I am just covering S&P and soon the chapter on consciousness in Gen. Psych.
The Feb. issue of the APA Monitor has a few articles that provide info we might
bring into our classes, or at least use to start class discussion. One article
reviews some of the research centering on dangerous distractions like cell
phones, texting, etc. Another article deals with illusions students might have
about multi-tasking. Both pieces might be fun to integrate when presenting
issues of selective attention and sequential vs. parallel processing. The
latter article quotes neuroscience researcher (apparently not a psychologist?)
R. Poldrack: "The entire culture is starting to look like what you see in
attention deficit disorder, where there's a difficulty in focusing and
distractibility." Nice description of millennial students?
Finally, I also like to tell students about the role of psychologists in
testing claims and applying psychology. There is a fun historical article by
Ludy Benjamin on the efforts of Harry Hollingworth and Leta Hollingworth to
examine / defend Coca-Cola against charges that its dangerous added ingredient
could produce serious motor and mental impairment. The dangerous
ingredient-----caffeine! It might be fun to discuss this early research in
relation to contemporary energy drinks where you can then touch again on issues
of alertness, sleep problems, motor impairment, have the class design their own
research, etc. You might even want to explore ethical and research issues
pertaining to the relationship between researchers and drug/commercial
companies, efforts to promote objectivity in research,etc. Anyway, I saw these
articles as having promise for some teaching moments. Now if I can just get
the students to look up from their laptops, cell phones, or wake up long enough
to pick up any points being made... Gary
Gerald L. (Gary) Peterson, Ph.D.
Professor, Psychology
Saginaw Valley State University
University Center, MI 48710
989-964-4491
[email protected]
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