Week 4

Sensation & Perception

INSTRUCTIONS: ​Read the article “Weightlessness and Perception” and answer the questions that follow.

WEIGHTLESSNESS & PERCEPTION

In the second half of the 20th century space travel became a reality. Until the first space travelers braved the unknown, scientists and doctors could only speculate on how the human body would react to weightlessness. Some of their speculations proved true, such as space motion sickness that is commonly experienced by space travelers at the beginning of a flight. Others proved false. One thing has become quite clear—the body can adapt to weightlessness and then readjust to gravity. Researchers are attempting to use what has been learned in space to treat people on Earth with problems such as balance disorders.

. . . As most doctors can attest, it is difficult to bodies back and forth, they say it feels as predict what will happen when a brand-new though they are stationary and the challenge is presented to the human body. spacecraft is moving. The reason is Time and again, space travel has revealed its embedded in our dependence on gravity for marvelous and sometimes subtle adaptive perceptual information. ability. But only in the past few years have The continuous and pervasive nature scientists begun to understand the body’s of gravity removes it from our daily responses to weightlessness, as the consciousness. But even though we are only data—the cumulative experience of nearly reminded of gravity’s invisible hand from 700 people spending a total of 58 person time to time by, say, varicose veins or an years in space—have grown in quantity and occasional lightheadedness on standing up, quality. Pursuit of this knowledge is our bodies never forget. Whether we realize improving health care not only for those who it or not, we have evolved a large number of journey into space but also for those of us silent, automatic reactions to cope with the stuck on the ground. The unexpected constant stress of living in a downward outcome of space medicine has been an pulling world. Only when we decrease or enhanced understanding of how the human increase the effective force of gravity on our body works right here on Earth. bodies do we consciously perceive it. Otherwise our perception is indirect. Feeling Gravity’s Pull Our senses provide accurate Although many factors affect human information about the location of our center health during spaceflight, weightlessness is of mass and the relative positions of our the dominant and single most important body parts. This capability integrates signals one. The direct and indirect effects of from our eyes and ears with other weightlessness precipitate a cascade of information from the vestibular organs in interrelated responses that begin in three our inner ear, from our muscles and joints, different types of tissue: gravity receptors, and from our senses of touch and pressure. fluids and weight-bearing structures. Many of these signals are dependent on the Ultimately, the whole body, from bones to size and direction of the constant terrestrial brain, reacts. gravitational force. When space travelers grasp the wall of The vestibular apparatus in the inner their spacecraft and pull and push their ear has two distinct components: the semicircular canals (three mutually spacecraft’s forward velocity carries it perpendicular, fluid-filled tubes that contain around the curve of the planet—space hair cells connected to nerve fibers), which travelers say they do not feel as if they are are sensitive to angular acceleration of the falling. The perception of falling probably head; and the otolith organs (two sacs filled depends on visual and airflow cues along with calcium carbonate crystals embedded with information from the direct gravity in a gel), which respond to linear receptors. . . . acceleration. Because movement of the The aggregate of signal changes crystals in the otoliths generates the signal produces, in half or more of space travelers, of acceleration to the brain and because the a motion sickness that features many of the laws of physics relate that acceleration to a symptoms of terrestrial motion sickness: net force, gravity is always implicit in the headache, impaired concentration, loss of signal. Thus, the otoliths have been referred appetite, stomach awareness, vomiting. to as gravity receptors. They are not the only Space motion sickness usually does not last ones. Mechanical receptors in the muscles, beyond the first three days or so of tendons and joints—as well as pressure weightlessness, but something similar has receptors in the skin, particularly on the been reported by cosmonauts at the end of bottom of the feet—respond to the weight of long flights. limb segments and other body parts. At one time, scientists attributed Removing gravity transforms these space motion sickness to the unusual signals. The otoliths no longer perceive a pattern of vestibular activity, which conflicts downward bias to head movements. The with the brain’s expectations. Now it is clear limbs no longer have weight, so muscles are that this explanation was simplistic. The no longer required to contract and relax in sickness results from the convergence of a the usual way to maintain posture and bring variety of factors, including the alteration of about movement. the patterns and levels of motor activity Touch and pressure receptors in the feet necessary to control the head itself. A similar and ankles no longer signal the direction of motion sickness can also be elicited by down. These and other changes contribute computer systems designed to create virtual to visual-orientation illusions and feelings of environments, through which one can self-inversion, such as the feeling that the navigate without the forces and sensory body or the spacecraft spontaneously patterns present during real motion. reorients. In 1961 cosmonaut Gherman Titov Over time, the brain adapts to the new reported vivid sensations of being upside signals, and for some space travelers, down early in a spaceflight of only one day. “down” becomes simply where the feet are. Last year shuttle payload specialist Byron K. The adaptation probably involves Lichtenberg, commenting on his earlier flight physiological changes in both receptors and experiences, said, “When the main engines nerve-cell patterns. Similar changes occur on cut off, I immediately felt as though we had the ground during our growth and flipped 180 degrees.” Such illusions can maturation and during periods of major recur even after some time in space. body-weight changes. The way we control The lack of other critical sensory cues our balance and avoid falls is an important also confuses the brain. Although orbital and poorly understood part of physiology. flight is a perpetual free fall—the only Because otherwise healthy people returning difference from skydiving is that the from space initially have difficulty maintaining their balance but recover this Most of the body’s systems return to sense rapidly, post flight studies may allow normal within a few days or weeks of doctors to help those nonspace travelers landing, with the possible exception of the who suffer a loss of balance on Earth. musculoskeletal system. So far nothing Bernard Cohen of the Mount Sinai indicates that humans cannot live and work School of Medicine and Gilles Clement of the in space for long periods and return to Earth National Center for Scientific Research in to lead normal lives. This is clearly good Paris undertook just such a study after the news for denizens of the upcoming Neurolab shuttle mission, which ended on International Space Station and for any May 3, [1998]. To connect this work with future interplanetary missions. In fact, the patients suffering from balance disorders, station, assembly of which should begin late Barry W. Peterson of this year or early next year, will provide Northwestern University and a team of researchers with a new opportunity to researchers, supported by the National investigate the effects of space travel on Aeronautics and Space Administration and humans. On its completion in five years, the the National Institutes of Health, are creating station will have 46,000 cubic feet of work the first whole-body computer model of space (nearly five times more than the Mir or human posture and balance control. . . . Skylab stations) and will include sophisticated laboratory equipment for the Down to Earth next generation of medical studies. When space travelers return to the Recognizing the need for a comprehensive world of weight, complementary changes attack on all the potential human risks of occur. If the effects of weightlessness are long-duration space travel, NASA has completely reversible, everything should selected and funded a special research body, return to its normal condition at some time the National Space Biomedical Research after the flight. We now know that most Institute, to assist in defining and responding systems in the body do work reversibly, at to those risks. least over the intervals for which we have Many of the “normal” changes that data. We do not yet know whether this is a take place in healthy people during or just general rule. after spaceflight are outwardly similar to Space travelers certainly feel “abnormal” events occurring in ill people on gravitationally challenged during and just Earth. For example, most space travelers after their descent. As one person said after cannot stand quietly for 10 minutes just nine days in space: “It’s quite a shock. The after landing without feeling faint. This first time I pushed myself up, I felt like I was so-called orthostatic intolerance is also lifting three times my weight.” Returning experienced by patients who have stayed in space travelers report experiencing a variety bed for a long time and by some elderly of illusions—for example, during head people. motion it is their surroundings that seem to be moving—and they wobble while trying to stand straight, whether their eyes are open or closed.

UNDERSTANDING THE READING

1. What is the primary effect on the human body during spaceflight?

2 What structures of the inner ear are sensitive to side to side movement of the head?

3. What structures of the inner ear are sensitive to forward motion of the head?

4. What is the difference in perception between skydiving and spaceflight?

5. What Earth-based activity may create motion sickness similar to that experienced during spaceflight?

6. What immediate effect of gravity do space travelers experience when they return to Earth?

7. What would a typical day be like if you could not distinguish which way was up and which was down?

Week 5

Phineas Gage

INSTRUCTIONS: ​Read the article “The Strange Tale of Phineas Gage” and answer the questions that follow.

The Strange Tale of Phineas Gage

By ​Joanna Schaffhausen​ | 15 April 2013

Phineas Gage began the day of September 13, 1848 as a man remarkable only to those who knew him personally. He worked as the foreman of a railway construction gang in Vermont, where his group was preparing the bed for the Rutland and Burlington RailRoad. At just twenty-six years old, Gage was already a success story. Gage had a combination of intelligence and athletic ability that made him perfect for the task of clearing rock from the path of the coming railroad. As his bosses noted, he was “the most efficient and capable man” in their employ.

The essence of Gage’s job was to remove large sections of rock by shattering it from the inside out. First, a hole was drilled deep into the boulder, and then it was filled halfway with explosive powder. Next, a fuse was inserted, and sand was poured on top of the fuse. What followed was the riskiest part of the whole enterprise. To direct the explosion into the rock instead of back out the hole, the sand had to be “tamped down” with an iron rod. By all accounts, Gage had used the iron hundreds of times without incident, and there was no reason to think the afternoon of September 13th would prove any different. But his lucky streak ended abruptly at four-thirty on that late summer day.

Gage had drilled a hole into the rock and filled it with powder, indicating to the man helping him that it was time to put in the sand. At that point, someone called to Gage and he must have become distracted. He failed to notice that his colleague had not yet added the sand to the hole and began tamping directly onto the explosive powder. Almost immediately the sparks struck fire in the hole and the charge blew up in Gage’s face. The force of the explosion drove his three-foot long iron rod at high speed into Gage’s left cheekbone, through his skull and out the top of his head. It landed nearly 300 feet away.

Amazingly, Gage survived the terrible blow. Witnesses reported that while he was thrown to the ground and exhibited a few convulsions, he was alert and rational within a few minutes after the accident. His men picked him up and took him by ox cart to a nearby hotel, where they summoned one of the town’s physicians, Dr. John Harlow. Gage was still conscious at the time of the exam and able to answer questions about his accident, but his survival was not yet assured. Dr. Harlow did not have the benefit of antibiotics in treating Gage. However, he was knowledgeable enough about infection to understand its life-threatening risk and kept vigilant watch over Gage’s wound, cleaning and draining it regularly. Gage’s youth and previous health proved stronger forces than the infection, and within two months he was cured. Or was he?

No Longer Gage

Miraculously, Gage suffered no motor or speech impairments as a result of his traumatic brain injury. His memory was intact, and he gradually regained his physical strength. Dr. Harlow initially concluded that Gage was fortunate because his injury involved an expendable part of the brain. But in fact something was lost to Gage that terrible afternoon. His personality underwent a dramatic shift, changing his disposition to such a degree that his friends barely recognized him. “Gage,” they said, “was no longer Gage.”

Once a polite and caring person, Gage became prone to selfish behavior and bursts of profanity. Dr. Harlow said it was if Gage lost the balance between “his intellectual faculty and animal propensities.” He had no respect for social graces and often lied about his accomplishments. Previously energetic and focused, he was now erratic and unreliable. He had trouble forming and executing plans. There was no evidence of forethought in his actions, and he often made choices against his best interests. Eventually, his capricious and offensive behavior cost him his job with the railroad contractors. It was not any physical disability that prevented Gage from working; it was his character.

By 1868, Dr. Harlow was ready to accept the surprising message inherent in Gage’s tragic story, namely that observing social convention, behaving ethically, and making good life choices requires knowledge of strategies and rules that are separate from those necessary for basic memory, motor and speech processing. Even more startling, it appeared as though there are systems in the brain dedicated primarily to reasoning.

A Locus for Personality?

When Gage died in 1861 there was no autopsy performed, so no one was able to verify the exact brain regions damaged in his accident. Fortunately for later researchers, Dr. Harlow had Gage’s body exhumed in 1866, at which point the skull and the tamping iron he was buried with went to the Warren Medical Museum of Harvard Medical School, where they have remained ever since. Gage’s accident seemed to suggest that the prefrontal cortex controls decision making, especially in social situations, and has a great deal of influence on temperament.

Some of the first indications that Gage’s personality shift was not just a fluke came from other people with injuries to the prefrontal cortex. In the years that followed Dr. Harlow’s 1868 report, other physicians began noting patients who underwent radical personality changes similar to Gage’s after suffering damage to the frontal lobe. They had trouble holding a job, had little respect for social convention, and seemed indifferent to those around them. They formulated plans but could never seem to carry them out. They made life choices that were clearly against their own best interests. In nearly all cases, an autopsy of these individuals revealed severe damage to the prefrontal cortices.

Further evidence linking personality changes to prefrontal lobe damage came from a Yale Study on chimpanzees. The researchers had two monkeys who were especially difficult to work with because they frustrated easily and tended to lash out in retaliation. Researchers then performed surgeries on these monkeys that damaged their frontal lobes. After the surgery, both chimpanzees were docile and cooperative. When the results of this study came to light at a medical conference in 1935, scientists wondered if this kind of surgery could produce similar results in humans. This hypothesis led to an infamous kind of psychiatric surgery performed during the 1940s and 50s known as the frontal lobotomy. Patients with various kinds of psychosis underwent surgery to purposefully damage their frontal lobes in an effort to cure them of their illnesses. Interestingly, the surgery did seem to help some people, especially those with terrible anxiety, but the overall emotional blunting proved no great cure. It did, however, strengthen the link between the social aspects of personality and the prefrontal cortex.

GUIDED READING

1. Using the Phineas Gage article, sum up what happened to Gage in 3-5 sentences.

2. What did doctors and scientists conclude about the brain because of Gage and studies that imitated what happened to him?

3. What effect did this case study have on modern neuroscience?

4. Why are case studies like the one for Phineas Gage so important?

Week 6

Forensic Psychology 101

INSTRUCTIONS: ​Read the article “Serial Killers Introduction” and answer the questions that follow. The assignment is broken into 3 parts.

SERIAL KILLERS INTRODUCTION

A serial killer is classified by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) as a person who murders three or more people. The killings usually are in service of an abnormal psychological gratification, with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant break or a "cooling off period" between them. Different authorities apply different criteria when designating serial killers all organizations have the minimum number of kills to two. The official definition from the FBI is, “serial killing is a series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone". Some commonly found shared characteristics of analyzed serial killers include the following: ❏ They may exhibit varying degrees of mental illness (leading to homicidal behavior). ❏ They may demonstrate psychopathic behavior such as; sensation seeking, a lack of remorse or guilt, impulsivity, the need for control, and predatory behavior. ❏ Unlike people with mental disorders such as schizophrenia, serial killers can seem normal and often quite charming. ❏ They were often abused—emotionally, physically and/or sexually—by a family member. ❏ A disproportionate number exhibit one, two, or all three of the Macdonald Triad of predictors of future violent behavior: 1) Many are fascinated with fire setting. 2) They are involved in sadistic activity; especially in children this activity may take the form of torturing animals. 3) More than 60 percent wet their beds beyond the age of 12. ❏ They were frequently bullied or socially isolated as children or adolescents. ❏ Some were involved in petty crimes, such as fraud, theft, vandalism, or similar offenses. ❏ Often, they have trouble staying employed and tend to work in menial jobs. ❏ Studies have suggested that serial killers generally have an average or low-average IQ (a sample of 202 serial killers demonstrated a median IQ of 89).

Further examples relating to serial killers include, someone who is mentally ill that may have psychotic breaks that cause them to believe they are another person or are compelled to murder by other entities. Although psychological gratification is the usual motive for serial killing, and most serial killings involve sexual contact with the victim, the FBI states that the motives of serial killers can include anger, thrill seeking, financial gain, and attention seeking. The murders may be attempted or completed in a similar fashion, and the victims may have something in common: age group, appearance, gender, or race are all examples.

In his book Serial Killers: ​The Method and Madness of Monsters ​(2004), criminal justice historian Peter Vronsky states that the term "serial killing" first entered into American popular usage when published in The New York Times in the spring of 1981, to describe Atlanta serial killer Wayne Williams. Subsequently, throughout the 1980s, the term was used in the pages of The New York Times on 233 occasions, but by the end of the 1990s, in the publication's second decade, the use of the term escalated to 2,514 times.

There are exceptions to the main criteria for classifying serial killers. For example, Harold Shipman was a successful professional (a General Practitioner working for the NHS). He was considered a pillar of the local community; he even won a professional award for a children's asthma clinic and was interviewed by Granada Television's World in Action. Dennis Nilsen was an ex-soldier turned civil servant and trade unionist who had no previous criminal record when arrested. Neither of these men was known to have exhibited many of the tell-tale signs of being a serial killer. Vlado Taneski, a crime reporter, was a career journalist who was caught after a series of articles he wrote gave clues that he had murdered people. Russell Williams was a successful and respected career Royal Canadian Air Force Colonel who was convicted of murdering two women, along with committing burglaries and attacking women.

The unidentified killer Jack the Ripper, who has been called the first modern serial killer, killed at least five prostitutes, and possibly more, in London in 1888. He was the subject of a massive manhunt and investigation by the London Metropolitan Police, during which many modern criminal investigation techniques were used for the first time. A large team of policemen conducted house-to-house inquiries, forensic material was collected and suspects were identified and traced. Police surgeon Thomas Bond assembled one of the earliest character profiles of the offender. The Ripper murders also marked an important moment in the treatment of crime by journalists. While not the first serial killer in history, Jack the Ripper's case was the first to create a worldwide media frenzy. The dramatic murders of financially destitute women in the midst of the wealth of London, focused the media's attention on the plight of the urban poor and gained coverage worldwide. Jack the Ripper has also been called the most famous serial killer of all time, and his legend has spawned hundreds of theories on his real identity and multiple works of fiction.

H. H. Holmes was one of the first documented modern serial killers in America, responsible for the death of at least 27 victims at his hotel in Chicago in the early 1890s. Here as well, the case gained notoriety and wide publicity through William Randolph Hearst's newspapers. At the same time in France, Joseph Vacher became known as the "The French Ripper" after killing and mutilating 11 women and children. He was executed in 1898 after confessing to his crimes. Infamous serial killers of the 20th century include Willie Pickton, Harold Shipman, Luis Garavito, Javed Iqbal, Anatoly Onopriyenko, Dean Corll, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Peter Sutcliffe, Fritz Haarmann and Peter Kürten, Peter Tobin, Albert Fish, Ed Gein, Fred West, Richard Ramirez, David Berkowitz, Aileen Wuornos, Rosemary West, and Gary Ridgway. 76% of all known serial killers in the 20th century were from the United States.

PART 1

UNDERSTANDING THE READING

1. Explain three of the criteria the FBI uses to categorize someone as a “serial killer”. 1 - ______2 - ______3 - ______

PART 2

TRUE OR FALSE

1. ​ ______Serial killers commonly have high IQs.

2. ______Serial killers often demonstrate predatory behavior.

3. ______Serial killers have shown signs of frequent bed wetting later in life.

4. ______Serial killers were often bullies at a younger age.

5. ______Serial killers must match all three criteria in the MacDonald Triad.

6. ______Serial killers usually hold low wage jobs.

7. ______Serial killers often have been involved with other forms of crime besides killing

PART 3

GUIDED READING

1. What are the three behaviors of serial killers identified by the MacDonald Triad? 1 - ______2 - ______3 - ______2. According to the FBI, what are the four motives of serial killers. 1 - ______3 - ______2 - ______4 - ______

3. When was the term “serial killer” first used? Who used it and who was it describing?

4. How has the use of the term “serial killer” changed in our society?

5. Who were four serial killers that did not meet the criteria for being a “serial killer”? 1 - ______3 - ______2 - ______4 - ______

6. Choose one of the killers from question 5 and explain how they did not meet the criteria.

7. Who is considered to be the first serial killer? Explain two specific facts about the killer.

8. Explain one fact about H.H. Holmes and one fact about Joseph Vacher. Holmes - ______Vacher - ______

9. What percentage of serial killers have been from the United States? ______