gegužės 09, 2008

Body language

Body languge is conccurent part of our communication. We allways use this non-verbal form of expressing our emotions. There are many kinds of this body movemens, such as gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice and so on..
It seems that words give just a small amount of information what we would like to send.

I think almost everyone in his own life have experienced the situation when someone is saying you one thing but it doesn't feel the truth. It happens when two ways of our comunication is incongruent. Our body gives one information and the words we say onother. For exemple.: your friend say that he feels good about you, he loves you. But at the same time he trys to avoid eye-contact, looks anxious, maybe is biting his lips or sending another signs of lying. For me it is very interesting that in such kind of situations the reciever of verbal and non-verbal messages is tend to believe what your body says.

I think, there are many immportant reasons why we should learn to understand and use body language. the main reason is that it helps to understand another people and express yourself clearly. So it helps us to communicate more effectively.

What is more, we should take a look at other cultures body language. It helps us to avoid misunderstandings when we travel in other states or meet other culture people. For this reason we shoul learn carefully about gestures and other body language signs.

In conclusion, I would like to say that body language is very strong form of expressing our thoughts and we shoul use it carefully.

Artificial intelligence


I would like to express my opinion about this quite interesting subject - artificial intelligence. the definition of these words is - "It is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs". I think all we know this concept from the Steven Spielberg film "Artificial intelligence". For me this film was really amazing and I think it's really worthy to see it. This film is about the robot-boy. he is like a man and live in normal family, but really he is not a human he is some kind of computer. It's the story about the first robot who can love like human,trying to live in our society.

Many years ago people started studies about our intelligence work, I think trying to desighn the artificial inteligence also is very old task. In todays modern life artificial intelligence is tender question. I think every people have their own opinion about this subject and for me it is quite undiscovered area. As we know, artificial inteligence is very broad idea. Is it possible that one day robot could change human? Or maybe one day we would be like robots? There are too many unanswered questions..
To my opinion, human's intelligence is unique and unrepreatable. Every man is like a miracle with his own feelings, thoughts, dreams and emotions... And any kind of machine could equal or overtake it. As we know, in some states people spend a lot of many to buy robot-dog, robot-cat or even robot-house maid. I can't believe that they could be as attractive and amazing as real pets,and that robot-house maid could do everything so clearly as a man.
On the other hand we often don't notice that artificial inteligence is all around us. Some kind of AI is in computer games, our cars or computers. So it is the sign that machines step by step change humans. They help us to live more comfortable, but do they really change us? In real,all machines are programmed by poeple. So they work fork for us and just how we wish, they can't create something or go solo.
In conclusion, I would like to mention that even people are creating these AI machines, nobody wants to live in unreal world with robots around us, and everybody wants to have freedom for themselves.


Self-assessment of ESP learning-

I think it's quite difficult to evaluate yourself, but after every term we have to do this task.
So firstly, I would like to talk about my writing skills. I think the most useful task of writing was summaries. As we know after free terms we are going to have English test where writing summary would be one of the most immportant exercise. So it is really helpful that we try to learn how good summary should be written. I think my writing isn't very good, all my grades of summaries were 7. The most popular was grammar mistakes, so I should try to repeat the rules and avoid such kind of errors. Talking about ESP vocabulary tests, I think my performance at this task was better than in the first term. I think now I know what is immportant in these tests and it helps me to get ready for this exercise. Self-designed tests is one of the most interesting task and also it is the new one. I think it's really helpful task. Dictations and contributions to weblogs are very good way to improve our writing skills. My skills at this task isn't exelent, I think I should learn more about writing.
Another point i would like to talk is speaking skills. I agree to the opinion that task such as participation in class discussions or presentations improve our skills. But on the other hand, I think sometimes it's not very efficient learning. Some people are quite shy and they doesn't like talking in front of auditory. So in the class discussions they just sit and listen, and they doesn't improve teir talking skills in such way. Presentations are the most needful task, because it is very interesting not just to find information and to do this task, but also it is interesting to listen to other people. So it is a good way to show and improve your talking skills. I think I can't express my thoughts fluently so I shoul do more talking exercises and try to improve this my ability. Also I think I should learn more new words, because it helps to talk clearly.
What's more, listening skills are also very imporatant for our English use. When we could listent and understant quite clearly it also help us to talk more fluently. I like listening tasks, because you should focus your attention and be careful, also you shoud think attentively. I think it's quite atractive task. Sometimes it's very hard to do listening exercises because of your lack of words. I listen and there are too many unknown words so I can't understand the main things about the text. I think to solve this problem I also should learn more new words and phrases, and try to use them.
The last point I would like to talk is reading tasks. I think it is also one of my favourite tasks. I really like home reading, because these texts are quite useful for my vocabulary,and I learn lot of new words. also these texts gives new information about psychology and other subjects.

gruodžio 11, 2007

Summary 'Babies 'show social intelligence'

The last researches shown that at the age of six months babies have the ability to recognize freindly people or enemy.
It is believed that babies have some kind of morality, which is very important for moral development. Some experiments shown that social evaluation is universal and unlearned.
What's more, researches shown that at the very early age babies are quite competent social creatures and could learn the basics of social interaction.
In conclusion, it's said that it's not yet claer whether the capacity described in these researches relates to a real understanding of social life.

lapkričio 29, 2007

Influences

It’s quite hard for me to remember one event when somebody influenced me. I think that everything has some kind of influence for us. Even in our daily moments. As an example, our day starts from the morning and our mood is influenced of our sleeping quality. If had a good and leisurely sleep we feel relaxed and our mood is exelent. On the other hand, if we could’t go to sleep or saw nightmares our mood isn’t so perfect. So we could really say that every moment could influence us.

Talking about peoples’sinfluence I think that the most important persons are my relatives and friends. I have my best frien, such as a sister, who always influenced me. When I am lost I usually ask her some kind of advice, and she helps for me. I would like to say that her opinion of one or another aspect is the biggest influence for me. Because it helps me to make decisions and choose the best way to go. I think such kind of influence is very important in my life.

Another important person is my daddy. He always told me his right and valuable thoughts. The most remembered event when he influenced me is my opinion where to study after school graduating. I wrote a list where I would like to study. And when I found out that Vilnius Gediminas university passed me to environmental engineering studies I was very upset. But my father was very happy. He tried to turn me to his own wiev that it’s good and promising speciality. And what’s interesting I feel better. I was laerning all the yaer with the idea “I have to prove that it’s possible for me”. But after one year I feel upset as in the beginning. These studies don’t give me any pleasure and it’s so boring for me. Then I decided to do what I really wanted. And now I am studying psychology. My father doesn’t like this idea, but the best thing is that he sustains my decision. And I don’t know how to name this influence, but I think one day I will finish my last studies in Vilnius Gediminas Technical University. Next year I’m going to be part-time student.

To draw a conclusion I would like to say that there are so many influences in our life that’s too hard to notice all of them. And even when really relative people try to influence you, it’s very important to make your own decision.

spalio 31, 2007

Psychology of sleeping

Everybody knows that without sleep human organism can't function properly. Sleep is necessary for us. So we should be interested in this activity and take more care of our sleeping quality and quantity. I decided to search more information about sleep and saw that there are so many information about it, that's not easy to talk about everything I've read. So I would like to mention some of the most interesting facts about sleep.
What's interesting, people think that sleep is passive part of our daily live,but in fact while we are sleeping our brains work actively. Also sometimes people think that more you sleep, more energy you get. Really it's just one of the myths of sleeping. That's not true because you don't need 12 or 15 hours to feel actively. The time of sleeping required depends on your age, life conditions and many other facts. Astonishing is that sometimes less sleep means you could feel better.
What's more I found another interesting fact "The more you sleep the more tired you feel".This is true because sleeping makes you lazy. The same example is that if you sit all over the day in front of tv and do nothing more as a result you are feeling lazing. The same thing is while you are sleeping too long.

spalio 29, 2007

The subfields of psychology

As we have learnt in our first module "Psychologists at work" there are many different subfields of psychology. Each of them have their individual methods, propositions, the subjects of research. On the other hand they all are connected with each other. In this my article I would like to talk about cognitive psychology and environmental psychology.
Firstly, as we know cognitive means connected with thinking or conscious mental processes. So cognitive psychology( behavioral psychology) is the study of how people think. These psychologists explore and study mental processes : thinking, knowing, feeling, learning, etc. They believe that mental process can be examined scientifically through the conduct of experiments. Thus, cognitive psychologists are especially interested in the ways in which people perceive, interpret, and store information, while psycholinguists are interested in the development, structure, and meaning of language. These psychologists are usually found in academic settings, research laboratories, or in technical and information-processing agencies.
The first cognitive psychologist was Skinner, who mentioned that human behavior is powerfully controled by everyone's wishes. Skinner found how to train animals effectively, and how to help people to modify his behaviour.
Another interesting subfield of psychology is environmental psychology. The definition of this subject is " it examines the interrelationship between environments and human behavior". This subfield is not very old. Environmental psychology focuses on both the effects of environmental conditions on behaviour and how the individual perceives and acts on the environment. As psychologists focus on people’s perceptions, attitudes and actions.
As we now our physical environment has some influences for us. So it's very important to find all the relationship between people and environmental. It would help to proof human's life quality and avoid some disasters.
I think it's very interesting to know how your physical environment influences your feelings, and mood. So I decided to find some more information about this subject, and I read an article "Environmental Design Psychology Ideas for Home".
This article said that green plants at home help people to feel emotionally parfect. It is better to use flowers or other live plants for decorating your house. It looks better and repair your bad mood. What's more plants relieve stress and clean your environment.
Also it's said that when you create your room design it's good to take a look to the nature. And try to get some ideas from it: colours, compositions.
Another point of decorating your house or room is that you should choose natural colours. We know that colours affect our emotions so it's very important to choose the right colour for your home space. Because it's the place where you spend the biggest part of your time.
In conclusion I would like to say that we should be more interested in nature and environment around us. And to take more care about things whose surround us. Our environment is the way for good feeling.