Movement-Produced Stimulation in the Development of Visually Guided Behaviour - Held, R. and Hein, A. (1963)
If you were a judge in a case of violent crime and you were only allowed to know one fact about a defendant before you decided their case, would you rather know their hormone levels of where they came from? In other words, would you like to know about their nature or their nurture? Not sure? Neither were Held and Hein, so they did an experiment to find out...
A brief review and evaluation of the study can be found here and here. Uniview has a more detailed summary here, along with some practice questions for you to think about. Then...
Test your knowledge with this arcade game, this quizlet and these flashcards (made by Apreetha). Make sure you can define the following terms from memory:
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Held and Hein - control freaksHeld and Hein went to amazing lengths to try to control their experiment. A common exam question will ask you to describe these, and maybe to explain why they did so.
Make a list of all of the controls in the Held and Hein experiment. After you have done this, pick five controls and write an explanation for why that variable needed to be controlled. Try to use key psychological terms like "validity" in your explanation. |
Assignment 1 - Held and Hein and the nature/nurture debate
The nature/nurture debate is an argument about how many abilities and skills (and how much knowledge) we are born with, and how much we develop through experience after birth. The 'nature' side of the argument claims that many key skills will be present in a child from birth (they may be coded for in the child's genetics, for example). The 'nurture' side claim the opposite, that we are born with very little pre-determined information and that we have to learn most things through interacting with the environment.
Held and Hein, by showing that a change in the experience of the cats had a large impact on their visual development, supported a nurture view of the development of perception.
Held and Hein, by showing that a change in the experience of the cats had a large impact on their visual development, supported a nurture view of the development of perception.
Write three pieces of evidence from the study which support this claim.
However, things are rarely as simple as just supporting one side or the other, and supporters of the 'nature' argument would still be able to argue against this claim. Write two points that argue that nature might have still played a role in the results that Held and Hein found. Submit your answers through the form on the home page. (N.B. the second task here is hard! Don't despair if you struggle, but don't give up straight away either!) |
Alternative study - Held and Hein as a field experiment?Held and Hein conducted a lab experiment. An alternative methods of study would have been to do a field experiment.
1. Describe a field experiment as a research method in Psychology. (5) 2. How could they have conducted an experiment with a similar aim, but in the field? Write a description of the study, including the who, what, where and how. (10) 3. What would the advantages and disadvantages of such an experiment be, compared to the original? Evaluate this new study in methodological and ethical terms. (10) Submit your alternative study and evaluation through the form on the home page. |
Big Issue - Use of Animals in ResearchAbout 7-8% of psychological research involves animals, mainly rodents or birds and sometimes (though more rarely) primates, cats and dogs.
Basic ethical principles for animal research:
Of course... these guidelines are a little vague and debate can arise. Were Held and Hein justified in performing their experiment on the kittens? There was clear scientific value in doing the work and the results are very informative, but on the other hand Held and Hein stated that some of the kittens were never normal after the experiment. They were permanently harmed. What do you think? Contribute your thoughts on the forum. |
Assignment 2 - Animal experimentation exerciseRead the article 'Phew! How rats sigh when they're relieved' on the BPS research digest. This summarises research done on rats.
Write a short argument (half a page or so) saying whether you think this experiment was ethically justified based on the criteria given above. Was there clear scientific justification? Was every effort taken to minimize the suffering of the rats? When you have finished this (and not before), now read this response, by the psychologist in charge of the experiment. Add another half page of writing explaining whether or not the second article has changed your opinion, and why. Submit your assignment through the form on the home page. |
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RevisionEveryone loves quizlets. Here is another one! Use them to check your knowledge of the key details after watching the great revision video below... made by Sarah, Fatin and Nisha! Thanks guys!
Revision Assignment - Keywords GeneratorOne of the most difficult aspects of the Held and Hein study is the amount of technical vocabulary used.
Make a list of 15 key words from the study and their definitions. Access the 'BrainyBox' page on Classtools.net by following this link. I want you to enter the definitions and the keyword. Put three or four on each page. Also include any pictures that you think are helpful. You will create a page where the key words and their definitions rotate and change place. Once you've finished, save your page and then email me the link for your page. Can you make a better one than the two embedded in here...? |
ExtensionPeter Singer is a philosopher of ethics who has written a great deal about 'speciesism', the idea that as humans we have more rights or are more important than other animals. Singer feels that this is not a justifiable position. Do you agree?
The technical term for the brain changing its organisation and structure in response to environmental changes is neuroplasticity. We used to think that the brain could only do this in childhood, but in the last few years researchers have started to find many examples in the adult brain as well. Here is a good introduction to how it happens. |