Homunculus - Crash Course #6

This episode actually somewhat threw me off when I was watching it.

At first, I thought they would be talking about the homunculus (obviously) as in the "little man" inside your head telling you to do things as your thoughts/consciousness. But they instead related it to that obscure diagram of the porportions of our senses. So for example, the homunculus's hands would be very large because our hands are very sensitive, more so than the rest of our arms which would be comparatively smaller. Or how our lips and tongue would be very big on the head compared to how it really is like on our heads. I had already known about this concept, but I didn't realize it was called the homunculus. Or perhaps I had just forgotten.

So the video basically talks about the 5 senses, in a somewhat continuation from the last video being Sensation & Perception. This video would have done me good if I'd seen it during PSY280 Perception...

I had a laugh when I read through some of the comments at the bottom. Most of them were pleasantly surprised that Fullmetal Alchemist (the anime) was actually mentioned in the beginning. I was also one of those people..

Sensation & Perception - Crash Course #5

As soon as I saw the topic for this video, I thought wow this would have been so useful to me last semester when I was actually taking PSY280 Perception. Oh well.

Sensation and perception is really interesting to me. Sensation being the process by which we recieve outside stimuli such as smell, taste, touch, and sound. Perception being the way this stimuli is organized and interpreted into context. It's interesting because I know a lot of people who don't understand the difference. They just mesh sensation and perception together and say the thing we hear is a dog barking and the dog barking is the thing we hear, and that's it. It's a bit infuriating to me since this concept is relatively easy to understand.

Although again, most of this stuff was review. I still did appreciate the way he goes about explaining each concept, with easy to understand words and very useful graphics. For example, when he explained parallel processing.

This diagram just makes everything so much easier to understand and I never really got to see something like this when I took PSY280. Even though I'm not very fond of clowns.

Know your brain - Crash Course #4

Finally, Crash Course takes a slight turn into the more "psychological" part of psychology. No more math or biology, or at least not as much that makes my brain mad with rage or cry tears of sadness. Either way, this episode was much more enjoyable than the last couple.

We had just gone over phrenology in Learning & Plasticity, so that short mention in this video was pretty nice. I was really intrigued in the story about Phineas Gage who had a rod struck through the front of his head and then came out the back, and he was apparently still conscious enough to get up and walk to some passerbys to tell them what happened. He eventually healed despite coughing up pieces of brain, however his personality had taken a mysterious turn as he could no longer process compassion and other emotions as he could before. But this is still a pretty vague issue, and I wish they had more information about it. Not that I'm a sucker for this kind of gore stuff, but yeah maybe I am. It's just amazing to me that your head and brain can be totally struck through and not only are you not dead, but you can still function. Somewhat. For a little while.

The rest of the video goes through the different regions of the brain, frontal lobe, parietal lobe, etc. It was a good review, and this is the kind of biology that I don't dislike.

One particularly interesting video comment was:

Which of the following is correct:  1.  I have a brain.  or 2.  I am a brain.

Most of the replies to this consisted of Both, Neither, or Third option. It's a pretty vague question overall, but it makes you think, seeing as the answer could be one or the other depending on how you look at it. "I have a brain" is instinctly what you think. But "I am a brain" could be a valid alternative if you can argue what the meaning of "I" is. Personally, I don't really have a concrete answer to this question. I could argue for both sides, but I'll probably use option 1 most of the time for the sake of convenience.

The Chemical Mind - Crash Course #3

"Everything psychological is biological."

Episode 3 of Crash Course is, sadly, the one other topic of general psychology that I tend to hate. While I dislike learning about the scientific procedure and research methods, I might dislike learning about the biology even more. Axons, neurons, dendrites, action potentials... this episode goes through all of this that I have been forced to go through over and over (namely action potentials) that make me simultaneously groan because I've learned this in every single PSY course and also because it is still the most difficult stuff for me to memorize.

Despite the greatness that is Crash Course, I still found myself zoning out multiple times during this video, which already makes me sad because this video deserves better. Although, my favourite part of the video would have to be Hank describing the difference in communication between the nervous system and the endocrine system in a very funny and useful metaphor:

"If the nervous system wants to get in touch with you, it sends a text. But if the endocrine system wants to send you a message, it will lick the stamp, write your address... and then a note... on pen, on paper... fold it up, and then mail it to you... via post office."

My LEAST FAVOURITE PART of the video was when they decided to put in a half-second scream randomly near the end of the video to demonstrate you not being able to control when you get scared, but your body reacts for you in different ways. Wow, if I was sleeping before, that definitely woke me up. Thanks, Hank. Thanks a lot.

Research and Experimentation - Crash Course #2

"To save the study of our minds from the stupidity of our minds."

Episode 2 of Crash Course Psychology remains consistent so far with the general introduction when delving into psychology, often being chapter 2 of many of my PSY courses.

This chapter has often been the one I disliked the most, being inherently boring to me since I am neither a stickler for numbers nor the precise ways to go about experimenting rather than what happens in the experiment itself. However, Hank (the narrator) continues to be witty and funny and keep me interested in the video, despite me at first wanting to get this one over with as quickly as possible. He includes only the important concepts within this 10 minute video while saying it in breezy non-textbook-like form. He still manages to keep all the important terms though.

Essentially, he emphasized that many of us humans are stupid and our intuition is more often than not very and completely wrong. And being the sometimes overconfident person that I am, I feel like I needed to hear this again. Even after taking all the PSY and STA courses that I have, I still need to have this repeated to me, haha.

"Experimental group 2 gets 500 mg, more than a quad-shot of espresso dunked in a red bull."

Overall, the comment section seems to agree with me on the quality of this video, saying things like "this is an excellent and accurate rehash of introductory psychology" and "I wish I had Hank Green as my professor."

Intro to Psychology - Crash Course #1

Like all first classes, first chapters, and introductions, episode 1 of CrashCourse Psychology starts off it's series with the question of what psychology means and where it comes from including a brief overview of the many psychologists and behaviourists that contributed to the field of psychology throughout time. Everyone from B.F. Skinner to William James, and focusing a great deal on Siegmund Freud.

This method of introduction is very similar to the introductions to all the PSY courses I've taken, including PSY100, PSY270, PSY280, and PSY260 with it's chapter 1 focusing on philosophical roots and experimental psychologists. This is probably a very effective method of starting off psychology learning, considering I knew/remembered almost everything that was mentioned in this video from prior memory.

Not only this, the presentation of this information, even though I had already learned it, was kept captivating through the use of interesting dialogue and snappy side comments as well as flashy visual effects. I had to say, this is a very unique way of teaching and keeping learning interesting. The graphics are colourful and cute, and the information is said in a relatable way. It might just have been the way videos are, but it felt like he was talking to you one-on-one more so than the way lectures are normally taught, and this gives a nice personal feel.

The video ended off with a final definition of psychology being "The study of behaviour and mental processes". Overall, I think this video should be successful in getting people to find psychology interesting and it makes you want to watch and learn more. I certainly do.

Introduction

Hello. This blog will be talking about the Youtube channel Crash Course and reviewing it's content for the class PSY260. For these posts, I will go through a brief summary of what the video talked about, and then include my own comments about what I thought, what I learned, what I already knew, what I found interesting, and perhaps taking into consideration what other people in the video comments have put. These posts will be informal (in blog form) and will be posted semi-regularly. Thank you and look forward to this!