Messing with Perception [Blog #6]

This week we talked about perception and sensation. When we did the sound perception demonstration, I wondered if I could find any kind of audio online that did the same thing. I found this audio done by a man named Hugo Zuccarelli. In the audio, he is a barber and it sounds exactly as though he is moving around you and you can tell where he is cutting your hair, where the door is when he walks in, everything, it's crazy! Your perception of his location is influenced by the way the audio comes through your headphones; sometimes it will only come through the left, sometimes only the right, and sometimes a mix. If you listen to it, I recommend headphones, because I'm not sure how it works without them.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gLF7nguyok&feature=related

PSA's

This video (with Erin, Courtney, and Alexis) was the best in my mind. It started out with music and catchy footage. It was extremely informative and went more in-depth than a lot of the other videos. I liked that in the video was an interview about the Co-op program; it was a great example and a great addition to the video.The audio as great, the pictures were clear, and it did seem like an actual public service announcement. Great job, guys.

My runners up are
Dave, Taylor, and Dan
Nick, Joe, Matt, and Brady

Adora Svitak [Blog #5]

I have been exploring TED.com in my free time and I came across this TED talk with Adora Svitak, who is 12 years old, and talks about the power of the mind of a child. While she was speaking I thought about the stages of cognitive development that Piaget came up with, and wondered how this girl fit into these AT ALL. She published a book when she was like six years old!!!

 It seems to me like she jumped from preoperational right into formal operations. Anyway, that's my connection to what we're learning, I just really wanted to share this video. I STRONGLY recommend that you watch it; it's only about eight minutes and it will BLOW YOUR MIND how smart this girl is, I promise you.

Ice Cube Addiction

I didn't really have to lie to my parents at all because they didn't seem suspicious at all. I only had to lie to a couple friends, and i didn't really feel guilty, but it felt awkward to lie to them because I wasn't used to lying, especially not about something so simple. I think it's really easy for addicts to ruin relationships because personally, I wouldn't want to lie to my friends and family all the time. I'd probably just withdraw from all my relationships.


My actions didn't really surprise me. It's pretty much just part of my personality to act out of the norm.  And I didn't have to sneak around to get ice, so I don't think anyone really thought I was acting differently than usual.

Almost no one noticed a change in my behavior. It's easy to see how parents and friends can be completely blind to the abnormal behavior of an addict. And a lot of times, when they do notice abnormal behavior, they probably deny and/or rationalize that abnormal behavior because they don't want to believe that their child/friend is doing what they're doing.

Addiction and Parents [Blog #4]

This week we talked about addiction and did an experiment to see how an addict feels, how people react to the odd behavior of an addict, etc. I can't post my ice cube blog yet because I started it after everyone else since I was absent for two days, so I decided to look for videos that were about addiction. The link below takes you to a two or three minute video about a mom who talks about how crappy life is after your kid overdoses.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqDm_IjN2VY

What I paid attention to wasn't what she was saying, but just how surprised she seemed that her son was doing drugs. Toward the end of the video she briefly mentions something along the lines of not knowing what he was into.

Part of me is thinking how can you not notice that your child is on heroin?! I feel as though his behavior would have been so different compared to before the addiction. But the rest of me knows exactly how she wouldn't know. Stereotypically speaking, teens are pretty good at lying to their parents. It's probably not that hard to pass off withdrawal as a stomach bug. And a lot of parents don't want to believe that their kid is going through something like that. If your kid is doing drugs, you're going to feel like a failure as a parent. So you're gonna be in denial and you're gonna rationalize every abnormal behavior and suspicion. And it's so sad to me that parents can't just own up to the fact that their child may be on drugs. Don't get me wrong, I understand the situation as much as I can without actually being a parent. But it just seems to me that a few lives could be saved, if parents and friends would just open their eyes a little.

BRAIN SONG :D [Blog #3]

I realized two things today:

1) Our school sucks at planning. "Let's just do pictures on Friday, which is universally known as 'test day', and while we're at it, let's have a fire drill, too. Should be fun." Also, the entire school was laughing about the whole "GSA and The Closet come down to the gym" thing. Which kind of made my day...

2) More importantly, I SUCK at remembering parts of the brain and their functions.

Dreier talked about different study methods, such as songs about the material, and showed us one from Pinky and the Brain. For some reason that one didn't really help me, even though songs usually are a good aid for me personally. So I decided to find a song that would help. This song was just that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=vYwOtTMUz0c

I also found this one, which might help some, but my honest opinion is that it's dumb...it did, however, entertain me for a good three minutes or so just because I thought it was so dumb... Anyway, here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPLZ_WUsK88