Camilla Hundley

Darren Brown (the same guy who did the lottery trick) insists that he, and you!, can memorize the dictionary, as well as any other book, by using the simple technique of chunking.

Ten Second Tom - Tommy Curley

This is a video clip of the scene with Ten Second Tom, from Fifty First Dates. He is missing part of his brain due to a hunting accident and he cannot create long-term memories. His short-term memories only last about 10 seconds. This is the most accurate representation of this handicap I have seen in a movie so far.

The Curious Case of Clive Wearing

This is a video on Clive Wearing. A man that has no short term memory. It gives the accurate depiction of a person with no short term memory, unlike the unaccurate one in 50 First Dates. Once you see what a person is like without short term memory, you really learn to value your own.

Robin Wasserman

This video looks at the effects of isolation on the human mind. Six people volunteered to undergo isolation as part of an experiment to see what happens to the brain when it is "deprived of stimulation." Some were kept in total darkness and some were forced to listen to continual white noise. Solitary confinement has been used as a form of punishment in prisons, and in light of its common use in prisons such as Guantanamo, scientists are interested in learning how this affects our brains.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5688279003135893692#docid=5979976052909214366

Alexa McMahon

Who knows how embarrassed Jesse McCartney is after this but it is funny and shows a little about our memory and forgetting. Maybe he didn't rehearse or elaborate enough with the song, but altogether I know I would never want to be caught in something like this

This clip is an interesting way of remebering people's names through a number of fun steps. One technique in particular that we learned in class was association. Not only does this video give a good example of association, but also some good tips to improve your memory.

Camilla Hundley

Here's a really cool 3D "medical" video that does a good job of showing action potential and neural firing

Sarah Palmer

Harry Harlow wanted to find the importance of love. He learned it by messing with baby monkeys' heads. Harlow separated baby monkeys from their mothers almost as soon as they were born. He raised them in labs with two kinds of surrogate monkey mother machines that could both give milk. The monkey almost always chose the mother made of cloth and not the one made from bare wire.

Hopefully, there are educational, adorable clips of some of the nicer experiments here:





Later he raised monkeys exclusively with one mother. The ones with the cloth mother grew to be typical monkeys. The ones with the wire mothers didn't develop coping mechanisms, acting erratically, and were generally less well adjusted. Later experiments tested the effects of a mother's cruelty on her children. They don't end that well.

Harlow concluded that we need more than just sustenance to grow into mature, stable people; we need physical comfort and a feeling of being protected. Essentially, he argued we need love and touch to grow. It seems kind of obvious, but during the 50s when these experiments were going on people who worked with babies avoiding touching them because that was supposed to make them more unhealthy. Scientists told mothers that touching their children too much could turn them gay. At the time, the findings that touch was good were ground-breaking.

Camilla Hundley

An interesting video showing neuron firing and action potential.

Mollie Powell

This is a pretty cool article I found that explains how encouraging someone to do something they enjoy using rewards can actually make them enjoy what they are doing less, and work less hard on it. Enjoy!
http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/10/how-rewards-can-backfire-and-reduce-motivation.php