You're So Emotional

      Emotions are a basic part of every conversation. Emotions help us communicate through simple facial expressions and understand how others are feeling without a single word spoken. We can agree that you can not really tell when a friend is jealous just by their facial expression. The six emotions shown above are known as the basic emotions. These emotions are those in which are easy to spot in an individual. There are also emotions that are not as easily spotted, which are known as complex emotions. Emotions tell a lot about a person. They tell you when or when you should not ask certain questions, they tell you how someone feels about you. 

     Recently, an article was released at Who Should Know How You Are Feeling? which discusses how various companies are using our emotions to determine various things. For example, companies are observing potential customers emotions through facial expression to determine if their advertisement was effective or not. So what is really private? If you are being watched while you watch television? That is just creepy. This article was written by someone who is in the business of creating this technology. It was nice of this guy to warn us about the upcoming privacy invasion but he is the one creating the devices to read our emotions! Luckily, this technology will only be able to read our basic emotions. We will still be able to maintain the secrecy in our complex emotions. 

      On the website, Paul Ekman you can watch several videos with Paul Ekman who is a psychologist specializing in detecting micro emotions. In these videos, Dr. Ekman teaches you how to tell if someone is lying, how to master your emotions and many other emotional techniques. I find this kind of creepy as well that this man can catch a facial expression that only occurs for 1/25th of a second. Many of us believe that we would be able to pick up on emotions but the truth is, we would not be able to pick up on micro emotions. 

     I have never been a huge on showing my emotion, excluding joy. I would rather keep to myself that way no one can question me on how I am feeling. This being said, I am curious to whether Dr. Ekman would be capable of depicting different emotions I have. Since the majority of people I see on a day to day basis can not decipher my emotions, I am curious if I do show micro emotions momentarily and people do not pick up on them or if I have adapted to showing no micro emotions what so ever. 

     There was a television series called "Lie to Me" based on Dr. Ekman's work. Basically in the show, you can see Dr. Ekman's life played out by actor Tim Roth. I would find it very interesting, especially after recently reading these articles, to watch the three seasons that aired. In this show you can watch the life of a deception detection expert in work. You can read about this television show at Paul Ekman Group . I wonder also, how often Dr. Ekman reads emotions. Is it something he can stop doing when he chooses? Or is he constantly reading micro emotions no matter who he is speaking to? 

Attachment Parenting; Good or Bad?

       Recently, a new style of parenting has hit media. Attachment Parenting, theorized by Dr. Sears, emphasizes the importance of extended breastfeeding, baby-wearing and co-sleeping. As you can see from the above photograph, extended breastfeeding is the act in which mothers continue to breastfeed their child well into their toddler years. Baby-wearing is where the caretaker literally wears their child in a sling in order to keep them closer. Finally, co-sleeping is where an entire family sleeps in one bed, every night.

      In the first article I read on this topic was "Jaime Lynne Grumet, Breastfeeding Mom on 'TIME Magazine' Cover, Illustrates Attachment Parenting". In this article, you can read about several woman who breastfeed their children into their toddler years. These women argue that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends mothers to breastfeed for a year or longer depending on the mother's personal beliefs. The belief of extended breastfeeding is done in order to grow a closer bond between mother and child. Also, to raise a more secure child. The question I raise is, if the child is old enough to understand what they are doing, then they can become dependent on their mother. This would create an opposite effect then what attachment parenting is said to accomplish. The child should become less secure because they are dependent on their mother. Children who breastfed as toddlers, ask for milk for comfort as well.

      For having such a peculiar and new idea on parenting, you would assume Sears or his wife were raised with these parenting techniques. After interviewing the couple, we have discovered that neither Dr. Sears nor his wife were raised with any of these attachment parenting styles. After checking that off our list, we would assume the Sears raise their own children using attachment parenting. In the article, "Meet Dr. Sears, the Man Who Remade Motherhood", the article states that Sears only gets his experience from being a father and a pediatrician. Therefore we can only assume that they use attachment parenting styles to raise their children.

     On the website, Attachment Parenting International, there are several listed techniques to raise a secure child. The techniques listed are Prepare for Pregnancy, Birth and Parenting, Feed with Love and Respect, Respond with Sensitivity, Use Nurturing Touch, Ensure Safe Sleep Emotional and Physical, Provide Consistent and Loving Care, Practice Positive Discipline, and Strive for Balance in your Personal and Family Life. In Prepare for Pregnancy, Birth and Parenting, the article suggests parents to research different parenting styles. Basically, this article tells parents to inform themselves on recent studies on parenting and breastfeeding and other parenting techniques. This article is pretty broad. I think most parents research various parenting styles and techniques.

     There are several odd suggestions brought up in these articles. The first one is co-bathing. First of all, a bath is a very relaxing act, why would you want a baby or child with you? Also, I feel as if children should not be comfortable seeing their mothers naked body. Another odd technique is co-sleeping. This is where an entire family sleeps in a bed together. My view on co-sleeping is that it would only make the child overly attached to their parents. In turn, these children will become dependent on sleeping with their parents making them unable to sleep alone or go to sleepover with a friend. To me, this seems like more of a detriment to the child than a benefit.

     After reading these articles, I became intrigued in the idea. Not in the way that I wanted to raise my children in the manner, but in the way that I was interested in the mindset of these adults. Upon further research, I found an article that stated that breastfeeding until eleven is becoming popular in Ireland. Eleven! Could you imagine going to your friends house as an eleven year old and seeing your friend breastfeed? I also read an article where a child was breastfed until the age of three and truly wishes her mother did not wait so long to stop breastfeeding. This woman now states that she can remember the taste and the action of breastfeeding. She also says that she is weirded out by her mother's breasts. Many articles do not take into consideration the long term effects it has on children. They may think it makes them more secure, but in this article, this woman is now just puzzled by breasts themselves and can not think of her mother the same.

     Overall, I think attachment parenting is a bad idea. Of course, I have no right to tell others how to raise their child. Yet I urge parents to really think about the long term effects attachment parenting has on children. This style of parenting could very possibly cause children to become overly attached and dependent upon their mother especially but also their other parent. Also, as seen in the final article I stated, extended breastfeeding can cause confusion and uncomfortableness in the future between child and mother. As attachment parenting may be comforting for the child at that time, it could potentially cause the exact opposite down the line.

Does the Language We Speak Effect Our Thoughts?

   

         Around the world, every country has a specific language that follows their own set of rules. Generally, language is used to get ideas and thoughts across to fellow people who speak that language. Even those who can not hear or speak have their own language. I, myself, have attempted to learn how to speak Spanish. Natively speaking English, it was difficult for me to comprehend that every object is designated male or female. Also, it was difficult for me to pronounce the "rr" sound when first learning the language. This is because when I was an infant, the people around me never used this sound. In turn, the sound was dropped from my vocabulary. 

         I recently read several articles discussing the impact of language on our thoughts. First, I read the article "Relatively speaking: do our words influence how we think?" This article brought up the idea that possibly the language we speak develops different thoughts in our minds. For example, German speakers always sound so angry when they speak. Does this make them think more aggressively than those who speak English? This is an interesting thought, but it can not be true that Germans are constantly angry. This being said, language could still influence thoughts, they just can not possibly influence thoughts. Who would want to be angry all the time anyway? 

          Also in this article, I read about a group of people called the Hopi tribe. This tribe is also known as "time-less Hopi" because they literally have no sense of time. In America time is a big part of our lives, from the time of the day, to the past, to the future. So if we try to understand a world where time is not a factor, it is difficult to comprehend. Imagine if the English language did not have the word time. Would we be as stressed from day to day? Or would we be anxious about what is going to come in our future?

         The second article I read was named "How Language Shapes Thought". I was immediately interested in this article by it's start. People in the Pormpuraaw community are constantly aware of which north, south, east and west are without hesitation. If you were to ask any of English speaking people to point north, they would hesitate and point in a direction that was somewhat accurate but not exactly correct. With the people from this community would not hesitate and be perfectly accurate. This is also mind-blowing, to those not from that culture. Of course, I am sure it is astonishing to them that we are not capable of the same thing. 

        There are also several other examples of differences between various languages. One example would be in Mandarin, there are no words for exact numbers. Instead, they use words that mean "few" or "many". Again, could you imagine not having a word to say 'I have two dogs'? There is also a group of people who group colors into five categories. Basically, they use one word to describe both blue and green. Which we have like seven different words for colors that are very similar. For example, blue, bluish green, teal, turquoise, cayman are all words that describe very similar colors. Another example would be that several languages give objects a gender, like I stated earlier. In the English language, we only have genders for people and animals. This makes people who speak languages that follow this rule think in the way that inanimate objects that are male can not be given the name Lisa. Where those who speak English never blink an eye at calling an inanimate object any name they please.  

        The final experiment I read about was named "Language doesn't influence our thoughts...except when it does". I found this experiment a little odd. They created 16 images that resembled things the students have never seen before. The study showed that when the images were given labels, it was easier for students to guess them correctly. Those who were not given labels admitted to creating their own labels in order to place the images into the designated groups. This proves that language, whether we know the language or not, allows us to think clearer in the terms of placing these images into the designated group. 

     Overall, we can agree that language absolutely effects our thinking. Just in three articles, it was proven that the language we speak changes the way we think. Whether it be grouping colors together or not having any sense of time. There are tons of languages around the world so we can only think about how many different ways people around the world think. If something as common as language effects our thought, what other things effect our thoughts? 

How Much Do Babies Actually Think?

          When we think of babies, naturally we believe that not a lot of action occurs between their brain neurons. Recently, I have read several articles depicting research that has been done to prove otherwise. These studies made me recall the times when I was playing with my younger cousins. There were times when I have been shocked by the amount of understanding you can perceive from babies. For example, when playing with my cousin who was a baby at the time, I was able to hide his toy in a box. He continually stared and cried at the box until I removed his toy. At the time I was too young to comprehend the amount of thought produced by my cousin at such a young age.

        First, I read the article titled, "Do 18-month-olds really attribute mental states to others? A critical test".  This study was rather confusing the first time reading through it. I felt that there was a lot of tests occurring simultaneously. There was also a lot of stimuli for such a young age. There was sounds, new people, blindfolds and possibly new sights. This alone could create a confound which, in turn, could skew the results of the research.  Although I believe babies are capable of more profound thought than we have believed in the past, I also think that babies are more easily overwhelmed with multiple stimuli occurring around them. This study found that babies are capable of mental processing and do not rely solely on adults as "precursors".

         After being completely overwhelmed myself with the past experiment, I read an article titled "Newborn babies may be more developed than we think". This article introduced many experiments in which it reveals babies thoughts. One experiment I found extremely interesting was an experiment in which it reveals that babies are able to reason using probability. Experimenters were able to discover this reasoning when they placed more pink balls in a container than yellow and noticed that multiple babies would stare longer when more yellow balls were pulled out of the container. If babies can use probability to fuel their thoughts, what else can babies do that we have not discovered yet?

         Babies also understand laws of physics to a certain extent. An experiment was done were a toy car is shown passing through a solid wall. This action also causes babies to stare longer than when the toy car does not betray the laws of physics. This experiment was also explained in the article "The Brain: What Do Babies Know?". Babies, yet again, would look longer at the actions that defied physics than those that did not.

         At first I was thinking, no way, babies do not understand physics nor probability. Yet, after reading these experiments it is clear that babies are definitely more intrigued by events that defy the laws of physics or probability. This mere fact tells us that they are confused by the defying action because they are thinking no way this can happen.

          It is argued that babies and chimpanzees will mimic people's actions. The only difference is that babies will copy any action performed by a person but a chimpanzee will only copy actions that are useful to them. This being said, doesn't this mean that chimpanzees are more capable of thought than babies? Possibly in this manner, yes. But then I raise the question, can chimpanzees show the same confusion when certain actions are performed that defy physics or probabilities? Or, are chimpanzees capable of doing any sort of metal processing without adults severing as "precursors"?

          So, to answer the question, yes, babies can think quite a bit. Of course not as in depth as you and I, but on a certain level the amount a baby can think is astonishing. Fifty years ago, experimenters and/or scientists did not believe babies were capable of any sort of thought. Today, we are able to say, with supporting experiments, that babies are able to understand the laws of physics and probability to a certain extent.