psychology

Summer 2021

Online

Dr. Kyle Danielson

§ By the end of the first half of class today, you should…

§ …have an idea of what concepts we will cover in this second half of Introductory Psychology

§ …know whom to contact in various situations

§ …have a good understanding of the various structural components of the course

§ …have inputted a list of deadlines into your own calendar

§ …have read through the syllabus at least once!

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§ Some of you have already taken PSYA01, the first half of introductory psychology

§ These are different courses with different structures, but there are some commonalities between the two

§ PSYA01 is NOT a requirement for PSYA02

§ …but you do have to take both courses in order to enrol in higher- level PSY courses or to major, minor, or specialize in Psychology, Mental Health Studies, or Neuroscience

§ What is covered in PSYA01?

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§ PSYA02 is a massive course § One of the largest courses at the University

of Toronto

§ Throughout the term, there will be a lot of people helping out with the course, including: § Teaching Assistants § Technical support for peerScholar and Top

Hat § The course coordinator, Ainsley § The course professor, Kyle

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§ If you have questions about the course, you should know whom to contact in order to get the most timely, helpful response

§ For all course administrative issues (deadlines, technical support, questions about the syllabus), you should contact Ainsley ([email protected]).

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§If you have specific questions about one of the pieces of software used in the course (peerScholar, Top Hat, etc.) you can also contact technical support on those websites

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§ If you have questions about Psychology material or career and program advice, you can contact me ([email protected]) § Please do not use the Quercus messaging

function

§ Or attend my office hours (sign up online at calendly.com/kdanielson, or attend open office hours)

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§ Teaching assistants also work with us to: § Grade assignments § Create exam questions § Host office hours

§ For grading questions § For content questions

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§Lectures §Slides are posted online on Quercus §Lecture videos are posted on Quercus

§Textbook §Chapters 4 and 10 through 17 only §Accessed online through Top Hat

§Activities §Tests

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§There is a lot of online software used in this course §peerScholar §Top Hat §SONA

§We use these pieces of software because they help facilitate active learning and they work well in such a big course

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§ We will be using Top Hat in this course starting with Lecture 2 § This software allows you to participate in lectures and shape

the direction of the conversation in upcoming lectures! § There will usually be 3-5 Top Hat questions/activities per

lecture (none for Lecture 1) § There are additional Top Hat questions for each chapter § Due dates for Top Hat are listed on Quercus (usually but not

always on Sundays) § Instructions for signing up for Top Hat are in the syllabus (use

your U of T email!)

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§ peerScholar is online software that allows you to: § create a draft of an activity § give and receive peer feedback § revise the draft into a final version

§ Lots more details will be available on Quercus

§ peerScholar is integrated with Quercus, so there is no sign up necessary!

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§An important part of introductory psychology is learning how research is conducted in psychological science

§You are required* to participate in 3 hours of psychological research for this course

§You will participate via a system called SONA §Instructions for signing up will be sent in the third week of classes when SONA opens

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§ There are two exams in PSYA02, a midterm and a final § The midterm exam contains material from Chapters 4 and

10-12 and their associated lectures

§ The final exam contains material from Chapters 13-17 and their associated lectures (the final exam is not cumulative)

§ The exams consist of multiple-choice questions with answer options A-E

§ The exams have not yet been scheduled, so stay tuned!

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PSYA02

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Human Development, Part 1 Prenatal and Infant Development

Daily objectives

By the end of class today, you should be able to… • …define the ages that comprise the stages of human development • …define the stages of prenatal development • ...characterize human perception in utero

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Human development

• The study of human development is the examination of continuity and change across the lifespan

• In the next few classes, we will be exploring this continuity and change on a variety of topics: • Sensation and perception • Cognition and language • Emotion • Social and moral behaviour

• We will cover four main periods of human development • Prenatal period and infancy (conception – 2-3 years) • Childhood (2-3 – 11 years) • Adolescence (12 – 17 years) • Adulthood (18 years – death)

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Warm-up

• Take a moment to think about the following topic:

• What is the earliest memory that you have? • How old were you? • What do you remember?

• Our early memories are often vague or non-existent

• This failure of autobiographical memory often leads us to believe that our experiences as young infants are less relevant

Early experience in infancy

• However, early experiences in infancy are crucial to normal development…

• …and also give rise to many of the myriad individual differences observed across the human population

Early experience

• What are the earliest experiences of the human organism?

• In utero experience prior to being born

• What experiences does the human organism begin accumulating in the womb?

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Prenatal development

• The human experience begins with conception, not with birth • Therefore, our first topic is prenatal development, the period

of time prior to birth • Throughout this period, we’ll talk about gestational age • The time since the beginning of the last menstrual period • Why gestational age and not fertilization age?

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Prenatal development 22

Prenatal development

• Review fertilization in your textbook! • Germinal stage—the period of the zygote (the one-celled

fertilized egg) • The newly formed zygote travels through the fallopian tube • Zygotic cells divide, first into two, then into four, and so on… • Defined as 0-2 weeks gestational age (conception until

implantation; timing varies) • Embryonic stage (2-8 weeks gestational age) • Begins when the zygote implants in the wall of the uterus • Beginning of cell differentiation

• Fetal stage (9-40 weeks gestational age) • Skeleton and muscles develop, allowing movement • Brain development occurs rapidly, allowing for detection of and

learning from early experiences • Neurogenesis and myelination (review from Chapter 3!)

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24Developmental processes in brain development

Review: • Neural tube

formation • Neurogenesis • Myelination • Synaptogenesis • Synaptic pruning

Fetal experience and sensation 25

• The womb is not a vacuum! • Fetuses experience stimuli in utero

• Tastes and smells • Sounds • Tactile sensation • Sights*

Fetal vision

• What is there to see? • …not much • Very little light penetrates the

mammalian uterus • So there is very little exogenous

experience—experience that comes from outside the organism

• Endogenous stimulation – stimuli generated by the organism itself • Retinal (eye) cells fire irregularly by

22 weeks gestational age • These provide visual experience to the

fetus

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Fetal audition

• Much more robust than fetal vision • Fetal heartbeat changes in reaction

to external voices being played • Fetal heartbeat is different in

reaction to music than it is to human speech

• Newborn babies (a few minutes old!) recognize their mother’s language and their mother’s voice

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Fetal olfaction 28

• 3-day old neonates turn their heads longer toward familiar versus unfamiliar amniotic fluid

Schaal, Marlier, & Soussignan, 1998