How does music affect us emotionally? Why do minor chords so sad? In this episode of The Psych Files I explore ideas from Daniel Leviton‘s fascinating book, Your Brain on Music, especially those ideas concerned with what composers do to draw you into their music by first conforming to your musical expectations and then carefully confounding them in order to surprise and delight.
How can you use psychology to design a website so people are likely to buy products from you? Or design a website so people are likely to donate money to your cause? In this episode Dr Susan Weinschenk discusses some of these ideas from her book Neuro Web Design. Ever thought you could apply brain science to web design?
Memorize the parts of the brain once and for all! Here’s a mnemonic device to help you remember the parts of the brain. You will never forget what the parts of the brain do after you see this video. Improve your grade on your next biopsychology test and learn more about mnemonics at the same time.
Cognitive Dissonance – one of the most established and respected theories in psychology – is under attack. An economist – M. Keith Chen – uses what is called the “Monty Hall problem” to show that the research on cognitive dissonance may be seriously flawed.
Dr. Ginger Campbell hosts an excellent podcast which I highly recommend. It’s called the Brain Science podcast. In episode 33 she interviews Dr. John Ratey about his new book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain
Why do people engage in those dangerous sports like hang gliding, bungee jumping and rock climbing? Would you believe it might have something to do with neurotransmitters and something called Monoamine Oxidase?
The gestalt principles of perception – how do they explain how we not only sometimes perceive strange things, but also how we can appreciate works of art? We’ll see images on lemon slices, on Mars, and on building tops. Why do we perceive these things?
We finish off this series on Erikson by looking at your brain as you develop by examining what is happening in your brain as you age from adolescence to older adulthood.
What is happening in your brain as you progress through life? In this episode we take a look at some of the changes that occur in your brain from birth to age 12. Be sure to listen to part 3 of this series, which is episode 25.
I decided that it was time to look at the biology behind the changes that occur in our lives as we grow. As I put my ideas together to do this, I employed a very neat program called Timeliner. It is so cool in fact that I decided to do an episode solely on how to use Timeliner, especially the tool called “merge”. If you are an educator I think you’ll find this episode interesting.
