Download States of Consciousness (Dreams)

Course notes
for Year 10 Psychology Revision
Introduction to Psychology.
Definition of Psychology:
Psychology is the scientific study of thoughts, feelings and behaviour.
Of these behaviour is the most observable whereas thoughts and feelings are more covert.
The roles of psychologists are quite varied and include:
 Conducting research.
 Counseling or interviewing people
 Examining the causes of accidents in the workplace and introducing ways to
reduce how often they occur.
 Assessing and treating people with mental disorders and psychological
problems.
 Teaching and lecturing
 Gathering evidence in court
 Helping athletes improve performance.
Some of the areas psychologists may specialize in include:
 Sport
 Clinical
 Forensic
 Clinical neuro-psychology
 Counseling
 Educational and developmental
 Organizational
 Community
 Health
 Academic and research.
Related handouts:
True and False Questionnaires.
The goals of Psychology.
The goals of Psychology are:
 To describe (what is the nature of the behaviour).
 To understand ((to explain why it occurs)
 To predict (when will it occur)
 To control behaviour (what conditions will affect it)
Related handouts:
Poster assignment
Critical thinking.
The four basic principles critical thinking is based upon are:
 Few “truths” transcend the need for empirical testing.
 Evidence varies in quality
 Authority or claimed expertise does not automatically make an idea true.
 Critical thinking requires an open mind.
Pseudoscience is false or fake science.
Examples of pseudo-psychology (false psychology) include phrenology (using the shape
of the skull to determine personality traits), astrology, numerology (using the numbers
from your birth date to determine personality) and graphology (using handwriting to
determine personality and job suitability).
* Use the chapter summary of the Critical thinking handout (What is Psychology side
only) for revision.
Research Methods.
There are two main ways that Psychologist gathers information:
Experimentation
Observation.
Psychologists, like all other scientists, follow a set procedure for collecting and recording
information. (Refer to the two handouts The Research Process and Seven Steps in the
Scientific Method).
Handouts:
The Research Process
Seven Steps in the Scientific Method
For the Cola Challenge it is important that participants do not know what brand of Cola
they are tasting as this may influence the results. Therefore we mask the containers.
When participants are deliberately not informed of which experimental condition they are
in (e.g. What Cola they are tasting) this is called a Single-blind experiment.
There are cases when it is important that neither the participant nor the experimenter
know which condition the participant is being exposed to. This is often the case in drug
trials where the experimenter may accidentally treat the participant in a different way
depending on which group they are in.
When neither the participant nor the experimenter knows which condition the participant
is exposed to it is called a Double-blind experiment.
Writing up a Psychology report:
An ERA (empirical research activity) must contain certain sections and follow certain
conventions.
It is important that:
 An ERA is always written in the past-tense.
 An ERA is always written in the third person (don’t use I, we or you).
An ERA always includes the following sections in this order:
Title
Abstract:
a short description of what the ERA is about. It includes: the Aim and
Hypothesis, the type of participants studied, and what was found. The
abstract should be no more than 100 words long.
Introduction: The introduction starts off general and becomes more specific. It includes:
reasons that the research is being done, past research that is relevant, any
definitions, the aim, the hypothesis and the independent and dependent
Variables.
Method:
The method contains three sections.
Participants: how many, the age range, gender, where they were selected
from and how they were selected.
Apparatus: Everything that was used to conduct the research (not
including people). This includes any questionnaires.
Procedure: Exactly how the research was conducted. This must be written
in the past tense; the third person; and be exact enough for someone else to
repeat the experiment. It may be written in point form.
Results:
The results section summarizes what you found in the experiment. It
should not contain raw data (all the individual results). All graphs must
have a title and be labeled. There should also be a written description of
all relevant results. Be careful not to interpret any results in this section
(for example: you cannot say “there was a clear preference for Coca-cola
over other brands”).
Discussion:
the discussion develops in reverse to the introduction. Information starts
specific and becomes more general. It includes: whether the results
supported, rejected or partially supported the hypothesis, whether the
results were relevant to the aim, any problems that may have influenced
the results, ways the experiment could be improved and whether the
findings can be applied to the general population (in most experiments we
do the answer to this is no).
References:
For Books: Author (year). Title. City of Publication: Name of Publisher.
Page numbers.
Appendices:
For Internet: full web address (date accessed)
any material that is useful but doesn’t belong in the body of the ERA. For
example: copies of questionnaires or surveys or any raw data. Each
Appendix should be numbers and have a title, be referred to in the body of
the ERA.
Definitions:
Aim: the purpose for the experiment
Hypothesis:
A testable prediction of the relationship between two or more events or
characteristics.
Independent variable (IV):
Dependent Variable (DV):
The variable in an experiment which the researcher
manipulates (changes) in order to assess its effects on
participant’s responses.
the variable in the experiment the researcher chooses to
measure in order to assess the effects of the independent
variable.
Ethics
Psychologists, like all scientists are bound by a code of Ethics to guide their research.
Definition: Ethics – Moral principles and standards that guide individuals and distinguish
between right and wrong or good and bad.
A summary of Ethical Guidelines which are designed to protect the rights of participants
in any research investigation:
Informed consent
Participants should not take part in any
psychological research unless they give
informed consent in writing. Participants
must be made aware of the aim of the
research and all procedures involved.
Voluntary participation
All participants must participate in the
research willingly and not be forced in any
way. (This includes being paid a substantial
amount)
Deception
Participants should not be deceived over
the nature of the research or any procedures
involved in the research.
Debriefing
After the research, the psychologist
conducting the research must be prepared
to explain and discuss all of the procedures
Withdrawal
Confidentiality
Professional conduct
and results with the participants.
Participants should be made aware that
they have the right to withdraw for the
research at any point, for any reason.
Results of the research should remain
confidential and the participants’ identities
should not be revealed. For example, in a
case study, participants should be referred
to by their initials.
The Australian Psychological Society
(APS) has published a guideline for
conducting research that must be adhered
to at all times. This is to ensure that a
psychologist conducts their research in a
manner that is professionally ethically
acceptable, and does not bring the
profession into disrepute.
States of Consciousness (Dreams).
Definition:
Consciousness is your awareness of the sensations, thoughts and feelings that you are
experiencing at any given moment.
Activity:
Write down everything that comes into your head for the next 2 minutes. If you can’t
think of what to write, write “I can’t think of anything to write”. You should be writing
continuously the entire time.
You should notice that there is not always a logical progression to your thinking. Instead
our thoughts tend to jump from one link to another. This random flow of thoughts is
called a “stream of consciousness”.
There are two general areas of human consciousness: Normal Waking Consciousness
and Altered States of Consciousness.
We are going to concentrate on the Altered State of Consiousness known as Sleep.
Approximately 1/3 of our life is spent asleep, Though we sleep more as babies and need
less sleep the older we get. While we know that sleep is necessary there is no conclusive
answer as to why we need sleep. Two possible theories are:
 Restorative (that we use sleep as a time to let our bodies and minds
recover and repair from the stress of the day)
 Survival (that as we are not nocturnal animals, we have a better chance of
survival if we stay reasonably still and protected during the night.
Meaning that we are less likely to get eaten if we are not easy to see).
There are two main types of sleep, Rapid Eye Movement (REM) and Non Rapid Eye
Movement (NREM), the first we will look at is NREM.
NREM:
composes about 80% of our sleep, with more in the earlier sleep and less
as we get closer to waking up.
There are four distinct stages to NREM sleep.
The pattern of out sleep looks something like this:
Stage 1.
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Occurs as we drift into and out of a true sleep state.
We can be slightly aware of noises around us.
We can experience body jerks/spasms.
 This stage usually lasts about 10 minutes.
Stage 2
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This is a light stage of sleep.
We can be easily roused in this stage of sleep.
Usually lasts about 20 minutes
Body movements lessen,
Breathing becomes more regular
 Should be able to respond to a door knock or telephone call.
Stages 3
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Start of the deepest stage of sleep
Extremely relaxed and less responsive to external stimuli.
Usually about one hour after falling asleep
 Stay in this slow wave sleep for about 30 minutes
Stage 4
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This is the deepest stage of sleep
Muscles are completely relaxed
No movement
Very difficult to wake someone in this stage
When woken it takes about 10 mins. To orient themselves
Sometimes referred to as “sleep drunkenness”
As night progresses less and less time is spent in Stage 3 & 4
During the deep stages of sleep in stag3e 3& 4 that sleep talking, sleepwalking
and night terrors happen, also bed-wetting.
Takes about 30 – 45 minutes to progressively move from stage 1 – 4 and then back again
through stages 3,2,1. Therefore one complete cycle of NREM sleep takes about 70-90
mins. After this there are signs that we are moving into REM sleep.
REM Sleep
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When the eyeballs move rapidly unde the eyelids.
it is difficult to wake people.
Skeletal muscles are limp
Dreaming occurs mainly in REM sleep.
If woken during REM sleep people seemed to need to make up for lost REM
sleep
 Throughout the night a person continuously passes through NREM and REM
sleep cycles
 REM cycles seem to lengthen and occur closer together as night progresses
 We seem to need to make up for lost REM sleep and will increase frequency and
duration of REM periods if we are deprived of it.
Dream Journal Task:
Try to remember and write done your dreams for one week. It may take some practice
before you can remember your dreams. We usually remember dreams best in the
morning when we first wake up, so you may find that keeping some paper and pen by
your bed to write down your dreams as soon as you wake up will work best. We will be
using these dreams for an internet task, so you will need at least one dream. If you are
having trouble, you may wish to use a dream that you remember from an earlier time.
Handout:
Dream Internet Activity.
Learning:
Definition:
Classical Conditioning is a process of behavior modification by which a subject comes to
respond in a desired manner to a previously neutral stimulus that has been repeatedly
presented along with an unconditioned stimulus that elicits the desired response.
Pavlov’s Dogs
Pavlov “taught” dogs to salivate when they heard a bell by associating the sound of the
bell with them being feed.
Before
Conditioning
Unconditioned
=
Unconditioned
stimulus
response
Food
=
Salivation
During
Conditioning
Conditioned
Stimulus
Bell ringing
After conditioning
Conditioned
Stimulus
Bell ringing
+ Unconditioned
Stimulus
Food
=
=
=
=
Unconditioned
response
Salivation
Conditioned
response
Salivation
Operant Conditioning
Operant Conditioning describes learning which occurs as a result of positive or negative
consequences to the behaviour.
The main idea behind operant conditioning is that an organism will deliberately produce
certain behaviours if they learn that these behaviours will result in reinforcement
(reward). Conversely, they will stop producing behaviours that are followed by a
punishment.
A part of operant conditioning is shaping.
Shaping is the process of teaching a complex behaviour by reinforcing behaviour that
gets closer to the desired behaviour and ultimately leads to the total behaviour.
When shaping is in progress, any behaviour that is similar to the behaviour you want the
organism to learn is rewarded. Later in the process, you only reinforce the behaviour that
is closely related to the behaviour. Finally, only the behaviour that is desired is
reinforced. In each step in shaping, reinforcement is only given to the behaviour that has
moved beyond the previously learned behaviour, allowing the organism to associate the
new step to the behaviour learned earlier.
For Homework:
Find two examples (they can be either operant conditioning or shaping) and explain what
the desired behaviour is and how it was learned (what was the reward or punishment,
when was the reward given). How successful do you think this style of learning was for
each example?
A Brief Survey of Operant Behavior
It has long been known that behavior is affected by its consequences. We reward
and punish people, for example, so that they will behave in different ways. A more
specific effect of a consequence was first studied experimentally by Edward L.
Thorndike in a well-known experiment. A cat enclosed in a box struggled to escape
and eventually moved the latch which opened the door. When repeatedly enclosed
in a box, the cat gradually ceased to do those things which had proved ineffective
("errors") and eventually made the successful response very quickly.
In operant conditioning, behavior is also affected by its consequences, but the
process is not trial-and-error learning. It can best be explained with an example. A
hungry rat is placed in a semi-soundproof box. For several days bits of food are
occasionally delivered into a tray by an automatic dispenser. The rat soon goes to
the tray immediately upon hearing the sound of the dispenser. A small horizontal
section of a lever protruding from the wall has been resting in its lowest position, but
it is now raised slightly so that when the rat touches it, it moves downward. In
doing so it closes an electric circuit and operates the food dispenser. Immediately
after eating the delivered food the rat begins to press the lever fairly rapidly. The
behavior has been strengthened or reinforced by a single consequence. The rat was
not "trying" to do anything when it first touched the lever and it did not learn from
"errors."
A response must first occur for other reasons before it is reinforced and becomes an
operant. It may seem as if a very complex response would never occur to be
reinforced, but complex responses can be shaped by reinforcing their component
parts separately and putting them together in the final form of the operant.
(Taken from: http://www.bfskinner.org/Operant.asp)