Everything I have learned

UW-Whitewater's 302 Biologic Basis of Emotion

[otherskinnersse24]

Module 14

Hello and welcome back for the final module of my class! We had a fairly easy week this week as it is our last week for class so I can walk you though it!

First things first, we went over the difference between Behavior and Behaviour. Now my sass went immediately to assuming the difference was the U but according to Grammarist.com the version behaviour is much more preferred than the American spelling of it. 

We then moved on to read the definition of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or CBT from the mayo clinic from the website. 

From this, we watched a video called What is CBT? | Making Sense of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy done by Mind, the mental health therapy. Through this video it thoroughly explains what CBT is and how it can help you in the long run of things. Such as, understanding why your anxiety is making you feel the way you do and what you can do to help stop you from feeling this particular way. I found this video to be quite interesting because I just recently was diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety and I am currently trying to find some sort of therapy to do and I feel like CBT might be a good option for me. 

From there we read an article called A Meta-analysis of Computerized Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for the Treatment of DSM-5 Anxiety Disorders which was written by  Caroline B Adelman, Kaitlyn E Panza, Christine A Bartley, Allyson Bontempo, and  Michael H Bloch. I found the little bit we did read interesting because more people ended up being diagnosed via cCBT verses in person.

Finally, we read another article called Internet-Based vs. Face-to-face Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) for Psychiatric and Somatic Disorders: An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis written by  Gerhard Andersson, Pim Cuijpers, Per Carlbring, Heleen Riper,  and Erik Hedman. This was interesting because it basically confirmed what the other article had said as well.

That is it! This is all we had to do throughout the entire course, I hope you enjoyed it and maybe one day I will see you next time for another class. Until then!

[otherskinnersse24]

Module 13

Hello and welcome to Module 13! This week was another shorter week for assignments but there was still a lot to do so lets dive in!

First things first we watched a YouTube video on the Allostatic load by KMI Learning. This was a fairly short video but it was very informational. We learned the difference between acute stress, which is a burst of stress then things return to normal and chronic stress which is a more never ending string of stress that is bad for us. We also learned that the allostatic load is basically how stress impacts us whether it is a positive way or a negative way. If you want to watch it for yourself, you can find it below!

We then moved onto a TedEd called How stress affects your body and the speaker was Sharon Horesh Bergquist. We got to learn more about what stress can do to us and what exactly are the stress hormones' and we even got to learn that cortisol increases our appetite. Overall it was a very interesting video, just be prepared to pause if you’re taking notes because I had to keep pausing a lot.  

Next we watched a video called How stress affects your brain which is another TedEd where the speaker was Madhumita Murgia. We learn that stress can physically damage your brain and can even cause shrinking. Stress cause also weaken systems of the hippocampus that helps control our stress but once that weakens so does our ability to control our stress! Overall the video was interesting and very informational and I am sure you will enjoy it too, also much like the other one be prepared to pause a lot to take notes.

We then moved onto another TedEd video this one was entitled Does stress affect your memory and the speaker for this one was Elizabeth Cox. To start we learn how memories are stored within the brain and then she goes on to explain how stress affects our memory and eventually we struggle to remember things. I found this interesting because I tend to be a very forgetful person and I thought it was interesting to see.  

We then moved onto a video titled What coronavirus stress is doing to your brain and body by both Abby Tang and Michelle Yan Huang. Now this one is interesting because this is something currently still going on in our world and I know Covid has been a huge stressor especially ever since my dad had it and I am curious what Covid was doing to us other than making us sick. If you are interested in the video and article you can find it here.

Finally to end this module we just had an article called Scientists already know how to 'erase' your painful memories... and add new ones written by Fiona MacDonald. I found the idea of this to be quite interesting, especially since so many people go though trauma and what not do to past experiences and the idea that scientists could remove these bad memories is very interesting to me. I feel like it would bring up some ethical issues as well because while yes this is something people would want, but is it ethical for this to be done, many learn from past experiences and if you just eliminate them what would happen.

We of course had our last group chat for this week, and I unfortunately did not do the review sheet for this week so that is it for this week and I will see you for our last module!

[otherskinnersse24]

Module 12

Hello and welcome back! We are almost done with everything for this class but don’t worry, there was plenty of work to do today! So, lets jump right in!

First things first we got to watch another TedTalk where the speaker was Jaak Panksepp talking about the PANIC system. Within the video he mentions that PANIC arousal maybe a source of psychic pain that can promote depression. He also showed a chart that is Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, that I will share with you along with the video.

Now this isn’t the exact version shared within the video this one is actually way more detailed but it absolutely gets the same point across as well. Overall the video was very interesting and I quite enjoyed it as well, so I am sure you will too.

There are also a few things he mentions within the video including an article and a specific part of the brain, I will share the article mentioned here and the picture below.

The part labeled AC refers to the Anterior Cingulate Cortex, which if you would like more information on I recommend looking it up and not using the Wikipedia page that was share with me but don’t worry, there’s more!

We then moved onto another TedTalk, this one was speaker Matthew Lieberman and he was speaking on the social brain and its superpowers. Which I did find this video to be fairly interesting I am sure you will too! 

Other than our weekly group chat, that was is for this weeks assignment, and I will see you for module 13! 

[otherskinnersse24]

Module 11

This week we had another fairly easy week, but this week we had three video lectures taught by the professor, which is typically rare for us!

The first video was primarily on emotion and learning. This involved in learning, the two pathways for sensory processing. Such as in fear conditioning stimulus leads to fear. So in order to feel fear there needs to be a stimulus that we see to cause the fear reaction. While the amygdala is not the true fear center it has connections to the cortical regions of our brain! We also learned about Edward Claparede’s patient which was interesting as well.

Next video was primarily on emotion and memory. This mentions that there are embodied theories of emotion and that cognition and emotion share overlapping biological systems. We even got to learn about our Professor’s theory of interaction. We also talked about the role of facial feedback in emotion, essentially what we talked about a few modules back and how botulinum toxin or botox prevents muscle feedback.

The next video was on Emotion and Decision making. We talked about frontal lobe, and pre-frontal lobe damage. It was also mentioned within the video how autonomic neuro-system activity guides our decision making. This brought up Phineus Gage, who is one of the most important people in the history of psychology. He did not feel grief, and had a bilateral frontal brain tumor.

There of course was a little more covered in each power point but that is going to be it for this module, feel free to check out the review sheet down below and I will see y’all for the next one!

[otherskinnersse24]

Module 10

Hello, and welcome back, this week was another easy week for us as the professor gave us a mini spring break! So we didn’t have a whole lot to do but still lets jump in!

To start this week, we had a video actually taught by our professor that gave us an slight overview of everything we have learned the past few weeks and made sure to highlight the important stuff. We also ended up going over the difference between Emotional Intensity, which is reflected in the amygdala but only for explicit evaluation. Second was Emotional Valence, which is reflected in the right insula, both in explicit evaluation and unconsciously. We also briefly went over fMRI machines and what they do, such as exposing the brain to multiple magnetic fields. Overall it was an interesting lecture, sorry I cannot share it with you, but not to worry, there was more to do!

Now when I say there was more to do, we primarily only self-administered two things to our selves and recorded our own results. So this relied on us being honest and truthful about our results. 

The first was a regulatory focus questionnaire. Which I did administer this to myself and I am not fully sure what my score was as I feel like I struggled to figure it our, but I will share a blank copy with you all so maybe you can figure your own scores!

We then moved onto the PANAS, which we also self administered. This one I found more interesting because I noticed that for myself I tend to think way more negatively, but it was interesting for me to see how much more. 

So here is the test itself, and of course I will share how to score yourself! 

But, that was it for this week, I hope you enjoyed yourself, I know I did and I will see you next time for module 11! As always, the review sheet will be down below! 

[otherskinnersse24]

Module 9

Hello and welcome back! This is module 9 of the course and this week was a very easy week all we really had for the whole week was 3 videos to watch and a small part to read out of a book by Robert Sapolsky called Behave. I again cannot share with you the part we read but I will in fact at least share where on amazon you can get it if you want to read it for yourself.

So first things first is the first video we watched, called What is rewarding brain stimulation? by Christopher Harris. This video was primarily about stimulating the reward system of your brain. To me I believe this is more like an instant gratification rather than waiting for the reward. Within the video, it is mentioned that when stimulating certain parts of the rats brain, they would stimulate themselves to the point in which they would pass out. In general I found the video to be quite interesting and I got more interesting in which part of the brain needs to be stimulated for the reward system, (spoiler we learn it).

Next we had a 2-Minute Neuroscience: Reward System video done by Neuroscientifically Challenged. This is the video in which we learn where about in the brain the reward system essentially takes place. We learn from the video that it activates two areas within our brain, the first is the Ventral Tegmental Area or the VTA which is near the brain stem and the second area I believe is the Nucleus Accumbens, now I could be a bit mixed up because of how many parts of the brain are mentioned, but that is the general idea. So you guys can watch and understand how it works for yourself I will share the video just below.

Next we had a video called Dopamine Jackpot! Sapolsky on the Science of Pleasure that was featured on FORA.tv’s YouTube channel. I found this interesting because it seems like Robert Sapolsky seems to be one of the main people doing research on the Reward System. One of the main things he mentions in the video is about dopamine. Dopamine is not about pleasure, but it is about the anticipation of pleasure. Which I found very interesting.

Then of course we had the small part of the book we read, which I unfortunately cannot share but you can get it here on Amazon.

That was it for this week, like always, I will share the review sheet and I will see you in module 10!

[otherskinnersse24]

Module 8

Welcome back, this week we had only 2 assignments but our previous chat groups were disbanded and we were able to either reach out to others and create new ones or be reached out to. So it was a fairly easy week, but there was still lots to learn in each assignment, so lets dive right in!

Assignment 1:

To start this assignment off we started learned about three brain systems that control our behavior. We learned about these from Robert Sapolsky. In general this brain is called the triune brain which has three parts, the reptilian brain, the limbic system brain, and the cortex. But you tell you more about it, I will share with you the video with Robert explaining it better than I can.

I found the video interesting because I have heard of the reptile brain before and of course during my other classes I’ve heard about the limbic system and cortex but I didn’t realize how involved this got, especially within the triune system in general.

After this we read an article written by Ben Thomas called Revenge of the Lizard Brain. Which honestly to me sounds more like a horror sci-fi movie but instead it further explains the lizard brain and what it is. This article also goes into detail about basal ganglia, the neo-cortex and more! I found this to be particularly useful especially since I was fairly new to the whole triune system anyways.

After that article we then moved onto the Forbes article called Marketing to the Reptilian Brain, which I unfortunately did not get any notes for. But, it discusses how brands use our ‘reptilian brain’ to learn how to focus specific ads geared towards many people, not just one specific group but many groups in general.

From there we went on to watch two videos one is a TedTalk with Seth Godin as the speaker. The other one is Mark Bowden titled The Reptilian Brain - Tame Your Primitive & Impulsive Behavior at Work. I will share this with you all but one word of caution, he is very brash and swears a lot in the video but it is bleeped out, but even when it was bleeped out it still made me very uncomfortable, therefore I will not go into much more on it. But, back to the TedTalk called, Quieting Your Lizard Brain. I have always found the TedTalk videos to be some of the more interesting so I quite enjoyed it and I am sure you will too.

After the video’s that was it for assignment 1, we of course had the discussion post and then we moved onto assignment 2!

Assignment 2:

For assignment 2 we only had two things to do so it wasn’t to bad, one of which was to read an excerpt from The Emotional Brain by LeDoux, in which we read the chapter entitled The Holy Grail. Now, unfortunately I do not have a way to share this with you, but it was a decent chapter and I would absolutely recommend it. One of the more interesting things I learned from the chapter was that the limbic system theory claimed nothing short of having found the physical basis of the Freudian ID (iid). I found that interesting because in a way it almost validates some of Freud’s theories on a physical basis.

For the final part of this assignment we watched another video, this one was titled No, You Don't Have a "Reptilian Brain" by SciShow, and I found this one interesting because we just spent most of the module learning about the Reptilian Brain just to watch a video at the end explaining that it doesn’t actually exist and I found it interesting so I am sure you will too.

That was all we had to do for assignment 2, and the whole module! As always I will share the review sheet and I will see you for module 9!

[otherskinnersse24]

Module 7

Welcome back, here we are with module 7, three assignments and of course a mixture of video’s articles and back for only this week, we got to color in more things! So I’ll be able to share stuff with you that I hope you’ll find interesting. So lets drive in!

Assignment 1:

To start we read a blog post vaguely entitled The Nervous System by Aneeq Ahmad. I actually got a lot of information from this that I found helpful. For one, his blog post went through and explained different areas of the brain and body and explained what each specific part does. For example, within the article Ahmad explains that the “cerebral cortex in the forebrain houses sensory motor, and associative areas that gather sensory information, processes information for perception and memory, and produce responses bases on incoming and inherent information.” I found this helpful because between a few of my classes I was getting a few things mixed up so this was slightly less confusing for me

Next we moved on to being able to color certain parts of the brain, now I unfortunately I did not keep the drawing I had done, so I will share with you the reference images from something I used along with another completely different textbook for a different class. Now I will share the color key we were supposed to use as well BUT it does NOT match the images I am going to share.

We then had a discussion post in which we shared our colored in version and then we were able to move onto assignment 2!

Assignment 2:

For this assignment we just had a good handful of articles to read, which don’t worry I will share each one and a little of what I learned from each that I found to be helpful later on, and for this I will even share the discussion questions because it kind of pointed to what we needed to learn from the articles as well.

So, first up we have Experimental data on role of hypothalamus in mechanism of emotional behavior by  W.R. Hess, and K. Akert. I didn’t gather a lot of information but it was still a good article and one of the things I picked up from the article was “[a]lthough such terms as ‘feelings’ and ‘emotions’ are subjective categories, and ultimately beyond the limits of objective control, our observations are termed ‘emotional’ changes, since they are based on criteria identical with those conventionally applied in animal and human psychology to the phenomena of expressional mechanisms.” I had found this to be interesting, especially when it compares human and animal emotions.

We then moved on to an article called Hypothalamus Overview written by Dr. Jill Seladi-Schulman. I found this article to be interesting because it gives great detail on what exactly the hypothalamus does and what things cause hypothalamic dysfunction which is actually a lot more things cause hypothalamic dysfunction than I originally thought. For example a few things that can cause hypothalamic dysfunction are eating disorders, autoimmune conditions, and head injuries. That’s only a few of them.

Next we had a video on optogenetics which is one of the things we needed to focus on for our discussion post. Now I am not a huge fan of the video so instead I will link the website in which the video appears. So video here.

Next we moved onto the articled called Deep brain optogenetic control without implants which was written by Ruth Williams. This was also a key article to pay attention to especially for my discussion post later, one of the things we had to explain was what is optogenetics. Of course the main thing I picked up from this article is that optogenetics is a technique whereby excitable cells, such as neurons, can be controlled at will by light.” Which I find to be an interesting subject, but its a little weird to me as well, just the thought of controlling mice at least with just a little blue light.

The final article we read for this section was called Neuroscience’s New Toolbox written by Stephen Hall. I found this article interesting especially after learning more about what the hypothalamus does and knowing what scientists can do with this information. One thing I found to be particularly interesting was this quote “Using tools to build up an understanding of the brain’s activity, scientists hope to capture the biggest of cognitive game: memory, decision-making, consciousness, psychiatric illness like anxiety and depression, and sex and violence.” This was interesting because considering what we know the hypothalamus can do it still surprises that so much can come from this and that scientists can use it to learn even more about it.

Then of course I will share what we had to answer for our discussion post because I feel like we learned a lot from this assignment and knowing what we are supposed to take away from this will help you as well. 

That was it for assignment 2 now onto assignment 3!

Assignment 3:

For this assignment we had a few articles to read and two videos to watch then of course the discussion post that I don’t typically share.

The first article we read was called The Neuroscience of Fear and Loathing written by Dr. Dario Dieguez Jr. I didn’t find this to be a bad article because it helped eliminate a very common misconception about fear. Many people have believed that the amygdala is the fear center of the brain, but this is not fully true. Yes, it does assist with us feeling fear but it is not the fear center!

After that article we got to watch two videos, both of a rat, not sure if its the same rat (I assume it is), one without a brain lesion and one with, and we get to see how they change with and without the lesion.

Before

After

Then after the two video’s we got to read two articles written by Baird. My professor split it into part 1 and part 2. The first article is called Your Sexiest Brain Bits written by Amee Baird. I did not get a whole lot of information from this one, but I did get that the amygdala is the part of the brain that has the most parts associated with sex drive, and behavior in humans and animals. Which I did find interesting, especially since that is one thing I never really thought of is animals and humans sharing the same parts of the brain and they do the same thing, it makes sense, just never thought about it.

Next we read Sex and the Single Amygdala also by Amee Baird. This is the part 2 to the Your Sexiest Brain Bits article, and I got a little more out of this one than I did the first one. She not only compares the amygdala to other emotions, but she also brings up how the temporal lobe plays a part in it too.

Then the final article we had to read was titled The Amygdala is NOT the Brain’s Fear Center written by Joseph E LeDoux. Now, much like the other articles I didn’t get too much out of it but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t good. But, it does go back to what I was saying earlier, the amygdala is not the fear center, and it is responsible for so many more things.

Other than the discussion that was it for module 7, as always I will share the review sheet and I will see you in the next one!

[otherskinnersse24]

Module 6

Hello and welcome back! We are almost half way through this course and I am excited to be almost done and I hope you are too! This module turned out to be really interesting we listened to a bunch of songs, wrote things about parts of the lyrics and we ended up doing a body ‘heat’ map to describe where we most feel emotions, like what part of our body gets ‘activated’ with anger or other similar emotions. So lets dive right in!

Assignment 1:

First thing we did was listen to the popular song Can’t Stop the Feeling by Justin Timberlake, now I personally am not a huge fan of the song, its been over played for me because my mother is obsessed with him and his music (in a good way I promise).

We then moved onto the body maps of emotion, we each got to color ours in and share them with our smaller groups within the larger class, I will share mine below. With very little instruction I was mildly confused on what to fully do, even after asking so mine are no where’s near perfect but those are my representations.

It was of course primarily red and blue colors, so I used lighter and different shades of both colors to give what I felt like was happening with each thing. Next I will share an image I got from one of the next articles I will share that shows more of the activation and deactivation in a more accurate sense.

So I was close, but as you can see, I assumed every part of the body had to be colored when in fact it didn’t have to be. The article we read that we associated with the body map was titled Mapping Emotions On The Body: Love Makes Us Warm All Over by  Michaeleen Doucleff. I found this article interesting because a few of these emotions I feel often much like anybody else and seeing the true activation and deactivation chart really just solidified it for me. 

We then moved on to Bodily maps of emotions by Lauri Nummenmaa, Enrico Glerean, Riitta Hari, and Jari K. Hietanen. I found this to be quite interesting and it explains what systems within our body activate when experiencing emotions. This quote was “Numerous studies have established that emotion systems prepare us to meet challenges encountered in the environment by adjusting the activation of the cardiovascular, skeletomuscular, neuroendocrine, and autonomic nervous system (ANS).”

We then also had an old essay by William James called “What is an emotion?” Now I unfortunately did not make note of what it was and I will be honest, I don’t remember reading it either, but I shared it with all of you and you are more than welcome to read it yourself!

We then moved onto a Kahn Academy video that explained the Autonomic Nervous System to us but not by my professor unfortunately. But, I did find it super helpful and informational, and I attempted to draw some of the art from the video into my notes, but I won’t torcher you with my terrible art. But as always, I will attach the video so you can listen and learn for yourself. 

That was it for the first assignment other then the discussion board which I don’t share, so onto assignment 2!

Assignment 2:

For the start of assignment 2 we listened to Joan Armatrading sign Show Some Emotion. Now while I do love the older songs, this one was not my main cup of tea, its not a terrible song but it is a decent song.

We then moved on to watch Dr. Paul Ekman explain what is the Facial Action Coding System or the FACS for short. We even got to see an example of it in a video provided to us! Dr. Paul Ekman Example

Then we had two articles to read which I will share I unfortunately did not either read or if I had read them I did not take any note on them but I will absolutely share them with you incase you are interested and would like to read them for yourself. Game Testing and Research: The Body and the Mind by  Ben Lewis-Evans Autonomic Nervous System Activity Distinguishes Among Emotions by P Ekman, RW Levenson, WV Friesen

Then of course for all assignments we had the discussion board which I won’t share, cause it is just a summary of what we had learned from the assignment and then we moved on to assignment 3!

Assignment 3:

For the start of assignment 3 we had to listen to two songs, one is I’ll Think Of A Reason Later by Lee Ann Womack, and the other is You Made Me Love You(I Didn’t Want To Do It) by Nat King Cole. Now neither of these are the type of music I typically listen to, but again they weren’t bad songs. As always I will link them incase you want to listen to them as well but not search for them.

Next we went on to read Kendra Cherry’s article The Schachter-Singer Two-Factor Theory of Emotion. I found this article to be interesting because she explains at least one theory of emotions and what is activated. In the article Cherry says “What exactly makes up an emotion? According to one major theory of emotion, there are two key components: physical arousal and a cognitive label.” Which I found interesting because there has to be something that causes the emotion and then you have to have a physical arousal to it. For example fear, say you’re afraid of spiders, so you see one which triggers your fear, what is the physical arousal to it? Maybe you swing something to squish it, or you scream and run? Everyone is different. Other times its you have the reaction to it first and then you put a label onto what you are feeling.

We then went to watch a video on a study that studies who would get more calls, a woman asking guys to do a survey on a rickety bridge or just in a park. Which plays on our emotions, because fear and love tend to intertwine and feel the same but are obviously very different. The Video

We then read an article in companion to the video written by Melanie Tannenbaum which I felt fit perfectly and gave more information about the video as well.  Fear and Love on a Shaky Bridge

That was it for this module! I will be sharing the review sheet like always and then it will be on to the next one!

[otherskinnersse24]

Module 5

Hello and welcome back to yet another post of me attempting to explain what I have learned in class. This week we had a few video’s another somewhat fun webpage that I spent way more time on then I needed to and even more articles!

Assignment 1:

First we started off by watching a video interview with Dr. Paul Ekman who briefly went over what he believed was Darwin’s contributions to the study of emotion. We were meant to make note of at least two things the first being we share emotions with animals, and all emotions can be shared with other humans. We were also supposed to take note of two perspectives that Darwin had let others know of. I unfortunately did not write down but don’t worry, video will be attached!

Next we watched a video that explained Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection by using a Peppered Moth as an example.

Image Source

I ever since I was little (like 7 or 8 years old) I was interested in Darwinism and the theory of evolution, so this being brought back up when I am older and explained to me by an animal I found interesting was very exciting to me. The video was also amazing in explaining how and why it happens and the color changes in the Peppered Moth as well! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Next, we went to David Bau’s website which you get to see Darwin’s theory in action in the terms of 2D cars. Now we were supposed to only spend 10 minutes on the website for the first time we went, and due to me being easily distracted and I spent easily an hour or so on her adjusting the cars and seeing what they do. You get to pick a ‘seed’ and see how that changes how the cars act and you can even speed it up and change other things to see which car ‘wins’ in the game of natural selection. 

Then were told to continue watching until about the 30th and 40th generation and make note of which generation at the time got the furthest. Now you would typically expect that as the generations go on, you would assume that the 40th generation would be the best, but after my current run, that was not the case, it was actually generation 33 that did the best for this run! 

Now if you’re as easily distracted as I am you will love the simulation page done by David Bau.

We then moved on to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy to answer a few questions about the theories of emotion, such as 

I found what I had learned from this interesting because not only was it a new website I had never heard of but it gave a lot of great detail and information that typically I would not have been taught, especially from a teacher or someone else. I definitely found the emotions as adaptive programs in hominids, for example, according to the encyclopedia anxiety is actually an adaption. This kind of leads to worry of your significant other is cheating or not being able to fulfil an expectation. Which many of us still experience ourselves today as well.

Next we of course moved to the discussion post of course and then to assignment two.

Assignment 2:

For this assignment we were given the option of reading only 5 articles out of 11 of them. I will share them first and share some of the information I got from each of the ones I read first.

1. Articles about Anger: We get angry to change others. How can we manage it? by Aditya Shukla Why Haven't Our Brains Evolved Out Of Feeling Negative Emotions? by Quora

2. Articles about Sadness The science of a good cry: In evolutionary terms, it signals two things by Meeri Kim Why Do We Cry? Exploring the Psychology of Emotional Tears by Joe Pierre Why We're Happy Being Sad: Pop's Emotional Evolution by  Alix Spiegel

3. Articles on Happiness The sinister reason why people fall in love by Melissa Hogenboom  Evolution Study Shows Why Feeling Proud Is Key to Human Survival by Sarah Sloat Love – what is it good for? A lot, says evolutionary psychology. by Sara R. Lentz

4. Article about Disgust The “Behavioral Immune System” by Mark Schaller 

5. Embarrassment The Science of Awkwardness by  Anna Medaris Miller The Universality of Shame by  Andrea Estrada

The first article I read was “Why Haven’t Our Brains Evolved Out Of Feeling Negative Emotions?” I found this one to be quite interesting because I know my brain and of course I know it well, and I know I feel negative emotions more often then not so I was curious about this. One of the best explanations I found was “Our brains aren’t evolving to make us happier and more content, if anything, the crucible of evolution evolved us to be constantly warned, thinking about dangers and problems and being anxious.” Which to me this makes sense because we feel negative emotions to help us stay mostly aware of our surroundings and they’re unavoidable, yeah we don’t enjoy feeling them but we need them to survive.

The second article I read was “Why Do We Cry? Exploring the Psychology of Emotional Tears” and I chose this one because I figured it would be interesting, especially as someone who doesn’t cry often. In the article it is stated that crying appears to be a uniquely human behavior, such that it appears that no other mammal does it, which I do not feel is completely true. Just because no real tears can be seen does not mean that they are not crying. Finally, I think one of the most important thing you can take from this article is that “In order to know happiness, we need to experience sadness.” This is especially true I feel because when it comes to sadness we can use it to make better judgements and help us grow as humans.

A third article I chose to read was “Love - what is it good for? A lot, says evolutionary psychology.’ I chose this one because as young children we always dream of falling in love and we never think about it too much past having a partner and maybe children. But, of course there is more too it, especially according to psychology. One of the best things the article says about love is “Love is a psychological adaption, and probably the most intoxicating and bracing emotion humans have.” I feel this is true, love is so we don’t get lonely and when our hearts get broken we can learn from that and not make the same mistake twice.

The fourth article I chose was “The Science of Awkwardness” and I chose this one because I always felt like the awkward child growing up so I thought it would be interesting to read. The article I felt like didn’t give me a whole lot but it did explain why we tend to feel awkwardness and certain situations. This was explained as “an incongruence between what’s happening and what you think should happen, or between what two people think should happen.” I also feel like that is the perfect explanation as to why things get awkward, you expect one thing to happen and something completely different happens instead.

The final article I read was “The ‘Behavioral Immune System’” and I ended up reading this one because I wasn’t overly interested in any of the other ones so I read this one just to make the requirements. I also didn’t get to much from it but I’ll let you read it for yourself.

But, that was basically it for this module, I of course will share our review sheet that highlights the key points for us to learn and I will see you in the next one!

[otherskinnersse24]

Module 4

Hello again! Welcome back to where I attempt to explain what I learned this week for class.

Assignment 1: This week we started by talking about the International Affective Picture System or the IAPS for short. IAPS tends to be about 956 photos that are meant to be rare or exciting scenes meant to elicit some kind of emotion. These pictures can range anywhere from household furniture, and landscapes to mutilated bodies and erotic nudes.  Example of photos:

source for the pictures That was all I had to take from the Wikipedia article, but I still found it interesting. source (Yes I actually had to use information from Wikipedia)

We then moved on to talk about a secret mood manipulation experiment done on Facebook. This was done about January 2012, for one week, a group sought out permission to modify approximately 689,000 users feeds to see if they could manipulate peoples mood. This involved either showing people more positive things on their feed or more negative things on their feed and seeing whether or not the person themselves would contribute to the negativity or the positivity depending on what they saw on their feed.

This ended up being a decently controversial study because no one involved actually knew about it and did not have the chance to withdraw their results from the study.

For more information and my sources, check out this video and link! Video Source Article Source

Then we moved onto what I felt like was one of the more interesting parts, tickling rats for science. Yes, some rats like to be tickled. This part I found really interesting because you really don’t think about the fact that other mammals can be tickled, like we understand that humans can be but not mammals. There are ways to determine which rat would prefer to be tickled as well. For example, rats that are usually housed by themselves more often prefer to be tickled while rats that show more neurotic and anxious tendencies don’t enjoy it. What I also found interesting is that scientists have actually created a specific breed of rats that love to be tickled as well! Video Source Article Source

Other than our discussion posts that was it for our second assignment. I found this assignment fairly interesting especially about the Facebook study and the ability to tickle certain rats.

Assignment 2:

Read a bunch of other articles mentioning emotion detecting AI and what could be the benefits and risks to it as well. We also went to a website that helps us use some of the emotion detecting AI to see if it can determine what emotion we are depicting with our emotions. 

For the first article, it was talking about having emotion detecting AI in vehicles. I found this interesting for several reasons one, I am not a person who is huge on having my face everywhere, like I don’t mind security camera’s but I feel like a camera with an AI in my car sounds a little sketchy to me. Especially when many people open their mail, look at their credit cards, and even look at their ID’s in their cars. This lead me to question what are they going to do with the video footage they get from this. What is interesting is the first article mentions that they’re even going to include microphones as well which leads me to be concerned about even more privacy violations. The European Union Law wants that ALL new cars should be equipped with driver monitoring by mid-2022. Source

Next we read an article that talks about the risks of using AI to interpret human emotion as well. I found this to be very interesting because it brought up points I had never though of, such as emotion may not be expressed the same way throughout other cultures, and depending on your ethnicity, the AI may tend to assign more negative emotions. Also, if left unattended for a long enough period of time, the AI can perpetuate stereotypes and assumptions at an unprecedented scale. But, at the same time overtime with more inputs and information over time there is a possibility of developing an unbiased AI. Source

The final article I will talk about (don’t worry, I’ll link the other 2) was about how facial expressions which is what the AI would most likely go off of don’t tell the whole story of emotions. Which is absolutely true, if you think back to some famous celebrities who committed suicide, they always seemed to be some of the happiest people. One of the most important things I wrote while reading this article (I possibly got it from the article but I don’t honestly remember) was “Not everyone who smiles is happy, not everyone who is happy smiles and most people who do not smile are not necessarily unhappy.” I feel like this is the best description of why emotion tracking AI might not work. Source

Can Emotion Sensing Wristbands Boost Well-Being? Smart Devices Can Detect Mood, Help Track and Manage Emotions - I unfortunately could not find a link to the article and I cannot share PDF’s on here (as far as I know).

One of the more interesting things we played with was Clmtrackr, which is an emotion tracking AI that uses your webcam (if available) to use your facial expressions to make a prediction on what you’re feeling.

Review Sheet:

Then of course we had the course review sheet which I will share which I feel like highlights some of the more important highlights from this weeks readings.

[otherskinnersse24]

Module 3

Assignment 1:

To start off this week we had a total of three articles to read, the first being titled: Psychological studies are not about you by Jamil Zaki. One of the very first things he says within the article itself is: “Psychological studies are not about you. They make few if any predictions about how you should live your life, how to tell if you’re an introvert, or anything else about you as an individual.”

I found this to be interesting because I know people who have read studies and what-not and assumed that, that is how they are supposed to be and they took it to heart. It’s like, no, that’s just a generalization of what possible traits or attributes you may have that they found others to have.

He then goes on to mention the next article we ended up reading, 10 Simple Things You Can Do Today That Will Make You Happier Backed By Science. He mentions a few of the things mentioned within the article (which I will talk about later) and the fact that if it is backed by science, then why is he (Zaki) so mad about it? From what Zaki said, he was upset about it because he is worried that not only would it lead people to think differently about the purpose of psychology but also their own personal disappointment, and I could see why. Just because these 10 things made a specific group of people happier doesn’t mean it is going to make you happy. There are many underlying factors that could affect this.

He then went on to use a baseball analogy that went over my head, I never enjoyed baseball so I do not know enough about it to understand the analogy used. But, he also says how psychology is a study of populations, which is true. You take a group of people within the population and study them and draw conclusions that could fit within others personalities but doesn’t always, its the same with sociology as well.

Next is the article 10 Simple Things You Can Do Today That Will Make You Happier Backed By Science written by Belle Beth Cooper. Now while I did find this article interesting, I also found that a lot of these I either do already or I personally just do not have the will or want to do. Now while some of these can prove to be helpful to others, I do not see all of them being helpful to me. Now before I go on about what I mean, I will share a picture that is at the end of the article that briefly mentions the 10 things.

Now I found that some of these wouldn’t work for me of course, but that’s because everyone is different. Personally I feel like the exercise and going outside would be the most beneficial because most of my day I am trapped inside behind a screen whether its working on homework or just hanging out with friends. I also know for sure that the more sleep wouldn’t work for me because I already feel like I get too much sleep as it is, so even more sleep would not be beneficial to me. But, that is just me, everyone is different so what I feel works for me might not work for you.

Next we read Balancing Your Humors by Matthew Smith. He starts off the article telling us about how he was teaching his second year students about the history of psychology, which I at this point in my college career (2nd year junior) I haven’t heard too much about it so this is a part of psychology that still very much interests me. I also found it interesting how the professor goes on to mention that even he was shocked about the different methods to treat mental illness, such as shock therapy and lobotomies. 

He then moves on to the four humors which according to Matthew are black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm, and they all have different qualities, for example: black bile represents cold and dry, yellow bile represents hot and dry, blood is hot and wet and phlegm is cold and wet. Now he also ended up pointing out how these also happen to represent the four seasons as well. It was also mentioned how these can also represent different temperament as well, but I won’t go into detail about that, I’ll let you find that. He even goes further to explain how too much or too little of one thing or another can lead to different mental health problems. I will stop here on this article, it’s linked above if you wish to read more about it.

We then had to make a discussion post on 3 things we might do to make ourselves happier or achieve emotional balance, explain why we think one of those three would make us happier or bring us greater emotional balance and why according to Zaki why it might not make us happier or bring us emotional balance. I personally decided that I could not use the list we read about earlier because none of them really fit me, so I had said “Take a full day’s breaks from classes/homework, work on a knitting or crochet project or just a general self-care day where I take care of me and things I need to.” Then moving on I had chose the self-care day because when classes and stuff start pilling up and becoming stressful, I honestly forget to take care of myself. Then as for why according to Zaki why would it not work I said because just because it works for a certain population doesn’t mean it will work for you. Believe it or not that was everything for the first assignment of this week!

Assignment 2:

For this part of the assignment we read 5 more articles which I will share slightly below, we also watched a TedTalk and of course answered another discussion post. Biological Approach by Saul McLeod The Role of the Biological Perspective in Psychology by Kendra Cherry The role of neuroscience in psychology by Dr. Kevin Fleming Is Neuroscience the Future or the End of Psychology? by Dr. David Ludden Biology is NOT destiny by Dr. David Ley

I did in fact read all of these, and I ended up writing down what I felt was important from each article and of course answering the discussion post as well. Then we had this interesting TedTalk by Jaak Panksepp. 

Then of course, like I do for all of my modules/weeks I will share our review sheet in which I feel like is some of the more important things we should have learned from the module this week.

[otherskinnersse24]

Module 2

This week we talked about definitions of emotions and we were given examples of each definition as well. This was also the first week we found out we were going to be assigned group chat (bleh) and that we have to meet once a week to discuss additional course work.  We had a video narrated by the professor describing the different definitions of emotions and the examples. But, we also had three articles to help add onto the definitions which I can share here shortly. To finish off this module, we also filled out the review sheet which helps us pinpoint the most important take a way’s. Article about the type 1 definition of emotion:  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201601/what-are-basic-emotions Article about the type 2 definition of emotion: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/opinion/sunday/what-emotions-are-and-arent.html Article about the type 3 definition of emotion: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/books/2018/06/18/the-neuroscience-of-emotion/

I did find this module interesting because going into this course I just assumed there was just one basic definition of emotion, but with psychology there is three each with their own kind of meaning with them as well. Finally, I will attach our review sheet, and my answers to them.

[otherskinnersse24]

Module 1 Assignment 2

Now to begin since this will be my first post on this blog, I am starting with assignment 2 for this class because the first one was just telling us how to ‘properly’ email our professor in case we ever need anything. With that being said, this module in general was just titled “Why Take This Course.” Being a sarcastic college student, my immediate answer would have been (and was) because I have to. We were given A LOT of articles to read though to further increase our knowledge of why we are talking this class other than the obvious answer. Attached below you will see my review sheet from the first module that we have to do every week to prove that we did the work and we learned what we were supposed to. I will link at least two of the 6 articles we had to read for that week, and if you happen to find this and you want to see and read the other articles, let me know and I can get them to you! Two of the articles: https://time.com/5163576/ignoring-your-emotions-bad-for-your-health/ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/352884 Then of course, for our review sheet we were asked: “Describe 3 myths of emotion and a more correct way of viewing them that could positively affect your life.” My answers were as follows: 1. “If I tell other people how I really feel, they will think I’m weak”  “Emotional expression is natural and is unrelated to will-power or how strong a person is. It takes strength to be able to express emotions effectively and appropriately” 2. “If I allow myself to feel this emotion, I’ll completely lose control.”  “It can be very hard to control anger (or any emotion honestly) when we’re in the middle of it. But, there are strategies that can help us more effectively manage our anger and respectfully communicate out anger to others. It just takes practice and motivation to change.”

3. “Emotions can just happen for no reason.” “Rarely, if ever do emotional reactions occur without rhyme or reason. Even though we are not always aware of the causes, there tend to be triggers (situations, people, thoughts) that lead us to react a certain way.”  My answers for this came from a pamphlet shared with us that I managed to get a few screenshots of as well. 

Sorry for the long first post but I hope you find it helpful and informative!