All your hard work paid off!

Congrats on your AP results - they were excellent and definitely made me smile! :)

(For those of you who are actually still checking this, I'm sure you noticed the snazzy new design and other additions. I'm taking a class on blogging, so I decided to jazz up this blog instead of making a new one - it's not that I'm so bored this summer that I have nothing else to do!)

books and extra credit

*I know that it'll be tough to part with your beloved David Myers textbooks, but please do so by the end of next week. If you hand it in by Friday May 28th, I'll give you five extra term points because it saves me some time and hassle. Otherwise, I need it by the day of our scheduled final (Tuesday June 1st) or I'll have to send a hold slip to the house office.


Psychology Olympics extra credit opportunity:

For 10 extra credit points on term 4, please design a competition that we can use in the Psychology Olympics. It can be something more knowledge-based or a physical trial of some sort (but remember: people aren’t going to be wearing gym clothes, so don’t plan anything too active). Your activity should be purposeful but also fun and engaging, so be creative!
Please hand in a brief, typed write-up that explains:

--How the event will run: will it be an individual or team competition? What are the step-by-step procedures? How long will it take? How is the winner determined?

--What materials are needed

-- The goal of the activity and how it relates to psychology (thoughtfully choose and apply 3 key terms in this part)

Due by next Tuesday May 25

final project

Here's the description of the final project. E-mail me or talk to me tomorrow if you have questions.

suggestions for the rest of the year

Please write down some ideas for what to do with the rest of the year and give them to me tomorrow. Specific ideas are great but I'd also like to know what kind of content you're most intersted in (social psych? abnormal? etc.) and how you'd like to spend class time (working on projects, watching movies, doing activities, etc.). This counts for a homework grade (10 points) - due Thursday 5/13 so I can get the ball rolling!

Review sessions after school this week

I will be running review sessions after school this week on Tuesday and Thursday starting at 2:35. (I would offer Wednesday as well, but unfortunately I have a faculty meeting). Come by and stay for all OR part of it if, and bring any questions you want answered or particular sections you'd like to go over. I'll also make a couple of games (and maybe even have prizes to extrinsically motivate you!).

practice questions for ch 2 and 9

Please remember your short answer question for Monday (see the post before last).

**Model answers for each of the short answer questions below are here.

Here are more practice questions based on today's review sessions:

Chapter 2/neuropsychology: Bonnie wants to lose 10 pounds before she goes on a cruise with her husband in a few months. How might the following terms apply to Bonnie’s plan to step up her exercise and watch what she eats?
· Somatic nervous system
· Endorphins
· Hypothalmus
· Cerebellum
· Frontal lobe
· Hormones

Chapter 2/neuropsychology: Jerry is hiking when, in a very unfortunate turn of events, there’s a landslide and he’s crushed underneath a falling boulder. How might the following terms apply to Jerry’s experience and eventual recovery?
· Sensory neurons
· Autonomic nervous system
· Adrenal glands
· Amygdala
· Association areas
· Broca’s area
· Plasticity

Ch. 9/Memory: How might the following terms apply to your preparation for and lovely experience of taking the AP exam?
· Chunking
· Hippocampus
· Semantic encoding
· Spacing effect
· Implicit memory
· Explicit memory
· Recognition
Proactive interference

Practice questions

On a side note, my freshmen's conclusion that I would win on Cash Cab is based on an illusory correlation: they only take into account the questions I told them I know the answer to (confirming evidence) and ignore the fact that I've told them I definitely don't get all the questions right (disconfirming evidence). If they hypothesized that I know all the answers and then looked only for instances in which I answered correctly, then they would be guilty of confirmation bias, as we noted yesterday. Since, in silly freshman fashion, they continue to believe that I'm some kind of quiz show genius when I've told them repeatedly that I'm not, they are experiencing belief perseverance (chapter 10).

Short Answer questions for chapters 1 & 3:

Chapter 1: If our class was to conduct an experiment to analyze the impact of school start times on student performance, how might the following terms apply?
· Operational definition
· Independent variable
· Dependent variable
· Control condition
· Median
· Statistical significance
· Hindsight bias


Chapter 3: In an attempt to study the impact of nature and nurture on human behavior, two identical twin girls, Mindy and Mandy, are raised apart: one in London, and the other in Beijing. How might the following terms apply in this case?
· Heritability
· Norms
· Evolutionary psychology
· Environment
· Interaction
· Gender role
· Gender schema theory

Chapter 1 also (though the last term is from ch. 2): In a drug study to evaluate the effectiveness of a new Parkinson’s drug, how might the following terms apply?
· Operational definition
· Placebo effect
· Double-blind procedure
· Control group
· Dopamine
· Cerebellum