm, which was about 20 minutes after my history lecture was concluded.
September 10, 2018	●     In bed at: 11:00pm ●     Fell asleep: 12:15am ●     I woke up one time, at 4:20am, that night. Due to being hot and even sweating slightly. I was hot because I wore a hoodie to bed and forgot to take it off before falling asleep. I took off my hoodie, slept with the covers off, and went back to sleep within 15 minutes. ●     Woke up again at 8:00am, went back to sleep, because I knew I didn’t have any classes that day due to the hurricane, until 9:40am and got up at 10:00am.
September 11, 2018	●     After playing hide and seek in the dark, outside with a few of my siblings, I went to bed at 10:45pm ●     Fell asleep: 12:00am ●     I fell asleep with my hoodie on again, so at 5:20am, I woke up hot and slightly sweaty and took of the hoodie. After taking the hoodie off, I went right back to sleep. ●     Woke up: 8:25am, stayed in bed to wake up all the way until 8:45am. Again I didn’t have any classes that day so I could sleep in a little bit.
September 12, 2018	After playing the boardgame Clue, and        winning by complete chance, I was in bed by 10:50pm. After watching a few YouTube videos, I got super sleepy and fell asleep around 11:50pm. I slept through the entire night with no interruptions and woke up the next morning at 9am. I got out of bed around 9:15am.

Conclusion: My hypothesis was correct according to the fact that I tend to wake up if I am too hot or cold, and that other than that I typically sleep through the night without any interruptions and that dreams are very rare for me.

Observations: One thing that really stood out to me is that I woke up 2 nights due to being too hot while wearing my hoodie to sleep. Also the fact that I tend to wake up around the same time every morning. It must be that my circadian rhythm over time has become to wake up at those times every morning. I’ve always found it interesting that this happens and was curious as to why it happens. Now I have an idea as an explanation for it. I have also noticed that I typically am asleep around the same times every night, with the exception of the first night of course, I don’t know what was happening that day. The fact that I had no dreams, that I remember, was also quite interesting to me. I am quite curious if I never got into a deep enough sleep each night, e.i. REM sleep. “REM sleep is a relatively psychological active type of sleep when most of a person’s dreams take place, whereas NREM sleep spans from lighter stages to a much deeper, more restful kind of sleep.” (Ciccarelli & White, 2017) So perhaps I am rarely in the REM stage of sleep and that is why I rarely have any dreams.

Citations:

Ciccarelli, Saundra K., & J. Noland White.  Psychology (REVEL with e-text/access code), 5th Edition.  Person 2017.  ISBN:  978-0134715305

Psychology Week 11 Discussion Board 1-2

Written by P. A. Owens on October 31, 2018

Week 11 DB 1-2

DB1:  In reference to the two required videos.  Please submit a short response-3 paragraphs minimum.  In the paragraphs, please…

1) Develop a comparison of the factors regarding health psychology mentioned in your text and those in the two videos.

As shown in both of the videos and as demonstrated in our text, mental health is very strongly connected to one’s physical health and well-being. Both of the videos and the text all declare this quite clearly throughout their statements of mental health psychology. All of the examples give clear ways to avoid stress and hardships mentally that are the results of overbearing stress in someone’s life. Our text also gives an example of how a social support system, the network of friends, family members, neighbors, coworkers, and others who can offer help to a person in need, can help someone who is struggling with stress tremendously. (Ciccarelli and White, 2017)    

2) Please contrast the text with the two videos.

The first video by Dr. Ghannam goes into a full amount of detail about universal mental health issues around the globe, which are mainly caused by poor living conditions and war/hardships that mainly occur in third world countries. The second video, in my opinion the more fun one, goes into detail about how our emotions can effect our mental health. Both of the videos agree that mental health is something that can be taken care of. And I agree that, like one video stated, with hard work and motivation and cutting out things from one’s life such as alcohol, high blood sugar or cholesterol, obesity or a poor diet, smoking etc. (TEDxTalks, 2013) Our text by Ciccarelli and White is somewhat different because it mainly gives general overviews, per say, of topics that are more closely related to things that nearly everyone might have issues with over the course of their lifetimes; such as stress, how the immune system is impacted by stress, possible reactions to stress, and so on. (Ciccarelli and White, 2017)

3) Please summarize your analysis of the three. 

Our text and the videos all state and stress (ha, see what I did there? ;-) that if you have health problems, that it could be due to an overbearing amount of stress. They also all go into some depth about how someone who is struggling with stress can overcome come of their day to day anxieties that they are dealing with.

This will employ your critical thinking and writing skills, preparing you for the development of your final research paper, wherein you should be evaluating different sources of information, for similarities and differences and then synthesizing and summarizing your findings.

DB2:  Health Psychology- 

1)What are aspects of good health?  Please consider physical, psychological, and more.

An aspect of good physical health can be a clear representation of good mental health. And good mental health can be a reason for good physical health. Of course this is not always the case, but for most, it is. In fact, mental stress can actually effect the entire immune system and overall health. (Ciccarelli and White, 2017) which can weaken a person’s body when they need their best self the most, for example when someone gets stressed out over a math exam or psychology paper; they could also be weakening their entire immune system. So the best thing for someone to do would be to do something relaxing, and for them to meet their deadlines ahead of time in a stress-free atmosphere.

2) What is mindfulness?  Do you feel this would have any effect on health?  Why or why not?  (Consider the work of Dr. Ellen Langer- you will need to research this)

Mindfulness is the state of being aware of your surroundings and being aware of the steps you need to take while doing important, or non-important, tasks. As Dr. Ellen Langer states, to be mindful, she notes, stressing process over outcome, allows free rein to intuition and creativity, and opens us to new information and perspectives. (Dr. Langer, 2009) I believe being mindful has a very positive effect on health. Of course some people might over do being mindful and become slightly or majorly paranoid, which is never good for one’s physical or mental health. On the other hand, being mindless could leave a person in a “tizzy” and not knowing what to do when certain situations arise. Dr. Ellen Langer also states that  being mindless determines that the mindless following of routine and other automatic behaviors lead to much error, pain and a predetermined course of life. (Dr. Langer, 2009) So there you have it, straight from an expert, being mindless can result in a very low state of life.

3)  What are some skills or suggestions you might make to a client to help them create a more healthy lifestyle?  Do you use these suggestions in your life?  Why or why not?

If someone was struggling to have a healthy lifestyle, I would suggest cutting one thing out of their life. A stressful timeline can make someone lose hope of ever getting out of it, and we never want that. Another thing could be that they do not work out on a regular basis at a gym, YMCA, etc. I would strongly suggest working out to maintain one’s body in a healthy manner Psychologists promote healthy lifestyles, which help people maintain their health and also to  prevent or treat illnesses. (Ciccarelli and White, 2017) Exercising has so many health benefits if you do it the right way, which could mean hiring a trainer to help them out and encourage them. As far as using these suggestions in my own life, yes, I do. I have to have some extra free time to just lay around in a comfy hoodie and take a nap or do my favorite relaxing thing to do, which is crocheting. I also recently started working out, swimming laps at my local YMCA, and I have felt super energetic lately and almost stress free.

References:

TEDxTalks. (2013). Global health psychology: Jess Ghannam at TEDxUNPlaza. YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA5hY0XKByM Accessed on October 29, 2018.

Ciccarelli, Saundra K., & J. Noland White.  Psychology (REVEL with e-text/access code), 5th

Edition.  Person 2017.  ISBN:  978-0134715305

Dr. Ellen Langer (2009) Mindfulness http://www.ellenlanger.com/books/3/mindfulness

Psychology Week 10 Discussion Board 1 (parts 1-3)

Written by P. A. Owens on October 24, 2018

Week 10 DB 1 (parts 1-3)

DB1:  Please clearly identify and discuss, the following:

1)  Differentiate sex and gender.*

According to our text, our sex is determined by the physical characteristics that we are born with and gender is what each individual person identifies themselves as. (Ciccarelli and White, 2017)

2)   Analyze gender role differences.

Male gender roles tend to be more masculine and “strong” or muscular and show less emotion than female gender roles. Whereas female gender roles tend to lean toward the “damsel in destress” or weaker link and more emotional of the two gender roles. These are more commonly known as gender role stereotypes. A gender stereotype is a concept about males or females that assigns various characteristics to them on the basis of nothing more than being male or female. (Ciccarelli and White, 2017) All throughout history, we have seen countless examples of this but of course it’s not always the case especially in our modern society of the current year, 2018.

3)   Know gender role development theories.  (Describe and develop them here)

Social Learning Theory: emphasizes learning through observation and imitation of models, attributes gender-role development to those processes. (Ciccarelli and White, 2017)

Gender Schema Theory: this theory combines social learning theory and cognitive development. It is based on the Piagetian concept of schemes, children develop a schema, or mental pattern, for being male or female in much the same way that they develop schemas for other concepts such as “dog,” “bird,” and “big.” (Ciccarelli and White, 2017)

Gender Stereotyping: as I explained above, gender stereotyping is a concept about males or females that assigns various characteristics to them on the basis of nothing more than being male or female. (Ciccarelli and White, 2017)

Androgyny: psychologist Sandra Bem has developed the concept of androgyny to describe a characteristic of people whose personalities reflect the characteristics of both males and females, regardless of gender. (Ciccarelli and White, 2017)

References:

Ciccarelli, Saundra K., & J. Noland White.  Psychology (REVEL with e-text/access code), 5th  Edition.  Person 2017.  ISBN:  978-0134715305

Psychology Week 9 Discussion Board 1-2

Written by P. A. Owens on October 17, 2018

Week 9 DB 1-2

DB1:  Currently "Mindfulness" is a buzzword with "life coaches," sports coaches...just about everyone.  The concept has actually been around for quite some time.  Do a bit of independent research (not any Wikis), but you may consider anything ending in .gov.  Google scholar is also a good source; look for peer-reviewed articles. 
After learning about Mindfulness, give an example from your own life (PG-13 please) where you may have applied this concept without realizing. 
How does this relate to this chapter? 
How does this relate to your text?

My Answer to DB 1:
The first thing I thought to write about myself being mindful of course is related to something I absolutely love. Food. I love food. I mean, who doesn’t? But in all seriousness, every single time I eat anything, I have to be super mindful. Why, you ask? Because I am gluten intolerant and anything that contains gluten hurts my stomach tremendously. So every time I even think about eating, I have to stop and think, “wait… does this have gluten?” Reading labels has become my second hobby, close behind crochet. A woman who wrote an online article about mindful eating sates: I learned about mindful eating, which she (her therapist) describes as "eating what you want when you want it." Sounds so simple, but for most people, this is pretty revolutionary. (health.com 2018). Eating can be something so simple for “normal” people, or those without allergies etc., but for those with the setbacks do have to be much more mindful of what they are consuming.
This type of mindfulness can be closely related to this chapter of our text because on page 362, when it talks about the person eating too much pie on Thanksgiving. The pie, in all its glorious promise of flavor and sweetness, becomes, in itself, an incentive to eat. Incentives are things that attract or lure people into action. (Ciccarelli and White 2017) in my case, the incentive is to not eat gluten so my stomach does not get upset and start cramping and bloating.

DB2:  The topic of motivation and emotion is often laughingly considered the "Sex and Food" topic.  For DB2 I recommend a movie, called, "Kinsey," Starring Liam Neeson.  (I know, I know...) He is fantastic.  This is an incredible documentary.   It is disturbing, but depicts a ground-breaking study into human sexuality before it was considered an appropriate field of research.  See what you make of it.  Please post an appropriate response, relating the concepts of motivation and emotion to researchers such as Abraham Maslow, Phillip Zimbardo, Alfred Kinsey and the biological mechanisms you have studied so far in your text (ie: the brain and its functions, sensory perception, development...) the goal now and going forward in all your other studies is to begin synthesizing your lessons from previous work and developing theories and then utilizing those previous studies to support your positions.  Have fun.  Keep it above board: no inappropriate statements or judgement calls, rather evaluate your perception of this topic as the professional scientists you are becoming.

My Answer to DB 2:
Abraham Maslow is the person that inspired the idea of the humanistic approach. Maslow proposed that there are several levels of needs that a person must strive to meet before achieving the highest level of personality fulfillment. (Ciccarelli and White 2017)
Phillip Zimbardo is probably most famous for his prison experiment that was conducted in 1971. It showed how easily one can be swayed to become violent, or vulnerable, according to the situations and circumstances that they were put in at the time. The conclusions of Zimbardo and his colleagues highlighted the influence that a social role, such as that of “guard,” can have on perfectly ordinary people. ( Ciccarelli and White 2017)
Alfred Kinsey conducted a research survey on the sexual conduct and lives of a certain amount of people. His results, which were published in 1938, astonished the audience with the results being very high in how many had had sexual intercourse at an early age and how many had engaged in homosexuality behavior. Although, a face to face interview might cause some people being interviewed to be inhibited about admitting to certain kinds of sexual behavior, or others might exaggerate wildly, increasing the likelihood of inaccurate data. ( Ciccarelli and White 2017)

References:

https://www.health.com/weight-loss/mindful-eating-hack
Ciccarelli, Saundra K., & J. Noland White.  Psychology (REVEL with e-text/access code), 5th
Edition.  Person 2017.  ISBN:  978-0134715305

Psychology Week 8 Discussion Board 8.9-8.10

Written by P. A. Owens on October 10, 2018

Week 8 DB 8.9 and 8.10

8.9 Describe the physical changes of puberty:

Puberty can be defined as the physical changes in both primary sex characteristics (growth of actual sex organs…) and secondary sex characteristics (changes in the body…) that occur in the body as sexual development reaches its peak (Ciccarelli and White 2017). Puberty can occur in males usually happens around age 14, while females make their statement much earlier, around age 12. Although, puberty comes at different times for everyone according to their genetic makeup and these ages are just estimates, averages or what have you. Puberty occurs as the result of a complex series of glandular activities, stimulated by the “mastor gland” or the pituitary gland, when the proper genetically determined age is reached… these glands stimulate the growth of characteristics such as body hair, muscle tissue in males, and the menstrual cycle in girls (Ciccarelli and White 2017). It takes about 4 years for puberty to be finished with its job in each of us, but the brain doesn’t actually stop developing until one’s early 20’s.

 

8.10 Identify the cognitive and moral advances that occur in adolescence:

Cognitive:

The cognitive development of adolescents is less visible than the physical development but still represents a major change in the way adolescents think about themselves, their peers, and relationships, and the world around them (Ciccarelli and White 2017). Adolescents tend to do a lot more thinking than any other ages. They not only become more self-conscious of themselves, but also of the world around them and how they are going to respond to those changes. In fact, many young adults tend to think too much about their current situations and tend to sometimes make up situations and problems that weren’t there in the first place. Some adolescents have spent so much time thinking about their own thoughts and feelings that they have become convinced that they are special, one of a kind, and that no one else has ever had these thoughts and feelings before them (Ciccarelli and White 2017). Being a common feeling among teens. This would make sense as to why some teens are such risk takers and show such large amounts of bravery when it comes to them doing “brave”, sometimes almost stupid and irrational, things.

Moral:

Being moral can be described as what one person views as right from wrong and to what extent. If someone thinks nothing is wrong and you can do whatever you want, that is obviously a sign of low moral standards in that person’s life. Moral advances made during adolescence concerns the teenager’s understanding of “right” and “wrong” (Ciccarelli and White 2017). So a teenager’s view of right and wrong is put into place for the rest of their life during adolescence. That’s not to say it can’t be changed a bit throughout their life, but for the most part, these views and outlooks on these matters are put in place for good.

References:

Ciccarelli, Saundra K., & J. Noland White.  Psychology (REVEL with e-text/access code), 5th            Edition.  Person 2017.  ISBN:  978-0134715305

Psychology Week 7 Discussion Board 1-2

Written by P. A. Owens on October 3, 2018

Week 7 DB 1-2

DB 1: Please take the provided online IQ test after watching the video and reading your text.  After completing the quiz, please respond that you have done so in the DB forum, and relate the test to what you have learned in your text and through other resources this week. Please do not indicate your score or allow your score to affect you in any way, as this is not a formally administrated test.

A)    What are your thoughts on the test and the process?

I personally love taking online quizzes and tests, I do them all the time for fun, so taking this IQ test was pretty fun for me. I thought it was a great test. I really liked the setup and each question. The process of tests online are always entertaining for me because, maybe I’m weird, I like taking them. Although this one was a little different than most I take, because there were two questions on one page before you could go to the next two. Whereas most online tests have either one question then you go to the next page, or they are all on one long page. This one was set up with mainly mathematical related questions, but maybe that’s how all IQ tests are, I’m not sure. Mathematics is definitely my Achilles heel so, it was a little bit challenging for me. Overall, I enjoyed the process and the challenge of the quiz. As our text states, all tests are not equally good tests… some may fail to actually test what they are designed for (Ciccarelli and White 2017). But I think this one did the job quite well. It gave me the score that I was expecting.

B)    What types of credentialed IQ tests are there?  How are these utilized?  Please be thorough in your response.

There are a ton of IQ tests all around the web, but the very first credited one was the Stanford-Binet Test. Another good, and popular, example would be the Wechsler Intelligence Scale, there are different tests pertaining to the person’s age, i.e. adult, children, preschool. As Sackett states, IQ tests are generally valid for predicting academic success and job performance (qtd. in Ciccarelli and White, 2017). Although they are not always accurate, they are a great place to start one’s academic or career success. They can tell a parent or teacher which grade a child should be in, or a potential boss if their aspiring employee is able to do the tasks expected of them if they are hired. IQ tests can come in quite handy for a number of reasons.

DB 2:

A)    Do you feel there is a difference in being intelligent and being smart?  Please develop this thought.

Yes, I do, very much so. I know a number of very smart people. They excel in classes such as calculus, physics, and even calculus-based physics. (I didn’t even know that was a thing.) But, they aren’t the greatest at making important or personal decisions. Even little ones, like what to say to comfort someone, or to compliment someone. What comes so easily to people who don’t always excel in calculus and physics often comes so much easier to them. When people think, they are not only aware of the information in the brain but are also making decisions about it, comparing it to other information, and using it to solve problems (Ciccarelli and White 2017). Often these very smart people are the ones who most easily give in to peer pressure, or they are the most easily swayed into doing things that are, to put it quite simply, stupid. Of course not all intelligent people are like this, there are lots of intelligently smart people around the world.

B)    How do you feel intelligence plays a role in an individual's life?

  Intelligence can be defined as the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. The people who are lucky enough to have exceeding amounts of intelligence are the ones who usually go on to get higher level college degrees and continue through life with great jobs and steady incomes.

C)    What do you believe determines or affects intelligence?  Can this be altered for good or bad?  If so, how?  If not, why not?

I believe that ones upbringing can, not always does, but can determine how intelligent a person ends up throughout life. For example, several studies have shown that if a parent reads a certain amount to their child per day, that child will excel more in their academic studies as they grow up. But of course that isn’t always the case. On the other hand, if a child is unexplainably intelligent, the whole reading everyday thing might not affect their intelligence level at all. Every person is incredibly different and each person’s needs are different from the other’s.

References:

Ciccarelli, Saundra K., & J. Noland White.  Psychology (REVEL with e-text/access code), 5th Edition.  Person 2017.  ISBN:  978-0134715305