Introduction to Course Web Site: psy.cmu /~ kotovsky /85102/home102.html

Introduction to Course

Web Site: http://www.psy.cmu.edu/~kotovsky/85102/home10

2.html• Instructor• TA’s• Course Secretary• Major Instructional Strategy and Goals

– Depth, higher educ., focus, purpose(s)• Major Activities: highly varied• Methodology

Questions• For the first recitation, bring a significant or “big” and real

question about psychology, one that psychology might (or perhaps might not) have an answer to, and be prepared to discuss it a bit and also turn it in to your TA. It should be something that you are genuinely interested in and curious about.

Question ExampleDavid Brook’s Ex. (NYT 8/24/10)- What are our thinking weaknesses?

“For example, Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway once described “The Psychology of Human Misjudgment.” He and others list our natural weaknesses:

-We have confirmation bias; we pick out evidence that supports our views.

-We are cognitive misers; we try to think as little as possible.

-We are herd thinkers and conform our perceptions to fit in with the group.

To use a fancy word, there’s a metacognition deficit. Very few in public life habitually step back and think about the weakness in their own thinking and what they should do to compensate. A few people I interview do this regularly (in fact, Larry Summers is one). Of the problems that afflict the country, this is the underlying one.”

Brooks also more recently wrote about what makes true genius: the ability to hold two contradictory ideas in your head simultaneously; a kind of self examining or self-challenging stance we might think of as a thinking strength.

Methodology: Some Major Issues

• Why Psychology? (vs. other sources of wisdom)• Observation vs. experimentation• Independent and dependent variables• Experimental control• Correlation and causation• “Unusualness” of a result: statistics• Focus on actual data

Sleeping

The ignored behavior!

Defining/describing sleep

• Decreased awareness & interaction with world• Decreased motility & muscular activity• Characteristic posture• Partial or total decrement in voluntary

consciously directed behavior• Decreased forebrain activity & cortical input

from lower centers

Sleep as a behavior

• Quietude

• Life span decrease

• Brain activity/EEG & reactivity

Theories of sleeping

• Motivation

• Energy conservation

• Restorative

• Memory consolidation

• Adaptive

Brain Control

Hypothalamus: Rostral/Caudal sleep areas– Rostral (stimulate --> sleep, extirpate --> wake)– Caudal (stimulate --> wake, extirpate --> sleep)– Reticular activating system & monitoring – Melatonin (pineal & hypothal.) and diurnal cycle– Suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus

and entrainment to diurnal rhythm “zeitgrabers”– Dement in a cave!

Arguments for Necessity/Functionality of sleep!– Regularity– Motivation/crummy feelings– Health involvement

-Fatal Familial Insomnia (30+ families/thalamic/death)

-Some linkage to other disorders (depression)

– Hallucination argument– REM recovery– Restorative: increase in SWS in sleep deprived

and athletes, increase anabolic/decrease catabolic activity

– Memory consolidation REM block->poor memory function

• Deprivation/human & animal• Exceptional sleepers• Hallucination explanation• Dement study 11 days deprv. Then 16/8• REM recovery: limited• Programmatic reduction-->1-2 hr. dec.• 5.5/60, 1/2 hr per 2 weeks->4.5-5.5 ok and year

later slept 1 to 2.5 less!• Cats in a puddle!

Arguments Against Necessity

Conclusions

• Adaptive theory seems to win!– The function of sleep is sleep!– Ungulates sleep much less than meat eaters

• Five hours or less (opossums 19-20 hours)

– Accounts for life span decrease as well– But still a bit of an open question

Dreaming: What & Why?

Multiple perspectives and much speculation!

Outline

• Dream behavior • Theories of Dreaming• Conclusions

– What can we learn from our dreams?

– Are they meaningful? True / predictive?

Dream behavior & description

• Within sleep

• Amount

• Brainwave activity & bodily quietude:the paradox

• REM

Dreams & REM sleep

• Aserinsky-REM

• Dement & Kleitman-Stages

• REM amount & periodicity

• Brainstem cholinergic & adrenergic promoting & inhibiting areas for REM

Some Questions:

• Are Dreams meaningful--what do they mean?• Are the predictive or “true”?• How do they differ from other states?• What is their function do they even have one?• Are they brain functions or mind functions?

Outline

• Characteristics and Descriptions

• Theories of Dreaming

• Conclusions– What can we learn from our dreams?

• Are they meaningful? True / predictive?

Theories of Dreaming

• Dreams as meaningful events:• Freud (& Jung) • Aserinsky, Dement & Kleitman implications• Hall/Cartright• Dreams as random activity (Hobson +)• Synthesis (perhaps)

Psychoanalytic Theory• Mental conflict• Unconscious motivations• Two forces: impulses & defenses• Dreams as a release• Dreamwork and its results

– Latent dream– Manifest dream– Remembered dream

Dreamwork and forgetting as protective mechanisms

Poetzel Effect

Freud & Neuroimaging

• Michael Anderson- Validates Repression: Forebrain active in inhibiting hippocampus on repressed items

• Allen Braun: Limbic system-emotion active during REM• Prefrontal cortex (working mem. Attention, logic & self-

monitoring) inactive during REM• Above consistent with dream bizarreness & emotional

disinhibition/wish fulfillment• Visual cortex inactive but higher visual areas active so we see

w.o. visual input- one of the amazing things about dreaming!

Freud & Neuroimaging (Mark Solms)

Injured Pons vs. injured Forebrain-Pons-disrupts REM but dreaming goes on. -Forebrain-lose dreaming but REM goes on.-Also, some dreaming outside of REM

Role of Motivation (in addition to emotional areas)-Prefrontal leukotomy (white matter in ventro-medial forebrain area) decreases dopamine release. It’s a motivational area “seeking” behavior. -Hartmann: administering dopamine supercharges dreaming! Freudian tie between motiv. & dreaming.

Variations on Psychoanalytic Explanation + Challenges

• Aserinsky, Dement & Kleitman: REM & implications• Hall and Cartwright: Dream Series• Challenging Views • Dreams as random activity (Hobson +)• Synthesis (perhaps) as Hobson accepted imaging

results

Other Neuroscience Views

• Crick: Purge extraneous connections

• Evans: Sorting function on day’s events

• Winson: Sorting for survival

• Wilson: Rat Dream article- maze learning during dreams

• Hobson: random activity & activation-synthesis hypothesis

Hobson: Dream Transformations

From: inanimate animate character

To:

inanimate 21 0 0

Animate 2 0 7

Character 0 0 14

Dream CharacteristicsLack of active volition

Absence of ongoing reflective judgment

Limited to phenomena of the immediate present

Diffuse cognitive slippage--dreamlike confusion-transformations of perception, thought, memory, emotion,relationships, etc.

Gaps in experience: 20%Confusion of thought & irrational intuitions: 41%Problems in sustained attention: 5%Memory deficiencies within the dream: 15%

Overall, even 51% of "clearest dreams" had clouding of cs. --Usually not radical (scz, psychedelic) but rather more like that of waking life

Can even have hallucinations or psychedelic exper. in dreams (as in waking life!) ex. flying 4%, bizarre figures,4%, changed identity 3%, LSD-like transformations of vision 13%. Mostly visual 47%. Somatic 10%, audit. 14%.

Conclusions

• Can we obtain meaningful insights about ourselves through our dreams?

• What can we learn from our dreams?• Are they meaningful? true /

predictive/useful?• Dream problem-solving (Lowie, Kekule)!