Editor's note: This is part of an occasional series in which
reporters drop in on interesting classes
throughout the university's nine academic divisions. Suggestions
are welcome at
gazette@jhu.edu.
The course: An interactive, multimedia lecture course
offered by Psychological and
Brain Sciences and
cross-listed with Public
Health and Film and
Media Studies, all in the Krieger School of Arts and
Sciences. About 50 students meet in the Krieger Hall Auditorium.
3 credits.
Meeting time: Thursdays from 1 to 3:30 p.m., fall 2007
The instructor:
Amy Lynne Shelton, who joined the
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences as
an assistant professor in January 2002 and has been director of
its undergraduate studies since
2004. She also has a joint appointment in the School of
Medicine's Solomon H. Snyder Department of
Neuroscience. A graduate of Illinois State University with a
doctorate in cognitive psychology from
Vanderbilt University, Shelton studies how information about
spatial layout is acquired and
represented in the brain. In particular, she's interested in how
differences in spatial experiences
affect the representation of spatial information. In addition to
her research, teaching and advising
duties, Shelton is in her second year as the university's
inaugural Charles Commons Faculty Fellow,
residing in the new Homewood campus upperclassman housing
facility with her husband and son. Her
teaching assistant is Arnold Bakker, a graduate student in
Psychological and Brain Sciences who works
in Craig Stark's lab, studying the cognitive neuroscience of
learning and memory.
Syllabus and course work: Separating fact from fiction is
the mission behind Brain Myths & Folk
Psychology. Crime-scene investigators on television dramas throw
around scientific terms with such
frequency and conviction that the average viewer of all three Law
& Order shows might walk away
feeling like he or she had earned an advanced degree between
commercial breaks. In addition, action-
movie heroes often rely on scientific "facts" to determine who
the bad guys are. For instance, Samuel
L. Jackson's character in The Negotiator proclaims to know that a
man is lying by watching where his
eyes drift when he responds to questioning. If he looks up and to
the right during an interrogation,
indicating that he's accessing his brain's "creative centers,"
the man is fibbing; if he looks up and to
the left, he is accessing the visual cortex and telling the
truth, Jackson's character smugly says. Too
bad the science is all wrong — the visual cortex is
actually located in the back of the brain, not in the
front and to the left, Shelton says. That's just one example of
how the media often skewers the facts
and spins misconceptions about how the brain works.
To that end, the primary goal of the course is "to explore
popular notions about the brain and
psychology and to discuss what science has actually revealed
about them," Shelton wrote in the
syllabus. Along the way, students learn major concepts, ask
questions and research techniques in
cognitive and systems neuroscience. Although the course might
burst a few Hollywood bubbles, it
doesn't spoil the fun — Shelton illustrates her points with
TV and movie clips on the big screen in
Krieger Hall's auditorium and prepares interactive demos for
students to perform.
There is no textbook for the class, but there are two
required novels — Flowers for Algernon, by
Daniel Keyes, and The Echo Maker, by Richard Powers
— and readings for each topic covered. Shelton
also has assigned six "thought papers," each of them two or three
pages, in response to the books read
or movies screened for the class. There are also 11 quizzes and
in-class demos, all of which are given
unannounced, adding extra incentive for students to show up on
time and prepared. In addition,
students have the opportunity to earn 20 extra points by
participating in the Psychological and Brain
Sciences Department's experiments or by finding an ad in any
popular medium, such as a Web page or
magazine, that perpetuates a myth and then debunking it.
Amy Shelton says: "I love movies, and I have always been
fascinated by popular media portrayals of
science — those that claim to be presenting fact and those
that use the facts to extrapolate
creatively. The course uses these media accounts as the
springboard for talking about psychology and
neuroscience. It is a way to show students that science is out
there and all around them, and it puts
rigorous scientific issues into a fun context. The course
actually originated as an intersession course
designed by a former graduate student, Brock Kirwan. In talking
with Brock about his course, I
realized that it could be a really fun way to do some serious
scientific exploration. My goal with the
full-semester course is to teach students not only about the
topics that we cover but also about how
to evaluate the scientific information that is out there in our
everyday lives."
A student says: "Amy Shelton's Brain Myths is a unique
course here at Hopkins. Not only is Professor
Shelton committed to her field and her research, but she is
committed to teaching. I think she has
figured out a way to use technology — films, PowerPoint,
graphics and projections — to enhance her
teaching but not to do that teaching for her. We watch a
Hollywood movie and then read journal
articles about the science in the movie to test out the science
of the movie. As an English and
international relations major, I haven't had much background in
the mechanics of the brain, so
watching movies is a perfect way in."
— Mike Levin, 22, senior, Baltimore