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Full-Text Articles in Psychology
Neural Reuse: A Fundamental Organizational Principle Of The Brain, Michael Anderson
Neural Reuse: A Fundamental Organizational Principle Of The Brain, Michael Anderson
Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications
An emerging class of theories concerning the functional structure of the brain takes the reuse of neural circuitry for various cognitive purposes to be a central organizational principle. According to these theories, it is quite common for neural circuits established for one purpose to be exapted (exploited, recycled, redeployed) during evolution or normal development, and be put to different uses, often without losing their original functions. Neural reuse theories thus differ from the usual understanding of the role of neural plasticity (which is, after all, a kind of reuse) in brain organization along the following lines: According to neural reuse, …
You And Me Baby Ain't Nothing But Mammals: Disgust, Evolution, And The Transcendence Of An Immaterial Soul, Sara G. Gottlieb
You And Me Baby Ain't Nothing But Mammals: Disgust, Evolution, And The Transcendence Of An Immaterial Soul, Sara G. Gottlieb
Psychology Honors Projects
Materialist theories of mind are disturbing for those who endorse the idea that an immortal soul is distinct from the material body. Many argue for a uniqueness of the human spirit that transcends bodily qualities. The present research focuses on the rejection of human evolution from the perspective of disgust, which has both a physical (body) and moral (soul) component and is elicited by objects that remind us of both death and animals. Study 1 asked whether those primed to feel disgusted would show an implicit preference for creationism over evolution on an Implicit Associations Test but failed to find …
A Conceptual Guide To Natural History Museum Visitors’ Understanding Of Evolution, E. Margaret Evans, Amy N. Spiegel, Wendy Gram, Brandy N. Frazier, Medha Tare, Sarah Thompson, Judy Diamond
A Conceptual Guide To Natural History Museum Visitors’ Understanding Of Evolution, E. Margaret Evans, Amy N. Spiegel, Wendy Gram, Brandy N. Frazier, Medha Tare, Sarah Thompson, Judy Diamond
Department of Educational Psychology: Faculty Publications
Museum visitors are an ideal population for assessing the persistence of the conceptual barriers that make it difficult to grasp Darwinian evolutionary theory. In comparison with other members of the public, they are more likely to be interested in natural history, have higher education levels, and be exposed to the relevant content. If museum visitors do not grasp evolutionary principles, it seems unlikely that other members of the general public would do so. In the current study, 32 systematically selected visitors to three Midwest museums of natural history provided detailed open-ended explanations of biological change in seven diverse organisms. They …
The Future Of Natural Selection Knowledge Measurement: A Reply To Anderson Et Al. (2010), Ross Nehm, Irvin Sam Schonfeld
The Future Of Natural Selection Knowledge Measurement: A Reply To Anderson Et Al. (2010), Ross Nehm, Irvin Sam Schonfeld
Publications and Research
The development of rich, reliable, and robust measures of the composition, structure, and stability of student thinking about core scientific ideas (such as natural selection) remains a complex challenge facing science educators. In their recent article (Nehm & Schonfeld 2008), the authors explored the strengths, weaknesses, and insights provided by a detailed exploration of three commonly used measures of student thinking about natural selection in a large sample of underrepresented minority students. One of their core findings was that all of the tools they studied--including the CINS--have strengths and weaknesses that must be carefully taken into consideration by those …