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LOOK AROUND - all the A02 points you’ll ever need….

May 3rd, 2008 by Adrian Frost


The Japanese Gallery of Psychiatric Art

April 27th, 2008 by Adrian Frost

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LINK

It couldn’t happen here?

April 22nd, 2008 by Adrian Frost

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If you go here, you can download a copy of one of the most famous radio broadcasts ever made: Orson Welles 1938 adaptation of ‘War Of The Worlds’, a drama that caused mass panic and hysteria when it was broadcast. Here’s what happened:

 “On the evening of Sunday, October 30, 1938 – a month after the Munich – Orson Welles of the Mercury Theatre gave, over the Columbia Broadcasting System, a scheduled radio dramatization of an old fantasy by H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds. To make it vivid, he arranged it to simulate a current news broadcast. After an announcer had clearly explained the nature of the program, a voice gave a prosaic weather forecast; then another voice said that the program would be continued from a hotel, with dance music; shortly this music was interrupted by a “flash” to the effect that a professor at “Mount Jennings Observatory,” Chicago, reported seeing explosions at regular intervals on the planted Mars; then the listeners were “returned” in orthodox fashion “to the music of Ramon Raquello…a tune that never loses favor, the popular ‘Star Dust’”; then came an interview with an imaginary Princeton professor, with more information about disturbances on Mars – whereupon a series of further “news bulletins” described the arrival of Martians in huge metal cylinders which landed in New Jersey. The broadcast gathered speed, bulleting following bulletin. More Martians landed – an army of them, which quickly defeated the New Jersey State Militia. Presently the Martina attack was vividly described as being general all over the United States, with the population of New York evacuating the city and Martian heat-rays and flame-throwers and other diabolical devices causing terrific destruction, till all was laid to waste.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Sleeping keeps you out of trouble

April 11th, 2008 by Cara Flanagan

sleeeping2.jpgThis is the conclusion reached by leading sleep researcher, Jerry Siegel, after decades of sleep research. In a recent article in the New Scientitst Siegel claims that the effects of sleep deprivation are actually quite small and certainly not enough to offset the potential danger of being asleep (watch out that lion is going to get you!). Evidence from the animal kingdom is surfacing all the time which increases our understanding of sleep. It appears that fur seals, like dolphins, sleep one hemisphere at a time when hunting at sea and experience no REM activity, but once back on land they revert to the more normal sleep patterns of other animals (i.e. both REM and NREM activity and whole brain sleep).Siegel suggests that the purpose of REM sleep may be just to keep the brain stem active. If an animal is sleeping one hemisphere at a time Read the rest of this entry »

Have a nice day!

April 10th, 2008 by Adrian Frost

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I knew it: Being nice to people all day is bad for you.

Where’s my skateboard?

April 6th, 2008 by Adrian Frost

How are juvenile delinquents portrayed in modern culture? (indeed do we even use the term ‘delinquent’ anymore?) The contemporary media  paints a picture of surly youths hanging around on street corners drinking ‘alcopops’ and wearing hoodies. However, things were obviously quite different back in 1925, when eminient psychologist Sir Cyril Burt used the following illustration in his book ‘The Young Delinquent”:

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If you click on the ‘read rest of entry‘ link at the end of this post to look at the rest of the pictures, you’ll discover that back then three piece suits and working mens caps were very ’street’ for boys, whereas young ladies were smoking on the dancefloor and hanging about on enormous stuffed horses…..  

….. terrifying……

All pictures from Burt, C.L. (1925). The young delinquent. London: University of London Press,  with many thanks to Saxon (aged 43 11/12) of the excellent ‘Too Many Pipes’ for the original text.

(Also, talking of delinquents, have you looked at ‘Contemporary Mottled Sheep’ ?)

  Read the rest of this entry »

Had me worried for a bit…..

April 1st, 2008 by Adrian Frost

Ha ha….. good one

easy listening……

March 30th, 2008 by Adrian Frost

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Matters of psychological interest conveyed for your convenience and edification in the modern realplayer format. Bought to you by the British Broadcasting Corporation and the wonders of the electronic interweb:

 Solomon Asch - Conformity

 Jean Piaget - The Three Mountains

 Sir Frederic Bartlett - War of The Ghosts

Wrestling with Freud…

March 23rd, 2008 by Adrian Frost

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Sigmund Freud argued that aggression could be represented as an ‘energy’ that somehow builds up inside of us, causing us to experience tension and psychological discomfort and maybe ultimately mental disorders, unless we could somehow  ‘release’ it, by indulging in aggressive behaviour…. So if you’ve ever found yourself ‘boiling over with rage’ and have ‘taken it out on’ something or someone to make yourself feel better, then you’ve been indulging in a bit of Freudian thinking.. Freud called this process of release ‘catharsis’.

If you are studying aggression, this idea forms an interesting discussion point: Most of the social approaches imply to us that taking part in, or viewing,  aggressive behaviours somehow increases the likelihood of our committing further aggressive acts, whereas for Freud the release of pent-up energy through a violent act actually decreases our inclination to be violent - So maybe you should go and beat up an inflatable children’s toy next time someone winds you up…

There’s an easy way to test this of course: Head over here and have a quick arm wrestle with the man himself. If you come away from the experience feeling noticeably more calm and relaxed, then Sigmund has the argument nailed. If you find yourself a boiling mass of frustrated rage with a broken keyboard, well… then maybe not, but please note that, either way, we here at the Cat & Dogs Book Publishing Company Inc. can accept absolutely no responsibility for damaged computer equipment and patrons take on the mighty Sigmund entirely at their own risk. 

Getting the multi-store model right

March 15th, 2008 by Cara Flanagan

In the new edition of The Complete Companion (which is now on sale if you haven’t had your copy!) we have presented an updated diagram of the multi-store model which may confuse some people because it is different to the one given in some books – for a reason. The model was first proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin in 1968, consisting of only two stores – short- and long-term memory. The third store – sensory memory – was added later. This early model is often shown with information being lost through forgetting (as shown below).

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In 1971 Atkinson and Shiffrin produced a slightly different diagram, indicating how information is retrieved from memory – via the short term store, as shown below. No mention was made of forgetting. Read the rest of this entry »