Snag Your Copy Sensation, Perception, And The Aging Process Drafted By Francis B. Colavita Conveyed In EText
Colavita is a researcher and psychological clinician, He has a lot to share in thelectures that comprise Sensation, Perception, and the Aging Process,
The methodology is direct, You must understand the physiology the brain, nervous system, etc, to understand the psychology. Colavita is a wellprepared and good speaker with a wealth of interesting insights and anecdotes,
However, this is not your usual survey course, There is a great deal of technical information and if you are short on preparation did you take basic anatomy or psychology you will not find parts of this easy to assimilate.
You will learn the significance of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the parietal lobe, the angular gyrus, Broca's area, agraphia, apraxia, proprioception, etc,
Colavita does get into the aging process in a number of lectures but you should not be mislead by the title to think that this is his prime purpose.
You will find out how the young differ from the elderly but integrating the bits and pieces is not what Colavita trying to accomplish,
Well done, but not quite my dish, Infascinating lectures, Professor Francis Colavita offers a biopsychological perspective on the way we humans navigate and react to the world around us in a process that is everchanging.
Our experiences are vastly different today than they were when we were children and our senses and brains were still developing and those experiences are becoming ever more different as we age, when natural changes alert us to the need to compensate, often in ways that are quite positive.
For example, children have many more taste receptors than adults, so they are more taste sensitive, Therefore it's both ironic and understandable that children often prefer bland food drawn from a small list of favorites to avoid being overwhelmed, Adults, on the other hand, lose taste receptors as they age, so getting older often moves us in the opposite direction, prompting us to try new varieties of ethnic cuisines and spicier foods.
One of the delights of this course is the balance of the reallife examples Professor Colavita gives and the crisp presentation of the physiological systems that explain those examples.
How do our sensory systems gather and process raw information from the world, enabling us to see, hear, smell, taste, or touch How do we keep our balance Or understand exactly where we are in space, so that we can reach for our morning coffee cup and not close our hands around empty space
How do our bodies create motor memories that allow us to learn and then automatically perform the most complex taskssuch as the laboriously practiced elements of a golf swingin one smoothly executed motion, or run through a series of rapid gear shifts while driving on a winding mountain road
What sort of sensory system allows us to feel pain but also works to protect us from its most intense levels
Whether exploring the complex structures of the brain or inner ear, explaining with compassion the animal experiments that have given us so much knowledge of sensory systems, or using humorous personal anecdotes to illustrate a point, Professor Colavita delivers a course that informs, entertains, and even prepares us for the changes that lie ahead.
Dr Colavito's lectures provide a clear, concise and fascinating set of lectures that plainly explains the differences between sensations and how we perceive interpret those sensations, Most of the lectures deal with the physiology of how we collect data via our sensory 'organs' eyes, nose, fingers, etc, breaking down how these organs work, This takes upof thelectures, The last three or four lectures touch on how the sensations are transmitted to the brain and how different parts of the brain break down the sensations into perceptions.
The good professor clearly points out that our perceptions might not always reflect reality that's the job of our sensations, but rather reflect our interpretation of those sensations based upon our prior experiences with those stimuli.
Another aspect of the course, one in which is incorporated into the title, is how sensations and their perceptions are influenced by the aging process, Well, no surprise here! As we age our sensational organs become less efficient, . . we see more poorly, hear less well, and often forget our Right Guard, But what about our perceptions, . . do we transition smoothly from 'wise guy' to 'wise man', . . or does our brain deteriorate along with our senses Or maybe it's a little of both,
Good set of lectures, . . I like the kind that make you think, . . and have a bit of humor sprinkled in just for the fun of it, the course guide it's pretty good. I thought the audio version was great, . . but since I didn't watch the video, I have no way of knowing which would be the better choice, I do know that this set is often on sale, and coupons can only add to that pleasant sensation of knowing that you saved some money,
A wonderful set of lectures investigating the senses,
and the effect of age on all of our sensory systems, Very welldone fascinating. I will relisten often. So many new things to not look forward to as I age, Yay. Professor Colavita was so charming and bumbly and professorlike that I wanted to see what he was up to these days so I googled him, Well, he's dead, and it makes me very sad and very angry, He and his wife were hit by a drunk driver she died on Valentine's Day and he died a couple of days after, This happened aboutyears after these lectures were published, It was untimely, sudden, and tragic, He talked about his wife and little parts of his personal life while lecturing about the senses and aging and then they were wiped off the earth, How cruel this blasted world is, These lectures provide a physiological approach to the study of psychology, In other words, the lectures explore what is going on inside our physical bodies that prompts various types of perception and behavior, It then describes how these change with the aging process, One significant observation made in the lectures is that old and young people live in different sensory worlds, And consequently, they also live in different perceptual worlds,
The firstlectures in this course expand on the difference between a sensation and a perception and elaborate on the concept of the perceptual world, The functioning of the visual, auditory, and cutaneous systems, and the changes in functioning associated with the aging process, are also discussed,
The lastlectures deal with the senses of pain, taste, smell, body orientation balance, and "muscle feedback, " Special categories of human perception, such as speech perception, face recognition, and person perception, are also be addressed, As in the initiallectures, attention is paid to the role of the aging process,
Mr. Colavita was an older man when he gave these lectures, and his lectures are filled with many interesting stories, many from his own life, This makes the lectures especially interesting and easy to listen to, The lectures on the elusive nature of pain were particularly interesting, Unfortunately, Mr. Colavita died earlier this year,
The following are some interesting facts that I picked up from this course:
, A healthy human ear can sense the movement of an air molecule sound wave as small as half the width of a hydrogen atom, In case you didn't know, that is very very small,
. Cats can do better. They can hear ultrasound and humans cannot,
. But humans can see colors cats cannot,
. Dogs can smell things at concentrations,times weaker than humans can,
. Bees can see ultraviolet light humans cannot,
. Likewise, some snakes can see infrared radiation humans cannot,
. Some behavioral differences among bees, cats, and humans are directly attributable to the fact that these species live in different sensory worlds while living in the same physical world.
. The sensory differences and resulting differences in perception between young and old people explains the differences in behavior such as the willingness to take risks or roller coaster rides.
. All sensory functions in humans degrade with age to some degree, However the learned perception that results from the senses can become wiser with age, For example, older people depend less on appearance than younger people when forming an opinion of others,
. Another example of the difference between older and younger people is that older people are more interested in spicier foods because it compensates for they're having fewer taste receptors.
This also explains why children, who have more taste receptors than adults, often prefer bland food,
Really good course by a really good instructor, researcher and clinician Dr, Francis Colavita. The course answers the following:
, How do sensory receptors translate data from the environment i, e. light, sound, chemical, or tactile stimuli into signals that the brain can utilize
, How does the brain integrate bind sense data into perceptions experienced as reality
, How does the aging process change our sensory world, and subsequently, our perceived reality
Some of the particularly eye opening material in the course had to do with the differentiation Dr.
Colavita made between sensation and perception,
Sensation refers to raw or socalled bottom up input coming directly to the brain from the sensory organs,
Perception refers to the processed or socalled top down explicit experience of the sensations,
Sensation and perception change over a lifespan, eliciting analogous behavioral and personality change,
It sounds terribly commonsensical in this form, but I found the argument to be particularly revelatory because of the many counterintuitive examples Dr, Colavia provided.
Although I have had graduate level training in biological psychology, and a good amount of self study in neuroscience, the instructors argument and presentation of the materiel brought me to a much deeper, much different understanding of the way our sensory capacities contribute to our psychological experiences and behaviors.
My previous training was focused on either a lower level organization e, g. biological form and function etc, or higher level organization e, g. cognition, emotion, motivation, behavior, pathology etc, This course did a nice job a spanning the gap,
The course was really great in parts, but less great in others, Data has a shelf life, Neuroscience has made quantum leaps in the previous decade,
Most of the data in the course was fresh, but some of the important data was a little on the stale side,
So Im dinging the course bystar, for an ultimately very respectablestar total,
Dont let that prevent you from getting the course, Its quite good. Just be forewarned.
What a great guy! I loved his readiness to present information on our senses' workings with constant gesturing, as well as his smiling at his own stories while animations wouldn't hurt, this is exemplary use of hands while talking.
IMO, he met his "instructional goals for the course":
, To expose us to enough sensory physiology that we could understand how our receptors take various forms of physical energy from the world and translate it into a language that the brain understands.
. To give us some insight into how the brain takes the sense data provided by our sensory systems and integrates it with our previous experiences and creates our perceptions which form our reality.
. To share with us ways in which the aging process can change our sensory world and our perceptual world,
. For us to have some fun during these lectures,
Contents
Colavita FBx:Sensation, Perception, and the Aging Process
, Sensation, Perception, and Behavior
, Sensation and Perception A Distinction
, Vision Stimulus and the Optical System
, Vision The Retina
. Vision Beyond the Optic Nerve
, Vision AgeRelated Changes
. Hearing Stimulus and Supporting Structures
, Hearing The Inner Ear
, Hearing AgeRelated Changes
. The Cutaneous System Receptors, Pathways
, The Cutaneous System Early Development
, The Cutaneous System AgeRelated Changes
, Pain Early History
. Pain Acupunture, Endorphins, and Aging
, Taste Stimulus, Structures, and Receptors
, Taste Factors Influencing Preferences
, Smell The Unappreciated Sense
, Smell Consequences of Anosmia
, The Vestibular System Body Orientation
, The Kinesthetic Sense Motor Memory
, Brain Mechanisms and Perception
, Perception of Language
. The Visual Agnosias
. Perception of Other People Course Summary,