Research proposal

Fear Incorporated
The Role of the Amygdala in Anxiety Disorders

Presented to the
Seminar in Neuroscience

“Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.” Arthur Somers Roche

Anxiety is a feeling of dread or apprehension that occurs for no apparent reason. It is distinguished from fear because it occurs in situations where there are no outward signs of eminent danger. It becomes debilitating when it grows out-of-proportion to ordinary events in life. Anxiety is deceptive. First it focuses attention, and then it clamps the brain into rigidity by obsessively replaying past traumas ~>[Read more]

Multi story memory

Presented to the seminar in
COGNITIVE SCIENCE

It wasn’t long ago that psychologists regarded memory as a single-thread of stimulus-response associations; strengthened by repetition. What went on between the time information was stored and retrieved was terra incognito. Memory was commonly thought to be a passive record of stimulus-events. Once events were stored, they became a reliable part of memory. The information was always there; forgetting was blamed on a failure of retrieval. The associative principles of memory no longer apply. They fail to capture clinical reports of patients with aphasia or Alzheimer’s. Aphasia patients can usually remember current events, but they forget long-term information such as the meaning of words or the names of familiar objects. On the other hand, Alzheimer’s patients can remember long-term information, such as the meaning of words, but they forget recent events such as a visit by a relative or their arrival at the clinic. These observations suggest different types of memory at work. Some temporarily hold events in our immediate surroundings while others preserve them on a more lasting basis.   

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Evolution of the neocortex

Findings of Comparative Neuro-Psychology

Presented to the seminar in
SOCIOBIOLOGY

Homage to the Tree Shrew

“The cerebral cortex, of all parts of the central nervous system, must be regarded as the most plastic in recent evolution, reflecting new behavioral requirements of niches carved out by increasingly complex relations between predator and prey, and the increasing demands for more subtle relationships within the species.”   Harting  (1973) ~>[Read more]

Recapitulation theory

Research proposal

Presented to the Seminar in Research Methods

The purpose of this experiment is to test the hypothesis that adults can learn languages as easy as children when the method of instruction simulates conditions found in early childhood.

Transcripts of early speech show a reliable trend. Language development occurs in stages that correspond to increasing degrees of derivational complexity. This means fewer and simpler transformational rules appear in children’s speech before larger sets of more complex rules begin to emerge. In addition, children learn their first language without formal training. It occurs spontaneously. There is no evidence of selective pressure for the development of well-formed sentences. It is an innate process that requires only participation in a verbal community.

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Second languages

Presented to the
Seminar in Learning Theory

Tribute to Noam Chomsky

A survey of the literature suggests that the same learning principles underlie both native and foreign languages. If the focus of instruction is on communicative intent, rather than phonological repetition, then learning a foreign language recapitulates the stages that children follow when learning their first language. Contrary to popular belief, adults may have an advantage over children. Chomsky’s review of Skinner’s ‘Verbal Behavior’ has been hailed as the most influential document in the history of psychology. Nowhere is this more evident than in the recent literature on language development ~>[Read more]