User:Cindyy1/sandbox

My plan is to help with context and narrative flow

Original text:Philosophers in ancient societies were interested in how humans acquired the ability to understand and produce language, well before empirical methods for testing those theories were developed, but for the most part they seemed to regard language acquisition as a subset of man's ability to acquire knowledge and learn concepts.[5] Some early, observation based ideas about language acquisition were proposed by Plato, who felt that word-meaning mapping in some form was innate. Additionally, Sanskrit grammarians debated for over twelve centuries whether humans' ability to recognize the meaning of words was god-given (possibly innate) or passed down by previous generations and learned from already established conventions —e.g. a child learning the word for cow by listening to trusted speakers talking about cows.[6]

Editted Version:: Philosophers in ancient societies were interested in how humans acquired the ability to understand and produce language. These interests developed well before empirical methods for testing where first started, but for the most part the interest seemed to regard the focus of language aquisition as a man's ability to acquire knowledge and learn concepts.[5] Plato was one of the first philosophers who took interest in language acquistion, and he came up with ideas based off of observations. Plato felt that word-meaning mapping in some form was innate. Additionally, Sanskrit grammarians debated for over twelve centuries whether humans' ability to recognize the meaning of words was god-given, possibly innate, or passed down by previous generations and learned from already established conventions. -e.g. a child learning the word for cow by listening to trusted speakers talking about cows. [6]

'''Contribution and editting to B.F. Skinner's biography on hs existing page. I am working on this assignment with Alissa Hartt'''

Original Text:: Skinner was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania to Grace and William Skinner. His father was a lawyer. He became an atheist after a liberal Christian teacher tried to assuage his fear of the Hell that his grandmother described.[13] His brother Edward, two and a half years his junior, died at age sixteen of a cerebral hemorrhage. He attended Hamilton College in New York with the intention of becoming a writer. While attending, he joined Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity. He wrote for the schoolpaper, but as an atheist, he critized of the religious school he attended. He also attended Harvard University after receiving his B.A. in English literature in 1926. After graduation, he spent a year at his parents' home in Scranton attempting to become a writer of fiction. He tried to become a writer in Greenwich Village. He soon became disillusioned with his literary skills and concluded that he had little world experience and no strong personal perspective from which to write. His encounter with John B. Watson's Behaviorism led him into graduate study in psychology and to the development of his own operant behaviorism.

Skinner received a PhD from Harvard in 1931, and remained there as a researcher until 1936. He then taught at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis and later at Indiana University, where he was chair of the psychology department from 1946–1947, before returning to Harvard as a tenured professor in 1948. He remained at Harvard for the rest of his career.

In 1936, Skinner married Yvonne Blue. The couple had two daughters, Julie (m. Vargas) and Deborah (m. Buzan). He died of leukemia on August 18, 1990, and is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts.[14]

Editted Text Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born on March 20th,1904 in Susquenanna, Pennsylvania. His mother was named Grace and she was a homemaker, while his father William was a lawyer. Skinner grew up being very creative and hands on. He would think of ideas such as building contraptions, machines, and gadgets to occupy his time and help him in some of his activities. He was not an only child growing up and had a younger brother named Edward who died at the age of sixteen when Skinner went away to college.

Skinner went to Hamilton College in New York with aspirations of becoming a writer. He became very involved and became the writer for the schools newspaper, but found himself in critisizim with the schools religious ways due to the fact that he was an atheist. Although he felt he never fit in the the social life at school, even being a fraternity member, he graduated with a B.A. in English literature. He went home after college to focus on writing but found that the year was unsuccesful and in 1928 he attended Harvard University with a new found interest in psychology.

Right away, Skinner become involved in experiementations with rats and their behavior. After a significant amount of time in the lab, Skinner developed new methods of his own called operant behaviorism and operant conditioning. Operant conditioning could also be called Skinnerian conditioning. These methods show how behaviors react to the enviroment, and are controlled by the effects in his new found contraption called the Skinner Box. Even after graduation in 1931 Skinner continued his research based off of bahaviorism at Harvard until 1936.

In 1936 he married Yvonne Blue and they ended up having two girls named Julie and Deborah. His career continued as he became a teacher in Minnesota, Chair of the Psychology Department at Indiana University from 1946-1947, and then his final job as a Harvard professor in 1948. Skinner has contributed to the psychology field with his projects such as the Project Pigeon, his effort in helping with World War II by using Pigeons to guide missiles, the Baby Tender, inspired by building a crib for his daughter,and the teaching machine which was an effort to guide teachers to a better system at helping their students learn. Apart from some of his famous studies Skinner has published books, articles, given presentations,collected data and became one of the most well respected Behaviorist Psychologist there has ever been. His status spread rapidly and he earned front page of Time Magazine, and appeared on talk shows giving him celebrity status..

In 1989 Skinner was diagnosed with leukemia cancer, and while still actively involved in his work and studies, he died a year later in 1990 on August 18th, in Cambridge Massachusetts. He is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetary, Cambridge, MAssachusetts. Even after death Skinner has remained an influencial psychologist whom psychology and linguistic students learn from. It's safe to say that B.F. Skinner is one of the most influencial psychologist regarding Behaviorism.

'''Contribution and editing of Peter D. Eimas biogrpahy on his existing page. I am working on this assignment with Alissa Hartt'''

Original Text Peter D. Eimas (1934 – October 28 2005) was an expert in psychology and cognitive sciences and a professor at Brown University. His seminal paper showed that infants have greater linguistic and cognitive abilities than previously thought. Eimas was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He died in Providence, Rhode Island. The "Peter D. Eimas Graduate Fund" was established in his honor at Brown University to help graduate students studying psychological or the cognitive sciences.

Editted Text Peter D. Eimas (1934-October 28, 2005) was an expert in psychology, cognitive sciences and a professor at Brown University. Eimas was born in Bridgeport Connecticut. Eimas first earned his undergraduate degree from Yale. After his graduation from Yale, he continued to pursue his doctorate at the University of Conneticut. Eimas became an influencial teacher at various universities such as Rutgers, Queen's, and Williams. In 1968 Eimas became an associate professor at Brown University where he passed on his findings and teachings to eager undergraduate students. In addition, he was also chairman of the psychology department from 1977 to 1980. Very little is known about Eimas and his personal childhood life, but what is known is that he changed the perception and knowledge of cognitive psychology, and linguisic capabilities of infants.

Eimas is most famous for his discovery that as early as one month, babies can distinguish different sounds from each other. Prior to this experiement linguist were uncertain of how sucessful infants capabilities were to recognize different phonemes, but he proved that they held an innate ability to learn language by recognizing the differnt sounds within words. His breakthrough experiment consisted of attaching a pacifiar to a machine that would measure the amplitude of the infants sucking. He used a continuum of sounds consisting of ba-1, ba-2, ba-3 and pa-1, pa-2, and pa-3 each different by 20msec. He would first play one of these sounds to habituate the infant such as pa-3 repeatedly. By sucking on a pacifier, this would play the sound more related to the infants sucking, (high-amplitude sucking). The infant eventually became bored with or habituated to that particular sound and stopped sucking on the pacifier. Then, a new sound would play, like ba-2 and the infant would begin sucking again. This renewed interest demonstrates that babies can tell the difference between the /p/ and /b/ phonemes. The intensity of the infants sucking was what was being measured, and how well they were able to distinguish between the two sounds. This was a very important advancement for cognitive science as well as psychology because it proved that infants have the capabilities to recognize language at a very young age.

Eimas did many studies involving children and their recognition of speech and language. He began analyzing visual studies such as determining how babies categorize pictures of objects, like various breeds of dogs and cats. In his life time he wrote over 100 research articles and was involved in co-editting research volumes on speech, cognition, and language. He was a mentor and very dedicated to his experiments and writings. Apart from being a huge contributor to psychology, linguistics, and the cognitive sciences, he was a husband and a father. In 1977, he married Joanne Miller, who was a professor of psychology. They had one daughter named Leslie and she has three children making Eimas a grandfather. On October 28, 2005 Peter Eimas died in his home in Province, Rhode Island at the age of 70 due to illness.

His research continues on and at Brown University there is a fund called the "Peter D. Eimas Graduate Fund" to help students pursue their education in the field he worked in such as psychology and cognitive science.