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Our Brains Are Conductor-Less Orchestras
In his keynote address, Michael S. Gazzaniga suggests the brain may work through local gossip rather than central planning.
A composer standing with hands at his side while the orchestra plays a perfect symphony — that’s how the brain works.
At least that was the metaphor offered by Gazzaniga of the University of California, Santa Barbara, during the keynote address of the 25th APS Annual Convention. Gazzaniga argued that the brain’s specialized modules may converse with one another rather than be guided by some almighty leader.
“Maybe the brain is full of local interactions that are simply coordinated in some way,” he said.
Gazzaniga has been studying the distinct roles of brain’s left and right hemispheres for half a century. His many years of work has led him to conclude that brain activity is largely modular, occurring in…
Tags: APS 25th Annual Convention (2013), Biological/Neuroscience, Brain, Laterality | No Comments »
The Benefits of Traditional vs. Wikipedia Research Assignments for Introductory Psychology Students
The cameras were rolling at the APS 25th Annual Convention in Washington DC. Watch Megan John from Concordia College present her poster “The Benefits of Traditional vs. Wikipedia Research Assignments for Introductory Psychology Students.”
This presentation describes how a Wikipedia assignment was integrated into a psychology course to replace the traditional major paper typically assigned in such courses. Thirty-three students worked on significantly expanding and improving eight different Wikipedia articles over a period of 15 weeks. A 30-item survey was administered at the end of the academic semester in order to capture and quantify students’ perceptions of the experience. The survey yielded both qualitative and quantitative data on the perceived benefits of the Wikipedia assignment across multiple domains, and on ways the Wikipedia assignments could be improved.
The Wikipedia assignment particularly increased students’ ability to: 1) communicate ideas to general audiences, 2) take criticism, 3) present information with neutrality, and…
Tags: 2013 Convention Video Blogs, APS 25th Annual Convention (2013), Learning, Students, Teaching, Video, Wikipedia Initiative | No Comments »
Coming Friday at Convention
Presidential SymposiumLearning and Memory: Molecules to Mind 6:00 PM -7:30 PM Salons 2 & 3 Chair: Joseph Steinmetz, The Ohio State University
For well over a century, a major topic of research for psychological scientists has been the psychological and biological and processes associated with how we learn and remember everything from simple behaviors to complex information. In this Presidential Symposium, four distinguished psychological scientists will present how learning and memory is studied from different perspectives and different levels of analyses.
Ted Abel will provide a summary of his work on cellular/molecular mechanisms of long-term memory storage.
Michael Fanselow will speak about how fear is learned and how fear memories are stored in the brain.
Elizabeth Phelps will present her work on using a multi-pronged cognitive neuroscience approach to explore the neural systems involved in human learning and memory and their relation to emotion.
Elizabeth Loftus will…
Tags: APS 25th Annual Convention (2013) | No Comments »
Does Our Innate Ability to Estimate Numbers Benefit From Education?
Children are born with an innate number sense — the ability to discriminate quickly between different amounts or numbers of objects, even without counting. And research has shown that children who have a more acute number sense — or Approximate Number System (ANS) — are also better at mathematics.
In a new article published in Psychological Science, researcher Manuela Piazza of the Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit at INSERM in France and colleagues sought to understand whether improvements in ANS ability come naturally with age or whether they are the result of formal education.
The researchers tested 38 subjects from an indigenous Mundurucú population in Brazil. Mundurucú culture has very few words for numbers, and no symbolic system for numbers or arithmetic. The participants ranged from 4 to 63 years old; some of them…
Tags: Cross Cultural Differences, Education, Learning, Mathematical Ability, Number Comprehension, Perception, Psychological Science, Sociocultural Factors | No Comments »
Science Galore in the APS Exhibit Hall
This month, thousands of psychological scientists from more than 40 countries will gather at the 25th APS Annual Convention in Washington, DC, USA, to share their research, learn from leaders in the field, and celebrate 25 years of innovative science.
Nineteen poster sessions in the APS Exhibit Hall will showcase attendees’ work. Three of those sessions highlight science related to each of the convention’s cross-cutting theme programs:
- Friday, May 24, at 11:30 AM Poster Session IV will feature research related to Building a Better Psychological Science: Good Data Practices and Replicability,
- Friday, May 24, at 1:00 PM Poster Session V will feature research related to Regulating the World, Regulating the Mind
- Saturday, May 25 at 4:00 PM and Poster Session XIII will feature research related to Biological Bases of Social Behavior
Other special events will include Saturday morning…
Tags: 25th APS Annual Convention, Experimental, Experimental Psychology | No Comments »
