3671
.pdfощущений информацию о внешней среде и о внутреннем состоянии организма.
Органы чувств получают, отбирают, накапливают информацию и передают ее в мозг. Мозг принимает и перерабатывает огромное количество получаемой информации. В результате возникает адекватное отражение окружающего мира и состояния самого организма.
Органы чувств дают человеку возможность видеть, слышать, осязать, обонять, чувствовать вкус. Таким образом, благодаря органам чувств человек получает самую разнообразную информацию об окружающем мире и приспосабливается к нему.
6. Make up a dialogue between Professor in General Psychology and a first-year student.
The student is taking a credit-test. To his great surprise, all the questions are limited to the theme “ Sensation”.
The following may serve as a guide-line for your dialogue:
P. – First of all, I want you to define the term “sensation” and explain it to me.
S. – ……… .
P. – I see. Now, tell me, please, what are the main senses and which of them are most important to us?
S. – ……… .
P. – Why do think so? How can you prove it? S. – ………. .
P. – It is known that there are people who lack this or that sense for some reason. There are deaf people who lack the sense of hearing. There are blind people who can’t see anything around them. How can such people do without these senses?
S. – ……….. .
P. – Well, I am pleased with your answer. And I am glad to say that you have passed your test successfully. Here is your credit-test book. Good-bye. Call in another student.
Text 2. Taste and smell lessen with age
The senses of taste and smell are inextricably connected, and both can have a profound effect on appetite. In elderly persons, the neurological functions that govern these senses decrease with age as a result of agerelated neuron loss, and the elderly lose the intensity of taste and smell that they possessed when younger. This can lead to a concomitant decline in
21
appetite, which may lead to nutritional problems, reported the American researches.
The scientists used an olfactometer to compare the abilities of college students and elderly people to detect and discriminate odors. The groups were matched as much as possible for background and socio-economical level, both of which can be important factors in familiarity with tastes and smells.
College students are able to detect an odor at much lower concentration than the elderly people. This change in threshold affects eating not only because odor itself can stimulate appetite, but also because some people notice a bitter taste in foods that they unable to smell. The scientists report that a significantly greater percentage of elderly persons complained of a bitter flavour in foods that tasted normal to younger subjects. For the elderly, this may mean that foods they once enjoined no longer taste good.
A decreased sense of smell among elderly persons held true not only for food, but for less pleasant odors as well. The researchers tested their subjects with urine like odors, and found that aged subjects had even more difficulty detecting those odors than they did detecting the food smells. They believe that this may account for the tolerance in the elderly of the sometimes malodorous atmosphere of nursing homes and hospitals. Many younger persons say that they can’t stand to work there because of the smell, although older residents seem unbothered.
The scientists also found that elderly persons lose the ability to discriminate between unlike tastes, as well as to identify familiar ones. They prepared foods to make them identical in consistency, then tested them on blindfolded subjects. For elderly persons, things began to taste the same. The person might be able to detect a taste, but not be able to tell what it is. For example, only 55 percent of the elderly subjects recognized the taste of apple, while 61 percent of the college students identified it correctly. Many elderly persons prefer fruit flavours, however, because the ability to taste these flavours often lingers longer.
The explanation for this decline in sensory ability may lie in the fact that tastes are coded across neurons. For example, there is a difference in the codes for salty tastes and for bitter tastes. With age we drop neurons, and so with age there is less difference between the two patterns. If a person needed a total neural mass of, say ten, to detect taste, he may need a larger mass to discriminate between tastes.
22
Questions to the text:
1.Why do the neurological functions decrease in elderly persons?
2.Where can it lead to?
3.What experiment was made to discriminate odors?
4.What did the elderly people complaint about?
5.What other abilities do elder people lose?
6.What flavours do they prefer?
7.How may it be explained?
8.What is the conclusion drawn by the researchers?
Tasks:
1. Give Russian equivalents for:
to have a profound effect; elderly people; a concomitant decline; threshold; nursing home; a greater percentage; blindfolded subjects; fruit flavours; sensory ability; bitter tastes; a total neural mass.
2.Enumerate basic physiological changes occurring in the organism with aging. Is a person changing only physiologically? If not, how else?
3.Divide the text into logical parts and make up a plan for a review. Then review it.
4.How old are you now? Have your tastes and smell changed since your childhood? What factors influence your appetite? Are they psychological or social in nature?
5.Make up a dialogue between an adult and an adolescent. Compare the opinions of these age categories on some subjects (e.g. appearance, behaviour, moral beliefs, prestigious work, talk-shows etc.).
Text 3. Déjà vu
The term “déjà vu” is French and means, literally, “already seen”. Those who have experienced the feeling describe it as an overwhelming sense of familiarity with something that shouldn’t be familiar at all. For example, you are traveling to London for the first time. You are in the cathedral, and suddenly it seems as if you have been in that place before. Or may be you are having dinner with a group of friends, discussing some current political topic, and you have the feeling that you’ve already experienced this very thing – same friends, same dinner and the same topic.
The phenomenon is rather complex, and there are many different theories as to why déjà vu happens.
23
The term was introduced by Emily Boirac (1851–1917), who had strong interests in phenomena. Boirac’s term directs our attention to the past. What is unique about déjà vu is not something from the past but something in the present, namely, the strange feeling one has. We often have experiences the novelty of which is unclear. In such cases we may have been led to ask such questions as, “Have I read this book before?” “This place looks familiar; have I been here before?” We may feel confused, but the feeling associated with the déjà vu experience is not one of confusion, it is one of strangeness. There is nothing strange about not remembering whether you’ve read a book before, especially if you are fifty years old and have read thousands of books over your lifetime. In the déjà vu experience, however, we feel strange because we don’t think we should feel familiar with the present perception. That sense of in appropriateness is not present when one is simply unclear whether one has read a book or seen a film before.
The Swiss scholar Arthur Funkhouser suggests that there are several
“déjà experiences” and asserts that in order to study the phenomenon better, the nuances between the experiences need to be noted. In the examples, mentioned at the beginning, Frunkhouser would describe the first incidence as déjà visité (“already visited”) and the second as déjà vecu (“already experienced or lived through”).
As much as 70 percent of the population reports having experienced some form of déjà vu. A higher number of incidents occur in people 15 to
25 years old than in any other group age.
Since déjà vu occurs in individuals with and without a medical condition, there is much speculation as to how and why this phenomenon happens. Several psychoanalysts attribute déjà vu to simple fantasy or wish fulfillment, while some psychiatrists think it is a mismatching in the brain that causes the brain to mistake the present for the past. Many parapsychologists believe it is related to a past-life experience. Obviously, there is more investigation to be done.
Questions to the text:
1.What does the term “déjà vu” mean?
2.How do people who have experienced déjà vu describe it?
3.Who introduced the term “déjà vu” ?
4.What is unique about déjà vu ?
5.What feelings are associated with the déjà vu experience?
6.What does Anna Frunkhouser think about déjà vu? How did she classify déjà vu?
24
7.What age group is most likely to experience déjà vu?
8.How do some psychoanalysts explain déjà vu?
9.How do some parapsychologists explain déjà vu?
Tasks:
1. Give English equivalents for:
дословно, переполняющее чувство, текущий, знакомый, в течение жизни, неуместность, утверждать, случаться, исполнение желаний, несоответствие, несомненно
Use five of the words in your own sentences.
2.Have you ever had déjà vu? If yes, please, describe when it happened and how you felt. How can you explain this phenomenon. Ask your friends if they had déjà vu. What was their experience?
3.Make a report about unusual abilities of a human organism or any extraordinary people with such abilities and present it in class.
Interesting Facts
How can you comment on the following text?
The Pweor od the Hmuan Mnid
Aoccdrnig to rscheearch codnutced at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in what order the ltteers in a wrod are tpyed, the only iprmoetnt thing is that the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit oedrer. The rset can be a total mses and you can sittl raed it wouthit a porbelm. This is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, butt the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig, hah?
UNIT 3. THE PROCESS OF THINKING
Text 1. Memory and thinking
Human memory and learning are intimately related since the development of an association between a stimulus and response requires some sort of retention. Some of our associations, such as conditioned reflexes, are not at the conscious, but at the spinal level of association, although possibly they are 'remembered' there also. For most of the behaviour which distinguishes humans from animals (that is thinking and communicating through language) memory is located in the centre of the nervous system on
25
cortex of the brain. We can think of memory as analogous to some sort of filing cabinet system. Information received through the senses is stored and utilized as needed, within the limits of storage capacity and the personal efficiency for Searching the files'. (Without this retention process there could be no learned behaviour). Our storage capacity seems to be an inflexible individual characteristic, but the efficiency with which the information is retrieved, is a function of a number of influences. Three of these influences, which are general features in memory, are frequency, recency, and value.
Frequency refers, everything else being equal, to the tendency to remember those experiences which have happened most often. Experiences or events that occur infrequently are not remembered well. It is also clear that, everything else being equal, we remember the more recent events in contrast to those that occurred in earlier times.
Learning also influences our ability to recall our past experiences. When the learning takes place, how well is the material mastered? How frequently do the lessons occur, and what are the personal priorities we attach to the lessons? All these factors affect the extent to which we can demonstrate our retention of information.
Thinking must, like memory, be inferred from public behaviour. Thinking is another so-called 'mental' activity, involving the manipulation of symbols, signs, concepts, or ideas, which are symbolically represented. Thinking is a process which is closely bound up with language. To continue with the filing analogy, thinking is the term used to describe the various ways in which the information in storage is retrieved, scanned, examined, combined, and rearranged. We do not actually examine the objects (memories) on 'file', but we may sometimes refer to the verbal description of the remembered events. Memory, learning, thinking, and language are all intimately related processes. So far in this case that word may remind you of other words and conjure up images, whereas a perception may conjure up images and also remind you of a linguistic description.
Two types of thinking, i.e. convergent and divergent thinking, are processes of association between stimuli and responses which are acceptable according to different criteria. We may also make associations among ideas or experiences. When we are faced with a problem that we wish to solve we usually resort to convergent thinking, depending on our memory to bring forth the best answer that can serve as a solution. If this effort is unrewarding we may resort to trial-and-error or perhaps use a hypothesis as a result of insight, i.e. we may be able to assemble our
26
previous experiences in a new way so that we understand the relationships required to solve the task. Our thinking process like many of the actions we perform, is very likely to become habitual and standardized. Most people find it very difficult to change their pattern of thinking, especially if their methods have previously been rewarding.
Through language we understand and communicate the symbols and concepts that we learn. The words in our language are learned initially by association with the objects or events they represent (extension), but we also acquire meaning of words through their relationship to other words and symbols. They are usually clear-cut labels and have only one meaning. The second class of symbols are connotive symbols, and they mark the way we intend to make people think about these things. Words like 'good', 'happy', 'worthwhile, are some of the connotive-type words used valuatively.
The essential link between thinking and language, we must repeat, comes about because we learn a great deal by description. We read about the experiences of others, of their verbal representations of other objects and ideas. We think by internal manipulation of language, and the very fact that we are able to associate a name successfully with an object is clear evidence that our memory stores both the name and a symbolic representation of the thing.
Let us look at just one piece of experiment on linguistic behavior. Our vocabulary is composed of tens of thousands of words, including a great number of adjectives. We can use adjectives to qualify objects with such words as 'good', 'clean', 'large' and so on. Research has shown that our basic connotive vocabulary can be reduced to the three broad types of adjectives that most people use to describe their environment. The fundamental adjective types are:
Evaluation: i.e. good... bad Potency: i.e. strong... weak Activity: i.e. active... passive
These three pairs of adjectives are the basic meanings that we seem to apply to many of the objects we perceive, learn, and think about. The whole field of relationship of symbols and language is the communication process by which human knowledge is recorded and developed. Language makes it possible for each generation to learn for itself what other generations had learned earlier. Knowledge is cumulative, otherwise each generation would have to learn for itself, for example, all of the principles of science. Cognition is the mental process by which we learn, think, and remember, and we use language to describe and understand the world around us.
27
Questions to the text:
1.What is memory?
2.Where is memory located?
3.What is thinking?
4.What types of thinking do you know?
5.What kinds of symbols exist?
6.How do we understand the internal manipulation of language?
7.What does the term cognition mean?
Tasks:
1.Speak about the new information from the text.
2.Write down the main idea of the text.
3.What information was the most interesting for you? Why? Give reasons.
4.Put down your associations with the following words: retain, retention, store, storage, capacity, efficiency, resent, value, event, involve, image, pattern, generation.
5.Share your associations with your partner.
6.Make up word combinations, using the words and your associations.
7.Write down an essay (180–220 words) about some features of the human memory according to the following plan: introduction (introduce the subject, state your opinion clearly), main body (your and opposing viewpoints and justifications), conclusion (restate your opinion).
Text 2. Psychoanalysis as a theory and a therapy
Sigmund Freud was a pioneer in the study of unconscious mental activity. His theories on the inner workings of the human mind are now accepted by most schools of psychological thought. In 1896, Freud created the term "psychoanalysis," and later he developed its main principles, objectives, techniques, and methodology of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis focuses on the unconscious aspects of personality. According to Freud the human mind is like an iceberg. He believed that the conscious level of the mind was similar to the top of the iceberg which could be seen, but the unconscious was mysterious and was hidden.
In "An Outline of Psychoanalysis" Freud explains the principles of the psychoanalytic theory. He begins with an explanation of the three parts of the psychic apparatus – the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is the unconscious part that contains the instincts. The ego has the quality of being
28
conscious and is responsible for controlling the demands of the id. It serves as a link between the id and the external world. Finally, the superego, whose demands are managed by the id, is responsible for the limitation of satisfactions and represents the influence of others, such as parents, teachers, and role models, as well as the impact of racial, societal, and cultural traditions.
As a therapy, psychoanalysis is based on the concept that individuals are unaware of the many factors that cause their behavior and emotions. These unconscious factors have the potential to produce unhappiness, which is expressed through a number of symptoms such as difficulty in relating to others, or problems with self-esteem. The basic objective of psychoanalysis is to remove neuroses and thereby cure patients by returning the damaged ego to its normal state.
The method of psychoanalysis has several steps. First, analysts gather material from patient's free associations, dreams and slips of the tongue. Second, analysts begin to form hypotheses.
If analysts reveal their conclusions to patients too soon, resistance due to repression will occur. Overcoming this resistance requires additional time and effort by both the analysts and the patients. Once patients accept the conclusions, they are cured.
The value of psychoanalysis as a theory and as a therapy has been questioned since the early 1900s. Critics dispute the value of the data upon which Freud based his theories; and the method and effectiveness of psychoanalytic treatment. However, we should not forget the revolutionary introduction of the unconscious aspects of personality in the discipline of psychology.
Questions to the text:
1.What term did Freud create and develop in the field of psychology?
2.What does psychoanalysis focus on?
3.How could you describe the human mind?
4.What are the three parts of the psychic apparatus?
5.What concept is psychoanalysis based on?
6.What are the main steps of psychoanalysis?
Tasks:
1.Read the text, using the methods of critical thinking. Share your ideas with your group.
2.Working in pairs, try to explain unclear points to each other.
29
3.Write down 10 key words from the text and explain their meanings in English.
4.Find out the main points of the text.
5.Sum up your ideas to retell the text.
Text 3. Stress at work
Job stress can be defined as the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the requirements of the job do not match the capabilities, resources, or needs of the worker. Job stress can lead to poor health and even injury.
The concept of job stress is often confused with challenge, but these concepts are not the same. Challenge energizes us psychologically and physically, and it motivates us to learn new skills and master our jobs. When a challenge is met, we feel relaxed and satisfied. Thus, challenge is an important ingredient for healthy and productive work.
Nearly everyone agrees that job stress results from the interaction of the worker and the conditions of work. Views differ, however, on the importance of worker characteristics versus working conditions as the primary cause of job stress. These differing viewpoints are important because they suggest different ways to prevent stress at work. Although the importance of individual differences cannot be ignored, scientific data suggests that certain working conditions are stressful to most people.
Stress sets off an alarm in the brain, which responds by preparing the body for defensive action. The nervous system is aroused and hormones are released to sharpen the senses, quicken the pulse, deepen respiration, and tense the muscles. This response is important because it helps us defend against threatening situations. The response is preprogrammed biologically. Everyone responds in much the same way, regardless of whether the stressful situation is at work or home.
Short-lived or infrequent episodes of stress bear little risk. But when stressful situations go unresolved, the body is kept in a constant state of activation, which increases the rate of wear and tear to biological systems. The ability of the body to repair and defend itself becomes low. As a result, the risk of injury or disease escalates.
In the past 20 years, many studies have looked at the relationship between job stress and a variety of ailments. Mood and sleep problems, upset stomach and headache, and poor relationships with family and friends are examples of stress-related problems that are quick to develop and are
30