Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Biology Of Reality Testing - Implications For Cognitive Education, Neil Greenberg

Faculty Publications and Other Works -- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

• This report explores the proposition that teaching effectiveness can be enhanced by accommodating the key differences between two complementary and deeply engrained modes of reality testing, each predominantly centered in different hemispheres of the brain. • (1) Correspondence involves “reality-testing” of a percept, the cerebral representation of an experience in the world. • (2) Coherence involves “textualizing”, that is, reality-testing of a percept by how easily it relates to previous and ongoing parallel and collateral experiences. • Confidence in the validity of any percept throughout development is related to the interplay of these key processes. • As organisms develop, …

"The Natural History Of Truth: The Neurobiology Of Belief", Neil Greenberg

Faculty Publications and Other Works -- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

The pursuit of truth is woven into the fabric of every organism*. Any estimate of how best to survive and thrive in the reality in which we are immersed requires a sense of self, of the world, and of their relationship to each other. I wish to explore the idea that this pursuit has at its heart two complementary modes of reality testing utilizing separate cerebral systems which deal, respectively with the correspondence of experience with the world and the coherence of the experience with previous experiences: “is it real” and “does it fit?” At multiple levels of the nervous …

Adaptive Functions Of The Corpus Striatum: The Past And Future Of The R-Complex, Neil Greenberg

Faculty Publications and Other Works -- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

The basal ganglia is emerging from the shadow cast by the most conspicuous clinical expression of its dysfunction: motor disorders.What is revealed is the nexus of a widely distributed system which functions in integrating action with cognition, motivation, and affect. Prominent among non-motor functions are striatal involvement in building up of sequences of behavior into meaningful, goal-directed patterns and repertoires and the selection of appropriate learned or innate sequences in concert with their possible predictive control. Further, striatum seems involved in declarative and strategic memory (involving intentional recollection and the management of retrieved memories, respectively). Findings from reptile experiments indicate …

Ethological Aspects Of Stress In A Model Lizard, Anolis Carolinensis, Neil Greenberg

Faculty Publications and Other Works -- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Research on the stress response in reptiles can provide a useful comparative perspective for understanding how the constituent elements of the response can be put into service of diverse behavioral adaptations. A summary of the neural and endocrine causes and consequences of specific behavioral patterns seen in the small diurnal lizard, Anolis carolinensis, has provided a model for the exploration of the dynamics of autonomic and neurohormonal contributions to adaptive behavior.

In this species, changes in body color provide indices of the flux of circulating stress relevant hormones, and are seen in situations from spontaneous exploration through agonistic behavior. Furthermore, …

The Saurian Psyche Revisted: Lizards In Research, Neil Greenberg

Faculty Publications and Other Works -- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

This essay is intended to guide researchers interested in lizards as prospective experimental models to identify an appropriate species for their research needs and to care for lizards in a manner that will not compromise their utility. Coupled with these is a concern for critical thinking about the ethical dimension of lizard research, one guide for which is to consider the intersection of human needs and lizard needs.

Before proceeding further, several arbitrary premises must be made clear:

1. While wholly deserving of study because of their intrinsic interest, I will assume that the lizard research to be undertaken is …

Art, Science, Areté, Neil Greenberg

Faculty Publications and Other Works -- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

No abstract provided.

Ethological Considerations In The Experimental Study Of Lizard Behavior, Neil Greenberg

Faculty Publications and Other Works -- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

The importance of an ethological approach to the experimental study of an unfamiliar species is described and several of its problems discussed. The selection of units of behavior is a crucial first step in the development of a behavior inventory. The correlation of a behavioral unit with a particular context is necessary to ascribe function to that to that unit and to develop an ethogram. Methods of studying lizards under controlled conditions are described and discussed. Constraints on behavior that must be considered in an experimental study include the microclimate and its thermal qualities, food and water, shelter utilization, and …