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Psy201
Jagdeep Kaur-Bala, Ph.D.
INSTITUTE OF NEUROSCIENCE & DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY
213A (217 door) Huestis Hall
Office Hours: Tuesday/Thursday - 10:30 am to Noon & by appointment
jagdeep@uoregon.edu emails always welcomed!
Blackboard: http://blackboard.uoregon.edu
Why are we here?
MY GOALS: Introduce you to the exciting science of
(cognitive/neuro-) psychology
• Behavior and Brain
• How the structure and function of the brain relates to
psychological processes
• Information processing and behavioral responses
Aristotle Descartes
Specificity of
The ethereal mind
nerve function
Descartes Mueller
Philosophical Issues in Psychology
Mind- Body problem
Structure
Function
Regulation
Research on mind, brain, and behavior has
accumulated over time to produce the principles
of psychological science.
Themes of Psychological Science
• The Principles of Psychological Science Are Cumulative
– Research on mind, brain, and behavior has accumulated over time to
produce the principles (simplified ideas?!) of psychological science.
– Complexity is inherent in science as ideas and theories are modified by
new information
• A New Biological Revolution Is Energizing Research
– Brain Chemistry: neurotransmitters and drugs to mimic or antagonize
their actions!
– The Human Genome: understanding of the association between genes
and behavior/ability!
– Watching the Working Brain: how different brain regions interact to
produce conscious experience or memory
• The Mind Is Adaptive
– Evolutionary perspective to triats
– Success of those able to solve survival problems and adapt to their
environments
• Psychological Science Crosses Levels of Analysis
– same problem, different questions
– Interdisciplinary approach to social, individual and biological issues
Biological Issues:
What governs behavior?
Biopsychology seeks to understand
the mind through understanding the Damage
biological activity of the brain Damage here
here produces
Localization of function is the produces difficulty in
notion that discrete brain regions difficulty language
control discrete aspects of mental in comprehensi
speaking on
functioning
-Lesions of neural pathways alter
behavior in animal studies
-Humans with focal brain damage
show evidence of
impairment of language