For good Journal stuff, and just in general, be aware of the New York Times online.
Several links are valuable; the home page is nytimes.com.
The first link of frequent psychological interest is the Science Section
The second link of frequent psychological interest is the Health Section
The Times also has a college page nytimes.com/college that allows search by subject -- like Psychology -- and provides articles that go back much further than the free week on the main site, as well as e-mail notification of subject area articles sent to students with an ".edu" e-mail address, so be sure to use your Webmail address when registering. Be aware that using just "Psychology" as your search area leaves out areas like: animal sciences, anthropology, biology, criminology, education, medical technology, mental health, neuroscience, philosophy, sociology, and zoology! Nonetheless, just using "Psychology" makes this link a very valuable tool for Journals, so use it.  Please make frequent visits if you can't get access to the paper itself (particularly Tuesday's Science Times section), and even if you can as there is new material all the time.  Science Daily - Mind & Brain News is consistently useful, and another good place to visit is Scientific American Online, it frequently has articles of psychological interest, either current or indexed.  Last, and sort-of least, don't forget Psychology Today.

For Module 1 and the class discussion of mind science, I direct you to my personal favorite links at the bottom of the sidebar on the right.  They're challenging, but worth a surf for the flavor of some of the great conundrums of life.

For Module 2 and our discussion of why scientific psychology generally is more dependable than "folk psychology," check out this site and, perhaps, write a journal on how you may have been misled.  Click here for an interesting example of the process.

In class we may have used the example of the Matrix trilogy and the way it engages the issue of skepticism and the problem of knowledge and the definition of the self.  Here's a link to an awesome Warner Bros. site where major philosophers have serious essays on the philosophy of The Matrix.  Psychology begins with classical Greek epistemology and never abandons the problems of epistemology, as we'll explore in the course, so check out this site if you dare.

For Module 3 on how neurons work and interact, see the following.  But before you go to any of the brain function links below, you are encouraged to read this playful but disturbing SF short story and then consider this.

If you really want to dynamically learn about how neurons work go to: http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/vlabs/neurophysiology/index.html  (When you get to this site enter the Lab, then on the  Neurophysiology Lab.) Work through the material there so that you could write a journal specifically illustrating the ionic movements, membrane changes, and electrical changes that characterize the resting potential and the action potential (the nerve impulse).  You might have to download the Shockwave player if you don't already have it.  Further discussion and illustration of  how neurons work can be found at this site.

Then go to this link to review how neurons integrate their impulse/neurotransmitter activity to form the "computational" substrate of thinking meat.

Next, for Module 4, go to this site that offers 3-D images of key brain locations and functions and start looking at brain anatomy. Go here to see this anatomy 'in the flesh' and with tutorial annotations.  The text may be barely OK for the exam, but these may help and also give you material for some Journals.

For students in the graduate Biological Bases of Behavior course, please link here to your page (though all are welcome).

Now, for Modules 9 & 10, take a look at the following links to help your understanding of classical and operant (instrumental) conditioning.   The second URL is the parent of the first, so just look for the stuff that seems helpful at either location; the second is the more comprehensive.  When you use the second URL, go to "Control Panel" and click on the appropriate one of the top two buttons to select either classical or operant conditioning.  BTW, this is an unusual site, as it reflects the author's philosophy of biology and faith, is his personal URL server, and may not always be up; keep trying as the conditioning stuff is first-rate.

 Classical (Pavlovian) conditioning (Module 9)
 Operant Conditioning (Module 10)

Not so fast; get back and at least study the bare bones of the stuff before the exam!
(This exam is typically given around Halloween, if the graphic needs explanation.)
Now, for those of you who liked Sniffy, the Virtual Rat,  just click on him/her here  to go to the publisher's site and have the opportunity to download a free (20 day) limited version to play with and condition on your computer.   Alas, although an intriguing possibility, it does not seem possible to train Sniffy to do anything other than lever-press.  Perhaps the programmers wanted to avoid funkier operants.
 

Development and Intelligence:

Piaget's main contribution to psychology is his developmental or "genetic epistemology."  Here are a couple of readings to augment our discussion.  Piaget's Background and Theory  and A Summary of Piaget's Theory.  Just as Piaget changed the 19th century idea of preformationism and simple ontogeny for cognition, Erik Erikson changed the Freudian psychosocial stages into a more global and "epigenetic" progression of social and behavioral challenges.  Here are a couple of readings for that part of our discussion. Erikson's Background and Theory and A Summary of Erikson's Eight Stages. 

Now, here are a couple of places to check out for the problem of defining, measuring, and using the construct of "intelligence."  The first is an excellent review of this complex construct with its scientific and social components often at odds. When you go to the second link below, you might also click on its home page (personality) for material that applies to the next Modules we'll study (19 &20).
 Intelligence Considered
 Defining Intelligence
 Measuring Intelligence
 

Personality: The Big Five 
 Click here for a discussion of these well-supported traits.
It's also interesting and instructive to take a personality test that will give your a score for where you stand on the Big Five, so click here and take this research test.  For another test with a different goal, go back and click on the two links for Modules 1 & 2.  If you haven't already done this, click on the second link first, take the test, and then click on the first link.  You'll see why.

Masculine and Feminine Sex Roles
Recently, class discussion of personality has addressed the issue of sex role definition and assessment.  The pioneer in this area is Sandra Bem, whose sex role and androgyny scale provides an interesting example of the problems of creating and validating trait instruments.  Take the "test" by clicking here, and then (not before!) click here and review how the scale was constructed, and when.  Do you think it's a good scale?  Is it still valid in today's culture?

Diagnosing Psychopathology: The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual)
 Click here for a general treatment of DSM-IV (go to Tables for the Disorders)
 Or click here to go directly to the Tables. Choose Alphabetic for most natural listing.
 

Effectiveness of Psychotherapy
Click here for a very good critical discussion of the Consumer Reports treatment of the issue.
 

Vision

   Here's a "Web book," The Joy of Visual Perception, that adds valuable detail to our text's treatment of sight!

For an opportunity to see the effects of the additive mixing of primary colors (as we do in class at the appropriate moment) click this link and be particularly concerned as to how good a yellow you can make by mixing red and green light on your monitor screen.  Then, try to make white by mixing all three additive primaries (add blue to your "yellow").  Can you explain how this works?  You should if you're ready for the exam or just interested in how color displays like this one (or your TV) work because there is no yellow or white light coming from them!

Visual Perception

Here's a way to get a journal topic: go one of these excellent sites offering  demonstrations and explanations of visual illusions: Michael Bach's marvelous Illusions site and Illusionworks Hall of Illusions, find an illusion that interests you and write a journal explaining how it "works" (what the underlying cognitive and/or brain processes are).  Or just review for the exam.

Sound: Its Physics and Audible Demonstrations

If you have a Java enabled browser (like Internet Explorer or Netscape, with Java 1.1+ enabled) this site has the only workable sound demonstrations I've found.   Click here to go to the site and then be sure to try all the Interactive Sound Lab demos!   A very good demonstration of how the ear codes the sound waveform is simply to listen to music of your choice that has a wide variety of pitch and timbre using Microsoft Media Player with the Visualizations set to "Bars" of the "Bars and Waves" option.  Another is to use the "Oscilloscope" visualization.  If you're up for this, then click on  this link to the NCH Tone Generator, which take you to a site to download a tone generator setup file.  Save this file, say on your Desktop, and run it.  It will install the "NCH Tone Generator" program and a Shortcut to it on your Desktop (then you can trash the original  downloaded program).  Run the program while Media Player and your sound system is active, and try playing single tones, frequency sweeps, and tone combinations while observing the "Bars" display.  What does this tell you about the way sound is represented in the nervous system?

The Rorschach Ink Blot Test uses one's idiosyncratic perception of an ambiguous figure to provide putative insight into cognitive processes, "personality," perhaps even pathology.  Because one's "projection" of "self" into an inkblot  is based on the same processes as any other conscious state, try and "explain" what you see in this representative blot.

Sleep (for more on consciousness, see my "Links of interest" to the right, below the quotes!!)

The place to go to study sleep is Stanford University's Sleep Disorders Clinic's Web page, as William Dement is the Man.  But also very interesting is Sleepnet that offers a variety of links.

Memory  This site will illustrate some basic phenomena about the levels of information processing and memory.

One way to look at memory is as a spreading activation process where the good news is that content addressability is fast and efficient, but subject to many retrieval errors caused by context.  To review an outlandish but fascinating instance of retrieval error click on this and check out the history of the Kingsmen's famous take of the Richard Berry song "Louie, Louie."   If you can find a copy of the Kingsmen's version (hint, there's a hidden link to a MP3 on this page), write out the lyrics as best you can, being  forewarned that they may not be politically correct -- but that's up to you to "discover."   I'll give points for a journal with your version of the lyrics.  First, try to get your own lyrics, THEN go to this link.

Language Click here to go to material ancillary to our discussion of the definition of language. 

The Experimental Psychology Section  (for the course with that name, but hopefully of interest to all)

Reaction Time 

 Click here for the first part of a very good and extensive historical review.

 Click here for the second part of the historical discussion.

 Click here for the third part of the historical discussion.

 Click here for a discussion of the reaction time experiment we'll be doing!

 Click here to go to a site covering major history of psych issues; go to the last one on Donders and RT
 BTW, while you're at the above site, surf around the links to the apparatus museums!

If you would like to download the MS-DOS Simple vs. Choice RT program that we use in my Experimental Psychology class, just click on the picture of Dutch physiologist F. C. Donders, who invented the choice RT experiment!

Ready to write-up your research?  Here's a Hypertext Guide to the APA Style report.  And, in a linear and comprehensive format, here's another how-to treatment.  And don't forget to read the Academic Integrity Policy linked-to at the top of this page.

Tracking Task Behavior

Consider what happens if a reaction time study uses a very large number of stimuli presented sequentially and at different but related locations and your task is to "follow" the apparent motion of the "target" by making consecutive motion responses: You're "tracking" the motion, or much more familiarly, you're playing a video game!  You can track (follow) the motion with your "cursor," or you can try and negate or hold the target steady as it tries to move ("compensatory tracking").  The tracking task is clearly central to perceptual/motor information processing, and as such is an ideal dependent variable to assess a number of psych constructs and states.  For a fine demonstration of a very fundamental method of assessing perceptual/motor processing click on this.  Consider what might degrade or enhance your ability to compensatory-track the motion.  You'll need to have a Java-enabled browser, but check it out.

Here's the "beta3" version of the Lexical Decision Task program. 
This trial version lets you select parameters.  I'd use short intervals like .1  for the durations.  There are now TWO modes of presentation: select specific word, inter-word, and intertrial duration OR enter "0" for the inter-word duration and a masking stimulus will appear after the second word.  Thus the second word will terminate the perceptual duration of the first word and the mask will terminate the second.  With this mode, you can try word exposure durations shorter than 100ms (.1 sec).  Try it and see if latencies and errors increase.  Now, here are two important things: caps lock off or it won't work, and because there are no special practice trials, just use a low number of trials to start and run the program again.  The program only counts correct trials. There is now only an error message for a wrong -- not merely incorrect -- key stroke. You will run out of trials at 66, so if you set trials at a high number (say, more than 54) and the participant makes more than 12 mistakes, bad things will happen!  Be sure to read this: When the full number of correct trial responses have been made, there will be a "thanks" message.  TO GET THE DATA YOU MUST ENTER "9" -- DON'T FORGET!! Give me feedback and I'll revise.

Vigilance and Performance on a Subitizing Task

Here's the NEW Vigil MS-DOS program (just click on the link to download it).  When a vigilance period is over, enter "9" to view the results OR ENTER "q" (for "quit") following any stimulus presentation TO TERMINATE THE PROGRAM EARLY AND GET RESULTS.  Note:  For proper function and timing of  this and some other DOS programs here, you are directed to http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/dosbox/DOSBox0.63-win32-installer.exe?use_default=umn
for a download of the unique open source DOS emulator "Dosbox."  For XP users, this will be a must, as Vigil will not run properly in an XP DOS emulation!

Social Responses to Computers: Are there gender-specific (stereotypic??) responses to computer voices?

Recently, Clifford Nass (search for him on PsychInfo or the Web) and his associates have looked at this social-psychological issue.  To perform our experiment, we'll need to create our condition-specific sound files.  Go to this AT&T text-to-speech synthesis link to explore this process..  Think about the variables that go into making synthesized voices sound not just realistic but likable and convincing (and to whom?)!  You can write your own text (as we'll be doing for our experiment), but anything goes.  

Mortality Salience (Terror Management Theory) and the Value of an Extended Life

Here's a recent discussion and review of TMT (in the context of 9/11) The "classic" TMT mortality salience manipulation is the following: "Please briefly describe the emotions that the thought of your own death arouses in you, and jot down, as specifically as you can, what you think will happen to you as you physically die and once you are physically dead."  What about you does this manipulation alter?

Manic Thinking: The speed of presentation and processing of mood inducing statements or pictures of faces affects the induced mood.

Based on the groundbreaking work of Emily Pronin and Daniel Wegman, we have  confirmed that  'faster thinking' significantly and independently improves mood using 'happy' and  'neutral' faces (as well as by positive and neutral statements).  E-mail me for the four slideshows we used, which present 12 images at 2 sec. and 4 sec. per picture.

Accessing the PsychInfo (and other) databases for abstracts, and getting full versions of the articles:

To obtain journal abstracts and 'fulltext' electronic copies of the original articles for use in researching a topic and referencing your work, use the PsychINFO database. MEDLINE, the medical and health sciences database (that includes a lot of psych stuff) is also valuable.  If you are a FDU student with a Webmail account, click here to go to the Library Databases.  If you have a reference, first click on the Journal Locator button to see which database has it.  If you have a reference from some other source that gives a particular database as the source, after going to that database, click on the Info button to see if FDU subscribes to the relevant part.   If you need the Adobe Acrobat Reader click this for a free download.  Also, here's a Hanover College site constructed by Professor John Krantz listing the  Online Journals in Psychology .  Many require a subscription to get full text, so use FDU's Journal Locator to see if we subscribe; but there are also many with free access.

John C. Santelli

Professor of Psychology, School of Psychology

--Stanislav Andreski, Social Sciences as Sorcery

[As opposed to erroneous, epidemiological, social beliefs]. . .the selective forces that scrutinize scientific ideas are not arbitrary and capricious.  They are exacting well-honed rules that do not favor pointless self-serving behavior.  They favour all the virtues laid out in textbooks of standard methodology: testability, evidential support, precision, quantifiability, consistency, intersubjectivity, repeatability, universality, progressiveness, independence of cultural milieu and so on.

-- Richard Dawkins

We should try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.

--Rainer Maria Rilke

The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.

--Steven Weinberg

Those who reject the scientific conception of man must, to be logical, oppose the methods of science as well.

--B. F. Skinner

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.

--Sherlock Holmes

Thus do pretenders to science vainly and preposterously seek for remedies, ignorant of the true nature of things.

--William Gilbert, De Magnete

Learn from science that you must doubt the experts.

I'm going to describe to you how Nature is--and if you don't like it, that's going to get in the way of your understanding it.  It's a problem that physicists have learned to deal with. . .whether they like a theory. . .is not the essential question.  Rather, it is whether or not the theory gives predictions that agree with experiment. . . .  The theory of quantum electrodynamics describes Nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense.  And it agrees fully with experiment.  So I hope you can can accept Nature as She is--absurd.

--Richard Feynman

Consciousness is the biggest mystery. It may be the largest outstanding obstacle in our quest for a scientific understanding of the universe.

--David J. Chalmers

[We]will in the end have to admit that some things can only be grasped up to a certain point, and that Nature always retains behind her something problematic which it is impossible to fathom with our inadequate human faculties.

--Goethe

Yes, many things there are, which seem to be Perplexing, though quite falsely so, because They have good reasons which we cannot see....

--Dante, Purgatorio

It is truly extravagant to define God, angels, and minds, and to know precisely why God defined the world, when we do not know why we move our arms at will.  Doubt is not a very agreeable state, but certainty is a ridiculous one.

--Voltaire

A tolerably clever man began his book with these words "Man, like all animals, is composed of two distinct substances, the soul and the body. If anyone denies this proposition it is not for him I write." I nearly shut the book. Oh! ridiculous writer, if I once admit these two distinct substances, you have nothing more to teach me.

--Diderot

Everything in the world has changed except our way of thinking.

--Albert Einstein

I don't think.  My thoughts think for me.

-- de Lamartine

"Logic!  Good Gracious!  What Rubbish!" she exclaimed.  "How can I tell what I think till I see what I say?"

-- E. M. Forster

...while some areas of human life show great diversity, in others, human behavior stays fairly constant across the whole range of human cultures, and some aspects of our behavior are also shared with our closest nonhuman relatives. . . .those seeking to reshape society must understand the tendencies inherent in human beings, and modify their abstract ideals in order to suit them. . . .for the first time since life emerged from the primeval soup, there are beings who understand how they have come to be what they are. To those who fear adding to the power of government and the scientific establishment, this seems more of a danger than a source of freedom. In a more distant future that we can still barely glimpse, it may turn out to be the prerequisite for a new kind of freedom.

--Peter Singer, A Darwinian Left

We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands.  But we can stop it.  We can admit that we're killers, but we won't kill today.

--Capt. James T. Kirk

Man will become better when you show him what he is like.

--Anton Chekhov

The beast does but know, but the man knows that he knows.

--John Donne

If we had to offer the briefest explanation of all the evil that men have wreaked upon themselves and upon their world since the beginnings of time right up until tomorrow, it would not be in terms of man's animal heredity, his instincts and evolution: it would be simply in the toll that his pretense of sanity takes, as he tries to deny his true condition.

--Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

Several years ago a thought struck me that at first seemed so aberrant as to embarass me. That was that mind, rather than being. . .a late product of evolution. . .had been there from the start.

A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms.

--George Wald

When you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind.

--Lord Kelvin

. . .if we always insisted on precise definitions we all would be speechless almost all the time.  Definitions and precise theoretical constructs are the final product, not the starting point of inquiry.

--Lawrence Weiskrantz

In psycho-analysis there is no choice but for us to assert that mental processes are in themselves unconscious, and to liken the perception of them by means of consciousness to the perception of the external; world by means of the sense-organs.

--Sigmund Freud

We cannot, indeed, directly will to be different from what we are; but neither did those who are supposed to have formed our characters directly will that we should be what we are.  Their will had no direct power except over their own actions. . .  We are exactly as capable of making our own character, if we will, as others are of making it for us.

--John Stewart Mill

Links of interest:

Classics in the History of Psychology
Consciousness
Cognitive Brain Imaging

Email address: santelli@fdu.edu

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