The Contrast Sensitivity Function
Prepared by Peter Wenderoth
Imagine that you are driving a car in a very thick fog. Objects which are normally easily seen, like black writing on a white billboard, will be hard to see because the black writing and the white background will both be greyish. That is the difference between whites and blacks - contrast - will be reduced
By focussing on the way mind and behavior have developed and adapted to evolutionary pressures this accessible textbook shows the relevance of an evolutionary approach to all areas of psychology.The authors' objective perspective will be much appreciated in this controversial area as will their engaging style and the user-friendly format.
Alan Gilbert: "The description in James Risen's New York Times article yesterday - below - of the desperate meeting of the psychologist/torturers in the US 'intelligence" apparatus with the leadership of the APA following the released photographs about Abu
Ghraib and trying to hide the obvious is hilarious - these are the keystone cops of "intelligence" - though the light this meeting casts on a kind of pseudo-neutral, "value-free" "professionalism" in the social sciences (political science as well) which serves the Pentagon and the CIA is anything but."
Does someone in your life not want to do something? Do you not care, even the slightest bit, about their wishes? Here's how to force them to complete a task they don't care about, and even feel superior while you're doing it.
Deb Shinder begins a series of columns on the subject of cybercrime and law enforcement with this post on profiling the criminals and figuring out the types of crimes they are likely to commit.
Who among us has not been victimized by a virus? Not the virus that can make a person sick, but the kind that can cripple your computer, or worse, the...
A preoccupation with safety has stripped childhood of independence, risk taking, and discovery - without making it safer. A new kind of playground points to a better solution.
A Theory of Human Motivation A. H. Maslow (1943) Originally Published in Psychological Review, 50, 370-396. "7. Human needs arrange themselves in hierarchies of pre-potency. That is to say, the appearance of one need usually rests on the prior satisfaction of another, more pre-potent need. Man is a perpetually wanting animal. Also no need or drive can be treated as if it were isolated or discrete; every drive is related to the state of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of other drives. " "9. Classifications of motivations must be based upon goals rather than upon instigating drives or motivated behavior. " "13. Motivation theory is not synonymous with behavior theory. The motivations are only one class of determinants of behavior. While behavior is almost always motivated, it is also almost always biologically, culturally and situationally determined as well." "Thus man is a perpetually wanting animal."
On August 9, 1896, Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher Jean Piaget was born. He is best known for his epistemological studies with children. In 1934, he declared that "only education is capable of
On July 21, 1911, Canadian philosopher of communication theory Herbert Marshal McLuhan was born. His groundbreaking work is considered to be the cornerstone of media and communication theory. McLuhan is known for coining the expressions the medium is the message and the global village, and for predicting the World Wide Web almost thirty years before it was invented.
On 26 May 1828, a teenage boy appeared in the streets of Nuremberg, Germany. The boy, who answered to the name Kaspar Hauser, claimed to have grown up in the total isolation of a darkened cell. Hauser's claims, and his subsequent death by stabbing, sparked much debate and controversy. Some theories about him at the time linked him with the grand ducal House of Baden to be the hereditary "Prince of Baden". Nevertheless, these have long since been rejected by professional historians. On the other hand, Kaspar Hauser fits into the contemporary European image of the "wolf child", despite the fact that he almost certainly was not one. As a result, his story inspired numerous works.
Previous research had found that the prefrontal cortex, the brain region behind the forehead, tends to lose volume with age, and that part of this region helps sustain quality sleep, which is critical to consolidating new memories. But the new experiment, led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, is the first to directly link structural changes with sleep-related memory problems.
Human Needs Psychology, a blend of logotherapy, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, NLP and other theories put together by Tony Robbins and explained here on the success blog of Chris Pickard. There is also a Youtube video
Starting next year, the process of diagnosing autism may see drastic changes following the revision of the official guide to classifying psychiatric illnesses.
Die psychologische Online-Beratung für pflegende Angehörige pflegen-und-leben.de ist ein Internetportal für pflegende Angehörige, aber auch für Freunde, Bekannte und Nachbarn, die ältere Menschen pflegen. Angehörige finden hier persönliche Unterstützung und Begleitung bei seelischer Belastung durch den Pflegealltag - kostenfrei und datensicher.
On September 14, 1953, Dr. Alfred Charles Kinsey published the second of his controversially discussed and provoking reports entitled 'Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female'. Kinsey's work has profoundly influenced social and cultural values in the United States and many other countries.
by Robert T. Carroll. The Skeptic's Dictionary is a website and a book. Each features definitions, arguments, and essays on topics ranging from acupuncture to zombies, and provides a lively, commonsense trove of detailed information on things supernatural, paranormal, and pseudoscientific. Dozens of topics in logic, perception, science, and philosophy are also covered to help explain the appeal and popularity of occult beliefs and to provide a guide for critical thinking.
How far would you go to maintain your youth and your beauty? While today most people have become a victim of the cosmetic industry and (fortunately) only a few really dare to undergo cosmetic surgery, eternal youth and beauty is not only a subject of today's affluent society. No, it's a prominent topic throughout history dating also back into mythology
What is the driving force behind our motivations and ambitions? Is it pure reasoning? Hardly, as famous psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung would argue. Moreover its the unconscious buried deep below the surface of our daily self that is responsible. Carl Gustav Jung took into account the unconscious for his new school of analytical psychology, which differs from Freud's original school of psychoanalysis. C. G. Jung was one of the creators of modern depth psychology, which seeks to facilitate a conversation with the unconscious energies which move through each of us.
On this day in 1921, the psychotherapist, psychoanalytic, sociologist, philosopher, and author Paul Watzlawick was born. He was best known for his approaches in the field of schizophrenia and his five axiomes in the theory of communication.
Paul Watzlawick was an Austrian-American psychologist and philosopher. A theoretician in communication theory and radical constructivism, he has commented in the fields of family therapy and general psychotherapy. He was one of the most influential figures at the Mental Research Institute and lived and worked in Palo Alto, California.
Sigmund Freud is known as the founder of modern Psychology and Psychoanalysis. As the father of Psychoanalysis, which dealt greater with subconscious motives to behavior, Sigmund Freud alone sculpted what modern psychology would become. His renowned ideas, which have focused on the Id, Ego, and Super-Ego of the mind are still studied to this very day and are employed in the offices of psychologists in some form or another worldwide.
W. Nährer, and M. Amelang. Lehr- und Forschungstexte Psychologie Springer Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg, eBook edition, (2013)Speed and quality as dimensions of cognitive performance.