LINKS OF INTEREST

Here are some web sites and other information on topics that have come up in class or in conversation with some of you. Feel free to send me suggestions for additions to this list. Also, let me know if you find that any of these links have gone dead.

Scroll down to links about:
HISTORY INTELLIGENCE LANGUAGE PERCEPTION SENSATION
SCHIZOPHRENIA MEMORY LEARNING NEUROPSYCHOLOGY GENERAL
This Is NOT Psychology...

Here are a couple of things having nothing to do with psychology... well actually, everything has to do with psychology...

USELESS INFORMATION PAGE - contains cooler-than-usual stories for wasting your valuable time - especially the true story of Headless Mike (aka Mike the Headless Chicken, also found at www.miketheheadlesschicken.org/).

A PRIMER ON QUANTUM PHYSICS (featuring former President Clinton's grand jury testimony)

ERIC'S PAGE - not cool, but useful on the off-chance you want to find stuff like the Weather Channel Page, or what's on TV, or the library catalog.

HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY

These are two interesting pages related to the History of Psychology:
HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY CALENDAR - just pick a date to see what happened in psychology history.
CLASSICS IN THE HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY - on-line archive of classic psychology papers, including the COMPLETE TEXT of William James's Principles of Psychology (1890)!

INTELLIGENCE

Here's a pretty good page about intelligence testing and IQ, from Dr. Timothy Bates at Macquarie University in Sydney Australia:
IQ: A STRUCTURE FOR UNDERSTANDING

LANGUAGE

The most readable book I know of on all aspects of language is The Language Instinct, by Steven Pinker (1995).

A really good textbook that covers a lot of language phenomena is Linguistics, 2nd ed., by Akmajian, Demers, and Harnish. Maybe there are newer editions by now - haven't checked in a long time.

PERCEPTION

Here's an example of "ecological" (i.e., Gibsonian) perceptual research from UConn faculty and associates, as summarized in the UConn Advance (3/6/00).
ANDREW PECK AND MICHAEL TURVEY - HEARING SHAPES

Also from the UConn Advance (10/9/00), a profile of Professor Michael Turvey.
TURVEY PROFILE

Some valuable books on perception:

  • The Ecological Approach To Visual Perception, James J. Gibson (1979) - his most profound and radical book
  • The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, James J. Gibson (1966) - his really revolutionary book
  • Direct Perception, Claire Michaels and Claudia Carello (1981) - the clearest textbook on Ecological Psychology
  • Visual Perception: Physiology, Psychology, Ecology (3rd ed.), Vicki Bruce, Patrick R. Green, Mark Georgeson (1996)
  • Sensation and Perception (a textbook), Sekuler and Blake

    SENSORY PROCESSES

    Spiralling Shape: Someone sent this to me under the title "Stephen King's The Hand" but since it has nothing to do with Stephen King as far as I can tell, I just renamed it after a song by They Might Be Giants. It is a Microsoft Word Document that has a program embedded in it. But even though you can open the document on any machine, the program only runs on PC's, not Macs. It's a worthwhile optical illusion based on sensory adaptation of motion detectors. (Also, it hasn't damaged any computers I've tried it on!)
    SPIRALLING SHAPE - the illusion
    SPIRALLING SHAPE - the song


    Visual Illusions: This obnoxious display was pointed out by a student. Take a look, and see if you can explain what's happening in terms of lateral inhibition (as in the Hermann grid example in the text). To explain why you can't see the "black dots" when you try to look straight at them, you'd need to know a little bit more retinal physiology - more, in fact, than the current state of knowledge of visual scientists!

  • "FIND THE BLACK DOT"


    Infrared vision: Here is a description of a military experiment attempting to give humans "infrared vision", or the ability to see in the dark based on radiation we normally only experience as heat (since it's outside the range of our eyes' light senstivity). This is a third-hand account but I've included the citation of the second-hand account in case anyone can track it down...

    from Sekuler, R., and Blake, R. (1994). Perception (3rd ed.). Springfield, Ill.: Thomas.
    pp. 62-63:
    The following story dramatizes how photopigments determine what one can see. During World War II, the United States Navy wanted its sailors to be able to see infrared signal lights that would be invisible to the enemy. Normally, it is impossible to see infrared radiation because, as pointed out earlier, the wavelengths are too long for human photopigments. In order for humans to see infrared, the spectral sensitivity of some human photopigment would have to be changed. Vision scientists knew that retinal, the derivative of vitamin A, was part of every photopigment molecule and that various forms of vitamin A existed. If the retina could be encouraged to use some alternative form of vitamin A in its manufacture of photopigments, the spectral sensitivity of those photopigments would be abnormal, perhaps extending into infrared radiation. Human volunteers were fed diets rich in an alternative form of vitamin A but deficient in the usual form. Over several months, the volunteers' vision changed, giving them greater sensitivity to light of longer wavelengths. Though the experiment seemed to be working, it was aborted. The development of the "snooperscope," an electronic device for seeing infrared radiation, made continuation of the experiment unnecessary (Rubin and Walls, 1969). Still, the experiment demonstrates that photopigments select what one can see; changing those photopigments would change one's vision.
    p. 546:
    Rubin, M. L., and Walls, G. L. (1969). Fundamentals of visual science. Springfield, Ill.: Thomas.


    Dog Vision: I wondered about that claim that dogs don't see color so I looked at a few web pages and decided this one was the best, because it was written by a veterinarian (as opposed to... I don't know, do you suppose there are cranks out there with some ax to grind about dog vision?); and more importantly it gave a precise citation for the information in a refereed professional journal, which is the standard vehicle for communicating information among scientists. ALWAYS be skeptical of something you ONLY see on the internet - who knows who might have posted it, and why. I guess I should look at the actual journal article too, and if this were serious academic or professional work I would... but for now, just enjoy the page, if you're interested:
    WHAT DO DOGS SEE?


    Finding your blind spot: Close your left eye and look directly at the X with your right eye; when your head is 12-15 inches from the screen the O disappears: 

       X                                                  O
  • (OR: Close your right eye and look directly at the O with your left eye; when your head is 12-15 inches from the screen the X disappears.)
  • This happens because when the angle between your eye and the two spots is just right, the image of the spot you're NOT looking at directly is projected onto the retina in the exact place where the optic nerve leaves through the back of the eye. There are no receptors there, so whatever lands on that spot is invisible. Surprisingly, this was not a known observation for which people eventually discovered an explanation; just the reverse -- Marriotte in 1668 studied the anatomy of the retina, noticed there were no receptors where the optic nerve left the eye, and concluded there must be a blind spot. Then he did the X-and-O type thing as described above and found that he was right about that!

    WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE SCHIZOPHRENIC

    Here is a radio program that describes the experience of "hearing voices" in schizophrenia and related disorders. The program is from January 31, 1997, so scroll down the screen a bit to find it. Also there's no text - just streaming audio using RealPlayer which opens up automatically, so make sure you have a sound-capable computer, and headphones if you're in public! It starts at approximately 17:20 into the show, so fast forward a bit once the RealPlayer screen is loaded. (This site, www.thislife.org, is for the public radio show "This American Life" which you can hear Sundays from 6 to 7pm on 88.5 FM and also these times; almost any show you click on will be really great to listen to, so browse a bit if you get the chance.)
    RADIO INTERVIEW ON HEARING VOICES IN SCHIZOPHRENIA

  • To go along with that, here are some comments from a former student of mine who has the experience herself (technically she suffers from schizo-affective disorder):
    "Eric, I listened to that 'this life' voices tape. Right now I am crossing my fingers and hoping that my doctor does not hear it and believe that it is a correct interpretation of what goes on in my head. In the first sequence, the loudest voice that was yelling "you're disgusting" made me giggle and think of the stereotypical homeless person in a movie walking down the sidewalk cursing at her invisible companion. Actually, I was not laughing. I hope there are not many people who hear voices in the way projected on the tape. On a side note though, the whispering in the background where you know that someone is talking and you can't make it out yet you can't concentrate because of the noise was slightly accurate. Thanks for giving me the web site. I have wanted to hear it for months. Take Care, ________"
    Then I asked if I could add her comments to this page: "Eric, You can feel free to post the comments. I wouldn't want the general, uneducated, non-[voice-]hearing population to have such a theatrical image of those who hear things. It makes me feel like I'm starring in a bad B-movie. I think things are much quieter than the general voice that one would listen to on TV or over an intercom, yet they are loud and destructive enough to make it hard to function. I often feel like I am receiving signals from a radio tower (yes I know how VERY cliché this sounds). There is just so much it is hard to process. The commands, orders and comments are slightly monotone. They also like to tell me that I am not hearing them (I know, very contradictory). On a side note I don't understand how one could plug an ear and stop hearing things [a reference to part of the radio story]. Obviously it is different for everyone."

    During her first year at UConn she became interested in photography. She applied to, was accepted by, and transferred to an art school in the Boston area -- where we both suspected she'd be a lot more "normal" than those surrounding her! Of course, she really IS pretty "normal" (that word requires scare-quotes) anyway, which is something that might surprise anyone who learns about mental illness from television.

    MEMORY

    This is an article from the January 1996 issue of Psychology Today. It's about the memory research conducted by Elizabeth Loftus and its implications for psychotherapy and criminal justice. Pretty powerful stuff.
    ELIZABETH LOFTUS ARTICLE IN PSYCHOLOGY TODAY
    For more details, read some of her articles from her web page. She's quite a good writer, and well worth reading since she's one of the top people in the field.
    ELIZABETH LOFTUS'S WEB PAGE

    Here are a few good books related to the topic of memory:

  • Memory's Ghost by Philip J. Hilts - about H.M., and popular writing about psychology doesn't get any better than this.
  • Great and Desperate Cures by Elliot S. Valenstein - about lobotomy, not memory, but clearly relevant to H.M.'s case; it's gruesome and fascinating.
  • Searching for Memory, Daniel Schacter
  • The Myth of Repressed Memory, Elizabeth Loftus

    LEARNING

    Here is the fairly amazing story of John Watson's life outside academia. (You'll remember Watson was the founder of behaviorist psychology.) I wrote this, based on biographies by David Cohen and Kerry Buckley, for my psychology of learning classes. They weren't tested on it.
    SOME NOTES ON THE INTRIGUE SURROUNDING JOHN WATSON

    This is a set of links to classic papers in Learning that I excerpted from the "Classics in the History of Psychology" page mentioned above. (I've also included some representative papers by James, by the Gestalt Psychologists, and by Gibson, even though those papers aren't about Learning.)
    CLASSIC PAPERS RELATED TO LEARNING

    NEUROPSYCHOLOGY

    Some books about neuropsychology that I'd recommend to the curious:

  • The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sacks - case studies of patients with neuropsychological disorders written to illuminate the human condition, not just the diseases.
  • Awakenings by Oliver Sacks - stories of patients being treated for dramatic Parkinson's Syndrome-like conditions; editions published after the 1990 movie have interesting appendices.
  • The Case of the Frozen Addicts by J. William Langston and Jon Palfreman - unbelievably scary story of several addicts suffering instant Parkinson-like rigidity caused by synthetic heroin in 1982, which led Langston to a major advance in understanding Parkinson's Disease.
  • Left Brain, Right Brain by Sally Springer and George Deutsch - this is a good book for clearing away the mounds of crap that have accumulated around the idea of hemispheric differences; lots of good science and also very readable.
  • The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan - subtitled "Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence", which is a good description; Pulitzer Prize winner in 1978 for general non-fiction.

    Parkinson's Disease: This is Michael J. Fox's moving and persuasive testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Committee on Appropriations, from September 28, 1999; he's urging an increase in funding for research on Parkinson's Disease.
    MICHAEL J. FOX'S TESTIMONY ON PARKINSON'S DISEASE FUNDING

    Want more details? You may be sorry you asked. This is from an article on the operation Michael J. Fox had for the tremor caused by Parkinson's Disease (sorry, I've lost the reference):

    "To greatly oversimplify the pathophysiology, tremor and other movement disorders result from disinhibition of a facilitory neuronal loop extending from cortex to striatum to pallidum to ventral lateral thalamic nuclear mass and back to cortex. In Parkinson's disease, neuronal loss in the substantia nigra, reduction of striatal dopamine and reduced inhibition by the nigral-striatal pathway results in tremor and rigidity early in the course of the disease. Therapeutic lesions at any portion in this cortical-striatal-pallidal-thalamic-cortical loop abolish most movement disorders in general and parkinsonian tremor in particular. However, the most common target is in the ventral lateral thalamic nuclear mass because here the physiologic localization of the target is best defined."
    Okay. And here's my attempt at translation:
  • Cortex = motor projection area and nearby "association area"
  • Striatum = caudate nucleus + putamen (of basal ganglia)
  • Pallidum = globus pallidus (of basal ganglia)
  • Ventral Lateral Thalamic Nuclear Mass = a lower-outer-side area of the thalamus
  • Substantia Nigra = area of midbrain that produces the neurotransmitter dopamine
  • Nigral-Striatal Pathway = connection from substantia nigra to caudate and putamen which uses dopamine (DA for short) as a neurotransmitter
    1) In normal function: if there were lots of activity in the whole circuit (especially the cortex) it would cause tremor and other Parkinsonian symptoms, but that activity is normally inhibited by input from the caudate and putamen.
    2) In Parkinsonian dysfunction: the substantia nigra deteriorates, so there is less dopamine in the system; therefore the caudate and putamen that use that dopamine are less able to fulfill their inhibitory function; as a result there is greater than normal excitation of the cortical areas which control movement, producing tremor and other symptoms.
    3) Lesioning (i.e., purposely damaging) an area of the thalamus seems to lessen the strength of the signal making its way through that whole circuit, thus reducing the total amount of excitation in the motor areas and reducing the tremor.

    Human Embryonic Stem Cells: I scanned chapters 2 & 3 from a 2001 book discussing the ethical issues of research with human embryonic stem cells. Chapter 2 is the clearest description I've read of the actual science involved. Chapter 3 is a decent appraisal of the politics involved. I sure hope it's legal to have this posted here because hardly anyone will see that book!
    HUMAN EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS

    GENERAL TOPICS

    Face Reading -- Phrenology Lives On, Sort Of: And you thought phrenology was just for those gullible folk of the early 19th century. This story is from a CNN broadcast in June '98 about "face-reading" (or "personology"). They removed their posted transcript, but luckily I had downloaded it before then. You can see from this that you definitely cannot trust the popular press to tell you when something is utter baloney. Worse, this baloney is being used to make HIRING DECISIONS! You better learn about it, just so you'll know what kind of makeup to wear and whether to have your eyebrows waxed when you go for a job interview! Here's the transcript:
    CNN FACE READING STORY

    Evolutionary Psychology: Here's a primer on "evolutionary psychology", written by two of the leaders in the field. As far as I can tell, their assumptions about the nature of the mind's evolution aren't very controversial -- but that probably reflects my own orientation rather than psychology's as a whole (if there is such a thing). Maybe their "principle 4" goes a little too far... But in general it seems like a summary of just what it means to think of the mind as an evolutionary adaptation. It's longish, but skim the parts that are really obvious.
    TOOBY AND COSMIDES EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY PRIMER