msalvucci's blog

The concept of memory is still a highly researched subject for many scientists. It is often wondered how humans can use their memory to draw details from the past. A common misconception states that memories are like playing a video back in one’s head; memories are mostly broken pieces of information stringed together. Researchers found that it is easy to skew memory or make humans remember a memory incorrectly. When asking a witness if they remember something on a scene, using the phrase “the object” versus “a object” is more likely to make them remember something that did not technically happen. For this reason, it is thought that memories are theoretical ideas that can be persuaded one way or another. These questions contain presumptions. A presumption is a way of thinking about the situation that makes the question understandable. This idea explains that the way a question is worded when asking to recall a memory is very influential in persuading an answer one way or another. The integration of new information into a memory is a tactic that can affect ethics and law. For example, prosecutors may ask questions worded a certain way that will force the witness to recall the memory incorrectly. The new information added to a memory may not be true. 

As a student in the Fall 2018 Writing in Biology class at University of Massachusetts Amherst, I conducted a project to practice scientific writing and replication. In this project, students find a spider web on campus and create a multi-panel figure illustrating the location of the spider web. Students then create methods explaining how the student found the spider web; these methods also describe the steps taken to format the photographs into a multi-panel figure. Upon completing the original methods, a students follows another classmate’s methods and replicates the multi-panel figure based on those instructions. The students then observe the differences between the original and replicated multi-panel figure and use factors to infer why the differences are present. The possible differences between the two figures include variations in the size of the objects in the photo, lighting, cropping of the image, and font formatting. The factors that could affect the creation of the multi-panel figure include the time of day, sunlight, weather, or discrepancies in the methods. Overall, the purpose of this project is to practice writing concise and descriptive methods of an experiment, as well as provide practice for explaining differences between the two multi-panel figures.

The amount of sun exposure is a factor that was not accounted for when taking the replicate photos; this is seen the amount of sun beans present throughout the panel B and panel C pictures of Figure 2. The yellow beams over the tree and in the background of the spider web shows the presence of sun that was not there in the original multi-panel figure.

    The weather is another factor that was not controlled in the replicate figure due to the difference in lighting in the photos. The original photos were taken on a day of overcast weather, meaning there is a layer of clouds blocking the sun. Panel B and C in Figure 1 have a dull lighting, whereas the replicate photos have harsh beams of light.

As for the formatting of the figures, discrepancies in the methods may have caused the differences between the two multi-panel figures. For example, the font size and type were different in the replicated figure due to a lack of explanation in the methods. Additionally, the lack of gaps in between the photos in the replicated figure is a difference due to the disregard of the written methods.

    Despite there being many differences between Figure 1 and Figure 2, the overall project was a success in practicing scientific writing and replication.

My most recent work with children comes from my summer job position at Pappas Rehabilitation Hospital for Children. As a 1:1 aide, I help a patient with severe disabilities complete daily tasks including personal care and hygiene, ambulating, transferring, feeding and getting around from class to class. The age range of patients that I work with is 7-22 years old. As an aide, I guide the patients through the activities planned for the day; these activities include arts and crafts, music, sensory integration and sports. These activities are interactive for all patients with varying cognitive abilities. I also assist and shadow the patient’s therapy appointments including Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and Speech Therapy. Throughout these appointments, I am a helping hand to the therapists in their daily tasks that they work on. These tasks included walking, biking, transferring and standing for my patient. Other skills worked on during the therapies included reading, handling silverware, and doing laundry. The nursing staff and doctors at Pappas work closely together to make sure any medical problem with the patient is addressed and handled right away, to ensure the highest quality of care. Shadowing the nurses through their interactions with the patients has inspired me and showed me how important quality of care is for a patient. 

Scientists today still have a difficult time categorizing aggressive behavior in psychology and biology. It is often wondered is aggressiveness is a learned behavioral and emotional trait, or if these chemicals are innate from birth. The social learning theory is a way that scientists try to understand where aggressive behavior comes from; it is known that behavior can be shaped by many different factors. Researchers identified that children would often imitate parents or elders in their actions; for example, if a parent engaged in an aggressive behavior, the child would be more likely to have aggressive tendencies and vice versa. Additionally, they found that children are more likely to imitate behaviors from the parents of their same sex. That being said, boys were more likely to imitate aggressive behaviors to a higher degree. This is most likely due to a mixture of hormones and societal stresses; masculinity plays a big role in how boys gain aggressive behaviors. As girls are less likely to be expected to have aggressive tendencies, they follow their mother’s aggressive behaviors to a weaker degree than males. This theory was tested in an experiment conducted by Ross Bandura. These experimental findings are crucial to understanding how behaviors are learned throughout childhood. This research has opened the door to many other research projects regarding behavior in the future. 

As a student in the Writing in Biology class at University of Massachusetts Amherst in Fall 2018, I conducted a project to practice scientific writing and replication. In this project, students find a spider web on campus and create a multi-panel figure illustrating the location of the spider web on campus. Students then create methods explaining how the student found the spider web. These methods also describe the steps taken to format the photographs into a multi-panel figure. Upon completing the original methods, a different classmate follows another student’s methods and replicates the multi-panel figure based on those instructions. The students then observe the differences between the original and replicated multi-panel figure, and use factors to infer why the differences are present. This possible differences between the two figures include differences in the size of the objects in the photo, lighting, or cropping of the image. The factors that could have affected the creation of the multi-panel figure included the time of day, sunlight, weather, or discrepancies in the methods. Overall, the purpose of this project is to practice writing concise and descriptive methods for an experiment, as well as provide practice for portraying differences between the two multi-panel figure.

Observations of the replicated figure panel indicate many differences in the photographs between the two figure panels. The fact that the replicated picture shows a different amount of the tree next to the stair case suggests that the picture was taken a different angle than the original image. It was also observed that the picture showed more of the background of the spiderweb. From this difference, it is inferred that the photograph was taken from farther away in the replicate photo, thus, showing part of the student’s hands and more of the background behind the spiderweb.

The quality of the photographs taken are different between the original and replicated figure panels. The factor that’s most likely creating these differences in the lighting of the photographs would be the time of day that these pictures were taken.The weather also could be a factor affecting the picture quality, as the original pictures were taken on an overcast, cloudy day. This is most likely points to the camera exposure and focus.

The observed differences between the original and replicated figure panels are likely due to the in discrepancies in the methods. For example, the font size and type were different because the methods failed to completely describe the formatting. It is also inferred that a different version of Microsoft Word was used to create the replicate figure, as this would explain why the formatting differed.

The formatting of the figure panels are different between the two figure panels. The three pictures in the replicated figure panel do not have any gap of space in between the photos. The three photos overlap on each side. Additionally, the labelling on each photo do not match to the original, as the labels are placed in the upper left corner of every replicated picture. The font of these labels is also smaller and more box-like. The thickness of the label font is also thinner in the replicate pictures. As for the red markings on the picture, the red boxes do not match in size between the original and replicated panels. The replicate panel has smaller boxes around the Lewis Hall and stair railing, and these boxes are not perfect squares unlike the boxes on the original figure. Figure A in the replicated panel is more zoomed in to the UMass Campus, whereas the original panel has a map that shows more of the outside area surrounding Lewis Hall.