ST. JOHN'S
UNIVERSITY SPRING - 2002
PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY - PSY 2150
OFFICE HOURS: Mondays,
Wednesdays, and Fridays 10:05 am to 11:05 pm, Rosati Hall.
REQUIRED TEXT: Kalat, J. W. (2001). Biological
Psychology (7th ed.).
Wadsworth, Belmont, CA.
COURSE OUTLINE: This course offers
the student a broad overview of the field of physiological psychology: The area
within psychology that studies the relationship between physiological functions
and behavior. We will study the
physiological basis for normal cognitive and behavioral processes, such as
perception, memory, and the emotions.
Also covered will be physiological processes responsible for abnormal
behavior and the behavioral deficits arising as a result of brain damage and
other neurochemical dysfunctions.
CLASS EXAMINATIONS AND OTHER
REQUIREMENTS: There will be 5 50-question multiple-choice examinations and
each exam will cover three chapters. If
you miss an exam, for whatever reason, you may make it up ONLY during the week
of final exams (either right after your last exam or on two other dates that
will be announced when the final exam schedule is made public). Only 2 make-up exams will be allowed in
addition to exam no. 5. If you choose to write a paper (see below) the grade for
the paper may be used to substitute the lowest exam score. Most lecture
material, as well as, exam questions will be taken from the textbook readings.
However, not all textbook-material will be covered in class lectures and some
questions may be derived from research excerpts that will be periodically
e-mailed to you. Be sure to be on time everyday, but particularly on exam days
as you will not be allowed extra time to complete an exam if you are late. You are required to bring a no. 2 pencil to
all examinations. Be sure to include
the date, exam section number, your name, and social security number on the
answer sheet. You are not to make any
marks on the exam paper. Failure to
complete an exam answer sheet in pencil or to include the necessary information
may result in a "0" for that exam.
For practice
examination questions and other web resources regarding based on our textbook
readings, point your browser HERE.
ATTENDANCE: Attendance and punctuality are extremely important in this
course. Although class participation is
not going to be formally graded (or the lack of it penalized), it is obviously
encouraged. Class participation
constitutes asking a question or making a comment when the student raises his
or her hand and the instructor calls on the student. During lectures, no other
interaction between students will be tolerated. I reserve the right to dismiss
from class any student who, in my view, is disruptive. If you are absent, it is your responsibility
to obtain class notes from your peers.
Please note that I do not repeat lecture material. Also, during class participation, the words
"prove", "proven", "sort of", "like a"
and "society" (as an explanatory concept) are not to be used when
answering questions or writing the paper.
E-MAIL DISTRIBUTION LIST: During the
first week of classes, you are to send me an e-mail message with your full
name, student number, and course section (e.g., PSY 2150, MWF: 1:25 PM-2:20
PM). The e-mail message should also include an
arbitrary 4 digit-letter combination (e.g., 3j4k) that will be used as your
identification code when the grades are e-mailed to the class. Please do not reveal this code to anyone as
grades will be mailed to the entire class with each student’s 4 digit-letter
code as identifier.
The primary reason
for sending me an e-mail is to include your e-mail address in our class’ e-mail
distribution list. This list consists of
the e-mail addresses of all of the members of the class and will make it easy
for me to send pertinent messages (e.g., announcements, excerpts of studies
related course material) to the entire class.
Please use whichever e-mail address (school or home) you consult most
frequently. You should know that each
of you has a St. John’s University e-mail address which consists of your first
initial, followed by the first 4 letters of your last name followed by the last
3 numbers of your social security number @stjohns.edu. Thus, for example, if your name was Juan
Gonzales and your social security number was 150-57-4643, your e-mail address
at St. John’s would be jgonz643@stjohns.edu. For all e-mail correspondence with
me, you must indicate your full name and course number and section in your
signature. Also, please avoid using
cyberlingo (e.g., “dat’s for u 2 know” which translates to “that’s for you to know”); in your e-mail
correspondence with me as I do not acknowledge or respond to messages using
such language. Write your messages
using proper English and follow correct grammatical and spelling practices.
MONITORING YOUR GRADES - You should always know
your academic standing for this course. The following is the grading system
used in all of my classes.
00.00
- 56.99 ------ F+ 63.00 -
69.99 ----- D+ 80.00 - 84.99 ------ B
85.00 - 89.99 ------ B+
57.00 - 62.99 ------ D
70.00 - 74.99 ------ C 75.00 - 79.99 ------ C+ 90.00 - 100. ------ A
MY GRADING POLICY- Most
people connected with academia will agree with the notion that grade inflation
exists even at the university level.
Grade inflation may be defined as follows: The grades that students
receive today are somewhat higher than those received by students in earlier
times who did the same level/quality of academic work. Thus, work that would have earned a student
a C, say, 30 years ago now may get him/her a C+, B- or higher. In spite of the fact that I am perceived to
be a hard grader, too often in my own classes I have seen the need to ‘curve’
students’ grades. As a result, I
believe that I have invariably contributed to the problem of grade
inflation. In view of this situation, I
have decided to adopt a policy similar to the one developed by Dr. Harvey C.
Mansfield, Jr., a professor of Government at Harvard. Essentially, what Dr. Mansfield does is to award students two
grades, one ‘official’ (i.e., inflated) which is sent to the registrar and will
appear in the student’s transcript, and a lower, unofficial grade that he
calculates based on a formula that he has devised. Thus, following on professor Mansfield’s footsteps, I will also
award you two grades at the end of the semester. The ‘official’ grade will be
the presumably inflated one that is based on examination curves and any other
similar ‘adjustments’. This ‘official’
grade will be the grade that will appear in the student’s transcript. The ‘unofficial’ grade, the one that in my
view more accurately reflects your performance in my class, will only be given
privately to each student and it will be based on the students’ performance
based on ‘uncurved’ exams, attendance, and my own personal assessment of the
student’s academic performance. Only
you, the student, will receive the unofficial grade.
SUGGESTIONS: It is extremely important that the student come to
class prepared to assimilate the assigned readings (READ THE BOOK!!!). It is also highly recommended that students,
particularly those that plan to attend graduate school, write a paper and that,
in doing so, you thoroughly think about the paper early in the semester so that
the project may be conducted within sufficient time. In spite of what you believe waiting until the last minute to do
the paper will invariably result in a poorer product.
DETAILS ABOUT THE OPTIONAL PAPER:
The paper is due no later than March 27th (the last day of class
before Spring Break). It will consist
of a comparison of two research articles relevant to some specific aspect of
Physiological Psychology. A list of the
articles that you may use will be made available shortly.
As an example of how you might write the paper, consider the question of the
physiological basis of aggression. One
study (Delville, Mansour, & Ferris (1996) focuses on the role of
testosterone on the ventromedial hypothalamus.
Another study by Roberts & Nagel (1996) focuses on the role of
neural projections to the brain stem (the full citations for these references
may be found in our textbook). If you
had selected these two studies for your paper, you would first summarize each
study by addressing the following questions: What was the study about; what is
the problem? What did the authors find?, and what is the importance of the
study, that is, how does it contribute to the literature and understanding of
the problem? In the body of your paper
you must identify the studies' hypotheses, independent and dependent variables,
and the theoretical underpinnings of the study. After the summaries, you must compare and contrast both studies
by pointing out the similarities and differences in their procedure, overall
results, and conclusions.
The paper should be approximately 6 to 10 long
(excluding the references page, tile page, and abstract page). It should be typed double-spaced with
one-inch margins throughout and 12-point font.
Use regular bond paper and apply the style suggested by the Publication
Manual of the American Psychological Association (on reserve in the library;
see also relevant web links in the on-line version of the course outline. For pointers on APA style, point your
browser HERE). The title page should have the full citation
of the articles that you are going to summarize along with your name. If you cite any references from within the
article you should consult the APA manual, a research methods book, or the
various websites available on APA style (see on-line version of course
outline). The paper must be free of
misspellings and grammatically correct.
Incomplete sentences, poor punctuation, etc., will result in a loss of
points. For example, for each misspelled
word or incorrect grammatical construction I will deduct 2 points from the
final grade assigned to the paper. Do
not use any type of covers with the paper. In addition, there will be a penalty
of 5 points, for each day that the paper is late and for any other infraction
of the rules outlined above.
For details about how I grade papers point your
browser HERE
IMPORTANT: Submit the paper in a
manila envelope and include the following:
a.
Copies of the 2 journal articles used in the paper.
b.
The articles must have markings (e.g., underlining) indicating those sections
that were used to write your paper.
c.
At least one TYPED early draft of the paper with evidence of substantial
revisions and corrections penciled-in on the draft. Handwritten drafts or those
with only corrected spelling errors are not acceptable.
d.
A computer diskette containing two files of your paper. One file must
correspond to the paper as it appears in the final typed version. Another file
must consist of a single-spaced version excluding the title page, abstract,
references and tables of data.
Alternatively, these documents may be e-mailed to me as Microsoft Word
file attachments.
All materials may be returned to students,
however, you should keep a copy of your paper for your records. Please note that it may be difficult to locate
appropriate articles for this project in our campus library and even in our
library at the Queens campus. Keep this
in mind and do not wait until late in the semester to write the paper.
ACADEMIC
DISHONESTY: Any student caught cheating on any examination
will receive a "0" for that examination. Such examination will not be dropped and will count toward your
final grade and the incident will be reported to the Dean of Students. In many cases, it is not easy to tell if a
student has been looking at the next paper or not. In those cases, the student will be warned once, and IF THE EYES
WANDER AGAIN IT WILL BE ASSUMED THAT THE STUDENT IS CHEATING. During examinations, turn your paper over
when you have finished and either take a nap or just remain silent. Do not read or start talking or looking
around the room, etc., since if you do it will be assumed that you are
attempting to help someone else--a form of cheating for which you will be
penalized exactly as outlined above.
While taking an examination, all papers, notes, books, etc. must be
placed under your chair.
If PLAGIARISM
or any other type of academic dishonesty is detected in any of your work, it
will result in an automatic F for that assignment. Please note that for each sentence plagiarized I will deduct one
full grade from the paper. See examples
below for various forms of plagiarism and correct paraphrasing.
GUIDE TO CORRECT
PARAPHRASING AND AVOIDING PLAGIARISM
TENTATIVE READING ASSIGNMENTS (Underlined dates will be exam days). We will skip chapters 12, 13, and 18.
M W F
01- 16, 18 - Course overview. Kalat’s chapt. 1.
01- 21, 23, 25 - Kalat’s chapt. 1 & 2.
01- 28, 30 - Kalat’s chapts. 2 & 3
02- 01 - Kalat’s chapt. 3
02- 04,
06, 08 - EXAM 1 (01/04 covering Kalat’s
chapts. 1, 2, & 3.- Start Kalat’s chapter 4
02- 11, 13, 15 - Kalat’s chapts. 4 & 5.
02- 18, 20, 22 - SPRING BREAK.
02- 25,
27 - Myers’ chapt. 6.
03- 01 - (EXAM 2 on 02/27 covering chapts. 4, 5, & 6
03- 04, 06, NC - Kalat’s chaps. 7. Class will be cancelled on the 8th.
03- 11, 13, 15 - Kalat’s chapts. 8 & 9 .
03- 18, 20, 22 -
Kalat’s chapt. 9 (EXAM 3 on 03/22 covering Kalat’s chapts. 7, 8, & 9).
03- 25, 27, EA - Kalat’s chapt. 10.
04- EA, 03, 05 - Kalat’s chapt. 11.
04- 08, 10, 12 - Kalat’s chapt. 12 (EXAM 4 on 04/12 covering
Kalat’s chapts.10, 11, &12).
04- 15, 17, 19 - Kalat’s chapts. 13 & 14.
04- 22, 24, 26 - Kalat’s chapts. 14 & 15.
04- 29 - Kalat’s chapt. 15.
05/01 TO 05/08 FINAL EXAM WEEK- EXAM 5 – (covering chapters 13, 14 & 15)
It is expected that students conduct themselves
as respectful adults and in accordance with university tradition: To remain
silent and attentive while I am lecturing or while a fellow student is asking a
question; to clean up your area if you have littered it, etc. No smoking, food, or beverages are allowed
in class.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Sign and return to the professor by the second week of class. Note: You may not be given credit for this course unless I have this portion of the course outline in my possession (Cut with scissors along the dotted line; ripped stubs are not acceptable). CHANGES: I reserve the right to change or add to assignments and make changes to this course outline, for good reason and with adequate notice.
I _____________________________________ have received a copy of the course outline for Introduction to Psychology (PSY 2150). I have read the course outline and have reviewed the on-line version at http://facpub.stjohns.edu/~roigm. I have been given an opportunity to discuss and ask questions about the content of these documents and understand and agree to the requirements of this course.
Student’s signature: _______________________________ Date: _________ Student No.: _____________