How Melissa’s Case Study applies to the Topics Brain and Behavior, Sensation and Perception, Learning and Memory
Melissa is a seven-year-old girl suffering from a seizure that impacts her motor skills and social behavior. She also has irregular sleep patterns whereby she would regularly experience insomnia and fatigue as well as migraines. The brain is culpable for the functions of the human body; therefore, Melissa's seizure interrupted with her brain's physical and chemical aspects hence accounting for her aggressive behavior and social dysfunction (McLeod 2013). Additionally, her condition impacted the right hemisphere and motor region of the brain thus leading to difficulties in walking and other epileptic movements such as excessive nodding of the head, jerking, and consistent blinking.
Melissa would outwardly cry when her father departed from her. Her behavior was accounted for by her heightened sensation due to her father’s cologne. Hence, the prolonged exposure to the cologne caused her to adapt which led to her outburst when her father left her. Perception is defined as an individual’s apprehension and interpretation of sensory data (Jackson 2006). Other reactions that were stimulated due to Melissa's sensation and perception of her father's perfume were mood disturbances, depression, and obsessive-compulsive condition.
Learning is a relatively permanent behavior change that is caused by experience. It is a continuous process that takes place throughout an individual’s life. Observational learning applies to Melissa’s condition whereby it involves observing the actions and implications of other individuals’ attitudes (Jackson 2006). Melissa's aggressive behavior was attributed to learning by observing her parents fighting consistently. Human beings have a powerful memory that enables the remembrance of past incidences which can be stimulated by small factors such as smell. Hence, Melissa's long-term cognition and interpretive problems are attributed to her memory of her mother’s constant smoking of marijuana which was encoded through the memory of odor. Despite recalling distant events, Melissa has trouble remembering recent events, which makes it difficult to keep up with school work.
References
Jackson, P. (2006). Empathy examined through the neural mechanisms involved in imagining how I feel versus how you feel pain. Neuropsychologia, 44(5), 752-761.
McLeod, S. (2013). Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. 1-8. Retrieved from http://highgatecounselling.org.uk/members/certificate/CT2%20Paper%201.pdf
