Researchers conduction case studies, like any other research methodology involving humans or non-human animals, must address ethical considerations. One of my favorite case studies was done with a person—identified in the literature as SM—who has Urbach-Wiethe (pronounced Er-bock Wheat-ah) disease (Adolphs et al., 1995). While the disease has a number of effects, the most striking is that it adds calcium deposits to the amygdala, rendering it inactive. You can see an MRI of SM’s brain at BrainFacts.org showing her missing amygdala (McMurray, 2020). Class discussion of the ethics of this research fits nicely in the biopsych chapter. If you’ve read Sam Kean’s book The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons, you’ll recognize SM from the amygdala chapter. If you haven’t read The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons, it is a must-read. Your coverage of biopsych will be the better for it. Before class, ask students to read SM’s freely-available, three and a half page case study (Feinstein et al., 2011). Incidentally, this is just one paper. SM has been participating in research for decades. Here’s a more recent (and freely-available) study (Cardinale et al., 2021).   Tell students they’ll be reading a case study of a woman who, due to damage to her amygdala, experiences no fear. “To provoke fear in SM, we exposed her to live snakes and spiders, took her on a tour of a haunted house, and showed her emotionally evocative films” (Feinstein et al., 2011, p. 34). If that quote isn’t enough to get students to read the article, then I’ve got nothing. Also ask students to read the supplementary material available at the end of the article (direct link for the download). This document describes how SM experienced fear up until about the age of 10, which is the age that is typical for Urbach-Wiethe disease to damage the amygdala enough that fear disappears. It also includes an interview with one of SM’s children who reports a memory of his mom picking up a massive snake as well as SM’s description of a time when a man held a knife to her throat and threatened to kill her. In my experience, an article’s supplementary material is never this interesting. Now let’s tackle the ethics. While the paper does not mention IRB approval, we can conclude that they must have had it. In the Acknowledgements section near the end of the article, the researchers note that they had a few National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants. To received an NIH grant, researchers must have IRB approval. Here is the specific section of the federal code that determines what an IRB should be evaluating in a study (Office for Human Research Protections, 2024). While the federal code for IRB approval includes informed consent, minimizing risk/harm to participants, and maintaining privacy of participants, we can find some additional information about each of these in the article and its supplementary materials. Ask students if they found any reference to informed consent in the reading. (Informed consent is mentioned twice. First, on page 34 of the article: “SM provided her informed written consent to participate.” Second, at the bottom of the first page of the supplementary materials, the researchers write, “[O]ur informed consents mention the overarching goals of advancing our knowledge with regard to general concepts such as emotion, memory, and social behavior, but never specifically state our interest in probing fear.” We now know that they do get informed consent from SM.)   Ask students if they have any evidence that the researchers are keeping participant information confidential. (Because we never learn who SM is, the researchers are maintaining her privacy by keeping information about who she is confidential.) Ask students if they have evidence that the researchers protected SM from harm. (On page 34, the researchers write, “For ethical reasons, we chose three situations capable of inducing fear with little to no risk of direct harm to the subject.”)    Ask students if deception was used in this case study. It’s worth noting that the federal code for IRBs does not mention deception (Office for Human Research Protections, 2024). The American Psychological Association (APA) ethics code (8.07), however, does (American Psychological Association, 2017). The APA does not disallow deception, but the ethics code dictates that deception must be used with careful consideration and participants should be told about the deception, ideally, at the conclusion of the study. Without seeing the informed consent form given to SM, we cannot know for certain that deception was not used. However, given that the researchers list on page 34 the three situations that SM would be exposed to and immediately after state that she provided her informed consent, we can reasonably conclude they told her what they were going to be doing. Ask students if they believe the researchers debriefed SM following this study. Debriefing is not mentioned in the article nor is it required by the federal code for IRBs (Office for Human Research Protections, 2024). While the APA ethics code asks that researchers debrief participants, they give researchers an out in 8.08(b): “If scientific or humane values justify delaying or withholding this information, psychologists take reasonable measures to reduce the risk of harm” (American Psychological Association, 2017). We know that SM has been tested many, many times in the last 30 years or so. The researchers tell us in their supplemental material that their informed consent forms say that they are testing emotions generally but not fear specifically. They do this to avoid the chances that SM will change her behavior to give the researchers what they are looking for. It makes sense that the researchers wouldn’t tell her in a debriefing after each study that they are studying her experience of fear specifically. That would clue her in that the next study would also be about fear. We can argue that 8.08(b) applies. In order for the future research with SM to be of scientific value, she cannot know that the researchers are specifically testing her for fear. To conclude this discussion, ask students to identify other potentially fear-inducing situations researchers could use. And, more importantly, what fear-inducing situations carry too high a risk for harm? (Would ziplining be okay? Bungee jumping? Parachuting out of an airplane? How can researchers evaluate such activities for risk?)     References Adolphs, R., Tranel, D., Damasio, H., & Damasio, A. (1995). Fear and the human amygdala. The Journal of Neuroscience, 15(9), 5879–5891. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.15-09-05879.1995 American Psychological Association. (2017). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct. https://www.apa.org/ethics/code Cardinale, E. M., Reber, J., O’Connell, K., Turkeltaub, P. E., Tranel, D., Buchanan, T. W., & Marsh, A. A. (2021). Bilateral amygdala damage linked to impaired ability to predict others’ fear but preserved moral judgements about causing others fear. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 288(1943), 20202651. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.2651 Feinstein, J. S., Adolphs, R., Damasio, A., & Tranel, D. (2011). The human amygdala and the induction and experience of fear. Current Biology, 21(1), 34–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2010.11.042 McMurray, C. (2020, December 9). Patient S.M. https://www.brainfacts.org:443/in-the-lab/tools-and-techniques/2020/patient-sm-120920 Office for Human Research Protections. (2024, June 11). 2018 Requirements (2018 Common Rule) [Page]. https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/regulations/45-cfr-46/revised-common-rule-regulatory-text/index.html   ... View more

I’m a fan of infusing research methods throughout the Intro Psych course. We introduce psychology’s most common research methods early in the course, but we should revisit them every now and again in the context of psychology’s content to help make them stick. Think spacing effect.   First, a note on getting journal articles. For college and university faculty, accessing journal articles through their library’s databases is usually a pretty easy process. If your library doesn’t have it, you can request it through interlibrary loan (ILL). For high school teachers, getting research articles can be challenging. Some journals will make some articles freely available. Some authors make their articles freely available to download via ResearchGate. You will need a ResearchGate account, but it is free to join. Other authors—or the same authors, but different journal articles—will give you the option to contact them via ResearchGate for a copy of their article. If the author isn’t on ResearchGate, email them directly to ask for a copy of their article. Provide a full citation. Researchers may publish several articles on the same topic in the same year. Wherever you find an abstract, you can often find the email address of the lead author. If you can’t find the email address, you can usually find their affiliation. An Internet search of their name and affiliation will usually yield a page at their institution that includes an email address. Do not ever feel shy about contacting researchers to request a pdf of an article or to ask questions about their research. The vast majority of researchers, frankly, are thrilled to learn that someone is interested in their research. I’m not kidding. Interlibrary loan (ILL) may be another option for you. Ask your public library librarians if they do ILL for journal articles. Also, don’t be afraid to ask your friends who are college or university faculty. Just be sure to rotate your requests through your network. You don’t want to wear out your welcome with one person with a single request for a dozen articles! Finally, be aware that some of the classic case studies discussed in Intro Psych textbooks are not good examples, such as Phineas Gage. “Recent historical work, however, suggests that much of the canonical Gage story is hogwash, a mélange of scientific prejudice, artistic license, and outright fabrication,” writes one of my favorite science writers, Sam Kean (Kean, 2014). (If you have not yet read Kean’s book The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons, I highly recommend it. Kean dives into each major area of the brain, discussing both its history and current research.) Below are some case study examples, organized by pillar (Gurung et al., 2016). As with all research articles, you don’t have to understand every word to get the point. That’s probably a message worth communicating to our students. Researchers write journal articles for other researchers who are doing research in their same area. They are not writing for a general audience. Even researchers who work in other areas of the field may not grasp every word. And that’s okay! If you can get enough of the big picture to share the research with students—even if it’s in broad strokes—you are good to go. Here's an example of where I needed help with the big picture. I wrote a blog post recently on how the mapping of the motor cortex that we’ve taught for decades is wrong (Frantz, 2024). It was based on fMRI findings researchers published in the journal Nature (Gordon et al., 2023); the article is freely available. The lead author, Evan M. Gordon, is a radiologist at the Washington University School of Medicine. I am absolutely certain radiologists would understand just about every word in that article. I, however, am not a radiologist. I’m not even a biopsychologist; my background is in social psychology. With a rudimentary understanding of biology, however, I could grasp most of the article, but there were places where I struggled enough that I could not quite see the big picture. So, I did the only reasonable thing. I emailed Gordon. He replied very quickly—and graciously. It took an exchange of just a few emails for me to get it. The result was that blog post.   Biological Stevens, J. A., Cole, W. G., & Vishton, P. M. (2012). Using touch or imagined touch to compensate for loss of proprioception: A case study. Neurocase, 18(1), 66–74. https://doi.org/10.1080/13554794.2011.556124. [Download full text via ResearchGate.] Feinstein, J. S., Adolphs, R., Damasio, A., & Tranel, D. (2011). The human amygdala and the induction and experience of fear. Current Biology, 21(1), 34–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2010.11.042. [Full text available.] Tuckute, G., Paunov, A., Kean, H., Small, H., Mineroff, Z., Blank, I., & Fedorenko, E. (2022). Frontal language areas do not emerge in the absence of temporal language areas: A case study of an individual born without a left temporal lobe. Neuropsychologia, 169, 108184. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2022.108184. [Download full text via ResearchGate.]   Cognitive Linden, M. V. (1996). Semantic memory and amnesia: A case study. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 13(3), 391–414. https://doi.org/10.1080/026432996381953. [Download full text via ResearchGate.] Gould, C., Froese, T., Barrett, A. B., Ward, J., & Seth, A. K. (2014). An extended case study on the phenomenology of sequence-space synesthesia. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00433 [Download full text.]     Developmental Kocabaş-Gedik, P., & Ortaçtepe Hart, D. (2021). “It’s not like that at all”: A poststructuralist case study on language teacher identity and emotional labor. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 20(2), 103–117. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2020.1726756 [Request full text from the authors via ResearchGate.] Nelis, P., Pedaste, M., & Šuman, C. (2023). Applicability of the model of inclusive education in early childhood education: A case study. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1120735. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1120735 [Download full text.]     Social & Personality Herrick, S. S. C., Rocchi, M. A., & Couture, A. L. (2020). A case study exploring the experiences of a transgender athlete in synchronized skating, a subdiscipline of figure skating. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 44(5), 421–449. https://doi.org/10.1177/0193723520919816. [Request full text from the authors via ResearchGate.]   Ferguson, D., & Martin-Dunlop, C. (2021). Uncovering stories of resilience among successful African American women in STEM. Cultural Studies of Science Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-020-10006-8. [Request full text from the authors via ResearchGate.] Leporelli, E., & Santi, G. (2019). From psychology of sustainability to sustainability of urban spaces: Promoting a primary prevention approach for well-being in the healthy city designing. A waterfront case study in Livorno. Sustainability, 11(3), 760. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11030760. [Download full text via ResearchGate.] Hu, X., Sidhu, G. K., & Lu, X. (2022). Exploring positive psychology factors in the quality of English as a foreign language classroom life: A case study. Environment-Behaviour Proceedings Journal, 7(22), 17–22. https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v7i22.4153. [Download full text via ResearchGate.]   Mental & Physical Health Black, Z. A., & McCarthy, P. (2020). A case study of a trainee sport psychologist adopting a person-centred approach with a professional basketball player. Sport & Exercise Psychology Review, 16(2), 74–83. https://doi.org/10.53841/bpssepr.2020.16.2.74. [Author’s accepted manuscript.] Borg, M. B. (2002). The Avalon Gardens Men’s Association: A Community health psychology case study. Journal of Health Psychology, 7(3), 345–357. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105302007003226. [Request full text from the author via ResearchGate.] Blackwell, S. E., & Holmes, E. A. (2017). Brightening the day with flashes of positive mental imagery: A case study of an individual with depression. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 73(5), 579–589. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.22455. [Download full text.]     References Frantz, S. (2024, July 20). The classic motor cortex map is wrong. Macmillan and BFW Teaching Community. https://community.macmillanlearning.com/t5/psychology-blog/the-classic-motor-cortex-map-is-wrong/ba-p/21746 Gordon, E. M., Chauvin, R. J., Van, A. N., Rajesh, A., Nielsen, A., Newbold, D. J., Lynch, C. J., Seider, N. A., Krimmel, S. R., Scheidter, K. M., Monk, J., Miller, R. L., Metoki, A., Montez, D. F., Zheng, A., Elbau, I., Madison, T., Nishino, T., Myers, M. J., … Dosenbach, N. U. F. (2023). A somato-cognitive action network alternates with effector regions in motor cortex. Nature, 617(7960), 351–359. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-05964-2 Gurung, R. A. R., Hackathorn, J., Enns, C., Frantz, S., Cacioppo, J. T., Loop, T., & Freeman, J. E. (2016). Strengthening Introductory Psychology: A new model for teaching the introductory course. American Psychologist, 71(2), 112–124. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0040012 Kean, S. (2014, May 7). Phineas Gage, neuroscience’s most famous patient. Slate. https://slate.com/technology/2014/05/phineas-gage-neuroscience-case-true-story-of-famous-frontal-lobe-patient-is-better-than-textbook-accounts.html ... View more

“’You never know if your perception is a normal perception or if it’s a particular perception that differs from other ones,’ says Fabien Hauw, a neurologist and cognitive neuroscientist” (Makowski, 2024a). Many years ago, after I finished a short lecture on synesthesia in Intro Psych, one of my students raised her hand. She said, “I have synesthesia.” She went on to say that she didn’t know it was an unusual thing until a few months earlier when she was standing with a group of friends, and one was talking about this peculiar thing he had just learned about in his (my) Intro Psych course. As he explained that some people see colors when they hear sounds, my current student said, “Doesn’t everyone experience that.” All eyes turned her. No, no, they don’t. Some number of terms later, I shared with students that sometimes when it’s quiet—most commonly before falling asleep—a sudden noise results in a flash of a light pattern, such as a bright hashtag/pound sign or checkerboard. My (now laughable) mistake was that I assumed this was an experience everyone had. The looks on my students’ faces made it clear that it is not. Interestingly (or not), I haven’t had this experience in at least five years—neither the flash of light nor those looks on my students’ faces. With that as my mental backdrop, I read with great interest an article in the July/August 2024 issue of Scientific American about ticker tape synesthesia, aka ticker taping (Makowski, 2024b). The article is available freely online (Makowski, 2024a). It’s especially interesting because the writer—a copy editor for Scientific American—has ticker tape synesthesia. The name ticker tape synesthesia is unfortunate, because to explain what this is to our students we first have explain what a ticker tape is. The Wikipedia article on ticker tape will get your students (and you?) up to speed quickly. We already have to explain what a cocktail party is when describing the cocktail party effect, so we’re used to this sort of problem. Sir Francis Galton described ticker tape synesthesia in 1883. While he didn’t call it that, he did reference the telegraph technology that made ticker tapes possible: Some few persons see mentally in print every word that is uttered; they attend to the visual equivalent and not to the sound of the words, and they read them off usually as from a long imaginary strip of paper, such as is unwound from telegraphic instruments. The experiences differ in detail as to size and kind of type, colour of paper, and so forth, but are always the same in the same person (Galton, 1907, p. 67). In short, ticker tape synesthesia is personal captioning—words that are heard become words that are seen. As a person with this form of synesthesia hears someone speaking—including themselves (Hauw et al., 2023), their brain automatically generates text. Some people describe the text as scrolling across their mind’s eye, like a ticker tape. Others describe it as a few words appearing and then being replaced with the next set of words. Others describe the text as coming out of the mouth of the person who is speaking. What if the person doesn’t know how to spell the word? The word may appear as fuzzy text. What if two people are speaking? There are two streams of text in different locations (Makowski, 2024b). Some people with ticker tape synesthesia report that the written words may look different depending on context. For example, if the speech they are hearing is particularly emotional, the words may take on a different color, may tremble, or may be larger. Some report that louder voices result in larger words. What about words that are sung? The words may be less visible or may “undulate according to the melody” (Hauw et al., 2023, p. 171). And what about numbers? They typically appear as Arabic numerals rather than written out as words (Hauw et al., 2023). I wonder if someone who is well-versed in APA-style would see numbers one through nine as spelled out rather than as Arabic numerals. And if they would apply the exceptions, such as “6 cm.”   Research into the underlying brain mechanisms of ticker tape synesthesia is just getting started, but as you might imagine initial results show increased activity between the areas of the brain associated with seeing written words and the areas associated with processing speech (Hauw et al., 2024). Even though ticker tape synesthesia is currently thought to be rare, I suspect that the more people hear about it, the more people will say, “I experience that. Doesn’t everybody?”     References Galton, F. (1907). Inquiries into human faculty (2nd ed.). https://galton.org/books/human-faculty/text/galton-1883-human-faculty-v4.pdf Hauw, F., Béranger, B., & Cohen, L. (2024). Subtitled speech: The neural mechanisms of ticker-tape synaesthesia. Brain, 147(7), 2530–2541. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awae114 Hauw, F., El Soudany, M., & Cohen, L. (2023). Subtitled speech: Phenomenology of tickertape synesthesia. Cortex, 160, 167–179. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2022.11.005 Makowski, E. (2024a, July 1). My synesthesia transforms speech into text I ‘see’ in my head. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/my-synesthesia-transforms-speech-into-text-i-see-in-my-head/ Makowski, E. (2024b, August). Speech transforms into text I “see.” Scientific American, 331(1), 90–92.   ... View more

Here are two free resources that will help you prepare for your next Intro Psych course. While I suggest assignments, you can certainly keep these for your own reference.      Neuroscience I hear from Intro Psych instructors that the biopsych chapter is one they are frequently uncomfortable teaching. As a resource, I highly recommend this free book: Brain Facts: A Primer on the Brain and Nervous System. It is published by the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) and is available as a pdf, ePUB, MOBI, and as a Sound Cloud audio book. At 136 pages (71 pdf pages), its 18 chapters will help you help your students better understand psychology’s biological underpinnings. Here’s a sample of chapters: Chapter 2: Senses & Perception Chapter 7: Infant, Child, & Adolescent Brain Chapter 11: Childhood Disorders Chapter 12: Psychiatric Disorders Chapter 14: Injury & Illness Better yet, because this book was written for a general audience, you can assign chapters to students. For example, first ask your Intro Psych students to match each chapter in the Brain Facts book with the chapters you will be covering in the course. Next, ask students to pick one chapter to read. A student who was particularly interested in the biology of sleep might choose Chapter 9: Brain States. Or a student with a grandparent who is experiencing cognitive challenges might choose Chapter 8: Adult and Aging Brain. Or a student who has experienced addiction—either themselves, or as a friend or family member—might choose Chapter 13: Addiction. Since the purpose of this activity is to introduce students to free resource from a reputable organization, you can simply ask students to quote part of the chapter that they chose to read that they found particularly interesting, and then explain why they found it interesting. If you’d like to put a minimum word count on the assignment, tell students that the quote does not count toward that word count. Score the assignment as complete/incomplete.   Industrial/Organization Psychology For instructors wanting to include more examples of how psychology can be applied to real-world situations, the good folks at the Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology (SIOP) have written a free I-O chapter. You are welcome to use this chapter—just be sure to give SIOP credit. If your Intro Psych textbook allows for customization, add the chapter to your book. The nicely-designed pdf is 23 pages. The chapter could work as an end of course assignment. If you are using APA’s integrative themes, one option would be ask students to quote text from the chapter that illustrates each of the integrative themes with a brief explanation of how their chosen example fits the theme. If you are not using the themes, another option would be to ask students to quote text from the chapter that illustrates content from, say, at least five chapters that you covered in the course. Again, each quote should be accompanied by a brief explanation of how that quote fits with their chosen chapter. This assignment could also be scored as complete/incomplete.         ... View more

Need another example of the American Psychological Association’s integrative theme #1: “Psychological science relies on empirical evidence and adapts as new data develop”? The motor cortex map that psychology instructors have been teaching since the 1940s is now known to be wrong. In retrospect, that’s not too surprising. Wilder Penfield and Edwin Boldrey mapped it by electrically stimulating different areas of the motor cortex and seeing which muscles moved. Today’s brain imaging techniques are, let’s say, more refined. In this open access Nature article, Evan Gordon and colleagues (2023) report using fMRI to map the motor cortex. And it sure looks different.* [Nature gives these permissions for this article and its images: “Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.”] Figure a is, of course, the classic homunculus. Figure b is what researchers found when they looked at the motor cortex with fMRI. There are two big differences. First, there are three main areas centered by toes, fingers, and tongue. The areas on either side of these core areas, researchers believe, control opponent muscle groups. For example, one elbow area may control the biceps whereas the other elbow area may control the triceps (E. Gordon, personal communication, July 18, 2024). The second big difference are the three action/body areas. These action/body areas connect to many areas of the brain including those associated with free will, executive control, and pain. The action/body area between the areas centered on the fingers and centered on the tongue has especially strong connections to the visual cortex, perhaps creating a mechanism for eye-hand coordination (Gordon et al., 2023). What about the somatosensory cortex? Researchers have found a few differences (Willoughby et al., 2021), but we should be able to stick with our existing somatosensory cortex map for the time being. The motor cortex mapping team are working on solving the challenges associated with mapping the entire somatosensory cortex (E. Gordon, personal communication, July 18, 2024). We can let students know that research is ongoing on the specifics, but that the general principle that the greater the sensitivity of the body part, the more area devoted to it in the somatosensory cortex still holds.    As for the map of the motor cortex, it’s going to take a bit of time for the textbooks to catch up to this new information because of the publishing timeline, but they will get there.   Reference Gordon, E. M., Chauvin, R. J., Van, A. N., Rajesh, A., Nielsen, A., Newbold, D. J., Lynch, C. J., Seider, N. A., Krimmel, S. R., Scheidter, K. M., Monk, J., Miller, R. L., Metoki, A., Montez, D. F., Zheng, A., Elbau, I., Madison, T., Nishino, T., Myers, M. J., … Dosenbach, N. U. F. (2023). A somato-cognitive action network alternates with effector regions in motor cortex. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-05964-2 Willoughby, W. R., Thoenes, K., & Bolding, M. (2021). Somatotopic arrangement of the human primary somatosensory cortex derived from functional magnetic resonance imaging. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 14, 598482. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.598482   ... View more

The Introduction to Psychology course is the hardest course to teach because we do not have expertise in the vast majority of the material. When you teach Intro Psych for the very first time, you get used to saying, “I don’t know.” As the years have rolled by, I’ve accepted that “I don’t know” is just part of my Intro Psych teaching lexicon. For me, however, it’s not the not knowing that’s problematic. It’s all of the information that I thought I knew, but, alas, did not. Finding out that I’ve gotten something wrong makes me wish I could contact all of my previous students and say, “Hey! Remember that thing I told you about? No, you don’t remember? Well, anyway, it turns out I was wrong. Here’s the right information. Or at least here’s the right information as we know it today.” Okay, maybe it’s best that I can’t contact my previous students. In some cases, the scientific research has given us updated information. For example, research published a week ago in Nature reveals that the motor cortex is not all about motor control (Gordon et al., 2023). There are pockets of neurons in between the motor control sections of the motor cortex that connect with other parts of the body. “As a result, the act of, say, reaching for a cup of coffee can directly influence blood pressure and heart rate. And the movement is seamlessly integrated into brain systems involved in planning, goals and emotion” (Hamilton, 2023). This is a beautiful example of the first of APA’s overarching themes for Intro Psych: “Psychological science relies on empirical evidence and adapts as new data develop” (Halonen et al., 2022) In some cases what I got wrong was me just not understanding. For example, if you used to teach that the cat running to the sound of the can opener was classical conditioning, you can identify with what I’m saying. (See this 2016 blog post for the explanation as to why this is not classical conditioning, but operant conditioning.) While I don’t have any suggestions on how we can speed up science, I do have some suggestions on how we can mitigate how much stuff we don’t understand, and, thus, mis-teach to our students. Here are some excellent books that will expand your Intro Psych knowledge. Most are written by experts in the field. Others were written by people who got deeply interested in the topic. If you have books that you have found useful for expanding your Intro Psych knowledge, please add them to the comments. Thanks! Neuroscience The tale of the dueling neurosurgeons: The history of the human brain as revealed by true stories of trauma, madness, and recovery written by Sam Kean Incognito: The secret lives of the brain by David Eagleman Livewired: The inside story of the ever-changing brain by David Eagleman Sensation and Perception An immense world: How animal senses reveal the hidden realms us by Ed Yong Perception: How our bodies shape our minds by Dennis Proffitt and Drake Baer Consciousness Why we sleep: Unlocking the power of sleep and dreams by Matthew Walker Buzzed: The straight facts about the most used and abused drugs from alcohol to ecstasy, 3e by, Cynthia Kuhn, Scott Swartzwelder, and Wilkie Wilson Development Breaking the age code: How your beliefs about aging determine how long and well you live by Becca Levy The gardener and the carpenter: What the new science of child development tells us about the relationship between parents and children by Alison Gopnik Memory The memory illusion: Remembering, forgetting, and the science of false memory by Julia Shaw Moonwalking with Einstein: The art and science of remembering everything by Joshua Foer Cognition Thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman The undoing project: A friendship that changed our minds by Michael Lewis Emotion Aroused: The history of hormones and how they control just about everything by Randi Hutter Epstein Why zebras don’t get ulcers: the acclaimed guide to stress, stress-related diseases, and coping, 3e by Robert M. Sapolsky Stumbling on happiness by Daniel Gilbert Social Aggression and violence: A social psychological perspective by Brad J. Bushman Kitty Genovese: The murder, the bystanders, and the crime that changed America by Kevin Cook Personality Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking by Susan Cain   References Gordon, E. M., Chauvin, R. J., Van, A. N., Rajesh, A., Nielsen, A., Newbold, D. J., Lynch, C. J., Seider, N. A., Krimmel, S. R., Scheidter, K. M., Monk, J., Miller, R. L., Metoki, A., Montez, D. F., Zheng, A., Elbau, I., Madison, T., Nishino, T., Myers, M. J., … Dosenbach, N. U. F. (2023). A somato-cognitive action network alternates with effector regions in motor cortex. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-05964-2 Halonen, J., Thompson, J. L. W., Whitlock, K. H., Landrum, R. E., & Frantz, S. (2022). Measuring meaningful learning in Introductory Psychology: The IPI student learning outcomes. In R. A. R. Gurung & G. Neufeld (Eds.), Transforming Introductory Psychology: Expert advice on teacher training, course design, and student success (pp. 57–80). American Psychological Association. Hamilton, J. (2023, April 20). An overlooked brain system helps you grab a coffee—And plan your next cup. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/04/20/1171004199/an-overlooked-brain-system-helps-you-grab-a-coffee-and-plan-your-next-cup         ... View more

With the Intro Psych course, we have the ability to save lives. For example, our discussion of attention may help students stay off their phones while driving or help students refuse to ride with someone who talks on their phone while driving. Our discussion of stress and evidence-based coping strategies may help students find ways to reduce stress or cope better with their stress, leading to healthier outcomes in both the short- and long-term. I had another example just this week. After covering sleep, one of my students is encouraging his father to get screened for sleep apnea. Here's another way that Intro Psych can save lives that I just learned about from the February 2023 issue of Scientific American (Kwon, 2023). Of those diagnosed with REM behavior disorder, up to 80% will be diagnosed in 10 to 12 years with a neurodegenerative disease, most commonly Parkinson’s disease. When the common symptoms of Parkinson’s appear—such as hand tremors (although hand tremors do not appear in everyone with Parkinson’s)—over 40% of the dopamine-producing neurons in the substantia nigra of the basal ganglia are gone (Ohtsuka et al., 2013). (I’ve also seen medical websites say 50% and 80%, but they don’t site a source.) Let’s just say that bunches of neurons have been lost before the traditional symptoms appear. MRI can be used to detect the loss of neurons in the basal ganglia (Bae et al., 2021), but, of course, most people don’t get an MRI until they show symptoms. Earlier detection means being able to start interventions earlier which may slow the progression of the disease (Prashanth & Dutta Roy, 2018). During REM sleep (and for most of us), our major muscle groups are turned off. In REM behavior disorder, the major muscle groups remain online resulting in an acting out of the dreams. Alan Alda was being chased, so he picked up a sack of potatoes and threw them at his attacker. When Alda awoke, he saw that he had thrown a pillow at his wife. Alda had seen a 2015 news story about the emerging evidence of REM behavior disorder being a marker for the potential development of Parkinson’s. A brain scan confirmed it; Alda had Parkinson’s (Kwon, 2023). There is evidence that neurodegeneration and a buildup of a protein called synuclein (click for pronunciation) within the pons and medulla (both within the brainstem) play a role in REM behavior disorder (Chiaro et al., 2018). One possibility is that, over time—say, 10 to 12 years—the synuclein protein clusters spread up into the basal ganglia, damaging those neurons. When enough of those neurons are damaged, we may begin to see Parkinson’s symptoms, such as hand tremors. But here’s the fascinating part. A person with Parkinson’s who experiences slowed muscle movement, rigid muscles, and tremors while awake, has these symptoms seemingly vanish when showing symptoms of REM behavior disorder. While the symptoms of Parkinson’s are due in large part to damage within the basal ganglia, REM sleep bypasses the basal ganglia. While acting out a dream, full movement returns. This raises an interesting possibility. Could treatments bypass the basal ganglia when the person is awake? In the meantime, researchers are looking for ways to reduce synuclein before it does so much damage, and a diagnosis of REM behavior disorder may be one way to identify people at risk but before significant neuron loss occurs (Kwon, 2023). REM behavior disorder has an estimated prevalence of 1% (Haba-Rubio et al., 2018) in the general population. If you teach 200 Intro Psych students annually, and each student has, on average, 10 relatives (totally made up number; I have over 60 relatives, including siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews), sharing this information on the relationship between REM behavior disorder and Parkinson’s with your students could reach 2,000 people.  At 1% prevalence, we would expect 20 of them to have REM sleep disorder. If 80% are expected to develop Parkinson’s (or similar disease) in 10 to 12 years, that would be 16 of them. If those 16 were diagnosed early, the progression of Parkinson’s could be slowed. Your math may vary, but the result is the same. What you cover in Intro Psych could save lives.   References Bae, Y. J., Kim, J.-M., Sohn, C.-H., Choi, J.-H., Choi, B. S., Song, Y. S., Nam, Y., Cho, S. J., Jeon, B., & Kim, J. H. (2021). Imaging the substantia nigra in Parkinson disease and other Parkinsonian syndromes. Radiology, 300(2), 260–278. https://doi.org/10.1148/radiol.2021203341 Chiaro, G., Calandra-Buonaura, G., Cecere, A., Mignani, F., Sambati, L., Loddo, G., Cortelli, P., & Provini, F. (2018). REM sleep behavior disorder, autonomic dysfunction and synuclein-related neurodegeneration: Where do we stand? Clinical Autonomic Research, 28(6), 519–533. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10286-017-0460-4 Haba-Rubio, J., Frauscher, B., Marques-Vidal, P., Toriel, J., Tobback, N., Andries, D., Preisig, M., Vollenweider, P., Postuma, R., & Heinzer, R. (2018). Prevalence and determinants of rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder in the general population. Sleep, 41(2). https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsx197 Kwon, D. (2023, February). When dreams foreshadow brain disease. Scientific American, 328(2), 58–63. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican0223-56 Ohtsuka, C., Sasaki, M., Konno, K., Koide, M., Kato, K., Takahashi, J., Takahashi, S., Kudo, K., Yama**bleep**a, F., & Terayama, Y. (2013). Changes in substantia nigra and locus coeruleus in patients with early-stage Parkinson’s disease using neuromelanin-sensitive MR imaging. Neuroscience Letters, 541, 93–98. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neulet.2013.02.012 Prashanth, R., & Dutta Roy, S. (2018). Early detection of Parkinson’s disease through patient questionnaire and predictive modelling. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 119, 75–87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2018.09.008     ... View more

Here’s a question for your students after covering the brain in Intro Psych: “How would you react if you learned, today, that you were missing your left temporal lobe?”  In 1987 at the age of 25, EG (not her real initials) happened to have an MRI scan, and her physicians—and I imagine, she—were surprised to see a blank spot where her left temporal lobe should be. EG is highly educated with strong language skills. Her missing left temporal lobe does not appear to be affecting her in any way (Tuckute et al., 2022). Unless we have had an MRI scan of our brain, we have no idea if we have a neurotypical brain or if we, too, are missing an entire cerebral lobe. In the research article (Tuckute et al., 2022), Figure 2a features MRI scans of EG’s brain from the right, the front, and the top. The images are worth sharing with your students. In early childhood, language processing is bilateral. It is only later that language specialization—for most of us—moves to the left cerebral hemisphere. EG does not recall any early childhood brain trauma, so it may be that EG’s missing left temporal lobe was congenital. In any case, EG’s brain had no problem turning language specialization over to her right hemisphere. While EG’s left frontal lobe is intact, it is her right frontal lobe that is language dominant, not left. Researchers speculate that it is the language specialization of the temporal lobe that drives the language specialization of the frontal lobe. If that specialization happens in the left temporal lobe, then the left frontal lobe also develops language specialization. Conversely, if that specialization happens in the right temporal lobe—as it did for EG—then the right frontal lobe also develops language specialization. EG’s experience is a good one to share with Intro Psych students, because it illustrates the remarkable flexibility of the human brain. The research article featuring EG opens with a statement from EG herself. She opens with how she came into contact with this group of researchers in 2016. Then EG reminds us that the language we use matters. “Though [the research team’s] studies answer some questions about how my brain is wired the same as or differently than a typical brain, it does not tell others who I am. Please do not call my brain abnormal, that creeps me out. My brain is atypical. If not for accidently finding these differences, no one would pick me out of a crowd as likely to have these, or any other differences that make me unique” (Tuckute et al., 2022, p. 1). With many of our Intro Psych students preparing for careers in healthcare, EG includes an important reminder that each patient is a person, not merely a collection of health conditions who should then fit into a particular health condition box. “In the past, several well-meaning but misguided healthcare professionals have told me that I should not have more than a 5th grade vocabulary, that I should have seizures, or that I should have other deficits and limitations. I do not. They seemed disappointed, even angry, that I did not have the limitations they unilaterally pronounced that I should have, without the benefit of any further investigation” (Tuckute et al., 2022, p. 1).   Reference Tuckute, G., Paunov, A., Kean, H., Small, H., Mineroff, Z., Blank, I., & Fedorenko, E. (2022). Frontal language areas do not emerge in the absence of temporal language areas: A case study of an individual born without a left temporal lobe. Neuropsychologia, 169, 108184. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2022.108184   ... View more

Students should not only be taught the core concepts of introductory psychology, but also how those ideas play out in their daily lives and the world around them. In a seven-part video series produced exclusively for Macmillan Learning, Garth Neufeld shows how APA’s Introductory Psychology Initiative (IPI) offers a guided structure for doing just that. As Professor Neufeld (Cascadia College) explains, APA’s IPI’s themes help students understand the trends and patterns of human thoughts and behaviors, which are concepts they can then apply to their current and future studies, and to their lives beyond the classroom. Furthermore, APA IPI themes allow instructors to organize course goals, learning, and assessments around these key topics. Watch the full series with a community account. ... View more

What can cab drivers tell us about Alzheimer's Disease? Quite a lot, it turns out. London Cabbies' Brains Analyzed for Alzheimer's Research https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/11/01/london-taxi-driver-alzheimers-research/ ... View more

Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation is promoting intentional acts of kindness this September (#BeKind21) with a goal toward better mental health for everyone. Every day, from September 1 to September 21, let’s engage in purposeful acts of kindness to others and ourselves. I encourage you and your students to sign up.   Zara Abrams (2021) provides a nice summary of the research on kindness, emphasizing its benefits to both our physical and mental health. Even small acts, such as bringing a colleague coffee, counts. Buying me a beer also counts. Without too much difficulty, we can tie acts of kindness into what students are learning in their Intro Psych course. Here are a few examples. Biopsych chapter: Which neurotransmitters are most likely to be released in our brains when we do good deeds for others? Explain Development chapter: What are developmentally-appropriate good deeds we could perform for each group: toddlers, middle-schoolers, high-schoolers, middle-aged adults, older adults? Explain. Learning chapter: Identify at least three acts of kindness you have engaged in. Was your act positively reinforced? Explain. Memory chapter: We tend to have stronger memories for events that are emotional. Based on the emotional reaction of those who were on the receiving end of your kindness, will any of your acts of kindness be remembered years from now by one of your recipients? After September 21st, give your students an opportunity to reflect on their experience. What was especially good about engaging in intentional acts of kindness? Were there any surprises? Will they continue to be intentionally kind?   References Abrams, Z. (2021, August). The case for kindness. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/news/apa/kindness-mental-health ... View more

Have you spend time reading or binge-watching your favorite shows this year? Research suggests that those beloved characters mean as much to us as our friends, at least if we are immersed in the fictional environment: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/time-travelling-apollo/202104/mind-melding-our-favorite-fictional-characters ... View more

The Neural Basis of Empathy via Knowing Neurons (and check out some of their other easy-to-digest articles for students while you're there!): https://knowingneurons.com/2021/03/29/neural-basis-of-empathy/ ... View more

Fascinated by serial killers? Check out this article on the research looking at brain differences in psychopathy https://bigthink.com/mind-brain/what-is-a-psychopath?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1615204146 ... View more

In 2017, I wrote a blog post about an activity designed to help students see how the number of drug overdose deaths have changed since 1968 using this interactive article from the New York Times. Carolyn Brown Kramer, via the Society for the Teaching of Psychology Facebook group, asked for updated drug overdose statistics. After having your students complete the activity from that initial blog post, provide students with the most current drug overdose death data presented below. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides a “Drug Overdose Deaths” statistics dashboard that is updated monthly based on the best available data. Keep in mind that the best available data are several months old. As I write this in March 2021, the latest data are for July 2020. Line graph Each data point in the line graph is a 12-month rolling total. For example, the number of drug overdose deaths reported for July 2020 are the number of drug overdose deaths that occurred between August 1, 2019 and July 31, 2020. The number of such deaths reported for June 2020 occurred between July 1, 2019 and June 30, 2020. Mouse over a data point to see the numbers. In the line graph you will see both “predicted” data (circles) and “reported” data (solid line). As they explain on the dashboard page, “Drug overdose deaths often require lengthy investigations, and death certificates may be initially filed with a manner of death ‘pending investigation’ and/or with a preliminary or unknown cause of death.” For “reported” data, the investigation is complete. The “predicted” data include deaths that are “pending investigation.” Both reported and predicted data will change as those investigations are completed. Ask your students to predict how the number of drug overdose deaths have changed in your state or District of Columbia, then change the jurisdiction to your location to show students the data. Map For easy visual comparisons between states/District of Columbia, the map displays data by location based on the number of drug overdose deaths for the most recent month for which data are available compared to the data from a year earlier. At the time of this writing, the comparison is between July 2019 and July 2020. The colors depict percentage change between those two months. North Dakota and North Carolina were the only two states with a decrease in the number of reported drug overdose deaths, down 2.3% and 1.7%, respectively. Alaska reported no change. All other states reported an increase. The District of Columbia had the biggest change during that time period with an increase of 56.8% in number of reported drug overdose deaths (308 to 483). Data Tables Sortable data tables of the line graph data and the map data are available directly below the map. Whatever you have selected as the jurisdiction for the line graph, those are the data that will be displayed in the first data table. A word of caution As you cover this very important topic with your students, remember that some—perhaps many—of your students has had someone they know die from a drug overdose. Or perhaps some of your students themselves came close to dying from a drug overdose. Always remembering that I’m talking about experiences my students have had helps me use language that is sensitive to the people behind the statistics. ... View more