Psychology 145. Psychophysiology
The course description approximately as it appearred in the catalogue is as follows:
Psychology 145. Psychophysiology
Psychophysiology deals with how the activities of the body outside of the central nervous system interact with and produce or are produced by mental states. Topics will include the functioning of the autonomic nervous system and how its functions are measured; its role in emotions and other feelings; lie detection; the impact of stress on autonomic functioning, immune system function and disease; the effects of meditation, exercise and biofeedback on physiology and experience.
A better understanding of the course may be derived from the syllabus I used Fall 99. It will undoubtedly be somewhat different in the future, but I don't know how yet. My apologies for the screwed up formatting, but it did not seem worth considerable effort to clean it up, since the necessary content is here.
PSYCHOLOGY 145. PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY
Fall 1999
James D. Laird
Office Jonas Clark 212A
Office hours: MWF 11-12 or by appointment
Office phone: 793-7272
Home phone: (508) 636-7071
E-mail: jlaird@clarku.edu
http://www.clarku.edu/~jlaird/jdlaird.htmlText: Andreassi, J.L. (1995) Psychophysiology: Human Behavior and Physiological Response. (3rd Ed.) Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Although Andreassi has a lot of good stuff, it is not a perfect fit with either the current state of psychophysiology or with the goals of the course. Consequently, there will be a number of additional readings which are listed below. You will also note that I have suggested some of Andreassi's chapters in more than one place. His organization emphasizes measurement procedures, rather than applications, so sometimes one of his chapters is relevant to more than one of the topics.
Evaluation: There will be one mid-term and a final exam, and a term paper. The mid-term will count 25% of the course grade, the final 35%, and the term paper 40%. You will have an opportunity to submit a draft of your paper for suggestions for improvement.
Approximate Course schedule: (Note that this is organized by weeks, not days. Since this is an almost new course, with a new text and readings, I would be kidding both of us if I claimed to know what we will be doing each day.)
Week of:
Aug. 30 Opening day: Introduction: What is Psychophysiology, and
why should anyone care? Andreassi, Ch. 1
Sept. 1 Brain and Nervous system Andreassi, Ch 2
Sept. 6 No Class—Labor Day
Sept. 8 EEG measurement, and levels of awareness Andreassi, Ch. 3, 4
Sept. 13. EEG and response to events Andreassi, Ch. 5,6,7
(don't obsess about details of his chapters)
Sept. 20 EEG and emotion. Attention and evoked potentials Andreassi, Ch. 8
Davidson, R.J. (1995). Cerebral asymmetry, emotion, and affective style. In
R.J. Davidson and K.Hughdahl (Eds.), Brain Asymmetry (pp. 361-387). Boston:
MIT Press.
Sept 27 The Autonomic Nervous system Andreassi, Ch. 9 to13
(read chapters as we go along with the other readings)
Oct. 4 The Body and Emotion: James and Cannon
James, W. (1884). What is an emotion? Mind, 19, 188-205.
Ellsworth, P. C. (1994). William James and emotion: Is a century of fame worth a century of misunderstanding? Psychological Bulletin, 101, 222-229.
Oct. 11 The Body and Emotion: Schachter
Schachter, S., & Singer, J. E. (1962). Cognitive, social and physiological determinants of emotional state. Psychological Review, 69, 379-399.
Marshall, G. D., & Zimbardo, P. G. (1979). Affective consequences of inadequately explained psychological arousal. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 970-988.
Oct. 15 No Class: Break
Oct. 18 The Body and Emotion: Self-perception
Bem, D. J. (Ed.). (1972). Self-perception theory. (Vol. 6). New York: Academic Press.
Laird, J. D. (1998). Thoughts about feelings: Feelings as information, in control systems. unpublished.
Oct. 25 The Body and emotion: Misattribution and Placeboes
Olson, J. M. (1988). Misattribution, preparatory information, and speech anxiety. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 758-767.
Foster, C. A., Witcher, B. S., Campbell, W. K., & Green, J. D. (1998). Arousal and attraction: Evidence for automatic and controlled processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 86-101.
Oct. 29 Midterm exam
Nov. 1 Emotions, Stress and Disease Andreassi, Ch. 13
Miller, T. Q., Smith, T. W., Turner, C. W., Guijarro, M. L., Hallet, A. J.(1996) Meta-analytic review of research on hostility and physical health. Psychological Bulletin. 119(2) 322-348
Nov. 8 Hardy personalities, resisting disease
Scheier, M. F. & Carver, C.S. (1993) On the power of positive thinking: The benefits of being optimistic. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2, 26-30.
Uchino, B. N.; Cacioppo, J T.; Keicolt-Glaser, J. K. (1996) The relationship between social support and physiological processes: A review with emphasis on underlying mechanisms and implications for health. Psychological Bulletin. 119(3) 488-531
Nov. 15 Objectivizing, and organizing emotional experience:
Pennebaker, J. W. (1997) Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process. Psychological Science. 8, 162-166
Rime, B., C. Finkenauer, et al. (1998). Social sharing of emotion: New evidence and new questions. European Review of Social Psychology 9: 146-189.
Nov. 22 Recognizing and controlling ANS responses: Autonomic perception
Lie detection and detecting deception. Andreassi, Ch. 14
Honts, C. R. (1994) Psychophysiological detection of deception. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 3(3) 77-82.
Bashore, T. R.; Rapp, P. E. (1993) Are there alternatives to traditional polygraph procedures? Psychological Bulletin. 113(1) 3-22
Ekman, P., O'Sullivan, M. & Frunk, M. G. (1999) A few can catch a liar. Psychological Science, 10(3) 263-266
Draft of Term Paper due, if you want comments for revision
Nov. 24-26 No Classes: Thanksgiving
Nov. 29 Meditation and Biofeedback Andreassi, Ch. 15
Dec. 6 Exercise, Fitness and Health and Happiness
Brown, J. D (1991). Staying fit and staying well: Physical fitness as a moderator of life
stress. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology. 60(4) 555-561
Dec. 10 Mind and body, mind in body, mind/body
Term Paper Due
[Note that Dec. 10 is our last class]
Dec. 16 Final Exam. 1:30 to 3:30 In our usual classroom
DO NOT SCHEDULE AIRPLANE FLIGHTS OR OTHER OBLIGATIONS THAT WILL INTERFERE WITH THIS DATE. MAKEUPS CAN ONLY BE ARRANGED THROUGH THE DEAN OF STUDENTS, WHO WILL NOT LOOK FAVORABLY ON ABSENCES FROM EXAMS.