PSYCHOLOGY 1106
Introductory Psychology I

IMPORTANT NOTICES

Psyc 1106 for 2009 is now completed.  (It's all over but the crying, and we hope there isn't any need for crying.)

Happy Holidays, and please note we are on holidays too--once we've finished all the grading.  So please do not email us requesting information on your grades.  We are just as anxious to get grades taken care of and off our plates as you are to get your grades; and student emails only delay this.  Rest assured, we will submit your final grades to administration as soon as we possibly can.  It is then their responsiblity to post them to Web Advisor.

So check Web Advisor regularly if you're concerned about your final grade.  Term papers will be returned in the new year.  Any issues you see regarding your grade should be brought to our attention the first week classes resume, but not before.

Hope you had an informative term and have a great Christmas,

Sincerely,

Ken (signing off for 2009)

P.S.  I'm leaving the lecture PowerPoints up on this page for your convenience, should you wish to review material, much of which is relevant to Psyc1107.

SYLLABUS Required reading!

• Psyc 1106 Syllabus (2009)

The course has two components:  a lecture session every week and a lab session approximately every other week.

For information on the lab component go here.

LECTURE UNITS

PowerPoints for Psyc 1106 units links are activated within one week of the completion of the lecture, and they may be viewed, downloaded, or printed out.  They are made available as an aid to reviewing one's notes and memories from class.  They are not a substitute for attending class.  (Links to AV materials within these Powerpoints are not activated for both copyright reasons and technical reasons, but in many cases pointers to where to find the material on the Internet is included in the slide.)

• Unit 00: Introduction (Sep. 10– Sep. 15)
• “The Riot Act” – Introduction To The Course And Expectations
• “The Many Faces of Psychology” – Approaches to Doing Psychology
• Unit 01: What Is Psychology? – The Real Dirt on Psychology (Sep. 17– Sep. 22)
• “Psychology’s Dirty Secrets” – The History and Philosophy of Science
• “Dirtying Your Hands Doing Science” – The Three Scientific Methods and Judging Science
• “Digging Up The Dirt On Other’s Research” – Using The Library Resources” (Guest presentation)
• Unit 02: Scientific Method I – What Is Not Science (Sep. 24– Sep. 29)
• “Psychic Fun and Games” – Demonstration of Pseudo-Psychic Powers
• “Why We Believe In Nonsense” – Why Pseudoscience Fools Us
• “BS Detectors” – The People and Methods That Can Protect Us
• Unit 03: Scientific Method II – The Real World of Science (Sep. Oct. 1 – Oct. 6)
• “Describing the World” – Introduction to Statistics
• “Manipulating the World” – Introduction to Experimental Design
• “Controlling the World” – Introduction to Inferential Statistics
• Unit 04: Biological Foundations I – We’re Just Messy Sacs of Chemicals! (Oct. 8– Oct. 20)
• “Putting Messy Meat on the Skeleton” – A Schema for Clothing Our Biological Nature
• “That Soggy Mess Inside Our Heads” – The Basic Brain
• “Messing with the Brain” – Research on Invasive Brain Experiments
• ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Midterm Exam (Oct. 22– Oct. 27)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
• Unit 05: Biological Foundations II – Peeking Inside Our Thick Skulls (Oct. 29– Nov. 3)
• “Pleasure & Pain: All in our Heads?” – How Our Brain Structures Affect Us
• “Scanning the Brain” – Ways We Can View the Brain (Guest presentation by S. Hevenor)
• Unit 06: Evolutionary And Genetic Determinants– Nature Versus Nature (Nov.  5– Nov. 10)
• “Learning From Our Cousins” – What Other Species Can Teach Us
• “In The Beginning There Was The Word” – The Evolution of Language and Thought
• “Whose Fault Is It That I Am What I Am?” – The Nature versus Nurture Debate
• Unit 07:  Sensation and Perception I – Doubt Even Your Senses! (Nov. 12– Nov. 17)
• “Trusting Your Senses Makes No Sense” – Sensation and Perception—and Naïve Empiricism
• “Don’t Trust Missing ‘Links’” – Correlation and Causation
• “Illusions, Delusions and Gorillas” – The Tricks Perception Plays On Us
• Unit 08:  Sensation and Perception II – What’s Out There Gets Into Us  (Nov. 19– Nov. 24)
• “Our Premier Sense - In the Eye of the Beholder” – The Visual Sense
• “Behold Our Umpteen Senses” – The Other Senses Briefly Examined
• “Beauty – In the Mind of the Beholder” – The Aesthetic Sense This Unit Omitted.
• Unit 09:  Consciousness – The Many ‘States of Mind’ (Nov. 26– Dec. 1)
• “Hello, Hello, Anyone Home?” - Consciousness and Self
• “Sleep Well, Sweet Dreams” – The Nature of Sleep and Dreams
• “Moving Into Altered States” – Hypnosis, Drugs and Locked-In Syndrome
• Unit 10:  Learning – The Unavoidable Effect of Living (Dec. 3– Dec. 8)
  • “Learning:  How Does It Happen?” – Types of Learning and Learning to Learn
  • “Conditioning Not Your Hair, But What’s Under It” – Classical and Operant Conditioning
  • “What We Wish We Never Learned” – Phobias and PTSD
• ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Final Exam (Dec. 16 at 9 a.m.)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TEXTBOOK

The textbook is Psychology: Frontiers and Applications (Third Canadian Edition) by Passer, Smith, Atkinson, Mitchell, and Muir.  Reading the textbook and knowing the content is entirely the student’s responsibility.

The first 7 chapters are covered in Psyc 1106.    Chapters related to lecture material should be perused before the lecture is presented.  See the syllabus for details.

Remember Pavlov's Principle: You can't teach a sleeping dog (or student) new tricks! 

Sincerely in peace within complexity, 

Ken Stange