Hailey Sommers Seminar

           “How Smart Can We Get”

            After watching PBS’s “How Smart Can We Get” from Nova Science Now, I realized how very complex the brain is. I used to think that a lot of people were born smart or they worked very hard to memorize all of the material on a test; I learned that there are special ways and techniques to help you memorize almost anything you want.

After studying Albert Einstein’s brain, neurologists discovered that his parietal lobe was 15% bigger than the size of an average person’s. He also had a different bump on his brain, which showed excessive movement of the fingers on one of his hands. Einstein played violin throughout his childhood and adult life. Learning a musical instrument is said to make people smarter, which was exactly Einstein’s case. He said that whenever he could not figure out a certain physics problem, he would go into his kitchen and play his violin until the solution came to him.

Memory champions each have their own way of memorizing longs lists of numbers and words. A memory champion taught David Pogue how to memorize a list of 40 words. He told him to imagine the word very vividly. For example, the first few words on the list were monkey and iron. So the champion told David to imagine a monkey dancing on his piano, but he said not to just imagine it dancing, but to imagine the sound and have as much detail as possible. He then told him to imagine the monkey holding an iron in his hand. The champion had David do this for all 40 words and he memorized almost all of the words on the list and all under ten minutes.

Cognitive neuropsychologists are redefining the concept of intelligence by explaining that those that are intelligent have more nerve cells connecting each other, which is gray matter. Math gifted children had five times more the activity in their parietal lobe than average children. Gray matter is made up of nerve cells while white matter is nerve fibers that connect the matter together. Neuropsychologist discovered that juggling helps increase gray matter, to make you smarter. The brain grows when someone juggles, so learning to juggle can increase gray brain matter, which increases nerve cells so basically makes you smarter.

George’s brain is unique because when he is calendar counting, his brain lights up unevenly, unlike someone who cannot calendar count. His brain lights up more on one side than the other, which is very uncommon. Acquired savants are people that suffer a severe brain injury or disease and come out of it with a skill that they did not have before the accident. In Derek’s case, he dove into a pool and hit his head on the bottom of the pool. When he woke up, he had the sudden urge to play the piano. When Derek sat down in front of a piano, he could play quite well, even though he could not play piano before his accident. He can only play one melody and cannot read music. Derek sees the notes as black and white boxes in his brain and these boxes tell his hands what keys to press.

When people get put under a lot of pressure to perform well, sometimes people “choke.” Stress messes with our working memory in our brain, which occurs in the prefrontal cortex, right above our eyes. What happens when we get put under a lot of pressure and stress, the emotional centers right below the prefrontal cortex overreact which prevents clear thinking. People that are said not to choke, don’t show signs of their emotional centers intervening with our working memory. Studies were done on students that were about to take a high-stakes biology exam. They gave the students the option of either writing down their feelings about the exam for ten minutes before, or to sit there for ten minutes before the exam. The students that chose to write down their feelings did better, on average, than the students who chose to sit there to themselves before the exam. It shows that expressing your feelings about what is causing stress can help eliminate stress quite a bit.

I thought this documentary was actually very helpful in learning how to memorize things and how to deal with stress better. It made me more aware of how to study and it taught me that I should write down my feelings instead of keeping them bottled up inside me, especially if I am stressed out about an exam or something else going on in my life.

1. 11:  Friendship CASE STUDY

Read and analyze the following case study, and then answer the questions regarding communication in relationships with friends.

Drew and Jace met in fifth grade.  They grew up living down the street from each other and played baseball together.  They were the best of friends throughout high school, sharing their dreams, fears, and deepest secrets.  They went to separate colleges, though they still kept in touch through Facebook and e-mail and publicly referred to each other as “best friend.”  During their third year in college, Drew told Jace he would be dropping out of college to pursue his lifelong dream of becoming a professional baseball player.  Jace did not support Drew’s decision and tried to convince Drew that playing baseball is a thing of the past and that Drew should give up the notion of ever becoming a professional baseball player.  Drew was devastated and began to question his friendship with Jace.

1. How was Drew and Jace’s friendship typical for adolescence?

Yes, their friendship was typical because it showed the characteristics of a typical friendship.  First, Drew and Jace shared common interests, like baseball.  Their relationship can also be characterized by self-disclosure, which is said to distinguish between acquaintances and friends.  Drew and Jace shared their dreams, fears, and deepest secrets, classifying them as friends.  Sharing like this is typical for adolescents as well.  As children grow up, they begin to depend on same-sex friends just as much as their own family for emotional support.  By around 10th grade, friends have become the principal providers of emotional support.

2. Would you classify Jace as Drew’s best friend in childhood?  Why or why not?  Did this change during the course of their lifespan?  How?

Yes, Jace could be classified as Drew’s best friend in childhood for many reasons.  First, Jace and Drew are same-sex friends, which is a key characteristic in two people becoming best friends.  Second, more disclosure and deeper commitment is important to elevate a friendship to best friend status.  Jace and Drew shared their dreams, fears, and deepest secrets with each other.  Another important characteristic in best friendship is that the two join activities together; Drew and Jace participated in baseball together.

As they grew up, I believe their relationship changed and they were no longer best friends.  An important aspect of best friendship is identity support, or the concept of behaving in ways that convey understanding, acceptance, and support for a friends valued social identities.  After Jace did not express acceptance for Drew’s dream of being a professional baseball player, he also showed that he no longer gives Drew identity support for who he wants to be.

3. What could Drew and Jace have done to better maintain their friendship across the geographic distance?

With the information given, it is hard to tell what they could’ve done differently to

maintain their relationship, but I’m guessing Drew and Jace could have talked on the phone more and kept in touch with each others social life. To me, it sounds like Drew was having a tough time at college and maybe there was a different reason he dropped out. Keeping in touch with personal problems and just the simple task of telling jokes maintains a relationship. They both could of done a better job of visiting and talking out issues together.

4. How does the concept of valued social identities play a role in Drew and Jace’s situation?

The value of social identities plays a large role in the background of their situation, because not only do we not want ourselves to look bad, but Jace doesn’t want Drew to look like a failure, because that would make people think that Jace is headed in the same direction as his best friend.  Jace just wants to try and keep Drew successful, which is selfish because Drew wants to prove to everyone that he can play baseball and maybe even make it into the MLB one day.

 

5. Do you think situations like the one above are common?  Why or why not?

This type of situation happens all the time. It is very common for people to drop out of school. Many people will think that they should attempt to talk their friend out of it. That sometimes sets off the other friend and will cause a fight in the friendship because the other friend doesn’t feel he is being supported by his friend.

 

6. How does gender factor into this friendship?  Would it be different if this friendship were between two females?  If so, how so?  (Hint:  What are the gender influences on communication and friendship relationships?)

Gender factors into the friendship because when there is a friendship between two males they are always looking out for their friends and trying to help them succeed.  Meanwhile with women, generally speaking, their relationship would be more supportive of what the other person wants, instead of what they think is the best option for their friend.  And although the stereotypes for friendships in different genders are completely different, it all comes down to who the people in the friendship are, because as the years have passed, stereotypes have fallen and we live in a time where all different kinds of personalities are accepted.

Oceanography: Marine Biology

The most amazing organism in the ocean, to me, would have to be the crustacean fronima. I think it is the most amazing because it kills organisms and uses parts of that organism’s body to create a home to feed her young until they are ready to drift off on their own. The interesting part is that this organism targets prey that is larger than itself. Also, I find it very interesting that it takes body parts of its prey to build a home for its young. I never thought that such small organisms were capable of things like that. This organism lives near the surface of the ocean. In the video, it described that zooplankton do not exactly have a food chain because they all kind of eat each other. Not even scientists know who eats whom. This is very interesting because some species of zooplankton even eat their own kin, while others prey on organisms that are much bigger than themselves. I think the marine life of the ocean is the most interesting and spectacular part of the ocean. There is so much variety and there are still unknown depths of the ocean.

500 Days of Summer

Essay 1

In 500 Days of Summer, Tom and Summer’s relationship is different than most relationships. The roles of a ‘typical’ relationship are reversed. Summer is more distant and does not want a relationship, while Tom wants a relationship. These different roles suggest the complex perceptions between the genders and how it affects the maintenance and termination of the relationship.

When thinking about relationships, it is typically the woman who needs emotional support, while the man tries to think of unsympathetic solutions. However, this is not the case when it comes to Tom and Summer. Tom is the one who wants to talk about his feelings all of the time. He is often found talking to his younger sister about his relationship problems, which is rather different than society thinks it, should be. The younger sibling is usually the one that looks to the older sibling for advice on relationships. Summer remains a lot more distant and a very independent woman. In maintaining a relationship, there are seven strategies that are used: positivity, assurance, sharing tasks, acceptance, self-disclosure, relationship talks, and social networks. In 500 Days of Summer, Tom and Summer practice a few of these strategies. For example, they use positivity. Tom tries his very best to make sure that Summer is always happy and they he is keeping everything cheerful and optimistic. Tom also tries to tell Summer how devoted he is to her; he tells her how he wants to be with her and only her. Summer refrains from telling Tom the same, she often tells him that she does not want a boyfriend because she does not believe in love. Summer shows acceptance of Tom when he tells her about his dream to be an architect. She tells him that she believes in him and supports him. Summer tells Tom about her dreams that she has never told anyone before. She discloses in him because she believes he will not tell anyone this information. When Summer tells Tom that she has never told anyone those things before, he falls even harder for her because he thinks that she likes him too. Tom tries to have relationship talks with Summer but she tends to not want to talk about their relationship besides the fact that she does not want a relationship. Summer does not want a relationship, nor does she believe in love because she watched her parent’s marriage deteriorate as a child growing up. When deciding to maintain the relationship, there are four factors to consider. These factors will help tell whether or not to terminate the relationship. Tom thought that Summer felt the same about him but just did not want a relationship when she really did not love him the way he loved her. This is out of the ordinary because it is usually men that do not want relationships and do not love the other as much.

Tom and Summer’s relationship is unique compared to other relationships. They reverse traditional gender roles of relationships. Summer is the more distant one and Tom is the one who wants a relationship, and the one who is in love. While this movie was interesting, it made brought to mind previous relationships where the woman was more independent and distant while the man was in love and dependent.

 

Essay 2

Tom and Summer coming together and coming apart seemed to be the entire movie. They were either coming together and Tom was on cloud nine, or they were coming apart and Tom was suffering. Coming together and coming apart both have five stages that Tom and Summer went through during their relationship.

The five stages for coming together are initiating, experimenting, intensifying, integrating, and bonding. Initiating is when people decided if the other is attractive by looking at their physical appearance. This happened in the movie when Tom sees Summer for the first time during a meeting. Tom instantly is attracted to Summer and he immediately knows that he wants to be with her. Experimenting occurred when Tom talked to Summer for the first time and he found out where she was from and asked her out. This is where they started ‘dating’ even though Summer did not want a relationship; the experimenting stage lasted a while because of this. During the intensifying stage, Summer shared some information that she had never told anyone else before. Tom also expressed his feelings for Summer about how he wanted to be with her and only her. They also held hands, cuddled, and had sex which is what made Tom think the Summer liked him. Tom and Summer’s relationship never really hit the integrating stage, which is where both partner’s personalities both seem to become one. Also, their relationship never went through the bonding stage, which is when partners make a commitment to each other, usually marriage. Tom and Summer’s relationship did not make it through all of the stages but Tom thought he would be spending the rest of his life with Summer, but Summer had different plans which is when the coming apart stages started.

Coming apart has five stages, which are: differentiating, circumscribing, stagnating, avoiding, and terminating. In the differentiating stage, Summer told Tom that she did not think they would work out because they had been fighting a lot, even though they really had not been. Tom was in the circumscribing stage when he was trying to ignore the fact that Summer did not want a relationship because he thought he could change her mind even though they spent less and less time with each other. Tom and Summer eventually entered the stagnating stage when they did not talk as much because they did not have anything to talk about or did not want to talk about Summer’s disinterest. They did not avoid each other that much, just spent less time together until Summer finally terminated the relationship they had. In the terminating stage, partners sometimes come together for a final exchanging of words. This exchange of words did not happen until the very end when Tom was on the bench and Summer was there too. The stages of coming apart were a lot harder on Tom than Summer because he thought that he could change her mind about love, fate, and relationships.

The ending of 500 Days of Summer was interesting because it talked about how Tom no longer believed in fate, but everything that happens is pure coincidence. He did not chalk things up to fate anymore, he did not believe in soul mates, and he did not believe that everything happens for a reason. Tom saw no reason in believing these things because it only got him hurt. In the end, people need to do what they think is best for themselves in order to move on after a tough relationship.