BOOKS FOR PSYCHOLOGY CLASS
  • Books for Psychology Class
  • Blog
  • Contact/Submissions
  • Other Psychology Websites
  • For Students

We are Thankful for our readers!

11/30/2019

0 Comments

 
We are thankful for our readers! As we approach posting a review and activity on our 100th book, we would like to hear from our readers. Please consider taking a short survey (4 questions) and enter your name into a drawing for a gift card.  Submissions will be accepted until the new year.

https://forms.gle/TyNJk2zAgKgJS15s9
Picture
0 Comments

Deviate:  The Creative Power of Transforming your perception

11/20/2019

0 Comments

 
Deviate:  The Science of Seeing Differently
Author:  Beau Lotto
ISBN:  978-1-474-60033-7
 
APA Style Citation
Lotto, B (2017).  Deviate:  The science of seeing differently.  London:  Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Orion Publishing Group Ltd.
 
Buy this Book 
https://www.amazon.com/Deviate-Science-Differently-Beau-Lotto/dp/1478909161
​
Picture
open_your_class_with_this_tomorrow-_deviate.pdf
File Size: 43 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

​Book Description
We often think of perception as the sum of our sensory inputs, but Beau Lotto turns that on its head and suggests that what you view as reality is, in fact, based in large part on prior expectations of what you see, hear, touch taste and smell.  In Deviate, Lotto sets out to help us understand how our brain processes new information and makes meaning of it.  Lotto’s research into neuroscience allows him to utilize his 25 years of research experience, much comes from the Lab of Misfits, which he founded at the Science Museum of London to explore, “how we see and why we see what we do.”  Lotto indicates that the word Deviate has many negative connotation, but in fact, he proposes that nothing new ever occurs without active doubt.  Lotto purports that deviance is a positive way of looking at the world through a different perspective, which can lead to a broader understanding of reality.  
 
Lotto points to the famous dress incident that was an internet sensation a few years back.  While some were convinced that the dress was blue and black, others were convinced that it was white and gold.  Everyone saw the same dress, but came away with different perceptions.  More recently, the “Laurel/Yanny” phenomenon caused the same uproar, but for auditory rather than visual perception.  We often believe that our truth is the same as others.  As Plato illustrates in the Allegory of the Cave, we may never know the truth unless we can perceive something from all perspectives, which is impossible because of our prior experiences with the world.  Our reality is highly subjective; Lotto makes the analogy to driving in a mobile home and taking in information through our senses by looking out the windows.  We can move the mobile home to get a better view, but we will never experience the whole of something without stepping outside of the mobile home.  
 
Similarly, our experiences no matter how extensive, will never give us a full view of the world so, in order to make sense of our daily experiences, we must rely not just on our senses, but also on our prior knowledge. Without this mechanism, our world would be chaos because our mind could not keep up with the onslaught of incoming information. If you are reading subtitles as you watch a movie, and run across the word f*%@ing, you have a pretty good idea that something vulgar has been said, even though most of the word is made up of symbols.  Letters only take on meaning based on our prior learning and use of combining letters into words and words into meaningful units.  
 
 
 
Russians perceive red with greater discrimination than English speakers because the word choices in the Russian language are more nuanced in this area.  Similarly, many English speakers cannot roll a Spanish r and do not hear the difference because they have not encountered these sounds before.  We now know that Western societies differ in their eye movements from those from Eastern societies.  Asians extract visual information more holistically, while Westerners view objects more analytically.  Lotto argues that, “context is everything” and indicates that we must learn not what to see but rather how to look in order to gain a more complete understanding of the world in which we live.  Our prior experiences can also change our internal biological mechanisms. This was demonstrated by a famous study conducted by Rosenzweig in which rats were placed into either an enriched or deprived environment for ten weeks.  At the conclusion of the study, those in an enriched environment had a thicker cerebral cortex, while those in the deprived environment had a thinner cerebral cortex with fewer neural connections.  These types of life experiences have unfortunately been found in humans from Romanian orphanages and cases of severe neglect often with similar results.  In some cases, when removed from these environments, the children caught up to normal developmental landmarks but their memory, inhibition, and visualization still lacked behind others.  
 
Our brains allow us to imagine the world and its possibilities as we experience it like no one else. We can create new perceptions by creating stories as children often do.  These can seem realistic and add to our future interpretations of the world.  We sometimes misperceive the world, perhaps imagining motion where none exists, such as in the phi phenomenon or the autokinetic effect.  Because of our cognitive biases, Lotto argues that we do not have access to reality but we can use this lack of reality to unleash creativity and see the world in new and different ways that will continue to allow for new inventions and thinking unbounded by expectations.  Travel opens our minds to new realities, and if one cannot travel, they can travel in their mind, which can achieve similar results.  Lotto uses the example of the backward brain bicycle (see resources) to demonstrate how we can learn to change our brain with continual practice.  We can look for reasons that do not support our existing schemas but rather, challenge what we think we know.  We can question others and ask why we should believe what we think we know instead of giving into the confirmation bias.  Lotto refers to this as courageous intervention.  This courageous intervention is what Lotto means when he encourages us to Deviate.
 
 
Psychological Figures and Concepts 
Charles Darwin
Rene Descartes
John Gottman
Carl Jung
Plato
 
Additive color mixing
Auditory cortex
Autokinetic effect
Cerebral cortex
Cerebral hemispheres
Cognitive maps        
Cognitive rehearsal
Cognitive scientists
Confirmation bias
Conformity
Conscientiousness
Creativity
Delusion
Dopamine
Empiricism
Epigenetics
Evolution
fMRI
Grey matter
Habituation
Illusion
Mindfulness
Neurons
Neurogenetics
Neural networks
Neuroscience
Random sampling
Rubber hand illusion
Perceptual neuroscience
Phenotype
Phi phenomenon
Priming
Sensory receptors
Tabula rsa
Thalamus
Trial and eror
Visual cliff
Visual cortex
Wavelengths
 
Other Related Resources:
Talks at Google:  Beau Lotto “Deviate”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQUgGg9XzbQ
 
Lab of Misfits
https://www.labofmisfits.com/our-team
 
Deviate:  The Science of Seeing Things Differently
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZc0oWjA3Ho
 
Big Think
https://bigthink.com/u/beau-lotto
 
The Washington Post:  Why our Grasp of Reality is Fragile
https://www.washingtonpost.com
 
Apple Podcasts:  The Science of Seeing Differently
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-38-beau-lotto-deviate-the-science-of-seeing-differently/id1011637188?i=1000385502985
 
Quartz:  A neuroscientist explains why we can’t see the world objectively
https://qz.com/973116/a-neuroscientist-explains-why-we-evolved-to-be-curious/
 
Backward Brain Bicycle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0
 
 
 
 
0 Comments

    Categories

    All
    Biological Psychology
    Cognition/Learning
    Consciousness
    Development
    Disorders/Treatment
    Educational Psychology
    Health Psychology
    Motivation/Emotion
    Positive Psychology
    Research And Statistics
    Sensation/Perception
    Social Psychology/Personality
    Testing And Individual Differences

    Authors

    Laura Brandt, Nancy Fenton, and Jessica Flitter are AP Psychology instructors. Nancy Fenton teaches at  Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois, Laura Brandt teaches at Libertyville High School in Libertyville Illinois and Jessica Flitter teachers at West Bend East High School in West Bend, Wisconsin.
    If you are interested in reviewing a book for the blog or have comments or questions, please e-mail us at either [email protected] or [email protected] or [email protected].

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    June 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    July 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014

Proudly powered by Weebly