The Brain - A Users Manual; Playing with Psychological Experiments

The Brain: the human brain, the largest of the mammal-kind relative to body size, is the command center for the nervous system of the body. It receives input from sensory organs (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell--hey! IMAGERY!) and sends messages from this input to the rest of the body (muscles, etc.). The normal human brain averages about 3.3 lbs. and is comprised of over 86 billion nerve cells (neurons -- grey matter) and nerve fibers (axons and dendrites or "white matter"), all closely spaced together with synapses. Anyway, there's the major parts of the brain: the cerebrum (forebrain), the cerebellum (the hindbrain), and the brainstem (the midbrain).  The cerebrum is divided again into the cerebral cortex with its four lobes (the frontal lobe, the temporal lobe, the parietal lobe, and the occipital lobe). Anyway, enough of that medical talk. The whole thing remains a complex system, essential to thinking, feeling, learning, singing, writing, talking, remembering, and all other mental functions.

Meet Your Master: Getting to Know Your Brain (Crash Course Psychology #4)

It is important to note that psychology involves quite a bit of understanding of human biology. The chemistry of your body affects the way your brain works. Neurons (bipolar, unipolar, multipolar, and pyramidal cells) and cells make up the brain (see description above).

In the lab, when you have a chance, examine these links to learn a little more about some famous psychological studies. We are going to use some of these studies as inspiration for our own stories, poems, plays, essays, etc.

10 Famous Psychological Studies

Research the following site (The 30 Most Disturbing Human Experiments in History) or find a psychological experiment from history, read & research the topic enough to get the general idea, reason for doing the experiment, and the outcome or what we learned from conducting the experiment. Jot down notes.

Writing Task(s) (for your portfolio):

• Write a scene about a person who might have gone through one of these experiments
• or write a scene about someone learning that someone they love(d) was involved in one of these experiments (or the cause of an experiment) 
• or change some of the details to create a fictional story based loosely on the human experiment or psychological experiment
• or speculate what we might learn if this experiment was carried out (or further) today
• Pick a historical or literary figure and place them in a psychological experiment or "put them on the couch" in therapy and have that person "talk" about their problems. Does Hermione Granger have a complex, consisting of her mudblood parents? Write a scene or a monologue or a poem, or a story examining any of these issues.
• Examine any issue from the psychology pioneers we have learned about (Galen, Herbart, Kierkegaard, Galton, Wundt, Ebbinghaus, or those described below...); create your own Crash Course video or podcast about this person and your thoughts on the topic.
• Design and create a psychological experiment (or fake psychological experiment--nothing dangerous or damaging, please!) and write about your findings. For example: Put a cupcake on the lunch room table and see how long it takes for one of your friends to snatch it up or lick the frosting. Observe and take notes about your findings. You might make a short documentary film, for example. 
• If you know people in your life who are psychologists, or psychiatrists, or have gone to see one of these people, or if you have experience undergoing therapy, feel free to interview or write a personal essay about the value (or non-value) of the activity. This is a touchy subject, so feel free to disguise names, situations, etc. This is only an option for those students who wish to conduct it.

HOMEWORK: Portfolios are due next week. Read the article on "Pavlov and B.F. Skinner" and watch the crash course video to fire those synapses and put this stuff in your brain! See above for options on what to do with this stuff. It's all grey matter.