More TED talks for psychology students

I saw the great list posted by Rob of 20 Compelling TED Talks for Psychology Students but I knew there were some in my bookmarks that I thought were worth adding. I started to put them in the comments of the original post but the HTML is a pain, so I'm adding a new post with more here. If you know of others, please post the names in the comments or send them to me!

Also, please check out the amazing interactive transcripts on TED. Not only is there a script you can follow, but just click any part of the transcript and you'll be transported to that part of the video. Brilliant!

• Dan Pink on the surprising science of motivation (one of my favorites)
• Philip Zimbardo shows how people become monsters ... or heroes (on Abu Ghraib)
• Heribert Watzker on the brain in your gut (good for motivation/neuroscience)
• Julia Sweeney has "The Talk" (a great introduction to development or sexual motivation - funny!)
• Charles Limb: Your brain on improv (creativity and the brain)
• Kim Gorgens: Protecting the brain against concussion

--- posted by Steve

TV alert: NOVA scienceNOW: How Does the Brain Work?

Watch the full episode. See more NOVA scienceNOW.

The fabulous Neil deGrasse Tyson and the folks at PBS' NOVA scienceNOW offer an episode right up our alley next week. According to the program description, "How Does the Brain Work" goes to Las Vegas and "delves into some pretty heady stuff, examining magic and the brain, artificial intelligence, magnetic mind control, and the work of neuroscientist and synesthesia researcher David Eagleman. Can we really believe our own eyes? Will machines one day think like us? Can magnetic wands effectively control brain functions and treat depression? Explore this and more."

And as one reviewer wrote, the better question might be: why does my brain not work as well as Neil deGrasse Tyson's?

Daryl Bem and Controversial Research

I was catching up on the television I recorded this week and saw Daryl Bem, famous from both his work at Cornell as a social and personality psychologist and from a research methods segment on Discovering Psychology.   Bem appeared on the Colbert Report on January 27, 2011 to discuss his recent research about psychic phenomena, which Colbert calls, "Time Traveling Porn."  Fascinating ideas that have critics (Ray Hyman of "Secrets of the Psychics" fame).   Check it out to see our field as interpreted by popular culture.  Some aspects of statistics are mentioned and Bem is potentially theorizing that the cause of the results may be quantum mechanics.  Because science is political, one could use this in a variety of ways as a discussion starter.  As usual, I was left wanting more discussion of the ideas.


posted by Chuck Schallhorn

20 Compelling TED Talks for Psychology Students

Kate Rothwell sent along this great list of "20 Compelling TED Talks for Psychology Students" (thanks Kate!). I was familiar with some of these, and a few of them have already been featured on this blog, but some of these are new and its great to have a list of them all in one spot! Please comment on this post with other TED talks you love, how you use/plan to use some of these TED talks in your classroom, or other ideas!

posted by Rob McEntarffer

ionpsych.com

Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris, authors of The Invisible Gorilla (about the selective attention video we all love to show, among other fascination topics) posted on their blog about a new project Dr. Simons is doing with his students: ionpsych.com.

Dr. Simons' students will be writing each week about new research across all the subdisciplines of psychology. This may be a great resource for interested high school psych students/teachers to dip into current areas of research in a concise and readable format. The first couple posts are about the ubiquity of fMRI data over EEG data in recent studies and the relationship between stress and perception.


posted by Rob McEntarffer

DSM Revisions - Inside the Battle

In a way, this post is a companion to the previous one about Crazy Like Us. I think WIRED magazine does a consistently great job of writing compelling science articles. Their recent article "The Book of Woe" is a fascinating look into the politics, battles, philosophical perspectives, and arguments involved in the current DSM revision process. Reading and discussing the article could help students understand the complexity of how psychological disorders get defined and how that process of definition is informed by scientific and social factors. I fear that I'm making the article sound a bit dry - it really is a compelling, exciting, and somewhat depressing (to me) read.


posted by Rob McEntarffer

Crazy Like Us

I struggled every year to figure out how to best integrate cross-cultural psychology research into my classroom. It was too "big" and diverse to be relegated to a subtopic in Social psychology, but I had trouble finding enough good resources for each of the other chapters. Matsumoto's cross cultural texts are great but they can be overwhelming and much of what he dives in to goes far beyond what we talk about in high school psychology.

I think Ethan Watters's book Crazy Like Us might one good answer to this dilemma. (Full disclosure: Mr. Watters sent the authors of this blog a couple copies of the book to look at - thanks!). Mr. Watters summarizes his incredible research very effectively and accessibly (longest reference section I've seen in QUITE a while - he was VERY careful in his scholarship). Each of the sections of the book looks at the "spread" of a diagnostic model/paradigm into a specific culture, including:

• Anorexia in Hong Kong
• PTSD in Sri Lanka
• Schizophrenia in Zanzibar
• Depression in Japan

The most profound/sad/startling section to me was "The Wave that Brought PTSD to Sri Lanka." Watters carefully describes how well meaning (heroic, in many ways?) American psychologists descended on Sri Lanka after the tsunami to help with the expected epidemic of PTSD. Watters found good evidence that media blitz about PTSD may have created powerful expectations about the disorder, interfering with diagnosis and treatment. This focus ignored established cultural norms for dealing with stress and grief. Watters does a great job avoiding blame - he carefully walks us through how the DSM notions of mental illness may be influencing other cultures.

A blog post is far too short to discuss the ideas/issues raised in this book, all of which could be used to start great discussions in your classroom. I encourage you to get the book and take a look. I expect you'll be as intrigued, surprised, saddened, and reflective as the book made me.

Other notes: students might enjoy Ethan Watters appearance on the Daily Show and his publisher's website has other related resources.


posted by Rob McEntarffer

TV Alert--Drug Effects on National Geographic-1/16-1/17/2011

This upcoming Sunday and Monday evenings (January 16-17, 2011), The National Geographic Channel is presenting the first of three shows that detail the effects of drugs on the human body.  Check your local listings for details and times.

The first is called "Drugged: High in Marijuana."
The second is called "Drugged: High in Cocaine."
The third is called "Drugged: High on Ecstasy."

Based upon what they have on the website, it appears to be an excellent overview of each drug and its physiological effects.  I suspect there will also be brain and psychological issues examined.  I will be recording these to be sure.

posted by Chuck Schallhorn

Google Global Science Fair!

Psychology teachers, it is time to represent! Google recently announced their Global Science Fair and it looks like it will be quite the event! There is an entire category for "Behavioral & Social Sciences", and it looks like a fabulous opportunity for high school psychology students. The prizes for winners are darn amazing (Trip to the Galapagos Islands! $50,000 scholarship! Internship at Google!) but the goal of the project is to raise awareness of the importance of science: "We’re introducing the first global online science competition ... to help make today’s young scientists the rock stars of tomorrow." Resources for teachers are available.

There have been other opportunities for student psych research for a while: The Whitman Journal of Psychology publishes high school psychology research. The Intel International Science Fair has a strong set of entries in psychology every year. Google's science fair is definitely the new kind of the block, and it would be GREAT if psych teachers helped students enter this great opportunity so that there is a strong psych showing!



posted by Rob McEntarffer

Placebo Effect and other "faulty thinking"

I saw this list of "Top 10 Common Faults in Human Thinking" and it looks to me like it might start useful discussions:

• Would students choose these 10 or would they argue for others?
• Some of the terms used in the list probably aren't in textbooks (e.g. reactance? Herd Mentality?). Are there terms similar to these concepts that could be used to be more precise?
• How were these "top ten" chosen? Is there a way to do this empirically?
  

One of the (many!) books on my psych. reading list is Cialdini's Influence - I bet it has a much more focused and researched list of "faulty thinking"

Note: I think someone tweeted a link to this Top 10 list, but now I can't find who so I can't give them credit. Help?

By the way, the picture attached to this email shows "Placebo Bands", which are, alas, sold out at the moment (I wanted to buy them for my psychology club!). Any enterprising teachers/clubs out there want to get in the ground floor of a new market? :)

posted by Rob McEntarffer

Mad World

With apologies to Tears for Fears fans, I prefer the Adam Lambert version of "Mad World."  The pace and vocals are haunting, giving the song a feeling of sadness and lamenting for how things are.  There is also a lyric applying to teachers.  This would be a great song to have students listen to and not only interpret the lyrics but also how music can evoke emotions.  Students can also be asked to create videos as to their interpretation of what the music means.

Mad World
All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places
Worn out faces
Bright and early for the daily races
Going no where
Going no where
And the tears are filling up their glasses
No expression
No expression
And in my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow
No tomorrow

And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
And I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very... mad world... mad world...

Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy birthday
Happy birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen
Sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me
No one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me
Look right through me

And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very... mad world... mad world...
Mad World
Mad World

This link is to a YouTube version of the song with lyrics that go with the song.

Here is Adam Lambert singing the song, but without the lyrics.


Here is another link for the Tears for Fears version of the song.


posted by Chuck Schallhorn

The Prisoner's Dilemma and My Aha Moment

Over break, I was working out and catching up on my podcasts, listening to my favorite, Radiolab from NPR.  There was a recent episode called, The Good Show.  The entire focus was on behavior that was nice, good, pleasant and altruistic.  Here is the description from Radiolab's site.

In this episode, a question that haunted Charles Darwin: if natural selection boils down to survival of the fittest, how do you explain why one creature might stick its neck out for another?

The standard view of evolution is that living things are shaped by cold-hearted competition. And there is no doubt that today's plants and animals carry the genetic legacy of ancestors who fought fiercely to survive and reproduce. But in this hour, we wonder whether there might also be a logic behind sharing, niceness, kindness ... or even, self-sacrifice. Is altruism an aberration, or just an elaborate guise for sneaky self-interest? Do we really live in a selfish, dog-eat-dog world? Or has evolution carved out a hidden code that rewards genuine cooperation?

So the episode opens with a brief interview with Richard Dawkins, then moves on to three case studies into every-day people who did incredibly heroic, altruistic things. 

Part 3 deals with the Prisoner's Dilemma, which, to be honest, after all the readings on psychology I've ever done has always remained a mystery to me--and that is why I am writing this entry.  I had my "A-ha"moment regarding the prisoner's dilemma and why it is an important concept.  The podcast describes the process and how it works so much more effectively than I could, so if you want to, skip to minute 40 of the podcast.  The storytelling contains the context in which the research took place, the computer programs that were used to determined the most successful strategy and more.  If you love radio, you must listen to this.

The last part of the podcast describes the application of the principles in everyday life--in fact, when the German and British soldiers had the breakfast and Christmas truce in World War I.  Fascinating.

posted by Chuck Schallhorn

Center for Nonverbal Studies

I was catching up on some emails and inside one of them was a link to this site, called Center for Nonverbal Studies.  The site is filled to the brim with anything and everything you could possibly want to know about nonverbal communication, from muscularity of facial expressions to citations of various scholarly work.  It would take hours to navigate and read everything here, but it could make for an excellent resource for students who are investigating the topic. 

From their site:

The Center for Nonverbal Studies (CNS) is a private, nonprofit research center located in Spokane, Washington. Underway since October 1, 1997, the Center's mission is to advance the study of human communication in all its forms apart from language. The Center's goal is to promote the scientific study of nonverbal communication, which includes body movement, gesture, facial expression, adornment and fashion, architecture, mass media, and consumer-product design.

From what I've read, nonverbal communication fits most appropriately within social psychology, with its emphasis on how our bodies and faces interact when others are around us.  Back in the late 80s and early 90s, before I taught AP Psychology (well, before it even existed) I taught an Advanced Psychology class in which NVC was an important unit.  Great stuff. 

If you recall Desmond Morris and his "Manwatching" book from the 70s or the followup studies on facial expressions by Paul Ekman, you may take pause realize that some of the content will belong in the emotions unit.  One could also tie this into the research unit with describing behavior of people with a focus of making sure not to infer while describing.

posted by Chuck Schallhorn

Elephant Communication and Infrasound

On December 27, 2010 on 60 Minutes, there was a segment repeat on elephants and communication (which can be found here).

The show examines the research methods for both naturalistic observation as well as analysis of the various frequencies of sounds.  As it turns out, elephants can create sounds that are below the level of human hearing which is about 20 Hertz.  The researcher has a wonderful explanation the process of how this was discovered.

The context of this for me is a demonstration of how there are visual and auditory frequencies that we cannot detect.  More on this topic later.


Here are some other sites that examine both the elephant communication system and infrasound.

The Elephant Listening Project

History/Overview of Infrasound on Wikipedia



posted by Chuck Schallhorn