Lecture outlines.
Tuesday Jan. 29. Introduction.
Today I just introduced everyone to the course and its
requirements. Nothing
to take notes on or be tested on. I showed a brief film clip on
the “Milgram Experiment”. Because I have elected to
make this a public web site, copyright restrictions prevent my posting a copy
of that clip here.
Thursday Jan. 31. Evolutionary Psychology
Brief overview of Darwinian evolution in a social context
Key points of Darwinian evolution
· Changing biota
· Common ancestry
· Natural Selection
Principles of Natural Selection
· Over-reproduction
· Variation
· Fitness
· Inhertitance
Types of selection
· Directional
· Normalizing
· Dispersing/frequency-dependent
· Is there both positive and negative selection? (weeding out bad strategies vs. increasing good ones)
Principles of natural selection in detail
· Over-reproduction: consequences of r- and K-selecting reproductive strategies (lots of kids but little investment vs. few kids with lots of investment)
· Variation
o Mutation
o variation in alleles in sexual reproduction.
§ Diploidy
§ Sex-linked traits
§ Genetic imprinting
§ Cost-benefit analyses relating losses in genetic transmission and advantages of population variance.
o Other recombinations
o role of polygeny in human traits
o selection for variation?
· fitness
o Individual survival: survival of offspring (direct fitness)
§ Survival of offspring at expense of others’
§ Selfish behavior
o Two critical principles
§ Sexual selection
· Intrasexual
· intersexual
§ Inclusive fitness: Direct fitness + indirect fitness. Illustrate with accounts for altruism.
· Kin selection
o Kin recognition? Similarity
o Proximity (live nearer kin than non-kin)
· Reciprocal altruism and reciprocity (tit for tat)
· Inheritance: evidence that relatedness matters in psychological traits.
Tuesday, Feb. 5. The nature-nurture
controversy
· sociobiology/evol. Psych.
· environmentalism
· genetic potential and gene expression
o normal range (fly/trout/baby examples)
o protection from extremes
· organisms (not genes) interact with environment
· Two perspectives on instinctive or innate behavior
o developmental fixity
§ is experience necessary? (birdsong ex)
§ what aspects of experience are necessary?
§ deprivation experiment
· problem of specific experience (egg ex)
· problem of general experience (ex: legendary language deprivation, birdsong social exp., trout O2 )
· ethical problem
§ correlational version
· pos & neg correlations
· causation problem
· third variable problem (esp. genes)
§ enrichment experiment
o heritability
§ predict variation in offspring population from parent population
· h2 = genetic variation/total variation
· IQ, schizophrenia, depression
· third variable problem again; confounding
§ NO NECESSARY RELATION TO FIXITY (speed reading example)
§ TELLS US LITTLE ABOUT EXPERIENCE/PLASTICITY
§ TELLS NOTHING ABOUT ORIGINS OF BETWEEN- POPULATION DIFFERENCES (crops and snakes examples) (I will bring this up on Tues 2/12)
Thursday Feb. 7. Today we will show a video about Milgram’s obedience experiments. The video was made from an old 16-mm film of the original experiments themselves in the early 1960s. Thus, the image quality is not great. But, they are the real thing; these are not actors or re-creations. Note: I had said that we would show two videos (the second being the “Stanford Prison Experiment”). However, I discovered that they are too long to fit them both in on Thursday. I will instead show a few excerpts from the second video in class next Tuesday.
Tuesday Feb. 12: Social Psychology
Overview
Person Perception
· Physical attractiveness
o dating/mating patterns
o employment decisions
o aggression judgments
o meting out punishment
o Halo effect
o Balance principle
· Similarity
o studies of engaged couples/marriages
o -what’s wrong with “opposites attract”
· familiarity effects (proximity/propinquity)
· competence effects
·
A pause for: Experimental methods
o independent and dependent variables
o factorial designs
§ main effects and interactions (and what they look like on graphs)
§ between-subject designs
· each S receives only one treatment (combination of ind. variables)
· effects assessed statistically between different groups of subjects
o random assignment of subjects to groups
o matched-groups assignment
- Aronson & Aronson study
- Examined effects of high or low
competence on measure of “likability”
- High/low is independent variable
(“cause”)
- treatment variable, under experimenter’s control
- Likability rating is dependent variable
(“effect”)
- Add a second independent variable
- Factorial designs (two-factor)
Thursday, Feb. 14. Social Psychology and
research methods (II)
·
Why was
there an interaction between competence and “blunder”?
o
Similarity
effects?
o
Suggests
that self-perception of subject would matter too (“self-esteem”)
§
If average
self esteem, then blunder makes superman (high) more like me, and dopey (low)
less like me
§
If high
self-esteem, then blunder makes both superman and dopey less like me
§
If low
self esteem, then blunder makes both superman and dopey more like me.
o
Add a
third variable to the study: self-esteem of the participant
o
Participant or subject variable
§
An
independent variable; does not reflect something participant does as an effect
of the other variables; has this characteristic prior to study
§
But not
quite as independent as the treatment variables (can’t assign
participants randomly to these conditions!)
Return to experimental methods:
§ within-subjects designs
· each S receives every treatment combination
· effects assessed within each subject
§ mixed designs (some variables examined between-subjects and others between)
§ treatment and subject variables
Return to Person perception
·
primacy effects
o first impressions
o examples
o Stereotyping
Attribution Theory
· situation or disposition?
o consistency (time, place, modality)
o consensus/distinctiveness
o external incentives
· Errors in attribution
o fundamental error
o actor-observer bias
§ information (knowledge)
§ perspective (perception)
§ motivation ("self-serving bias")
o self-based bias
Influence and Attitude change
· intensity of effort and benefits to changer and changee
· best methods of change is usually one that matches method of formation
· cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components of attitudes
· Social influence
o Reciprocity effects
§ Social exchange theory
§ Asymmetry or unfairness in reciprocity
o Commitment effects
§ Foot-in-door and door-in-face
§ Defense against commitment
Tuesday February 19 Social Psychology (III)
Influence & attitude change (cont.)
· theories of attitude change
o conditioning
o dissonance theory
§ conflicts among attitudes/actions
§ forced compliance & justification of effort
§ hazing effects
o other
balance theories
Compliance
· Milgram experiment again
o Group variables that affect compliance
§ Perceived authority (lab coat, institution)
§ Psychological distance from authority (present, check-in, telephone, tape)
§ Psychological distance from "victim" (only heard, saw, same room, hold hand down)
§ Number in group (other confederates)
§ What roles does group play in compliance?
· Responsibility: can we blame action on group rather than self? DIFFUSION
o Responsibility
o conformity: go along with popular action/opinion
o Legitimization: other people believe/act as you do, belief/action must be must be right
Responsibility
o Key point is that we relinquish it very readily
o Kitty Genovese murder
o Determinants of altrusim: when do people help?
§ Bystander intervention experiments: more people around, the less likely one will help
· seizure exp; 0, 2, or 4 "others": 85, 62, or 31% helped
· subway exp
· crowded freeway vs back road
· good samaritan example (speech didn't matter, just number in party and how later or early)
§ Note there is usually some intervention; time to intervene as dependent variable
o Why are we so slow to intervene?
§ Latane: in these situations, you ask yourself three questions, with potential for error at each step
· Is there a need? (Is there really an emergency)
o PLURALISTIC IGNORANCE: smoke exp.
§ Once one person intervenes, so do others
§ others helping is a sign that help is needed
· Am I responsible?
o Diffusion of responsibility
§ Others will help
§ authority figure will help
· What are the costs? (Will I be late?)
Conformity
o Key point is power of conformity
§ Asch Experiment (80% agreed; few really thought they were seeing things crooked, but were worried!)
· Normative social influence (just conform)
· Informational social influence (are they right?)
· Private vs public opinion (joke experiment)
· Presence of another dissenter –even if disagrees- dramatically decreases conformity. Gadfly
· Age effects
o Increases to middle school years, decreases to 21.
Groupthink
• Strong pressure to conform
– “Mindguards”
– Self-censorship
• Illusion of unanimity
– Lack of questioning
– Collective rationalization in face of conflicting data
• Illusion of moral superiority
– Group is inherently moral; its decisions must be too
– Invulnerability; higher moral right; not responsible to outsiders
– Opponents are enemies; are weak, evil and/or stupid
Thursday Feb. 21 Exam 1
Lecture Tues Feb. 26. Biological
Psychology I
Biological Psychology- relation of organisms' biology to their behavior and mental function.
You can imagine how nervous system structure may be studied. Basics of function discovered in experiments with animals, but enough work with humans to believe they work in us, too. Some methods:
Electrical recording: as we'll see, much nervous system activity is electrical: can detect where action is when engaged in some activity. Can monitor both whole brain from outside (EEG) and cell-by-cell with tiny electrodes. Former easy in man; latter too, as in surgery, w and w/o anesthesia
Electrical stimulation: flip side of above: stimulate somewhere & see what happens
Lesion studies. Destroy part of brain & see effects on function. Injuries, tumors, abnormalities. (Phineas Gage)
Chemical studies: as we'll see, much nervous system activity is chemical-can look at effects of certain drugs known to affect brain chemistry in certain ways. Accidental toxins; psychiatric treatments, other medical treatment.
Imaging studies. Amazing
new techniques to see living brain in detail, and even in action.
CAT: computerized axial tomography. Actually
just a fancy X-ray machine. Weak levels of X-rays from all angles
(rotated around axis of your head) combined by a computer to give a fuzzy
picture. Can identify lesions, tumors, gross abnormalities
MRI: magnetic resonance imaging. Put head in strong magnetic
field which puts nuclei of atoms (mostly hydrogen) in resonance state. Set
gadget to detect water mostly. H+ Because brain isn't
just a bowl of jello get fairly detailed images.
PET: positron emission topography. Measures
activity. Put into brain a radioactive isotopse
of substance used in cell metabolisim (carbon or
oxygen usually). Cells being used incorporate the
radioactive substance, & develops X-ray film much like CAT. Figures/ examples of uses. Or measure Cerebral Blood
flow: inject labeled substance into blood stream (such as a labeled
isotope of xenon, an inert gas). Neurons that are firing need more
blood.
Functional MRI. Like PET but
no radioactive injections. Far more detailed.
Look at blood oxygenation going in and out of region; the more oxygen being
used the more neurons are firing.
Anatomy & Function of nervous system:
Start small- basic unit of nervous system, is NEURON. It is important to remember that in most ways it is a cell like any other cell: it has similar structure and metabolic needs (food & oxygen), waste removal, etc. Unlike most cells, most neurons do not reproduce once major development over: lose them forever. There are some exception, in some brain regions new neurons are born all the time.
Three major parts:
A. Cell body (housekeeping, staying alive): genetic material, machinery for protein synthesis for structural change
(learning)
B. Dendrites (inputs). often many branches.
C. Axons -outputs; often covered with myelin
Neural Communication: First do within-neuron and then between-neuron or synaptic communication
A. The resting potential: both electrical and
chemical events, so need to do a little chemistry and physics review.
1. For these purposes, neuron is a
bag of ions (charged particles) separated from its surroundings by a
membrane. Lots, including many proteins, Ca++, Cl-, K+, Na+ most important ones for us. Most
of these ions go back and forth across the membrane through specialized channels,
which are specific to each ion (some ions have lots of different kinds of
channels, each with different characteristics)
2. Given their druthers, the
ions would like to be evenly distributed inside and outside the membrane (cell)
for 2 reasons:
a.
chemical concentrations (need to be balanced to be a stable system)
b.
electrical charges (need to be net neutral)
3. However, at least three features
of the system conspire to prevent these balances.
a. Active, energy-consuming pump that forces
positively charged sodium Na+ ions out of the cell.
b. Gates
that keep ions outside the cell from coming back in (and vice-versa) unless they are opened by a particular signal.
c. negatively-charged protein
molecules (made inside the cell) are too big to go through the membrane
4. Consequently, the interior of the
neuron is more negatively-charged than the outside: there is an electrical
gradient across the membrane, a potential difference, or voltage. This
voltage is known as the resting potential of the neuron (about -70 mV).
5. Because the system always tries
to maintain net neutral (zero) electrical charge, this electrical
gradient drives excess negatively-charged particles (like chlorine Cl-) out of the cell and positive ones (like potassium K+)
into the cell. Remember that protein- can't escape, and Na+ can't get
back in easily.
6. Meanwhile, because the system is
also trying to equalize the concentration of each ion on both sides of the
membrane, chlorine is driven back in back in and potassium back out.
7. Net result is that "at
rest" the system is unstable. Inside the cell is about 70mV
negative, and many ions are unevenly distributed across the membrane.
It's like a cocked gun ready to fire: anything that stops the sodium pump or
opens the sodium gates would cause inrush of Na & outrush
of K, changing this electrical potential.
B. Generation and conduction of the action potential
along an axon.
1. I can destabilize the
system described above by injecting a little electric current into it (I'll
describe how this happens naturally, later).
2. If I raise the voltage from
its normal resting potential to about -40 MV, then the gates open an sodium rushes in, other ions rush out.
3. System overshoots
electrical neutral, and goes up to about +40 mV.
4. Then, Na pumped back out
& system returns to resting potential.
5. This sudden transition from
a negative charge to a positive charge and back again is called the action
potential (AP).
6. Note that the AP
provides the voltage change to destabilize the next-door region on the axon. So
it generates an AP, and the process repeats on down the line. Thus, AP is sort
of electrical & sort of chemical. Electrical change causes chemical
change, which causes electrical change, & repeat. Thus, it is not
like electricity in wire, which just is "flow" of electrons.
Thursday Feb. 28 Biological
Psychology II
Action potentials, cont.
That difference is source of important AP
features:
(1) All-or-none
(a) either does or doesn't fire. Either +40 mv or nothing
(b) stays constant (doesn't lose strength-
generated anew)
(2) Slow- all that chemical regeneration. If you were a giraffe,
might take weeks to get there
Fortunately, nervous system has a partial solution for that slowness-
SALTATORY conduction. MYELIN. Insulation,
lets jump from NODE to node. 10 times faster
Interesting: diseases- MS; Lou Gehrig's disease.
babies don't have it
all yet. Slow react.
Even with myelin, conduction of AP (message) is still slow. Your own RT- don't react to things with speed of light.
However, slow reaction times seldom due to conduction speed down axon. Real bottleneck is communication across synapse- from neuron to neuron
SYNAPTIC TRANSMISSSION
(1) AP alters membrane, releases neurotransmitters from presynaptic vessicles.
(2) neurotransmitters diffuse across cleft
(3) occupy ("bind to") special receptor sites on postsynaptic
membrane (your text's 'lock and key' anaolgy)
(4) alter membrane- let ions (Na+) flow in, generating graded potential (i.e can be big or small depending on how much xmitter, etc).
(5) if membrane potential raised above
above threshold, AP generated
Then, need to do some housekeeping:
(6) post-synaptically,
need to break down xmitter, or else neuron would keep
on firing (DEACTIVATION).
(7) presynaptically,
need to replace the xmitter that was used up
(REUPTAKE/ & metabolism)).
Several additional points to be made:
(1) Relatively slow
(2) Lots of different neurotransmitters, each with own characteristic
operating principles- (organized systems) (Remind- each cell has only one kind
of xmitter) dopamine, acetylcholine, norepinephrine, serotonin, GABA
(3) Neural decision making
Multiple synapses- receiving cell adds
together graded potentials generated at nearby synapses
Thus, post-synaptic neuron can itegrates across space and time.
Some xmitters
generate negative (inhibitory) potentials (Cl- goes
in).
(4) Plastic- vulnerable to change.
(a) altered by body
chemistry changes (even diet) - changes can affect part. brain systems
(b) altered by disease
(1) Parkinson's disease. (tremors, hard to start,
depression). loss of dopamine pathways. Axons die.
L-DOPA provides extra dopamine,
which helps relieve it somewhat. Can mimic symptoms of
Parkinson's in normals with anti-dopamine drugs
(e.g., haloperidol, chlorpromazine).
(2) Tourette's syndrome (Witty Ticcy
Ray) (Motherless Brooklyn). too much dopamine
activity. Often relieved with dopamine antagonists: haloperidol, reserpine.
(2) Schizophrenia. Sometimes attributed to excess activity of
dopamine pathways. However, haloperidol effects are very slow to
act- unlike what
you'd expect, and unlike those drugs' effects on
Tourette's. Can mimic schizophrenia symptoms in
normals with L-Dopa (see
above).
(c) toxins
(1) Botulism: acetylcholine release blocked
(2) black widow spider- continuous release of Ach
(3) DDT & most other insecticides- block enzyme activity to prevent
inactivation (anti-cholinesterase drugs)
(d) altered by psychoactive drugs- already mentioned
some used medically.
(1) Cocaine, speed: enhance DA & NE; block reuptake
(2) LSD blocks SE receptors
(3) Selective serotin reuptake inhibitors (Prozac)
for depression
(4) opiates- clog receptor sites of (naturally occurring opiate- endorphins)
(5) angel dust PCP NMDA receptors -lots
of places very plastic; learn/memory)
Tuesday March 4. Biological
Psychology III: The Nervous system
Two major divisions:
CNS-brain & spinal cord
PNS-nerves & ganglia outside CNS (nerves=bundles
of axons; ganglia=bunches of cells
Connected by 12 cranial nerves
& 38 spinal nerves
PNS-(two divisions)
1) Somatic-striped muscles-movement; sensory cells.
Interest to psychologists: sensation and movement
2) Autonomic- smooth muscles (e.g. heart), internal
organs, & glands.
1) sympathetic- energy expending, mobilizing
resources. HR up,vigilance,
hormones act., sweat, spleen releases red blood cells (O2)
2) parasympathetic- energy conserving, maintaining resources.
These two complement each other to keep body going and ready for
emergencies. Important for psychologists because:
(1) psychol. disorders often
affect it (psychosomatic disease- ulcers, etc., stress)
(2) its operation affects perception, emotion,
motivation, etc.
CNS-
Spinal cord- (mini brain)
1) Controls many reflexes on its own. Withdrawal, basic walking movements.
2) passes messages to & from brain to
periphery
3) CROSS-OVER: left brain to right body and vice-versa
Brain-10 billion neurons. Energy hog 2% of
weight 20% of energy in body
1) regulates internal body conditions
2) interacts with world- sensation, movement control
3) uses past experience to select, or create new, ways to interact with
environment.
Lots of ways of dividing up brain structure; will follow your text and describe 3 regions: hindbrain, midbrain, and forebrain.
****Will describe basic functions. But first, remember: not only functions of each area, and several areas contribute to most functions. Brain is integrated system.*****
Hindbrain
A. Medulla--> autonomic, breathing, circulation
B. pons--> connects 2 sides of cerebellum;
coordination of right & left side movement. Neurons that relay forebrain to
cerebellum
C. reticular formation- diffuse net - arousal, attention, sleep, (active) . SEROTONIN, tryptophan
story. (some classify the autonomic function of
medulla as retic form)
D. Cerebellum - (little brain; evol. primitive)
(2 sides) coordination, balance, mediates motor commands. Receives messages
from muscles, what's actually happening, & from higher up, plans. ATAXIA-no fine control. Babies poorly developed
Midbrain
1.early visual (superior colliculus)
& auditory (inferior colliculus) processing,
reflexes of those senses (ORs). Prey-catchers like
frogs have big midbrains.
2. Part of VTA dopamine reward system here
Forebrain .
Basal forebrain:
A. Thalamus - (pair) relay station, integrates info from other brain
areas, up & down. Sensory projections. Can sometimes take over some cortical function if latter damaged
early in life.
B. Hypothalamus - regulation of internal environment.
1) control of emotional behavior: 4 Fs:
fighting, fleeing, feeding, & mating
2) maintenance of homeostasis is classic function of hypothalamus. fluids, feeding, temperature, timing rhythms. LH won't
eat, VMH won't stop. "hunger" &
"satiety" "centers". Less convincing now.
Many more parts of brain & body involved.
Mostly, these functions
performed by:
1) influencing ANS
2) influencing endocrine system (pituitary gland)
C. Basal ganglia - motor control- starting and maintaining movement. Disorders:Parkinson's too-high
muscle tone (rigid, & tremble at rest), move slowly, & hard to get it
going. Dopamine pathways to b.g. lost.
Dopamine replacement helps.
More recently has been found to be important in memory
Cerebral Hemispheres.
Two parts, evolutionarily distinct. First, older
part, sometimes called limbic system or paleocortex.
Forms a loop around top of central core; tucked up within cerebral
hemispheres. Classically considered to be control area for MOTIVATIONAL
AND EMOTIONAL behavior (which is why Gleitman
includes hypothalamus), but today see far more complex functioning
A. Amygdala- rage and aggression. (Delgado clip; Flynn's cats;psychosurgery); learn/mem
B. Septal area- pleasure. reward;
Delgado demo; Crichton's "Terminal man"; recall depressed patient
clip.
C. Hippocampus. Memory. Spatial;
conditional; consolidation.
Second, evolutionarily more recent part, neocortex (new cortex), comprises the bulk of Cerebral hemispheres, & indeed 85% of brain. In humans, covers most of brain; only part of the brain stem sticks out. For most psychologists, this is it, what makes humanity: language, memory, learning, etc.
4 "lobes" by gross anatomy: frontal, temporal, pareital, occipital. Many functions cross those boundaries, so prefer not to give functions of each. Instead, draw map. Mention "lobotomy".
Cortex: top layer, 1/25" thick, convoluted, 2.5 ft*2
Sensory/motor projection areas (20-25%)- receive & control MAPS
Association areas (the rest)- assoc., complex stuff
"limbic
assoc. areas": emotional control;
Locate: somatosensory, visual, auditory
areas (maps)
speech/language at intersection
2 sides, connected by COMMISSURES: CORPUS CALLOSUM
Lateralization.
1) animals (storage, etc.)
2) people.
classic left-right, language vs. none
analytic vs. artistic
How know? developmental stuff; damage to one side;
anesthesia to one side; processing time.
Perhaps oddest: split brain
language vs. pointing; rhyming
"Independent personalities". P.S. & race car draftsman
Thursday, March 5.
Biological Psychology, Conclusion: Split-brain video.
MOTIVATION
Individual differences and internal states.
Motivation said to affect behavior three ways:
activation: start (cause) behavior. Why did the cat run off? (hungry)
selection: choose among alternatives. Why did the cat go hunting rather than something else? Complex moves, etc.
energization: maintenance of activity. Why did the cat persist in hunting? Why does Joe practice 3 hrs/day?
INSTINCT theories. These functions caused by genetic heritage. Instinct to search for food, instinct to cry when hungry, instinct to react to failure with depression. Individual difference due primarily to differences in genetics. One baby cries & other doesn't; one gets depressed & other doesn't, because of different genetics.
1. Some of
2. Was in reaction to RATIONALIST viewpoint- that all human activity is the result of rational analysis and exercise of will. A major revolution in philosophy, that our lives can be controlled in part by the unconscious.
But unsatisfying.
(1) tendency to downplay environment too much: one thing to recognize importance of genetic differences, but another top ignore importance of experience.
(2) list of instincts got too long. From initial 10 of McD to over 600.
(3) post hoc. Why does he do x? has an instinct to do it. Not really an explanation.
DRIVE theories. Best known is that of
A. Basic properties
1. Biological needs (deviation from homeostasis) are detected and generate psychological arousal states called drives
2. Drive as activator: Drive impels organism to activity
3. Drive and learning: Activities that reduce drive (and coincidentally, satisfy need) are learned (operant conditioning).
a. Drive reduction necessary for learning. learning only occures if S-R combination accompanied by drive reduction. The "S" will now elicit the behavior (learned ACTIVATION of behavior). Learn all the useful things and not the maladaptive things
b. Drive as discriminative stimulus. Part of the "S" is drive state. So, which activities occur depend on which drive state is present (learned SELECTION function)
4. Drive as energizer: as long as drive present, these learned behaviors will be maintained.
(Example of baby rat learning food- and water-related activities; example of one baby learning to cry and one to not cry)
B. Thus, related motivation (which we knew little about) to learning (which we knew a lot about)
1. Selection and specific activation functions related to discriminative stimulus control
2. individual differences due to differences in early learning
3. In addition, more general activation and energization purely motivational, multiplied learned behavior
4. emphasize internal states pushing organism's behavior
C. Two problems with drive reduction theories.
1. Do things that increase drive (roller coasters, risk taking)
2b. Drive theories require that organisms can distinguish the various internal states (drives)- SELECTION function. i.e., know when you're hungry and when you're thirsty. These two probably are reasonably easy (but wait a bit!), but what about other motivational states? In many cases we need external cues to help us identify our internal state. SCHACHTER experiment.
Other kinds of theories dealt with these issues.
HEDONISTIC theories
Behavior guided not by needs, but by desires. Pleasure-seeking, rather than drive-reducing.
seeking, rather than avoiding, stimulation.
Problems of circularity again. Dealt with by:
1. physiological mechanism: VTA-NAC dopamine pathways (food, water, sex, drugs)
2. evolutionary argument - whatever worked.
INCENTIVE theories
A. Organisms respond to external stimuli or learned expectancies of them. Pizza smell, lunch time. Pulled from without, rather than pushed from within.
1. Like drive theories, emphasized learning (expectancies)
2. Unlike drive theories, dissociated from biological need
None of these alone will do the job
1. Clearly are internal states that affect behavior: smell of pizza won't make you eat if you've just eaten one and are stuffed
2. Likewise, already shown that internal cues are unreliable
3. And that pleasure can matter
4. But even nonpleasurable drive-reducers will work too
So, modern theories of motivation take into account all of these factors.
EXAMPLE: Consider internal and external factors in hunger/eating, hunger/eating a good system to study:
1. importance to everyday life (all have to eat, eating disorders, obesity & dieting best seller)
2. powerful motivator
a. strong sensations
b. strong behaviors
3. internal & external cues (drives & incentives) both important, ans they interact in interesting ways
start by discussing some of these cues, and then discuss obesity and overeating.
ASK class: How do you feel when you feel Ahungry@. When do you eat or feel like eating?
Tuesday March 11, Motivation
II; Sensation
Internal cues for hunger/eating1. stomach pangs, empty feeling (stomach contractions, empty, undistended stomach)
a. Cannon/Washburn exp. (contractions)
b. stomach dist. important for cessation of eating, but not much for initiating eating
c. stomach/duodenum can sense nutrients (calories), but again mostly for cessation. (nutritious vs nonnutritious loads)
d. release cholecistokinin (CCK), a hormone, which suppresses eating
2. weakness, headache, inability to concentrate, tense, grouchy. Related to blood sugar levels. Glucose in brain for metabolism, etc.
a. sugar metabolism
1. receptors in liver register conversion of glycogen into glucose (using stored resources) and signal brain to increase food intake
2. likewise, conversion of glucose to glycogen signals reduction
3. Originally, assumed this was detected in the hypothalamus, which controlled eating (LH hunger VMH saitiety). But couldn=t find them there.
b. Also, when you haven=t eaten in along time, it=s likely you haven=t drunk anything either (prandial drinking). Dehydration produces some of these cues.
(a bit paradoxical because eating will make you more dehydrated)
3. Others you tend not to notice
a. fat levels: fat cells release Aleptins@ which are detected in ventricles & hypothalamus; if present, eating/hunger reduced.
b. body temperature
c. other hormones (e.g. ghrelin)
External cues for
hunger/eating
1. incentives (tastes/smells)
2. learned incentives (habits). time, TV, studying, thoughts of food, displacement activities.
3. social cues (social facilitation)
Morbid obesity and externality/internality distinction (Schachter
experiments)
Problems with the above
• not as well-related to personality type as originally thought
• Determinants of eating are more complex than just internal vs external
– Interactions of internal and external cues
• external cues produce internal ones (e.g., learned digestive responses; cravings)
• internal states modulate effectiveness of external cues
• role of amygdala
– Physiological consequences of obesity
• fat cells and positive feedback
• increased insulin levels speed conversion of carbs into fat
• replacement of nonfat by fat decreases metabolic rate
Sensation (new topic)
Sensation- from physics to experience
transduction
receptor cell;sensory
neuron; generator potential; action
potential
sensory coding
law of specific nerve energies; labeled lines
place (somatosensory and
basilar membrane examples)
rate
number
duration
pattern (taste, color)
Vision
-structure of eye
-structure of retina
-rod & cone vision
rods: light sensitive, motion sensitive,
periphery
cone: focused, fovea, color
Thursday March 13. Sensation and perception II
Color vision
-coding of wavelength
-Young-Helmholtz (trichromatic) theory
-3 cone types; "best frequencies"
-patterns (proportions) generate colors
-color mixing experiments
-additive vs. subtractive combinations
-Hering (opponent process) theory
-afterimages
-opponent processes
Resolution of controvery- 2 process or
"duplicity" theory
Perception: constructing a world of
objects
Multiple sources of information in perception
I. Constancies
A. Color
1. Compare to background
2. Compare to memory
3. Generic memory
B. Brightness
C. Shape
D. Size
1. retinal image size and distance
estimate
2.
II. Depth & distance perception
A. Monocular cues
1. relative size
2. texture gradient
3. linear perspective
4. interposition
5. Aerial perspective (clarity)
6. accomodation
7. motion parallax
B. Binocular cues
1. retinal disparity
2. convergence
III. Motion perception
A. Three tasks
1. perceive
stationary objects as still
2. Perceive moving objects as moving
3. Perceive motion of self
B. Keep track of head movements (feedback), eye movements
(commands), saccades
C. Compare motion of figure image & background image
1. relative
motion
2. "induced
motion" : phantom swing
March 18, 20: Spring Break
Tuesday March 25: Learning
Frees us from
birthright. Adds flexibility &
innovation.
For today, name 3 classes of learning:
1) event
learning‑ learn. to recognize existence and
properties of event
2) associative
learning‑ learn relations between separate events
This lecture cover these 2, conceptually simple sorts of learning. Basic to the biological
well‑being and effectiveness of practically all animal organisms, yet
still involved in many important aspects of your mental and emotional lives, as
well as your behavior.
3) "complex
learning". A grab‑bag
of other learning, e.g. learning to speak, learning to read, learning math. Not taken up here, but in next segmentof course, "cognition".
EVENT LEARNING
Have to learn that there is a coherent
object/event & has certain properties.
Can we recognize it second time around?
Simplest way of studying this
"event recognition" is habituation.
Startle
response‑ universal. wanes with repeated
presentation.
Looking response of babies.
Reduction in
response tendency as a result of presentation.
Notion is that if recognize, not
startling; gets boring.
How know is recognition? (what else could it be?‑ fatigue, adaptation)
Dishabituation
(1) present
novel stimulus
(2) describe
use in getting nonverbal creatures‑ like babies‑ to tell you what
they know about world. e.g. color, number.
ASSOCIATIVE LEARNING
learning relations among events. Before, after, go together, occur apart,
above, below, etc.
Distinguish 2 types:
EVENT‑EVENT LEARNING‑
learning relations between events over which organism has
no control. Night follows day. Food is there. Lunch is at whistle.
RESPONSE‑EVENT
LEARNING‑ learning relations between own behavior and events in world. Control of environment.
If I do this, I get food. If I do
that, I get hurt. If I don't do this, I
get cold.
Consider EVENT‑EVENT first. Simple way of studying this kind of learning
in lab is PAVLOVIAN (CLASSICAL) CONDITIONING.
Pavlov‑
physiologist. digestive system. Nobel prize.
IMPORTANT‑ not
just slobbering; spit & twitches. Dog already knows how to
slobber. Reorganization
of behavior appropriate to upcoming event. Nor is it just animals‑ important many
aspects of human bio & psych function. Spend some time relating important
features of Pavlovian conditioning to human functioning. Try to convince you that something as simple‑minded
as Pavlovian conditioning is very important. TWO APPROACHES: adaptation and
knowledge acquisition
Conditioning as adaptation
I.
EMOTIONAL RESPONSES
A.
Fear: Bell‑‑> shock. Note
B.
Phobias ‑ irrational fears.
Origins & treatment (deal with next time). Motivates
bizarre escape behavior.
C.
Hunger‑ signals for food. Smells, ads, time: lunch time. INCENTIVES
INCENTIVE
MOTIVATION. Can energize other
behavior.
II. BIOLOGICAL RESPONSES.
A.
Digestion‑ Pavlov, Insulin & sweetness‑ note sweetners & hypoglycemia.
B.
Analgesia‑ uncondiitoned and conditioned. endorphins.
C.
Immune responses‑ conditioned killer cell activity.
D. Drug tolerance &
addiction. Opiates and compensatory responses : morphine, heroin. Pain killing, HR down, body
temp up.
1) Define
tolerance (reduced response to drug, thus more drug needed for same effect);
addiction (craving, withdrawal sym)
2) Note not the whole story (variety of mechanisms, but 1
is Pav)
3) name situation (US=morphine in blood;
4) give mechanism (increasing CR
counteracts constant
5) What if don't counteract CR with
a) See
compensatory response, which is opposite: Opposite‑ withdrawal, craving
b) for addicts, context is important cue (friends; coffee‑cigs)
6) what if keep presenting context without drug? As with any Pavlovian CR, if
CS ‑‑> no
7) What if could
take you out of context?
no
tolerance/addiction‑ (e.g. smoking in shower); Salvation army success;
Vietnam example; halfway house E. Above was special case of HOMEOSTATIC or
REGULATORY FUNCTION frequently involving Pav cond. Body regulates lots of things (temp, sugar levels,
etc.). Regulation can be response to
current imbalance, or to future imbalance‑ prepare for it, to minimize
its effects.
***Note:
I did not mention 6/7 in class; won’t be on exam***
General lesson here: conditioning is
designed to permit organism to adapt to the future, not just the present. Before discussed adaptation of species to
general constants in world; conditioning is mechanism of individuals' adapting
to a changing world‑ particular events & experiences. Pavlovian conditioning produces
Reorganization of behavior appropriate to those future demands.
Conditioning as knowledge acquisition
I. S-S vs
S-R learning
II. The devaluation experiment
: a behavioral syllogism
Toneàfood foodàillness tone?
Toneàfood food//illness tone?
III. The blocking experiment
A+ AX+ X?
B+ AX+ X?
Thursday March 27: Exam II
Tuesday
April 1: Memory
(class
demonstration)
Memory as information processing: Encoding-storage-retrieval
1. Encoding
a. selective
attention. limited capacity. attention
as a skill
b. chunking
c. context
effects
2. Storage
a. overview
(1) sensory - short term (working) - long term (reference)
(2) depth-of-processing approach.
[for each of the “storage”
topics below, see chart given in “Topics for Segment 3” for main facts covered
in lecture]
b. Sensory memory
Sperling partial report experiment
Eidetic
imagery
c. short-term memory
(1) maintenance & elaborative rehearsal [2 patient interviews]
Thursday, April 3: Memory (continued)
[Third
patient interview (Clive)]
(2) limited capacity effects & chunking. Stochastic replacement
(3) proactive & etroactive interference.
(4) primacy, recency, serial
position effects
(5) neurological deficits and consolidation
d. Long-term memory
(1) episodic-semantic, episodic-generic, explicit-implicit, declarative-procedural distinctions
(2) organization of semantic
memory
networks, hierarchies
spreading activation; unconscious
inference
question/RT tasks; priming &
lexical decision/stem- completion
tasks
novice-expert distinctions
Tuesday, April 8: Memory (conclusion); Thought and Language I
(3) organization in episodic
memory
clustering, scripts
reconstruction errors
3. retrieval
a. recall - cued recall - (redintegration) - recognition - savings
b. availability vs. accessibility
c.
associative vs. strategic retrieval
d. encoding specificity
Thought and Language
I. Cognitive development: Thought and the development of intellect
Piaget’s developmental approach.
1. child conceives world differently than adults
2. child goes through discrete stages en route to adult thought
3. stages are discontinuous
4. growth requires interaction of child and environment
schemes: organized patterns of thought or action
assimilation- integrating new objects/situations into an existing scheme
accomodation- altering existing schemes to deal with new objects/situations
Sensory-motor period (babies).
Looking and sucking schemes
Scheme of the permanent object
Transition to symbolic thought
Pre-operational period (pre-schoolers & early grade schoolers)
Using symbolic thought
Categorization, set-subset relations and building mental hierarchies
Egocentric thought
Centration and failure of conservation
Thursday, April 10:
Development (conclusion); Language
Concrete operational period (grade schoolers)
Decentration
Conservation
(videos contrasting pre-operational and concrete operational children)
Lack of abstraction
Formal operational period (middle school and beyond)
Abstract thinking
Planning, exhaustive searches
Training experiments
Age regression?
Language: system of communication and mental symbol manipulation
Phonology. Basic unit of language sound is phoneme.
15-80 in languages
Patterns of babbling in infants.
Categorical processing of some
Early advent of categorical processing (dishabituation
tests in infants)
Specialized brain systems for above
Semantics.
Basic language unit with meaning- morpheme,
Broader issues of meaning
Whorfian
hypothesis: linguistic relativity: language structures thought
Sorting experiments: Navajo (objects); Dani (colors)
Tuesday, April 15: Language (conclusion); Intelligence
Syntax.
Deep and surface structure
Transformational grammars
Differences in phrase-structure rules
Evidence for separate brain systems for semantic and syntactical
aspects of language
Aphasias: nonfluent (Broca's
area, left frontal cortex)
fluent
(Wernicke’s area, left temporal cortex)
Video with aphasic patient
Intelligence
I. What is Intelligence?
A.
“factor theories”
1. a single underlying factor? (Spearman “g”)
2. many independent factors? (
3. some small number of basic factors?
Sternberg:
practical, analytic, & creative
Fluid
vs. crystallized
bodily-kinesthetic,
personal/social
4. some combination of these?
5. factor analysis & multiple correlations.
B. Cognitive operations
Reaction
times, search speeds, lexical access, working memory span,
mental rotation
II. Measurement of intelligence
A. Basic issues of all
psychological assessment
Objectivity
Reliability
Standardization
(SOP, norms)
Validity
(criterion, construct)
Thursday, April 17: Intelligence (conclusion); Personality
B. History
Binet, Terman, Army Alpha
Nature-Nurture
issues
C. Calculation of IQ
scores
IQ = 100 X
MA/CA; really??
“mental age” and deviation IQ scores
D. Validity and bias
Language issues
Making the abstract concrete
Personality
I. What is personality? Psychodynamic, trait, social/cognitive/behavioral, humanistic approaches
II. Psychodynamic approach (Freud)
A. role of motivation
conscious,
preconscious, and unconscious mind
B. dynamic nature of
personality
-conflict: roles of id, superego, ego
- ego defense mechanisms:
e.g. repression, displacement, sublimation,
reaction formation
Tuesday, April 22: Personality (cont.)
(Freud, cont.)
C.
stages of ego development: oral, anal, phallic, (latent), genital
-fixations
D.Freudian methods
E. Criticism of Freudian
systems
F. Outgrowths of Freudian
system
1. Adler, Jung
2.
Erickson: superego development, life-span development, crises, stages
III. Trait theories
Eysenck introversion/extraversion and stable/unstable
MMPI and CPI
The Big Five
Heritability and personality traits
Thursday, April 24: Disorders of
personality
History
Demonstration
Models of the nature and treatment of personality disorders
Statistical (deviance)
underlying pathology (medical & psychological variants)
behavioral models
DSM-IV: logic and five axes
Sample disorders
1. Anxiety disorders
Generalized anxiety disorder
phobias (simple and social)
panic disorder
obsessive-compulsive disorder
2. Somatoform disorders (conversion/hyteria)
3. dissociative disorders
amnesia
multiple personality disorder
Tuesday, April 29: Personality disorders and their treatment
4. Affective disorders
unipolar depression
manic states
bipolar disorder
seasonal affective disorder
5. Schizophrenia
disorders of
thought [delusions/paranoia]
perception [hallucination]
mood [affective disorders]
Process (gradual onset) vs reactive (sudden onset)
Types of schizophrenia
Paranoid
Disorganized
Catatonic
Undifferentiated
Treatment of Personality Disorders
Underlying Pathology
model (note diathesis/stress)
1. Biomedical pathology
-psychosurgery (problem is diseased brain tissue)
Identifiably diseased tissue (tumors etc)
Electrically abnormal tissue
Tissue
implicated only by association (prefrontal lobotomies)
-shock (problem is
faulty electrical activity of brain)
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)
insulin shock (coma) therapy
-Drugs (problem is faulty brain chemistry)
Anxiety
disorders: Anxiolytic drugs (formerly
called “tranquilizers”)
First two classes of drugs act by enhancing activity of GABA, (an inhibitory) neurotransmitter:
1. Benzodiazepines. Diazepam (valium), alprazolam (xanax) Short-term, acute treatment. addictive, interact badly with alcohol.
2. “Atypical”. Clonidine, & especially buspirone. For more chronic treatment.
Next drugs enhance action of norephinephrine and/or serotonin
3. tricyclics. Inhibit reuptake of NE and SE. Imipramine (Tofranil). Originally for depression. First found to work with anxiety with panic but not without
4. SSRIs. Largely replacing tricyclics. Inhibit reuptake of serotonin selectively. Paxil, Celexa, Prozac, Zoloft. Panic or Obsessive-compulsive disorder, and now all examples (except probably simple phobia)
Mood disorders:
Antidepressants
1. Monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitors. Phenelzine (Nardil). Reduces deactivation of NE and SE. (Unpleasant & sometimes dangerous side-effects).
2. Tricyclics. Imipramine (Tofranil) also migraine headaches! reduces reuptake of NE & SE
3. SSRIS. Inhibit reuptake of serotonin selectively. Paxil, Celexa, Lexapro, Prozac, Zoloft.
Anti-mania.
1.
lithium (& some sodium compounds)
2. anxiolytics & antipsychotics don’t do much except slow them down (this is why “mania” not classified as a “psychosis” anymore).
Schizophrenia
Antipsychotics; neuroleptics
Work by blocking activity of dopamine, one way or another
1. typical. haloperidol (haldol), phenothorazine (thorazine), chloropromazine
2. “atypical”. Clozapine.
Has advantage of being more effective on “negative symptoms” (catatonia) (not just sedatives; pentobarbital puts
them to sleep but still psychotic)
Note: you
do not need to know any of the drug names for the exams, just what the major
classes are for. In most cases, their names tell the whole story (i.e. anxiolytics are for anxiety, antidepressants are for
depression)
2. Psychological pathology
-Psychodynamic: conflict resolution
-Person-centered: positive regard,
self-esteem
-Cognitive: restructuring;
explanation; replace faulty logic & reasoning
B. Behavioral model
Symptoms may be worse than the underlying pathology
May be able to treat the symptoms effectively
Reward-based therapies (token economies)
Punishment-based therapies (time-outs)
Extinction-based therapies (anxiety disorders)
Based on idea that these orders involve learned anxiety responses to environmental or internal cues. Patient normally fails to learn that these cues don’t in fact cause bad things to happen because patients learn to avoid those cues.
Implosion: expose patient to anxiety-eliciting situations to permit extinction to occur
Systematic desensitization: train relaxation, and countercondition relaxation to formerly anxiety-eliciting situations.
Note: I
did not get to “Behavioral Model” therapies in class. Your text describes token economies, aversion
therapies (punishment-related), and systematic desensitization; those are the
only ones you need to know about
Thursday, May 1: Exam 3