Honors Psychology. Prof. Opfer

Transcription

1 Honors Psychology Prof. Opfer

2 About Me John Opfer (Up -fer) Ph.D., Univ. of M------n Assoc. Professor, Dept. of Psychology Director, Concepts & Learning Lab

3 About the class Web page: H100.html Syllabus PDFs of slides (available after class) Links to readings Course calendar & office hours

4 Psychology Building 245 When scheduling office visits, use your OSU for best results.

5 About the textbooks Peter Gray s Psychology intellectually challenging biologically-grounded experimentally-focused used at Harvard, MIT, NYU, and M-----n

6 About the textbooks Pinker s The Blank Slate Pulitzer-finalist opinionated smart fun

7 About the course Why does this course exist? Why psychology? Reason #1: Human behavior can be maladaptive

8 In 2000, 2.4 million Americans died.

9 The leading causes included: Heart disease (710,760) Liver/Lung disease (297,532) Accidents (97,900) Suicide/Homicide (46,115)

10 The leading causes of these were: Stress Substance abuse Human error Mental disorder Heart disease (710,760) Liver/Lung disease (297,532) Accidents (97,900) Suicide/Homicide (46,115)

11 Health statisticians say that 51% of premature deaths are caused by our mindset and lifestyle

12 Psychology: The science of mind and behavior

13 About the course Why does this course exist? Why psychology? Reason #2: The mind is almost mysteriously adaptive

14 Common Mental Feats Controlling the body Talking Feeling Emotions Seeing & Hearing Learning Remembering Relating to Other People Choosing a Mate Thinking Becoming Happy

15 On Not Taking the Mind for Granted William James, 1890 It takes a mind debauched by learning to carry the process of making the natural seem strange, so far as to ask for the why of any instinctive human act. To the metaphysician alone can such questions occur as: Why do we smile, when pleased, and not scowl? Why are we unable to talk to a crowd as we talk to a single friend? Why does a particular maiden turn our wits so upside-down?

16 On Not Taking the Mind for Granted William James, 1890 The common man can only say, Of course we smile, of course our heart palpitates at the sight of the crowd, of course we love the maiden, that beautiful soul clad in that perfect form, so palpably and flagrantly made for all eternity to be loved!"

17 On Not Taking the Mind for Granted William James, 1890 And so, probably, does each animal feel about the particular things it tends to do in presence of particular objects.... To the lion it is the lioness which is made to be loved; to the bear, the she-bear. To the broody hen the notion would probably seem monstrous that there should be a creature in the world to whom a nestful of eggs was not the utterly fascinating and precious and never-to-be-too-much-sat-upon object which it is to her.

18 Common Mental Feats: Why? Controlling the body Talking Feeling Emotions Seeing & Hearing Learning Remembering Relating to Other People Choosing a Mate Thinking Becoming Happy

19 Common Mental Feats: Why?

20 Vision Adaptive Problem: Material from Lighting Common sense hypothesis: The eye codes light and dark by directly registering the light reflected off a surface High values=white=ivory Low values=black=ebony

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24 One Small Problem... Light coming off a surface can t be the whole story Ivory in moonlight versus ebony in sunlight: same luminance

25 A cast shadow will dim a surface so that a white surface in shadow may be reflecting same light as a black surface in full light.

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27 Vision Clearly the luminance-detectors in the eye are not sufficient to detect material differences Our mind automatically solved this problem of detecting material differences, but we (wrongly) assume that the solution lies in the eyeball and the world How does the mind solve this problem?

28 Psychology: The Science of Mind & Behavior Psychology is the science of mind and behavior Basic Questions: What are the physiological mechanisms of the mind and behavior? What are the processes by which individuals adapt to their environment? How do individuals think about and interact with other individuals?

29 Unit One: Physiological basis of mind and behavior What role do genes play in creating the mind? (genetics) How does natural selection adapt minds to the environment? (evolution) What are the physiological mechanisms of mind and motor system (the nervous system) hormone-dependent behavioral mechanisms (drives) environment-sensitive behavioral mechanisms (emotions)

30 Unit Two: Processes that adapt individuals to their environment how organisms sense their environment (sensation) how organisms identify objects in their environment (perception) how organisms adapt their behavior to their environment (learning) how human knowledge and thinking develops (cognitive and language development) how humans store and retrieve their knowledge (memory) how human reasoning develops and how individuals differ (intellectual development)

31 Unit Three: Processes that adapt individuals to their social environment how and why individual humans become unique (personality development) how individual humans reason about other humans (social cognitive development) how individuals deal with the hazards and benefits of working with others (social behavioral development and self-esteem development) how individuals suffer mental disorders and the role of others in creating mental disorders (development of mental disorders) how others can help treat mental disorders (treatment)

32 Why does this course exist? Why psychology? Reason #3: A history of intellectual accomplishment

33 Intellectual Foundations of Modern Psychology 1. Mind as natural and causal (versus dualism) 2. Extrospection as an indispensable method 3. Mind as the information-processing function of the brain

34 Dualism Plato (Phaedo) Mind is eternal; body temporal Mind is immaterial; body is material Body can (somehow) corrupt the mind, and the mind wants to be released from the body The Ghost in the Machine

35 Naturalism The soul is the higher order activity of a natural body that potentially possesses life and is properly organized. Aristotle, De Anima

36 The mind is as the brain does. Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works Naturalism

37 Dualism after Plato Descartes Dualism Thinking done by mind ghost Seeing, Hearing, Feeling, Wanting, and Reflexes done by the body machine

38 Discoveries led by Naturalism Localization of Function In the 1820s, sensory and motor neurons were shown to be distinct Particular brain areas were found to inhibit reflexes Paul Broca (1861) found that people who suffered damage to a small part of the left hemisphere lost the ability to speak without losing other mental abilities. Natural Selection Darwin discovered that the localization of function in the brain must be related to the functions they serve to the survival and reproduction of the organisms themselves. The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals

39 How to Study Thinking? The problem of introspection and self-report Reaction Time Wundt: If Mental Process B is a component of Mental Process A, then Mental Process B should take less time than Mental Process A

40 Mind came to be seen as the information-processing function of the brain analogous to a computer mental world grounded in the physical world by the concepts of information, computation, and feedback Beliefs and memories are collections of information stored patterns of activity and structure in the brain (like a database) Cognitive Revolution Thinking and planning are systematic transformations of the these patterns (like the operations in a computer program) Wanting and trying are feedback loops (like a thermostat) Mind is connected to world by sense organs that transduce physical energy into data structures

41 Modern Psychology The mind as an active, biologically adaptive set of tools is often species-specific (biopsychology) is governed by conscious and non-conscious rules (cognitive psychology) changes over time (developmental psychology) meets social demands (social psychology) differs across individuals (personality psychology), and may malfunction (clinical psychology) Mental structures, functions, and processes are often hypothesized on the basis of introspection, but they are always confirmed by testing competing models.