Instructor:	Larry Z. Daily. Ph.D.
Office:	White Hall, Room 213 / Miller Hall 102
Phone:	876-5297 / 876-5486
E-mail:	ldaily@shepherd.edu
Office Hours:	T-R 1:30-3:30 p.m.
	and by appointment
	All other times check Miller Hall first
Web Page	http://webpages.shepherd.edu/LDAILY/teaching.html

This course involves study of the structure and function of the nervous system. Students will gain an appreciation for the biological basis of everyday behaviors, such as language, movement, emotion, reading, writing, sleeping, learning, and personality. Likewise, students will gain an understanding of the physiological correlates of many types of psychological pathology, such as schizophrenia, depression, autism ADD/ADHD, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, drug addiction, learning disabilities, and stroke. The aim of the class is for students in many helping-related fields (e.g., psychology, nursing, education, gerontology) to gain an appreciation of the pervasive impact of physiological variables on psychological. functioning. Prerequisite: PSYC 203.

  Required text and reserve materials:

Carlson, N. R. (2004). Physiology of behavior (8th edition). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Reserve Materials:

Klawans, H. L. (1988). Toscanini's fumble and other tales of clinical neurology. Chicago, IL: Contemporary Books, Inc. (selected chapters)

Sacks, O. (1985/1998). The man who mistook his wife for a hat and other clinical tales. NY: Touchstone. (selected chapters)

  Tentative Schedule:

  Examinations:

One of my goals for this course is that you learn how and what research has taught us about the physiological bases of behavior. This will be assessed by four in-class examinations. The exams will consist of a mixture of matching, fill in the blank, short answer, and essay questions. The essay questions will either focus on a single study or will be broad and integrative in nature. Study questions will be provided on the course Web page to assist in your preparation for the exams. The examinations will consist of a subset of the questions on the study guides. Please note that we will most likely begin covering new material between the time we finish the topics scheduled for an exam and the exam date. This is a consequence of the course scheduling and cannot be avoided so please plan for it.

  Research Log:

During the course of the semester you will engage in some background research. Selected chapters of Sacks (1985) and Klawans (1988) will be on reserve in the library. For each of the 10 chapters you will 1) read the chapter, 2) reflect on the chapter in relation to class material, 3) do some research on the topic of the chapter, and 4) write up your thoughts and findings. Each entry should 1) summarize the symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment as described in the chapter, 2) discuss the area of the brain/body involved and the functions of those areas, 3) consider how the diagnosis and/or the treatment might differ today (the books are approximately 15 years old), and 4) present any other information related to the problem that has been learned since the book was published. Each entry should be at least 2 pages long, double-spaced, 1" margins, and 11-point font. When you turn in your log, collect all entries in a folder as specified in class.

In conducting your research, choose your resources carefully. Sources you find through PsycInfo or EbscoHost will probably be of high quality. Use Internet sources with caution and be aware of the source of the information: data you obtain from a site hosted on www.nih.gov or www.med.harvard.edu will most likely be of high quality. Data you find on sites such as tripod.com or angelfire.com may not have any merit at all. Your log should include an APA style reference page that lists all sources used in your log entries. You should also make sure to follow APA guidelines when citing your sources. These guidelines will be discussed further in class.

  Course grade:

There are a total of 100 points that can be earned in this course. Each of the four exams will be worth 20 points. The research log will be worth 20 points total. Your final grade for the course will be based on the total number of points you earn. Specifically, the values are 90-100 = A, 80-89 = B, 70-79 = C, 60-69 = D, below 60 = F.

  Late Work Policy:

Please note: I expect, perhaps as a result of my management background, your best performance on exams and things turned in when they're due. I'll help you prepare for tests and papers as much as possible before they're due, but when the time comes, I expect you to be prepared. All assignments have a due date and you will lose points for each day that an assignment is late. If you know in advance about any situation that would interfere with your ability to meet a deadline (e.g., excused sporting or other campus events, scheduled business travel), see me as soon as possible before the deadline. I will be willing to move log deadlines slightly to accommodate legitimate needs. If your conflict is with an exam date, you may take the test early, provided you meet the conditions outlined earlier. Otherwise, 2% of the total points for a paper assignment will be deducted for each day it is late and 10% of the total points for the exam will be deducted for late makeups. If something unforeseeable comes up (e.g., a medical emergency, death in the family), please notify me as soon as possible after the incident. Be aware that I may require you to document the cause of any rescheduling of exams or papers.

This class meets Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 11:10 am to 12:00 pm. Because material from my lectures (which usually contain material not in the text) and any in-class demonstrations will be included on the exams, regular attendance is extremely important for this class. I will be checking attendance at each class session. You are responsible for information missed during an absence from class and you are responsible for arranging to make up missed material (see page 56 of the College Catalog and the Late Work Policy above).

  Academic Integrity Policy:

From the 2003-2005 College Catalog, page 63:

Cheating in all its forms, including plagiarism and cheating on visual work, is considered an academic matter to be controlled and acted upon by the individual faculty member. Students guilty of academic dishonesty on examinations in any course shall receive, as minimum penalty, a grade of F in that course. Such action shall be taken by the instructor, with written notification to the appropriate College administrators. Repeated offenses shall subject the student to suspension or dismissal from the college. Students involved in facilitating the academic dishonesty among others, such as the unauthorized dissemination of examination materials, will be subject to disciplinary action beyond that called for by their own cheating in the course.

In this class, you must work as an individual on the log and the examinations. You may (and actually are encouraged to) form study groups and share notes, books, etc. when preparing for an exam, but you must work alone and without any of these resources when taking an exam. When writing in your log, avoid plagiarism. Plagiarism is defined as "the act of stealing and using, as one's own, the ideas, or the expression of the ideas of another." This includes not only direct copying of the exact words another author used, but paraphrases of the ideas of another author without properly crediting the original. Plagiarism will, at the least, result in a failing grade for this class and may result in disciplinary procedures as outlined above.

  Communication:

My intent is to be as accessible to you as possible. Please feel free to stop by my office any time. I'm available by phone whenever I'm in my office and you can leave voice mail if I'm not. If you need quicker response times (especially on weekends), use email. I'm something of an email junkie and I usually check my email many times everyday, even on weekends. Finally, check the course Web page (available off of my page) - copies of many course materials will be made available there.

  Due Dates:

Other Dates of Note:

These dates are notable because there will be NO CLASS:

• March 15, 17, and 19 - Spring Recess
• April 16 - Eastern Psychological Association conference
• April 23 - Spring weekend recess

  Teaching philosophy:

Listed here are some things that I feel you should know about how I teach and what my goals for the course are. I'll also try to provide some tips for improving your performance in the course.

1. As stated previously, one of my goals for this course is not only to introduce you to the field of physiological psychology, but also to show you how questions about nervous system can be answered using the experimental method. We're going to cover the material on two levels: the specifics of individual studies and a broad view of how the studies relate to one another.
   • You can't achieve the second level by dealing with the material only in bits and pieces. You need step back from the individual studies and build a framework to tie the pieces together.
   • Utilize my office hours if you have questions that I cannot answer in class. In general, I'll answer as many questions as possible during class time, but we have a great deal of material to cover and questions specific to a single student are better answered outside of class. If my office hours conflict with another commitment, I will schedule appointments for other times.
   • Answer the questions on the study guides. When I create an exam, I simply cut and paste questions from the study guides. If you can answer the study questions, you should do fine on the exams.
2. The ability to read and write are fundamental to our ability to think and reason. As a result, I do pay attention to grammar and spelling in written work. I will relax the standards somewhat on exams due to the time pressure, but exam questions should still be answered in complete, well-formed sentences. Your log entries should be typed, spell-checked, and proofread before they are turned in.
3. I do expect you to know the names and dates associated with the key studies we discuss. This is not just an exercise in cruelty on my part. Hirsch (1987) presented the notion of cultural literacy, the notion that it is possible to be fluent in a language and still not be able to read and understand a newspaper or magazine article in that language without knowing something of the culture. For instance, if I mention "Juliette on the balcony" to someone versed in Western culture, certain ideas are conveyed that someone not familiar with Shakespear would miss entirely. Similarly, if I say Tinklepaugh (1928) to an experimental psychologist, meaning is conveyed that would take me pages to spell out.
4. Finally, I do not curve grades. The fundamental assumption of curving is that each class is a representative sample of the population. If you think about this issue using what you learned about sampling in statistics, you'll realize that this assumption is false.

Study Tips

1. Rote memorization is not effective. Don't simply try to memorize the book or your lecture notes.
2. Organization is a powerful aid to memory. For individual studies, keep the purpose of the study in mind. Look for how individual studies relate to one another. This brings me to the next point…
3. Active processing on the part of the learner is essential. Take notes, rearrange the notes later, answer the study questions, quiz a classmate (and get quizzed in turn).
4. Generating and answering your own questions has been shown to improve exam performance.
5. Multiple small study sessions spaced out over a period of time are more effective than a single, massive study session.