Psychology 302:
Introduction to Biopsychology
MTWTF 11am-12:45pm
Instructor: Katrina Nicholas
My training, research, & teaching
experience
• BA in linguistics & BS in biology with honors in
neuroscience
• Undergrad research assistant in cognitive science
laboratory
• Currently a psychology grad student studying
genetics underlying linguistic behavior
• Taught research methods lab sections past five fall
and spring semesters
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Availability
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Office location: Communication 306
Office hours: by appointment
Office phone: 626-6593
Email: katrina@email.arizona.edu
Website:
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~katrina/PSYC302.html
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Syllabus
• Prerequisites
• Required text
• Course objectives &
assignments
• Grading & extra credit
• Attendance & late work
policy
• Accommodations
• Academic integrity
• Expected classroom
behavior
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Daily structure
• first lecture: 11am-11:50am
• break: 11:50am-11:55am
• second lecture: 11:55am-12:45pm
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Tentative Class Schedule
• Exams dates:
EXAM 1 - Friday, June 9
EXAM 2 - Friday, June 16
EXAM 3 - Friday, June 23
EXAM 4 - Friday, June 30
FINAL EXAM (cumulative) Thursday, July 6
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Tentative Class Schedule
• In-class debates:
Debate 1 - Wednesday, June 7
Debate 2 - Wednesday, June 14
Debate 3 - Wednesday, June 21
Debate 4 - Wednesday, June 28
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Lecture format
• lectures will be based on assigned readings
from textbook (exams will be based on
readings, class notes, and videos)
• each lecture will begin with an outline
• sometimes a summary of previous lecture
• questions or comments are encouraged
throughout the lecture - Don’t be shy :-)
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Getting to know you…
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first & last name
email address
hometown
major (& minor)
class standing
academic interests
non-academic interests
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
What is Biopsychology?
Chapter 1
Outline
1. The Field of Biopsychology
a. Study of biological bases of behavior
b. Characterized by an eclectic approach
2. Biopsychology as a Discipline of Neuroscience
a. What is Neuroscience?
b. Biopsychology as a Part of Neuroscience
3. The Diversity of Biological Research
a. Human and Non-human subjects
b. Experiments and Non-experiments
c. Pure and Applied Research
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Outline
4. The Six Divisions of Biopsychology
5. How do Biopsychologists Work Together?
6. Scientific Inference: How do Biopsychologists Study the
Unobservable?
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
The Field of Biopsychology
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Study of Biological Bases of
Behavior
• brain and behavior are two of the most
interesting subjects of scientific research
• biopsychology focuses on the relation
between them
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Study of Biological Bases of
Behavior
• biopsychology began to emerge as a distinct
area in psychology towards the end of the
19th century
• Hebb’s The Organization of Behavior
(1949) is thought to be key factor in the
field’s development
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Study of Biological Bases of
Behavior
• biopsychologists study how the brain and
the rest of the nervous system determine
what we perceive, feel, think, say, and do
• this may prove to be the ultimate challenge
for the human brain…
Does our brain have the capacity to
understand something as complex as itself?
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Characterized by an eclectic
approach
• a biopsychologist uses an eclectic
combination of theories and research from
many different areas (psychology, biology,
physiology, pharmacology, and anatomy) to
better describe, understand and predict
behavior
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Biopsychology as a Discipline of
Neuroscience
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
What is Neuroscience?
• Until the middle of the last century, the
brain was studied primarily by
philosophers;
since then, it has been subjected more and
more to scientific study
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
What is Neuroscience?
• neuroscience is the study of the nervous
system; neuroscience includes many
different approaches such as:
neuroanatomy, neurophysiology,
neurochemistry, neuroendrocrinology,
neuropharmacology, and neuropathology
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Biopsychology as part of
Neuroscience
• biopsychology integrates these various
approaches to the study of the nervous
system
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Biopsychology as part of
Neuroscience
• biopsychologists try to discover how the
various phenomena studied by other
neuroscience researchers produce
psychological phenomena such as
perception, learning, memory, emotion,
and language
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Biopsychology as part of
Neuroscience
• Thus, biopsychology can be viewed as a
bridge between the disciplines of
psychology and neuroscience
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Biopsychology as part of
Neuroscience
• The course will examine the fundamentals
of neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and
neuropharmacology
• The rest of the course will focus on how
these biological fundamentals are applied to
the study of biopsychological phenomena
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
The Diversity of
Biopsychological Research
• biopsychologists use variety of research
approaches in their studies; to understand
what biopsychology is, you must
understand what they do
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
The Diversity of
Biopsychological Research
• This diversity can be illustrated by
discussing three dimensions along which
their research varies:
(1) human vs. non-human subjects
(2) experimental vs. non-experimental studies
(3) applied vs. pure research
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Human & Non-human Subjects
• Advantages of human
(1) can follow instructions
(2) can report subjective
experiences
(3) are often less expensive
(4) have a human brain
• Advantages of non- human
(1) have simpler nervous
systems
(2) possible to use comparative,
cross-species approach
(3) fewer ethical constraints
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Human & Non-human Subjects
• The ethics of both human and animal
research is carefully scrutinized by
independent committees
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Experiments & Non-Experiments
• biopsychological research can involve
experiments and non-experimental
studies (quasiexperimental designs and case
studies)
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Experiments
• method used by scientists to determine cause-andeffect relationship
• when a different group of subjects is tested under
each treatment condition of the experiment; this is
a between-subjects design
• when same group of subjects can be tested under
multiple treatment conditions; this is a withinsubjects design
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Experiments
• Independent variables are manipulated by
the experimenter; these manipulations
produce different treatment conditions in an
experiment
• Dependent variables reflect the subject’s
behavior; this is what the experiment
measures
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Experiments
• In a well-designed experiment, the
experimenter can conclude that any
differences in the dependent variable
between the various treatment conditions
were caused by the independent variable
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Experiments
• It is often difficult in practice to make sure
that there is only one difference among
conditions; other unintended differences
among conditions that can influence the
dependent variable are called confounded
variables
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Experiments
• the presence of confounded variables makes
experiments difficult to interpret because it
is impossible to tell how much (if any) of
the effect on the dependent variable was
caused by the independent variable and how
much (if any) was caused by the
confounded variable
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Non-experiments
• sometimes it is impossible to conduct
controlled experiments; e.g., if humans
subjects are involved, it may be impossible
for ethical or technical reasons to assign
them to particular conditions and to
administer the conditions
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Non-experiments
• In a quasi-experimental design researchers
examine subjects in real world situations
who have self-selected into the specific
conditions (e.g., excessive alcohol intake);
in a sense these subjects have assigned
themselves to the treatment conditions
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Non-experiments
• The major short-coming of a
quasiexperimental study is that although
researchers can examine relations between
the variables of interest (e.g., alcohol
consumption’s relation to brain damage), a
quasi study cannot control for potential
confounding variables
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Non-experiments
• Therefore quasiexperimental studies do not
allow a researcher to establish direct causeand-effect relationships
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Non-experiments
• Example: researchers cannot randomly
assign humans to Control and Alcohol
groups, and then expose one group to 10
years of chronic alcohol exposure to see if a
alcohol causes brain damage; instead they
must compare the brains of alcoholics and
non-alcoholics found in the real world
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Non-experiments
• Key Problem: because subjects in the real
world do not assign themselves to groups
randomly, there are many other differences
among the groups that could contribute to
differences in the dependent measures. (For
example, brain damage may be due to poor
diet, accidental head injury, other drug use,
etc.)
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Non-experiments
• Another type of non-experimental design is
called a case study
• case studies are scientific studies that foucs
on a single subject
• the main problem with case studies is their
poor generalizability, or the extent to
which their results tells us something about
the general population
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Non-experiments
• A Key Point: Quasi-experiments and case
studies can both make valuable scientific
contributions, particularly when they are
used to complement each other and
experiments (e.g., all three have contributed
much to our understanding of the relation
between alcohol consumption and brain
damage)
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Pure and Applied Research
• Pure research is motivated primarily by the
curiosity of the researcher; it is motivated
by the desire to find out how things work; it
focuses on establishing building blocks or
basic concepts that may provide information
salient to many problems
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Pure and Applied Research
• Applied research is motivated by an
attempt to directly use the building blocks
of basic research to answer specific
questions; human and animal problems are
specifically addressed
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Conclusions
• biopsychologists study the biology of
behavior in a variety of ways; the strength
of biopsychology as a science is attributable
to this diversity; its diversity also makes
biopsychology an exciting and challenging
field to study
(break)
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
The Six Divisions of
Biopsychology
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
The 6 Divisions of
Biopsychology
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Physiological Psychology
Psychopharmacology
Neuropsychology
Psychophysiology
Cognitive Neuroscience
Comparative Psychology
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Physiological Psychology
• focuses on the direct manipulation of the
nervous system in controlled laboratory
settings (e.g., lesions, electrical stimulation,
invasive recording)
• thus, subjects are usually laboratory animals
strong focus on pure research
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Psychopharmacology
• similar to physiological psychology except that the nervous
system is manipulated pharmacologically
• focuses on drug effects on behavior and how these changes
are mediated by changes in neural activity
• many psychopharmacologists favor pure research and use
drugs to reveal the nature of brain-behavior interactions;
many others study applied questions (e.g., drug abuse,
therapeutic drugs)
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Neuropsychology
• focuses on the behavioral deficits produced in humans by
brain damage, typically cortical damage
• can’t be studied in humans by experimentation; deals
almost exclusively with case studies and
quasiexperimental studies
• most applied; neuropsychological tests of brain-damaged
patients facilitate diagnosis, treatment, and lifestyle
counseling
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Psychophysiology
• focuses on the relation between physiology and behavior
by recording the physiological responses of human
subjects
• because humans are used, all brain recording is
noninvasive (i.e., from the surface of the head)
• usual measure of brain activity is the scalp
electroencephalogram (EEG)
• muscle tension, eye movement, heart rate, pupil dilation,
and electrical conductance of the skin are other common
measures
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Cognitive Neuroscience
• newest division of biopsychology
• focuses on the neural bases of cognitive processes like
learning and memory, attention, and complex perceptual
processes
• often employs human subjects; key methods are
noninvasive, functional brain imaging techniques
• often involves collaborations between researchers with
widely different backgrounds (e.g., psychology, linguistics,
computer science)
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Comparative Psychology
• study of evolutionary and genetic factors
in behavior
• features comparative and functional
approaches
• features laboratory research as well as
studies of animals in their natural
environments (ethology)
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Converging Operations:
How do Biopsychologists Work
Together?
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Converging Operations
• the methods of the six divisions are not
without their weaknesses; thus,
biopsychological issues are rarely resolved
by a single experiment or study, or by a
single approach
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Converging Operations
• progress is greatest when several different
approaches, each compensating for
shortcomings of the others, are used to
solve the same problems; this is called
converging operations
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Converging Operations
• Example: Consider the relative strengths and weakness of
physiological psychology and neuropsychology.
Neuropsychology’s strength is that it deals with humans,
but this is also its weakness because it precludes
experimentation. In contrast, physiological psychology can
bring the power of the experimental method and invasive
neuroscientific techniques to bear on the question, but it is
limited to the study of laboratory animals.
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Converging Operations
• Because the two approaches complement
one another, together they can provide
evidence for points of view that neither can
defend individually.
• Read about the case of Jimmie G. in Section
1.5 to see the power of this approach in
action
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Scientific Inference:
How Biopsychologists Study the
Unobservable
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Scientific Inference
• science is a method of answering questions
by direct observation; it is an empirical
method
• however, brain activity is not directly
observable (e.g., one can’t see a neuron
firing or neurochemicals being released
from neurons)
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Scientific Inference
• This situation is no different than that in the
other sciences; e.g., physicists cannot see
gravity, chemists cannot see evaporation;
the effects of these processes are observable
but not the processes themselves
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Scientific Inference
• Question: How do scientists study the
unobservable by a method that is
fundamentally unobservable?
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Scientific Inference
• Answer: By scientific inference; scientists
observe the consequences of unobservable
processes and from these they infer the
nature of unobservable processes
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.
Conclusions
Biopsychology and the Nobel Prize:
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/nobel.
html
Timeline of Neuroscience:
http://neurolab.jsc.nasa.gov/timeline.htm
Pinel's Biopsychology, 5th Ed.