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Posted in: News Textbook updates
Posted in: Intelligence and learning Psychology A2
Humans have exceptionally large brains; taking body size into account the human brain is seven times larger than those of other mammals. It has long been assumed that the benefit of this large brain is high intelligence A Brazilian, Suzana Herculano-Houzel, has recently challenged this. There are a number of small brained animals who are very intelligent, such as the capuchin monkey, and also large brained animals who are low on smarts. Herculano-Houzel wondered if it was a mistake to compare brains in terms of size (allowing for brain:body weight ratio). She thought brains from different groups of animals might be organised differently and this might matter more. To investigate this she calculated the number of neurons in each species’ brains – no one had done this before. Up to this point they had just estimated the number of neurons in a brain. She devised a fractionator method to do this and found human brains contain 86 billion neurons.
Comparing the neuron counts of different animals what she found was that human brains had more neurons per brain volume than say rodents – but not more than other primates. Herculano-Houzel says people have been overemphasising the importance of body weight in Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in: News Textbook updates
The A2 book for the Welsh board is just about finished – but not in time for the new term. In fact it won’t finally appear in a beautifully bound version until after Christmas. But do not despair – OUP (our new publishers) are going to make three chapters available for free. The chapters will be one on Memory and two chapters on research methods (the chapters required for PY3). Keep on eye on the sample chapters tab on this blog and the links should appear there before the beginning of term.
Posted in: News Textbook updates
Folens UK Secondary resources are now part of Oxford University Press. Therefore what was the Folens blog is now Oxford Schools Blog. You will have been redirected to the new address www.oxfordschoolblogs.co.uk <http://www.oxfordschoolblogs.co.uk> but should book mark this new address for future reference.
We’re still here to support you and you’ll still find all the same articles and resources as before.
Posted in: Memory Psychology AS WJEC topics
The excellent BBC radio series about case studies in psychology is returning this week and is about Henry Molaison (HM) – on Wednesday 11 August at 11 am. You can find details here. The blurb in the Radio Times says ‘In 1953, after a brain operation to cure his
epilepsy, Henry Molaison was left unable to form new memories. But he was happy that others would benefit from the research conducted into his condition; he was happy every time he was told about it because it was always news to him. Recordings of Molaison made before he died in 2008 make this a particularly poignant programme. Claudia Hammond talks to the scientists who studied him and got to know him, though, sadly, he never got to know them.’
The programme also covers the story of HM’s brain after his death – which you can read about here. Provokes some interesting ethical questions about a person who couldn’t give informed consent.
The previous case studies series covered Kitty Genovese, The Wild Boy of Aveyron, The Man with the Hole in his Head and Little Hans. Some of these can be downloaded from Psychexchange, see here.
Posted in: Attachment Psychology AS
A recent study by Brooks-Gunn et al. (2010) has concluded that the benefits related to going out to work may balance out any harm to children in such situations. The study analysed data from the American NICHD study, calculating the total effect of maternal employment – taking into account all factors related to being a working mother like income, qualities as a parent, and high quality child care. Taking the advantages and disadvantages into account, they found that the net effect is neutral. They looked specifically at maternal employment during a child’s first year and found that the more important factors are those related to the quality of parenting and children’s experiences of child care, rather than the absence or presence of a mother.
Posted in: Relationships Stress WJEC topics
Women in our culture generally have richer social networks than men, and this observation has been used as part of the explanation for women coping better with stress and living longer. Now a meta-analysis has shown that a low number of friends, family, colleagues etc. in a person’s social network has similar negative effects on health and longevity as smoking, obesity, sedentary lifestyle or over-use of alcohol. The researchers say that their analysis was not able to differentiate between positive and negative social relationships, so having a good number of positive ones might give an even stronger effect on living healthier and longer!
Holt-Lunstad J, Smith TB, Layton JB. Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review. PLoS Medicine, 2010; 7 (7):
Posted in: Cognition and development Memory The psychology of addiction
University students in north-east England have been taking part in a study to see the effects of binge drinking on memory. So what counted as binge drinking? Imbibing 6 units of alcohol in a drinking session twice a week or more was the criterion, and those students with other habits such as smoking and drug taking were screened out. Anxiety, age and depression had no effect on the results of both the binge drinkers and the control non-binging group.
The experimental task was to watch a 10-minute video clip of a Scarborough Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in: Exam updates News
I have received a few questions recently about the synoptic aspect of the A2 papers and thought I would pass on my views!
SYNOPTICITY
The synoptic criteria has been dropped from the mark scheme. It is essentially equivalent to IDA.
ISSUES, DEBATES AND APPROACHES (IDA)
- The AO2 mark scheme includes a criterion regarding IDA.
- IDA is not credited in Psychopathology, nor in AO1 (if a question is parted and a student puts IDA in the AO1 part there is no credit). Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in: Anomalistic psychology
The research team (Damisch et al. (2010) had the idea that having a lucky mascot might actually improve confidence, and therefore performance. So they ran some experiments including one where participants could bring their lucky mascot or charm with them do do a test. Before the test the items* were taken away to be photographed. One group then had their mascots returned, the other group were told the mascots would be returned after the task. The former group did better in the memory task and further tests showed this was linked to an increase in self-confidence. This link would seem to apply also to self-esteem, attribution of success and self-belief.
So maybe if you do have your own lucky mascot it could be a good idea to keep it by you when you are competing or doing exams.
Good luck!
* from old stuffed animals, and stones to wedding rings