Unit 9 Consciousness

Unit 9 Consciousness

What if you could see normally but could not recognize faces... even your own? 

Writer Oliver Sacks of "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" fame has this condition and discusses his latest book about prosopagnosia in this interview from a public radio program called "To the Best of Our Knowledge." You can hear the interview and read the transcript at the following link: 

http://ttbook.org/book/oliver-sacks-facial-blindness 

Videos on Consciousness

Discovering Psychology program 13 "The Mind Awake and Asleep" is at http://www.learner.org/discoveringpsychology/13/e13expand.html 

Discovering Psychology program 14 "The Mind Hidden and Divided" is at 
http://www.learner.org/discoveringpsychology/14/e14expand.html

Starting to meditate? 
Here is a link to an online meditation timer. http://www.yourmeditationtimer.com/  It can help you concentrate in your meditation if you don't have to worry about how much time has passed. 

Mouse Party?

What would you see inside the brains of mice who were taking drugs? This interactive website gives you a glimpse inside the brains and synapses of mice on drugs including alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, heroin, meth, ecstasy, and LSD.

Identify how each drug affects the brain. What neurotransmitter(s) does it affect? Is it inhibitory or excitatory? Does it block re-uptake or work some other way? Which parts of the brain are most affected?

You can explore other effects of drugs of abuse here. 

Dream Journal  - You should be making entries into your dream journal every day. If you don't remember a dream from the night, you should write about what emotions or thoughts you had upon awakening. If you don't have anything to enter for a day, you should write about a dream you had some time in the past - even the distant past. 

The point of the dream journal assignment is to get you to pay attention to your dreams and to start to think about various theories of dream interpretation to see if you think they apply. 

Sensation - How the ear works.

Sensation... The Ear Pages on NobelPrize.org and a nice animation

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.

Here is a link to another animation about how the ear works
http://www.sumanasinc.com/webcontent/animations/content/soundtransduction.html

Animations about vision - the retina and visual pathways

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

Pay close attention to the "center-surround" aspects of retinal processing it this first video.

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

Some songs and videos relating to the nervous system

Here are links to some songs you might find helpful as you study the nervous system.


This really slick song about the nervous system was sent in by Marilyn R - This should win the Grammy for best use of autotune in the service of neuropsychological knowledge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRwPMICvbT4


Video of the spinal reflex arc - showing afferent and efferent pathways
http://youtu.be/wLrhYzdbbpE

Good video about the action potential - shows lots of detail about how the action potential works to send the signal down the axon of a neuron. You might want to watch it a couple of times while going over your notes.
http://youtu.be/7EyhsOewnH4


Neuroscience for Kids is a site with lots of great stuff, much of which is at a simpler level than AP, but it can still be fun and help you with some of the basics. The Brain Chemical Song is a pretty good review of neurotransmitters (if you don't mind the "Old McDonald" tune.)
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/songs.html

The Neuron Song- Slim Brady ft. Melody Minaj is a rap that goes into some pretty good detail - you have to deal with some pretty bad recording techniques and some voices that could use autotune.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sn9C4G-mJM

You can follow along with the lyrics which were posted on the YouTube page.

Nuron Song by Slim Brady ft. Melody Minaj

CHORUS:
Just gonna stand there and tell you bout Neurons,
So you don't fail the class and become a moron,
Just gonna stand there and tell you bout Dendrites,
Axons, Myelin Sheaths, Synapses and the like,
And all the things alike.
---

I can tell you bout them Dendrites, the branching extensions of a neuron,
The lyrics of this song will tell you bout them and they're dead on,
What do they do? They receive messages from the last one,
Also, they happen to be connected to the Axon!

That's the extension of this whole thing,
I mean, come on, what else could, possibly bring,
The neural impulse, they are so cool, make me wanna sing,
The part that covers it, it is called the Myelin Sheath!

That part's function is to speed things up,
Another interesting things the all or nothing principle,
It basically says when a neuron fires,
It's either on or, there's no in between, I'm not a liar

So what I'm saying is go ahead, try as hard as you want,
Lift up your arm as fast as possible and flaunt,
The fact that when a neuron fires, it's on or off,
Seriously, making a song a bout neurons is tough..

CHORUS

And all the things alike

When you get sick, what do you turn to, is it medicine?
For the neuron the Soma keeps it healthy, and I kid,
You not, it keeps it firing faster than Edison,
The next topic of talk, is the Refractory Period!

Everyone needs breaks, so the neuron does too,
Right after it fires, just a second or maybe two,
Another aspect that just seems really cool,
Is Action Potential, I'll fill you in on the news!

That is what the charge is called, I kid you not,
That even thought the neurons never technically touch,
The signal does not stop, how is this possible you'll ask?
Why simply by the power of all the Synapse-

ses, they just fill in the gaps and,
chillin relaxin, sittin and passin, the charge along,
I really hope this song will let me pass or mom, 
will beat me to a pulp, is that really what you want Demars?

CHORUS

And all the things alike

Blog Assignment #3 - The Shoe/Hair/Height correlation project.

Reading Scatter Plots and Understanding Correlations.

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. 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. 

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 them out of the data set what does the correlation look like? What other information would be helpful to interpret the data?

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? What about the person who is 160cm tall and has a foot that is 9cm long? Look at a ruler to see what 9cm looks like and explain what you think happened to cause that outlier. Does shoe size cause height to change? Does height cause shoe size to change? Does correlation imply causality - explain why or why not. 

Data Collection for Shoe Size / Hair Length Correlation Project

Use this form to enter your data.

Welcome to the School Year!

You have until Monday, Sept. 10th to finish the summer assignments. You can read the summer assignment sheet here.

Use your syllabus to make sure you are keeping up with the reading assignments. You should take meaningful Cornell Notes on every psych reading assignment. You can see a copy of the syllabus here. 

If there is a teachers strike you need to keep up with your reading...or even use your free time to get ahead. The AP Exam date will not change just because there is a teachers strike here in Chicago.