1) Neocortex And Cerebellum
Here’s Hank Green talking about these two areas and why they might be important for what makes us uniquely human.
This is useful for showing us how neuroscience changes as assumptions are challenged.
2) Disorders
In our course, we study Obsessive Compulsive Disorder as an example of a pathology. In doing so, we assume a medical perspective. There is something definitely wrong with someone which needs to be treated. This assumption is challenged by Peter Kinderman whose views are discussed in this article. The “something wrong” is not inside the individual but in the environment. In some circumstances, many people will develop obsessive thinking, often accompanied by compulsive behaviour. A contrasting view is contained in this article by Camilla Nord. She explains that mental disorders are brain disorders. When we understand better what happens in brain when someone experiences distress, we can help them get better. There are points of agreement in these two opposing views. Nobody denies that the distress which people diagnosed with disorders and nobody denies that the way someone’s brain works when they are distressed is different from how it might have worked before. The issue really is with the language which is used, how that makes people feel and how treatment is then accessed. The important thing here is to think about how holistic approaches to treatment deal with all aspects of someone’s experience. This article explores that idea.
3) Brain Imaging’s Replication Problem
This article explains some of the problems with the reliability of fMRI as a way of studying the brain and what can be done to resolve them.
4) Detecting Autism
This article explains the publication of a new method for detecting autism in very young children. It is often not until the age of four that differences appear between children diagnosed with autism and normally functioning children. Early diagnosis leads to more intervention and support.
5) Brenda Milner
Brenda Milner, best known for her work with HM, is now 103 years old. Here is a tribute to her.
6) Skinner And Operant Conditioning
This is very good on Skinner and his theories. It makes an important point about “behaviour”: for Skinner, this term also referred to language. It also explains what Skinner meant by “operant”. He used the word as a noun, not an adjective. I tend to explain operant conditioning as an extension of classical conditioning. That is not correct. Skinner thought that operants were spontaneous. There is no reason why the rat should press the lever in the Skinner box. Classical conditioning, by contrast, links new behaviours to older unconditioned responses.
7) Michael Rutter Retires
We come across Michael Rutter through his criticisms of Bowlby’s maternal deprivation theory and through his leadership of the English And Romanian Adoptees study. Here is a tribute to him now that after 55 years of research and now that he is in his eighties, he is retiring. The tribute explains two key features of the ERA: stratified sampling based on how long children had been in the orphanages and the use of interviews with the children themselves, something which had rarely been done before. Psychology at its best, and therefore humanity at its best: rigorous, kind and generous.
DHSB/DHSG Psychology Research Digest 