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| << June27, 2006 - Sight -Student Psychology Newsletter |
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Sight, 1(8) A student psychology newsletter from: http://www.psitutor.org July 3rd , 2006 It's all attitude… "The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances." - Victor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_E._Frankl ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The news this week - *** Announcements *** Statistics : Interesting stuff *** Feature Article : Born Aliens - Part 3 *** Learning Resources & Fun *** The Student Psychology Forum @ http://www.psitutor.org/Forum.html COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION ARE THE KEYS TO LEARNING! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- *** Announcements MRI in Courts…. Apparently two commercial companies are confidently marketing the MRI as a reliable and valid "Lie Detector." I find the whole idea worrying, as the claims indicate accurate measurement of a subjective concept "deception": http://deception.crimepsychblog.com/?p=79 Refashion '06! A great blog site that presents a challenge to de- emphasise a consumer community. I love it! Choose a time frame to suit your temperament, and pledge to not buy new clothing (underwear and sox not included) within that period. Instead, you sew or create items from odd bits in your wardrobe, or op-shop purchases. Take a photo and upload it on this blog as an inspiration to others. I haven't bought clothing brand new for a few years now so my three month challenge is to learn to sew…could get teary… http://wardroberefashion.blogspot.com/ Group-Work Agony Yes, group-work, how many students and employees cringe at the thought of a group assignment? As a tutor at uni, and as an undergraduate, group-work was almost always a difficult time for all involved. I am making this topic my hobby - and to start you reading on better ways to work in groups, here's an article from a blog that uses social networks to aid social interaction from a workplace perspective. http://connectedness.blogspot.com/2005/07/social-networks- of-jerks-and-fools.html Research Reviews * Emotions may aid in distance perception: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getArticle. cfm?id=1995 * The social burdens of food containers: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/onlyhuman/2006/05 /une-petit-yogurt-sil-vous-plait.cfm * Labeling toward healthy nations: http://www.ift.org/cms/?pid=1001249&printable=1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- *** Statistics: Interesting Stuff Catch a Mouse "Hmm... now why is it that most of the mice are falling into the middle of the mousetrap, out of our reach??? http://www.mathcats.com/explore/bag-o/mice.html Haunted House Interactive data collection, spooky stuff : http://www.mathcats.com/explore/hauntedhill.html Investigate Smarties "Do all tubes of Smarties contain the same number and colours?" http://www.skillsworkshop.org/hd/hde1l1smarties.pdf http://www.skillsworkshop.org/hd/hde2e3smarties2.pdf Family & Friends Fun Substitute "Family & Friends" for "Class" in this one… http://members.aol.com/twittwoo/hdpdfs/hdinvest1.pdf ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- *** Article: Born Aliens: Part 3 I found this an interesting read, your comments are welcome at the Student Psychology Forum. by: Sam Vaknin To assume that the child is born a "tabula rasa" is superstition. Cerebral processes and responses have been observed in utero. Sounds condition the EEG of fetuses. They startle at loud, sudden noises. This means that they can hear and interpret what they hear. Fetuses even remember stories read to them while in the womb. They prefer these stories to others after they are born. This means that they can tell auditory patterns and parameters apart. They tilt their head at the direction sounds are coming from. They do so even in the absence of visual cues (e.g., in a dark room). They can tell the mother's voice apart (perhaps because it is high pitched and thus recalled by them). In general, babies are tuned to human speech and can distinguish sounds better than adults do. Chinese and Japanese babies react differently to "pa" and to "ba", to "ra" and to "la". Adults do not - which is the source of numerous jokes. The equipment of the newborn is not limited to the auditory. He has clear smell and taste preferences (he likes sweet things a lot). He sees the world in three dimensions with a perspective (a skill which he could not have acquired in the dark womb). Depth perception is well developed by the sixth month of life Expectedly, it is vague in the first four months of life. When presented with depth, the baby realizes that something is different - but not what. Babies are born with their eyes open as opposed to most other animal young ones. Moreover, their eyes are immediately fully functional. It is the interpretation mechanism that is lacking and this is why the world looks fuzzy to them. They tend to concentrate on very distant or on very close objects theirown hand getting closer to their face). They see very clearly objects 20-25 cm away. But visual acuity and focusing improve in a matter of days. By the time the baby is 6 to 8 months old, he sees as well as many adults do, though the visual system - from the neurological point of view - is fully developed only at the age of 3 or 4 years. The neonate discerns some colours in the first few days of his life: yellow,red, green, orange, gray - and all of them by the age of four months. He shows clear preferences regarding visual stimuli: he is bored by repeated stimuli and prefers sharp contours and contrasts, big objects to small ones, black and white to coloured (because of the sharper contrast), curved lines to straight ones (this is why babies prefer human faces to abstract paintings). They prefer their mother to strangers. It is not clear how they come to recognize the mother so quickly. To say that they collect mental images which they then arrange into a prototypical scheme is to say nothing (the question is not "what" they do but "how" they do it). This ability is a clue to the complexity of the internal mental world of the neonate, which far exceeds our learned assumptions and theories. It is inconceivable that a human is born with all this exquisite equipment while incapable of experiencing the birth trauma or the even the bigger trauma of his own inflation, mental and physical. As early as the end of the third month of pregnancy, the fetus moves, his heart beats, his head is enormous relative to his size. His size, though, is less than 3 cm. Ensconced in the placenta, the fetus is fed by substances transmitted through the mother's blood vessels (he has no contact with her blood, though). The waste that he produces is carried away in the same venue. The composition of the mother's food and drink, what she inhales and injects - all are communicated to the embryo. There is no clear relationship between sensory inputs during pregnancy and later life development. The levels of maternal hormones do effect the baby's subsequent physical development but only to a negligible extent. Far more important is the general state of health of the mother, a trauma, or a disease of the fetus. It seems that the mother is less important to the baby than the romantics would have it - and cleverly so. A too strong attachment between mother and fetus would have adversely affected the baby's chances of survival outside the uterus. Thus, contrary to popular opinion, there is no evidence whatsoever that the mother's emotional, cognitive, or attitudinal state effects the fetus in any way. The baby is effected by viral infections, obstetric complications, by protein malnutrition and by the mother's alcoholism. But these - at least in the West - are rare conditions… final part next week! About the Author: Sam Vaknin is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He is a columnist for Central Europe Review, United Press International (UPI) and eBookWeb and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com. Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ***Resources & Fun Sneeze Personality What does your sneeze reveal about your personality? http://www.3smartcubes.com/pages/tests/sneeze-personality/ sneeze-personality_instructions.asp Personality Tests What kind of chair are you? http://www.sanrio.co.jp/english/characters/tagame/tagame.html Prioritising? How do you determine what is important? http://www.personalityquiz.net/test/prioritytest.htm Discovery Food Education Discovery Education, the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), and the IFT Foundation have partnered to develop this unique program, designed to introduce high school students, teachers, counselors, and parents to the remarkable world of food science and technology, and the exciting career opportunities in the field. http://school.discovery.com/foodscience/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- http://archives.zinester.com/8583/98530.htmlThat's the student psychology news for this week, hope it was of some interest and or help. Feel welcome to email topics that are relevant to you (admin@psitutor.org), and I will do some research and include them. Remember, www.psitutor.org now has Live Tutor Chat, or you can email your questions and assignments for some homework help. There is also the blog: http://psychmatters.blogspot.com And come join the student psychology forum @ http://www.psitutor.org/Forum.html for help with homework, essay or questionnaire construction etc. Maybe you just want to discuss a theory! You are welcome to forward this newsletter onto others who you think my benefit from it. write well, Charmayne Paul www.psitutor.org v-_- pax |
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| << June27, 2006 - Sight -Student Psychology Newsletter |
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