Psyc 100 Chapter 5 Textbook Notes

Lecture 5: Biological Foundations
October 13th
 A note on the brain
o Holistic perspective
 All of the brain does everything
 All of the brain is active for any given process
 Certain regions “specialize” but not 100%
o There are certain areas of the brain that do more for certain
processes but they are not technically specialized
o Plasticity
 Repair, extend functions, especially in response to learning and damage
 Some parts of the brain can compensate for others that have suffered
damage
o Brain processes objective information
 Only a small fraction
o Most of the human brain’s activity is geared towards simulating the world
 Responsible for most of our suffering
 We are constantly simulating what might happen
o Brain is influenced by social factors
 Social environmentbrain development (maturity), regulation, output
 However, correlation does not equal causation
o Just because there is activity in the brain associated with
some kind of outcome does not mean that the brain is
causing it
 Neurological patterns can change depending on the changing age of
adulthood
 Free Will
o Benjamin Libet’s Experiments
 Wired up subjects to an EEG machine measuring brain activity
 Asked them to do random hand movements when they felt like it but he
was also tracking brain activity and asked individuals to record when they
told their hand to move
 Brain activity started before the individual willed anything to
happen
o Science has a problem with Free Will because it likes one thing to cause another
 Different aspects of the same physical process
 Consciousness is a brain activity and that is what leads your life
o Defined: The freedom to make whatever choice you want
 We decide what to do and when to do it
 What if free will was just an illusion?
 If we aren’t in control…then we can’t be held accountable for our
actions
 Neuroscientists are figuring out that everything is led back to the brain
 Shaped by genetics and environment

, o Neurons in the brain are governed by physics and therefore
you cannot control them
 Subconscious brain is already deciding before the conscious part
o Is neuroscience more “real” than psychology?
 Many people believe so
o Neurobabble: appeal of “superfluous neuroscience information”
 Social science- how people were raised
 Neuroscience-brain region thought to be associated with behavior
 Why study the brain?
o Implicit assessment-Convergence
 Reduces likelihood of self-report bias
 Placebo effectexpensive wine tastes better
 Actual pleasure or demand characteristics?
 Blood flow to medial orbitofrontal cortex
o Implicit vs Explicit Attitudes
 IAT (Implicit Association Test) for prejudice
 Uncorrelated with surveys
 Amygdalagut-level reaction
 Emotional learning
 Associated with gut level reactions based on race
 Anterior cingulate and dorsolateral prefrontal corticesregulation,
conscious thought
 Brain regions more associated with conscious explicit attitudes
o Validate self-report measures
 Passionate romantic love scale
 Correlates with: thoughts, feelings, behavior and brain
activityanteromedial caudate body; ventral tegmental area
o Disambiguation (2 competing theories)
 Romantic love: emotion or motivational state?
 Caudate and VTA (dopamine), not amygdala (emotional learning)
 Cognitive dissonance or self-perception?
 Dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC)  attitude change
o Cognitive dissonance
 Evolutionary Psychology
o Three Stages of Brain Evolution
 Reptilian: Brainstem, Cerebellum, Hypothalamus
 Reactive and reflexiveavoid hazards
 Mammalian: Limbic System, Cingulate, Early Cortex
 Memory, Emotion, Social behaviorapproach rewards
 Human
 Massive cerebral cortex
 Abstract thought, language, cooperative planning, empathyhigher
order thinking (Calculus)