Day 33

Learning Targets:  

• Students will be able to describe the structure and function of the 5 basic senses and how these processes influence human behavior.
• Students will be able to understand the impact of perception on the influence of behavior.

Opener:  What is on the tip of your tongue?  Have you ever disagreed with someone about how something tastes?

Activity #1:  Mini - Lecture

• Our ability to taste begins at the taste receptors on the tongue. 
• The tongue detects six different taste sensations: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, piquancy (spicy), and umami (savory). 

• Our tongues are covered with taste buds, which are designed to sense chemicals in the mouth.
• Most taste buds are located in the top outer edges of the tongue, but there are also receptors at the back of the tongue as well as on the walls of the mouth and at the back of the throat.

• Human tongues are covered with 2,000 to 10,000 taste buds, and each bud contains between 50 and 100 taste receptor cells. 
• Taste buds are activated very quickly; a salty or sweet taste that touches a taste bud for even one-tenth of a second will trigger a neural impulse 

• On average, taste buds live for about five days, after which new taste buds are created to replace them. 
• As we get older, however, the rate of creation decreases, making us less sensitive to taste. 

• The area of the sensory cortex that responds to taste is in a very similar location to the area that responds to smell

Activity #2:  Provide a hypothesis for each of the following questions below regarding taste as one of the 5 senses.  Remember that this should be a claim that can be measured through experimentation and quantifiable data.

1. Why might younger children be such picky eaters?
2. Why might younger children be so attracted to sugary foods?
3. To what extent does our sense of smell influence what we like to eat?

Activity #3:  Identify the scientific method components of ONE the research study linked below: 

Obesity and your taste buds.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180320141339.htm

Eating with your eyes
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181015163157.htm

Bitter taste and cancer
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/07/180718104740.htm

Close:  Live Q&A Here: 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CM74hfGqmTM7TYcfCXOZMfKe7W83BeFwJk3oYxCAe-8/edit?usp=sharing

Day 32

Learning Targets:  

• Students will be able to describe the structure and function of the 5 basic senses and how these processes influence human behavior.
• Students will be able to understand the impact of perception on the influence of behavior.

Opener:  What is the absolute threshold for sounds?

Activity #1:  Sensation vs Perception 

Difference Threshold - The minimum amount of difference that can be detected between stimuli

Signal Detection Theory - Theory that states that other variables in your setting influence how we process signal stimuli

The Ear

Pitch - The variance in sound waves that determines how high or low the sound. 

Loudness - measured in decibels, this is the amplitude of the soundwave

Auditory Nerve - Sends neural impulses to the brain based upon the movement and vibrations of fluids in the cochlea.

Label the following on your diagrams:

Ear

Ear Canal

Eardrum

Hammer

Anvil

Stirrup

Cochlea

Auditory Nerve

Eustachian Tube

Eye

Cornea

Pupil

Lens

Iris

Retina

Optic Nerve

Photoreceptors

Blind Spot

Activity #2:  Read the short article linked down below about the implications of hearing loss.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-i-hear/201302/more-noise-more-hearing-loss-more-isolation

1.  What are 3 of the social and/or psychological consequences of hearing loss?
2.  What is the "iPod Effect"?
3.  How might hearing loss be connected to dimentia?

Close:  Live Q&A Here: 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CM74hfGqmTM7TYcfCXOZMfKe7W83BeFwJk3oYxCAe-8/edit?usp=sharing

Day 31

Learning Targets:  

• Students will be able to describe the structure and function of the 5 basic senses and how these processes influence human behavior.
• Students will be able to understand the impact of perception on the influence of behavior.

Opener:  Which two of your senses are you most reliant upon for typical day-to-day tasks?  Quick Write:  Describe a day in your life without those two senses.

Activity #1:

First give this a quick read: http://www.manythings.org/voa/people/Helen_Keller-1.html

Questions to answer:

1.  How do people compensate for lost senses?

2.  How might you compensate for losing the two senses that you listed above? 

Activity #2:  Sensation/Perception Introduction

Sensation — awareness resulting from the stimulation of a sense organ 

Perception — the organization and interpretation of sensations. 

Psychophysics - the branch of psychology that studies the effects of physical stimuli on sensory perceptions and mental states.

Absolute threshold - the intensity of a stimulus that allows an organism to just barely detect it.

Close:  Live Q&A Here: 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CM74hfGqmTM7TYcfCXOZMfKe7W83BeFwJk3oYxCAe-8/edit?usp=sharing

Day 28-29

Learning Targets:

• Describe the continuum of consciousness
• Analyze the cultural perspective of drug use and consciousness
• Describe the stages of sleep, function of sleep and sleep disorders
• Compare the theories of dreaming
• Describe the theories of hypnosis

Opener - Examine the table and definitions below to determine which methodology will work best for answering your hypothesis.

Descriptive research: case studies, surveys, and observation
Correlational research involves the measurement of two or more relevant variables and an assessment of the relationship between those variables.
Experimental research an experiment where the researcher determines and/or controls  the independent variable (or variables) and the dependent variable. 

Activity #1 - Make a template:

Using Google Doc's, or Microsoft Office, make a preliminary template for your proposed research that you can use to gather, sort, or analyze data.  This may include one or more of the following:

- Identify what you will attempt to describe in a case study
- Make a list of questions that you will ask in a survey
- Design a checklist for observable behaviors
- List the variable(s) you intend to manipulate or measure in an experiment

For example, you can make a checklist on a Google or Microsoft spreadsheet that would measure each time you observe a behavior or record a response, OR use Google or Microsoft documents and design your survey questionnaire.

Activity #2 - Ethics Check.  Read the short article linked below in order to complete each of the statements below in your notebook:

https://www.verywellmind.com/conducting-ethical-research-in-psychology-2795184

1.  Participation in your study must be ___________.
2.  As the researcher, you must first obtain ____________   ______________ from each potential participant in your study.
3.  Participants must be informed of any potential ____________.
4.  You must ensure that you maintain participant ____________ by not sharing details of individual responses.

Word Bank
Risks, Voluntary, Confidentiality, Informed Consent

Close - Student questions posted here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bXxYSo34SQJnzapptBMurlMNGcjo_gEKgooFAgZ6xE8/edit?usp=sharing

Day 25

Learning Targets:

• Describe the continuum of consciousness
• Analyze the cultural perspective of drug use and consciousness

Opener:  Why do you think that Americans are so quick to seek medication to escape consciousness?

Activity #1 - Quick Read from a Canadian Textbook https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontopsychology

1.  Which of these escapes do you think holds the greatest potential for harm?  Why?

2.  What types of stressors do you think people are most frequently looking to escape?

3.  What might be some healthier ways for us to alter our consciousness to cope with stress/anxiety?

Psychology in Everyday Life: The Need to Escape Everyday Consciousness

We may use recreational drugs, drink alcohol, overeat, and gamble for fun, but in some cases these normally pleasurable behaviors are abused, leading to exceedingly negative consequences for us. We frequently refer to the abuse of any type of pleasurable behavior as an “addiction,” just as we refer to drug or alcohol addiction.

Roy Baumeister (Baumeister, 1991) has argued that the desire to avoid thinking about the self (what he calls the “escape from consciousness”) is an essential component of a variety of self-defeating behaviours. Their approach is based on the idea that consciousness involves self-awareness, the process of thinking about and examining the self. Normally we enjoy being self-aware, as we reflect on our relationships with others, our goals, and our achievements. But if we have a setback or a problem, or if we behave in a way that we determine is inappropriate or immoral, we may feel stupid, embarrassed, or unlovable. In these cases self-awareness may become burdensome. And even if nothing particularly bad is happening at the moment, self-awareness may still feel unpleasant because we have fears about what might happen to us or about mistakes that we might make in the future.

Baumeister argues that when self-awareness becomes unpleasant, the need to forget about the negative aspects of the self may become so strong that we turn to altered states of consciousness. Baumeister believes that in these cases we escape the self by narrowing our focus of attention to a particular action or activity, which prevents us from having to think about ourselves and the implications of various events for our self-concept.

Baumeister has analyzed a variety of self-defeating behaviours in terms of the desire to escape consciousness. Perhaps most obvious is suicide — the ultimate self-defeating behaviour and the ultimate solution for escaping the negative aspects of self-consciousness. People who commit suicide are normally depressed and isolated. They feel bad about themselves, and suicide is a relief from the negative aspects of self-reflection. Suicidal behaviour is often preceded by a period of narrow and rigid cognitive functioning that serves as an escape from the very negative view of the self brought on by recent setbacks or traumas (Baumeister, 1990).

Alcohol abuse may also accomplish an escape from self-awareness by physically interfering with cognitive functioning, making it more difficult to recall the aspects of our self-consciousness (Steele & Josephs, 1990). And cigarette smoking may appeal to people as a low-level distractor that helps them to escape self-awareness. Heatherton and Baumeister (1991) argued that binge eating is another way of escaping from consciousness. Binge eaters, including those who suffer from bulimia nervosa, have unusually high standards for the self, including success, achievement, popularity, and body thinness. As a result they find it difficult to live up to these standards. Because these individuals evaluate themselves according to demanding criteria, they will tend to fall short periodically. Becoming focused on eating, according to Heatherton and Baumeister, is a way to focus only on one particular activity and to forget the broader, negative aspects of the self.

Newman and Baumeister (1996) have argued that even the belief that one has been abducted by aliens may be driven by the need to escape everyday consciousness. Every day at least several hundred (and more likely several thousand) Americans claim that they are abducted by these aliens, although most of these stories occur after the individuals have consulted with a psychotherapist or someone else who believes in alien abduction. Again, Baumeister has found a number of indications that people who believe that they have been abducted may be using the belief as a way of escaping self-consciousness.

Activity #2 - Mini Lecture and Constructed Response - Psychoactive drugs and addictions

Close:  Student Questions and Psychology Today Presentation: