Question

Part I - The most commonly known and labeled senses are sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. Considering this, please address the following

a)     Do you think that there may be senses which do not necessarily receive information only from the environment, but rather from within us as well? (For example, how do you sense that you are hungry? If you hold your breath, which sense ‘senses’ that you need air? How do you sense the need for belonging?)

b)     If you think that we may have more senses than the 5 noted above, would you provide your opinion on why you think the dominant scientific community may not have considered more than the typical 5 senses? If you wish, you may use other references to strengthen or support your discussion.

c)     How does a “definition” (for example, how we define the 5 senses) help or hinder us in knowing the parameters of a concept, think about a concept’s potential for expansion, or keep a concept within known boundaries?

Do you think that the definition of sensation needs to be expanded? Why?

Part II - What is the role of operant conditioning in our development of reading skills? How do these skills become stronger and more “automatic”? Do you think that many of our “skills” follow the same path of development, and why?

Part III - Conduct the exercise found on this website:  http://web.psych.utoronto.ca/psy100dax/other_resources/colours.gif

You can repeat the exercise as many times as you want.

Questions:

1)     Discuss your experience in completing the exercise. How do you think learning, intelligence, language, and memory are connected to any ease or difficulty you may have experienced while doing the exercise?

2)     How is doing this exercise related to Parts I and II above?  

Hint: What we pay attention to is related to what we reinforce.

Use your own words to construct a 2-3 page paper addressing the three parts above. You should use some outside sources to bolster your answers. All citations should be in APA format. The paper must be 1-inch margins, 12-point Times New Roman, double-spaced. You should include a separate page at the end of the paper that lists your references.

Answer 1

Part 1

a) Yes when it comes to hunger, anger, happiness etc we can't say these feelings came through our 5 basic senses. So I agree, there is more than just 5 senses. These 5 senses are mostly to see and understand the outer world. When it comes to internal feelings, there may be a mere sense of 'me' from within.

b) Science believes in seeing and then believing. The 5 senses can be easily understood by the facts! We see, hear, feel, smell. It's not could or maybe, it's a fact! Whereas when we speak about the possibility that there may be something more within us apart from these 5 senses, we can just feel it, unable to show it, prove it. We can also argue that if all humans have these 5 senses what about people who are blind?

c) The idea of definition is to provide the basic understanding to the readers. The definition can later be ellaborated, explained but it do provide minimum knowledge and understanding to the reader. So my answer is positive for the first half of question. For the second half, the definition of sensation is very well explained but only about outer things,not internal feelings and senses. So once these internal feelings are included in our 5 senses, only then the definition needs to be expanded. As of now, I feel it's appropriate.

Part 2

1) Since childhood we learn things through operant conditioning. When we get praises, we strengthen our behavior, when we are punished/disapproved, we lessen that particular behavior. For reading skills, when we start reading correctly and get praise from teachers, parents, we tend to work harder and our reading skills are strengthened. These skills eventually becomes stronger by practice. Slowly,there is no much effort from our side and reading seems like a automatic process with age and practice. Yes I think many of skills follow the similar path of development. Mostly regular practice being most important part. Correcting ourselves and doing the right thing next time. Basically, giving time to a skill, learning how it's done, practicing it regularly seems like the path of development which any skill would need.