in Unit 11.

Social life....what social life? (Lol, just kidding) 

In unit 11, my eyes opened a lot to my friends and the social situations I am put in everyday. All of my friends are very versatile and covered every aspect of this chapter. Being in the court system and observing all the different juries that are selected make it even more interesting to have read this chapter. Interesting...

Monday through Friday are the days where I encounter lawyers picking juries in order to have a fair trial in order to judge whether the person committed the crime of not. Personally, I do not think the idea of "trial by one's peers." Your "peers" are asked by the attorneys on both state and defense side, "can you be fair and follow what the judge instructs you?" Most of them say yes, when in reality they come in with predetermining thoughts. This is normal for everyone to have thoughts of whether or not someone is guilty as soon as they see that person. Once a lawyer or judge states "it is the law to perceive the defendant with a cloak of innocence and it will stay on until the state and defense has made their arguments. Then you must go in the jury room and discuss with your peers the case that was brought to you and establish whether the state made you believe, beyond a reasonable doubt, the defendant was guilty." Giving such a power to regular people that have no other choice but to feel obliged they must follow the law is unfair to the defendant. I feel the burden of whether the person is innocent or guilty should be determined by someone who can reasonably separate their past with what is placed in front of them, and that person should be the judge. 

in Unit 10.

Emotions...are roller coasters with correlate with our motivations to do things. We are put in situations everyday that test our emotions and test what motivations we are going to fullfill. 

The research focus on misattributing arousal was quite interesting to me. I often feel like my cognition effects my arousal at all times. I become so easily drawn into my mind and get so in deep that I become so emotional over it. I once was so stressed over my boyfriend meeting my coworkers because I was overthinking every conversation that they could possibly have. Not saying that my boyfriend would say anything out of the ordinary, or vice versa with my coworkers, but just the simple act of thinking I should stress out about it made me stress out. 

Interesting.

Learning...

in Unit 9.

In this chapter it talks about intelligence and language, something that people must possess to function normally in life. We must be intelligent in order to put our words together and make sentences that other people who know our language can understand and communicate back. Genetics have a huge part in how we retain information.

Something that shocked me in this chapter was the idea that people have a stereotype threat. Which means Performance decrement so that are caused by the knowledge of cultural steryotypes. This idea doesn't shock me, but it does make me raise my eyebrow. I am Dominican and Cuban, most people would see me and automatically put the title of "not so intelligent." I remember in elementary school, I lived in Colorado and I was the only fair skinned, curly haired, almond shaped eyed girl in the class. They depicted me as being of African American decent and all my other classmates had blonde hair and blue eyes. They spoke to me differently and thought I wasn't going to learn as fast as they would so, being nice and naive, they tried explaining things to me slower and tried being nice to me by helping me do projects. I turned out to help them with all the writing assignments, which was surprising to them. We were kids then so I didn't take too much offense and they didn't know any better. Once they realized I was just as smart they spoke to me different and asked me for help. I feel like any other kid would have dumbed down in order to fit in to what they thought the other kids saw in them, to be normal. 

Learning. Everyday.

in Unit 7

Learning is what happens everyday...all day. The cliche line "you learn something new everyday" has never been more true after reading this chapter. Everything you do in life is learning. You take a new route to work, you try a different flavor of gum or you hit a wrong button on the computer. 

One subject that stood out to me in this unit was the study of insight and latent learning by Edward Tolman. Something that I have mentioned in my previous postings about that light bulb going off, is exactly what is being represented here. The "Aha" moment is not only recognized by yourself but your brain lightens up with it also. You become so focused once you understand what is going on, so much that you get tunnel vision. That happens to me all of the time. If I concentrate hard enough on a problem I can understand it and once I do everything else thereafter falls into place, making me feel accomplished. 

Learning. 

in Unit 6.

Growing and developing is a lsomething that you continue todo within your lifetime. From the time the egg is being fertilized to death, everything in between are so many shades of grey that makes life....life. 

The most interesting part of the developmental process in life is the prefrontal cortex and how it continues to grow forward, which causes teens in the stage of puberty to not only be emotional but impulsive. Considering that this is the part of the brain that controls your reasoning, explains why they have a juvinile court system. I work as a court reporter and when I work in the courts where juveniles are convicted, the judges are much more reasonable. They have to consider the brain and why kids are the way they are. They are impulsive and sometimes they realize the crime they committed was wrong after it has already been committed, compared to adults and they're fully developed frontal cortex. 

Brain...what an amazing development it goes through. And to think it is constantly running for an average of 65 years. Beauty right behind our eyes...underneathe a skull and surrounded by fluid. 

in Unit 5.

Dreaming...something I am so in tuned with. If I don't dream, I didn't have a good nights sleep. This was the unit I was looking forward to since the beginning of the class. I am just an emotional person and my dreams are the gateway to my emotions.  

I really really enjoyed reading Sigmund Freud's interpretations on how dreams are analyzed. I often find myself reading about what my dream meant. Most of my dreams are weird because although I might read "a new opportunity is coming your way", it might not happen as quickly as I'd think it would. But when it happens a little down the road, I, once again, have a voila moment. My manifest content and it's latent constant come together like a puzzle piece in my life, but then again...I start thinking about hindsight bias. What if I am right, but it had no correlation, but on the contrast, what if it happened because my mind was trying to warn me by dreaming it. 

Dreams to me, will always, be my mind warning me....good or bad.

in Unit 4.

Sensing and perceiving is a daily action that people take advantage of. I am so fortunate to be able to see and hear without any major problems. I studied American Sign Language throughout all of my highschool career, and this section was a refresher to what I remembered about the ear. 

I knew way too well about the ear but, learning about seeing was very interesting to me. So many different parts of the eyes in order for our brains to interpret it to see. It's crazy to me to comprehend how fast our brain reacts when it comes to seeing. I would have never guessed the part of the brain connected to seeing was in the back of my head. I wonder if the reason why people are dyslectic is maybe the true way we are supposed to see it but the information does not travel fast enough, or at all, through the brain to flip the image around. Or does it soley have to do with the process of of seeing from the cornea all the way through the retina. So fascinating to think about.