1. Introduction

Summary

In this introductory psychology course, Professor Paul Bloom outlines a comprehensive exploration of the human mind, covering topics from brain science to social behavior. He emphasizes the importance of attending lectures and reading course materials, and introduces the course's structure, including exams and assignments. Bloom also highlights the interdisciplinary nature of psychology, touching on guest lectures from experts in various fields, and promises an engaging journey into understanding human nature and behavior.

Takeaways

• 📘 The course is an Introduction to Psychology, taught by Dr. Paul Bloom, covering a broad range of topics including the brain, children, language, and various aspects of human behavior.
• 🧠 The course will delve into the physical nature of mental life, beginning with the brain and its role in consciousness and mental processes.
• 👶 There will be a focus on child development, exploring questions of how children learn, the influence of nature versus nurture, and the predictability of adult traits from childhood.
• 💬 The study of language, particularly whether animals can learn language, will be discussed, highlighting cognitive aspects of psychology.
• 🤔 The course will address the psychological aspects of societal issues such as racism, love, and the reasons behind group behaviors like mass hysteria.
• 📚 Students are required to attend lectures and complete readings, with the lectures complementing but not entirely overlapping with the assigned texts.
• 🔍 The course materials include 'Peter Gray's Psychology' and 'The Norton Reader', both considered excellent resources for understanding the subject matter.
• 📝 Assessment includes a Midterm and a Final exam, with the latter held on the last day of class, as well as short answer and multiple-choice questions based on the course content.
• 👥 Dr. Bloom encourages students to form study groups and to engage with the teaching fellows and himself for a more interactive learning experience.
• 🧐 The course will explore the intersection of psychology with other disciplines such as economics, game theory, philosophy, computer science, anthropology, and theology to provide a holistic understanding of the human mind.
• 🌟 Guest lecturers from various fields will be invited to provide insights on specialized topics within psychology, enriching the course content with diverse perspectives.

Q & A

What is the main focus of Dr. Paul Bloom's Introduction to Psychology course?

The course provides a comprehensive introduction to the study of the human mind, covering a wide range of topics including brains, children, language, sex, memory, madness, disgust, racism, and love.

What is the importance of attending both lectures and doing the readings in Dr. Bloom's course?

Attending lectures and doing the readings are both essential for understanding the course material. Some content from the readings may not be covered in the lectures, and vice versa, so students must engage with both to succeed in the course.

How are the lectures in Dr. Bloom's course related to the course readings?

While there will be overlap between the lectures and the readings, not all parts of the readings will be discussed in the lectures, and some lectures may not be directly linked to the readings.

What resources will be made available to students for Dr. Bloom's course?

The slides from lectures will be made available online in a black and white, easy-to-print format. Additionally, students are encouraged to purchase Peter Gray's 'Psychology' 5th edition and 'The Norton Reader' edited by Gary Marcus.

How does Dr. Bloom plan to evaluate students in his Introduction to Psychology course?

Evaluation includes a Midterm and a Final exam, both of which will consist of multiple choice and short answer questions. There will also be a book review and an experimental participation requirement.

What is the significance of the case of Terri Schiavo discussed in the script?

Terri Schiavo's case illustrates the physical nature of mental life, showing how damage to the brain can result in a loss of consciousness and the physical basis for mental experiences like free will, consciousness, and emotions.

What role do guest lecturers play in Dr. Bloom's course?

Guest lecturers, who are experts in their respective fields, will provide lectures on specific topics such as cognitive neuroscience, depression, the psychology of food, and the mysteries of love, enriching the course content.

How does Dr. Bloom suggest students prepare for the course?

Dr. Bloom suggests that students attend all classes, keep up with the readings, ideally before coming to class, and form study groups to discuss and review the material.

What is the relevance of studying mental disorders in Dr. Bloom's course?

Studying mental disorders helps students understand the profound social importance of these conditions, their prevalence among college students, and the current research on causes and treatments.

How does Dr. Bloom plan to engage students in the course material?

Dr. Bloom plans to engage students by starting each Monday with a set of questions that students must answer and send to their teaching fellow, encouraging active participation and keeping students on track with the material.

What is the significance of studying less common mental disorders in the course?

Studying less common mental disorders provides insight into the workings of the mind and helps understand normal life by examining the extremes, which can highlight aspects of cognition and behavior that are typically taken for granted.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Introduction to the Course and Expectations

Dr. Paul Bloom introduces the 'Introduction to Psychology' course, outlining its comprehensive nature covering a wide range of topics from brains and children to language, sex, and emotions. He emphasizes the importance of attending lectures and completing readings, noting that there will be some overlap but also unique content in each. Lectures will be supported by online slides, and students are directed to specific textbooks for further study. The evaluation includes a midterm, a final exam held on the last day of class, and additional tasks like weekly questions, a book review, and an experimental participation requirement. Dr. Bloom suggests forming study groups and encourages students to connect with him and the teaching fellows for support.

05:01

🔍 Course Structure and Study Tips

The course structure is detailed, with the expectation that students will attend both lectures and complete the assigned readings. Dr. Bloom explains that while some lectures will align closely with the readings, others will not, necessitating the need to stay on top of both. He mentions that slides will be available online in a printable format and that a textbook and a collection of readings are required. He also discusses the course evaluation, which includes exams with multiple choice and short answer questions, and provides information on how to prepare for them, including access to previous exams. Additionally, he introduces the concept of submitting weekly questions to teaching fellows to ensure students stay engaged with the material.

10:01

🧠 The Scope and Relevance of Psychology

Dr. Bloom discusses the broader scope of psychology, explaining that it is not limited to the study of the mind through the lens of psychology alone but also intersects with various other disciplines such as economics, game theory, philosophy, computer science, anthropology, literature, and theology. He provides five examples of topics to be covered, including the physical basis of mental life, the development and growth of children, the nature of attractiveness, the concept of morality, and the study of mental illness. Each example is meant to illustrate the real-world relevance and insights that scientific psychology can offer.

15:03

👶 Developmental Psychology and the Nature of Growth

This section delves into the specifics of developmental psychology, focusing on how humans acquire knowledge and understanding of the world. Dr. Bloom raises questions about the innate versus learned aspects of development and the continuity of traits from childhood to adulthood. He also addresses the factors that contribute to individual differences, such as genetics and environment, and the extent to which parents may shape their children's personalities. The discussion includes the use of scientific methods to explore these developmental questions.

20:03

🌟 The Exploration of Attractiveness, Morality, and Evil

The paragraph explores the concept of attractiveness, both in terms of physical beauty and its social implications, using computer-generated faces to illustrate perceived attractiveness. It also delves into the complex topic of morality and evil, presenting images that represent different forms of evil and questioning whether these behaviors are innate or situational. The discussion includes the study of good deeds through the examples of Oskar Schindler and Paul Rusesabagina, who displayed extraordinary heroism under extreme circumstances.

25:07

🧐 Abnormal Psychology and its Insights into the Human Mind

Dr. Bloom discusses the importance of studying abnormal psychology, including rare mental disorders, to gain a deeper understanding of the human mind. He mentions psychopathy, multiple personality disorder, Capgras syndrome, and Cotard's syndrome, explaining how these conditions can provide insights into broader questions of self, identity, and perception. The study of these extreme cases is framed as a way to better understand normal cognitive and emotional functioning.

🤝 Collaboration with Guest Lecturers

The final paragraph introduces the inclusion of guest lecturers from various fields of expertise to enrich the course content. Dr. Marvin Chun will speak on cognitive neuroscience, Dr. Susan Nolen-Hoeksema on depression and sex differences, Kelly Brownell on the psychology of food, and Dr. Peter Salovey on love. This collaboration aims to provide students with a diverse range of perspectives and expertise on the topics covered in the course.

Keywords

💡Psychology

Psychology is the scientific study of the human mind and its functions, particularly those affecting behavior in a given context. In the video, it serves as the overarching theme, with the course aiming to provide a comprehensive introduction to the subject. The professor mentions various aspects of psychology, such as neuroscience, developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, social psychology, and clinical psychology, to demonstrate the breadth of topics that will be covered.

💡Neuroscience

Neuroscience refers to the scientific study of the nervous system, including the brain. It is a key sub-area of psychology mentioned in the script, focusing on understanding the mind through the lens of the brain's structure and function. The example of Terri Schiavo's brain is used to illustrate the physical basis of mental life and the impact of brain damage on consciousness.

💡Developmental Psychology

Developmental psychology is the study of how humans grow and change throughout their lives. The professor, who focuses on this area, discusses questions about how knowledge is acquired, the innate versus learned aspects of human development, and the concept of continuity, asking if childhood traits predict adult characteristics.

💡Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive psychology is concerned with the internal mental processes such as thinking, understanding, memory, and problem-solving. It is mentioned as a sub-area of psychology that views the mind analogous to a computer, examining processes like language comprehension and object recognition. The script does not provide specific examples but positions it as a core component of the course.

💡Social Psychology

Social psychology explores how individuals think, feel, and behave in social situations. The script touches on this by discussing attractiveness and how it is perceived within and across cultures, indicating that social psychology will delve into how people interact with others and the factors influencing these interactions.

💡Clinical Psychology

Clinical psychology is the study of mental health and illness, focusing on the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of psychological disorders. The professor mentions the importance of this sub-area in understanding mental disorders like depression and anxiety, which are prevalent among college students and will be discussed in the course.

💡Mental Illness

Mental illness refers to a wide range of mental health conditions that affect mood, thinking, and behavior. The script discusses the intention to cover major disorders such as depression and anxiety due to their social importance and prevalence. It also mentions less common disorders to illustrate the impact of the brain on mental life.

💡Attraction

Attraction, particularly physical attractiveness, is a concept explored in the context of social psychology. The script references computer-generated faces rated as attractive to examine what features contribute to attractiveness, indicating that the course will discuss factors that influence perceptions of beauty.

💡Morality

Morality encompasses the principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and evil. The script presents images of individuals associated with evil and good acts, suggesting that the course will explore moral development, the nature of good and evil, and the factors influencing moral behavior.

💡Multiple Personality Disorder

Multiple Personality Disorder, now more commonly referred to as Dissociative Identity Disorder, is a mental condition characterized by the presence of two or more distinct personality states. The script mentions this rare disorder to highlight the complexity of the self and identity, indicating that the course will address the question of what constitutes a single, unified self.

💡Capgras Syndrome

Capgras syndrome is a rare disorder in which a person holds the delusion that a loved one has been replaced by an identical impostor. The script uses this example to illustrate the relationship between brain function and perception, showing that the course will cover unusual mental phenomena to gain insight into normal cognitive processes.

Highlights

Introduction to a comprehensive course on the study of the human mind covering a wide range of topics.

Emphasis on the importance of attending lectures and completing readings for course success.

Explanation of the course structure including two lectures per week and the significance of both for understanding the material.

Details on the availability of lecture slides online and the suggestion to take notes in any preferred manner.

Mention of required textbooks: Peter Gray's 'Psychology' and 'The Norton Reader' edited by Gary Marcus.

Description of the evaluation process including Midterm and Final exams, with specifics on exam formats.

Introduction of a weekly question set to encourage consistent study and reading.

Requirement of a book review and an experimental participation to enrich the learning experience.

Suggestion to form study groups and the professor's availability for discussions and assistance.

Overview of the sub-areas of psychology that will be covered: Neuroscience, Developmental, Cognitive, Social, and Clinical.

Discussion on the interdisciplinary nature of psychology, relating it to fields like economics, philosophy, and computer science.

Illustration of the physical nature of mental life using the case of Terri Schiavo's brain.

Exploration of child development, including questions of innate knowledge and environmental influences.

Analysis of what makes individuals different, delving into the debate of nature vs. nurture.

Investigation into the factors that contribute to attractiveness, including cultural and biological aspects.

Discussion on morality, exploring the concepts of good and evil through various examples and studies.

Introduction to mental illness, including common disorders like depression and anxiety, and their impact on society.

Highlight of rare mental disorders and their significance in understanding the human mind.

Announcement of guest lectures by experts in various fields to enrich the course content.

Transcripts

Professor Paul Bloom: I'd like to welcome people to

this course, Introduction to Psychology.

My name is Dr. Paul Bloom. I'm professor of this course.

And what this is going to be is a comprehensive introduction to

the study of the human mind. So, we are going to cover a

very, very wide range of topics including brains,

children, language, sex, memory,

madness, disgust, racism and love,

and many others. We're going to talk about

things like the proper explanation for differences

between men and women; the question of whether animals

can learn language; the puzzle of what grosses us

out; the problem of why some of us

eat too much and what we could do to stop;

the question of why people go crazy in groups;

research into whether you could trust your childhood memories;

research into why some of us get depressed and others don't.

The style of this is there'll be two lectures a week,

as well as course readings. Now, to do well in the course,

you have to attend both the lectures and do the readings.

There will be some overlap. In some cases,

the lectures will be quite linked to the readings.

But there will be some parts of the readings that will not find

their way into the lectures, and some lectures--some entire

lectures that will not connect at all to the readings.

So, to pursue this course properly you have to do both.

What this means is that if you miss a class you need to get

notes, and so you should get them from a friend or from the

person sitting next to you. The slides are going to be made

available online. So, one of the things you don't

have to do is you don't have to write this down.

You take notes any way you choose, but if you don't get

anything on there it'll be available online.

I'm going to post it in a format which will be black and

white and easy to print out so you don't have to worry about

this. But again, attending to the

slides is not a substitute for attending class.

There's a textbook, Peter Gray's Psychology,

5th edition, and there's also a collection of short readings,

The Norton Reader edited by Gary Marcus.

It's an excellent textbook; it's an excellent collection,

and you should get them both. They're available at Labyrinth

bookstore on York Street or you get them online.

I should note that last time I taught the course I used the

Marcus Reader, and when Professor Marvin Chun

taught his course last semester he used Peter Gray's 5^(th)

edition textbook. So, there may be a lot of used

copies floating around. You should feel free to try to

get one of those. The evaluation goes like this.

There is a Midterm and there is a Final.

The Final will not be held in the exam period,

because I like to take long vacations.

It will be held the last day of class.

The exams will be multiple choice and short answer,

fill in the blank, that sort of thing.

Prior to the exams I will post previous exams online,

so you have a feeling for how these exams work and so on.

There will also be review sessions.

Starting at the beginning of the third week of class – that

is not next week but the week after – on each Monday I'm

going to put up a brief question or set of questions,

which you have to answer and your answers need to be sent to

your teaching fellow. And you'll be given a teaching

fellow, assigned one, by Friday.

This is not meant to be difficult.

It's not meant to be more than five, ten minutes of work,

but the point of the question--15,20 minutes of work,

but the point of the question is to motivate people to keep up

with the material and do the readings.

These questions will be marked pass, fail.

I expect most everybody could pass all of the questions but

it's just to keep you on track and keep you going.

There is a book review, a short book review,

to be written towards near the end of the class.

I'll give details about that later on in the semester.

And there's also an experimental participation

requirement, and next week I'll hand out a piece of paper

describing the requirement. The point of the requirement is

to give you all experience actually seeing what

psychological research is about as well as to give us hundreds

of subjects to do our experiments on.

The issue sometimes comes up as to how to do well in the course.

Here's how to do well. Attend all the classes.

Keep up with the readings. Ideally, keep up with the

readings before you come to class.

And one thing I would strongly suggest is to form some sort of

study groups, either formally or informally.

Have people you could talk to when the--prior to the exams

or--she's patting somebody next to her.

I hope you know him. And in fact,

what I'm going to do, not this class because it's

shopping period. I don't know who's coming next

class, or what but I'll set up a few minutes prior,

at the beginning of the class, for people just to introduce

themselves to the person next to them so they have some sort of

resource in the class. Now, this is a large class,

and if you don't do anything about it, it can be very

anonymous. And some of you may choose to

pursue it that way and that's totally fine.

But what I would suggest you do is establish some contact with

us, either with me or with any of the teaching fellows,

and I'll introduce the teaching fellows sometime next week.

You could talk to us at the beginning or at the end of

class. Unless there are special

circumstances, I always try to come at least

ten minutes early, and I am willing to stay late

to talk to people. You could come by during my

office hours, which are on the syllabus,

and you could send me e-mail and set up an appointment.

I'm very willing to talk to students about intellectual

ideas, about course problems and so on.

And if you see me at some point just on campus,

you could introduce yourself and I'd like to meet people from

this class. So, again, I want to stress you

have the option of staying anonymous in this class,

but you also have the option of seeking out and making some sort

of contact with us. Okay.

That's the formal stuff of the course.

What's this course about? Unlike a lot of other courses,

some people come to Intro Psychology with some unusual

motivations. Maybe you're crazy and hope to

become less crazy. Maybe you want to learn how to

study better, improve your sex life,

interpret your dreams, and win friends and influence

people. Those are not necessarily bad

reasons to take this course and, with the exception of the sex

part, this course might actually help

you out with some of these things.

The study of scientific psychology has a lot of insights

of real world relevance to real problems that we face in our

everyday lives. And I'm going to try--and when

these issues come up--I'm going to try to stress them and make

you try to think about the extent to which the laboratory

research I'll be talking about can affect your everyday life:

how you study, how you interact with people,

how you might try to persuade somebody of something else,

what sort of therapy works best for you.

But the general goals of this course are actually I think even

more interesting than that. What I want to do is provide a

state of the art introduction to the most important topic that

there is: us. How the human mind works,

how we think, what makes us what we are.

And we'll be approaching this from a range of directions.

So, traditionally, psychology is often broken up

into the following--into five sub-areas: Neuroscience,

which is the study of the mind by looking at the brain;

developmental, which is the area which I focus

mostly on, which is trying to learn about how people develop

and grow and learn; cognitive, which is the one

term of the five that might be unfamiliar to some of you,

but it refers to a sort of computational approach to

studying the mind, often viewing the mind on

analogy with a computer and looking at how people do things

like understand language, recognize objects,

play games, and so on. There is social,

which is the study of how people act in groups,

how people act with other people.

And there is clinical, which is maybe the aspect of

psychology that people think of immediately when they hear

psychology, which is the study of mental

health and mental illness. And we'll be covering all of

those areas. We'll also be covering a set of

related areas. I am convinced that you cannot

study the mind solely by looking at the discipline of psychology.

The discipline of psychology spills over to issues of how the

mind has evolved. Economics and game theory are

now essential tools for understanding human thought and

human behavior--those issues connecting to philosophy,

computer science, anthropology,

literature, theology, and many, many other domains.

So, this course will be wide ranging in that sense.

At this point I've been speaking in generalities so I

want to close this introductory class by giving five examples of

the sorts of topics we'll be covering.

And I'll start with the topic that we'll be covering next week

on Monday – the brain. This is a brain.

In fact, it's a specific person's brain,

and what's interesting about the brain is that little white

mark there. It's her brain.

It's Terri Schiavo's brain. You recognize her more from

pictures like that. And what a case like this,

where somebody is in a coma, is without consciousness as a

result of damage to the brain, is a stark illustration of the

physical nature of mental life. The physical basis for

everything that we normally hold dear, like free will,

consciousness, morality and emotions,

and that's what we'll begin the course with,

talking about how a physical thing can give rise to mental

life. We'll talk a lot about children.

This is actually a specific child.

It's my son, Zachary, my younger son,

dressed up as Spider-Man, but it is Halloween.

No, it's not Halloween. Oh.

Well, there's more to say about that [laughter].

I study child development for a living and I'm interested in

several questions. So, one question is just the

question of development. Everybody in this room can

speak and understand English. Everybody in this room has some

understanding of how the world works, how physical things

behave. Everybody in this room has some

understanding of other people, and how people behave.

And the question that preoccupies developmental

psychologists is how do we come to have this knowledge,

and in particular, how much of it is hard-wired,

built-in, innate. And how much of it is the

product of culture, of language,

of schooling? And developmental psychologists

use many ingenious methods to try to pull these apart and try

to figure out what are the basic components of human nature.

There's also the question of continuity.

To what extent is Zachary, at that age,

going to be that way forever? To what extent is your fate

sealed? To what extent could--if I were

to meet you when you were five years old I could describe the

way you are now? The poet William Wordsworth

wrote, "The child is father to the man," and what this means is

that you can see within every child the adult he or she will

become. We will look and ask the

question whether this is true. Is it true for your personality?

Is it true for your interests? Is it true for your

intelligence? Another question having to do

with development is what makes us the way we are?

We're different in a lot of ways.

The people in this room differ according to their taste in

food. They differ according to their

IQs; whether they're aggressive or

shy; whether they're attracted to

males, females, both or neither;

whether they are good at music; whether they are politically

liberal or conservative. Why are we different?

What's the explanation for why we're different?

And again, this could be translated in terms of a

question of genes and environment.

To what extent are things the result of the genes we possess?

To what extent are our individual natures the result of

how we were raised? And to what extent are they

best explained in terms of an interaction?

One common theory, for instance,

is that we are shaped by our parents.

This was best summarized most famously by the British poet

Philip Larkin who wrote, They mess you up,

your mum and dad. They may not mean to but they

do. They fill you with the faults

they had And add some extra just for

you. Is he right?

It's very controversial. You-- It's been a series of--a

huge controversy in the popular culture to the extent of which

parents matter and this is an issue which will preoccupy us

for much of the course. A different question:

What makes somebody attractive? And this can be asked at all

sorts of levels but a simple level is what makes for a pretty

face? So, these are,

according to ratings, very attractive faces.

They are not the faces of real people.

What's on the screen are computer generated faces of a

Caucasian male and a Caucasian female who don't exist in the

real world. But through using this sort of

computer generation, and then asking people what

they think of this face, what they think of that face,

scientists have come to some sense as to what really makes a

face attractive, both within cultures and across

cultures. And that's something which

we're going to devote some time to when we talk about social

behavior, and in particular, when we talk about sex.

Not all attractiveness, not all beauty of course,

is linked to sex. So, pandas for instance,

like this panda, are notoriously cute,

and I don't have anything to say about it really.

It's just a cute picture [laughter].

Morality is extremely central to our lives,

and a deep question, which we will struggle with

throughout most of the course, is the question of good and

evil, evil and good. These three pictures exemplify

different sorts of evil. What you could call

institutional evil by somebody behaving cruelly toward somebody

else, perhaps not due to malice but

because of the situation that she's in.

It has picture of Osama bin Laden, a mass murderer or driven

by political cause? And then there's this guy on

the bottom. Anybody know who he is?

Ted Bundy. Who got that?

Film that man [laughter]. No.

Ted Bundy, exactly, and that's before we get into

the technical stuff like crazy-evil,

and we're going to have to come to terms with why some people

are like that. And again, the same situation

comes up. Is it part of your nature to be

good or bad or is it largely due to the situation that you fall

in? And there's a lot of some quite

spectacular experiments that try to tease that apart.

If we're going to talk about evil, we should also talk about

good. These are pictures of two

notoriously good men, Oskar Schindler and Paul

Rusesabagina, each who at different times in

history saved the lives of many, many people at great risk to

themselves. Schindler in the Holocaust,

and then the other guy, in – and I can't pronounce

his name – Rusesabagina, in Rwanda.

And they both had real good movies made about them.

But what's interesting with these cases is you couldn't have

predicted ahead of time that they would be heroes.

And one personal issue within any of us is what would we do in

such situations? Finally, throughout this course

we will discuss mental illness. Now, towards the end of the

class I want to devote a full week to discussing major

disorders like depression and anxiety,

because of their profound social importance.

Such disorders are reasonably common in college students.

Many people in this room are currently suffering from a mood

disorder, an anxiety disorder or both,

and I won't ask for a show of hands but I know a lot of people

in this room are on some form of medication for this disorder.

And we'll discuss the current research and why people get

these disorders and what's the best way to make them better.

But I also have a weakness for the less common mental disorders

that I think tell us something really interesting about mental

life. So, when we talk about memory,

for instance, we'll talk about disorders in

memory, including some disorders that

keep you from forming new memories as well as disorders of

amnesia where you forget the past.

And these are extraordinarily interesting for all sorts of

reasons. Early in the course,

in fact I think next week, we will discuss,

no, later on in the course, in the middle of the semester,

we will discuss an amazing case of Phineas Gage.

Phineas Gage was a construction worker about 100 years ago.

Due to an explosion, a metal pipe went through his

head like so. Miraculously, he was not killed.

In fact, his friends--it went through his head,

went--ended up 100 feet away, covered with brains and blood.

And Phineas Gage sat down and went, "uh, oh."

And then on the way to the hospital they stopped by a pub

to have some cider. He was not blind,

he was not deaf, he was not retarded,

but something else happened to him.

He lost his sense of right and wrong.

He lost his control. He used to be a hard-working

family man. After the accident he lost all

of that. He couldn't hold a job.

He couldn't stay faithful to his wife.

He couldn't speak for five minutes without cursing.

He got into fights. He got into brawls.

He got drunk. He lost his control.

He ended up on a circus sideshow traveling through the

country with the big steel pipe that went through his head.

And this is again an extraordinary example of how the

brain can give rise to the mind, and how things that go wrong

with the brain can affect you in a serious way.

We'll discuss cases of multiple personality disorder,

where people have more than one personality.

And also, discuss the debate over whether such cases are true

or not; whether they could be taken as

a real phenomena or a made-up phenomena, which is--there is a

matter of a lot of controversy. And then, we'll even discuss

some rarer cases like Capgras syndrome.

Capgras syndrome is typically – there's hundreds of cases,

not many – hundreds of cases. It's typically the result of

some sort of stroke, and what happens to you is very

specific. You develop a particular

delusion, like it's getting dark .

And the delusion is that the people you love the most have

been replaced. They've been replaced by aliens

or robots – thank you – by Martians, by CIA agents,

by trained actors and actresses.

But the people--But the idea is, the people you care for the

most you believe are gone. And this could lead to tragic

consequences. Capgras syndrome is associated

with a very high level of violence.

One man in Australia a couple of years ago was under the

delusion that his father was replaced with a robot and cut

off his head. A related disorder involving

the very same parts of the brain is called Cotard's syndrome.

And Cotard's syndrome is you believe that you're dead;

you are persuaded that you're dead.

You're walking around. You know you're walking around.

And you know that there are people around,

but you think that you're dead. And what's striking about these

is--it's not--these are not just sort of big, screwy problems of

messed up people. Rather, they're

located--they're related at a pinpoint level to certain parts

of your brain. And we're going to talk about

the best modern theories as to why these syndromes occur.

Now, the reason to be interested in them,

again, is not because they're frequent.

They aren't. And it's not because of some

sort of gruesome, morbid curiosity.

Rather, by looking at extreme cases, they can help us best

understand normal life. Often by looking at extremes it

throws into sharp contrast things we naturally take for

granted. The issue of psychopathy,

of people who, either due to brain damage or

because they are born that way, have no moral understanding,

can help us cope with questions of free will and responsibility;

of the relationship or difference between mental

illness and evil. Multiple personality cases

force us to address the question of what is a self.

To what extent are all of us composed of multiple people,

and to what extent are we a single unified person over time?

Cases like Capgras are important because they tell us

about how we see the world. They tell us for instance that

there is a difference between recognizing something in the

sense that you could name it, and knowing what it is.

And so, by studying these abnormal cases we could get some

insight into regular life. So, that's the end of the

illustration of the example topics.

The syllabus lists many more. I'll end by telling you that

there's a lot of stuff that we'll be talking about,

that I want to talk about, that I am not expert in.

And fortunately, there is a community at Yale of

the best scholars and teachers on the planet.

And so, it would be a shame for me not to use them to cover some

of these issues. And so, I'm going to include

four guest lecturers. The first one is Dr.

Marvin Chun who teaches the Introduction to Psychology

course in the fall and is my competition.

And he's going to give an amazing lecture on cognitive

neuroscience, especially the cognitive

neuroscience of faces.

Dr. Susan Nolen-Hoeksema is the

world's authority on depression, and in particular,

on sex differences and depression, and she's going to

talk about this towards the end of the course.

Kelly Brownell is going to talk--is head of the Rudd

Center, focuses on obesity, eating disorders,

dieting, and he'll talk about the psychology of food.

And finally, Dr.

Peter Salovey, Dean of Yale College,

is going to come to us on Valentine's Day and tell us

everything he knows about the mysteries of love.

All of these details are in the syllabus and I'll stick around

and answer questions. Hope to see you next week.