Chapter 4 States of Consciousness Lecture July 22nd Cancelled. Tomorrow July 20th will be our first test. Exam will be handed out no later than 9:00 and as soon as the first exam is returned no one who comes in late will be able to take the exam. Test format will be varied. (I recomend being ready for essay and short answer.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- P 92 In text Book... One thing that became apparent during the study of the central nervous system was that particulur brain regions seemed critical (or to do) for certain behaviors. Brain Tissue Sections Cerebral Cortex - top tissue section on brain - Very different in different species. The size of this changes the most in variation of species. Ex: amoeba to human; none to largest cerebral - Frontal plays a role in orginization, logic, inhibition of behavior - Occipital cortex processes primary visual information - Motor Cortex - processes necessary motor activation etc... - Sematisensory cortex - processes sensory information in the body - More brain mass devoted to better areas of sense (like the face) - less brain mass devoted to areas with little sensing (fore-arm) Thalamus - Blueish area in the middle - Different sensory information travels through this region and then is sent to other parts of the brain. - Acts as a relay (both from and to) - Is a gating mechanism for sensory informatino in and out of the brain. - Is postulated as something that plays a roll in consciousness HypoThalamus - blueish area below thalamus - Plays roll in food intake, water intake, and regulation of sexual behavior. Petuitary Gland - Bulb section - referred to as master gland in body (controls all hormonal systems) Medula - Trace along medular line... - responsible for all motor reflexes - if you have a seizure here you die, (it kills breathing etc..) Cerebellum - Ghostish blue section - responsible for balance, different motor skills. - One of the first brain structures effecetd by low concentrations of alcohol. Hippocampus - Yellow Fat thing at the bottom - involved in memory Amigdala - - fundamental role in learning and memory (particularly in fear and memory) - adaptive behaviors in the future. - strong connection to the olfactory bulb, strong connection between memory and smell. Stock - Projects beyond the skull downward - contains nerve ending groups, etc... Brochazaria - Involved in the production of language. - One could understand language if this was broken but not produce it. - Due to brocha's legion Vernichizaria - Can produce language, but cannot understand what it means. (no comprehension - Vernichi's legion Solchi; Giri - Not super important at the moment. Some Legion Doug can't remember the name of... "To be or not to be" there are people who can't say this... (you think Brocha's legion) "Two Bee Oar Knot Two Bee" They can say this... They lost the ability to use prepositions and conjunctions. This shows that the brain parts do very specific things. Brief Survey Of Biology. Developement- Genotype is gene structure and phsyical biology. Expressions of genes in observable ways is called Phenotype. 46 Pairs of Chromosones. Genotype is not always representative of Phenotype. (There are dominant and recessive genes that make this happen) Brown eyes are dominant genes so they will always over come blue. (If they occured in one homo and one heterozygous parent comparison) Homozygous - the same Heterozygous - different Some traits are sex-linked (They travel with the sex chromosone) Genotype can't be predicted solely on phenotype. Complex behaviors are very diffictul to run pundetts and other analysis on; becuase many factors including sex-linked genes and dominant and recessive traits etc.. are multiplied. Stimulation in children (newborn age) - Stroking the cheek cuasing its head to rotate towards the cheek that is stiumulated. - Laying them down and rotating them while their eyes are oriented towards you. During the first few months of developement, axons begin growing down and innervating the different necessary tissue. Like lumbar muscle systems (allowing the head to be held up.) When a child is born it contains all the neurons it will need. It used to be thought that those were all we'd get and damage to some is permanent and excludes the sites that they were attatched to. - This isn't so. Neurons in the periphary will regrow. Throughout the life span new neurons in the brain are formed and they become functional. It happens more in females, and occurs across the ventricle lines. Male songbirds only sing during the mating season. - right before mating season the singing neurons grow and activate - right after they die off. Neurons are very plastic in how they act. You can see the dendritic field grow substantially during early developement, which is a period of tremendous growth. Head Start- Take children pre-school age and put them in rich environments and show them how to learn so that when they get to school they learn much more than other students. To research this... We have taken rats and split them into two groups. Impovrished - They have food and water, and there is only one animal per cage. Enriched environment - There are several animals in the cage and there are tubes and blocks and other learning type objects. Then they are all taught a task. And the enriched group will learn it faster and better. Then when the brains are sliced we see a much greater amount of dendritic spines in the Enriched brain tissue. Doug says always label your axis on your graph... (That means you lose lots of points if you don't label them.) Stages of Developement... Four Stages of Developement. 1.) Sensory Motor Stage (From Birth to age 2) - everything is understood by sensory systems (through the mouth esp.) 2.) Preoperational stage (age 2 to 7) - Symbolism of certain things becomes more obvious. - Reading: the words represent something in the phsyical world. 3.) Concrete Operational Stage - A little bit more of the abstract thought is incorporated (but not alot). - Learning is best done with concrete demonstrations 4.) Formally Reasoning (age - Learning is done on abstract level, and symbollism is well understood. - Concepts are learnable. Order of birth is a very important aspect of developement. - Order in essence dictates environment. END July 14, 2004 Chapter 2 Doug forgot that we would need to meet on Fridays so those class days will be "knowledge integration days" / review days Doug would be wrankled if you came in late and asked him to repeat stuff. Final Test on Friday August 13th, at 8:55, 10:35 Doug got his Season Tickets for Football this week. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Science and the Scientific Method Understanding, predicting, altering behvaior, would be easier if we had a method that was rigorous at some level to gauge and test each idea. The scientific method has some concepts which need to be grasped (both the positive and negative aspects) 1.) Theory - This is an idea about how we think things exist. We draw conclusions, and come up with statements that either support or destroy the idea. 2.) Hypothesis - We create a Hypothesis about what will happen and then we test it. The Hypothesis is shown to be true or false (usually). 3.) Experiment - We create or execute an experiment that accurately represents the idea being tested. 4.) Collecting Data - we then collect all the data from the experiment. 5.) Scalers - We use large numbers that represent different groups of the sample data, converting thousands into five groups etc... Ex: 10,000 basket players being classified into 5 groups of positions. this is done (despite its throwing out of certain data) to simplify and make it easier or possible to use. 6.) Comparison - We get a result from the data scalar, we examine the hypothesis in comparison to the data. Is my hypothesis supported? Or is it not supported? Thats the questions that is asked. If not, then the theory itself may be inccorect and we modify it. Theory ultimately leads to Data, which in turn leads back to Theory. ***We never completely prove something correct all we ever do is SUPPORT things. (In all of science)*** We're interested in getting information about Groups. These groups are called POPULATIONS. All the things that exist, have existed, ,will exist? With certain qualifications. You can whittle your populations down with more certain qualifications. Ex: general Population= College Students ever, then down to, American College students, then American College Students at this current period in time. (This won't tell you anything about any other type of college student.) Then you'd have a circle and every person that meets our criterion for the population would be inside of that circle. To have a completely accurate sample of the population you'd have to sample every person that fit into that population. however in some cases that is entirely impractible. (In cases of extremely large sample sizes etc...) We draw a SAMPLE from a population, then hope that the data we draw from the sample provides information about the population. Samples are much easier to measure. (remember they're less accurate!) The fundamental weakness in doing science this way, is that what if you draw a sample that does not represent the whole very well? Ex: Classical examples: Dewey and Truman run against each other, the Chicago Tribune took a sample of registered voters who are likely to vote and called people across the country, the results showed Dewey, There sample had a hidden Caveat inside of it which was people that have phones. The next day Truman was the winner. SAMPLING BIAS. The protection agains this is Random Selection. Because we don't measure everbody in the sample, the sample will not provide a measure that is correct. when a score is reported, the Mean is usually reported but also the Standard deviation is reported. We are 95% sure that the correct score is within in the range of scores that is the Standard Deviation. Types of Studies that can be Executed. 1.) Observational Study - Researcher goes into an environment and observes something without attempting to intereact with that thing in any meaningful way. Ex: People watching, marriage counseling, Jane Goodall Keys to doing it correctly: be as unobtrusive as possible, use cameras. 2.) Single Case study - working with one individual and describing just that one case. Ex: Psychological counseling. Etc... --> external validity is gained by being less and less obtrusive <-- 3.) Correlational Study - You take your sample and measure two things. Then you ask is their a relationship to these two things? Ex: How much money you make compared to how much money you spend. Positive Correlation Money I / Made I / I / Positive Relationship I / I / I/_______________________ Money Spent (+)It can also be the less you make the less you spend etc... Negative Correlation I Engine I\ Size I \ Negative Relationship I \ I \ I____\__________________ Miles Per Gallon Certain conclusion are absurd to be drawing from a correlation. (Causality) To prove causality you must perform a classic experiment. Two groups are involved-- the control, and the experimental. Start with a population. then draw a sample, then randomly assign subjects from the sample to either the control and the experimental groups. Something happens to the Experimental group that does not happen to the control group. AN independent variable (one group does something one group doesn't) Then we measure the DEPENDENT variable. If there is a difference between these two groups then it is reasonable to assume that there is a cuasality in the independent variable. ----> ETHICS IN RESEARCH. If Human... Your health can't be jeopardized. If you want you can quit the study at any point. Your ananemity should be protected. If its medical you should provide proper treatment. Research is reviewed by an IRB (institutional review board) which says an experiement is not too risky, or is too risky for humans. In Animals... The release of the Animals back into the wild is prohibited. (Death) IACUC (Institutional Animal Care and Use Commitee) Look at stress in animals for the experimental period. If they say you can't do an experiment, then it is a felony to conduct the experiment. When an animal is putdown/ euthanized it must fall into one of three federally approved methods: 1.) Decapitation 2.) Lethal Injection 3.) Carbon Dioxide Poisoning.