Abu Ghraib Torture

What occurred at Abu Ghraib was primarily the fault of the soldiers; more specifically Charles Graner and Lynndie England, though I'm sure other soldiers not pictured were just as responsible. That's not to say that the higher-ranking officers or officials aren't responsible, for they suggested the abuse or didn't do aything to stop it. The soldiers there fell into a role; they're soldiers, so they're supposed to keep the prisoners in check by whatever means necessary, right? The violence around them was escalating, so they had to keep up, right? When everyone around you is doing something, telling you that that's the way it's supposed to be, it's hard to hold on to your original thought or mindset. But that doesn't excuse anything. Whether they like to think it or not, they were in control the whole time. It was a little harder, fine, but they still had the power of decision. They were the ones who tortured innocent prisoners, they were the ones who humiliated them every day, and they were the ones who could have stopped it. The sad thing is, if one soldier had spoken up, had said that what they were doing was wrong, the illusion may have faded. The soldiers would have realized that what they were doing needed to stop. I thought America was all about being your own person? Oh well.

Influential Picture

Here's the picture--> http://flickr.com/photos/30805787@N07/2885443209/

So. Influence. I have seen this show so much it's unhealthy. It's the thing I put on in the background when I'm cooking or making my lunch (That's right. I make my lunch. Do we have a problem?) I know it's kinda weird, but every now and then someone (who also knows the show quite well, usually my brother... haha) tells me that I sounded like Phoebe or Chandler. So apparently I talk like them. And I can associate the show with pretty much anything, so I end up thinking about it pretty often. And I use actual lines from the show, a lot of the time not even knowing that I'm doing it; I think that I came up with it and had just used the line before (source amnesia! Yay!). And most of the time its ok, but when Ben's around he calls me out. It's ok though. Cause now EVERYONE will know that he knows the show well enough to quote it. HAHAHA!

Memory Applications

My new knowledge of memory could actually help me. I could apply techniques like the spacing affect to help me absorb more information for my classes. Also, I now know that making associations with information helps me remember said information. But that's only if I actually apply it. We'll see. The process of recall becomes easier when you have things that trigger what you're trying to remember. Before this unit, I never thought that memories were so easily changed and falsified. Witness testimonies don't hold as much weight anymore. It kind of scares me that I could be recalling a childhood memory that never actually happened. So now I have another way to freak myself out.

P.S. I'm not very eloquent today. Sorry.

Psych Sims

I. Be a Juror
The website provided me with a skinny version of a trial regarding a double homicide/robbery. It provided arguments from both the persecution and the defense and had you vote on if you thought the man was guilty. I honestly don't know what the purpose of it was; possibly the diction favored one side over the other?

II. Object Placement
In this experiment, the website had me look at a white background with 15 or so objects in front of it for a minute. I was then shown a page with the same objects, except some of them switched positions. I was asked to click on all the objects that switched. The simulation wasn't over until you got it perfectly; you had five chances. The purpose was to show you how the more you do something, the better at it you get. It also exercises your implicit memory; I didn't know where the table used to be (the first couple times around), but when I looked at the picture I knew something was wrong with it.

Psych Videos

I. Amnesia
The hippocampus is extremely important to the act of forming new memories. The hipocampus doesn't store memories, but it consolidates memories along with other parts of the brain. An electrical event in the hippocampus called Long Term Protentiation helps the hippocamus consolidate. When a drug that blocks LTP is put into a lab rat, the rat cannot remember anything. Clearly LTP and the hippocampus are two of the most important things involved in memory.

II. Learning as Synaptic Change
Learning involves elimination of older pathways to make new ones; This learning causes biological changes in the brain; cells grow new synaptic connections with other cells, you make new proeins and turn on genes that you did not previously use. Stimulating the same neural pathway for an extended period of time makes that neural pathway stronger; to do this, however, you must get rid of old pathways.

III. Locus of Learning
Penfield, through flawed experiments (no varification of data), determined that memory was stored in the temporal lobe; he would stimulate a part of the brain, disrupting that section's normal functions, and poking around until the patient felt a sensation. Another scientist, Lashley, proved Penfield's theory wrong, discovering through the removal of bits of a rat's brain, that memory is stored all over the cortex.

Memory Articles

I. Infant Memory
1. An experiment performed by Carolyn Rovee-Collier seemed to prove that infants have long-term memories.
2. The experiment says that it proves that infants know the difference between one mobile and another random mobile based on the level and timing of a kick. Maybe the mobile they tested with was bright and made the baby excited or maybe it was coincidence.
3. and 4. This article simply reinforces the lesson about infant memory from the textbook.
5. A section of the chapter on memory discussed infant memory and amnesia similarly to the article.

II. Brain Size
1. An experiment sheds some light on why some people who have Alzheimer's Disease in their brain do not show symptoms: a large hippocampus.
2. While the results are promising, the experiment was performed with a mere 12 infected people who didn't show symptoms and only 23 previously diagnosed Alzheimer's patients.
3. The hippocampus is more than a funny word: it does, like, stuff.
4. The article cleared up any misonceptions I had about the function of the hippocampus.
5. The hippocampus was previously revealed to have been important to the function of a person's memory.

III. Estrogen
1. Through an experiment with rats, it has been determined that estrogen helps memory and does other positive things for the brain.
2. The rats hat low estrogen to begin with, so the researchers may have just brought the estrogen back to normal levels, explaining why the addition of estrogen helped.
3. Estrogen is detrimental to all other parts of the body other than the brain.
4. Uh-uh
5. This article, like the book, references the hippocampus in regard to to memory and talks about neurological pathways and such.

Me

Je mapp'elle Shannon Swiatek. I play tennis and I participate in the drama program with Beth and Kelsey which is pretty fun. Red is an amazing color. My life revolves around music, so in my mind the iPod is the most wicked thing since sliced bread. Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense, cause all you do is make a loaf of bread multiple miniature loaves of bread. So really the phrase should just mention bread as opposed to sliced bread. Or it should mention, like, an automible. Cause they're pretty significant in our society. Kinda caused a revoltuion, you know? I mean you don't see a lot of people without cars. Though cars have lots of negative side effects, unlike sliced bread, so maybe it should be something else. Atleast pick something that's actually cool for that phrase. The whole point of the phrase is to say that something is really cool and new. Sliced bread? Not so cool.