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PSY 3891: Landmarks in Psychological Science 1:10 – 2:25 Tu/Thur, 316 Wilson Hall
Instructor: Randolph Blake http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/psychology/cogsci/blake/blake.html E-mail: randolph.blake@vanderbilt.edu
Guiding Principles for the course • The more the teacher teaches, the less the students learn. (Anonymous) • Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly. (Gypsy Rose Lee) • You’re entitled to your own opinions but not to your own facts. (D.P. Moynihan) • If you don't know where you're going, you'll wind up somewhere else. (Yogi Berra) Course Overview: The purpose of this course is to examine a sample of important topics within contemporary psychology and to learn how current thinking about those topics was shaped by earlier, landmark discoveries in the field of psychology. This isn’t a course devoted exclusively to history of psychology, because contemporary thinking represents the point of departure for each topic. Nor is it just an advanced survey course on contemporary psychology, because we’ll spend time considering how seminal works, both empirical and theoretical, defined our current thinking about each topic. Importantly, we will frame topics in ways that situate them within our everyday lives. Ideally, this course will empower us to become more discerning consumers of facts and opinions about psychology and more enlightened, empathetic individuals. Seminar format: In this course we –student and instructor - will be involved in framing questions, identifying resources for answering those questions and, finally, evaluating the validity and generality of those answers. Scholarly research is one pillar we’ll rely on to pursue this goal. But an equally important, second pillar is our shared personal experiences. Psychology, after all, is about us, so our class meetings will provide the opportunity to reflect on and share our ideas and discoveries about the topics under discussion. This means that we must be mindful to speak honestly and to listen thoughtfully. Course Summary Week 1 (1/12 & 1/14) Overview of where we’re going and how we’ll select our topics. What is the subject matter of contemporary psychology? What makes the study of psychology particularly enlightening and what makes it uniquely difficult? Reading for Week 1: The Unseen Mind (Wilson & Bar-Anan, 2008; if you’re really ambitiuous, also take a look at this classic paper by Nisbett & Wilson, 1977. Also start this week examining the contents of Faces and Minds of Psychological Science. RP1 due date: January 21, 2016. Weeks 2 (1/19 & 1/21) Is progress in psychology based on steady accumulation of knowledge or on revolutionary paradigm shifts in the manner introduced by Thomas Kuhn? (For the full text of Kuhn’s monograph, click here). Schools of thought in American psychology: behaviorism; cognitive revolution; evolutionary psychology; cognitive neuroscience (see video, too). Week 3 (1/26 & 1/28) Is free will an illusion? Conflicting views about self-control and responsibility. Situating free will within a world governed by determinism. Where does God fit in? Readings: Soon et al (and for reactions see this essay, this blog and/or this commentary); Koch; Baumeister; Week 4 (2/2 & 2/4) What is consciousness? Does sentience imply the presence of consciousness? Do animals have consciousness? Readings: Crick & Koch; Sperry (and see Gazzaniga); Chelsea Wald (and see Gallup). February 2nd is the deadline for approval of presentation topic. Click here for PDF of Week 4 PPT. Week 5 (2.9 & 2/11) A remarkable, serendipitous discovery Readings: Rizzolati; original report; the controversy about what mirror neurons are responsible for: listen to Ramachandran and then read Jarrett’s skeptical rejoinder to Ramachandran’s ideas. For a comprehensive review of mirror neurons, see Kilner & Lemon. PDF of Week 5 PPT. Week 6 (2/16 & 2/18) Fractionating memory: Mental travel backward and forward in time; how the brain might do it. Disordered memory: Auguste Deter and HM; Listen to this interview with Brenda Milner, who first worked with HM. False memories and their real-life consequences: Elizabeth Loftus TED talk and essay. Week 7 (2/23 & 2/25) Concepts and treatment of mental illness and depression. Szasz (see also this update), Rosenhan, HaslamKvaale. RP 2 due-date: February 25. See this evocative essay on a therapist’s conversations with a schizophrenic individual, and this essay about a scientific advance in our understanding of the cause of schizophrenia. Week 8 (3/1 & 3/3) Click here to access midterm exam (Due date 3/3) Week 9 Spring Break Week 10 (3/15 & 3/17) The enduring, provocative question of subliminal perception: can sensory messages presented outside of awareness impact our decisions/actions? Readings: Moore; Merikle et al; Pessiglione et al. Week 11 (3/22 & 3/24) Obedience to authority: Solomon Ash and Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo PDF of Week 11 PPT Week 12 (3/29 & 3/31) Development of sensory, cognitive and social capabilities, and the concepts of critical periods and neural plasticity. Traditional views: Harlow’s monkeys (article and video), Hubel & Wiesel’s cats (article and video); Noble’s study of brain development in children growing up in poverty. Contemporary views: Adult neural plasticity; Hebbian associative learning; epigenetics. Week 12 Notes. Week 13 (4/5 & 4/7) 4/5: Professor Richard McCarty in class; 4/7: Individual meetings about in-class presentations (schedule). RP3 on Rosenthal essay due-date: April 5th. Week 14 (4/12 & 4/14) In-class presentations; TU: GelmanReading GelmanPresentation (Behav. Econ.) MartinezReading MartinezPresentation (Mindfulness); TH: WhiteReading WhitePresentation (Lucid dreaming) HittiReading HittiPresentation(Childhood sexual abuse). Week 15 (4/19 & 4/21) In-class presentations cont. TU: AhnVideo/Reading1 & Reading2 AhnPresentation; SovaReading.SovaPresentation. TH: The future of psychology: will the marriage of mind and brain endure? Can this marriage offer hope for understanding disorders such as schizophrenia, autism and stress syndrome? Take-home Exam 2 Week 16 (4/25 – 5/4) Reading period and final examinations.
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