Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Introduction to Psychology

9.00 Introduction to Psychology

As taught in: Fall 2004

A red tinted MRI of an adult human brain.
Magnetic resonance image of adult human brain. (Image courtesy of MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.)

Level:

Undergraduate

Instructors:

Prof. Jeremy Wolfe

Course Description

This course surveys questions about human behavior and mental life ranging from how you see to why you fall in love. The great controversies: nature and nurture, free will, consciousness, human differences, self and society. Students are exposed to the range of theoretical perspectives including biological, evolutionary, cognitive, and psychoanalytic. One of the best aspects of Psychology is that you are the subject matter. This makes it possible to do many demonstrations in lecture that allow you to experience the topic under study. Lectures work in tandem with the textbook. The course breaks into small recitations sections to allow discussion, oral presentations, and individual contact with instructors.

Audio Lectures and Notes

For each lecture, students are given a brief handout containing an outline, key questions, and points to ponder. Slides on visual perception and attention are also presented for lectures 4 and 5.

1: The Brain: Between the Ears, Behind the Eyes

2: Motivation and Emotion: "Reason Alone Cannot Move Us To Do Anything"

3: Learning: The Power of Association

4: Sensing: Gathering the Information

5: Attending: Limiting the Information

6: Perceiving: Interpreting the Information

7: Memory: What Do You Remember?

8: Cognition: How Do You Think?

9: Cognitive Development: How Do Children Think?

11: Language Development: What Do Children Say?

12: Intelligence: How Do We Know You Are Smart?

13: The Battle of the Sexes: Love and Evolution

14: Social Exchange: Romantic Economics

15: Attitudes and Behaviors: How Can We Be Controlled?

16: Who Are you? The Psychology of the Self

17: From Dissociation To Repression

18: Freud and Fairy Tales

19: Sleep and Dreams

20: Defining Mental Illness: Are Suicide Bombers Insane?

21: Causing Mental Illness: What Can Make You "Lose" Your Mind?

22: Successful Disasters: Eating Disorders

23: Doppler Effect, Binary Stars, Neutron Stars and Black Holes

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