Half Way of Half Way

So, here it is at the tail end of week 7 of classes. Each semester is 12 weeks of class, so that means that I'm half way done with the first half of my last year as an undergraduate student. (OK, technically it means that I'm more than half way done, but you all understand what I mean right?) So, what have I been doing these past 7 weeks? Actually, that's a pretty good question. I'm not sure I even know.

I know I've been going to class. I have two core psychology classes; Vision & Action and Advanced Topics in Language. The first half of the vision lectures were all about visual impairments due to brain lesions (really cool stuff guys...the brain is amazing) and we'll be getting into the 'action' portion of the series next week. And we've just gotten through with dyslexia and other language disorders and have moved onto sign language in the psycho-linguistics class. All in all, I'm enjoying my lecture choices in psychology. What is either a hit or a miss depending on the lecturer is my "extended studies" class; An Appetite for Food and Health. It's all about food...and health. I guess the topic itself is pretty interesting, but some of those lecturers were pretty bad.

I also know that I've been working on my undergraduate thesis. I can't really say what it's about just yet as I don't know if some of my friends who have agreed to take part in the study are reading, but I can say that it's visual psycho-physics. It's a dense topic, but I'm slowly understanding it and should get my ethics in today (fingers crossed) which means that I can start testing next week...you know, as long as the ethics committee approves it.

And I've started up with tae kwon do. I wanted to join up in first year and then for some reason, never did. So, I did this year. I'm having a good time with it and it means that two times a week I get to punch a pad repetitively which I've found to be a great relaxer.

Oh, something that did happen last week was that I got pretty sick. It was terribly. I hate getting sick and I hate it even more, I've discovered, when my parents aren't around (I know, almost 3 1/2 years in Scotland and I've only been sick once). Unfortunately, I was unable to get to the bathroom in time and ended up ruining a bunch of journal articles and notes for both my critical review and my thesis which I had been reading before bed and mistakenly left on the floor...never again. It's actually the worst feeling in the world waking up the morning after having terrible food poisoning or the worst stomach bug of your life, being ordered on bed rest, and then realising that as you were cleaning up the night before those paper you threw away were ALL notes for large pieces of work. I may have cried a little. Or a lot. You know. I'm still chasing down some of the articles I had for my thesis, but think I've mostly got the Critical Review covered. At least I hope it's covered.

Oh, what's my Critical Review on? Well, that's a post for another day as it's pretty long. Probably Monday when I really start writing it all down. That way I'll know if I can explain it properly.

Also, I've decided to start something called "Soapbox Saturdays". You see, I'm a highly opinionated person. I may not always have the time to research issues that come up on a daily basis so I tend to stay pretty quiet about my own ideas. I don't often grab my soapbox and start a speech because I know that I don't have time to research these issues so I don't want to say something stupid, but also because I have an obsessive personality. I don't let things go (hey, at least I admit it right?), so on those rare occasions I do grab my soapbox, I find myself unable to sleep at night because I'm thinking about what I said. So, I've decided to grab my soapbox once a week and post it up here. Not a lot of people read my blog so I figure I can get my rants out there without offending too many people. Not that the point of this is to offend anyone. I'm of the opinion that everyone is entitled to their own...well, opinion and I'm pretty open minded and love hearing other people's points of view. So, this won't be to tell anyone that they are wrong or stupid or ignorant, it's just a way for me to get my ideas out there so I can stop obsessing over them.

First Exam of Third Year

Here we are. The morning of my first exam of the year and what am I doing? Sitting and playing a computer game. Well, I guess right now I'm writing this blog post (been a while huh?). My plan was to do some last minutes studying this morning before heading off to the exam hall for my exam that starts at noon...but I can't bring myself to do it. Last night between 5:30 and 6:00 I just thought, "I can't do this anymore." and put down my writing implements, put away journal articles, and closed the Blackboard webpage. I know I probably should have pushed through and done a few more hours of work, but I was just so...done. I will do a little before going in, but I'm not going to scramble around trying to cram a while bunch of facts into my brain. At this point, I know it or I don't.

My confidence level is abysmal. These exams are worth 75% of my grade for the course and I'm pretty sure that I have to get between 16 and 18 depending on the course to get the grades that I want this year. Fairly nerve wracking. Especially for someone who doesn't test well and who sometimes forgets things as soon as she reads them. Everyone keeps telling me that I'll be fine and I'm choosing to believe them, but I wish I could tell myself that everything will go smoothly.

I'm off to make sure I understand the different models of memory...maybe somewhere in there I'll discover why I don't remember so well.

4 exams:
January 14: Biological Psychology
January 15: Perception
January 24: Methods A (Statistics basically)
January 25: Psychological Assessment

A Tough Weekend

This last weekend before classes start was a tough one. I don't want to go into too much detail as there is a little bit of a wound there. What I will say is that I'm trying to learn from it and trying very hard to be a better person after everything that happened. It sucks when one weekend can turn the excitement for a new year into feeling like that scared Fresher again who just wants to go home, snuggle with my dog, and never look back to the adventure that could have been.

Of course I won't be doing that. I'll push myself to stay afloat this first week of classes and, come Friday night, I'll fall into bed for what will hopefully be my first full night's sleep in over a week. I feel a little shit right now, but time heals all doesn't it? One day at a time and eventually I'll feel better. That's all I can do for now.

Speaking of the first week of classes, my schedule isn't the best. I have a 9am lecture on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday it is my only class of the day. I figure what I'll do is get a gym membership and go do some "gyming" from 10am to noon. Two hours three days a week sounds like something that would both help me sleep at night and keep me from cursing the Psychology department for making me wake up at 9am almost everyday for only an hour of class.

This semester I am taking the methods course (as always) and as for theory I have Psychological Assessment, Perception, and Biological Psychology. Turns out, didn't have as much of a choice as I thought. Must have misunderstood when people were talking about it last time. Ah well. Happens sometimes I guess.

Anywho, my first class of the year is the first Methods lecture and then later this afternoon I have the SPSS tutorial. I should probably go and shower and get ready for my year to begin. I guess there's still one good thing about this year; I live so close to campus I can start getting ready an hour before I have to leave and be fine. It's something. Even if the rest of the year is seeming bleak right now.

One day at a time.

Work Psychology: Condensed Version

Right, so I haven't done as much work as I would have like this spring break. My mom came to visit for about 5 days which did hinder the work a little. Not that I didn't enjoy the visit, but I didn't do any studying for those 5 days. And the other days? Only an hour or two and I mostly focused on Clinical Psychology so that I wouldn't have to worry about condensing those notes when exam time comes.

So, yesterday I started work on the 8 weeks we've had of Work Psychology (also known as Industrial Psychology and Organizational Psychology) and realised one thing; It's super boring. And the lecturer is terrible. I don't say this about many lecturers because I can usually focus on one redeeming quality. But I've realised that her notes on Blackboard are unorganized, her lectures are unorganized and repetitive, the learning outcomes she has come up with are unorganized and jumbled, and her voice is completely monotone. Seriously, one lecture sounded like this, "Why do some people like their jobs? Why do some people get stressed? Why do some people leave early everyday?" And it went on like that. I almost want to shout, "Yes! I get it! Some people get stressed at their jobs. Move on!" It is frustrating and not just because I have to study this woman's lectures. It's because Work Psychology is possibly to easiest branch and it's going to be the hardest for me to study and the hardest for me to answer on the exam.

Anyway, I've decided to give you all a little taste about what's to come in future posts as I have given up with previous lectures. So, without further complaints from me, here is Work Psychology: Condensed.

Bad supervisor = stress
High demands with Low Rewards = stress
Low demands with High Rewards = stress

If you don't like flying or heights, don't become a pilot. 

If you screw up in your job application then you won't get the job. Selection processes are far more complicated than they need to be. Some people are crazy enough to believe that a person's handwriting can determine whether or not they're suitable for the job (obviously in some jobs good handwriting is a necessity, but really people...). If your applicants don't like your selection process you won't get many applicants.

The culture of the work place determines many things like how they deal with safety issues. Culture can even be defined by the national culture (really!?).

If your workplace isn't safe, it'll be shut down.

Right, so that's pretty much what I learned from Work Psychology. I hate to say it, but fairly obvious stuff right there. I'm sure that there is a deeper meaning to all of it, but the lecturer is so bad that that is pretty much what she says. Back to the grindstone today, but this time I'm just going to read the book.

Multisensory Perception

Finally have gotten around to getting a Perception lecture down on this site. It's not that I don't find them interesting, because I find them really interesting. I think they're so cool! But a lot of does go over my head without doing some in depth studying and I'm on the waiting list for the book for the course so...anyway, I'll try and put down something of interest right now while it's still fresh in my mind.

The topic for today's lecture:
Multisensory Perception

This was Dr.M's last lecture for the module. I have to say...she scares the bijeezus out of me. But it's clear that she knows what she's talking about.

Let's see...the brain adapts to its environment. Because it is so able to adapt to different situations it utilizes many different sensory systems to assess its surroundings. And most humans respond better when more than one sensory system is used. For example, we are better able to understand a small flicker in the corner of our eye if there is also auditory information about it coming in as well. But to use this the senses must be localised together in the same receptive field.

I'm going to do more reading on it so I might have some more information for you when I get the book in a couple of days, but there was a study that I was particularly interested in. It's called the Rubber Hand experiment. Basically, you're sat down at a table with a rubber hand. Your arm is positioned and then covered with a blanket to where it looks like your arm ends in that rubber hand. You hide your real hand behind a small board right next to the rubber hand and try and put it in the same position the rubber hand is in. The experimenter then simultaneously strokes your real hand and the rubber hand with a small brush. During this stroking your brain almost "adopts" the rubber hand as a part of its body. The key part of this study is that the experimenter must stroke each hand with the same speed and pressure. But isn't it cool how your brain can do that?

Work Psychology Week 5

I wasn't able to attend Tuesday's lecture on account of a doctor's appointment. Gosh, don't get me started on that appointment. OK, I'll tell you anyway before I jump into today's Psychology lecture (I'll be posting about Tuesday's lecture tomorrow when I would normally post about today's).

Right, so I've got a rather large and, frankly, ugly mole right in the center of my back. I've had it for as long as I can remember and when I hit puberty it raised. When I first noticed it raised I've had checked out every couple of years. At every appointment they've said that it's completely normal and to come back in a couple of years or if I notice any change. At one appointment they even said they needed to remove a different mole because it looked cancerous. Anyway, I've started catching this mole on bra straps and my fingers when I put lotion on and if I toss and turn in the middle of the night I will sometimes wake up with blood on my sleep shirt. So, in December I went to my GP and asked for it to be removed. They said that since it wasn't cancerous they couldn't make it a priority but they would make an appointment for me in a couple of months for the dermatology clinic and they would remove it. Made the appointment for this past Tuesday and went in expecting for them to remove it. I took off the whole day. I went in and spent 5 minutes in the office where they went, "Oh it's not cancerous." Yes! I know that! Grr...they said that they couldn't get an appointment for me for another five months and that it would be quicker for my GP to do it! ARGH! Annoyed.

Anyway...on to today's Psychology lecture:

Occupational Stress

Occupational stress is focused on stress due to the conditions of the workplace instead of personal stress. Personal stress can add to occupational stress, but it shouldn't be the absolute cause. It is the emplyer's job to monitor the workplace and watch over the employees. There were three key terms that we discussed today.

Stressors: the physical or psychological demands that are responded to
Strains: the responses to these stressors
Stress: psychological reaction when there is a perceived imbalance between the task demands and the individual's capabilities

It is important to note that this is only a perceived imbalance. There might not actually be an imbalance but the individual believes that there is one. It is all about how an individual perceives themself.

Some people are more resilient to occupational stress than others. There is research to suggest that it has to do with the specific person's personality.

I would like to say that I have more, but I haven't had a chance to read the chapter yet and the lecturer isn't the best out there. She tends to put a lot on the slide show that she doesn't go into and doesn't really talk about. And then she goes on random rants of nothing.

Behind

I know that I said that I would be writing up a post after each Psychology class so that I could get everything straight in my head. I also know that I haven't written up a post for the past week. All I can say to that is that I'm really still trying to get my head around what was said in the Perception lecture last Tuesday. I've been reading up in the book just to make sure that I understand, but it's all so dry and, frankly, sometimes pretty boring.

I'm hoping to start up again this Tuesday and just forget that I didn't post last week. Haha! Last week we talked about hearing and how we pay attention to different things at different times. These lectures are really focused around neuroscience and it goes over my head a lot of the time, but I'm really hoping to focus more this week and tell you all about the exciting world of perception. Ok, even I didn't believe that.

I'll probably combine two weeks into one post.

Anxiety Disorders

I've had time to mull over this past Friday's psychology lecture and am now ready to post all that I have learned.

For the first 6 weeks of term, Friday lectures are dedicated to Clinical Psychology. I'm really enjoying the lecturer. She's a double Doctor and she only looks 30! I feel way under accomplished now every time I'm in the same room as her because of the whole Dr. Dr. thing. She also reminds me of my psychologist from when I was younger. And with that, I move to the topic we discussed on Friday using myself as an example.

Anxiety Disorders

I have been diagnosed with a few anxiety disorders since I was in middle school. I believe it was sixth grade that I had my first appointment with Dr. Clara (note: my psychologist's name has been changed to protect privacy). First, let's recognize the difference between a normal amount of anxiety and fear to the amount that can be classified as a disorder.

Everyone will experience anxiety or fear in their lifetime. This is completely normal. In fact, anxiety and fear or evolutionary and have helped the human race to survive and thrive over the past however many years it's been since we climbed out of the ooze and took our first steps and sapiens. A healthy, moderate amount of anxiety can improve performance and creates a motivation to complete the task at hand. Fear triggers the 'flight or fight' response which has saved many lives in the past. So, anxiety and fear are normal reactions. What isn't normal is when you have a tremendous amount of either of them. Too much anxiety and/or fear can be seriously detrimental.

In most cases, to be classified as a type of anxiety disorder the anxiety or fear must  be persistent and constant for at least 6 months (if not longer).

Now, let's look at the different kind of Anxiety Disorders.

1. Specific Phobia: specific phobia is exactly what is sounds like. Fear of a specific thing. Specific phobias can be put into five different categories; Animal, Natural Environment, Blood/Injection/Injury, Situational, and Other. The fear or anxiety experienced must be triggered by a specific object and the reaction must happen the same way every time. People with specific phobias will try to avoid situations that will result in coming into contact with the trigger object. The reaction will generally be extreme and there might be a feeling of loss of control. Now, I used to have two Specific Phobias and have slowly worked past one of them. They fell into Natural Environment and Other. Natural Environment used to be spiders. They use to trigger panic attacks, sometimes I couldn't breathe, I tended to avoid going certain places where I had previously encountered a spider, and if a spider wound up in my room I would either sleep in the living room that night or stay up all night worrying. I can now handle seeing spiders without running and screaming. But I still have a very severe reaction towards vomiting. I know everyone thinks it's gross, but it's something that I've never been able to get past. I see someone vomit or hear it and I go into complete shut down mode. Eyes covered, hands covering ears, fetal position...the whole shabangbang. I also avoid situations with vomiting.

I'll breeze by these next few...

2. Social Phobia: Social phobia is a lot like Specific Phobia except that it deals with social situations. Specific fears of certain social situation like singing in public, acting, public speeches, etc. Reactions and anxiety must persist for 6 or more months and the person will actively try to avoid situations where they may have to do the social phobia.

3. General Anxiety Disorder: Basically is over worrying. Feelings must persist for more than 6 months. I have also been diagnosed with this and I know that it sounds really stupid but I'll try to explain it as uncomplicated as possible. I often worry about the future. And I don't mean just the whole, "What am I going to do with my life?" I mean I will be walking along to University or the pub or something and all of a sudden I'll start crying because I've just played out a scenario in my head that a family member or someone really important has died. This is a daily occurrence . I know it sounds like nothing or really natural but when you spend most of your time worrying and/or anxious it kinda sucks.

4. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Person experiences a really traumatic experience and relives it through flashbacks or dreams. Reactions must be extreme and the person will avoid situations where they had the flashback and it must persist for more than 6 months (you seeing the pattern?).

5. Panic Disorder: Frequent panic attacks for 6 or more months. Person will try to avoid the place where a panic attack occurred. Though, you must be sure that the panic attacks are not caused by a phobia.

6. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: Person has intrusive thoughts at strange times that cause anxiety and/or fear. The person then creates a ritual that helps deal with the anxiety or fear.

That's the basic run down. There's obviously a lot more to all of them, but I didn't want to bore you all with all of the details. I think the most important thing to realize is that Anxiety Disorders are debilitating. They make it...hard. I remember sleepless nights on the couch or in my room worried about spiders, feeling them on my body. That's not to say that living is impossible. In fact, I'm fine now that I know how to deal with everything. People with anxiety disorders are just like everyone else. We just need to sit down and chill sometimes.

Exam Results

My exam results are in and the consensus is...

I need to try harder this semester.

That's not saying that I did horribly. I did fairly well. I just didn't do well enough. That's the long and the short of it. So, this semester I'm going to be a busy bee. Done and done. I'm going to start revising for the exam way ahead of time and make little notes as I go along. The only thing that would make this all easier if there were only three sections to the Psychology course. Instead there are five. This means that four of the sections will only be running for six weeks and I can't justify spending money on a really big, really expensive Psychology book if I'm only using it for six weeks. Ah, well. At least they have them in the library.

I'm also going to try and think of ways to use this blog as a study space. It won't be anything boring (I hope). What I'm thinking about doing is this; after each Psychology lecture I'm going to write a post about what I learned and what the main points of the lecture were. I'll make it as fun and interesting and exciting as possible.

As for right now. I'm either going to read a few chapters in my borrowed library books or start planning for my essay that's due in next Friday.

First Week of Second Semester

Well, the first week of classes went as well as I could have expected them to.

This past week's book for English was:

"Prometheus Bound and Other Plays" by Aeschylus

I read most of it then got bored near the end. I'll finish reading it by my tutorial this Friday as I'm only 10 pages from the end. At least I'll know exactly what's going on when the tutorial happens but I don't think it'll be one of the texts I choose to write about. Though, if I have a good tutor like last semester I could probably be persuaded to change my mind. It's based on a Greek myth and I love Greek myths.

For those of you who don't know the myth of Prometheus I do suggest googling it. It's actually quite interesting. In some versions he's the male counterpart to Pandora which leads me to say, "HA! It's not only the females who bring great misery to this world." Anyway, it is quite interesting. I just don't like reading about it in play version.

There was one interesting part about Psychology this week. This semester's three lecture topics are Neuroscience, Clinical Psychology, and Work Psychology. At the beginning of the first lecture of Work Psychology the lecturer showed a computer simulation of how Captain Chelsey "Sully" Sullenberger landed his plane on the Hudson. Known fact about Capt. Sully Sullenberger: he's a breeder custodian for Guide Dogs for the Blind. We're all great people at GDB.

Sigh of Relief?

Dress for success as I always say. Well, dress in a baggy shirt and an over sized hoodie at least. These past two days of exams have been...hell. I mean, not to put too fine a point on anything.

But it's all over now and that's the most important part. Yesterday afternoon was the English exam and I wouldn't say that I did fantastically but I don't think I failed either. Always a plus. And this morning something happened that was amazing. I looked at the first questions of the Psychology exam and I actually knew the stuff! I knew all 6 questions for developmental and all 3 questions for language and I could have gotten the full 5 points on each.  Too bad that I was only allowed to answer 4 from developmental and 2 from language. Also unfortunately, that's where my uber confidence stopped. I answered the rest of the questions, but I don't think that I got the full marks for the rest of them. But...and this is a BIG but...I think I might have gotten the grade I needed to get the 16 overall in the course. That'd be swell.

Anyway, the rest of today I've spent calming down a little. I'm a worrier so the relieve of stress after exams is actually more like spontaneously combustion. I might be the only person in the world who doesn't want exams to end. I just hate the feeling afterward. I've always been this way...ask my dad. After opening night of plays when I was younger I couldn't sleep and was prone to cry. Excitement he called it.

What's on the agenda for tomorrow? Cleaning my room. Pre-exam Erin's room looks a bit like a paper monster threw up everywhere.

Revision Week: Day 9

Well it's been a long, stressful 9 days of studying. That's not to say that I've only been studying for the past 9 days, but these 9 days were the "study only" days. Anyway, tomorrow is my first exam and I've worked it out. I've already passed the course. It's a barely pass, but if I were to not show up tomorrow I could still wouldn't have to take the makeup exam. It's a nice feeling really seeing as I know that I'm going to get more than a 0% on the exam. Less stressed? Yes.

Now...the problem is that my second exam is Thursday. I've also worked that out. I have to get at least a 17 on that to get the 16 overall in the course I need. It's my Psychology exam and that's the one that
I've been studying for mostly these past few days. I know I'll pass the exam...but pulling off a 17 is going to be hard. *sigh*

English exam is tomorrow
1 day until the Psychology exam

"There are different parts of the brain that deal with different parts of movement. There is logic to our movements and that's where the frontal lobe comes in. The frontal lobe plans/selects our movements. It co-ordinates our body and executes precise movements. The brain stem produces our basic or primitive movements such as eating, drinking, and sexual behaviour. The spinal cord is responsible for our reflex movements such at blinking and breathing. The cerebrum produces our voluntary movements. We cannot have voluntary control over our movements if our brain is disconnected from the spinal cord."

The Neuroscience bit of Psychology sometimes really goes over my head.

Revision Week: Day 8

2 days until the English exam
3 days until the Psychology exam

What I learned today: I'm done for. These exams will be the death of me. That is all. Good night.

And thus begins the exam freak out. Tune in tomorrow to see how everything goes.

Revision Week: Day 7

Well, my laptop decided that it had had enough studying for the revision week and decided to take a break yesterday morning. I was filling out some flashcard to help commit researchers' and psychologists' names (my true weakness) when all of a sudden the mouse pad stopped responding. I closed him all up and let him take a break for a little before opening him back up. The mouse still wasn't responding so I decided to try and shut it down. But the keys were also taking a short break. That left me with a manual shut down. I don't like doing those, but there was no way to turn Harry off. After the shut down and a five minute rest I turned Harry back on and he started doing a routine drive check. At this point, I was thinking, "Alright Harry, you do what you need to do."

Well he found a problem, something that has never happened. A little screen popped up asking if I would like the computer to automatically fix it. Of course I pressed the "yes" button. Too bad Harry couldn't figure out how to fix his problem. *sigh* So for the whole morning Harry kept saying that there was a problem and it couldn't be fixed, "press finish to shut down."

Now, I started freaking out a little. As a child of the technology age I don't really know how to function without my laptop. The first thought that popped into my head was, "How am I suppose to study!?!?!?" That's when I thought that perhaps I rely a little too much on technology and if my parents and their parents could study without the Internet at home then so could I.

I went to the library and checked out five very heavy books. Then I found a computer and printed off all the SAQs I had answered and written up so that I would have a guided study with my books. Retro right? Anyway, while online I took the opportunity to ask my friend if he could help Harry. He agreed and I spent the rest of the day worried about how I would study. I mean, who uses books anymore right? Haha!

Anyway, that evening I went over to his house and he fixed Harry in about an hour. I'm keeping the books though. It might be interesting to see what happens when I have to read a few chapter from each. Might even get a better mark on my exam because I didn't just listen to the lectures and review notes. I did extra stuff. *smile*

What I learned yesterday: You can study even when you don't have access to the Internet 24/7.

Revision Week: Day 5

Well, I had a very relaxing morning. It was quite nice. I woke up at half past eight (which is sleeping in for those of you who know me) then answered some emails, went for a jog, and had a late breakfast. I didn't do any studying really until I got to campus about 2 hours ago. Unfortunately, I've gotten into cognition. Now, I'm sure that cognition is interesting...actually, it is interesting. Too bad my lecturer for this part of the course was pretty boring. I mean, he was a nice enough guy but his voice puts me to sleep and his lectures aren't that well organized. So, it's like double work for me to try and get anything out of them. *sigh* Oh well, it happens right? Just means that I actually have to work to understand what he's saying.

5 days until the English exam
6 days until the Psychology exam

What I learned today. We have no idea how our mind works. Absolutely none. Anyone who says differently is crazy. Umm...yeah. That's kind of all I got from these two lectures that I've listened to this afternoon. Oh gosh, I'm pretty much done for aren't I?

Revision Week: Day 4

So, today is big brother's birthday! We're getting so old. Haha!

Happy Birthday Big Brother GREG!!!!

Over the course of the day I have knocked my bowl of cereal onto my carpeted floor (which led to the discovery that wet Wheetabix is really hard to get off of the floor), fell off of the stair leading up to my flat, ran into a doorway, and fell asleep at the computer while studying. What has all of this led me to do? Take a long break.

I think I've discovered something. There is such a thing as over studying and not giving yourself enough down time. Now, I've been giving myself down time after studying in the afternoon. But I've been up at 7am every morning since Monday and have been studying for 6 hours a day. I guess I never fully understood "over studying". Did you know that you can do it before the night right before the exam?! But today, I just studying for 4 hours and I'm going to let myself sleep for as long as I need tonight. *smile*

Right well...
6 days until the English exam
7 days until the Psychology exam

Let's go to spoken speech recognition. "There are a few models which try to explain how humans can process and understand speech. One of these theories is called the Cohort Model. A "cohort" is a group of possible words a word can be before you figure out what the word is. Let me try to explain that a little better. Within the Cohort Model model there is something called the "uniqueness point." The uniqueness point is the point where that word can only be that word. Some words have early uniqueness points and others have late uniqueness points. Words with early uniqueness point are easier to identify if speech gets distorted in any way. This uniqueness point is what the Cohort Model is based around. Basically, if you hear the sound /c/ your mind thinks of a million words that start with the sound /c/ (like cat, cabbage, carrot, crate, crab, etc.) Then you hear the /ca/ sound, so your mind eliminates the words that don't fit with that sound and you're left with those words that do. Then you finally hear /cat/ and you're left with only one word that can be. The word "cat" has a late uniqueness point. There are early and late models. The main difference between these two models is that early versions believe that we use top-down processing (we use the context to help in word recognition) and later versions believe we use bottom-up processing (it's all data driven)."

Odd question to ask...does that make any sense? I'm trying to figure out how I would explain the Cohort Model if it came up in a Short Answer Question in the exam.

Revision Week: Day 3

So, last night as I was walking home from a movie night with friends after a full day of studying I thought of something. I saw a father walking with his two children toss his cigarette aside without putting it out. Let's, for a second, ignore my issues with the whole "smoking around children" thing and focus on what it actually made me think of. He didn't step on it or throw water over it or anything. For a second I was really confused. If he didn't put that out completely he ran the risk of starting a fire right there on the sidewalk. Didn't he?

Well, maybe not. I live in the boring, icky part of California. It's hot nice months out of the twelve and always dry. It's dry heat and dry cold. Basically, it sucks. And everything is flammable. You know all those fires on the highway in LA? Well, I'm fairly certain that 99% of them start because careless people decide to throw their still lit cigarettes out of their car windows. But Aberdeen is definitely not as dry as where I live. It's wet and rainy twelve out of twelve months so...would he be completely wrong not to put out his cigarette? I'm not sure anymore. He's wrong on the account that he's littering, but he probably wouldn't have started a fire on the sidewalk. I do know that if he ever goes to California he might inadvertently start a fire. Lesson of the day: Put out your cigarettes and dispose of them in an appropriate manner.

These are the things I think about when studying. Anywho, I did my usual 6 hours of studying this morning.
7 days until the English exam (that's one week!!!!)
8 days until the Pyschology exam

"We all can lip read. We may not think we can, but we do. In fact, we do it everyday as a tool to use when processing speech. We use a lot of tools to help in speech processing and there is evidence to suggest that we also use the visual as well. The evidence is in the McGurk effect. The McGurk effect is, basically, when you hear something when watching the person and something different when you're not watching the person. If you watch someone saying "ga ga" you will hear "ga ga", but if you don't watch them you will hear "ba ba". Visual information helps so much with processing speech when it is muffled or deteriorated in any way. We don't depend solely on visual information to understand speech, but it is a useful tool." 

Revision Week: Day 2

So continues the exciting saga of Erin's revision week before exams. I have to say, I don't think I'll ever get use to this whole exams after winter break thing. Though, I'm surprisingly more prepared this year. I've actually studied. Sign of maturity?

Anyway:

8 days until the English exam
9 days until the Psychology exam

"There is evidence that infants can not only imitate facial expressions but can understand the emotions behind them. In a study, infants were tested to see if they could understand emotions. The experimenter first got the child use to passing objects back and forth. Then the child was presented with a bowl of broccoli and a bowl of fish crackers (you know...the snack the smiles back). The child was encouraged to choose a snack to eat. Inevitably, the child would choose to chow down on the fish crackers. After the child has sometime to eat their snack the experimenter would take the two bowls. He tried a bit of broccoli and made a pleased face with satisfied "yum" noises. Then he tried a fish cracker. He looked disgusted and made "yucky" noises. He then passed the two bowls back to the child and asked them if they could give him something to eat. In most, but not all cases, the child will eventually pass him a bit of broccoli. This provides evidence that young children can use facial expressions to guide their own social interactions." There are videos to go along with this of babies who "pass" and "fail" this test. There was one we watched which was absolutely hilarious. This little girl looks at the experimenter as if to say, "Really?! You want this!?" Adorable.

But quite possibly the most important thing I have learned (or revised I should say) today is something my lecturer said during the original lecture. "If you give broccoli and fish crackers to a child they will never eat the broccoli." Life lessons right there.

Revisions Week: Day 1

For revision week (well, really 9 days) I've decided to post something every day that was part of my studying. I'm hoping this makes everything stick in my head even more.

Revision Week: Day 1
9 days until the English exam
10 days until the Psychology exam

Children gain a better understanding of their own mental abilities as they age. If you were to ask a young child what they could expect themselves to remember when learning a list of words they would overestimate by quite a bit. They would average about 3 more items than they would really remember. As children grow up they begin to be more realistic as to how many items they can remember. By about age 10 children are not far off when guessing how many items they are able to remember. They still overestimate, but only by around one item.

Posters in Univeristy?

Right, this semester I have two psychology courses. One is a theory course and the other is a methods course. I enjoy them both, but for different reasons. I won't go into those reason now as it would take a while to explain. They just appeal to different parts of the learning or my brain or something like that.

Anyway. for the theory course we only have two tutorials for the whole semester. One was back in week 3 and one is this next week in week 9. That's a plus definitely, the teacher and what they are having us do is definitely not.

Week 3 I walked into the tutorial with some serious stomach issues. I sat in the back, which I don't normally do, with my head on the desk, also something that I don't normally do, trying hard not to lose everything I had eaten that morning. Needless to say, I wasn't paying all that close attention which caused me to miss my tutor's name. After class I caught up with him to ask him his name just in case I needed it and he was not particularly nice to me. In fact, he was a little rude. He has proceeded to stay rude towards me. He seems like one of those guys who doesn't think anyone is near as smart as him so he feels the need to patronize everyone he comes across. I don't like being patronized. I hate it in fact.

What I hate even more is that he split us into groups to create posters for the next tutorial. Yes, posters. I thought I was a second year University student, not a third grader. *Sigh* It's truly annoying. I would feel better getting up in front of the class giving a presentation about it than presenting a poster. It feels a little demeaning to be honest.

Ah well, I've gotta do it.