ESP Claims Revealed as Hoaxes

Since class time did not allow for viewing these videos, I thought I would post them here. As your book describes, and as we discussed in class, psychologists remain skeptical about claims of Extrasensory Perception (ESP) for a number of reasons. They include:

• Numerous studies indicating that supposed "psychics" do no better than chance in predicting outcomes or "receiving" sent telepathic messages.
• Despite a lot of incentives that have been offered in order to solicit reliable demonstrations of psychic abilities in laboratory settings, no one has been able to do so. (For example, see James Randi's Million Dollar Challenge). 
• Many claims of psychic abilities have been revealed to be hoaxes. Not only can many supposed "psychic" phenomena be created through clever tricks and planning, but sometimes "mediums" and "psychics" have been fairly publicly revealed to be frauds.  Some examples are included below.

Yuri Geller, who claimed to be able to mentally bend spoons and manipulate the weights of objects, was called out for this hoax while appearing as a guest on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

Likewise, the BBC caught some supposed "mediums" in the act of spoofing their abilities by cleverly designing a fake website for a factory that the mediums then took "readings" from.

Sensation & Perception Review Tools

Hi all!

With your Sensation & Perception test approaching rapidly, you'll want to take some time to review all of the terms, concepts, and theories from this substantial unit. In addition to the Study Guide you received in class, and the handout on commonly confused term pairs from this unit, you may want to use the links below to aid your review. Good luck!

General Review

• Practice MC Questions on Sensation - test your knowledge of Ch. 5 (sensation)
• Practice MC Questions on Perception - test your knowledge of Ch. 6 (perception)
• Quizlet Flashcards/Games for Sensation & Perception

By Topic

• How the Ear Works - a video review of ear anatomy & function.
• How the Eye Works - a little more in-depth than our in-class discussion, but still helpful.
• Video Review: Psychophysics 
• Absolute Thresholds - quick, online module
• Synesthesia Video - What is Synesthesia?
• Depth Perception - review video (includes several binocular & monocular cues)

PsychSim on Visual Illusions

For Tuesday, December 17, you will be completing this worksheet using the PsychSim on Visual Illusions.

After playing around with the popular and long-researched visual illusions on the PsychSim, you might enjoy visiting the Best Visual Illusion of the Year website, which hosts an annual contest with entries from visual cognition labs. There are some good ones on there, some of which I will show in class. :)

Auditory Processes PsychSim & Sensation Activities

For Monday, you will be completing this homework assignment using the PsychSim 5 Module on the Auditory System. You will learn about properties of sound waves and how the ear responds to these properties to create our experience of hearing. Complete the ear diagram you received in class as you work through the module. Once you have finished the module, you may wish to play around with these fun hearing links:

• Test out your difference threshold for pitch using this online test.
• Check out this interactive module about the work of Georg Von Bekesy, a Nobel Prize winner who made important discoveries about how the cochlea works to allow us to discriminate pitch. You also get to play a game with this one. :)
• A fan favorite: the backmasking in music site. 

If you're still looking for more sensation-related challenges, here are a few we've used/talked about in class recently:

• This one allows you to test your absolute threshold for visual processing. 
• A color blindness test