Psychology

Conditioning and Learning in Everyday Experience

Jerome Frieman

The basic concepts of Pavlovian and operant conditioning are presented in the context of common everyday examples.

Memory and the Brain

Stephen W. Kiefer, Director, University Honors Program and Professor of Psychology

In this lecture, I talk about recent work that has been done, primarily in humans, that has identified specific brain structures with particular memory processes. The base of this knowledge was traditionally from the unfortunate instances of brain trauma but newer techniques (e.g., functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI) have allowed us to look into the functioning brains of individuals with “normally” functioning brains.

The goal of the presentation is to impart some of the newest knowledge that neuroscientists have gained about memory function but a large part of the lecture is answering questions. In my experience, students have a large number of questions and misconceptions about brain function and these lectures are always a fun and enjoyable way to discuss and clarify many issues.

Studying a Person with an Extraordinary Memory

Jerome Frieman

Rajan Mahedevan was in the Guinness book of World Records for nine years for correctly reciting the first 31,811 digits of pi. The focus of this presentation is how we studied his memory skills and what we learned about his extraordinary memory.