Unit 5 Ch 4 - Part 2. Hearing and the Auditory System!

The organization that gives out the Nobel Prize has a great website about the ear and how it works.

If you're having trouble understanding the accessory structures and the cochlea this site is for you.

Animations and interactives that explain the ear.

The Sumanas inc. video goes into great detail about the inner ear.
http://www.sumanasinc.com/webcontent/animations/content/soundtransduction.html

Another video on YouTube is great 3D animation that takes you into the ear as if you are a sound wave... it demonstrates the movements in the middle and inner ear with classical music... fantastic piece. The link is at http://youtu.be/PeTriGTENoc - since it's YouTube it may not work at school... 

Hearing Tests: 
You need over-the-ear headphones and a decent computer to use this (not medically accurate) hearing test, but it's interesting to check out even if you don't have the right set-up.  Keep your volume at a moderate level, and if you stop hearing the tone DO NOT increase the volume to try to hear it. 

This website has lots of different tone generators including this hearing test. 

This one:  http://youtu.be/h5l4Rt4Ol7M  is a YouTube video, so it may not work at school. 

Mr. Cantor who was born in 1964 can hear sounds below roughly 14,000 Hz. How about you? -- 
YouTube actually compresses  audio, so this may not be accurate. Try the link above for more accuracy. 

Unit 5 Ch. 4 - PART 1 of Sensation: Vision!

Unit 5: Sensation Bernstein Text, Chapter 4 Pp. 104-149

Unit Quiz on Thurs. Nov 8
Coloring Packet (10 pts) Due: Thurs. Nov. 1 (but start reading and notes right away…)
Notes check (10 pts): Due: Mon. Nov. 5 (~5-8 pages per day)
FlashCards Check (10 pts) Due: Wed. Nov. 7 (Work on these as you read…)

Fantastic animations about the eye, visual processing in the retina and the pathways that visual information travels in the brain.

This beautiful hand painted animation is a great overview.   https://youtu.be/EskTnxBoPoI

Pay close attention to the "center-surround" aspects of retinal processing in this Web Animation below. The narrator's voice is a bit boring, but it's a great video that explains the whole "center-surround" opponent process thing. 

This animation shows how the photoreceptors, bipolar and ganglion cells of the retina are organized in "center-surround" arrangements that allow "bottom up" processing of visual information to begin in the retina. 

http://www.sumanasinc.com/webcontent/animations/content/receptivefields.html

If a picture is worth a thousand words, an animation is worth way more. This animation really shows the visual pathway very well. Pay attention to how visual information is split in the Optic Chiasm and how it routs through the LGN of the thalamus as well as other areas specifically related to eye movement and the "biological clock" which controls circadian rhythms.

This excellent animation really explains how the visual information from the left and right visual fields makes its way to the right and left occipital lobes via the LGN of the thalamus. 

http://www.sumanasinc.com/webcontent/animations/content/visualpathways.html

Check out this amazingly comprehensive video that covers the visual system in about 10 minutes. It's on YouTube, so it may be hard to watch at school. Link: http://youtu.be/AuLR0kzfwBU

What do you see in the circle?

This site sells glasses that are supposed to correct for some color blindness. I don't know how well they work, but they do have a really nice color blindness test. http://enchroma.com/test/instructions/ 

Do you have "SuperVision? Are you a tetrachromat - a person with 4 

types of cones rather than 3? This website has a test for you. 

Ever wonder what those little blobs floating around your visual field are? They'r caused by shadows of little chunks of debris floating around in the vitreous fluid inside your eye-ball.  This video explains it all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6e_m9iq-4Q

And Hank's Crash Course Psychology is always good... 

https://youtu.be/unWnZvXJH2o

The Zimbardo "Discovering Psychology" video on Sensation and Perception can be found at this link. 

http://www.learner.org/resources/series138.html?pop=yes&pid=1504

Unit 4 Chapter 3 - Biological Basis of Psychology

Unit Quiz on Mon, Oct 22

Coloring Packet (10 pts) on Tues. Oct. 9

Notes check (10 pts): Due: Wed. Oct. 17

Flash Cards (10 pts) Due: Fri . Oct 19

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Superhero assignment due Mon. Oct. 22

Everything psychological is biological...

In other words, "Mind is what brain does..."

Objectives (think about these as you read):

1. Describe the general structure, organization and function of the central and peripheral nervous systems.

2. Describe the structure and function of neurons and other cells in the nervous system.

            3. How and why do neurons communicate with each other?

            4. What are “action potentials,” and how do they work?

5. Compare the somatic and autonomic parts of the peripheral nervous system.

6. Compare the important neurotransmitters.

7. Describe the endocrine system. What does it do?

8. Describe the various parts of the limbic system and what they do.

9. Describe the various parts of the cerebral cortex and what they do.

            10. Be able to explain how damage to a part of the brain may affect the organism.

Flash-Cards

1.     Key Term Flashcards: There are 63 Key Terms highlighted in the textbook. Do at least 45. Do 5 to 7 per day and you’ll be fine.

2.      Pictures/diagrams are important to this unit!

3.     Don’t freak out. I know it’s a lot of flashcards. It will be worth memorizing and understanding the key terms. You will need to review the flashcards before quizzes and exams in class and as you study for the AP exam.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


This site has some very easy to read descriptions of parts of the brain. Use it to help you understand what's between your ears if our book gets too confusing.  http://brainmadesimple.com/index.html

Our friend Hank discusses the chemistry of our brain...

Try this EdPuzzle link which asks you some questions as the video plays to check to see if you are understanding important points. It was developed by AP Psych teacher Mr. Mcentar. 

And Hank discusses the overall structure of the brain... from phrenology to Phineas to the old brain and the new brain.



Here is the EdPuzzle link for this video... try it out! Remember, quizzing yourself and connecting new information to old is the best way to learn new content.

More specifics about neurons and the nervous system... Thanks HANK! 



And... Hank on the Action Potential... You need to know the basics of how action potentials work. This video goes into a bit more detail than you'll need for the AP exam, but it's super solid. 

And the Synapse... where lots of the action happens! Focus on the chemical synapses... the electrical synapses are more specialized and more abundant in embryonic development than in our fully developed nervous system (and the chemical synapse will show up on the AP exam.)

A Neurotransmitter Infographic...

Click to enlarge.

Unit 3 Chapter 2 - Research Methods - Hair Length, Shoe Size, Height Blog Post

Here is the data folks submitted to the Google Form in class on Friday. I sorted according to each variable so you can easily figure out mean, median and mode etc. Use this data to complete the handout you received in class on Tuesday. THEN... read below to learn how to complete this assignment on in a comment on this blog post.

NOTE: There are several "outliers" or unusual data points in our data set. According to this, one person has a foot that's only 9 cm long. Another person is only 54 cm tall. How can that be? There are no such people in our class. In psych or any type of research, our conclusions are only as good as the data we use to form them. How we deal with errors in data collection is an important issue. 

In a comment to this post, please discuss each of the graphs below. Be sure to address the questions under each graph. Please don't copy the questions or number your answers, rather, you should write a paragraph or two in complete sentences so your reader knows what you are talking about. Be sure to sign in as "anonymous" but put your first name and last initial in the post so I know to whom to give the credit. If you have any questions please e-mail me. Review the "how to e-mail a teacher" post on my blog before you send your e-mail.(click on the graphs to enlarge)

I strongly suggest you write the comment in Word or another program and then copy and paste it into the comment section below. This way, if the comment doesn't go through or is accidentally deleted you'll have a record of your work. Feel free to e-mail it to me if you are afraid it didn't post. Please also remember that I have to approve all comments, so it may take a while for it to show up on the blog. You don't need to resubmit it over and over. 

Click on graphs to enlarge. 

Graph 1  Height v. Hair Length

Height vs. Hair Length
Correlation Coefficient = 0.166 

What can we see from the above scatter plot of hair length vs. height? Is there a correlation? How strong is it? If so, is it positive or negative; strong or weak? 

What information about the students in our class does this graph give you? Are there a few "outliers" or extreme data points that seem unusual? If you throw outliers out of the data set what does the correlation look like? What other information would be helpful to interpret the data? 

Graph 2
Height vs. Shoe Size 

Height Vs. Shoe Size
Correlation Coefficient = 0.526

Above is the data we collected about our shoe sizes vs our heights. Can you see a relationship? Is there a correlation? If so, is it positive or negative? How strong is it?  Does shoe size cause height to change? Does height cause shoe size to change? Why are some values so common while others are rare? Nobody in our class is only 50 cm tall. How do you think those low outlying data points happened? 

Graph 3 

Hair Length vs Shoe Size

Hair Length vs. Shoe Size
Correlation Coefficient = 0.016

Finally, the above graph shows the relationship between shoe size and hair length. Is there a correlation?  If so, is it positive or negative? How strong is it? Are the points clustered in an interesting way?  Does correlation imply causation? Why or why not? Three people have shoe sizes that are less than 10 cm. How did that data happen? What would the data look like without those outliers? 

And a video about ice cream and polio... 

Hank on Research Methods

And... more about the Standard Deviation



While you don't need to calculate the Standard Deviation on the AP exam, this video explains how to do it. You may find it helpful to go through the math to help you understand the concept better.