objective 34: summarize the gestalt principles of perception.
Thanks to the Psych Files, the Gestalt Principles of Perception are all summarized in the video below!
objective 35: describe the processes of depth perception and size constancy.
Depth perception is the ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two dimensional and allows us to judge distance. Depth perception allows us to judge how far away a car is from us. Even young children have depth perception. Eleanor Gibson and Richard Walk proved this by their visual cliff device. Size constancy is the knowledge that an object has the same size no matter the distance the object is from you. Below are an image and video of how these work.
Psychology Tenth Edition in Modules
Psychology Tenth Edition in Modules
objective 36: explain the relationship between size constancy and the muller-Lyer illusion.
Size constancy is the recognition that even though an object is really close or far away, the actual size of the object doesn't change. The Muller-Lyer illusion is This is one of the best known geometric illusions. It consists of two lines which are equal and bordered by fins. The one with the outgoing brackets is seen as larger than the one with the inward brackets. It was first reported in 1889 by Franz Muller-Lyer and has been studied repeatedly over the years. For instance, some theorized that the feedback from eye scans contributed to the effect, the inward fins truncating a scan and the outward fins permitting a wider scan. Since tachistoscopically presented lines (faster than any possible scan) still elicit the illusion, this hypothesis is not tenable. Below are a couple examples of how the Muller-Lyer illusion works in finding out that two objects are the same size when they appear different!
Psychology Tenth Edition in Modules
Psychology Tenth Edition in Modules
objective 37: describe the characteristics of short term and long term memory and the theories of forgetting.
Long term memory and short term memory are two very different things. In long term memory, we have our knowledge, skills, and experiences: relatively permanent things that fit in limitlessly. According to the latest theory, long term memory differs structurally and functionally from all the other types of memory. Long term memory can be divided into three processes: encoding, storage, and retrieval.
Short term memory is activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as seven digits of a phone number while dialing, before the information is stored or forgotten. Short term memory is also referred as primary or active memory. The estimated time that short memory works is around a few seconds, so not very long at all. In the Disney movie "Finding Nemo", the beloved fish named Dory tells us about her short term memory loss!
Short term memory is activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as seven digits of a phone number while dialing, before the information is stored or forgotten. Short term memory is also referred as primary or active memory. The estimated time that short memory works is around a few seconds, so not very long at all. In the Disney movie "Finding Nemo", the beloved fish named Dory tells us about her short term memory loss!
The many theories of forgetting are listed and described fully at the following website: http://www.simplypsychology.org/forgetting.html
Psychology Tenth Edition in Modules
Psychology Tenth Edition in Modules
objective 38: describe the different theories of motivation.
In our textbook, three different types of motivation are identified:
Psychology Tenth Edition in Modules
- Instinctive theory: motivation by evolutionary programming and dispositions. Examples of instinctive behaviors include our primitive reflexes that can especially be found in infant humans and other mammals like rooting and suckling to achieve food.
- Drive-reduction theory: motivation or aroused state to fulfill a physiological need. The primary goal of drive-reduction theory is to maintain a balanced, constant internal state. Food and water are needs, and if we feel hungry or thirsty we are driven to eat or drink until we no longer feel that way.
- Arousal theory: motivation to achieve high levels of arousal or sensation. OUr performance is best when our arousal level is neither too high nor too low.
Psychology Tenth Edition in Modules
objective 39: summarize the ethical guidelines for research on human subjects.
The following article is copied verbatim from the 1981 APA Ethical Guidelines for Research with Human Subjects. This list is extremely helpful at thoroughly describing the ethical research guidelines. These guidelines are used for many things and it is extremely important for psychologists to abide by them.
APA (American Psychological Association)
Ethical Guidelines for Research
with Human Subjects
The decision to undertake research rests upon a considered judgment by the individual psychologist about how best to contribute to psychological science and human welfare. Having made the decision to conduct research, the psychologist considers alternative directions in which research energies and resources might be invested. On the basis of this consideration, the psychologist carries out the investigation with respect and concern for the dignity and welfare of the people who participate and with cognizance of federal and state regulations and professional standards governing the conduct of research with human participants.
Below is a more brief, visual examples of what the ethical guidelines must follow.
Copyright 1981 by the American Psychological Association.
http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~raulin/apaethic.html
APA (American Psychological Association)
Ethical Guidelines for Research
with Human Subjects
The decision to undertake research rests upon a considered judgment by the individual psychologist about how best to contribute to psychological science and human welfare. Having made the decision to conduct research, the psychologist considers alternative directions in which research energies and resources might be invested. On the basis of this consideration, the psychologist carries out the investigation with respect and concern for the dignity and welfare of the people who participate and with cognizance of federal and state regulations and professional standards governing the conduct of research with human participants.
- In planning a study, the investigator has the responsibility to make a careful evaluation of its ethical acceptability. To the extent that the weighing of scientific and human values suggests a compromise of any principle, the investigator incurs a correspondingly serious obligation to seek ethical advice and to observe stringent safeguards to protect the rights of human participants.
- Considering whether a participant in a planned study will be a subject at risk or a subject at minimal risk, according to recognized standards, is of primary ethical concern to the investigator.
- The investigator always retains the responsibility for ensuring ethical practice in research. The investigator is also responsible for the ethical treatment of research participants by collaborators, assistants, students, and employees, all of whom, however, incur similar obligations.
- Except in minimal-risk research, the investigator establishes a clear and fair agreement with research participants, prior to their participation, that clarifies the obligations and responsibilities of each. The investigator has the obligation to honor all promises and commitments included in that agreement. The investigator informs the participants of all aspects of the research that might reasonably be expected to influence willingness to participate and explains all other aspects of the research about which the participants inquire. Failure to make full disclosure prior to obtaining informed consent requires additional safeguards to protect the welfare and dignity of the research participants. Research with children or with participants who have impairments that would limit understanding and/or communication requires special safeguarding procedures.
- Methodological requirements of a study may make the use of concealment or deception necessary. Before conducting such a study, the investigator has a special responsibility to (1) determine whether the use of such techniques is justified by the study's prospective scientific, educational, or applied value; (2) determine whether alternative procedures are available that do not use concealment or deception; and (3) ensure that the participants are provided with sufficient explanation as soon as possible.
- The investigator respects the individual's freedom to decline to participate in or to withdraw from the research at any time. The obligation to protect this freedom requires careful thought and consideration when the investigator is in a position of authority or influence over the participant. Such positions of authority include, but are not limited to, situations in which research participation is required as part of employment or in which the participant is a student, client, or employee of the investigator.
- The investigator protects the participant from physical and mental discomfort, harm, and danger that may arise from research procedures. If risks of such consequences exist, the investigator informs the participant of that fact. Research procedures likely to cause serious or lasting harm to a participant are not used unless the failure to use these procedures might expose the participant to risk of greater harm or unless the research has great potential benefit and fully informed and voluntary consent is obtained from each participant. The participant should be informed of procedures for contacting the investigator within a reasonable time period following participation should stress, potential harm, or related questions or concerns arise.
- After the data are collected, the investigator provides the participant with information about the nature of the study and attempts to remove any misconceptions that may have arisen. Where scientific or humane values justify delaying or withholding this information, the investigator incurs a special responsibility to monitor the research and to ensure that there are no damaging consequences for the participant.
- Where research procedures result in undesirable consequences for the individual participant, the investigator has the responsibility to detect and remove or correct these consequences, including long-term effects.
- Information obtained about a research participant during the course of an investigation is confidential unless otherwise agreed upon in advance. When the possibility exists that others may obtain access to such information, this possibility, together with the plans for protecting confidentiality, is explained to the participant as part of the procedure for obtaining informed consent.
Below is a more brief, visual examples of what the ethical guidelines must follow.
Copyright 1981 by the American Psychological Association.
http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~raulin/apaethic.html
objective 40: define intelligence and the history of measuring it.
Intelligence, according to many different sources, is defined as the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations. Though it can be measured in many ways, intelligence was originally measured in Alfred Binet's mental aptitude test. A new, American revision of this test is known as the Standford-Binet; in this test, the results come from a ration of mental age to chronological age multiplied by 100, as termed the intelligence quotient. A brief history of the measurement of intelligence is given at the following link, ranging from examples of Binet's work to Wechsler's: http://www.iq-test.pl/iq-news/measuring-intelligence--a-brief-history/
At the left is a good example of how intelligence can be measured in more than one number in Wechsler's Adult Intelligence Scale.
Psychology Tenth Edition in Modules
At the left is a good example of how intelligence can be measured in more than one number in Wechsler's Adult Intelligence Scale.
Psychology Tenth Edition in Modules
objective 41: summarize the development of language formation.
Language, like we all know, is what knits society together as one developing unit. Though there are hundreds of languages throughout the entire world, each person who speaks the same language is then related in more ways than one. If you speak multiple languages, then you can relate to what people who speak your foreign language. This is all because we understand what each other is saying. Even in some instances when we don't speak the same language as another person, we can often understand what they're saying based on tone and the roots of the words. By definition, language is the method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way. But how is the formation of a language developed?
As babies, we all start without language (meaning we are unable to speak), but by the time a person is 4 months old, they can recognize differences in speech sounds and begin to read lips, marking the beginning of the development of receptive language. Receptive language is the ability to understand what is said to or about them by breaking down sentences into individual words. After the receptive language stage comes the productive stage of language formation. In the productive stage comes substages, from babbling stage, to one-word and two-word telegraphic speech. At about four months old, children go through the babbling stage where they spontaneously make various sounds that are typically unrelated to household language. Children in this stage cannot be considered to be imitating adult speech from their household because the sounds they are babbling could come from any language. Once the child reaches one year of age, he/she enters the one-word stage and speaks mostly in single words until age 2. At two years old, the child reaches the two-word stage and speaks in two-word statements. These two-word statements are known as telegraphic speech, where a child speaks like a telegram using mostly nouns and verbs. This telegraphic speech also follows correct syntax where the words are in a sensible order (an English-speaking child may say green book while a Spanish-speaking child would say libro verde). After this stage, children rapidly learn how to make complete sentences out of words.
As babies, we all start without language (meaning we are unable to speak), but by the time a person is 4 months old, they can recognize differences in speech sounds and begin to read lips, marking the beginning of the development of receptive language. Receptive language is the ability to understand what is said to or about them by breaking down sentences into individual words. After the receptive language stage comes the productive stage of language formation. In the productive stage comes substages, from babbling stage, to one-word and two-word telegraphic speech. At about four months old, children go through the babbling stage where they spontaneously make various sounds that are typically unrelated to household language. Children in this stage cannot be considered to be imitating adult speech from their household because the sounds they are babbling could come from any language. Once the child reaches one year of age, he/she enters the one-word stage and speaks mostly in single words until age 2. At two years old, the child reaches the two-word stage and speaks in two-word statements. These two-word statements are known as telegraphic speech, where a child speaks like a telegram using mostly nouns and verbs. This telegraphic speech also follows correct syntax where the words are in a sensible order (an English-speaking child may say green book while a Spanish-speaking child would say libro verde). After this stage, children rapidly learn how to make complete sentences out of words.
The development of language in deaf children or adopted foreign children is commonly thought as a challenge, but it actually much quicker and easier for the child. Since the child is often over the age of two before they receive a cochlear implant or are adopted, they go through the same language development sequence at a faster rate. The picture to the left gives an accurate, yet comical representation of the development of language in children from any country. In the one-word stage of language development, we see prelinguistics and the growth of phonology. As the child reaches the two-stage and learns telegraphic speech, the understanding of semantics and grammar has begun. As the child grows out of the two-word stage and begins to create full sentences, profanity could also be potentially found!
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/
Psychology Tenth Edition in Modules
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/
Psychology Tenth Edition in Modules