Introduction to Course Web Site: psy.cmu/~kotovsky/85102/home102.html

1. Introduction to CourseWeb Site: http://www.psy.cmu.edu/~kotovsky/85102/home102.html • Instructor • TA’s • Course Secretary • Major Instructional Strategy and Goals • Depth, higher educ., focus, purpose(s) • Major Activities • Story…

2. Questions • For the first recitation, bring a significant or “big” and real question about psychology, one that psychology might (or perhaps might not) have an answer to, and be prepared to discuss it a bit and also turn it in to your TA.

3. Question Example David Brook’s Example (NYT 8/24/10)- “For example, Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway once gave a speech called “The Psychology of Human Misjudgment.” He and others list our natural weaknesses: -We have confirmation bias; we pick out evidence that supports our views. -We are cognitive misers; we try to think as little as possible. -We are herd thinkers and conform our perceptions to fit in with the group…. To use a fancy word, there’s a metacognition deficit. Very few in public life habitually step back and think about the weakness in their own thinking and what they should do to compensate. A few people I interview do this regularly (in fact, Larry Summers is one). Of the problems that afflict the country, this is the underlying one.”

4. Sleeping The ignored behavior!

5. Defining/describing sleep • Decreased awareness & interaction with world • Decreased motility & muscular activity • Characteristic posture • Partial or total decrement in voluntary consciously directed behavior • Decreased forebrain activity & cortical input from lower centers

6. Sleep as a behavior • Quietude • Life span decrease • Brain activity/EEG & reactivity

13. Theories of sleeping • Motivation • Energy conservation • Restorative • Memory consolidation • Adaptive

17. Brain Control Hypothalamus: Rostral/Caudal sleep areas • Rostral (stimulate --> sleep, extirpate --> wake) • Caudal (stimulate --> wake, extirpate --> sleep) • Reticular activating system & monitoring • Melatonin (pineal & hypothal.) and diurnal cycle • Suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus and entrainment to diurnal rhythm “zeitgrabers” • Dement in a cave!

18. Necessity/Functionality of sleep! • Arguments for necessity • Regularity • Motivation/crummy feelings • Health involvement • -Fatal Familial Insomnia (30+ families/thalamic/death) • -Some linkage to other disorders (depression) • Hallucination argument • REM recovery • Energy conservation corr. with metabolic rate across species • Restorative: inc. in SWS in sleep deprived and athletes, inc. anabolic/dec. catabolic activity • Memory consolidation REM block->poor memory function

19. Arguments against necessity • Deprivation/human & animal • Exceptional sleepers • Hallucination explanation • Dement study 11 days deprv. Then 16/8 • REM recovery: limited • Programmatic reduction-->1-2 hr. dec. • 5.5/60, 1/2 hr per 2 weeks->4.5-5.5 ok and year later slept 1 to 2.5 less! • Cats in a puddle!

20. Conclusions • Adaptive theory seems to win! • The function of sleep is sleep! • Ungulates sleep much less than meat eaters • Five hours or less (opossums 19-20 hours) • Accounts for life span decrease as well • But still a bit of an open question

23. Dreaming: What & Why? Multiple perspectives and much speculation!

24. Outline • Dream behavior • Theories of Dreaming • Conclusions • What can we learn from our dreams? • Are they meaningful? True / predictive? • Basic Methodology (if we have time…)

25. Dream behavior & description • Within sleep • Amount • Brainwave activity & bodily quietude:the paradox • REM

29. Dreams & REM sleep • Aserinsky-REM • Dement & Kleitman-Stages • REM amount & periodicity • Brainstem cholinergic & adrenergic promoting & inhibiting areas for REM • Hobson experiment

31. Some Questions: • Are Dreams meaningful--what do they mean? • Are the predictive or “true”? • How do they differ from other states? • What is their function do they even have one? • Are they brain functions or mind functions?

32. Outline • Characteristics and Descriptions • Theories of Dreaming • Conclusions • What can we learn from our dreams? • Are they meaningful? True / predictive?

33. Theories of Dreaming • Dreams as meaningful events: • Freud (& Jung) (--Poetzel effect) --Aserinsky, Dement & Kleitman implications • Hall/Cartright • Dreams as random activity (Hobson +) • Synthesis (perhaps)

34. Psychoanalytic Theory • Mental conflict • Unconscious motivations • Two forces: impulses & defenses • Dreams as a release • Dreamwork and its results • Latent dream • Manifest dream • Remembered dream Dreamwork and forgetting as protective mechanisms Poetzel Effect

35. Freud & Neuroimaging • Michael Anderson- Validates Repression: Forebrain active in inhibiting hippocampus on repressed items • Allen Braun: Limbic system-emotion active during REM) • Prefrontal cortex (working mem. Att’n, logic & self-monitoring) inactive during REM • Above consistent with dream bizarreness & emotional disinhibition/wish fulfillment • Visual cortex inactive but higher visual areas active so we see w.o. visual input- one of the amazing things about dreaming!

36. Freud & Neuroimaging (Mark Solms) Injured Pons vs. injured Forebrain -Pons-disrupts REM but dreaming goes on. -Forebrain-lose dreaming but REM goes on. -Also, some dreaming outside of REM Role of Motivation (in addition to emotional areas) -Prefrontal leukotomy (white matter in ventro-medial forebrain area) decreases dopamine release. It’s a motivational area “seeking” behavior. -Hartmann: administering dopamine supercharges dreaming! Freudian tie between motiv. & dreaming.

37. Variations on Psychoanalytic Explanation + Challenges • Aserinsky, Dement & Kleitman: REM & implications • Hall and Cartwright: Dream Series • Challenging Views • Dreams as random activity (Hobson +) • Synthesis (perhaps) as Hobson accepted imaging results

38. Other Neuroscience Views • Crick: Purge extraneous connections • Evans: Sorting function on day’s events • Winson: Sorting for survival • Wilson: Rat Dream article- maze learning during dreams • Hobson: random activity & activation-synthesis hypothesis

39. Hobson: Dream Transformations From: inanimate animate character To: inanimate 21 0 0 Animate 2 0 7 Character 0 0 14

40. Dream Characteristics Lack of active volition Absence of ongoing reflective judgment Limited to phenomena of the immediate present Diffuse cognitive slippage--dreamlike confusion- transformations of perception, thought, memory, emotion, relationships, etc. Gaps in experience: 20% Confusion of thought & irrational intuitions: 41% Problems in sustained attention: 5% Memory deficiencies within the dream: 15% Overall, even 51% of "clearest dreams" had clouding of cs. --Usually not radical (scz, psychedelic) but rather more like that of waking life Can even have hallucinations or psychedelic exper. in dreams (as in waking life!) ex. flying 4%, bizarre figures,4%, changed identity 3%, LSD-like transformations of vision 13%. Mostly visual 47%. Somatic 10%, audit. 14%.

41. Conclusions • Can we obtain meaningful insights about ourselves through our dreams? • What can we learn from our dreams? • Are they meaningful? true / predictive/useful? • Dream problem-solving (Lowie, Kekule)!