Chapter 1
Lauren
Slater opens with an introduction about herself and how she raised a raccoon.
She actually learned as much from the raccoon as it did her. Now in my opinion,
this was the first red flag on this author’s writing style. Its very intimate…too
intimate. Some will love it and others won’t so much. But in the first chapter,
she mentions B.F. Skinner and his behavioral Psychology. Skinner was somewhat
notorious for doing some experiments with his babies in an air crib and trying
to positively reinforce certain behaviors. Despite these criticisms, he made
some great strides in psychology that are still even used to this day.
I
wanted to touch on the author’s meeting with his daughter, Julie Skinner. I
believe that Skinner made some advancements, but his daughter just seemed
brainwashed. She preserved the room he studied in town to the chocolate he was
eating before he died. (which in fact, the author bit into before she left.) Julie
seemed to love her father a little too much which my point to his experiments
as being a success? Anyways, I still appreciate the positive reinforcement
experiment that has made the lives of many types of people more fulfilling and
easy. I think I remember the book mentioning that it improved individuals with
autism by helping them achieve tasks.
Chapter 2
On
chapter 2, Slater opens with providing a back story on Stanley Milgram’s
Obedience to Authority Experiments. She places the reader in the shoes of a
participant of the experiment, and walks them through what they might be
feeling. I felt this dragged on a little too long and was not necessary to
understanding empathy for people in the experiment. It eventually got to fan
fiction levels and I did not really enjoy it. The interviews were a different
story… well one of them for me.
When
she eventually details Milgram’s life after the experiment is when I really
started to enjoy the chapter. I knew this experiment shook the psychological
world and indeed, Milgram’s world but not to this extent. It effectively ruined
his career and he could not become a fellow at Harvard and he lost his tenure.
Despite the inhumane nature of this experiment, I believe it was extremely
interesting and perhaps even necessary. I was perplexed by Slater’s interview
of Joshua, the military man who took part in the experiment. He was disobedient
despite his obedient background in the military. Even though he was disobedient
and stopped at 150 volts in the experiment, he stormed into Milgram’s office
and demanded an explanation and even thought about ratting him out. He ended up
not doing that for reasons unexplained. I look forward to the rest of the book
not really for her fan fiction writing style, but for the material background
of the experimenters like Milgram and Skinner.
Chapter 3
On chapter 3, David Rosenhan wanted to disprove psychology and faked his way into a mental institution. His point was that this should not be considered a science really. David was a stanford professor. He published "On being sane in Insane Places" and it was published in Science magazine. The author Lauren Slater imitated this experiment in her own life and she claims to have gotten into a mental institution. My first thought was that I think she was actually crazy.
Chapter 4
On chapter 4, Darley and Latane's wrote a training manual about their experiments. Their manual dealt with the Genovese murder and why no one came to help her for thirty minutes even though she was screaming at the top of her lungs. This has to deal with diffusion of responsibility and everyone thinking everyone else will handle the problem. The training manual consisted of 5 steps. The potential helper must notice an event is occuring, the potential helper must interpret the event as one in which help is needed, the potential helper must assume personal responsibility, the potential helper must take action.
Chapter 5
On chapter 5, Lauren Slater talks about Leon Festinger and his theory on cognitive dissonance. This theory clashes with Skinner's behavioralism theory through a prime example I remembered: Fraternity members who are hazed harder are more likely to have more devotion to the frat. The author then reads about a case of some Sanada belief where the world where a god was supposedly going to come and pick up all of its followers. It never happened and then the believers tried to rationalize it through cognitive dissonance. The author closes by following around Linda Santo and her brain-dead daughter. Linda also justifies her parental shortcomings through saying her daughter, Audrey, is a blessing from God.
Chapter 6
On chapter 6, the author follows Henry Harlow and his experiments with macaques. She details that his experiments were trying to prove that close contact rather than physical needs was the main bond. He set up a wired monkey with a plastic nipple and a cloth monkey that felt soft to the touch. The monkey would drink when he was thirsty from the wired monkey and then immediately go back to the cloth monkey for close contact comfort. Henry was accused of being abusive towards animals... probably for good reasons. Most of the monkeys he tested on eventually were psychotic or bit off their own limbs. The author ends with saying perhaps some of the contact needs that Harlow was testing for somehow mirrored his own lonely life from adolescence till after his wife died.
Chapter 7
On chapter 7, Dr. Alexander is an assistant of the famous Henry Harlow and his macaque experiments. Dr. Alexander went to learn about love and instead learned more about addiction due to the nature of the experiments he was assigned to in the lab. Dr. Alexander then starts his own experiments on rats and addiction. His most famous experiment (well a cult classic) is one where he designs a rat park and a rat cage and then offers them the option of normal water or heroin water with sugar in it. The rats in the rage cage opted to get high all day while the rats in the rat park needed some semblance or society or so it seemed, and chose the regular water. Even when trained to be addicted, the rats in the rat park chose to go back to water even despite withdrawal symptoms. This experiment never really took off in the psychological world as well as Alexander might have liked, but the results were important.
Chapter 8
On chapter 8, Elizabeth Loftus tests implanting memories. Her first real inspiration to pursue this project was the George Franklin trial in which he denied raping his daughters but after interrogation, he described it in vivid detail. Loftus thought this was fishy and decided to devote her time to being at trials and defending these people. People hated Loftus in the psychological community but she was very staunch in her beliefs and wanted to get them out there. I was actually lost in a mall when I was very little (or so I believe) and it makes me question if this was an implanted idea at a very early age or if it actually happened and these are just mind games. This chapter made me rethink the idea of implanted memories and made me think of Inception.
Chapter 9
On chapter 9, the author talks about removing memories. The author follows Eric Kandel and how he disproves that memory is dispersed throughout the brain but rather is located in particular parts. They talk about when he removes a piece of his patient's brain, he loses all sense of short term memory save for long term about his mom and family members. He went in for epilepsy treatment initially. A huge discovery was that of CREB or a cAMP retaining element binding protein which is the cause of long-term memory. Long-term memory uses these proteins to join neurons in the brain. The author elaborates more on memory in the final chapter of the book.
Chapter 10
On the final chapter of the book, Slater talks about Antonio Moniz and lobotomy. While widely considered a taboo subject at the time, Moniz pushed ahead and offered it to his patients. He had many failures due to some excrutiating causes such as broken pieces of scalpel in the brain, etc. He eventually won the nobel prize and inspired a generation of scientists who perfected what he started. The perfected version of lobotomy is much more precise and has a higher rate of success than its ancestor. I think it was fitting to end on this chapter since memory regards with how we perceive the past, present, and how we will perceive the future.
The author's writing definitely grew on me during the end of the book when she stopped doing insane experiments herself and turned it more into an inside look of each scientist. I have to keep in mind that she is writing this book in order to move units and make it interesting for the masses, so in that regard, it was a success.
Chapter 3
On chapter 3, David Rosenhan wanted to disprove psychology and faked his way into a mental institution. His point was that this should not be considered a science really. David was a stanford professor. He published "On being sane in Insane Places" and it was published in Science magazine. The author Lauren Slater imitated this experiment in her own life and she claims to have gotten into a mental institution. My first thought was that I think she was actually crazy.
Chapter 4
On chapter 4, Darley and Latane's wrote a training manual about their experiments. Their manual dealt with the Genovese murder and why no one came to help her for thirty minutes even though she was screaming at the top of her lungs. This has to deal with diffusion of responsibility and everyone thinking everyone else will handle the problem. The training manual consisted of 5 steps. The potential helper must notice an event is occuring, the potential helper must interpret the event as one in which help is needed, the potential helper must assume personal responsibility, the potential helper must take action.
Chapter 5
On chapter 5, Lauren Slater talks about Leon Festinger and his theory on cognitive dissonance. This theory clashes with Skinner's behavioralism theory through a prime example I remembered: Fraternity members who are hazed harder are more likely to have more devotion to the frat. The author then reads about a case of some Sanada belief where the world where a god was supposedly going to come and pick up all of its followers. It never happened and then the believers tried to rationalize it through cognitive dissonance. The author closes by following around Linda Santo and her brain-dead daughter. Linda also justifies her parental shortcomings through saying her daughter, Audrey, is a blessing from God.
Chapter 6
On chapter 6, the author follows Henry Harlow and his experiments with macaques. She details that his experiments were trying to prove that close contact rather than physical needs was the main bond. He set up a wired monkey with a plastic nipple and a cloth monkey that felt soft to the touch. The monkey would drink when he was thirsty from the wired monkey and then immediately go back to the cloth monkey for close contact comfort. Henry was accused of being abusive towards animals... probably for good reasons. Most of the monkeys he tested on eventually were psychotic or bit off their own limbs. The author ends with saying perhaps some of the contact needs that Harlow was testing for somehow mirrored his own lonely life from adolescence till after his wife died.
Chapter 7
On chapter 7, Dr. Alexander is an assistant of the famous Henry Harlow and his macaque experiments. Dr. Alexander went to learn about love and instead learned more about addiction due to the nature of the experiments he was assigned to in the lab. Dr. Alexander then starts his own experiments on rats and addiction. His most famous experiment (well a cult classic) is one where he designs a rat park and a rat cage and then offers them the option of normal water or heroin water with sugar in it. The rats in the rage cage opted to get high all day while the rats in the rat park needed some semblance or society or so it seemed, and chose the regular water. Even when trained to be addicted, the rats in the rat park chose to go back to water even despite withdrawal symptoms. This experiment never really took off in the psychological world as well as Alexander might have liked, but the results were important.
Chapter 8
On chapter 8, Elizabeth Loftus tests implanting memories. Her first real inspiration to pursue this project was the George Franklin trial in which he denied raping his daughters but after interrogation, he described it in vivid detail. Loftus thought this was fishy and decided to devote her time to being at trials and defending these people. People hated Loftus in the psychological community but she was very staunch in her beliefs and wanted to get them out there. I was actually lost in a mall when I was very little (or so I believe) and it makes me question if this was an implanted idea at a very early age or if it actually happened and these are just mind games. This chapter made me rethink the idea of implanted memories and made me think of Inception.
Chapter 9
On chapter 9, the author talks about removing memories. The author follows Eric Kandel and how he disproves that memory is dispersed throughout the brain but rather is located in particular parts. They talk about when he removes a piece of his patient's brain, he loses all sense of short term memory save for long term about his mom and family members. He went in for epilepsy treatment initially. A huge discovery was that of CREB or a cAMP retaining element binding protein which is the cause of long-term memory. Long-term memory uses these proteins to join neurons in the brain. The author elaborates more on memory in the final chapter of the book.
Chapter 10
On the final chapter of the book, Slater talks about Antonio Moniz and lobotomy. While widely considered a taboo subject at the time, Moniz pushed ahead and offered it to his patients. He had many failures due to some excrutiating causes such as broken pieces of scalpel in the brain, etc. He eventually won the nobel prize and inspired a generation of scientists who perfected what he started. The perfected version of lobotomy is much more precise and has a higher rate of success than its ancestor. I think it was fitting to end on this chapter since memory regards with how we perceive the past, present, and how we will perceive the future.
The author's writing definitely grew on me during the end of the book when she stopped doing insane experiments herself and turned it more into an inside look of each scientist. I have to keep in mind that she is writing this book in order to move units and make it interesting for the masses, so in that regard, it was a success.
