All Psyched Up

Today is a special out of schedule The Seeker feature article which looks at a variety of knowledge issues related to my time studying Psychology. Over the past year, I’ve been completing an anticipated Psychology course which covers a wide variety of topics including the biological, cognitive and behavioural viewpoints of psychology, as well as analysing abnormal or dysfunctional society, looking at a variety of empirical and case studies relating to these fields, and looking at relevant issues such as ethics, animal research, determinism and reductionism. This is just a snapshot into an immensely interesting field which can help scientists unravel more about the underlying mechanisms behind how we behave the way we do. Remember to post your comments about today’s issue of Scianite to us by commenting or by sending us feedback and suggestions to our email address theseeker.lijonoli@gmail.com

View Today’s Journal

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Links to Today’s Stories

Article 1: Prozac Treatment for Adolescents with Depression from archpsyc.ama-assn.org

Article 2: Models of Memory from A Level Psychology Through Diagrams in Google Books

Article 3: Mike the Headless Chicken from wikipedia.org

Article 4: Pros and Cons of Animal Testing from soulcast.com

Article 5: Watson and Rayner’s Little Albert Experiment from psychology.sbc.edu

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Psychology is an extraordinary field of science which encompasses a wide variety of theories, explanations and people which attempt to explain the basis of behaviour. While other sciences have a more reductionist or simplified viewpoint about how their respective fields function, collectively the psychological field encompasses a wide range of ideas about why behaviours function the way they do, and while many of them can’t be simply proven, they provide some interesting reasons behind the basis and continued development of fields like treating mental illnesses, eyewitness testimony for law enforcement, lifestyle changes, education, as well as other more individual areas such as language and memory.

Of course, while there are a variety of explanations behind any single type of behaviour, ultimately there is only one correct explanation. Of course in all other scientific fields, like biology, chemistry, physics or mathematics, while there may be multiple factors which combine to achieve an explanation, there should only be one truly correct explanation behind how the theories they attempt to explain are achieved. When looking at a single area of behaviour such as unipolar depression, a psychologist could analyse the problem purely from a biological perspective, saying that there is a physiological basis behind the disorder which results from an imbalance in the body’s production of neurotransmitters, specifically serotonin and norepinephrine. They would then diagnose a drug such as Bupropion (also known as Wellbutrin® or Zyban® ) or perhaps Prozac® . Yes, they’re trademarked and sold by multinational giants who have the funding required in order to advertise the drugs, and is probably one of the underlying reasons behind their popularity aside from the fact that they generally work quite well.

In one randomised trial of Prozac in 327 patients aged between 12 to 17 with a diagnosis of major depressive disorder (unipolar depression), it was found that 62% benefited from Prozac, although 73% benefitted from combination therapy, including cognitive behavioural therapy in addition to the drug.

Success rates for Prozac varies in different studies, but the success ratio for a general improvement in the condition usually hovers between 50%-60%. While its track record isn’t perfect, it shows that for millions of people, it does provide some relief from their condition.

The thing about drugs though is that there are often many unpleasant side affects associated with them, some of them being side effects, sleep problems, nausea, fatigue and low mental alertness in the case of Prozac. In addition to these factors, the fact that there are a large number of people whom drugs do not work for illustrates that there are likely to be other factors which result in depression. Of course, drugs in the case of depression themselves only appear to treat symptoms and not actually ‘cure’ the disorder. In one study, it was found that in 20 patients with mild-moderate cases of depression over a 12 week period, 72% of patients benefitted from cognitive-behavioural treatment compared with 20% who benefitted from drugs.

Of course there are many advantages for individuals to pursuing a more cognitive approach in the form of ‘the talking cure’. Of course, it doesn’t involve taking serious psychoactive medications which scientists don’t truly understand the underlying mechanics behind. As well as this, it allows individuals to have tailored treatments which address specific problems and environmental triggers which worsen their depression.

Ultimately though, its difficult to substantiate one treatment ahead of another since there is no real reason why both of these can’t occur at the same time. Although the arguments about nature verses nurture once existed in the scientific world, it now really boils down to nature via nurture; a combination of both. In psychology, many theories tended to be very reductionist and claim that they are the single, underlying cause behind all of behaviour. Of course in today’s world, I think its almost impossible to make this argument when we are able to observe many of the individual variables which result in our behaviour.

Understanding the facets behind human memory including its potential duration, capacity and coding will allow scientists to find new ways to enhance our capacity to remember new information, as well as provide key leaps in a number of practical applications including eyewitness testimony, education and lifestyle changes in the amnesia patients.

For example, when we think about memory, the most common idea that I think about is that we have short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM). One of the longest standing models of memory known as the multistore memory model directly incorporates these into memory stores which are connected to each other in addition to a third store known as sensory memory in which iconic (vision) and echoic (auditory) information can be sent to our STM if we pay attention to the appropriate stimulus. Once in the STM, we can only hold 7±2 items which is a well known concept popularised by a psychologist named George A. Miller in 1956. Once we rehearse and practice these thoughts enough, they are then sent to the LTM in which these thoughts are capable of lasting a lifetime. Of course, there are inherent difficulties with this arguably ‘simple’ memory model as it doesn’t take into account all of the factors which seem to exist about memory. For example, why is it that sometimes we can spend a long time rehearsing and practicing something and yet it doesn’t seem to stick in our long term memory? Why is it that we have ‘flashbulb’ memories in which we remember perfect details about where we are when all memories fundamentally are the same. Therefore, further models of memory such as levels of processing, working memory and reconstructive memory have been theorised which attempt to address these problems in the multistore memory model.

For example, in Baddley and Hitch’s working memory model, a central executive distributes data to three independent memory stores, the articulary phonological loop which holds auditory information, the visiospatial sketchpad which holds visual information, and the episodic buffer, a newer addition which is able to link together various visual and auditory information in chronological order, such as a TV show or a movie.

Levels of processing looks at various factors about the memories such as the time spent processing the stimulus, cognitive effort and connections with previous memories in order to understand why certain memories are more important than others. It does this by saying that basic processing only has a small memory trace, meaning that it is easy to forget, while deeper processing which is inevitably involved in more important tasks increases this memory trace, resulting in stronger and harder to forget memories.

Reconstructive memory takes a different approach all together and focuses on schemas, similar to flowcharts in that they link together interconnected memories, and that each of the elements found in these schemas is capable of having different values: fixed values which are defined characteristics about that piece of information, optional values which can change, and default values which are typical characteristics related to a specific schema.

‘Mike the Headless Chicken’ was destined to the chopping block, with a bird owner named failing to completely kill the bird. The next day, Mike was still able to perch and work clumsily, attempting to peck for food and even attempted to crow. Being fed with a mixture of milk and water, Mike astonishingly managed to survive for 18 months after the incident. Even though many thought this was a hoax, he was taken to the University of Utah for confirmation of his existence.

These various different models illustrate the fact that no one model can explain memory properly as they all contain various different variables and factors which seemly play a role in how we remember things. Of cause, we can then say that one of the things that all of these different models fail to take into account is the fact that it doesn’t explain where these stores and schemas are localised in the brain, something which the overwhelming majority scientists agree is where all of our behavioural processing is localised. Of course, this can be shown quite simply as ancient scientists discovered when they chopped people’s heads off with a guillotine and discovered that they were therefore unable to engage in any typical human behaviour (eg. move, talk, eat, and other obvious stuff). Of course, one animal case study in which ‘Mike The Headless Chicken’ had its head chopped off and continued to live for 18 months without it. While scientists have been able to explain the reasoning behind this unique and strange case (see left), this illustrates on of the contentious points about psychology in that animals are often used as research studies in replacement of human subjects. In the case of Mike, scientists conducted analyses on him up until his death in an attempt to understand his behaviour (see left), after which he had an autopsy conducted on him.

While there are many negatives associated with animal research, ultimately by reducing the harm to animals and the quantity used, animal research can continue to be used in order to provide researchers with new ways of explaining human behaviour.

In more typical animal research studies, animals such as mice, monkeys, dogs and cats can be born or altered in order to allow scientists the ability to test their reaction to certain stimuli. This of course has been one of the more ethically controversial areas of psychology in that the quality animal’s lives is cut short in order to serve the purposes of mankind. Additionally, there is often argument about how valid it is to compare animal subjects to humans and assume that that type of behaviour exists in both. Of course, many scientists would argue that animal testing is more ethical than testing humans for those same responses, as well as the fact that sometimes discoveries can also benefit other animals including their own species. I think that it is necessary to conduct a certain level of animal research in order to try to understand more about how we can benefit humans. Of course, finding as many ways to reduce the number of animals being tested without having a detrimental effect on the research should be a priority in order to best serve the needs of both humans, and the rest of the animal kingdom.

A landmark study in behavioural psychology, Little Albert ‘s demonstration of fear demonstrated that humans could be classically conditioned to respond to stimulus with fear. Furthermore the study showed stimulus generalisation, meaning that Little Albert also showed fear to similar objects to the stimulus he was classically conditioned to—in this case many objects that looked similar to the white rabbit like cotton wool, as well as other types of rabbits. The study also shows an example of Albert developing a phobia to the rabbit, with Watson concluding that phobias are most likely conditioned response. In a similar study, he manages to recondition someone with a fear of rabbits using this technique.

Ethical controversies extend though beyond non-human animals. Humans as well are the subjects of many psychological investigations, with many of them sometimes involving ethically controversial areas. One study which illustrates this is the Little Albert study which was conducted in 1920 at John Hopkins University by John Watson and Rosaline Rayne. In the study, they showed evidence of classical conditioning, the first popular psychological methodology which focused on empirical, scientific studies. The aim of this study was to find if fear can be provoked through classical conditioning, a deterministic theory which says that all behaviour is created through a stimulus-response reaction by environmental factors. To do this, a nine month old boy known as Little Albert had a baseline test conducted on him to determine his fear as a result of a number of items, including cotton wool, rabbits, and the beard of Santa Claus. He was placed in a room in which he was able to play with a white rabbit. This rabbit is known as the neutral stimulus. However, when Watson introduced a loud frightening noise which was created by a mallet crashing against a metal bar (the unconditioned stimulus), this resulted in little Albert crying and attempting to crawl away from the rabbit (the unconditioned response). The conditioning then continued to occur, with Little Albert’s time playing the rabbit continuing to result in loud noises, and Little Albert’s continued fear. Eventually the loud noise was removed, and the results showed that presenting Little Albert with the rabbit (the conditioned stimulus), as well as a variety of other similar things like cotton wool or Santa Claus’ beard resulted in Little Albert continuing to be distressed (the conditioned response).

Clearly while psychology is filled with case studies which are controversial, today’s ethical guidelines would prevent experiments like these from occurring. These include requirements of protection from harm, as well informed consent, not introducing unnecessary deception, debriefing participants about the aims of the experiment and any such deception, being able to withdrawal from the investigation, and scientific scrutiny of such studies in scientific journals.

The computer analogy is one of the primary areas of focus for cognitive psychologists, allowing them to conceptualise a wide variety of concepts which can be applied to understanding human thinking (Above: A visual chess board demonstrating all possible moves which a player is able to make on a given turn.)

While clearly psychology includes some ethically untenable experiments, the advances in ethics today I believe are adequate protection against mass abuse of the understanding which psychologists have behind what can trigger psychological problems. In the case of Little Albert, although he was extremely distressed by white fluffy objects, no attempt was made to desensitise him from his newfound fear. Today’s ethical standards should mean that if such a study was ever permitted to occur, that at least Albert would have been desensitised prior to the research ending.

What you’ve just seen is a very small snapshot into some of the theories, studies, issues, people and controversies which exist in the world of psychology. While there are many holes in our understanding about why certain treatments work and why certain explanations about our behaviour are correct, today we understand that not a single theory is truly capable of explaining something as complex as behaviour, with further work by psychologists particularly by incorporating these theories into multidisciplinary fields such as biocognition and cognitive behaviourists means that the best ideas of these fields can be combined in order scientists to have a greater understanding behind our behaviour.

While ethical controversies continue to exist in psychology, there has been improvements since the time of Little Albert’s study which would result in more ethically sound studies in which participants are protected from any form of harm.

Finally, the fact that psychology collectively encompasses these wide range of theories means that it is less reductionist than other types of scientists, with the wide scope of explanations for our specific behaviours illustrating ultimately that human behaviour is complex in nature and is something psychologists will continue studying for years to come.