The Stroop Effect

The Stroop Effect is named after John Ridley Stroop, who published the effect in English in 1935 in an article entitled Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions this includes three different experiments.The effect was first published in 1929 in German, and its roots can be followed back to works of James McKeen Cattell and Wilhelm Wundt in the nineteenth century. In the first experiment, stimuli 1 and 2 were used. The task required the participants to read the written color names of the words independently of the color of the ink (for example, they would have to read "purple" no matter what the color of its ink was).

The Myth of Multitasking

1. Multitasking is considered by many psychologists to be a myth because there is no such thing as "multitasking", but people think they can multitask and the truth is that they are only changing from doing one thing to another really fast.
2. Marois found evidence of a “response selection bottleneck” that occurs when the brain is forced to respond to several stimuli at once. As a result, task-switching leads to time lost as the brain determines which task to perform.
3. Meyer is optimistic that, with training, the brain can learn to task-switch more effectively, and there is some evidence that certain simple tasks are amenable to such practice. But his research has also found that multitasking contributes to the release of stress hormones and adrenaline, which can cause long-term health problems if not controlled, and contributes to the loss of short-term memory.
4. Russell Podrack found that “multitasking adversely" affects how you learn.
5. If, as Poldrack concluded, “multitasking changes the way people learn,” what might this mean for today’s children and teens, raised with an excess of new entertainment and educational technology, and avidly multitasking at a young age? Poldrack calls this the “million-dollar question.”

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-myth-of-multitasking  

What factors influence our Perception?

5 things I Like and why:
- I love to watch Barcelona lose a soccer match because I am a Real Madrid fan and Bracelona are our rivals that apart from arranging games to win, they are cheaters and I hate them with all my heart.
- I love to eat hot dogs, mainly because when I was in South Africa in the 2010 WorldCup, we always ate hot dogs in half time and they remind me of Honduras playing against Spain in the WorldCup.
- Another tihing I love to do is to go to the beach. I love to go to the beach because ever since I was a little kid, i have always loved the beach and the sand.
- I love to see jellyfish, because when we went to El Tamarindo (a beach in El Salvador), i was very mad at my brother once and we went into the ocean just to chill and he got bit by a jellyfish and i was really happy.
-Another thing that I love is to watch LiverpoolFC matches because I am a Liverpool fan and the fans are incredible always when they go to watch games at the stadium they sing a song called "You'll Never Walk Alone" and the song is very inspiring.

5 thins that I dislike:
-I HATE Barcelona because they are cheaters and they arrange games to win them and I hate them with all my heart.
- I hate to go to baseball matches because the first time that I watched the play offs was like in 2004 and i had chicken pox and I was very sick and that was the only thing that i did while i was sick.
- I hate to go to spanish class now because we have to read a lot and it is very hard for me to read in spanish because i am blind and also y hate reading.
- I hate to go to El Salvador too because we have a lot of family over there and we go constantly to visit them but it is like a 5 hour drive and i hate being in a car to many hours.
- I dislike eating vegetables because it reminds of when i was younger and my mom kept spankikng me to eat my vegetables.

BaMbuti Pygmies

The BaMbuti are a group of Pygmies of the Ituri Forest of eastern Congo. They are the shortest group of Pygmies in Africa. Pygmies are small people kind of like midgets and they are black. Most of the Pygmies live in Africa, and there are many different tribes or groups of Pygmies all over Africa. The BaMbuti tribe live on the Ituri Forest on the eastern part of Congo. These Pygmies average under 4 feet 6 inches (137 cm) in height, and are perhaps the most famous ones that exist. Besides from being small in stature, they also differ in blood type from their Bantu- and Sudanic-speaking agriculturalist neighbours, and they are probably the earliest inhabitants of the area. Archaeological evidence is lacking, but early Egyptian records show that the Bambuti were living in the same area some 4,500 years ago.

 
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/51218/Bambuti  

Colin Turnbull

Colin Turnbull's odd life:

Colin Turnbull was born in London and studied politics and philosophy at Oxford. Turnbull picked up a really odd job while in Africa at this time was working for the Hollywood producer Sam Spiegel. Upon returning to Oxford in 1954, he began specializing in the anthropology of Africa.Turnbull remained in Oxford for two years before another field trip to Africa, finally focusing on the then-Belgian Congo (1957–58) and Uganda. Turnbull was an unconventional scholar who rejected neutrality.He was a homosexual because he fell in love with a man. Finally, he died because of HIV/AIDS: a sexual disease. Turnbull's last position was at George Washington University, where he taught and pursued interested in writing, fieldwork, farming, and making music. He left George Washington University in 1984. Colin Turnbull passed away in 1994.

Perception is Reality

Communcation is the most important field of work and  life, and other people's perceptions can dramatically shape our self concept and self esteem. It can also make or break a career. Whether what people say is right or wrong about you, it can still change your life because you get really worried about what people say and think about you.
In growing up, especially as an adolescent, what others say about us, or our perception of what they think based on the reactions of others, tends to act as a mirror for how we see ourselves. Also i hae found out that as we keep growing, we find that being true to ourselves is necessary when it comes to being able to actualize our potential and that we cannot control how others perceive us. We can only control our actions. Even when we get older we will still care about what people think or say about us, and how we feel about our attractiveness or self worth is still very much governed by what others say about us. A lot of young people fall in this trap, and they start to make themselves look better than how they feel. Also, when someone makes other people believe that they are something that they really aren't, the person ends up getting hurt because they change a lot.

What role does Psychology play in my life?

Psychology is a very important class in my life because it helps me understand my attitude towards some things. Also, psychology is very important in my life because it is one of my favorite classes because I learn some very interesting thins about the human brain and all those things. Psychology is the only IB class that I am taking this year.