“Mental Notes: Music, Cognition, & the Brain” Symposium – May 23, 5pm

Psychology in Action is proud to announce the second annual Psychology Interdisciplinary Events symposium, Thursday, May 23rd, 2012, from 5 to 7pm in UCLA’s CNSI Auditorium.  The discussion will focus on the intersection of music, psychology, and neuroscience.  The event is completely FREE and open to the general public!  We hope to see you there! Featuring – Dr. …

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How do childhood experiences affect how we interpret facial expressions?

Guest Author: Valentina Park Much of our daily, personal interactions are based on how we interpret the facial expressions of people we meet. On a basic level, when a person smiles we know we made them happy and when they look angry we may have offended them. This type of facial discrimination has become so …

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Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a Swiss developmental psychologist. While he made many contributions to the field, his most notable is his systematic study of cognitive development. Early psychologists assumed that infants saw the world as a “blooming, buzzing confusion” (William James); Piaget theorized that even the youngest infants were learning how to make sense of …

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DV

The Truth about Domestic Violence: Literature Review

As more and more clients are entering therapy with concerns related to abuse, such as domestic violence incidents, it seems prudent to review how  these issues might play a role in mental health and treatment. The facts on domestic violence are startling. Estimates by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Bureau of Justice, and Centers …

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How will Big Data shape psychology research?

I’m sure all of you have heard of the Big Data movement going on right now. From the Harvard Business Review to David Brooks in the NY Times, everyone seems to be talking about the power of big data to provide “insights” into the inner workings of the world. Of course as a scientist, recognizing the …

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“Mental Notes: Music, Cognition, & the Brain” Symposium – May 23, 5pmHow do childhood experiences affect how we interpret facial expressions?Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive DevelopmentThe Truth about Domestic Violence: Literature ReviewHow will Big Data shape psychology research?

“Mental Notes: Music, Cognition, & the Brain” Symposium – May 23, 5pm

Categories:

Cognition and Perception, Interdisciplinary, Neuroscience

May 17, 2013

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Psychology in Action is proud to announce the second annual Psychology Interdisciplinary Events symposium, Thursday, May 23rd, 2012, from 5 to 7pm in UCLA’s CNSI Auditorium.  The discussion will focus on the intersection of music, psychology, and neuroscience.  The event is completely FREE and open to the general public!  We hope to see you there!

Featuring

- Dr. Mark Tramo, UC Los Angeles
- Dr. Sarah Creel, UC San Diego
- Dr. Petr Janata, UC Davis
- Dr. Martin Monti, UC Los Angeles
- David Rosenboom, CalArts
- Sam Torrisi, UC Los Angeles

Synopsis

Music has a near ubiquitous influence across human culture. Composers, performers, and listeners alike relish the expression of emotion and beauty through melody and rhythm.  When paired with a psychologist’s curiosity and passion for understanding human nature, these fields overlap on countless dimensions.  Whether through cross-cultural examination of musical differences and integration, the neuroscientific study of music in the brain, or exploration of the link between language and music, researchers and musicians take many paths to explore the mental and physical effects music has on humans. This event brings together several experts on psychology and music and will include brief presentations by the panelists, an interactive Q&A, and live musical performances.

Related Blog Posts

- The Psychology of Film Music

- Music Cognition

- I got chills, they’re multiplying

 

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How do childhood experiences affect how we interpret facial expressions?

Categories:

Developmental Psychology, Social Psychology, Uncategorized

May 2, 2013

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Guest Author: Valentina Park

Much of our daily, personal interactions are based on how we interpret the facial expressions of people we meet. On a basic level, when a person smiles we know we made them happy and when they look angry we may have offended them. This type of facial discrimination has become so second nature that we may forget this skill once had to be learned, developed, and practiced. Our personal experiences as children play an important role in shaping the way we read and interpret faces later in life (Fox, Levitt, & Nelson, 2010).

To examine this idea, studies have been done to analyze the differences in facial recognition between children being reared in typical families and children being reared in orphanages. A child raised in an orphanage experiences chronic stress, receives minimal emotional attention, and does not have the opportunity to form secure attachments with people (Parker & Nelson, 2005). These atypical social interactions are theorized to cause deficits in the ability to understand the meaning of facial expressions later in life (Parker & Nelson, 2005). Consequently, orphanage-reared children may behave abnormally in social situations because they have difficulty interpreting characteristic cues and faces (Parker & Nelson, 2005).
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Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

Categories:

Classic Psychology Experiments, Developmental Psychology

April 21, 2013

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Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a Swiss developmental psychologist. While he made many contributions to the field, his most notable is his systematic study of cognitive development. Early psychologists assumed that infants saw the world as a “blooming, buzzing confusion” (William James); Piaget theorized that even the youngest infants were learning how to make sense of their environments. According to Piaget, knowledge is organized into different schemas, or sets of mental representations about the environment. When a new object or situation is encountered, it will either be assimilated into an existing schema (if it is consistent with that schema), or it will be accommodated by changing an existing schema (if it is inconsistent with that schema). Intellectual development occurs through a continual process of assimilation, new information, and accommodation (that is, updating existing schemas to reflect new knowledge). Piaget’s theory of cognitive development consists of four main stages, described below. 

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The Truth about Domestic Violence: Literature Review

Categories:

Clinical Psychology, General Psychology, Health Psychology and Public Health

March 28, 2013

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As more and more clients are entering therapy with concerns related to abuse, such as domestic violence incidents, it seems prudent to review how  these issues might play a role in mental health and treatment. The facts on domestic violence are startling. Estimates by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Bureau of Justice, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that a woman in the United States is beaten or assaulted every 9 to 13 seconds, with one-third of all reported female homicides killed by an intimate partner. Additionally, up to 10 million Americans reportedly experience some type of domestic violence annually. Read the rest of this entry »

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How will Big Data shape psychology research?

Categories:

General Psychology, Interdisciplinary, Statistics for Social Science

March 7, 2013

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I’m sure all of you have heard of the Big Data movement going on right now. From the Harvard Business Review to David Brooks in the NY Times, everyone seems to be talking about the power of big data to provide “insights” into the inner workings of the world. Of course as a scientist, recognizing the power of data is not news to me. But I was interested in an article in the Psychological Science Observer that talks about how Big Data might shape the future of psychology research. 

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Got Issues: Blame Your Grandma

Categories:

Interdisciplinary, Neuroscience

February 27, 2013

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The idea of the tabula rasa is all but forgotten. Advances in modern genetics have taught us that not only are we not a blank slate at birth, but we are not even simply the product of our genes. The environment interacts with our genes to shape our development, however, it is not only OUR environment that does so. Let me tell you about an early discovery that led to this knowledge.

In 1944, a German-blockade to the Netherlands blocked access to food the supply to a number of individuals. Calories were severely restricted during the winter of 1944-1945. Many infants died of malnutrition and related issues. Women who were pregnant during this time also suffered a shortage of calories, and, not surprisingly, their infants were born much smaller than is typical. It appeared that these babies were small due to the reduced nutritional availability in utero. These children grew up post-blockade, and physically “caught up” with their peers in size. Read the rest of this entry »

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Classic Psychology Experiments: Guns and Dolls –– The Bobo Studies

Categories:

Classic Psychology Experiments, Developmental Psychology, Interdisciplinary, Social Psychology

February 26, 2013

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This post is part of our new ongoing series exploring classic experiments in the history of psychological research.

Over the last few decades, an ongoing debate has emerged between parents, psychologists, and the media: Do violent video games and movies cause children to become more violent? This is a question that has gained more urgency with the advent of hyper-realistic violence in games and movies, and it is a question that gets revisited every time a new shooting tragedy occurs. Many may remember the Columbine High School shooting in April 1999 as the first instance of a nationwide, intense scrutiny of popular portrayals of violence, even in stylized video games, as potential influences on children and adolescents. However, concerns about how observation of violence might shape children’s behavior a generation earlier had already led to a classic study with telling results.

Beginning in 1961, Albert Bandura of Stanford University conducted a series of studies with the goal of examining imitative violence in children between the ages of 2 and 5 years old. These studies are commonly known as the “Bobo doll studies,” because the hapless victim of aggression was an inflatable clown doll named Bobo, who had a weighted bottom that allowed him to stand up straight after being kicked, punched, or pushed to the ground. Bandura’s team brought children into the laboratory and showed them examples of model aggressors performing violent acts on the Bobo doll – for example, hitting, kicking, pummeling, pushing, and throwing him. Read the rest of this entry »

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What not to do in science

Categories:

Careers in Psychology, General Psychology, Statistics for Social Science

February 25, 2013

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A short and funny article published in Perspectives on Psychological Science by Neuroskeptic highlight the mistakes to most avoid and be aware of when doing research. Important knowledge for undergrads and newer researchers, and a good reminder for seasoned ones!

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Former Israeli Prime Minister’s Significant Brain Activity – How Do We Know?

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Clinical Psychology, Cognition and Perception, Health Psychology and Public Health, Neuroscience

February 18, 2013

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Israeli scientists and UCLA’s Dr. Martin Monti recently found that former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon demonstrates significant brain activity. Seven years ago Sharon suffered two strokes. The second stroke caused him to lose most of his consciousness. Sharon is in a minimally conscious state, a little more aware than a coma or a persistent vegetative state.

In 2010, Dr. Monti and several colleagues published a paper called “Willful Modulation of Brain Activity in Disorders of Consciousness” in the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Monti and the Israeli investigators used the methods developed in Monti’s 2010 study to assess Sharon. Read the rest of this entry »

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Graduate Program Interviews: Social Psychology

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Careers in Psychology, Social Psychology

February 8, 2013

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This post is part of an ongoing series about applicant interview weekends in Psychology departments. Check back for posts about interviews in other areas of Psychology, and visit our Careers in Psychology section.

This post was written by social psychology graduate students who recently (and successfully) went through the process of applying, interviewing for, and selecting a doctorate program. The following is a list of our collective suggestions for social psychology graduate applicants headed off to interview weekends. We focus on things that we found helpful to keep in mind, and lessons we learned from our own interviews. We hope these tips help you!

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