Essay questions for health part of PSYC 2006

Here are some suggested questions for affiliate essays on the health part of the Clinical and Health Psychology course (2206).

Structural and functional social support have been identified as a risk factor for illness. Discuss this statement with reference to behavioural and biological mechanisms.

Describe and critique two social cognition models in relation to predicting health-related behaviour.

'There is no such thing as pure pain without emotion.' Discuss.

What determines how a person copes with chronic illness and hospitalization?

What factors should be considered when developing a theory-based intervention to change health professional behaviour?

Best wishes,

Ben Gardner & Susan Michie

More essay titles for 2207

More essay titles for 2207 from Dr. Martina Rieger :

1. 'Motor output is guided by sensory input". Discuss.
2. Discuss the involvement of the action system in social functions.
3. Discuss how tool use enables the motor system to overcome inherent
limitations.

Essay questions to clinical part of PSYC2206

Essay questions to clinical part of PSYC2206 (Health and Clinical PSychology) from Prof. Val Curran:

• "Depression is simply a normal response to abnormal circumstances". Say if you agree or disagree with this statement, fully explaining your reasons.
• Evaluate the relative strengths and weaknesses of biological accounts of the causes of schizophrenia.
• Why do some people develop posttraumatic stress disorder and others not when faced with the same traumatic event?

Essay titles for PSYC 2207

Essay titles for PSYC 2207:

Discuss how the visual system achieves object constancy.

Describe the properties of neurones and their organisation within the retino-cortical pathway.

How do we see movement?

Prof. Alan Johnston

Essay topics for PSYC3203

Dear affiliates,

Dr. David W. Green who's coordinating PSYC 3203 (Language and Cognition) is happy to agree on individual essay titles for fall-term students taking the course. Feel free to get in touch with him after class or via email ( d.w.green@ucl.ac.uk).

Best,
Irma

Affiliate 2008-2009: Essay titles for Human Learning and Memory course (PSYC 3207)

These are the same essay titles as those for last year:

You can choose two essay topics from all the topics below:

• Why do we become forgetful as we get older?
• Write an essay on the neuroscience of memory.

Critically evaluate some of the theories that have been proposed to
explain age-related memory decline.

Describe some of the ways in which fluent processing affects memory.

What evidence is there that memories are often blocked or inhibited at
retrieval?

Compare the episodic/semantic and transfer-appropriate processing
theories of memory.

Compare and contrast the roles of the hippocampus, amygdala, and
frontal lobes in memory.

What have neuropsychological and/or brain imaging studies revealed
about short-term memory?

Are memories consolidated after their initial formation?

What would your advice be to someone who has just witnessed a road
accident and wants to provide accurate eyewitness evidence?

What is the relationship between implicit leaming and implicit memory?

Affiliate 2008-2009: Essay questions for Topics in neurobiology (PSYC3303)

Below are the questions from 2006. If there are any you're not covering, pulling a question or two out of nine will still leave plenty of options.

1. What is the evidence for there being multiple memory systems in the brain?
Discuss with particular reference to the 'place' and 'response' systems.

2. . It is thought that after having been formed, memories are then 'consolidated'
over a long period of time. What is the neuropsychological and
neurobiological evidence for consolidation, AND where might such
consolidation take place?

3. What factors modulate how well memories are made and retained? Use
neurobiological evidence to support your answer.

4. What is 'path integration' and what is known about the underlying
neurobiology?

5. What are the properties of the CA3 subfield of the hippocampus that make it
useful as a memory storage device? Support your answer with experimental
evidence where relevant.

6. What are the factors that determine where place cells fire? Discuss with
reference to both external stimuli and internal 'attractor' dynamics of the
place cell network.

7. What have human imaging studies revealed about the neural systems that
underlie navigation? Discuss the similarities and differences between the
human and animal findings.

8. What is thought to be the neural basis of the 'sense of direction'?

9. Is there a 'geometric module' for spatial information in the brain? Discuss.

seminar groups

Dear Affiliates,

we have sent you the seminar groups with times and places.
Please email us if you did not receive this.

Best,
Irma and Matthias

seminars start on the week of 6th Oct 08

Dear affiliates,

Just to keep you updated with the seminar arrangements.
As you may all know the PORTICO registration deadline is this Friday, so please remember to register online and email me/Matthias if you made any changes to the courses you're enrolling in by then. All students who enroll in 2 courses this term will have to attend the seminars. On Friday, Matthias and I will be splitting all of you into different seminar groups, depending on your own individual schedules and will send out an email about the groups, places and times of these seminars. They might well start next Monday (6 Oct) so make sure you check your email or the blog (http://uclaffiliates.blogspot.com/).
Finally, I've moved my office to room 201 in bedford way, but as you may see on the induction sheets, it's easier to contact me through email.

Feel free to email if should you have further questions.

Best wishes,

Irma Kurniawan
Affiliate demonstrator