PSYC 1100 sec 20-29
General Psychology I, Spring 2018
UConn Storrs Campus LH 102
MON WED 4:40-5:30
Eric Lundquist
EXAM 3: MON 4/30/18 1:00 PM, LH 102; #2 LEAD PENCIL REQUIRED! and MUST HAVE STUDENT ID!
covering Memory (all pages listed for that topic on the syllabus), Sensory Processes and Perception (see the review information page for detailed reduced readings), plus some cumulative material on Learning (roughly 9-10 questions) and Neuropsychology (roughly 4-5 questions)
FINAL EXAM REVIEW INFORMATION
PowerPoint version of the Memory slides:
The more convenient text version is linked below as usual. We went up to slide 29 in class; use the later ones ONLY if they help with what’s in the reading, and if they don’t seem familiar or they just confuse you, ignore them!
PowerPoint version of the Sensation and Perception slides:
You DON’T have to know that extra stuff about Thomas Young and Hermann von Helmholtz, but I did show the slides in class, so I included them here. Some other slides may be useful to you in studying, so I’m making them available here even though I didn’t use them in class. But don’t think of them as an additional studying burden — if they don’t help you, just stick to the book.
REVIEW SESSION: Friday 4/27/18, 3:30-4:30 PM, LH 102; bring questions, old exams, etc.
Also note, Kaylah Costa will have her Supplemental Instruction review session on Saturday 4/28/18, 1:00 PM in LH 101 (not our regular room 102!).
RECORDING OF FINAL EXAM REVIEW SESSION FROM FRIDAY 4/27/18
approximately 1 hour 13 minutes — not at all necessary, but it’s here if you want it; sign in with NetID if you have to.
EXAM 2 RESULTS ARE POSTED ON HUSKYCT
NOTE: missing scores and grades (“xx” and “x”) are due to errors filling in scantron bubble sheets (usually ID or EXAM VERSION incorrect or left blank) and will be processed manually and posted within two weeks.
EXPLANATION OF GRADE CALCULATION
EXAM 2: FRIDAY 4/6/18 3:30 PM, LH 102; #2 LEAD PENCIL REQUIRED!
covering Learning (all pages listed for that topic on the syllabus: SEVENTH EDITION Ch. 6 pp.195-225, 228-230; EIGHTH EDITION Ch. 7 pp. 259-294, 297-299)
and
beginning of the material on Memory (SEVENTH EDITION Ch. 7 pp. 233-239, 245, 248-50; EIGHTH EDITION Ch. 8 pp. 302-309, 312-313, 318-319 or instead use 7th edition pages here: MEMORY: PAGES 233-250 FROM THE SEVENTH EDITION – but still only read 233-239, 245, 248-50 for now)
plus
some cumulative material (10-12 questions out of 50) on Neuropsychology (Ch. 3)
EXAM 2 REVIEW INFORMATION (may be updated after Wednesday’s class!)
PowerPoint version of the Learning slides:
As with the Neuropsychology slides, ALL of the text of these slides is already available in text form in the usual link below, but the slides did include one or two pictures that might be of some use and that are not included in the textbook.
PowerPoint version of the Memory slides for Exam 2
REVIEW SESSION: Wednesday 4/4/18, 6:30-7:30 PM (or whenever we finish), ITE C80; bring questions, old exams, etc.
Also note, Kaylah Costa will have her Supplemental Instruction review session on Thursday 4/5/18, 7:00-8:00 (or possibly later) in BOUS A-106 (on the left once you go in the main entrance).
Recording of Wednesday evening’s review session, approximately 1 hour 25 minutes / 39MB
This lecture recording and accompanying slides are to make up for the snow day Wednesday 3/21/18. Some content may be reviewed or repeated in lecture but most of it will ONLY appear in this recording. All this material will be covered on the second exam, so be sure to listen to it. Ideally, listen to it before class on Monday 3/26/18.
3/21/18 SNOW DAY LECTURE MP3 RECORDING (APPROX 60 MIN / 28MB)
3/21/18 SNOW DAY LECTURE POWERPOINT SLIDES
This lecture recording and accompanying slides are to make up for the snow day Wednesday 3/7/18. Some content may be reviewed or repeated in lecture but most of it will ONLY appear in this recording. All this material will be covered on the second exam, so be sure to listen to it. Ideally, listen to it before class on Monday 3/19/18.
3/7/18 SNOW DAY LECTURE MP3 RECORDING (APPROX 48 MIN / 23MB)
3/7/18 SNOW DAY LECTURE POWERPOINT SLIDES
IN ADDITION, this link on the INHIBITION / EXCITATION MODEL OF EXTINCTION AND SPONTANEOUS RECOVERY will be very helpful in following the recorded lecture discussion; in the lecture I use gestures to indicate the height of the bar graphs, while in the link the bars are actually drawn and labeled. There is also a NON-ILLUSTRATED SUMMARY OF THE MODEL that makes the same points, in case your browser doesn’t render the bar graphs easily.
EXAM 1 RESULTS ARE POSTED ON HUSKYCT
NOTE: missing scores and grades (“xx” and “x”) are due to errors filling in scantron bubble sheets (usually ID or EXAM VERSION incorrect or left blank) and will be processed manually and posted within two weeks.
EXPLANATION OF GRADE CALCULATION
EXAM 1: FRIDAY 3/2/18 3:30 PM, LH 102; #2 LEAD PENCIL REQUIRED!
covering Introductory historical and philosophical topics, Neural Bases Of Behavior (all pages listed for that topic on the syllabus) plus some introductory material on Learning (SEVENTH ed. Ch.6 pp. 195-201, EIGHTH ed. CH.7 pp. 259-265)
EXAM 1 REVIEW INFORMATION AND STUDY GUIDE (may be updated after Wednesday’s class!)
PowerPoint version of the Neuropsychology slides:
I’ve made these available directly, instead of just in the text version, because the text omits some of the illustrations (even though they’re mostly redundant with others that ARE in the text).
REVIEW SESSION: Wednesday 2/28/18 5:45-7:00-ish PM, LH 102; bring questions, old exams, etc.
Also note, Kaylah Costa will have her Supplemental Instruction review session on Thursday 3/1/18, 7:00-8:00 (or possibly later) in Castleman 212.
This lecture recording and accompanying slides are to make up for the snow day Wednesday 2/7/18. Some content may be reviewed or repeated in lecture but some will ONLY appear in this recording. All this material will be covered on the first exam, so be sure to listen to it.
SNOW DAY LECTURE MP3 RECORDING (APPROX 48 MIN / 23MB)
SNOW DAY LECTURE POWERPOINT SLIDES
Guildenstern: O, there has been much throwing about of brains. (Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2)
Eric.Lundquist@uconn.edu
Office: BOUS 136
Office Hours: Mon Wed 5:30-6:30, and by appointment
phone: (860) 486-4084SUPPLEMENTAL INSTRUCTION: Kaylah Costa
Email: Kaylah.Costa@uconn.edu
Hours: Mon Wed 7:00-8:00 PM in GENT 140
| EXPERIMENT PARTICIPANT POOL: EXPERIMENT SIGNUP PAGE NOT AVAILABLE TILL MON 1/29/18! (and even then only a few experiments will be ready at first!) LOGIN INFORMATION:
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Experiment Credit Policies for this class |
EXPERIMENT PARTICIPANT POOL: INFORMATION PAGE
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Lab Information for this class |
REQUIRED TEXT:
PREFERRED: Gleitman, H., Reisberg, D., and Gross, J. (2007). Psychology (7th ed.). New York: W.W. Norton. (ISBN13: 978-0-393-97768-4)
OR
ALTERNATE: Gleitman, H., Gross, J., and Reisberg, D. (2011). Psychology (8th ed.). New York: W.W. Norton. (ISBN13: 978-0-393-18045-9 paperback; 978-0-393-93250-8 hardcover)
GRADING:
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3:35 P.M. in LH 102, FRIDAY 3/2/18 or seventh week of class | 50 points |
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3:35 P.M. in LH 102, FRIDAY 4/6/18 or eleventh week of class | 50 points (cumulative) |
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MONDAY 4/30/18 1:00 P.M. – 3:00 P.M. IN LH 102 | 50 points (cumulative) |
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see below for lab meeting times and rooms | 50 points |
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see below for policies | extra credit |
| TOTAL: | 200 points |
CLASS SYLLABUS: same info as what’s on this page, but in Microsoft Word format so you can download and print it.
EXPERIMENT PARTICIPANT POOL WEB PAGE: full details about the Experiment Participant Pool’s procedures and rules, along with all forms and a list of frequently asked questions.
Who was Weston Ashmore Bousfield? UConn’s Psychology building is named after him.
Spiders and turkeys and bears: some pictures from backyards (mine, my brother’s). Just something to look at if you’re bored, as if that could ever happen.
SOME OLD EXAMS FROM PSYC 1100 (formerly called “PSYC 132”) : another professor’s, actually. But these are very useful to look at when studying for MY exams too! Exams in my class will have only multiple choice questions — NO essay. But you might take a look at the essay exams just to see how well you could answer those questions. This link points to that professor’s web page where old exams are posted in Microsoft Word format. Since his course is a little different, the topics are treated in a different order, and you may find relevant questions for OUR midterm distributed over both his midterms AND his finals. If a question is on a topic that hasn’t been covered at all in our class, then obviously, don’t worry about it yet — it’ll probably be pretty clear which ones are about Neuropsychology, Learning, etc. Oh, and he doesn’t cover neurons, action potentials, and neurotransmitters, so you won’t see any old questions about those topics — but obviously, they’ll be on our exam.
- Here are an old midterm and final from another professor that I’ve combined and arranged by topic for my class (so ignore the numbering of the items). This is the only old exam I have an answer key for, but I won’t provide that answer key until shortly before the exam so as to encourage you to discover the answers for yourselves first. PRACTICE EXAM
- Here are the ANSWERS TO THE PRACTICE EXAM. This will only help you if you first make every effort to answer the questions on your own, using the text and your notes.
SOME STUDY TIPS: Here I’ve tried to write down everything I would ever tell someone who wanted advice about studying or how to do better in class. It’s pretty long (maybe nine pages) but I think it’s all good advice that would apply to any class in college. Browse at your leisure and see if it’s worthwhile. Let me know if you think of any questions I didn’t address, or any suggestions you think would be better than mine. (Notice that some parts of it are out of date… not the advice though!)
LINKS AND READINGS:
These are mostly optional; the required ones are in boxes.
| TEXT OF POWERPOINT SLIDES FOR THE CLASS SO FAR: this will be updated as we progress through the material. IMPORTANT: These are not “notes,” just the text of the PowerPoint slides. They don’t provide a “summary” of the class; all these are are the slides I display. That means they may depend crucially on things I said in class for explanation (which, with any luck, you recorded in your notebook). Some topics covered in class don’t appear here at all. Be sure you use this as intended — to fill in possible gaps in your notes and to remind you of what was shown on the screen. In some cases I’ve made slight changes to make the slides a bit more comprehensible out of context, or to adapt them for posting on the web page. But you should definitely consider your notes and textbook readings to be your primary source of information about these topics. Please be conservative about re-printing this file repeatedly — it’s not really necessary to print it every time it gets updated. |
- PowerPoint version of the Neuropsychology slides: I’ve made these available directly, instead of just in the text version posted above, because the text omits some of the illustrations (even though they’re mostly redundant with others that ARE in the text).
- PowerPoint version of the Learning slides: As with the Neuropsychology slides, ALL of the text of these slides is already available in text form in the usual link above, but the slides did include one or two pictures that might be of some use and that are not included in the textbook.
- PowerPoint version of the Memory slides: We went up to slide 29 in class; use the later ones ONLY if they help with what’s in the reading, and if they don’t seem familiar or they just confuse you, ignore them!
- PowerPoint version of the Sensation and Perception slides: You DON’T have to know that extra stuff about Thomas Young and Hermann von Helmholtz, but I did show the slides in class, so I included them here. Some other slides may be useful to you in studying, so I’m making them available here even though I didn’t use them in class. But don’t think of them as an additional studying burden — if they don’t help you, just stick to the book.
Noam Chomsky quote from Language And Mind (1968) on the need for “making strange” the phenomena of psychology
Speech perception depends on context: play this video without looking at it just to hear the audio, then play it again while watching it.
Some Introductory notes: four definitions of psychology; three important dates in the history of psychology; a timeline and four terms that are central to epistemology
Slides covering these four definitions in PDF format and in PowerPoint format: nearly identical to the link above for definitions 1 & 2 but considerably expanded for definitions 3 & 4. |
A thing that moves around on its own: the robot called Big Dog from the Boston Dynamics robotics lab is designed to maneuver through a cluttered terrain with rocks, hills, snow, ice, and other impediments to locomotion. The computations that go into controlling and coordinating its legs, and perceiving its environment in order to do so appropriately, are of interest to psychology as well as to related fields such as artificial intelligence: the principles it uses are inspired by animate locomotion, and in turn help to develop theories about how animate locomotion works. Not to mention, Big Dog seems to take on a kind of psychological existence simply by moving around in a lifelike way; many video viewers were angered by the demonstration of how its little brother Spot regained its footing after a destabilizing kick, commenting that it was mean to kick the robot like that (click here to see Spot run).
A dog demonstrates that perceptions and actions are scaled to size.
The Venus Flytrap is pretty smart.
Quicktime movie of the action potential and neurotransmitters crossing the synapse as described in the text (with awesome music by They Might Be Giants). It may be helpful to move through the movie frame by frame to study the sequence of events and match it up to the lecture and text. Note that at the end of the sequence just before it repeats, an enzyme labeled AChE (for acetylcholinesterase) appears, to break down any neurotransmitter (apparently acetylcholine in this case) that remains in the synapse after the signal has been sent.
Fun facts about neurotoxins (PowerPoint slides): you don’t need to memorize these cases, but you should be able to understand how each poison interferes with the neural mechanisms you know about now.
Praying mantis sex from National Geographic on youtube, starting at about the 3:49 mark after a bit about naked mole rats. Pretty lurid narration for National Geographic, actually. Another even more graphic portrayal that doesn’t mention the nervous system so explicitly is here: Female praying mantis eats male after mating on youtube — don’t watch it unless you want to see decapitated bugs mating while leaking green stuff out of their necks. The male praying mantis performs copulatory movements reflexively and even more vigorously after the higher nerve centers responsible for inhibiting that reflex are removed, if the female bites the male’s head off. This is actually a fairly uncommon phenomenon in the wild though it apparently happens quite often in captivity — if you want to know more this seems like a decent account, or just go to Wikipedia’s article on the mantis.
| NERVOUS SYSTEM HANDOUT: an outline of what to know about the nervous system for this course. Here’s a pdf version, in case the formatting is messed up in the Word version. And here’s a web page version. |
BRAIN CARTOON: need I say this?… you do NOT need to know this picture for the exam!
A Wired article and a New Scientist article about a woman who was found, at the age of 24, to have been born without a cerebellum.
- NPR story on Jonathan Keleher who was born without a cerebellum, suggesting a more general function for the cerebellum. This is a print version of the story but the audio is included and it is very worth listening to, to hear Jonathan’s voice and what he says for himself.
Research on Jonathan and people like him supports the idea that the cerebellum really has just one job: It takes clumsy actions or functions and makes them more refined. “It doesn’t make things. It makes things better,” Dr. Jeremy Schmahmann says.
That’s pretty straightforward when it comes to movement. The brain’s motor cortex tells your legs to start walking. The cerebellum keeps your stride smooth and steady and balanced.
“What we now understand is what that cerebellum is doing to movement, it’s also doing to intellect and personality and emotional processing,” Schmahmann says.
Unless you don’t have a cerebellum. Then, Schmahmann says, a person’s thinking and emotions can become as clumsy as their movements. - Clip from the 1994 film Ed Wood (about the famously terrible film director played here by Johnny Depp), in a scene where he and his friend the aging Dracula actor Bela Lugosi(played by Martin Landau) watch a TV host named Vampira, and Lugosi lusts after her and imagines hypnotizing her with Dracula’s seductive hand gesture. Clearly that smoothly executed hand gesture requires a cerebellum to integrate those muscular movements (as well as being double-jointed and Hungarian).
Some links related to Parkinson’s Disease, if you’re interested:
- Excerpt from the PBS NOVA program “Brain Transplant” from December 1992. The original show is an hour but I’ve cut it down to about 12 minutes here; if you’re on campus the download actually may not take all that long. For a bit of necessary context that didn’t make it into my short version, you should just be aware that “the operation in Sweden” they refer to is the implantation of dopamine-producing cells from aborted fetal brain tissue, into the patient’s basal ganglia — an operation that was not allowed in the US at the time due to the controversies raised by the issue of abortion. Currently a major focus of Parkinson’s research is on the possibility of implanting neural stem cells which may be able to grow into dopamine-producing cells.
- The Case of the Frozen Addicts by J. William Langston and Jon Palfreman, an incredibly fascinating and scary book about several addicts suffering instant Parkinson-like rigidity caused by a synthetic heroin substitute in 1982, which led Langston to a major advance in understanding Parkinson’s Disease.
- Awakenings by Oliver Sacks – The frozen addicts story may have reminded you of this collection of stories of patients being treated for dramatic Parkinson’s Syndrome-like conditions; editions published after the 1990 movie have interesting appendices.
- Michael J. Fox’s moving and persuasive testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Committee on Appropriations, from September 28, 1999; he’s urging an increase in funding for research on Parkinson’s Disease — “the most curable neurological disorder.” His conclusion is more realistic now than it’s ever been, partly because of hopes raised by research on human embryonic stem cells. (I’ve described the non-transplant surgery he underwent to alleviate his symptoms here.)
- Research on human embryonic stem cells may be the most exciting current route for Parkinson’s Disease research to pursue, but though it avoids some problems involved in fetal tissue research, it raises the specter of human cloning which some find frightening. Here are two chapters from a 2001 book discussing the ethical issues of research with human embryonic stem cells. Chapter 2 is the clearest description I’ve read of the actual science involved. Chapter 3 is a decent appraisal of the politics involved. I hope it’s “fair use” to have this posted here because hardly anyone will see that book!
| Experiment on patients with either a damaged amygdala or hippocampus as described in lecture, but not in the textbook. (Here is the published paper — purely optional, quite advanced, but readable if you’re motivated.) |
| A summary of the basic terms in classical conditioning as used to describe the hippocampus / amygdala experiment above, consistent with the reading on pp. 195-201 about Learning (pp. 259-265 in 8th edition). |
Take an MRI tour of a really great brain: from left to right, from front to back, from top to bottom.
Depending on your browser and plug-ins, these versions might be more browser-compatible and convenient: from left to right, from front to back, from top to bottom.
(And here’s a special bonus scan of a really okay abdomen from front to back.)
| Franz Joseph Gall and phrenology, along with some of his legitimate scientific achievements. |
- Phrenological diagram in a more readable version, according to Franz Joseph Gall’s disciple Johannes Spurzheim who increased the number of faculties from Gall’s 27 to at least 35.
- History Of Phrenology: a comprehensive resource.
- Face-Reading story on CNN, 1998: Here’s a transcript of a story that was broadcast on CNN in 1998 about the applications of something called “face-reading” in contemporary society. Is this any different than phrenology? Phrenology might have been MORE scientific, actually! Chilling, if you’re about to look for a job… And if you’re thinking, well, that was a long time ago, just realize the idea was exactly as laughable then as it is now.
- World’s best phrenology client: okay not really his brain contours, obviously, but a fun picture.
Phineas Gage’s story is related here, with admirable restraint, for those who want to read the details. But all the links make interesting browsing. Phineas’s damaged skull and his tamping iron are displayed at the Warren Anatomical Museum of the Countway Library of Medicine at Harvard University; next time you’re in the Boston area, stop in. The story of thedaguerreotype image identified in July 2009 is recounted here.
- This May 2014 article from Slate.com is probably the best treatment of the whole story — the person, the accident, the history, the brain, and the use of the story in science. It’s really good.
A crude sketch of some regions of the left hemisphere cortex that you should be familiar with. Though unlabeled in this drawing, you can identify the seven highlighted areas: primary motor cortex, primary somatosensory cortex, primary visual cortex, primary auditory cortex, pre-frontal cortex, and (in the left hemisphere only, as shown) Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area. More usefully the sketch serves as a model of how to draw a simple sketch of the brain for reference.
Oscar Peterson plays My Romance (with Sam Jones, bass, and Bobby Durham, drums) from Exclusively For My Friends: The Lost Tapes, c. 1965-67. It’s from before his 1993 stroke and is a kind of stunning example of the level of motor control it’s possible to have over one’s fingers. If you like that, then from the same album check out Gravy Waltz cause it’s fun, and It’s Impossible to hear almost 2 1/2 minutes of spontaneously invented melody in sixteenth notes, a mindblowing feat of creativity and dexterity (starts at 3:48).
The sensory and motor homunculi as 3D models, at London’s Natural History Museum.
- The motor homunculus appears in the They Might Be Giants song My Man in which they ponder nerve damage and paraplegia and marvel at the shape of the homunculus: My man, how can he stand? Your fingers could encircle clear around the ankle.
The cerebral localization clip from “Scrubs” is posted here, for those who believe things they see on TV.
A brilliant ad involving the motor cortex in which a brain surgeon does some multi-tasking.
An excerpt from “The Royal Tenenbaums” in which Bill Murray’s character is a satirical take on the neurologist Oliver Sacks; see also this clip from near the end.
- Oliver Sacks’s op-ed in the New York Times of February 19 2015 in which he revealed his terminal cancer diagnosis. He died on August 30 2015.
Some myths about handedness are debunked in this excerpt of a few pages from Right Hand, Left Hand by Chris McManus — including the one that says left-handers die younger, and also the one I like to mention, which is that hooking of the hand while writing is an indication that language functions are carried out by the right hemisphere instead of the left. (More specifically, I’ve heard that right-handed writers who hook their hands are more likely to have language spread between both hemispheres, but that’s equally unsupported.)
Examples of aphasic speech:
- speech from a patient with Broca’s (or non-fluent) aphasia: printed example; audio example; video example
- speech from a patient with Wernicke’s (or fluent) aphasia: printed example; audio example; video example
- Doonesbury cartoon portraying aphasic speech
Excerpt from 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions about Human Behavior by Scott O. Lilienfeld, Steven Jay Lynn, John Ruscio, and Barry L. Beyerstein (2009): this is a really good book that I’d strongly recommend to anyone interested in psychology, especially potential psychology majors. The publisher has made Chapter 1 available on their website and it happens to include some topics that are quite relevant to our coverage of neuropsychology, as well as discussions of E.S.P. and subliminal messages. See especially “Myth #2” on pp. 25-28 for the discussion of brain lateralization (right vs. left hemispheres) and split-brain patients.
- This popular ad image and this popular are-you-left-or-right-brained quiz, both from a few years ago, are good illustrations of the popular misconception about the roles of the two cerebral hemispheres; in reality the science provides no grounds for characterizing them in these ways, nor is there any basis for referring to individuals as being dominated by their left or right hemisphere.
| A summary of the basic terms in classical conditioning as used in class to describe the hippocampus / amygdala experiment above, consistent with the reading on pp. 195-201 about Learning (pp. 259-265 in 8th edition). This is the content of the first PowerPoint slide on Learning theory (also in the “text of PowerPoint slides” link in the blue box above) and is all we need to cover on that topic for the first exam. |
Summary of the inhibition / excitation model of extinction and spontaneous recovery: a brief description of the roles of excitatory and inhibitory associations in accounting for classical conditioning phenomena. This model is not discussed in the Gleitman textbook at all.
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In school, we learned about “this scientist” who trained dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell… (my mouth tastes so bad all of a sudden… gaah…)
| Summary of classical conditioning and drug effects: the conditioning explanation of drug tolerance, withdrawal, and paradoxical overdose. |
Interesting analysis of the case of Pavlov’s cat by Eddie Izzard.
Clip from “The Big Bang Theory” in which Sheldon reinforces Penny for desirable behaviors, which is sort of funny though too oversimplified to work in real life. Notice that he says at one point that he could use “negative reinforcement” to “train [a] behavior out of her,” when of course that would require punishment instead (negative reinforcement can only INCREASE the occurrence of a behavior, by definition).
- Clip from “The Big Bang Theory” five seasons later in which Sheldon (possibly on behalf of some chastened writers) explains the difference between positive punishment and negative reinforcement but gets it wrong AGAIN. He says “Negative reinforcement is the removal of a positive stimulus. It’s a common mistake.” But that would be negative punishment since surely it would decrease the rate of responding; negative reinforcement would involve the removal of a negative or aversive stimulus, which would increase the rate of responding. Have to admit, I prefer them getting it wrong so I can mock them. (Incidentally as they point out, the “Ghostbusters” example is wrong too, if you watch the scene in that movie — because he’s shocking a guy whose ESP attempts are incorrect. Some have suggested that it truly is negative reinforcement after all because there’s also a girl who sees the guy getting shocked but doesn’t get shocked herself, so that her shock has effectively been removed (or skipped) based on her responses. Yeah, I’m sure the writers thought that hard about it.)
Squirrel Obstacle Course as an example of chaining: it’s reasonable to assume the squirrel was first trained on the last step, and then each additional segment of the path was added in reverse order till they finally reached the beginning of the course. In that way, the nuts reinforced the jump from the platform, and through its proximity to the nuts the platform became a conditioned reinforcer for riding in the rocket. Then the rocket became a conditioned reinforcer for the step before that, all the way back to the beginning. End result: a chain of simple behaviors linked together into a complex sequence.
Musical Canine Freestyle (a.k.a. Heelwork to Music in the UK): a completely preposterous example of both shaping (getting the animal to produce responses it wouldn’t normally produce) and chaining (linking together a series of responses into a sequence). From Chuck Shepherd’s News of the Weird column (those of us with dogs know exactly what “at-home dog-dancing” refers to):
The New York Times reported in November on the recent but growing competitive sport of “musical canine freestyle” (choreographed dancing with dogs), in which costumed owners and their matching-collared pooches move to tunes such as “The Yellow Rose of Texas” and “Get Happy.” (Holding the dogs’ paws, as in at-home dog-dancing, is forbidden.) The World Canine Freestyle Organization has a mailing list of 8000 aficionados.
Race a rat through this maze, by pausing the video on the maze overview and tracing through it on your own, and then hitting play to see if you can actually stay ahead of him when they show his whole run in the second half. I’m not saying it’s hard, just that he’s faster than you think — and the rat doesn’t get the bird’s eye view that you get either.
I Was Not A Lab Rat: B. F. Skinner’s daugher, Deborah Skinner Buzan, is angry with idiots like Lauren Slater (author of the obnoxious Opening Skinner’s Box – don’t waste your time!) and others who persist in spreading rumors claiming that her father somehow mistreated her and set her on the road to insanity and suicide. Nice appreciation of the man and of the “Air Crib” he invented for her, which was NOT a “Skinner Box” in any way!
| The flow of information in memory: textbook diagram modified to reflect details from lecture by identifying two kinds of rehearsal, and retrieval from LTM. |
The late Henry Molaison, of Windsor Locks, CT (and formerly of Manchester, Hartford, Coventry, and East Hartford).
- Announcement of Henry’s death from Dr. Suzanne Corkin
- Neuroscientist Suzanne Corkin talks about her long-time patient after his death on Dec. 2 2008.
- Video clip about Henry from PBS Nova program: watch 40:20-44:50, and 48:35-49:10 (though the intervening stuff is also interesting); the rest of the program is on unrelated topics.
- NPR story on Henry from 2/24/07, presenting the first released recordings of Henry’s voice on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the initial published report on his case. I’m not too happy with the characterization of HM’s operation as a “clinical hunch” that turned out to be “justified,” even if HM’s epilepsy was greatly ameliorated. It’s not a “treatment” anyone would ever choose, knowing the consequences, and it still seems tragically reckless to me.
- The book Memory’s Ghost (1996) by Philip Hilts is popular psychology writing at its best; he relates Henry’s story in profound and heartbreaking detail, and also provides an intelligent overview of the field of memory research as it has been affected by studies of Henry. Dr. Suzanne Corkin who studied Henry for much of her career wrote a book about him after he died called Permanent Present Tense (2013), which has a lot of very interesting information and stories but in my opinion is not as good a book as Memory’s Ghost. In 2016 Luke Dittrich, a journalist who is the grandson of the surgeon who performed Henry’s operation, published his book Patient H.M., which brought a new level of attention to the story.
- The process of slicing Henry Molaison’s brain for preservation and analysis on December 2, 2009, the one year anniversary of his death. This article also provides an interesting account of the slicing process.
Clive Wearing is a famous patient suffering from anterograde amnesia like Henry (“H.M.”), caused by a viral infection that attacked his brain (presumably including the hippocampus). As you see from this video he has the additional burden of considerable retrograde amnesia. His case is outlined here and is also featured in Oliver Sacks’s book Musicophilia. Note that there are many other clips available on youtube, some of which bear the misleading title of “man without a short term memory” or some such thing, when it’s apparent that like Henry, his short term memory is intact — it’s just his ability to move its contents into long term memory that is impaired.
- A page from Clive Wearing’s diary that reveals something about what it must be like to be him.
Analysis of the film “Memento” by Andy Klein on salon.com. If you haven’t seen the movie you should try to puzzle your way through it first, because it’s a challenge; the main character suffers from an H.M.-like anterograde amnesia, and you are put in the same situation through the technique of having the story told backwards — so you never know what past events preceded the current action of the film. The short-story version is quite different from the movie but pretty interesting on its own.
A profile of memory researcher Elizabeth Loftus which describes the controversies she’s become involved with and the impact of her work. Her web page is here if you want to read some of her articles. She’s quite a good writer, and well worth reading since she’s one of the top people in the field.
- Elizabeth Loftus’s TED Talk is framed by a tragic miscarriage of justice due to false memories.
Spiralling Shape – best if accompanied by an oddly appropriate song by They Might Be Giants (about mass hysteria)
A test for colorblindness – are you able to read this message?
Roger Shepard’s monster illusion: with a movable monster to show the overlap. Unconscious inferences seem to be based on premises about convergence of lines and relative retinal image size, and their implications for object size.
The Ames Room Illusion, and its explanation.
NO MORE LINKS WILL BE ADDED TO THIS SECTION OVER THE COURSE OF THE SEMESTER
Topics and Reading Assignments in Gleitman SEVENTH Edition
(EIGHTH Edition readings in red)
- INTRODUCTION
The Science of Psychology (no text reading)- History, Philosophy, and Definitions of Psychology
- BIOLOGY
Neural Bases of Behavior (Ch. 3 pp. 100-111, 79-82, 86-97, 113-117; Ch. 2 pp. 46-49, 56-57, figure 2.1 p. 48 [ANS, hypothalamus]; Ch. 8 p. 302-308 [frontal lobe and memory; consciousness]
EIGHTH EDITION: read all of Ch. 3 (note figure 3.26 on p. 114 on the autonomic nervous system), except you can SKIP pp. 103-105 (“Communication Through The Bloodstream”) and 108-112 (from “Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Studies” through “The Power of Combining Techniques” — good material but it won’t be on the exam). Then also READ these pages from other chapters: for more on the ANS read pp. 464-466 (“Thermoregulation”) and 469 (“Hypothalamic Control Centers”) and 474-475 (“The Fight Or Flight Response”); and finally pp. 223-224 on the phenomenon of “blindsight”.- neural basis: reflex, nerve impulse, action potential, communication by neurotransmitters
- brain basis: nervous system structure, localization of function, disorders, lateralization
- BEHAVIOR
Learning: The Changing Organism’s Adaptation to the Changing World (Ch. 6 pp.195-225, 228-230); natural selection (ch. 2 pp. 41-43, 44-46)
EIGHTH EDITION: Ch. 7 pp. 259-294, 297-299 (that is, you can skip pp. 294-297 sections entitled Different Types Of Learning, Similarities In What Different Species Learn, and The Neural Basis For Learning); natural selection (ch. 2 pp. 59-62, 65-66)- classical and operant conditioning: concepts, procedures, and experimental phenomena
- biological constraints: belongingness
- cognitive learning: contingency in classical conditioning, learned helplessness, latent learning
- MIND
Memory: Preserving the Past (Ch. 7 pp. 233-268); Generic and Semantic Memory (Ch. 8 pp. 278-280)
EIGHTH EDITION: Ch. 8 pp. 301-339 (note fig. 8.20 on p 327 illustrates slightly different divisions of memory than I do — so use mine!); Generic and Semantic Memory Ch. 9 pp. 346-348 (the section on “propositions” — and note that this is about network models of generic/semantic memory as in the last sentence of that section which refers to “the arrangement of our knowledge within long-term memory”: the focus is on spreading activation and priming as in the nurse-doctor example on p. 347)- types of memory: short-term/long-term, episodic/generic, explicit/implicit, declarative/procedural
- encoding and retrieval
Sensory Processes: Experiencing the World (Ch. 4 pp. 119-124, 127-129, 136-153); note figures 4.4 & 4.5 on (sound) waves; 4.12 & 4.13 on the eye; 4.20 on lateral inhibition; 4.21 on the visible spectrum; 4.24 on cone types; 4.28 on opponent processes in color vision
EIGHTH EDITION: Ch. 4 pp. 134-139, 142-144, 160-179; note figures 4.24 A&B on the eye; 4.31 on lateral inhibition; 4.32 (& 4.23) on the visible spectrum; 4.34 on cone types; 4.38 on opponent processes in color vision- light and sensory mechanisms in the eye
- psychophysics
Perception: Knowing the World (Ch. 5 pp. 155-179, 187-191)
Note: these readings have in recent semesters been reduced to the following, which should be sufficient:
SEVENTH edition: Ch. 5 pp. 155-160
Other pages to read in Ch. 5:
161-162 apparent movement (“phi” phenomenon)
166-169 Gestalt psychology, principles of perceptual organization (in section on “perceptual parsing”), “figure and ground”
172-173 unconscious inference
EIGHTH EDITION: Ch. 5 pp. 200-203 (Distance Perception: Where Is It?)
Other pages to read in Ch. 5:
204-205 apparent movement (“phi” phenomenon)
184-187 Gestalt psychology, principles of perceptual organization (in section on “perceptual parsing”), “figure and ground”
197-198 unconscious inference- empiricist approach to depth perception: Helmholtz
- nativist approach to form perception: Gestalt Psychology
- ecological approach: Gibson
PSYC 1100 Lecture and Lab Meetings
LECTURE:
Lecture is in LH 102, MW 4:40-5:30. You’d have to be crazy to miss lecture; for details take PSYC 1103.
LAB:
ATTENDANCE AT LAB SECTIONS IS MANDATORY FOR EVERY PSYC 1100 STUDENT. PSYC 1100 is a 3 credit class, corresponding to 3 meeting hours per week; 2 of those hours are lecture and the third is lab. LAB GRADES COUNT FOR 25% OF THE COURSE GRADE. This means that if you skip the lab you could score perfectly on all three exams and still only receive 150 out of 200 points for the course. Laboratory meetings for PSYC 1100 sections 20-29 are in WHETTEN GRADUATE CENTER (WGC) ROOM 300-B or C at the times stated in the course schedule. All students should know their lab section number, meeting time, and teaching assistant’s name. LABS BEGIN MON 1/22/18.
SEC DAY TIME ROOM T.A. (email @uconn.edu) 20 Mo 9:05AM - 9:55AM 300C Naixin.Ren@uconn.edu 21 Mo 1:25PM - 2:15PM 300C Kiran.Mccloskey@uconn.edu 22 Mo 6:50PM - 7:40PM 300C Naixin.Ren@uconn.edu 23 Tu 9:00AM - 9:50AM 300C Alexandra.Palmisano@uconn.edu 24 Tu 12:00PM - 12:50PM 300B Michael.Gyetvan@uconn.edu 25 Tu 6:00PM - 6:50PM 300C Angela.Wang@uconn.edu 26 We 10:10AM - 11:00AM 300B Thomas.Brooks@uconn.edu 27 Th 11:00AM - 11:50AM 300C Phillip.Frazier@uconn.edu 28 Th 4:00PM - 4:50PM 300C Angela.Wang@uconn.edu 29 Fr 10:10AM - 11:00AM 300B Emily.Yearling@uconn.edu
Experiment Participation
EXPERIMENT PARTICIPANT POOL:
There is a large amount of ongoing psychological research in the department which depends mainly upon the participation of General Psychology students as subjects. Researchers include faculty, graduate students, and other undergraduate students. The traditional mechanism that has been in place for several decades nationwide is to allow introductory psychology students to earn part of their course credit through participation in experiments. Benefits to the science of Psychology are obvious; benefits to the student include exposure to research in specific areas of Psychology, insight into the general nature of psychological research, and opportunity to earn extra credit in this course (see details below). Information about experiments (time, place, duration, description, experimenter’s name, etc.) is posted on the Participant Pool experiment sign-up page, which is also where you make appointments to participate in the studies you choose; there are instructions on the page for how to log in. Refer to http://participantpool.psych.uconn.edu for details of participation procedures. Experiments this semester run from Monday January 29th through Wednesday April 25th. All experiment participation must be completed during that time, and any credit accounting errors must be detected and corrected absolutely no later than Friday April 27th. Credit totals will be posted on the Participant Pool web page on Monday April 30th. Specific policies for PSYC 1100 sec 20-29 are as follows:
Experiment participation is not required and is strictly for EXTRA CREDIT. This is the ONLY source of extra credit available in PSYC 1100. It has been very popular with generations of Intro Psych students at UConn and elsewhere.
Each 1/2 hour of experiment participation counts for 1 experiment participation credit. All experiments are at least 1 credit; some are only 1 but some may be more depending on the amount of time required to participate.
5 experiment credits (2.5 hours) is the MINIMUM required to earn any extra credit points at all. Completing those 5 credits will earn the student THREE (not five!) extra credit points. Completing only 4 credits will earn the student ZERO extra credit points. For example, a student who earns 40 points on exam 1, 40 points on exam 2, 40 points on exam 3, and 40 points in lab has a total of 160 points; with 0 to 4 experiment credits the student maintains that score, but with 5 credits the total score would increase to 163.
Up to 7 additional experiment credits (3.5 hours) may be earned as extra credit points, once the first 5 credits have been completed. For example, a student who earns 40 points on exam 1, 40 points on exam 2, 40 points on exam 3, and 40 points in lab and has completed the intial 5 experiment credits has a total of 163 points as described above; with 1 additional credit the total becomes 164, and with the maximum of 7 additional experiment credits (for a total of 12) it becomes 170. Note that the difference between 160 points and 170 points out of 200 could be the difference between, say, a B and a B+ as a course grade. (Actual course letter grade cutoffs will be determined before adding any extra credit points, so that no one is penalized for not earning extra credit.)
The easiest way to think of this is to consider the number of extra credit points earned as “number of completed experiment credits minus 2,” with the exception that anything less than 5 total experiment credits will earn no extra credit points. So, 12 total experiment credits means 10 extra points, 8 total credits means 6 extra points, but 4 total credits means 0 extra points.
Once you make an experiment appointment you MUST keep it, or cancel with at least 24 hours notice; the web page allows cancellations only until the 24-hour point is reached! If you miss TWO appointments with less than 24 hours notice, the system will automatically disqualify you from further participation in experiments: it won’t allow you to sign up for any more experiments, and you won’t earn any more extra credits. (But really, keeping appointments is a fairly basic responsibility that you can probably manage okay!)
All questions about experiment participation procedures and issues should be addressed to uconnpsychologyparticipantpool@gmail.com or in person at the Undergraduate Studies Window in the Skip Lowe Atrium of the Bousfield Psychology Building. Be sure to first consult the web page http://participantpool.psych.uconn.edu where you’ll find most questions have already been answered!
If you’re wondering about classes being canceled due to weather, see http://alert.uconn.edu.