Psych Explorer 1

SPARTANBURG COMMUNITY COLLEGE

PSYCH EXPLORER SOCIAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT

Volume 1, Issue 2 Fall 2014

Word Clouding

By D.K. Williams, M.A.

―Word clouds‖ are becoming more and more popular, showing up on web sites, promotional materials, even

our own Spartanburg Community College home page. In case you are not familiar with a word cloud, they

are essentially a picture consisting of words in which the frequency with

which a word occurs determines its size. Color and design characteris-

tics may also be used to group information and show relationships be-

tween words. Figure 1 below is a word cloud produced by copying and

pasting my first lecture this semester in General Psychology into a word

cloud maker at http://www.wordle.net. This is a free site, but given that

it uses Java, it is a bit awkward to download your word cloud. You will

need to take a screen shot.

Word clouds are quite flexible for pedagogical purposes. For example,

in a freewriting exercise, Kitchens (2014) utilized word clouds as a pre

and post measure of students’ understanding of ―anarchy.‖ In my online

Human Relations class this term, I put students in groups and asked each

group to develop a word cloud addressing a course-relevant question

such as ―Identify characteristics of an ethical organization,‖ ―Describe

your dream job,‖ etc. Word clouds might also be utilized in qualitative

research.

Presented in this article are two additional word clouds generated with

online word cloud makers.

The word cloud in Figure 2 is from http://www.tagxedo.com An ad-

vantage of this site is ease of downloading. For free use this site asks

that their URL information be included.

The final image, Figure 3, was made from http://textisbeautiful.net. A cool option, which is demonstrated

below, is a ―Correlation Wheel,‖ in which correlated words are connected by lines. This feature, however,

does require a minimum of 5,000 words (Maximum = 100,000). A disadvantage is that it suffers from the

same awkward download situation as with wordle.net. (Figure 3 shown on page 2)

Reference

Kitchens, M.B. (2014) Word clouds: an informal assessment of student learning. College Teaching, 62, 113-114.

Continued from page 1

Psych Explorer 2

―Correlation Wheel‖

http://textisbeautiful.net.

~PSYCH NEWS~

Dr. Leonetta Hartwell, adjunct psychology instructor at SCC, was conferred on 18 August 2014

receiving her PhD in General Psychology from Capella University. Her dissertation is entitled

“Assessment of Depression, Anxiety and Stress Among Community Technical College Students

Lacking Mental Health Services.”

Dr. Nancy Anderson, adjunct psychology instructor at SCC, and Evelyn Williams, wife of SCC

instructor, David Williams, participated in the standardization of the recently released

Diagnostic Achievement Battery—4th Edition (DAB-4), a well-known individually-

administered achievement test. Approximately 80 local school children were evaluated as part

of the national norming of the instrument.

Melissa Morton, Ed.S., has been named Program Director for Psychology in the Social Sciences

Department.

Congratulations to you all!

Psych Explorer 3

~WHAT’S YOUR OPINION~

By Amber Ferrell

Capgras delusion or syndrome is a

disorder that some people have in

which they believe that a relative or

friend has been replaced by an

identical impostor. The most common

holders of this disorder are patients

diagnosed with paranoid

schizophrenia. The delusion has also

been seen in people that suffer from

dementia, brain injury,

neurodegenerative disease, and has

also been associated with diabetes,

hypothyroidism, and migraine attacks.

The question is, what causes it? Some

psychologists have studied patients

with capgras delusion and many have

ideas on the cause. Prosopagnosia is a

condition in which people are unable

to identify faces consciously, but

showed autonomic arousal to familiar

faces (unconsciously recognizing

faces). Psychologists Ellis and Young

published a paper hypothesizing that

the capgras delusion has conscious

recognition, but the system that

produces automatic emotional arousal

to familiar faces may be damaged.

During a study, photos of familiar

faces followed by those of strangers

had the same low levels of autonomic

response. Others have proposed links

between the Capgras syndrome and

deficits in aspects of memory, as some

patients believed objects in pictures

were new every time they looked at

them, the feelings that should have

been there, even if it were close

people, a familiar object, or even the

person itself. There are many links to

other delusions, diseases, and

damages to the brain. What do you

think is the cause?

Bier, Deborah PhD. Capgras and Dementia: The

Imposter Syndrome. Psych Central. 2014.

WikiProject Psychology. Aug 2014. https://

FAILURE TO LAUNCHPAD

By

Melissa Morton, Ed.S.

This past summer PSY 201 piloted LaunchPad

which is replacing PsychPortal. LaunchPad

worked well and students’ feedback to it was

positive. The decision was made to implement

LaunchPad in all PSY 201 courses for the fall

semester. Unfortunately, it appears that other

colleges who use the same book as ours had

the same idea. The system running LaunchPad

evidently wasn’t able to handle the large num-

ber of users on the system. This coupled with

the usual bugs that occur in new products re-

sulted in several weeks of frustration for both

students and faculty. {Note: Two students re-

ported recently, October 27th and 28th) that

they can no longer access Launchpad despite

having done so previously. –Ed.}

Another issue with LaunchPad is it requires an

access code to use it. New books come pack-

aged with an access code which can only be

used one time. The cost of a stand-alone access

code and a used book would exceed the cost a

new book which would mean the Book Inn

would not buy back used PSY 201 books. As a

result, the decision was made to discontinue

use of LaunchPad beginning in the spring se-

mester. This will allow students to resell their

Psych Explorer 4

THE CASE OF “LITTLE ALBERT” SOLVED – AGAIN!

By

D.K. Williams, M.A.

At some point in the semester, every student taking General Psychology learns about one of the most famous

experiments (or perhaps ―infamous‖) in American psychology—the Little Albert study. As Professor Myers

points out in Chapter 7 of Exploring Psychology, 9th ed. (2014, p. 245), the fate of this child was unknown

until research by Beck, Levinson, and Irons (2009) made a strong case for the infant to be a Douglas Merritte,

who died at age six. It was thought that Watson and Rayner (1920) protected the identity of the infant by us-

ing the pseudonym, ―Albert B.‖ (Named for Watson’s grandfather).

However, in a recently published study, Powell, Digdon, Harris, and Smithson (2014) challenge the idea that

Douglas Merritte was Little Albert. They discovered another child, born on the same day as Merritte, who

participated in the experiment—Albert Barger. They present quite compelling evidence to support this suppo-

sition besides the obvious similarity in name. If Albert Barger, who later changed his name to William Albert

Martin, was indeed the famous Little Albert of Watson and Rayner’s study, then his fate was a much happier

one. According to his niece, Albert Martin became a salesman and was a good singer. He was also an easy-

going person who disliked animals. Is the latter a lingering effect of his conditioning by Watson and Rayner?

It is unlikely that Martin knew that he was psychology’s mystery child for the better part of a century. He

passed away in 2007. Perhaps future research will settle the identity of Little Albert once and for all—or, add

to the mystery.

References

Beck, H.P., Levinson, S., & Irons, G. (2009). Finding Little Albert: A journey to John B. Watson’s

infant laboratory. American Psychologist, 64, 605-614. doi: 10.1037a0017234

Myers, D.G. (2014). Exploring Psychology, 9th ed. New York, N.Y.: Worth.

Powell, R.A., Digdon, N., Harris, B., & Smithson, C. (2014). Correcting the record on Watson, Rayner,

and Little Albert. American Psychologist, 69, 600-611.

Watson, J.B., & Rayner, R. (1920). Conditioned emotional reactions.

Journal

of Exper-

imental Psy-

chol ogy, 3, 1-14. doi: 10.1037/h0069608

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/nich0185/myblog2/2012/01/baby-little-albert-experiment---how-unethical.html

http://rileyandjames.com/2011/05/laboratory-animals-are-exotic-pets-on-a-different-life-path/

Psych Explorer 5

FUN STUFF!

Here are links to online psychology experiments that YOU may be able to participate in:

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2008/08/18/top-ten-online-psychology-experiments/

http://psych.hanover.edu/research/exponnet.html

INTERESTING ARTICLES!

Hard-working SCC student, John Harris, accepts apprenticeship at Cooper Standard.

Harris uses his Air Force background to learn mechatronics. NPR’s article ―In South

Carolina, A Program That Makes Apprenticeships Work,‖ explains it.

http://www.npr.org/2014/11/06/361136336/in-south-carolina-a-program-that-makes-

apprenticeships-work

Dave Collingridge, a senior research statistician for a large healthcare organization,

writes in Methodspace’s new blog, ―Questionaire Validation in a Nutshell.‖ For those that

are searching to find out how to validate the questions in your survey, Collingridge has

the answers!

http://www.npr.org/2014/11/06/361136336/in-south-carolina-a-program-that-makes-

apprenticeships-work

Neuroscience era begins! New tools have been invented that are enabling neuroscientists

to make measurements of the nervous system that were simply unimaginable 10 years

ago. Science fiction is becoming a reality. Some tools can possibly help identify changes

in the brain’s circuitry during early stages of Alzheimer’s. These collaborations aim to

develop treatments for the disease before the onset of cognitive impairment. Follow link

for more information:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141117110702.htm

Loss of a night’s sleep may lead to significant errors in memory. Experiments were

conducted to evaluate how insufficient sleep affected memory. The results are

Faculty Editor: D.K. Williams, M.A.

Student Editor: Amber Ferrell

PSYCH EXPLORER