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Week 1 - Introduction: ● The human brain is complex, containing 100 billion neurons. There are 100 trillion connections of cells in your brain, allowing humans to achieve different aspects that make us distinct from other animals. ● Humans use tools and pass them down from generation to generation. ○ Humans use language to communicate with each other. ■ Language can communicate millions of ideas. ■ It is a unique feature of humans. ○ Mathematics is a conceptual tool only humans can use. ■ It allows us to describe our environments and make predictions of the future. ○ Teaching or education is another tool. ■ Only humans have the capacity to teach younger people and help them embark on their path to knowledge. This form of explicit teaching allows learning to take place. ○ Art is another tool. ■ All human cultures have a form of art and music. ● How can our brain allow us to accomplish all the things humans have accomplished? ● The mind mediates between the brain and its connection to the world. ● Psychology is the study of the mind. ● The mind is a set of processes that perform computations that take information and transform them into usable outputs. ● ANALOGY: In a computer, there is hardware, and the software runs on the hardware. In psychology, the brain is the hardware, while the mind is the software.
Ways to Study the Mind Scientifically: ● Psychology ○ Experimental ■ Branch of study that focuses on how the mind works. ■ Not therapeutic ■ SUBRANCH: ● Cognitive - the basic algorithms at which the brain derives information (nuts and bolts of how our mind works) ○ Ex: perception (color) ● Developmental - the study of change ○ Ex: learning language, learning to walk ● Personality - study of individual differences (what makes a person different from one another)
● Social - the study of the sociality of humans (how does our nature as social nature shape us) ● Abnormal - the study of abnormality (what effect does an injury to our brain and its functions), includes both mental and physical changes to the brain ○ Ex: traumatic brain injury, schizophrenia ● Clinical ■ Clinical psychologist helps indiivudals improve their psychological functions. ■ Therapeutic
Five Foundations of Psychological Science
- Evolution: Genes make brains a. Humans and chimpanzees share physical and psychological functions. This is a product of evolution.
- Materialism: Brains make minds a. Minds are not a separate substance of the brain. They are not separate entities. It is used to describe the brain and explains what it does. b. The mind is what the brain does. It is a physical thing.
- Idealism: Minds make reality, they dont have direct access. a. Ideas and the mind create how we see the world. Our minds filter and transform what we believe is our in the world and what is actually out there. i. Ex: color vs wavelengths
- Modularity: The mind is a collection of parts. a. The mind is separately evolved modules that carry us through life. b. There are different tools for different situations or purposes. c. The mind is a collection of specialized tools for solving problems
- Empiricism: Believe only what you can count. a. A method is needed to determine what is right or what is wrong about our minds. b. Cant rely on stories to validate theories, need mathematics, studies, statistics to do so as well and to draw conclusions.
Example:
- Which pillar does this example illustrate? The dress demonstrates the pillar of idealism.
■ Scientist have discovered that hands are the largest part of the somatosensory cortex. ● The hands, the lips, and the tongue take up so much space in the somatosensory cortext, as these parts of our body is used in our daily lives. Thus, it needs many sensory receptors to process information to carry daily activities. ○ Ex: hands need to sense temperature, lips and the mouth and the gateway of the inner parts of the body. ■ Theory: “Body parts with larger cortical areas will be more sensitive than those with smaller cortical areas.” ○ Abstract Concept ■ An example of abstract concept is sensitivity
↓ DEFINE
■ A operational definition specificies the observable conditions that define the concept. ● Ex: Operational definition for sensitivity can be ticklish, pain, and threshold. ● These definitions are ways to define and make understanding of the loose definition of sensitivity.
↓ DETECT
■ Measure an aspect specific in the operational definition ● Ex: Laughs per minute, squirming, number of times the person says “please stop” ■ The researcher has to make decisions on how to measure the entities of the opersational definition. ● For instance, measuring ticklishness and pain may not be a study that individuals want to participate in. ● Instead a researcher may want to detect threshold in order to better understand the abstract property. ○ Ex: pressure, temperature, and distance ■ How do psychologists choose which operational definition and measurement to use?
■ Reliability pertains how much of the same answer a measure gives you when you carry it under the same conditions. ● It is the tendency for a measure to product the same result when it is used to measure the same thing ○ Ex: Caliper can be used as a method to measure the operational definition threshold. The caliper can be placed on an individual’s skin and the subject needs to state if they feel one things or two things. The experiment is reliable if the same person “stop perceiving two things and perceive one thing” at the same measurement each time. ■ Validity refers to the extent to which a study appears to measure what is claims to measure. ● Construct Validity: The tendency for a clear conceptual relation to exist between the abstract property and the operational definition. ○ Ex: Sensitivity and pain have construct validity, whereas the sensitivity and the number of hail follicles that fall off is not clear. ● Convergent validity: The tendency for operational definitions to be related to other operational definitions. ○ Ex: If you operationalize sensitivity as pain it will probably be related to the results when you operationalize threshold, which increases the validity of your experiment. ● Discriminant Validity: The tendency for a measure to produce different results when it is used to measure different things. ○ Ex: Using caliper on the hand compared to biceps. The results should be different, as it is used on different body parts. If the results are consistently the same even if it is used to measure different things, the data may not be as valid. ■ Summary:
■ A sample of a population may actually be representative of a whole population. ○ Generality can be investigated. ○ Variability is the main issue. ■ Ex: NYU undergrad may not have experiences as an individual living in a village in India ■ Individuals may vary considerably around the mean. ● Normal Distribution Curve ● Ex: Knowing the average of the man and woman does little to understand the results, as many men score more than woman and many woman also score more than men. ● When variability is lower and a greater difference in mean it is easier to make and draw conclusions from results. ● It is important to look at both mean difference and estimates of variability. ○ Statistical conclusions are based on both mean differences and estimates of variability (analysis of variance). ● Bias ○ Bias is any factor that distorts your measurement of a group of subjects ■ Subject Bias ● Demand characteristics are those aspects of an observational setting that cause people to behave as they think an observer wants or expects them to behave (also known is Hawthrone effect) ● To avoid subject bias ○ Ensure Anonymity ■ Ex: raise your hand on zoom if you cheated on an exam in highschool (not accurate - people are too afraid to admit) vs taking a anonymous survey (more accurate - people will be more honest) ○ Measure involuntary or nonobvious beavhior ■ Closed posture can indicate hostility, unfriendliness, and anxiety ■ Open posture may indicate friendliness, openness, and willingness
■ Measure how often they nod their head or shake their leg ● Ex: people may not be openly racist or sexist, but their involuntary behavior can shed light on their honest, raw beliefs ○ Keep subject blind to hypothesis ■ Tell them something that is incorrect at the beginning of the study; tell someone that the study is about “X” when it is actually about “Y” ■ Oberver Bias ● “Clever Han” - The whole study was based on observer bias. The horse was paying attention to the body language and cues administered by the owner. The subtle aspect of the observer changed, so the horse stop stomping his hoof which made him seem like he was able to answer the question ● Rosenthal and Fode - Gave groups of rats to researchers (one maze smart and one maze dull - and asked to train the rats). The researcher found that the maze smart better and to solve the maze faster. However, the rats in two groups were genetically identical. The fact that the rats did better was as a result of the researchers expectation that the rats would “do better”. ○ The maze smart rats way have been treated better. ○ Stopped stopwatch earlier for smart rats, while stopped stopwatch later for dull rats. ○ The Principal investigator knew that the two groups were the same. ○ Due to self-fufilling prophecy one group personed better than the other. ○ Experiment on research bias. ● To avoid observer bias ○ The Double Blind Technique ■ The participants are blind to the hypothesis, as well as the researchers. ■ Keeping researchers blind will allow less observer bias. ■ Very common method in drugs ● Researchers are blind to which pill is given to participants (real one vs the control one).
○ Correlation: the number of firefighters is strongly correlated with how big the fire is; how big the fire does not cause the number of firefighters ○ Correlation: sleeping with shoe on results in a headache in the morning; one does not cause the other; the person with the headache may went out drinking; the correlation is caused by an outside variable - drinking ○ Correlation: the number of pirates have declined is correlated by the rising temperature (global warming); the increase of temperature is not caused by pirates; can be coincidental, there does not have to be a third variable
Three Explanations for Any Correlation ● “Number of tattoos is positively correlated with number of motor vehicle accidents”. ○ 1) Tattoos cause people to have accidents (people get distracted by their tatoos). ○ 2) Accidents cause people to get tattoos (people have a life threatening experience - life short lets get tattoos) ○ 3) A third variable causes people to get tattoos and have accidents (ex: drinking, drugs) ● Useful in knowing how 2 variables are related to each other; but too ambigous to draw concrete concussions. ● “Children who have pets have greater resistance to asthma”
Causation: Three Explanations for Any Correlation ● “Children who have pets have greater resistance to asthma” ○ 1) Ownership causes health (as a kids you may be exposed to certain bacteria that mays you resistant to asthma) ○ 2) Health causes ownership (parents who know their kids are healthy or have good respiratory health let their children get a pet ○ 3) A third variable causes both (parents can afford good healthcare and money for the pet) ○ Ruled out by holding constant (have pet owners with high socioeconomic status and low socioeconomic status) to lead to better relationships.. ○ Another variable is smoking (smokers avoid pet ownership and have bad respitatory health) ○ Problem with correlaition design is not no matter how many third variables you hold constant, one can say you ignored a very important third variable. There will always be a possibly that there is another one.
○ The third variable problem means that correlation can never establish causation.
Experimental Techniques to establish causation relationship ● Experiment: A technique for establishing the causal relationship between variables ● Key Ingredient: manipulation ● “Solving” the puppy problem ○ Put people in a animal group and put others in a nonanimal group ○ Money is given to people with money to take care of pet ○ The results show that people who had a puppy had better respiratory health. ■ Sounds like having a dog or pet improves respitatory health ■ The ability for the participant to choose their role in the research study creates issues of reliability and validity. The people have the predisposed position that they have better respiratory system, and placebo makes them want to report “better health“ to the researceher. Self-selection is an issue. ■ The study did not measure respitatou health before getting a pet. ● People who already had good health may have volunteered. ■ The two groips were not treated equally, as the group who had dogs also got money (they might have used it to improve their health). ● Holding Constant: Ensuring that the 2 groups are treated identically except for the manipulation ○ Ex: Both groups could have gotten money; but not really sufficient. Pre-esisting reason may have motivated them to choose which group they wanted to be in. ● Random Assignment: Ensuring that each subject has an equal chance of being assigned to each group ○ Flip coin or let computer to decide what group the subject should be in regardless of what the subject wants to do ■ This helps because you will have people who have alots of resources, more money, better health or worse health. This promotes all possible differences between the subjects, washing them out. (Better with a bigger group - 10,000 people (the group will be similar on all different variables) all relevant differences will wash out - ensures that all differences are equivalent ■ With a sufficiently large sample, the average composition of both groups will be equivalent along all compounding features.
Two Tools for Control
Evolution ● Pillar of psychology.
Marr’s Level of Analysis
- Computation ● What is the problem to be solved? ● Most abstract level ● Ex: Organism needs to figure out why 2+2 = 4
- Algorithm ● What is the step-by-step producer for solving the problem? ● Ex: Organism may use a number of algorithms to solve what 2+2 add up to (using hands, using addition table, using a calculator
- Implementation ● How is the solution actually realized physically? ● Ex: A scientist may be interested in how the brain is able to remember that 2+ =4. How a very big problem and the algorithm an organism uses is able to encode this information and retrieve this information is implemented.
Computation is “Evolution” Algorithm is the “Mind” whereas the “Brain” is implementations.
What are the problems that drive human rewvolition that led humans to develop algorithms.
● Understanding human cognition requires understanding all three levels.
Darwinian Evolution ● Individuals exhibit variation. ○ Although animals or life from the same species, they still exhibit different characteristics. ■ Ex: Tree have different branch sizes. Giraffes have different neck sizes. ● Many more individuals are born in each generation that can or do survive and reproduce, resulting in competition. ● Variability can mean that there are differential chances of achieving certain resources. ○ Individual with favorable characteristics may have a greater chance of survival. ■ Ex: Giraffes with longer necks end up surviving longer, as they can reach the leaves on higher trees, and live long enough to have offspring. ● Individuals possessing favorable charachteriisc have better chance of surving/ and or reproducing that other individuals who lack those chachterisitc. This process is known as natural selection. ● Selection occurs at the level of the individual, more strictjly the gene. If the characteristic resulting in differential survival and reproduction are heritable, then those characteristics will become more common in the population. ● Over the course of a generation, even if the individuals were variable the heritble favorable chrachterisics become the norm. ● Over time, organisms become adapted to their environments. ○ Ex: Giraffes tend to have longer necks (there is still variability - but most have this desired characteristic because back in the environment that they evolved it was a feature that was advantageous) ○ Ex: Moths used to be light colors and speckles of dark colors and this worked for them for many years because the region they lived in hard dark trees and allowed them to blend in. However, the industrial revolution devlioed soot on the tree, but the moth started to stand out on the dark trees. As a result, many moths became to die. The Moths with dark spots survived more and managed to have off spring. Over the coruse of several years, evolution led to darker moths since they survived at the time.
But sometimes things seem maladaptive Why might we observe a behavior or trait that seems maladaptive? ● Environments change. ○ What used to be adaptive (white wings with dark colors) after the factory pumping industrial by product the wings became maladaptive.
○ “Is” does not equal “ought” ● 2) Deterministic fallacy: things are inevitable because they are natural (that is, because they evolved that way). ○ Just because something evolved that way, that means it has to happen. ○ Ex: We were not resistant to coivd; we were able to go beyond that gene and become immune to covid ○ Do not have the gene to fly, but we can fly across the globe through planes and technology ○ Humans can choose to “disobey” their genes ● 3) Nature vs. Nurture ○ Nature is the genone and what biology gies us (genes) ○ Nuture is the environment in which humans are raised ○ The debate is problematic because it is not “either or” but “and/or” ○ Nature (genetic code to develop gills) is the way it is because of nurture (the environment). ○ They are deepling intertwined; cant really separate them ○ Ex: language (genes make this possible but it also means u had to be exposed to human language to acquire these skills) ○ Nature X Nurture ● 4) Teleology: Things tend to get better (smarter, stronger, faster, cooler) ○ Not true, as evolution makes animals well adapted to their surroundings but it does nto control how strong or smart they are. Natural selection is a blind process, it does not guarantee smartness just their ability to survive. ○ Ex: cockroaches are most adaptive and successful organisms in their environment; but it doesnt write music or do math. ○ Evolution does not ential getting “better”.
Practice:
- If someone says that racism is a natural part of the human mind, and therefore there is nothing that we can do about it, they are showing evidence of ____? A. Telelogy B. Deterministic Fallacy C. Nature vs. Nurture D. Naturalisitic Fallacy
Week 3 - Brain: ● The brain is a complex part of the body; 100 billion neurons with each of its own connections, make up 100 trillion connections. About 20% of the calories you consume go to the brain. ○ The neurons of the brain ○ Support cells in the brain called the glia that supports the function of the neurons in the brain. ○ There is a lot that we understand about the brain but there is also a lack of information that we know. ○ The fascination is reflected in many articles on the meaning of how the brain works. ○ The brain is of great interest to people.
Marr’s Level of Analysis
- Computation ← Evolution
- Algorithm ← Mind
- Implementation ← Brain (Hardware that runs the software of the mind)
5 Foundations of Psychological Science
- Evolution: genes make brains
- Materialism: brains make minds *talking about the mind is the way to describe what the brain does in a more abstract manner” - perceptions
- Idealism: minds make reality
- Modurlaity: the mind is a collection of parts
- Empiricism: Believe only what you can count.
Rene Descartes - “I thinkt therefore I am” ● Dualism: Mind and brain have no relationship ● A → B Mental Events ● C → D Physical Events ● He did think that the pineal gland was a portal to the connect to the two separate entities, mind and the brain. ● Current physiological science does not agree with the idea of dualism ● Pineal gland is important but it is not the portal that communicates between the mind and the brain ● Dualism is incorrect theory. ● However, they believe materialism.
○ The brain sits in fluid, as this is a great way to observe shock. Dont want it to get injured every time you move your head. Evolution figured out that iti is best for brain to float in liquid and it cushions it from severe impacts that it could suffer. ○ Ventricles (pocket of fluid) dont really do much, but middke ages thoyght that the ventricles were an active part of the way the brain works. ○ Even then, there was still alot of confusion and unaskwered questions. ○ Was not until 17th century that people started to understand more of the way brain works, but still questions as it is very different from the other organs in our bodys ● What makes a cell a cell? ○ The human brain and body is made of cells. ○ Body cel ○ Brain cells look nothing like regular body cells. ■ Looks like undifferentiated mess ■ It is so different from most cells. ○ For a long time, scientist thought that it was undifferentiated mass. ■ It was unlike the other organs, it was just mush with no cells. ● Camillio Golgi found a staining tehqniue that changed hte colors of cells, so scientist can look at microscope and find the structure of cells. It was beneficial, as it only stained one out over cells it was good to enabled schienstis to see what the cells really looked like. The fact that the stain was faulty we were able to see what the brain cells looked like. ● Took thousands of years to understand how thinking happens, that brain has cells, and the cells have different structure.
Globlaization vs Localization of Function ● Another debate ● Is the brain made up of parts that specializes in a function or the brain is functionall undefferitanted? ○ Analogy: ○ Sponge - one part of the sponge does the same function as another part of the sponge just as well as another part ○ Bike - not every part of the bike does the same thing, each part is specialized to do something ● The research and evidence aligns more with the bike analogy ● The idea of modularity - there are independent functions of the brain ● Brain operates liek a bicycle - different parts do different things
Methods of Localization ● Accident ○ Captallzing on accident ○ Injuries in certain part of the brain comprisies some specific functions of the body. If it wasnt for localization: why every time u hit the back of your head it leads to losing vision? ● Manipulation ○ Humans manipulate part of the brain to see what happens to psychological experience. ● Non-Invasive Measurement ○ Using various technicwue to connect what is happening to the brain to some psychological function.
Franz Gall’s Phrenology ● He is known as phrenologist. Prolific author. ○ He had some ideas on the right track, and others that were not. ○ He said that some parts of the brain are responsible for some action. ○ Some parts of the body grows if ur brain use that function repeatedly. ○ Can learn about peoples abilities by touching their bumps on the grain. ■ Parts of the brain that are used more grow and create bumps, that you can use to see/analyze the functions of the brain. ■ This Is not how localization in the brain works. ● Hard to configuration of the brain ○ Brain is localized, but he is wrong about the bumps and traits. ○ Scientist eventually figured out what part of the brain is specialized in wnat specific part.
The Case of Phineas Gage (1848)
- hE was a railroad worker.
- Job was to blow up the things in the way of the building of the railroad.
- One day he was doing this, the dynamite exploded as he was trying to put it down. The rod shot through his skull. Most would die, but Gage did not and lived for many years after.
- His experiences were informaitve to what part of the brain the rod went though and the effect of function.
- He had a lack of impulse control.
- The information of His “before” personality was sparse.
