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Introduction to Psychological Science

4-0-8 units. HASS-S · Undergraduate

A survey of the scientific study of human nature, including how the mind works, and how the brain supports the mind. Topics include the mental and neural bases of perception, emotion, learning, memory, cognition, child development, personality, psychopathology, and social interaction. Consideration of how such knowledge relates to debates about nature and nurture, free will, consciousness, human differences, self, and society.

Fall 2004 · Introduction to Psychology

Topics

  • The Brain: Between the Ears, Behind the Eyes
  • Motivation and Emotion: “Reason Alone Cannot Move Us To Do Anything”
  • Learning: The Power of Association
  • Sensing: Gathering the Information
  • Attending: Limiting the Information
  • Perceiving: Interpreting the Information
  • Memory: What Do You Remember?
  • Cognition: How Do You Think?
  • Cognitive Development: How Do Children Think?
  • Language: What Do You Say?
  • Language Development: What Do Children Say?
  • Intelligence: How Do We Know You Are Smart?
  • The Battle of the Sexes: Love and Evolution
  • Social Exchange: Romantic Economics
  • Attitudes and Behaviors: How Can We Be Controlled?
  • Who Are You? The Psychology of the Self
  • From Dissociation To Repression
  • Freud and Fairy Tales
  • Sleep and Dreams
  • Defining Mental Illness: Are Suicide Bombers Insane?
  • Causing Mental Illness: What Can Make You “Lose” Your Mind?
  • Successful Disasters: Eating Disorders
  • Successful Disasters: Date Rape

Readings

  • The textbook readings are in Gleitman, Henry, Alan J. Fridlund, and Daniel Reisberg. Psychology. 6th ed. New York, NY: Norton, 2004. ISBN: 0393977676.
    Listed reading
  • Lec #: 1 · TOPICS: The Brain: Between the Ears, Behind the Eyes · TEXTBOOK READINGS: Chapters 1 and 2
    Reading assignment
  • Kettlewell, Julianna. “‘Fidelity gene’ found in voles.” BBC News, Science/Nature (June 16, 2004). Online edition.
    Listed reading
  • Diamond, Lisa M. “Emerging Perspectives on Distinctions Between Romantic Love and Sexual Desire.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 13, no. 3 (2004): 116-119.
    Listed reading
  • Lim, Miranda M., Zuoxin Wang, Daniel Olazabal, Xianghui Ren, Ernest Terwilliger, and Larry Young. “Enhanced partner preference in a promiscuous species by manipulating the expression of a single gene.” Nature 429 (2004): 754-757.
    Listed reading
  • Balaban, Evan. “Why voles stick together.” Nature 429 (2004): 711-712.
    Listed reading
  • McIlroy, Anne. “Could voles help create the perfect husband? Using genetic manipulation, U.S. researchers find a way to make philandering creatures more faithful.” The Globe and Mail (June 17, 2004). Online edition.
    Listed reading
  • Lec #: 2 · TOPICS: Motivation and Emotion: “Reason Alone Cannot Move Us To Do Anything” · TEXTBOOK READINGS: Chapter 3 · ASSIGNED PAPERS: Calder, Andrew J., Andrew D. Lawrence, and Andrew W. Young. “Neuropsychology of fear and loathing.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2, no. 5 (2001): 352-363.
    Reading assignment
  • Lec #: 3 · TOPICS: Learning: The Power of Association · TEXTBOOK READINGS: Chapter 4
    Reading assignment
  • Dingfelder, Sadie F. “Pavlovian Psychopharmacology.” Monitor on Psychology 35, no. 3 (2004): 18-19.
    Listed reading
  • McDonald, Robert V., and Shepard Siegel. “Intra-Administration Associations and Withdrawal Symptoms: Morphine-Elicited Morphine Withdrawal.” Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology 12, no. 1 (2004): 3-11.
    Listed reading
  • Siegel, Shepard, and Barbara M. C. Ramos. “Applying Laboratory Research: Drug Anticipation and the Treatment of Drug Addiction.” Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology 10, no. 3 (2002): 162-183.
    Listed reading
  • Lec #: 5 · TOPICS: Attending: Limiting the Information · TEXTBOOK READINGS: Chapter 5 · ASSIGNED PAPERS: Wolfe, Jeremy M., and Todd S. Horowitz. “What attributes guide the deployment of visual attention and how do they do it?” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 5, no. 6 (2004): 495-501.
    Reading assignment
  • Lec #: 6 · TOPICS: Perceiving: Interpreting the Information · TEXTBOOK READINGS: Chapter 6
    Reading assignment
  • Ernst, Marc O., and Heinrich H. Bulthoff. “Merging the senses into a robust percept.” Trends in Cognitive Science 8, no. 4 (2004): 162-169.
    Listed reading
  • Freeman, William T. “The generic viewpoint assumption in a framework for visual perception.” Nature 368, no. 6471 (1994): 542-545.
    Listed reading
  • Kersten, Daniel, and Alan Yuilley. “Bayesian models of object perception.” Current Opinion in Neurobiology 13, no. 2 (2003): 150-158.
    Listed reading
  • Brainard, David H., and William T. Freeman. “Bayesian color constancy.” Journal of the Optical Society of America A 14, no. 7 (1997): 1393-1411.
    Listed reading
  • Lec #: 7 · TOPICS: Memory: What Do You Remember? · TEXTBOOK READINGS: Chapter 7
    Reading assignment
  • Debiec, Jacek, Joseph E. LeDoux, and Karim Nader. “Cellular and Systems Reconsolidation in the Hippocampus.” Neuron 36 (2002): 527-538.
    Listed reading
  • Kandel, Eric R. “The molecular biology of memory storage: a dialog between genes and synapses.” Nobel Lecture, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Columbia University, New York, U.S.A., December 8, 2000.
    Listed reading
  • Pillemer, David B., and Lynn R. Goldsmith. “Very Long-Term Memories of the First Year in College.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 14, no. 4 (1988): 709-715.
    Listed reading
  • Slotnick, Scott D., and Daniel L. Schacter. “A sensory signature that distinguishes true from false memories.” Nature Neuroscience 7, no. 6 (2004): 664-672.
    Listed reading
  • Lec #: 8 · TOPICS: Cognition: How Do You Think? · TEXTBOOK READINGS: Chapter 8
    Reading assignment
  • Wegner, Daniel M., and Thalia Wheatley. “Apparent Mental Causation.” American Psychologist 54, no. 7 (1999): 480-492.
    Listed reading
  • Wegner, Daniel M. “Ironic Processes of Mental Control.” Psychological Review 101, no. 1 (1994): 34-52.
    Listed reading
  • Lec #: 9 · TOPICS: Cognitive Development: How Do Children Think? · TEXTBOOK READINGS: Chapter 12
    Reading assignment
  • Hauser, Marc D., Noam Chomsky, and W. Tecumseh Fitch. “The Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who Has It, and How Did It Evolve?” Science 298 (2002): 1569-1579.
    Listed reading
  • Fitch, W. Tecumseh, and Marc D. Hauser. “Computational Constraints on Syntactic Processing in a Nonhuman Primate.” Science 303 (2004): 377-380.
    Listed reading
  • Lec #: 11 · TOPICS: Language Development: What Do Children Say? · TEXTBOOK READINGS: Chapter 9
    Reading assignment
  • Lec #: 12 · TOPICS: Intelligence: How Do We Know You Are Smart? · TEXTBOOK READINGS: Chapter 14
    Reading assignment
  • Duncan, John, et al. “A Neural Basis for General Intelligence.” Science 289 (2000): 457-460.
    Listed reading
  • Flynn, J. R. “The Flynn Effect: Rethinking intelligence and what affects it.” 2004. Unpublished manuscript.
    Listed reading
  • Lec #: 13 · TOPICS: The Battle of the Sexes: Love and Evolution · TEXTBOOK READINGS: Chapter 10
    Reading assignment
  • Lec #: 14 · TOPICS: Social Exchange: Romantic Economics · TEXTBOOK READINGS: Chapter 11
    Reading assignment
  • Baumeister, R. F., and K. D. Vohs. “Sexual economics: Sex as female resource for social exchange in heterosexual interactions.” Personality and Social Psychology Review . (In press)
    Listed reading
  • Buss, David M. “Human Mating Strategies.” Samfundsokonomen 4 (2002): 47-58.
    Listed reading
  • Lec #: 16 · TOPICS: Who Are You? The Psychology of the Self · TEXTBOOK READINGS: Chapter 15
    Reading assignment
  • Lec #: 18 · TOPICS: Freud and Fairy Tales · TEXTBOOK READINGS: Chapter 13 · ASSIGNED PAPERS: Crick, Francis, and Christof Koch. “A framework for consciousness.” Nature Neuroscience 6, no. 2 (2003): 119-126.
    Reading assignment
  • Lec #: 20 · TOPICS: Defining Mental Illness: Are Suicide Bombers Insane? · TEXTBOOK READINGS: Chapter 16
    Reading assignment
  • Lec #: 22 · TOPICS: Successful Disasters: Eating Disorders · TEXTBOOK READINGS: Chapter 17
    Reading assignment
  • Mednick, Sara, Ken Nakayama, and Robert Stickgold. “Sleep-dependent learning: a nap is as good as a night.” Nature Neuroscience 6, no. 7 (2003): 697-698.
    Listed reading
  • Maquet, Pierre, and Perrine Ruby. “Insight and the sleep committee.” Nature 427 (2004): 304-305.
    Listed reading
  • Wagner, Ullrich, Steffen Gais, Hilde Haider, Rolf Verleger, and Jan Born. “Sleep inspires insight.” Nature 427 (2004): 352-355.
    Listed reading
  • Stickgold, Robert, April Malia, Denise Maguire, David Roddenberry, and Margaret O’Connor. “Replaying the Game: Hypnagogic Images in Normals and Amnesics.” Science 290 (2000): 350-353.
    Listed reading
  • Gleitman, Henry, Alan J. Fridlund, and Daniel Reisberg. Psychology . 6th ed. New York, NY: Norton, 2004. ISBN: 0393977676.
    Listed reading
  • Please Note: We expect you to have done the reading by the date listed on the syllabus. More precisely, we assume that you will show up in recitation having done the assigned reading. Thus, if Chapter 3 is assigned for session 2, you can be quizzed on it on next day. Timing is bit less stringent for a chapter that is assigned for a Thursday. Since all recitation fall between the Tuesday and Thursday lectures, you have the weekend to read the chapter.
    Listed reading

Prerequisites & course information

Prereq: None U (Spring) 4-0-8 units. HASS-S

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