critical psychology General Psychology Teaching Theoretical Psychology

Systems & Theories Class (Fall 2019)

What was unique about this semester: We discussed Brian Haig’s (2014) Investigating the Psychological World. A few students got involved with the book, but I think most students focused only on the chapter they were responsible for. I kept returning to the question, Why did Haig write this book? (especially given that psychological researchers don’t need to read such a book to perform their research activities). And I wanted the students to at least be…

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book review General Psychology metaphysics philosophy of science Teaching Theoretical Psychology

Video Series on Brian Haig’s (2014) Book

I am making a video series (“study guide”) about Brian Haig‘s Book, Investigating the Psychological World: Scientific Method in the Behavioral Sciences. We are reading the book with my students in the course, Systems & Theories in Psychology. Most of the students in that class are in their final year and are doing a final-year research project. I will be going through the book chapter by chapter, devoting two videos to each chapter. Feel free…

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Academia General Psychology Theoretical Psychology

Data as License to Speak

During the TRACE workshop in Würzburg, I listened to a talk by Dr. Jakob Kaiser, a young and well-spoken cognitive neuroscientist based in Munich. Jakob gave a talk on sensory attenuation, i.e., reduced response/sensitivity to a stimulus, which can be observed for stimuli caused by oneself (this is why you cannot tickle yourself). Jakob argued that sensory attenuation does not necessary reflect sense of agency or causal self-attribution. That is, if response to stimulus S1…

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