1. Welcome to MSUM Psychology Dr
Welcome to MSUM Psychology Dr. Christine Malone Psychology Department Professor and Chairperson

2. What Is Psychology? Psychology Psyche: Mind Logos: Knowledge or study
Definition: The scientific study of behavior and mental processes
Behavior: Overt; i.e., can be directly observed (crying)
Mental Processes: Covert; i.e., cannot be directly observed (remembering); private, internal
Empirical Evidence: Information gathered from direct observation

4. What Might a Psychologist Research?
Development: Course of human growth and development
Learning: How and why it occurs in humans and animals
Personality: Traits, motivations, and individual differences
Sensation and Perception: How we come to know the world through our five senses…**Preview today

5. Psychologists Observe & Measure Behavior

6. Why use the scientific method?
Non-Scientific (everyday)
Scientific
General Approach
intuitive
empirical
Observation
casual, uncontrolled
systematic, controlled
Reporting
biased, subjective
unbiased, objective
Concepts
ambiguous, surplus meaning
clear definitions, operational specificity
Instruments
inaccurate, imprecise
accurate, precise
Measurement
not valid or reliable
valid and reliable
Hypotheses
untestable, impossible to disprove
testable (must be!)
Attitude
uncritical, accepting
critical, skeptical

7. Visual Perception
How do we organize sensations into meaningful perceptions?
You experience perceptual constructions—mental representations of external events—that are actively created by your brain
Does your brain ever misconstruct (and thus misperceive) external stimuli?

8. or simply a property of your visual system?
Mystical illusion?
Explain this
or simply a property of your visual system?

9. The Feature-Detector Approach
The waterfall illusion experienced by humans is evidence that humans do indeed have feature detectors.
In this illusion, a person first stares at a waterfall for one minute or more.
If the person then looks at cliffs immediately after staring at the waterfall, the cliffs will appear to “flow upward”.
This suggests that the cells that detect downward motion have become fatigued from the act of staring at the waterfall.
Another motion aftereffect

10. Imposing Meaning Do feature detectors explain perception?
Figure 4.23
The Necker cube. The tinted surface can become either the front or the back of the cube.
Do feature detectors explain perception?
Scientists believe that feature detectors are just a first step in a series of complex processes that create perception.
Simple visual illusions such as the Necker cube suggest that we must also actively impose meaning on images that we see.
There is a branch of psychology that specializes in explaining how humans arrive at the integrated whole images and make meaningful interpretations of the visual world.

11. Imposing Meaning--Gestalt Psychology
Gestalt psychology focuses on the human ability to perceive overall patterns.
The word Gestalt has no true English equivalent, but is close to synonymous with “pattern” or “configuration.”
According to Gestalt psychologists, visual perception is an active creation, not merely the adding up of lines and movement.

12. Principles of Gestalt Psychology
When looking at an image, we make a distinction between figure and ground.
This is a picture of a reversible figure – a stimulus that can be perceived in more than one way. When we decide which side is the front of the object, then we will see it as a stable image. We are imposing order on an array, not just adding up small features.

13. Please shout out the answers.
Poke
Coke
Folk

15. Psychology majors learn:
Cool, interesting content knowledge about psychology
How people think, feel, learn, perceive…
How to problem solve and think critically
How to work with and interpret data
How to communicate effectively (orally and in writing)
How to work with others

18. What’s special about MSUM Psychology?
Student-centered, focused on teaching and learning
Relatively small class sizes
Many faculty-mentored research and presentation opportunities
Learning community
Active psychology club
One-on-one course and career advising
Internship possibilities

19. What do our students do upon graduation?
30% go directly to graduate school
Find or continue employment in human services
CCRI, Access of Red River Valley, Luther Hall, Fraser, Fargo Youth Commission, etc.
Human resources
Research/analyst positions
Employment agency
Group homes/day programs/day care centers
Nonprofit agencies (e.g., American Cancer Society)

20. Questions?
Thank you for visiting MSUM Psychology!