October 2010 Archives

Watch the way you walk, you could be watched by a psychopath and may be targeted as an easy target to be mugged or to be attacked.

To learn how psychopaths choose their victims and the characteristics that make a person vulnerable to being chosen.

Here is the website:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/extreme-fear/201010/how-psychopaths-choose-their-victims

This article discusses the positive effects of sleep on memory recollection.  This study focuses on the hippocampus-dependent declarative memory.  The experiment examined high school student's ability to remember vocabulary.  The varied the amount of sleep in which each group received.

To read more about this experiment, click here.

Nearly 3 million people who are crime victims every year in the United States are severely mental ill.

This article is published in the Psychiatric News, published on September 2, 2005. 
Volume 40 number 17 page 16.

This is a very fascinating article on mental illness and how they are more apt to be victims of crime rather than the perpetrators of crimes.

Click here to read the article.

Are you fascinated with Serial Killers and have no idea why?  Look at these three websites and you may just find the answer.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/159975/why_our_morbid_fascination_with_serial.html?cat=72

http://news.stanford.edu/pr/94/940531Arc4242.html

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/738671.html

http://listverse.com/2007/08/23/top-11-methods-of-interrogation/

These methods of interrogation are taught by SERE- U.S. military program.
 1. Isolation
 2. Sleep Deprivation
 3. Sensory Deprivation
 4. Stress Positions
 5. Sensory Bombardment
 6. Forced Nudity
 7. Sexual Humiliation
 8. Cultural Humiliation
 9. Extreme Cold
10. Phobias
11. Water Boarding

This website goes into great detail about each of the 11 methods of interrogation.  What interrogation method do you think is the worst and why?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39726149/ns/us_news-security/

This article was published on msnbc.com by Associated Press on October 18, 2010.  The FBI were involved in this investigation (mainly because it has to do with threats of bombing).


"The trial featured 13 days of testimony by undercover informant Shahed Hussain, who met Cromitie at a mosque north of New York City. Prosecutors also relied on hundreds of hours of video and audiotape of the men discussing the scheme at the informant's home, handling fake weapons -- even praying together."

"Jurors deliberated for more than a week. A judge denied a request for a mistrial last week after a juror came across a document in an evidence binder that shouldn't have been there. The juror was dismissed."


What are the processes that the jury went through?

Do you think it was fair that the judge denied a request for a mistrial after a juror came across a document in an evidence binder?

What would you have done if you were that Judge and presented with that dilemma?

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101018/ap_on_re_us/us_post_office_shooting

Here is a link to a shooting that happened Monday October 18, 2010 in Henning Tennessee. Two gunmen opened fire at a post office. No arrests were made and postal officials are pleading with anyone who may have information to come forward.  This article does go through how the police are investigating the shooting.

This article was a study that was completed at Iowa State University.  It highlights qualities of identification testimony, feedback to eyewitnesses, On-Line vs. post-computed judgments, and securing false identifications.

This article relates to everything we have previously talked about in class.  I really recommend that you take the time to read through it and post any comments or questions about the study that come to your mind. 

http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/FACULTY/gwells/Wells_articles_pdf/Good,_You_Indetified_the_Suspect.pdf

New York Times published this article talking about how innocent people confess to crimes they did not commit.  Anytime you are questioned, or think you are helping someone by giving information for a crime HAVE A LAWYER PRESENT!!! 

As stated in this article, "Proving innocence after a confession, however, is rare. Eight of the defendants in Professor Garrett's study had actually been cleared by DNA evidence before trial, but the courts convicted them anyway."

Look around this page and be sure to take the time to look at this article by Professor Garrett.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/us/14confess.html?_r=1&no_interstitial

Please read chapter 5 that was previously emailed to you.

What I would like you to do is to find a topic from this chapter that interests you and search the internet for material on that topic. You might, for example, find people who are doing research on the topic, you might find web pages that discuss the topic, you might find youtube clips that demonstrate something related to the topic, etc. What you find and use is pretty much up to you at this point.

Once you have completed your search and explorations (which may include a fair amount of browsing time, and reading websites, links, news pieces, or articles), I would like you to say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into the chapter, why you are interested in it, and what you learned about that topic from 3 of the sources you viewed/read on the internet (please at the end of your comment include the 3 URLs). Choose quality sources. You may want to review people's posts from last week's assignment to see examples of posts different from your own.

Your comment should be clearly written and demonstrate the time and effort you spent on this assignment. Do not just talk about each of the three URLs separately. INTEGRATE your discussion of the topic referring to the URLs as necessary.

Media updates, photos, and pictures.

There are many ways you can prepare for your role in the project. Our textbook and lectures are a good start. But there are also many resources and experiences that are available to you. You are in charge of preparing yourself for your role, learning about the skills and requirements for your role. You should blog regularly on your project page to show your progress.

If this activity would be helpful for your role for this project, you may want to do this activity and you should blog on your own project page.

If you are choosing this because you are just interested and curious, or as a browse assignment, you can post your comments here.

Project Preparation: Expert Witnesses

Google around and find out what you can about expert witnesses. Who are they? What are they experts in? Where do they work? What is their role in a trial or legal case? What did you find out that was the most interesting? If you had to be an expert, what kind would you want to be? etc.

There are many ways you can prepare for your role in the project. Our textbook and lectures are a good start. But there are also many resources and experiences that are available to you. You are in charge of preparing yourself for your role, learning about the skills and requirements for your role. You should blog regularly on your project page to show your progress.

If this activity would be helpful for your role for this project, you may want to do this activity and you should blog on your own project page.

If you are choosing this because you are just interested and curious, or as a browse assignment, you can post your comments here.

Project Preparation: Lineup Construction and Evaluation

Put together a lineup. Read the eyewitness guide for information on how to put together a lineup.

Go here: http://www.dc.state.fl.us/AppCommon/

Choose a guy (search on some characteristics, or a name).

Then find fillers to match

Copy and paste into a word document

Print.

Show to friends, collect data

Read: http://eyewitness.utep.edu/consult05B.html

Calculate lineup bias: http://eyewitness.utep.edu/documents/bias-calc.xls

What's in the News?

What I would like you to do is to start applying what we are learning in class to real world matters.

What I would like you to do is to either go to NPR (http://www.npr.org/ ), the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/ ) or any news site listed at the bottom of this page (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ listed in their news sources) and read, watch, or listen to something that is interesting to you and relates to what we have been learning about psychology via lectures and your chapters.

Please comment by telling us what the piece you chose was and why you picked it (what made it interesting for you)? What did you expect to see? What did you find most interesting about the piece?

Next discuss how it relates to the class using terms, terminology, and concepts that we have learned so far in class.

Include the URL in your post.

Make a list of key terms and concepts you used in your post.

According the the Clery Act, the University is required to send out an annual campus crime report.

Recently, the 2009 crime report came out (you all probably received it via email). 

Overall, our campus is relatively crime free with the exception of liquor and drug violations (these rates rose from the last few years). 

Here is a link to the crime report!