Mike Moland, Ph.D.

INTRODUCTORY PSYCHOLOGY

The scientific study of behaviour
and mental processes.
 Surveys show a large percentage of the general
public doubts that psychology is truly scientific
(Janda, 1998; Lilienfeld, 2012). Free from bias?
 This is partly explained by the fact that when
psychologists appear on the news or other popular
media outlets, they’re rarely scientists.
 A recent poll showed that only 30% agreed that
“psychology attempts to understand the way
people behave through scientific research”, and
53% believed that “psychology attempts to
understand the way people behave by talking to
them and asking them why they do what they do”
(Penn et al., 2008).
 Because psychology seems so familiar to all of us,
we may assume that it’s easy (Lilienfeld, 2012).
 Children and adults tend to regard psychology as
simpler and more self-evident than physics,
chemistry, and biology (Keil et al., 2010).

What is science?

Is it a field of study? (e.g., science, math, history,).

It is a method. It is an approach to evidence. It involves a
brutal competition of evidence”. A systematic set of strategies
for answering questions. It involves observation and testing. Any
discipline which uses the scientific method extensively, is scientific.

A set of attitudes and skills designed to prevent us from fooling ourselves.

Science is not a “brutal competition of opinion”. It’s a matter
of finding out which explanations best fit the data.

Is psychology just common sense? The results of
some experiments you will encounter will seem obvious,
because the topic of psychology is something with which we all feel
intimately familiar. This separates psychology from other sciences.

When you read about an experiment in particle physics, it is unlikely
that the results will connect with your personal experiences and ring
familiar. We bet few think “Wow! That experiment on quarks was just
like what occurred while waiting for the bus yesterday” or “My mother
always told me to watch out for quarks, positrons, and antimatter.” When
reading about the results of a study on helping behaviour or aggression,
however, it’s common to think, “Aw, come on, I could have predicted that.
It’s the same thing that happened to me last Friday!” (Aronson, 2013).
 COMMONSENSE PSYCHOLOGY QUIZ

T F 1. “Psychologist” and “Psychiatrist” refer to the same profession.

T F 2. Psychologists study behaviour and the mind, but not biology.

T F 3. Evidence suggests that sugar causes hyperactivity in children.

T F 4. Environments rich in stimuli improve the brains of preschoolers.

T F 5. Research evidence suggests that police departments have
found psychics useful in helping to solve complex cases.

T F 6. People learn better when they receive information in their
preferred learning style (e.g., auditory, visual, or kinesthetic).

T F 7. Psychologists do not believe that ESP exists.

T F 8. In love and friendship, more often than not, similarities rather
than opposites attract one another to each other.

T F 9. Research evidence suggests that a full moon does not have
an effect on hospital admissions and criminal behaviour.

T F 10. Research evidence suggests that “venting” aggression is not
useful in helping a person feel less angry.

T F 11. Research evidence suggests that different weather patterns do
not affect arthritis pain.

T F 12. Pre-menstrual syndrome (PMS) does not often occur in women.

C. Murphy (1990): “Day after day [social scientists] discover that
people’s behaviour is pretty much what you’d expect.”

Historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. (1949) reacted with similar scorn to
social scientists’ studies of WWII Soldiers. These were the findings he
read, and the interpretations by Paul Lazarsfeld (1949) (in blue).

1. Better-educated soldiers suffered more adjustment problems
than did less-educated soldiers. (Intellectuals were less prepared
for battle stresses than street-smart people.)

2. Soldiers from southern climates coped better with the hot South
Sea Island weather than did northern soldiers. (People from
southern climates are more accustomed to hot weather.)

3. Soldiers from rural backgrounds were usually in better spirits during their
army life than soldiers from the city. (They are more used to hardships.)

4. Soldiers were more eager to return home during the fighting than they
were after the German surrender. (They didn’t want to be killed.)

Actually – every one of these findings is the direct opposite of what was
actually found. If the true results of the investigation were mentioned first in
this demonstration [as Schlesinger experienced], the reader would have
labeled these ‘obvious’ also (Lazarsfeld, 1949).

1. Human behaviour is difficult to predict because most actions are
multiply determined (produced by many factors). As a result, we
need to be skeptical of single-variable explanations of behaviour –
which unfortunately are wide-spread in the media.

2. Psychological influences don’t act in isolation. It can be
difficult to pin down which cause or causes are operating.

3. People show individual differences in thinking, emotion,
personality, and behaviour. This explains why we can
respond to the same situation differently, making it difficult
to come up with explanations of behaviour that apply to all.

4. People often influence each other, making psychology
unimaginably more complicated than disciplines like chemistry
in which we can isolate substances in test tubes (Wachtel,
1973). A depressed person may lower the mood of others –
and these others may then avoid the depressed person, European Americans
leading the depressed person to feel isolated.. This is called
reciprocal determinism (Bandura, 1973).

5. People’s behaviour is often shaped by cultural differences,
which place limits on the generalizations that psychologists
can draw about human nature (Henrich et al., 2010). Asian Americans

Theories organize facts and predict events. Theories are
general explanations. Hypotheses are testable predictions.

Hypotheses must be risky. Capable of being disconfirmed.

Hypotheses guide scientific research by enabling researchers
to test and reject or revise the theory.

Ad hoc Immunizing Hypothesis - An excuse
used to protect a theory or claim from falsification.

Good scientists are good critical thinkers!
 Critical thinking involves….not blindly accepting arguments
and conclusions. It examines assumptions, evaluates
evidence, and assesses conclusions. Show me the
evidence! Daryl Bem – critical thinking video! Magic?
 Naive Realism: belief that we see the world as it “really” is.
 Sugar and hyperactivity? Research indicates that sugar does not cause
hyperactivity. Belief Perseverance – the tendency to stick to our initial
beliefs (persevere!) even when evidence contradicts them.

Sweat & Durm (1993) asked police departments of the 50 largest U.S. cities
whether they ever used psychics - 35% had. Not one found them helpful.
 Illusory Correlation: The perception of
a relationship where none exists.
 “You always need something after you’ve thrown it away”
 “The phone always rings when you’re in the shower”
 “Elevators always seem to be going the wrong direction”
 “Sugar makes children hyperactive”
 “A full moon is associated with more hospital admissions”
 How might we test whether the full moon is
associated with hospital admissions?
 How many hospital admissions during full moon?
 How many hospital admissions during no full moon?
 You hear about a new form of therapy that
supposedly cures anxiety. A full 63% of the
people who go through the program
improve. Aside from the therapy, what else
could account for this result? Why shouldn't
you rush out to recommend this treatment to
your friend?

Do weather
changes trigger arthritis pain?

Research studies say “no” (Quick, 1999; Redelmeier &
Tversky, 1996). For instance, Redelmeier and Tversky
followed 18 arthritis patients for 15 months.

Researchers recorded each day, both patients’ pain reports
and the daily weather – temp, humidity, and pressure.

Despite patients’ beliefs, weather was unrelated to their
discomfort on the same day or up to 2 days earlier or later.

Shown columns of random numbers labeled “arthritis pain”
and “barometric pressure,” even college students are fooled.
We are apt to seeing patterns, whether there or not.

Confirmation bias: The tendency for people to search See Table 1.2. Is there a
relationship between height
for information that confirms their preconceptions. *Think (cm) and temperament (0 =
“If you seek, you will find”. calm; 100 = highly reactive?)
Most people detect little

Business managers are more likely to relationship between height
and temperament. However,
follow the successful careers of those the correlation in this mock
they once hired than to track the example is moderately
positive (+.63). If people fail
achievements of those they rejected, to see a relationship when
data are presented
leading them to confirm their own systematically – how are
perceived hiring ability (Wason, 1981). they likely to notice them
in everyday life?

Pseudoscience: Claims that seems scientific but are not. They lack
safeguards against confirmation bias and belief perseverance.

A recent survey of the U.S. public shows that 41% believe
in extrasensory perception (ESP) over 30% believe in haunted
houses, ghosts, and telepathy; and 25% in astrology (Musella, 2005).

The fact that many entertain the possibility of such beliefs
isn’t by itself worrisome - a certain amount of
open-mindedness is essential for scientific thinking.

And even high levels of intelligence offers no guarantee against
beliefs with no evidence (Hyman, 2002). People with high IQs are
as prone as others to beliefs in conspiracy theories (e.g., the Bush
administration orchestrated the September 11 attacks (Molé, 2006).

More concerning is that many appear convinced that such claims
are correct even though the bulk of the scientific evidence reveals that
this is not the case (e.g., Extra-sensory perception; astrology).

Moreover, it’s troubling that many poorly supported beliefs are
more popular, or at least more widespread, than well-supported
beliefs. To take merely one example, there are about 20 times as many
astrologers as astronomers in the United States (Gilovich, 1991).

1. Extraordinary claims - Require extraordinary evidence (Psychics?)

2. Falsifiability - For a claim to be meaningful, it must be
capable of being disproved (some claims are not very specific).

3. Occam’s Razor - If two explanations account equally well
for an observation, we should generally select the simpler one.

4. Replicability - findings must be consistently duplicated.

5. Ruling out rival hypotheses - need to consider alternative
hypotheses (E.g., EMDR).

6. Correlation Is Not Causation – correlational designs do not
permit causal inferencing. You can’t determine cause & effect.

1. Ad hoc immunizing
hypothesis - excuse that
defenders of a theory use to protect
a theory against falsification.
Examples from “Secrets of the
Psychics”?

2. Lack of self-correction -
with pseudoscience, incorrect claims
never seem to be weeded out –
proponents cling to them stubbornly
despite contrary evidence. E.g.,
Facilitated communication?

3. Exaggerated claims - be wary of claims that suggest a “break
through” and the word “proven” because scientific knowledge is rarely, if
ever, conclusive.

4. Anecdotes – Representative? Cause & effect? Verifiable?

5. Evasion of peer review – Reluctance to be evaluated by experts.

6. No connectivity - Claims don’t build upon prior scientific findings.

7. Psychobabble - Language that sounds highly scientific?

Hindsight bias: tend to overestimate
how well we could have forecasted known
outcomes. *Think “looking behind, or
looking back”.

Naive Realism: Belief that we see the world as it really is.
*Think: Seeing is believing.

Ad hoc Immunizing Hypothesis: An excuse defenders of a
theory use to protect their theory from falsification.

Falsifiability: Ability to deem something false. Is it capable
of being disproven? Yes? Then it’s falsifiable.

Belief Perseverance: We tend to stick to our initial beliefs
(persevere!) even when evidence contradicts them.

Illusory correlation: perception of a relationship where none
exists. *Think “illusion”. You see something that isn’t there.

Confirmation bias: a tendency to search for information that
confirms one’s beliefs. *Think “If you seek, you will find”.

Ruling out rival hypotheses: the need to rule out other
important competing explanations.

1. When students begin to read through their introductory psychology
textbook, they are often surprised to learn that
a. common-sense explanations abound in the field of psychology.
b. many of their beliefs about the causes of thoughts and behaviours are
incorrect.
c. psychology is a unique field of study separate from philosophy and biology.
d. psychologists do not study people’s everyday behaviours.

2. Trying to explain complex human behaviours, like violence, in terms of
one causal factor, such as genes or video games, fails to acknowledge that
a. biological roots to behaviour are more important than other causes.
b. actions are multiply determined.
c. individual differences prevent us from making any conclusions.
d. behaviour is always reciprocally determined.

3. Professor Smith told one class that alcohol consumption has been found
to increase sexual desire. He informed another class that alcohol
consumption has been found to reduce sexual appetite. The fact that
neither class was surprised by the information they received best illustrates:
a. How psychology findings are common sense. b. the hindsight bias.
c. The need for replications. d. belief perseverance.

4. Milo and Shirley are taking a trip on a cruise ship for their twentieth
wedding anniversary. They believe they made it to this milestone because
they know each other so well. During the trip, they take part in a game show
where they find out they don’t know each other as well as they thought.
However, they still maintain they are very much in tune with the other’s
needs and thoughts. This is an example of
a. the representativeness heuristic. b. the hindsight bias.
c. belief perseverance. d. the availability heuristic.

5. When attempting to differentiate between useful and useless information
from popular psychology, what is a good rule of thumb to follow?
a. Trust nothing that you read or hear in the media about psychology.
b. Insist on evidence to accurately evaluate all claims.
c. All popular psychology claims are misinformation.
d. Common sense is often correct; go with your gut.

6. A major problem with common-sense proverbs is that they often coexist
with their complete opposite. This violates which principle of critical
thinking?
a. Replicability b. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
c. Parsimony/Occam’s razor d. Falsifiability

7. When people watch a debate, they often point out
the internal contradictions, flaws in logic, and hypocrisy in positions they
oppose while glossing over the same shortcomings for positions they
support. This is an example of
a. an illusory correlation. b. the hindsight bias.
c. the confirmation bias. d. belief perseverance.

8. In research reports, we often see the terms “suggests,” “appears,” or
“raises the possibility that” a finding is correct but also acknowledges that
we might be incorrect. The authors of your textbook refer to this as
a. naive realism. b. a prescription for humility.
c. falsifiability. d. Occam’s razor.

9. Dr. Boliba develops a herbal supplement that he claims increases
memory abilities. However, many other researchers have been unable to
replicate his findings and report that placebo pills are just as effective as his
herbal supplement. In response to these criticisms, Dr. Boliba argues that
his pills increase specific types of memory that were not tested by
researchers and that the participants must have performed poorly in other
studies because they were concerned about taking a drug. In this example,
which warning sign of pseudoscience are you witnessing?

a. Ad hoc immunizing b. Exaggerated claims

c. Overreliance on anecdotes d. Evasion of peer review
 Chapter 2:
Research Methods
Safeguards against Error

Mike Moland, Ph.D.

INTRODUCTORY PSYCHOLOGY

Why do you think Madeline Ennis found an effect of the
homeopathy water when it should be “impossible”?

Why did Benveniste’s team find positive homeopathic
findings under initial testing?
 The video indicated that the experimenters knew which
tubes contained the homeopathic water and which
contained the ordinary water. What is the issue here?

When the study was replicated by Randi’s crew using codes
so nobody knew which tubes were which – what happened?

Why do people then find homeopathy useful as a treatment?

Yet homeopathy appears to work even when a placebo
should not. Like when a patient doesn’t even know that
they are taking a medicine. Like with animals. What
might be the explanation here?

David Riley conducted many trials that found positive results
for the homeopathic pollen concentration for hay-fever
sufferers. How does one interpret these findings then?

The video is a fine example of why understanding research methods is vital.

Why do we need research?
 Without research designs, even intelligent and
well-educated people can be fooled.
 The scientific method is a set of tools that helps us to
avoid being tricked by our own biases.
 What biases do you think might have influenced the
results of homeopathy tests in the video seen in class?
 We’ll learn what these tools are and how we can use
them to evaluate psychological claims.

But I know it works!
 Often our impressions are wrong. Human error.
 We need rigorous research methods to
find out whether a technique really works.
 Prefrontal lobotomy – What happens
when we rely on our subjective impressions?
 Egas Moniz won the Nobel prize (1949) for this
procedure.
 Controlled studies done later showed it didn’t work.

Heuristics: Efficient & quick “mental shortcuts”.
Can be systematically & predictably wrong

Availability heuristic – Judging the likelihood of
things by how readily they come to mind.

Are there more words in the dictionary beginning
with the letter R (“rose”, “rock”) or more words with
an R in the third position (“tarp”, “bare,”)? “Hey...this could
be the chief.”

Most participants assert there are more words
beginning with R – but the reverse is true, by at
least two to one (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974).

Representativeness heuristic – judging the likelihood
of an event by its superficial similarity to a prototype.
Daniel Kahneman of Princeton
This may lead one to ignore other relevant information.
University (left) was the first Ph.D.
psychologist to be awarded a

Base Rates: How common a behaviour or Nobel Prize. The Nobel Committee
recognized him for his groundbreaking
characteristic is in the general population. work on the cognitive sources of
human irrationality.

Tversky & Kahneman (1974)

A stranger tells you about a person who is short, slim, and
likes to read poetry, and then asks you to guess whether this person is
more likely to be a professor of classics at a university or a
truck driver. Which would be the better guess?

Most people answer “professor” because the description
seems more representative of scholars than of truck drivers.

Question: How many Canadian universities with classics programs?

Answer: About 45? Question: How many classics profs at each U?

Answer: Um 4? Question: So, 180 classics profs. What % short & slim?

Answer: Let’s say 50%. Question: Of these 90, how many read poetry?

Answer: I’d say half (45 profs). Question: How many truckers are there?

Answer: About 283,000. Question: How many truckers are short & slim?

Answer: Not many – maybe 1 in 8.

Question: Of these roughly 35,000 what % like to read poetry?

Answer: Truck drivers who like poetry? Maybe 1 in 100. O.K. –
I see where this is going – that leaves me with 350 short, slim,
poetry-reading truck drivers.

It takes a wide range of approaches to study the diverse array
of phenomena common to psychology.

Naturalistic Observation - unexpected discoveries!

People are observed in a real-world setting and their
behaviours are carefully recorded (Video? Notes?)
without trying to intervening in it.

Bringing them to the laboratory is unlikely to re-create
the full range of situations that can reveal the behaviour
under investigation. Also, even if we observed participants without their
knowing it, they could still have been influenced by the fact that they were in
a laboratory. Among other things, they may have been nervous or less
spontaneous than in the real world. Cause and effect?

Having more than one observer code the observations
helps assure us that the observations are objective. How?

Another safeguard is to use observers who don’t know the specific
hypothesis that is being tested (they are “blind” to the hypothesis) so that it
is less likely to affect their perception of the events they are observing.

A researcher testing their own hypotheses? Confirmation bias?

Case study designs
 Study one person in depth. Generalizable?
 Common with rare types of brain damage and other
rare occurring cases (e.g., Phineas Gage).
 Can yield existence proofs (that the phenomenon can
happen) but can be misleading and anecdotal.
 Correlation studies
 Positive correlation – as height increases, so
does weight. In one sample r = +0.47


(Freedman, et all, 1991) for height and weight.
 r = +0.23 for positive attitudes toward condom
use and reported use (Herbert et al., 1989).
 Negative correlation – as toothbrushing goes Length of marriage correlates with
up, tooth decay goes down.
 hair loss in men. Does this mean
that marriage causes men to lose

Correlation does not mean causation!!! their hair? Or balding men make
better, more committed husbands?

A Taiwanese study found the best predictor of the
adoption of birth-control use in the home was _____?

Number of electric appliances

Is the solution to teenage pregnancy involve handing out toasters in school?

Answer? Education → high SES → more appliances

An experiment allows for cause and effect conclusions.

Like engineers using a wind-tunnel to simulate varying wind conditions on
wing structures, psychologists investigate by constructing experiments that
simulate important features of our daily lives.

Random selection: Key to generalizability;
ensures every person in a population has an
equal chance of being selected.

Random assignment: All participants have
an equal chance of being assigned to a study condition.

Experimental Group: Receives the manipulation
 Control Group: Does not receive the manipulation.
Who invented the control group as we know it?
Psychologist John Coover (1907). “Alternative
explanations of an effect can be ruled out only by
comparing an experimental group with a control group that equals
the experimental group in all respects but the training”.
 Independent Variable: Experimenter manipulates (what you do)
 Dependent Variable: Experimenter measures to see whether
manipulation had an effect (what you find). It is usually a score.

Placebo effect - improvement resulting
from the mere expectation of improvement.
 Subjects must be blind - unaware of
whether they are in the experimental or control group.
 Placebos show many of the same characteristics as real drugs.

Nocebo effect - harm resulting from the mere expectation
of harm (e.g., voodoo doll phenomenon)

Experimenter expectancy effect - phenomenon in
which researchers’ hypotheses lead
them to unintentionally bias a study.
 Clever Hans, the mathematical horse.
 Double-blind design - neither
researchers nor subjects know who is
in the experimental or control group
addresses the experimenter expectancy effect.

Self-report measures - questionnaires
assessing a variety of characteristics (e.g., interests, traits)

Surveys - measure opinions, attitudes
 Reliability: consistency or repeatability of the measurement.
 Validity: Does it measure what it’s supposed to measure?

Easy to administer, direct assessment
of person’s state
 Cons? (Do you masturbate?)

Potential for dishonesty

Response sets - tendencies of research subjects to distort
responses. Positive impression management? Malingering?

Why did you do that? Verbal reports & behaviour often don’t
match.

Unrepresentative samples – mail-in, call-in

Response options – Limit responses

Anchoring effects – Mississippi (>500 miles)? (<3000 miles)? Response Options

Survey tapped information about ones eccentricities

They found that __% roll toilet paper over the spool

68%

That __% squeeze toothpaste from the top.

79%

__% look behind shower curtain when in
someone else’s bathroom.

7%

__ % like the way they look nude.

41%

__% eat corn-on-the-cob in circles (not side to side).

80%

Sent surveys to 25,000 people, with 7000 returned

How representative is this?

Are the 1 in 700 readers who participated representative of the
699 in 700 who did not?

Descriptive statistics: helps to describe or
summarize data in a meaningful way.

Central tendency: where the group tends to cluster
 Mean - average of all scores.
 Median - middle score in the data set.
 Mode - most frequent score in the data set.
 Range - difference between highest and lowest scores.
 Standard deviation - measure of variability that takes
into account how far each data point is from the mean.

Inferential statistics: allow us to determine how much
we can generalize findings from our sample to the full
population. If we find a difference between groups (e.g., a
female group shows higher scores on extroversion than a
male group in our research). How can we rule out the
This is data above is
possibility that a small difference in our sample is due to chance? from homeopathic
research seen in the

Statistical significance: To be statistically significant, the homeopathic video
watch in class. Does
finding would have occurred by chance less than 1 in 20 times (p<.05). this figure indicated
statistical

Practical significance: Real-world importance. significance?
1. What is one take-home message from the discussion of
autism and facilitated communication?
a. The scientific method is not an effective means for finding solutions
for persons who live with autism and other psychological disorders.
b. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence, some people won’t abandon
their erroneous beliefs.
c. Autistic children want to communicate with their parents but need someone
to facilitate the process.
d. Psychological research is dangerous because it allows anyone to find
support for any idea or opinion.

2. Sahar attended a workshop on how crystals have healing power, can

eliminate “blood sludge,” and cure mental illness. The workshop facilitator
presented clinical observations of several patients to demonstrate the
effectiveness of crystals. What should Sahar keep in mind here?
a. In the absence of systematic research, clinical observations are not
sufficient evidence for their effectiveness.
b. Clinical observations are a powerful source of evidence and demonstrate
treatment effectiveness.
c. Patients’ own reports that crystals cured their cancer or depression provide
empirical evidence of their effectiveness.
d. The workshop facilitator appears credible, so his claims must be true.
3. A group of student researchers divide up the different times and buildings on
their campus to attempt to determine when people will hold a door open for
another person. These student researchers are most likely to use which
research method design when conducting their study?
 a. Correlational design b. Experimental design
 c. Case study design d. Naturalistic observation design

4. Dr. Didus has diagnosed a patient with dissociative identity disorder (DID), a
very rare type of dissociative disorder. He observes the behaviour of his
patient and her alter personalities and discovers that every time he asks her
about sexual experiences, an alter that is a male takes over as the dominant
personality. Based on his case study, what can Dr. Didus conclude about DID
in general?
a. Patients with DID cannot cope with discussing uncomfortable experiences.
b. Sexual experiences are linked with the presence of alter experiences.
c. Opposite gender personalities take over to protect the host personality when
talking about sex.
d. No conclusions can be drawn about DID without systematic research on this
population.
5. A key disadvantage to self-report measures is that:
a. they are less effective than experiments in accurately
predicting peoples’ behaviour.
b. respondents are not always honest in their answers.
c. observing behaviour leads to changes in behaviour.
d. demand characteristics can bias participants’ answers.

6. If you are interested in examining the relationship between the number of

class days missed and one’s subsequent semester grade point average, you
would be best served to use a(n) __________ to study this question.
a. experimental design b. naturalistic observation design
c. case study design d. correlational design

7. Which of the following correlations represents the weakest degree of

relation between two variables?
a. Daily calcium intake and bone mass density, r = +.11
b. Number of cigarettes smoked per day and incidence of lung cancer, r = +.39
c. Degree of exposure to lead and IQ scores in children, r = –.12
d. Hours of exposure to media violence and aggressive behaviour, r = +.31
8. You read a research study that claims to have found
a correlation of r = –.43 between smoking and vegetable
consumption. This means that:
a. the less you smoke, the fewer vegetables you eat.
b. the more you smoke, the fewer vegetables you eat.
c. the more you smoke, the more vegetables you eat.
d. smoking and vegetable consumption are unrelated.

9. Suppose a researcher wants to see if those students who highlight their

textbook as they read will perform better on the psychology mid-term
compared to those students who do not highlight. What is the dependent
variable?
a. Psychology mid-term score b. Highlighting of text
c. No highlighting of text d. Grade-point average

10. A British literature instructor examines the number of class periods his
students have missed by mid-terms and has the following data: 1, 0, 10, 0, 2,
1, 0, 0, 5, 2, 3, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1. What is the mode for this data set?
a. 2.5 b. 0 c. 10 d. 1
Psyc 1100 YB - Chapter 3
Biological Psychology

Mike Moland, Ph.D.

 Discussion: Prisoners of Silence

What is FC? Why were some skeptical of FC?

How did the investigators test FC?

If FC doesn’t work, is there any harm believing in it?

Did anyone spot an example of the “not me fallacy” (i.e., we are
immune to errors in thinking that afflict other people) in the video?

Why is Mike showing this video? Isn’t it more than 25 years old?

On June 18, 19, 2018 – the University of Northern Iowa Summer
Institute conference promoted facilitated communication (The Gazette, 2018).

On Feb. 3, 2010, a mother gave her son a drug overdose, because she believed
her son (who had autism) wanted to die as a result of alleged sexual abuse “he”
type out during facilitated communication sessions (Bashan, 2014).

In 2012, the parents of a woman with severe autism were reunited after being
separated for six month due to allegations of sexual abuse brought on by a
psychiatrist who tested the woman’s mental capacity using FC (Shipton, 2012).

In 2015, Anna Stubblefield, a professor and chair of Rutgers University philosophy
department was found guilty of sexual assault. She claimed she had consensual
sex with a man who was severely mental disabled, after using FC (Engber, 2015).

In 2018, Jose Cordero was in prison for 35 days due to allegedly sexually
assaulting his 7-yr old son who has autism. The child’s teacher made these claims
after using the “hand-over-hand” method of FC (Ovalle & Gurney, 2018).

Specialized cells that carry messages throughout the CNS.
Neurons

Cell body: the cell’s life support centre, cell executive. Like a light
switch, a neuron
either fires (turns

Dendrites (listen): receive info and send it toward the cell body. on) or does not.
It’s “all or none”.

Axon (speak): pass the message along to other neurons or tissue.

Myelin sheath: fatty tissue that insulates some axons and speeds their
messages (e.g., baseball cut-off throw). It degrades in multiple sclerosis.

A neuron fires an impulse when it
receives chemical signals or
messages from sense receptors.

The impulse is called an action
potential - a brief electrical charge
that travels down the axon.
Neurons, like batteries, generate
electricity via chemical events.

This process involves an
exchange of electrically charged
particles, called ions.

The interior of a resting axon has an excess of negatively charged ions,
while the outside of the axon membrane has more positively charged ions.

This state of affairs is known as the resting potential.

Axon Terminal (Button) – tip of the axon.
Synapse

Synaptic Vesicles – contain neurotransmitter.

Neurotransmitters – chemical messengers.

Synaptic Cleft – the junction between the axon of the tip of
the sending neuron and the dendrite or cell of the receiving
neuron. Neurotransmitters bind to receptor sites on the
receiving neuron – as precisely as a key fits a lock.

Antipsychotic drugs – block
dopamine receptors.

What does this say about
the underlying biological
make up of schizophrenia?

Parkinson’s disease?

Antidepressant drugs –
increase serotonin. How?
 Neurotransmitters

Acetylcholine (Ace a test – learning and
memory) muscle movement, learning, memory
(Alzheimer’s disease) – nerve gases? Curare?
Atropine?

Dopamine (Dope slang for drug) involved in
learning, attention, movement, and
reinforcement. (if a drug makes you euphoric, it
probably ↑ DA). Parkinson’s?

Norepinephrine (Snore – involved in sleep
and arousal) affects eating habits, arousal, and
wakefulness. Predominant in fear. (if a drug
makes you stimulated, it probably ↑ NE).

Serotonin (The sorrow tone of her voice tells
you she is sad) plays a role in regulating mood,
sleep, impulsivity, aggression. Low levels of SE
are linked to depression and increased levels
linked to improved mood.

GABA: Neurotransmitters

(Gamma-aminobutyric acid). Alcohol slurs speech making it hard
to gab with others! Alcohol ↑ GABA activity. Lowers anxiety.

Endorphins:

(Endogenous Morphine) relieve pain, produce
feelings of pleasure and well-being.

Agonists:

Similar enough to the transmitter to imitate it and
imitate its effects.

Antagonists:

Think “antagonize”– inhibits transmitter action.

Naloxone:

Blocks opiate pain relief and
opiate high. Is it an agonist or
antagonist?

Cerebrum: Cerebral Hemispheres

Is composed of two cerebral hemispheres - left and right.

Corpus callosum:

Physical connection between the right and left hemispheres.

Cerebral cortex:

Like bark on a tree, covers the cerebral hemispheres; primarily
responsible for higher mental processes (language, memory, thinking).

Glial cells – cells in the nervous system that support, nourish, and protect
neurons. They produce myelin.

They may also play a role in learning and thinking. Einstein’s brain did not
have more or larger neurons, but it did reveal a much greater
concentration of glia than in the average brain.
 Paul Broca
(1824-1880) THE BRAIN
 The clinical method (1861): involves studying the behavioural result of brain
injury or “Posthumous examination” of brain structures to identify injured
areas thought responsible for behavioral conditions existing before death.
 Broca’s area: the speech center in the
3rd frontal convolution of the left hemisphere
of the cerebral cortex.
 Frontal Lobe:
 Mediates movement, problem solving, decision making,
inhibition, language, planning (re: Phineas Gage).
 Parietal Lobe:
 Mediates sense of touch, spatial ability, attention.

 Occipital Lobes:
 Involved with vision, edge detection, shape, form.
 Temporal Lobes:
 Involved in memory, hearing, language, complex
vision (i.e., recognizing faces? Prosopagnosia)

Electroencephalogram (EEG)
measures electrical activity generated
Brain Mapping
by the brain. Can detect rapid changes.
Not very specific.

Transcranial Magnetic
Stimulation (TMS) applies strong
and quick changing magnetic fields to
the skull to enhance or disrupt brain
function in a specific region.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging
(MRI) measures the release of energy
MRI EEG
from water in biological tissues
following exposure to a magnetic field.
PET Phineas Gage

Functional MRI (fMRI) MRI with
measure of blood oxygen changes too.

Positron Emission Tomography Computed Axial
(PET) measures changes in the Tomography (CAT)
brains activity in response to stimuli, is a 3-D reconstruction
based on their consumption of sugar of multiple x-rays
(glucose). Like the brain’s gasoline. through the brain. TMS

Medulla (think “Ed needs a med”). Where the The
spinal cord enters the skull and swells slightly)
- controls automatic functions such as heartbeat, Brainstem
breathing, blood pressure, coughing, barfing, and
swallowing. Area postrema. Scary-Ann Story!! 

Pons (think “Pond’s cold cream” – you put it on

your face or at night before sleep). Just above the
medulla. Plays a role in facial movement and touch
sensations of the face and sleep and dreaming.
The locus coeruleus (area within the pons) is
involved in keeping us paralyzed during REM sleep.
When lesioned in cats, they act out their dreams.

Reticular formation (think “Ritalin” a stimulant

producing arousal) a collection of neurons ranging
from the spinal cord up to the thalamus) - regulates
attention, arousal, and alertness. It filters incoming stimuli.

Amygdala Limbic System

(Think “a MiG fighter plane). Involved in fear
and aggression. Remove amygdala = mellow,
Stimulate amygdala = rage or fear

The amygdala is involved with processing
emotional memories.

Conditioned responses.

Hippocampus:

Think “memory like an
elephant”). Processes memory.
Damage to it prevents new
memories of facts and episodes.

Thalamus: Relay station!

Brain’s sensory switchboard
located on top of the brainstem.

Hypothalamus:

Lies just under
the thalamus.
Regulates, hunger,
thirst, body temperature, and sexual behaviour.

Attached to the rear of the
brainstem, the functions of the Cerebellum
cerebellum include….

Processing sensory input, and
coordinating movement and balance
and learning motor skills.

Discriminating sounds, music.

Spatial reasoning, linguistic abilities.

Integrating input from various
sensory systems.

Memory – Implicit or Procedural
memory (re: opening locker, typing).
 Which Part of Your Brain Drives A Car?

Cerebellum?

Coordinates left and right hand movements on
steering wheel. Driving while daydreaming. 

Medulla?

Regulates breathing and heart-rate while driving.

Pons?

Assists in the coordination of eyes movement and
alertness.

Reticular Formation?

Regulates alertness or drowsiness as we drive.

Thalamus?

Relays visual and auditory cues to areas of the
cerebrum
 Which Part of Your Brain Drives A Car?

Hypothalamus?

Makes us aware when we are too hot or too
cold (to adjust the temperature controls), or too
hungry, thirsty, or in need of a restroom stop.

Amygdala?

May be active during “road rage” (e.g.,when
another driver behaves recklessly).

Hippocampus?

Contributes to the formation of memories of
road hazards for future trips.

Corpus Callosum?

Shares sensory and motor driving information
from both hemispheres.
 Which Part of Your Brain Drives A Car?

Frontal Lobe?

Motor cortex: Initiates movement (braking)

Parietal Lobe?

Helps us parallel park (right parietal lobe).
Somatosensory cortex: Registers the
pressure of the right foot on gas pedal.

Occipital Lobe?

Visual cortex: See road signs

Temporal Lobe?

Auditory cortex: Processes the sounds of
other vehicles (e.g., sirens, horns).

So if you believe we only use 10% of our
brain, which 90% would you like removed
while driving?
 Split Brains

Myth: People are either right-brained (creative,
artistic, emotional) or left-brained (logical,
scholarly, analytical)

If this were true, then people who were artistic
would be unlikely to be verbally gifted. Many
multitalented people exist.

Left hemisphere injury generally impairs?

Ans. Reading, writing, speaking, & math. Right
hemisphere injury rarely shows such effects.

Information from the right half of your visual
field goes to your left hemisphere – which
usually controls speech.

Data from either hemisphere are sent to the
other across the corpus callosum.
 Split Brains

See
Video!
1. Your teacher asks you to describe the sequence of parts of a
Review
neuron that the impulse travels during neural conduction.
Which of the following sequences will you offer?
Quiz
a. dendrites, axon, soma, axon terminal
b. terminal buttons, axon, soma, dendrites
c. axon, soma, dendrites, axon terminal
d. dendrites, soma, axon, axon terminal

2. Synaptic vesicles are analogous to

a. the gate in a fence. b. a gel capsule filled with cold medication.
c. a vacuum cleaning up dirt. d. the prongs on an electrical plug.

3. Which of the following are responsible for speeding up the transmission of

neural impulses?
a. Synapse and axon terminal b. Myelin sheath and nodes
c. Axon and action potentials d. Dendrites and cell body
 Review
4. Isabella is putting mustard on her hot dog. She realizes she
has put on too much and sucks up some of it back into the Quiz
squeeze bottle. This process is similar to
a. the action potential. b. binding specificity.
c. reuptake. d. receptor site bindings.

5. The activity of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is increased by

a. use of alcohol and anti-anxiety drugs.
b. activation of the “fight-or-flight” response.
c. inhibitory postsynaptic potentials (IPSP).
d. antipsychotic drugs.

6. Marlen suffered damage to his hippocampus and as a result has problems

a. expressing emotion and developing fear conditioned responses.
b. remembering previous experiences, but his ability to form new memories is
intact.
c. controlling his voluntary movements and responding to emotional stimuli.
d. forming new memories, but his old memories remain intact.
 Review
7. Sara has been experiencing a serious memory
problem. An interdisciplinary team has ruled out a range of causes Quiz
and believes that a neurotransmitter is involved. Which neurotransmitter is
most likely involved in this problem?
a. Anandamide b. Dopamine c. Serotonin d. Acetylcholine

8. Teegan has suffered a serious brain injury and seems to have difficulty
performing even basic functions. Her neurologist notes that the two
hemispheres of her brain seem to have stopped communicating with each
other. This deficit in communication would be caused by damage to the
a. myelin sheath. b. meninges.
c. corpus callosum. d. central sulcus.

9. Leylani was diagnosed with prosopagnosia following a stroke. Research

has demonstrated that damage to the __________ is related to this disorder.
a. parietal lobe b. occipital lobe
c. central sulcus d. fusiform gyrus
10. As Joe walks to his car late at night, he hears footsteps behind Review
him. Feeling afraid, Joe grips his keys and quickens his pace. It is
likely that Joe’s __________ has been activated. Quiz
a. hypothalamus b. amygdala c. hippocampus d. cerebellum

11. Michael has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and is being treated
with drugs that help to
a. Increase levels of serotonin. b. Decrease levels of serotonin.
c. Increase levels of dopamine. d. Decrease levels of dopamine.

12. Your friend Sheila says she is definitely a right-brained person because
she excels in her language and art classes but performs miserably in her math
classes. You tell her
a. there is no scientific evidence for this type of hemispheric asymmetry for
complex tasks, and actually the two hemispheres function together.
b. she has it backwards: if she likes language but dislikes math, she must be
left-brained.
c. she needs to also assess her handedness before reaching this conclusion.
d. indeed there is scientific evidence for some specialization across
hemispheres so she must have greater activation of one hemisphere
compared to the other.
Mike Moland, Ph.D.
PSYC 1100 YB

Sensation: Sensation
 How the senses detect visual, auditory,
and other sensory stimuli and encode
them as neural signals.

Perception: Prosopagnosia: An
 How sensory information is example of complete
sensation without
selected, organized, and interpreted. perception!
 Bottom-up processing – begins with the
sensory receptors. We construct a whole
stimulus from its parts.
 Top-down processing – information processing
that we use to construct perceptions based on
our experience and expectations. E.g., blind
David Eagleman’s research
spot? Fill gaps. Also why proofreading our own on fear and the estimation
writing can be so difficult. The McGurk effect? of time.

Absolute Threshold:
 Is the minimum stimulation needed to detect a
particular stimulus 50% of the time.

Eagleman’s experiment video.
 Context

Context (top-down
processing) plays a role in
language as well.

Perception
depends on context. Gray can appear
 The shade of grey seen in square like a color depending on surrounding
“A” is exactly the same shade of colors. The blue-colored squares on the
grey seen in square “B”. Cut them top of the cube (top cube) are actually
out yourself! Our perceptual grey (see map below the cube).
apparatus evaluates the colour of Similarly, the yellow-colored squares on
an object in the context of
the top of the cube (bottom cube) are
background light and surrounding
colours (show video). actually grey as well (Purves & Lotto,
2002).

Innattentional blindness Attention
 Failure to detect stimuli that are in plain sight when our
attention is focused elsewhere.
 We’re surprisingly poor at detecting stimuli in plain sight
when our attention is focused elsewhere (Henderson & Hollingworth,
1999; Levin & Simons, 1997; McConkie & Currie, 1996).
 Participants in one study were asked to watch a TV screen
that showed a team of players pass a basketball around. They
were required to count the amount of passes between players
in white shirts.
 They were so intent on the instructions – that they failed to
notice a person in a gorilla suit stroll through the scene, face
the camera, and pound their chest.
 Typically 50% of participants fail to report seeing the gorilla.

Change blindness
 Is a form of inattentional blindness. In one study, two-thirds of
individuals giving directions failed to notice a change in
the individual asking for directions.

Subliminal: below Subliminal
absolute threshold for conscious awareness.
Stimulation

In 1956, a national controversy erupted (later shown to be false) that New
Jersey movie audiences were unwittingly being influenced by imperceptible
flashed messages to Drink COCA-COLA and EAT POPCORN (Pratkanis,
1992).

Rock messages? (show Michael Schermer video).

Instead of the line: “The one whose little path would make
me sad whose power is Satan.”…..replace it with the following line….
 “There was a little child born. Makes me sad for my friend Satan.”

Misheard song lyrics video!

Can we be affected by such unnoticeable stimuli?
 Experimenters subliminally flashed either emotionally positive
scenes (kittens, romantic couple) or negative scenes (a werewolf,
a dead body) an instant before subjects viewed slides of people.
The participants consciously perceived only a flash of light, they
gave more positive ratings to people whose photos had been
associated with positive scenes (Krosnic & others,1992).
 What is Barbie saying?!? Video.
Barbie and the Bottle….
In this famous
magazine
advertisement
for Gilbey’s Gin,
some viewers
claimed
to spot the word
“sex” in the
three ice
cubes in the
glass on the
right. Is this a
subliminal
advertisement?
No. Because even if the viewers were
correct, that they could see the word “SEX”
by definition a subliminal image is one that
we can’t consciously detect.
 The Eye

Cornea? – Protects eye

Iris ?

Dilation, Excitement

Lens?

Focus, accommodation

Retina?

Light sensitive surface

Rods?

Respond to dim light

Cones?

Respond to colour, detail

Fovea?

Highest concentration of
cones

Blind spot?

Optic Nerve?

To LGN, V1 visual cortex
 Fundus of the Eye
Rods and Cones (Electron Microscope) (interior surface) including
retina, fovea, and optic disc
(blind spot).

Theories of Colour
Trichromatic Theory – the retina has 3 types of
colour receptors, each especially sensitive to one of
three colours – red, green, and blue.
Opponent-process theory – opposing retinal
processes (red-green, yellow-blue, white-black)
enable colour vision along the pathway from the
retina (ganglion cells) to the thalamus and visual
cortex. E.g., some cells are stimulated by green
and inhibited by red; others are stimulated by red
and inhibited by green. Ego illusion?
 Feature
Detectors
 Most cells in the visual cortex respond
only to particular features – for
example, to the edge of a surface or
to a bar at a 30 degree angle in the
upper right part of the visual field.

Feature Detectors: Each detector is tuned to a

particular aspect of the stimulus information.
 Gestalt Principles: Our perceptual world is organized
in ways that the stimulus is not. Thus the organization
must be contributed by the perceiver.
 With certain figures (e.g., Kanizsa square), the information that
actually reaches your eyes is constant – the exact geometry
of the figure is the same, no matter how you perceive it.
The change, therefore, is caused by you – a change in how
you’re organizing and interpreting the stimulus.
 Your interpretation of the stimulus isn’t careless or
capricious. Instead, you’re guided by a few straightforward
principles (rules), and these were catalogued by the Gestalt
psychologists many years ago.
 Your perception
goes “beyond the
information given”.
 Perception and the Visual Cortex

 Visual information from the retina travels to the superior colliculus in the
midbrain as well as the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) of the thalamus.
Next the LGN sends input to the primary visual cortex (V1), and then to the
secondary visual cortex (V2), and then along two visual pathways: one
(“where” pathway) going to the parietal lobe, which processes visual
form, position, and motion, and one (“what” pathway) to the temporal
lobe, which processes visual form and colour.
 Perceiving Faces and Objects

Upright races show a configural or holistic processing
pattern (Young et al., 1987). Inverted faces, like
non-face objects, are processed in a piecemeal way.

In humans, fusiform face area (a part of the temporal lobes)
damage, produces the disorder called prosopagnosia– the
inability to recognize familiar faces. But not ONLY faces…..

Research suggests that the specialized neural system in the
fusiform gyrus is responsible for any recognition process for
which we have expertise or have high familiarity
with (Gauthier et al., 2000). Research shows that,
while looking at pictures of birds, bird experts show
stronger activity in the fusiform gyrus than do other
people (Gauthier et al., 2000).

In prospagnosia, the configuration of parts of the face seems to
be especially difficult for them to discern, lending support to the
idea that configural processing is vital for face recognition.

“What” system: Determines what an object is visually.
 So what does Kevin Chappell actually see as a result of visual
agnosia? (See video). He’s sees what we see!! He just can’t
identify what it is! He isn’t blind. See image on the right below!
 If you struggle to recognize what this is – your experience might be
similar to what Kevin Chappell experiences.
 Monocular Depth Cues
 Interposition. Object partly blocks
your view of another. You perceive the
partially blocked object as farther away.

Linear perspective. Parallel lines
known to be the same distance apart
appear to grow closer together, or
converge as they recede into the distance.

Relative Size. Larger objects are
perceived as being closer to the viewer,
and smaller objects as being farther away.

Texture gradient. Near objects
appear to have sharply defined textures,
while similar objects appear progressively
smoother and fuzzier as they recede into
the distance.

Show motorcycle video!!
Muller-Lyer Illusion

With the Müller-Lyer illusion, a line of identical length
appears longer when it ends in a set of arrowheads
pointing inward than in a set of arrowheads pointing
outward. That’s because we perceive lines as part of a
larger context.

Three researchers (Segall, Campbell, & Herskovitz, 1966)
reasoned that people from different cultures who are not
exposed to a world full of right angles, should not be
fooled by the Müller-Lyer illusion.

The Zulu, who live in round huts and plow their fields in
circles rather than rows, are less susceptible to the
Müller-Lyer illusion, probably because they have less
experience with linear environments (McCauley & Henrich,
2006; Segall, Campbell, & Herskovitz, 1966).

Carpentered world
 Segall, Campbell, & Herskovits (1966) introduced the
concept of a “Carpentered world” to describe how those
who live in cities are exposed to a higher percentage of
straight lines, right angles, and square corners.
 Ponzo Illusion

Making use of the monocular depth cue of
Linear Perspective, the Ponzo illusion
leads us to perceive the object closer to
the converging lines as larger.

Our brain “assumes” that the object closer
to the converging lines is farther away, and
compensates for this knowledge by
making the object look bigger.

Akinetopsia: Perceiving Motion
 Motion blindness is a serious disorder in which patients
can’t seamlessly string still images processed by their
brains into the perception of ongoing motion.

Stroke damage on both upper sides of her occipital lobe
(area MT/V5) prevents Gisela Leibold from perceiving motion..
 People moving about a room seem suddenly here or there but I
have not seen them moving.” Pouring tea is a challenge because
the fluid appears frozen and she cannot perceive it rising in the cup.

When we see the world, the brain divides a visual scene into
sub-dimensions such as colour, depth, movement, and form
and works on each aspect simultaneously (Livingstone &
Hubel, 1988). Yet somehow - we don’t really know how - our
brains manage to combine or “bind” these pieces of information
into a unified whole. This is called the binding problem, and
is one of the great mysteries of psychology.

One hypothesis is that rapid, coordinated activity across
multiple cortical areas assists in binding (Engel & Singer, 2001). Binding
may explain many aspects of perception and attention. When we see the
world, we rely on shape, motion, color, and depth cues, each of which
requires different amounts of time to detect individually (Bartels & Zeki,
2006). Yet our minds seamlessly combine these visual cues into a unified
perception of a scene.
1. When you first put your hat on, you can feel it quite easily,
but after a while, you forget that you are wearing a hat at all—the Review
sensation is gone. What happens?
a. Sensory fatigue b. Subliminal perception
Quiz
c. Sensory adaptation d. Perceptual defence

2. Which of the following is conceptually similar to the process of transduction?

a. Hearing a story from a friend and phoning up another friend to tell them the
same story
b. Thinking about what you are going to write in a paper and then typing out
your thoughts
c. Taking a picture of a funny sign that you saw on a road trip
d. Forgetting that your sunglasses are on your face because you have been
wearing them so long

3. Jamica is participating in an experiment and has been placed in a room that

is pitch black. The researcher repeatedly asks Jamica to indicate whether or
not she has seen a light stimulus. The researcher is testing Jamica’s
a. difference threshold. b. just noticeable difference.
c. absolute threshold. d. adaptation threshold.
 Review
4. Airplane pilots who fail to notice the presence of another plane
taxiing across the runway as they are preparing to land are Quiz
experiencing a phenomenon called
a. inattentional blindness. b. shape constancy.
c. change blindness. d. the binding problem.

5. Jarod and Ashton are watching a basketball game. They are so absorbed in
watching the ball being tossed back and forth that they fail to notice a man in a
bunny costume walk through the middle of the basketball court. This is an
example of
a. inattentional blindness. b. shape constancy.
c. change blindness. d. the binding problem.

6. When we describe someone’s eyes as blue, technically we are referring to

his or her blue
a. irises. b. pupils. c. corneas. d. scleras.
 Review
7. It is difficult to distinguish between colours at night because
a. we are seeing primarily with the cones. Quiz
b. rods do not adapt to the dark.
c. we are seeing primarily with the rods.
d. we are used to seeing mostly with the fovea.

8. If you stare for 30 seconds at a red object and then look at a blank sheet of
white paper, you will see a greenish image of the object. This phenomenon
best supports the __________ theory of colour vision.
a. Grieco trichromatic b. opponent process
c. Helmholtz trichromatic d. Hering’s vibration

9. Although Don is blind, he can still make correct guesses about the visual
appearance of objects presented to him in an experiment. This example
demonstrates the phenomenon of
a. motion parallax. b. motion blindness.
c. visual agnosia. d. blindsight.
10. Your friend Stan points to your textbook and asks you to Review
“pass that rectangular paginated object full of written word.”
According to the text, Stan is experiencing what deficit in Quiz
perceiving visual objects?
a. Visual agnosia b. Blindsight
c. Trichromatosis d. Prosopagnosia

11. Stanton is taking chemistry with Ms. Neville and has heard many negative
stories about her class from his friends. The fact that his beliefs about Ms.
Neville affect his interpretation of his interactions with her during the school
year is an example of
a. subliminal processing. b. bottom-up processing.
c. top-down processing. d. parallel processing.

12. The fact that you can easily recognize a picture of Mickey Mouse or Bart
Simpson as that character, no matter what angle they are presented in during
a cartoon, is an example of
a. colour constancy. b. shape constancy.
c. size constancy. d. location constancy.