Okay, so yesterday I worked on this “Celebrity Brain Project” for my AP Psychology class, and let me tell you, it was a wild ride. It took me a lot of time to get ready for it, but I learned a lot from it.
First things first, I had to pick a celebrity. I mean, that’s the whole point, right? So I spent a good chunk of time just scrolling through lists of famous people, trying to figure out who would be the most interesting, and, also, I had to find a celebrity who is famous enough so that I could find enough information on the internet.
After some serious consideration, I settled on Taylor Swift. And I searched online about the background information and the life story about her, which took me several hours to finish reading. It is important for me to do this because I would need to analyze her later.
Then came the fun part – drawing her brain! Now, I’m no artist, but I did my best to sketch out a brain and then started labeling all the different parts. I used different colors for the lobes – you know, frontal, parietal, occipital, temporal – just like we learned in class. I also wanted to show how Taylor Swift’s brain works in different scenarios, so I also drew different scenarios that happened in her life in different parts of the brain.
- Frontal Lobe: This is where all the planning and decision-making happens, right? So I figured this part of Taylor’s brain must be super active. She’s always writing songs, planning tours, and making big career moves. I drew some musical notes and a little calendar here to represent her songwriting and tour planning.
- Parietal Lobe: This lobe deals with sensory stuff, like touch and spatial awareness. I imagined Taylor using this part of her brain when she’s playing guitar or dancing on stage. So, I drew a guitar and some little stick figures dancing around in this section.
- Occipital Lobe: This is all about vision. I figured Taylor probably has a pretty developed occipital lobe since she’s always performing in front of huge crowds and needs to be aware of her surroundings on stage. I added some bright stage lights and a crowd of people in this area of the brain.
- Temporal Lobe: This lobe is important for processing sounds and language, which is obviously crucial for a singer-songwriter like Taylor. I drew some musical notes and a microphone here to show how important music and lyrics are to her.
It took me a while to get everything labeled and colored, but I was actually pretty proud of how it turned out. I even added some extra details, like a little heart in the limbic system to represent Taylor’s emotional side, since she’s known for her heartfelt songs.
The last step was writing a short analysis of how each part of the brain might relate to Taylor’s personality and career. This part was a bit challenging, but it was also really interesting to think about how the different brain regions might influence her behavior.
The whole process took me several hours
It is really time-consuming but I felt like I learned a lot about the brain by doing it. Plus, it was a fun way to apply what we’ve been learning in class to a real-life example. I’m definitely going to use this method to review other things in my AP Psychology class!
