UH 300 Section 037: Primate Religion & Human Consciousness

Human consciousness is often held aloft as one of the distinguishing characteristics of humanity with higher consciousness, self-awareness, and truth generally considered worthwhile lifelong pursuits.  But at what cost?  Have evolutionary mechanisms propelled humans toward “analysis paralysis”?  Do cultural and psychological adaptations maintain the blinders of blissful ignorance?  We will consider these questions in reading about the 'religious' behavior of non-human primates and the chemistry of altered states of consciousness, and engage in experiments and activities to expand and limit our own consciousnesses.

The course will consist of readings and discussions of three main texts, in addition to supplementary articles that may be assigned to complement the directions discussions take.  We will make use of technology and active learning activities to enhance the class and facilitate a dynamic multi-sensory environment that is conducive to better learning for most people.  This will entail, in part, the designing of relevant research projects that can be piloted in class, followed by the write up and presentation of the results of these projects.

By the end of this course, students should be able to

• Define a complex system like human consciousness in operationalizable terms—that is, define it by the parts that comprise it and how to test for them
• Provide examples for elaborated culture (such as religious behavior) in non-humans and humans and examples of behavior that does not require consciousness in human behavior.
• Collaborate with a group to design and conduct a pilot study, write up the results as a scientific paper, and give a presentation to an educated audience.
• Recognize the synergistic outcomes of mind/body processes in behavior and culture.

This course is scheduled to meet in Mary Harmon Bryant 328; HOWEVER, after the first day we will have all subsequent meetings in Rowand-Johnson 37D.

As this course involves active participation and activities, attendance is expected and mandatory on days you are scheduled to present.  If you are absent without a valid excuse on a day you are scheduled to present, you will receive a 0 for that portion of your presentation grade, regardless of the preparation you may have otherwise done for the presentation.  If you are aware of a conflict in your presentation date, it is up to you to arrange with classmates to switch presentations with someone.

Cardena, Etzel & Michael Winkelman, eds. 2011. Altering Consciousness: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, Volume 2: Biological and Psychological Perspectives. Santa Barbara: Praeger.

The following readings will be posted to eLearning:

chapters 14-20 from John Ryan Haule. 2001. Jung in the 21st Century. New York: Routledge.

eLearning

Access eLearning via myBama.  There is a box called eLearning on the Academics tab that should list your courses that are currently let up with eLearning.  Log in and set your eLearning email up to direct your email to your Bama account (and be sure to set up your Bama account to forward to your regular personal account if you don’t plan on using it as your primary account).  To do this, go to the My Setting option in the upper right-hand corner.  On the My Profile tab, make sure your email address is correct (select Edit Profile if not and correct it).  Then select the My Tool Options tab.  Scroll down to Mail and check the box “Forward all mail message to the e-mail address in my profile.”  Click Save at the bottom of the page, and you are good to go (be sure to do this, as it doesn’t do it automatically).  This is important, as you likely won’t remember to check eLearning regularly for messages from me, but I will not accept that as an excuse for missing information (however, given that eLearning is not 100% reliable, I will often send important message via your Bama email—which, again, is why you need to make sure that account is your primary email or set up to forward to your primary email).

Dream Diary:  Keep a journal by your bed to record your dreams upon waking.  Take 5 minutes every morning to take notes on your dreams before your memories fade.  They fade quickly so the quicker you can do this the better.  We will make use of this later in the semester.  You will not receive points for this but will penalized 10 course points if you don't have a dream journal to draw from when we use them for discussion.  If you miss a day here or there, it is OK, but try to be as consistent as possible so you have a lot of material upon which to draw when we begin these discussions.

Reading Presentations (30 points): You will be responsible for summaries and discussions regarding several readings through the course of the semester in conjunction with a partner.  On days you are assigned to present, you must provide a typed one-page summary of the selection with questions for group discussion.  This summary must be emailed to me NO LATER THAN 7 AM on the morning of class so I can make copies for your classmates and bring them to class.  You and your partner will be responsible for leading the group discussion and will be graded accordingly.  Half your score will be based on the summary you provide, which your classmates can use as a study guide for exams, and half will be based on your presentation and discussion.  You will present three readings during the course of the semester.  Each will be worth 10 course points.

Midterm & Final Exams (40 points):  Each exam will consist of five short answer questions worth 5 points each.  Exams will cover all material included in the course, including that covered in readings, lectures, discussions, and activities.

Group Research Presentation (15 points):  Class will be divided into groups.  Each group will design a research project, collect data, and present the results to the class.  Research hypotheses and designs will be relevant to the course, and data will be collected in class (at least in part).  A group research hypothesis is due in class on February 21.  Your hypothesis should be in the form of a paragraph that briefly outlines the theoretical background of your proposed project, a problem or question that exists with regard to this background, and a prediction as to the resolution of this problem that is falsifiable (i.e., can be tested and found invalid).  Your hypothesis will not be graded, but you will lose 1 point for each day your hypothesis is late.  Hypotheses often change as research designs are developed, data is collected, and even as results are interpreted.  That said, it is okay if your results do not support your hypothesis—do not change your hypothesis after the fact so that your data will support it.  However, your data or literature searches may lead you to a more interesting or incisive research question, in which case it is okay to change it, provided your data addresses this question.

A group research design is due in class on March 20.  Research designs will be critiqued but not evaluated.  However, you will be penalized 1 point for each day your design is late.  We will be exploring several research methods in class.  You are not required to use any of these methods for your project, but you can if they are appropriate to your research project.  However, this is a pilot study and will use the small biased sample of your classmates to provide data, so your methods must be appropriate to this context.  You may collect additional data outside class, but, as we will not be going through institutional review procedures, your results cannot be made available to the public.  This design should be in the form of a few paragraphs that outlines the materials, procedures, and analytic strategy your group will use to test your hypothesis.

Each group will give a scholarly presentation of research results.  Group presentations will be scheduled for April 24 and 26.  This will entail a 15-minutes presentation with 5 minutes Q&A and should be done in PowerPoint format with introduction, background, research design (methods and materials), results, discussion/implications, and conclusion.  Exceptions can be made to this format with permission.  Creative alternatives will be welcome.  The overall emphasis will be on the creative integration of theory and methods and collaborative work ethic.  Each presentation must demonstrate evidence of collaboration.  That means, it must be clear that every group member was equally involved in the overall project (however, each group decides to divide the labor) and that all group members participate equally in the presentation.  Presentations will therefore be evaluated as follows:

 

Research Paper (15 points):  Research papers should be 10-12 pages and use a scholarly style guide.  Every scholarly journal published its “author guidelines,” which include a style guide.  Here is an example from Ethos, the journal for the Society for Psychological Society:  http://www.wiley.com/bw/submit.asp?ref=0091-2131.   These guidelines will give you the required manuscript style of the respective scholarly journal (obviously, the page count specified here supersede those of your respective sytle guide).  When you turn in your report, you will include a professional cover letter that indicates what journal’s style you are using for your report and the roles taken by each group member in your collaboration.  I recommend you use RefWorks bibliographic software, as it will drastically improve your efficiency and accuracy and is free through the UA library (http://refworks.ua.edu/).  In using RefWorks, I also recommend choosing a journal style that is loaded in RefWorks. 

I recommend preparing your paper before your group presentation, as you will use the same material in the presentation.  You will then use the constructive feedback you receive the presentation to improve the report.  For writing projects, your group will spend about a third of the time researching your topic and the rest composing and revising your presentation and report.  The process of writing should inevitably send you back to your sources to clarify points so there is some additional research time folded into writing time.  Research papers usually represent approximately 4-8 hours of research and 8-16 hours of writing.  You will use primary sources for theoretical background and discussion.  This means that, while being integrative and creative, your project will build on research that has come before.  This will provide your validity.  Reports must be grammatically and carefully proofread and, therefore, not suffer the flawed organization and logical gaps that first and second drafts almost always do.  In writing, keep in mind your audience.  Papers written “for the instructor” often make unwarranted assumptions about the expertise of the reader.  The result is that you may assume the reader “knows what you mean” and you may fall into the trap of obscuring an otherwise good (or hiding poor) results and implications with jargon.  Despite all these restrictions in terms of format that have the tendency to suck the life out of an otherwise fun project, I want you to convey the excitement of your results. Given the limited potential for interpreting pilot data from a small, biased sample, I want you to go out on a limb and be more speculative than you otherwise would for a true scholarly publication.  Let me know how neat and fun this study or its results are.  Finally, you will be evaluated using the following rubric:

30 points = Reading presentations

20 points = Midterm exam

15 points = Group presentation

15 points = Group research paper

20 points = Final exam

Dream Diary:  You must make a consistent effort to record your dreams.  If you forget to record a dream here or there, it is OK.  Should you fail to complete this task whatsoever or only record a few dreams and do not substantively contribute to the discussion, you will be penalized 10 course points.

Attendance:  If you miss a class, it is your generally your responsibility to utilize Tegrity to view lectures or contact a classmate to get notes.  However, I cannot guarantee that every lecture will be posted to Tegrity.  Furthermore, discussions will be an important aspect of this course, which is difficult to re-experience via Tegrity.  The exception is missing a class on a day you are scheduled to present.  If you know you are going to miss a class in advance, arrange to switch with someone.  I will not do the switching for you.  Get to know your classmates and work something out.  If you fail to do thisor do not show up without a valid DOCUMENTED excuse, you will lose 10 course points, even if you have provided the written summary.

Exams:  If you miss an exam due to ANY CIRCUMSTANCES WHATSOEVER, whether excused or not, you can make it up by writing an additional 25-page research paper on a topic of my choosing to be turned in by the last day of the semester.

Research Presentation:  If you miss your own presentation for any reason whatsoever, you can make it up by writing a 25-page research paper on a topic of my choosing using the same format outlined for the group research paper above.  This will be due by exactly two weeks after the final exam date.

Term Paper:  If hypotheses or research design outlines are not received when they are due, I will begin deducting 5% from the paper grade for each group member for each day they are late.  Collaboration is essential on this project.  No excuses will be accepted.  If any group members do not pull their weight, they will be penalized individually, but this will not be an acceptable excuse for not completing assignments as directed. 

Late submissions will only be accepted by prior arrangement and/or with a very good reason.  Otherwise, I will deduct 10% from each group member’s paper grade for each day (or part of a day) they are late.  Many assignments being due at the same time is never a good reason, and extensions will never be authorized on that basis, so please don’t ask.  No extensions will be authorized during the 3 days immediately prior to the due date except in the case of a legitimate medical emergency.

Date	Readings	Assignment/Activity	Presenters
1/12/2012		syllabus/schedule presenters
1/17/2012	King 1
	Haule 14
1/19/2012	King 2	Mirror test
	Haule 15
1/24/2012	King 3	SPQ
	Haule 16
1/26/2012	King 4	Sally & Mary
	Haule 17
1/31/2012	King 5	Mind-in-the-eyes
	Haule 18
2/2/2012	King 6	TAS
	Haule 19
2/7/2012	King 7	DES
	Haule 20
2/9/2012	King 8	Hypnosis
	Kokoszka & Wallace
2/14/2012	Wilson 1	Body Postures
	Presti
2/16/2012	Wilson 2	Neurofeedback
	Previc
2/21/2012	Wilson 3	HYPOTHESIS DUE
	Beauregard
2/23/2012	Wilson 4
	Mishor, McKenna, & Callaway
2/28/2012	Wilson 5
	Nichols & Chemel
3/2/2012	Wilson 6
	Shaefer
3/6/2012	Wilson 7
	Blatter, Fachner, & Winkelman
3/8/2012	MIDTERM EXAM
3/13/2012	NO CLASS
3/15/2012	NO CLASS
3/20/2012	Cohen 1	RESEARCH DESIGN DUE
	Maliszewski et al.
3/22/2012	Cohen 2
	Granqvist, Reijman, & Cardena
3/27/2012	Cohen 3
	Dieguez & Blanke
3/29/2012	Cohen 4
	Noirhomme & Laureys
4/3/2012	Cohen 5
	Cardena
4/5/2012	Cohen 6
	Lukoff
4/10/2012	Cohen 7
	Mishara & Schwartz
4/12/2012	Cohen 8
	Luke
4/17/2012	Cohen 9
4/19/2012
4/24/2012		Group Presentations
4/26/2012		Group Presentations
		PAPER DUE
5/1/2012	FINAL EXAM    8-10:30 AM

I will offer extra credit for attending ALLELE lectures.  Details will be announced thru the course of the semester.

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