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01/05/2011

Psychology 1101A

Introduction to Experimental Psychology

May-June 2011

Lecture 1

Today’s Lecture

• Meet & greet


• Course outline
• Learning and study strategies
• Introduction to the field of psychology
• Thinking critically

Meet & greet

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Mondays, Wednesdays 5:30-8:30

Heather Poole
email: hpoole@uottawa.ca

Course website: https://maestro.uottawa.ca/index.asp?LANG=EN

Important Dates
http://www.registrar.uottawa.ca/Default.aspx?tabid=3895#Spring

May 6: Last day to register without late registration fees

May 9: Last day to pay tuition without late payment fees

May 9: Last day for changes to course selection

May 18: Midterm 1

May 23: Victoria Day – no classes

May 13: Last day to drop a course get all your money back

June 3: Last day to drop a course without having it recorded as a failure (no $ credit)

June 6: Midterm 2

June 13: Last class

June 15: Final exam


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Textbook

• Psychology (9th edition)


• David G. Myers
• Website:
• http://bcs.worthpublishers.com/myers9e
– Practice quizzes, flashcards, chapter reviews, additional
applications of material, cool demos
• At University Bookstore
– Hard copy $90
– Digital copy $65
– Study guide $25

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Evaluation

• Midterm 1: 22%
• Midterm 2: 29%
• Final exam: 45%
• Experiment participation: 4%

Experiment participation
• Earn up to a maximum of 4% of your final grade!
– Participate in experiments in the psychology department
AND/OR
– Watch movies on psychology (then short questionnaire)
• Each 45-60 minute session = 1% bonus

http://www.socialsciences.uottawa.ca/psy/eng/ispr.asp

• Username: university email address


• Password: student number
• Deadline: June 13, 5pm
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Grading Scheme
A+ 90 – 100%
A 85 – 89%
A- 80 – 84%
B+ 75 – 79%
B 70 – 74%
C+ 66 – 69% Passing grade: D (50%)
C 60 – 65%
D+ 55 – 59%
D 50 – 54%
E 40 – 49%
F 0 – 39%
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Course outline

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Learning and study strategies


SQ3R
– Survey (chapter outline)
– Question (predictions, interests, goals)
– Read (chapter sections)
– Review (summaries)
– Reflect (apply to real life, discuss it with a friend, do online
tests and activities)

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Getting the most out of lectures


• Listen actively
– Try to establish the main idea and the sub-ideas of
each lecture
• Record those, instead of recording every word I say
– Ask questions during/after class
• Review your notes before the next class to
ensure you understand everything before
adding new information
• Be prepared! Pre-read your textbook before
class
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Learning and study strategies


Keep up to date on your readings
– You have about 350 pages to read in 6 weeks
– That works out to about 8 pages per day, counting
weekends!
– Don’t plan to cram – there’s simply too much
material

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Learning and study strategies


Study actively, not passively
Make sure you review the lecture notes regularly. Do it actively. Just re-reading a lecture
doesn't actually help you learn it very well. Instead, try some of these approaches:
– Look over the lecture notes for one lecture, then cover the notes and try to write
down everything from them. You may need to break a lecture down into a few
components to do this (at least early on in your studying). You can do the same thing
with textbook sections.
– Try to come up with multiple choice questions on the material, or think of changes
that could be made to the practice questions I've posted to make a different answer
correct.
– Make use of the textbook website.
– Explain a concept from class to a friend, classmate, or family member. If you don't
have anyone to do that with, explain it to your pet! You'll get a feeling of what
concepts you understand well and which ones you need to spend more time on.
Teaching is one of the best ways to learn.
– Don't spend time copying or highlighting your notes. Rewriting them from memory is a
good exercise, but reading and copying the words really doesn't help you learn very
well. It exercises your hand, but not your brain!

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Learning and study strategies


Study in a group
– Teach others what you know well
– Find the holes in your understanding
– Improve your understanding through active
discussion

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Two keys to successful studying

1. Your studying should be active, not passive. You want your studying to be similar to the
situation you'll be facing in the exam. That means you want to have to draw the
information out of your memory during studying, not off the page. In the exam, you
won't have the information on the page!

2. You should spread your studying out. Cramming doesn't work. Figure out what time
you can devote to this course (remember, this is in addition to reading the textbook and
attending lectures). Maybe try to find 15 minutes 5 days a week to spend actively
studying for this course. You don't have to be at your desk to study - do it on the bus,
while you're cooking dinner, or while you're eating breakfast. Get creative with your
time - if you're watching TV, try reading a section of a lecture during the first ad
segment, then see if you can write down what you read at the next ad segment. (But
don't do all your studying in front of the TV!) Once the exam gets closer, you'll spend
more time in a day studying for this course, but if you've already been studying a bit
every day, you'll find that final push a lot easier.

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What do you think of when


you think of ‘psychology’?

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Two Main Branches in Psychology

Psychology

Clinical Experimental
Psychology Psychology

Researches
Helps with
behaviour & the
behaviour
nervous system
problems

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Questions asked in Experimental


Psychology
• What similarities between my brother and I can be explained
by the fact that we share ½ our genes?
• How much do my childhood experiences influence how I
interact with my peers as an adult?
• What triggers my moods?
• What is the best way to study for my exams?
• How good are doctors at discriminating different illnesses?
Can we do things to make them better at it?
• Is there something special about human faces that allows us
to recognize people easily (as opposed to dog faces)?
• Do shy people act shy online?
• What can newborns see? What can they hear?

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• Psychology hasn’t always been a science...

• Originally, it was more of a philosophical


discussion than a controlled scientific field
that laid out testable hypotheses

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Concepts and approaches in


early psychology

A. Dualism
B. Phrenology
C. Structuralism
D. Empiricism
E. Nativism
F. Behaviourism

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A. Dualism
• Dualism (1600’s):
humans consist of a
material body and an
immaterial soul
– Soul controlled most
abilities
• Descartes: the body
actually drives most
behaviours; the soul
controls only thought

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Dualism
• The mind and body are separate – there are
‘threads’ in the body that control movement
– now we call these nerves
• Some behaviours happen without thought
– now we call these reflexes

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The fire displaces


the skin, which
pulls a tiny thread,
which opens a
pore in the
ventricle in the
head allowing the
"animal spirit" to
flow through a
hollow tube,
which inflates the
muscle of the leg,
causing the foot
to withdraw.

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• Hobbes (1600’s) took Descartes’ view one step


further and said that even the functions of the
brain could be understood through physical
processes
• Remember: this was a philosophy, not a science
– The focus was on the argument, not on explaining
the mechanism

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B. Phrenology
• German doctor, Franz Josef
Gall, 1800’s
• the belief that each part of
the brain controls a particular
part of the personality
• can detect someone’s relative
abilities and weaknesses by
measuring the bumps on their
head

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C. Structuralism
• Attempted to break our conscious experience
down into basic elements to understand the
structures of the mind
• Used introspection to attempt to determine
how the mind worked

Wundt, Tichener (1800’s, 1900’s) 27

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• What’s the problem with introspection?

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D. Empiricism
• The mind as a ‘blank slate’
• Experience is everything

• Supported the argument that science should


focus on observation and experimentation
with experience

John Locke, 1600’s


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E. Nativism
Some knowledge or rules of operation are
inborn in humans
– a priori knowledge
– a posteriori knowledge

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Evidence for a posteriori effects


on a priori ability

Our visual system is prepared to organize visual


input, but this is influenced by experience

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• People with different perceptual experiences


show differing effects

http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/sze_muelue/index.html

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F. Behaviorism
• Focused on observable behaviour
• Behaviours develop through their
consequences
– +ive consequences: behaviour increases
– -ive consequences: behaviour decreases
• Absolutely no focus on mental processes

Watson, Skinner (mid-1900’s)


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Cognitive revolution
• Behaviorism was eventually abandoned because it
too strictly excluded mental processes
• The cognitive revolution brought psychology to a
stage where it was acceptable (and in fact desirable)
to study mental processes, but to do so in a
scientifically controlled manner
• Present-day psychology: ‘the scientific study of
behavior and mental processes’

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Talk with your neighbour…


• What is behaviour?

• What are mental processes?

• STUDIED SCIENTIFICALLY

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Psychology’s three main


levels of analysis
How are our behaviours and mental processes
influenced by:
– Biology
• Genes, evolution, hormones, physiological structure of
body/brain
– Socio-cultural influences
• Other people, expectations of culture, family, etc.,
models (e.g., media)
– Psychology
• Learning, emotions, perceptions of reality

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Many current fields of psychology


• Evolutionary
– Natural selection, evolution, animal behaviour
• Neuroscience
– Brain, nervous system in behaviour, learning, emotions
• Behavioural
– Learning responses to stimuli
• Cognitive
– Encoding, processing, retrieving information
• Sociocultural (personality, social)
– Influences of social and cultural settings
• Developmental
– Age-related changes in behaviour, understanding, emotions
• Clinical
– Treating people with a variety of problems

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Thinking critically
• Psychology is a science
• Scientists form hypotheses based in logical
theory and evidence
• Scientists demand rigorous evidence to
support hypotheses before they believe them

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• Science revolves around questions


– Systematic asking and answering of questions
• Logical
• Evidence-based
• Goal of psychological science: to gain new
insights in our understanding of human
behaviour/mind/thoughts
• Importance of skepticism and curiosity

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Scientists try to limit bias


Think of some reasons Think of some reasons
why the following why the following
argument might be argument might be
true: true:

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Conflicting hypotheses
• Both seem to make sense – we can’t rely on
intuition only – we need evidence
• Often our intuitions are correct (and then
we’re not too surprised – hindsight bias)
– but just as often, they might not be!

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Methods of knowledge acquisition

• Tenacity: “it’s always been that way”


• Intuition: “it feels true”
• Authority: “the boss says it’s true”
• Rationalism: “it makes sense logically”
• Empiricism: “I observed it to be true”
• Science: a combination of rationalism &
empiricism

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Science
• Scientists are skeptical, but not cynical
• They work to be curiously open to ideas, but
not gullible
• They base their beliefs on empirical data, not
unsupported claims
– Cathy with cured ‘lung cancer’ (Dr. Oz)
• Check out another test (like the one described
in your text):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZeQGld5QBU&feature=related

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The scientific method


• A system that guides how scientists should
collect and analyze the data that they obtain

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7 Steps of the Scientific Method

1. Formulate a testable theory


2. Formulate a testable hypothesis
1. Operationally define variables
3. Select a research method
4. Data collection
5. Data analysis
6. Report findings
7. Revise theory (to account for findings)

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Step 1: Formulate a Theory


Theory: A testable set of ideas that can explain the
phenomenon of interest.

Example
You’ve noticed that a few of your friends who
are good at math played music as kids.

Theory: training in music facilitates the


acquisition of mathematical skills
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Step 2: Formulate a Hypothesis


Hypothesis: A specific prediction about how and why the
variables in question are associated with one
another.
Several possibilities:
1. Kids who learn to play music well through extensive
musical training will be more likely to show good
mathematical skills.
2. The same patterns of brain activity will appear when a
person is engaged in either a musical task or a
mathematical task.
3. People who get good at music are driven to practice; this
tendency helps them do well at math too. 9

We have our hypothesis

Kids who do well through extensive musical training


will be more likely to show good math skills.

But how do we determine:


 The quality of musical performance?
 The amount of musical training?
 The quality of math skills?

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We need an operational definition


An explanation of how we’re defining our variables for
our study.
 Speed and accuracy of playing.
 Time taken to identify musical
components.
 Number of years of musical
training.
 Speed and accuracy of
completing math problems.
 Time taken to count backwards
from 100 by fours.
 Grades in math class at specific
level.
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Use the operational definition


in the hypothesis

Three years of musical training on a violin between age 5 and 8


will result in higher math grades in 3rd grade.

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Step 3: Select a Research Method


Let’s try to do an experiment

 Suzuki violin training from  No music training.


5-8 years old (10-20 hrs/wk).
 Math grades in gr. 3.
Math grades in Grade 3.

Try to control everything else so


that the groups are identical
except for musical training

What are some relevant


variables to control? 17

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Step 4: Data Collection

Collect your data in the most controlled way possible

Step 5: Data Analysis

1. Formulate a theory.
Remember, this
may lead back 2. Formulate a hypothesis.
to more data 3. Select a research method.
collection or a
revision of your 4. Data collection.
hypothesis. 5. Data analysis.

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Step 6: Report Findings

In your department, at a conference, in a journal.

Why is this so important?


- Peer evaluation process
- Replication

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Step 7: Revise Theory


A back and forth process

1. Formulate a theory.
2. Formulate a hypothesis.
3. Select a research method.
4. Data collection.
5. Data analysis.
6. Report findings.
7. Revise theory.

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Science vs. pseudoscience


• To be scientific, work must be able to
withstand the rigorous tests of science
– Pseudoscientific claims are often in the form of:
• Case studies
• Personal reports
• ‘Scientists’
– These are not necessarily ‘bad’ forms of
information, but to be trusted as science, they
must be able to be demonstrated and replicated

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Designs in psychological research


• Different designs have different uses and
different levels of constraint (limits and controls)
– Case study (description) Low constraint
– Naturalistic observation (description)
– Correlational research (relationship)
– Experimental research (causal explanation)

High constraint

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Case study
• Case studies examine one
individual in great detail
• Savant: Leslie Lempke
• Severe MR, blind, limited
speech
• No musical training BUT
able to reproduce an entire
concerto after a single
hearing!
• And can sing in several
languages!

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Case study: Memory and the brain

• H.M.
• (Henry Molaison)
• Lobotomy in 1950’s to counteract epilepsy
• Could form no new long-term memories
• Studied throughout his life – now his brain is
being studied

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Case studies
Pros Cons
• Good for giving ideas for • Usually only descriptive, not
future research explanatory
• Extreme cases that would • Only studying one person –
be unethical to create may not be representative
• Often studied in natural of the population
conditions – Anecdotal evidence
• Hard to avoid influencing
behaviour of participants
• Can be time consuming

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Using a sample
• We want to draw conclusions about how a whole
population (everyone we’re interested in) would
behave, but it’s impractical to test everyone
• Instead we draw a representative sample of
people, test them, and generalize to the
population
• How do we know it’s representative?
– Random selection: everyone in the population has an
equal chance of being selected

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Naturalistic observation
• Classroom observation
• Jane Goodall – wild chimpanzees

• flexible, open questions since the work was


ground-breaking
• but observation is systematic: carefully recorded
and organized

• can be observation from afar or can involve


participation of observer

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Naturalistic observation
Pros Cons
• Good for giving ideas for • Usually only descriptive, not
future research, explanatory
– e.g. People who live in cold
investigating new areas climates are more likely to die
• See people behave as they of heart disease. Why???
typically would • Sample not randomly selected
- may not be representative of
• Can be useful to verify the population
(possibly artificial) lab • Hard to avoid influencing
results. participants
• Time consuming
• Little control

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Correlational research
• Looking for the relationship between variables
• Often less control than experimental designs,
though often possible when experiment
impossible
• No implication of causality!
– Possibility of third factors

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On your own
• Make sure you look at how scatterplots
display correlational data (p. 26)

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Experimental designs

• Does my training program work?

• Does this medication help?

• Random assignment to groups and control of


other variables allows inference of causality

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Key Concepts in an Experiment

1. Independent variable (IV): The variable that is manipulated.


2. Dependent variable (DV): The variable that is measured.
3. Experimental group: The group of participants that receive the
treatment component of the manipulated variable.
4. Control group: The group of participants that is the same as the
experimental group in every way except that they don’t receive
treatment component of the manipulated variable.

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Experiment example
Hypothesis:
Listening to music while studying improves students’
test performance.
Experimental Group Control Group
 Study list of 20 words for  Study list of 20 words for
2 minutes 2 minutes
 Wear headphones to  Wear headphones to
study study
 Listen to music  Listen to white noise
 After 5 min, report words  After 5 min, report words
from list from list
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Key Concepts in an Experiment


• Everything about the groups is identical except
the treatment (IV)
• Any differences on the DV must be due to the
difference in treatment
• The IV causes differences in the DV

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How similar should our groups be?

What variables do you think are crucial to control?

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Ensuring similar groups


• Random assignment
• Matching
• Sham control

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What happens if the two groups are


not exactly alike?

Extraneous Variable
 Any variable other than the independent variable that can
have an effect on the dependent variable.

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Experimental Research
Pros Cons
• Can establish causal • Artificial
relationship between • Not always ethical
variables

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Basic vs. applied research


• Basic research is done for the sake of
knowledge
• Applied research is done for the sake of
helping people
• Basic research typically less funded
• Applied research often builds on basic
research
– e.g. Dr. Phil Gander: tinnitus
• Basic research can also lead to theories that
have applications for applied research
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On your own
• Read Describing Data (p.34-38) and make sure
you understand these concepts

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Remember…
• Scientists are curious skeptics who seek to
answer questions using logic (rationalism) and
evidence (empiricism)
• Good science follows the 7 steps of the
scientific method
• But science has many different faces,
depending on the constraints we place on the
design and the types of question we’re asking

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For Wednesday
• Read Prologue and Chapter 1 if you haven’t
already

• Read Chapter 2

• Login to Virtual Campus if you haven’t already

• Make sure you’re here on time on Wednesday


(ISPR instructions)

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