The 12 Days of Psychology Class...Day 5: Steven Pinker, Steven Pinker, STEVEN PINKER

Steven Pinker.

Enough said...I love him and anything he touches. Saw this article about his work in my social media feed and read it immediately and loved it. This short article would go great as an opener in the Thinking and Language unit. Here's the article from Inc. called "The 20 Most Abused Words in the English Language." 

(Apologies on being out of the loop the past two days. I found myself at my parents/in-laws unexpectedly overnight without my computer and posting from my phone was tricky. Don't worry - I still got 7 more posts in me. I think.)

Still no snow here in Wisconsin. I'm hoping for a white New Year's Eve.

-----Posted by Amy Ramponi 

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Emotions, Language, and the Untranslatable

This is a cross-post to both the Teaching High School Sociology and Psychology Blogs.  This chart shows primary emotions and the less-used words that are related.  The chart also offers us some untranslatable nuanced terms that are found in other, non-English languages.

It is an infographic that I found from Mental Floss at this address:
http://mentalfloss.com/sites/default/legacy/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Other_Languages_b1.png

posted by Chuck Schallhorn

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Language Development in Children

The Children Development Institute in Orange, CA has developed a chart listing the "typical" language for a child develops from six months to eight years old. The site can be found at http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/development/language_development.shtml

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Broca's Area, Speech, and Wires in the Brain

Wires in the Human Brain Reveal Speech Surprise. That was the title of this article from Wired magazine. The article begins this way:

A rare set of high-resolution readouts taken directly from the wired-in brains of epileptics has provided an unprecedented look at how the brain processes language.

Though only a glimpse, it was enough to show that part of the brain’s language center handles multiple tasks, rather than one.

“If the same part of the brain does different things at different times, that’s a thunderously complex level of organization,” said Ned Sahin, a cognitive scientist at the University of California, San Diego.

The reality now is that as teachers of psychology, we oversimplify many ideas when it comes to brain parts and their respective functions. This article contains more insights into the complexity and a reminder to us that we need to keep asking questions and allowing for the scientific idea of "I don't know" and "this is what we know so far, but more is always being investigated and learned." Of course, that is one reason I love psychology--things are always changing--I kinda like that uncertainty.

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Psych in the news

My bookmarks are bursting at the seams! Many of these great links come via the incredible Mind Hacks blog featuring Vaughan Bell-- be sure to check it out regularly. Here's a few articles to get your week started:

• Great interview of Judith Rich Harris by The Frontal Cortex's Jonah Lehrer. Harris was the textbook editor who put the psychology world in a tizzy in 1998 with the release of her book The Nurture Assumption, which challenged the standing belief that parents play a major role in the shaping of their children's personality. Wrong, said Harris, and she pointed out the flaws in a number of research studies to back her assertions. The book is now out in an expanded edition and is a definite must-read for psychology teachers.
• Jonah Lehrer also writes about what we can learn from how the brains of babies work. The article features psychologist Allison Gopnik who has a forthcoming book called The Philosophical Baby (with its own YouTube intro here).
• NPR's Robert Kulwich does a piece on how language shapes thinking.
• The Obama administration is using applied psychology to get people to want the "change [they] can believe in." Vaughan at Mind Hacks wonders where the skepticism is to this approach.
• Discover Magazine looks at The Big Similarities & Quirky Differences Between Our Left and Right Brains.
• Is sex addiction an excuse, not a disease?
• Nature looks at how the MRI is changing the way we view the brain.
• Has the APA been slow to act when its members have been involved in torture?
• Epilepsy not as a storm in the brain, but an anti-storm?
• New Scientist looks at choice blindness -- how do we know what we want?
• An awesome (but long, naturally) look by the New Yorker at how drugs like Adderall are being used off-label to help non-ADHD people do better than before.
• A lecture on the connection between the fMRI and the four humours (!).

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Psych in the news

February 11

A new study has found that people grossly underestimate the length of these lines -- a finding which implies that we’re all misjudging distances as we drive, and are driving too fast as a result. (Science Daily)

A new procedure is attracting increasing attention because it allows people to move prosthetic arms more automatically than ever before, simply by using rewired nerves and their brains. (NYT)

Two groups have put together a stylebook to guide media professionals through the minefield of politically correct and politically incorrect ways of identifying and portraying the elderly. (NYT)

In recent years, scientists have started arriving at more counterintuitive insights about the circumstances that court choking. Well-meaning experts often advise performers to take their time—slowing down delivery, the thinking goes, helps to quell nervousness—but it is actually better just to get on with things if you are well rehearsed. (Scientific American)

A new study suggests that the location of a recollection in the brain varies based on how old that recollection is. (Scientific American)

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The Special Pre-Primer Powerpoint

The Special Preprimer is similar to a child's early reading book with symbols substituted for the actual words. Most teachers use a print or Powerpoint version of the book during the discussion of language development. I turn my AP Psychology classes into first graders and have them go through the primer no different than an elementary teacher would. The students volunteer to read a page and inevitably it turns into the whole class reading through each page out loud. We then discuss the problems people faced, how some people excelled, others dropped out and tried to hide, etc. The activity really brings back what it was like to learn to read. To download the Powerpoint file click here

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