“Thanks for almost everything, Dad”

Genetics – study of how living things pass on traits from one generation to the next • Take a minute to think and share with a neighbor

the characteristics you have in common with your parents and the characteristics you do not.

Genotype – Our unique genetic makeup Phenotype – outward expression of a trait

– determined by both genetics and experience

Read page 75 With Neighbor – Thinking Critically

About Mirror Neurons questions • Record on one sheet of paper 1 & 3

Study perception, learning & memory, motivation and emotions, personality, and psychological disorders from a genetic perspective

Animal Behavior Genetics • Strain Studies – Close relatives are inbred

Why? • Selection studies-breeding animals with other

animals that have the same trait Human Behavior Genetics

• Family studies – if genes influence trait – close relatives should share the trait more often than distant relatives

Read twin study article With neighbor answer questions –

record on one piece of paper

Sensation – begins when energy stimulates a receptor cell in one of the sense organs

Absolute threshold – least amount of energy that can be detected as a stimulation 50% of the time. • Hearing – tick of a watch from 20 feet in quiet

conditions • Vision – A candle flame seen from 30 miles on a clear,

dark night • Taste - .0356 ounces of table sale in 500 L of water• Smell – One drop of perfume diffused throughout a

three-room apartment• Touch – the wing of a bee falling on the cheek from a

height of 1 cm

Difference threshold (jnd) – the smallest change in stimulation that can be detected 50% of the time • Would adding 1 pound to 5 pounds be the same

as adding 1 pound to 100 pounds? Weber’s law – different threshold is a

constant fraction or proportion of the original stimulus

To produce a JND - • Hearing – very sensitive – change in sound .3%• Taste – 20% • Weight – 2%

According to Weber’s law – if you are lifting a 50-pound weight, how much must the weight change before you will notice that it is lighter or heavier? • A. 1 ounce• B. 8 ounces • C. 1 pound• D. 2 pounds

Subliminal – below our level of awareness Read ‘The Roots of Subliminal

Perception’

Independent scientific studies show that hidden messages OUTSIDE the laboratory have no significant effect on behavior • In a controlled laboratory setting people can process

and respond to information outside of awareness

If you had to give up one of your senses what would it be and why would you choose this sense?

For humans, vision is the most important sense – so it has received the most attention from psychologists.

1. Why is it the most important sense?

2. It has been suggested that in humans, vision is such a powerful sense that it will override information from other senses – humans will respond to visual stimuli even when hearing (taste or touch) tells them otherwise. Have you had experiences of this sort?

Cornea – light enters through here – transparent protective coating over front part of eye

Pupil – the light then passes through here – opening in center of iris

Iris – colored part of eye Retina – lining of the eye Containing receptor cellsThat are sensitive to light

Retina contains receptor cells that are responsible for vision! • 1. Rods: Responsible for night vision and perception of

brightness • 2. Cones: responsible for color vision

Work in a more limited area of our visual field Seeing with one eye is difficult With partner – try to quickly touch the tip of a

pencil with one eye close – then with both eyes • Easier to accurately judge depth with two eyes – with

only one eye the brain knows what it is seeing, but it does not give an accurate indication of depth perception

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The pweor of the hmuan mnid! Aoccdrnig to a rseaerch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deson't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?

Do you have "X-Ray Vision?" You may be able to see through your own hand with this simple illusion. Roll up a piece of notebook paper into a tube. The diameter of the tube should be about 0.5 inch. Hold up your left hand in front of you. Hold the tube right next to the bottom of your left "pointer" finger in between you thumb (see figure below).

Look through the tube with your RIGHT eye AND keep your left eye open too. What you should see is a hole in your left hand!! Why? Because your brain is getting two different images...one of the hole in the paper and one of your left hand.

• http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/fun-senses-tests-visual-hearing-reaction-disgust/

http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/

Criticisms adfas fadfad

Now choose between hearing and seeing, if you had to give up one which one would it be and why?

Writing Response Individually: • First, create a list how losing your hearing would

impact your life • Second, create a list how losing your sight would

impact you • If you had to give up one which would it be and

why?

Hellen Keller – blind and deaf – regretted her inability to hear more than anything else • “I am just as deaf as I am blind. The

problems of deafness are deeper and more complex, if not more important than those of blindness. Deafness is a much worse misfortune. For it means the loss of the most vital stimulus –

the sound of the voice that brings language, sets thoughts astir and keeps us in the intellectual company of man.”

Some animals depend more on their hearing than on their sight

Bat, dolphins, porpoises, and whales are not blind but they ‘see’ more with their ears than with their eyes. • Echolocation – high pitched chirps that

bounce off nearby objects – neurons in auditory system collect information from echoes

Should doctors do everything possible to restore hearing in children who are born deaf or become deaf at an early age?

National Association of the Deaf – argues no because many procedures only partially restore hearing • What would their argument be against partially

resorting hearing? • Deafness is not a disability but form of human

diversity – can lead to a sharpening of other senses

Recall – Researches focus mostly on vision and then hearing – humans rely primarily on these two senses to gather info about their environment

Chemical senses – smell and taste Smell – weaker in humans than most

animals but still 10,000 more acute than taste

Adaptation – odors gradually become less noticeable

Odor sensitivity – • Gender • Age

Anosmia– complete loss of smell (usually under estimated)

Page 85

Chemicals that communicate information to other organisms through smell

Mammals have this second sensory system used for communicating sexual, aggressive, or territorial signals.

Flavor – complex interaction of taste and smell

Plug nose when eat only experience taste – sweet, sour, salty, bitter

Taste buds- receptor cells for sense of taste located here

Tip of tongue- sweetness and saltiness

Back- bitterness Sides- sourness

Largest sense organ – if you are 6 feet tall you have about 21 square feed of skin! • Protects us from the environment• Receptors for sense of touch – important role in

human interaction and emotion • Most comforting sense

Skin receptors give the rise to sensations of pressure, temperature, and

pain

Individually – read applying psychology page 108 • What ways has touch been shown to be

beneficial? • What should we do with these findings?

(example: Should there be any changes made in society because of the results of these studies?)

Phantom limb: 85% amputees – patient continues to feel the missing limb is still there (itch, tickle, cramp, pain)

Biopsychosocial theory• Biological mechanisms – degree to which tissue

is injured & Genetics play a role • Psychological mechanisms – thoughts, beliefs,

and emotions affect pain • Social mechanisms – degree of family support

Cultural expectations

Placebo effect: pain relief that occurs when a person believes a pill or procedure will reduce pain • Source of relief – endorphins

Perception vs Sensation Perception: the brain’s processOf organizing and making sense of

sensory information -(recall) While sensation – raw sensory date the brain receives from our senses

Once we have a stable perception we perceive objects as relatively stable and unchanging despite changing sensory information • Example: Recognize our house from any

position, distance, lighting

20th century – Gestalt psychologists • How do we interpret sensory information? • Concluded – the brain creates a coherent

perceptual experience that is more than simply the sum of sensory information

• In other words – look at whole picture Distinguish figure from ground Cues missing – perception more

difficult

Monocular Cues • Interposition – object in front perceived as

being closer

Linear Perspective – two parallel lines that extend into the distance seem to come together at some point

Elevation – the higher on the horizontal plane an object is the farther away it appears

Parallax Motion: Nearby objects seem to go faster where as farther away objects seem to move slowly

http://psych.hanover.edu/krantz/MotionParallax/MotionParallax.html

Relative height • Objects higher in our field of vision seem to

be farther away from us • Vertical line seems farther away