EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY
School of Arts and Humanities
PSY3350 Biological Psychology, Sensation & PerceptionEssay Assignment 2017
The aim of the essay is to encourage the student to provide his or her own point of view on some of the important issues in biological psychology. As always, it is necessary to back up your views with evidence. This evidence should come from the psychological literature as well as examples from the popular press.
PSY3350 Biological Psychology, Sensation & PerceptionEssay Assignment
The topic for this essay relates to how various biological determinants of behaviour are described and reported in the popular press:
“Often you will see short popular press items that briefly summarise research findings relating to topics in biological psychology. Choose two general topic areas in biological psychology. Discuss how accurate are these brief popular press summaries in describing these general topic areas. In what way are these brief articles reductionistic in trying to get their point across? Finally, would readers – that is, the consumers of these popular press articles – lead happier, more fulfilling lives if they knew more about the psychobiological underpinnings of behaviour?”
PSY3350 Biological Psychology, Sensation & PerceptionEssay Assignment
A few clarifications:
magazine articles, or articles from any freely available webpage source. Do not
include any stories from broadcast media such as television or radio.
examine the actual research article(s) from which the summary was derived.
reductionism, so do not turn the essay into a long discussion about reductionism.
stress, sleeping patterns, psychological disorders, memory, and many other topic areas may be examined. Choose two topic areas. Virtually anything goes, so long as you can relate the topic back to its biological determinants. PSY3350 Biological Psychology, Sensation & PerceptionEssay Assignment
PSY3350 Biological Psychology, Sensation & PerceptionEssay Assignment
The essay assignment is worth 50% of your overall mark. The assignment must be uploaded into Turnitin by 12 Noon on Tuesday, 10 October 2017 (Week 10).
Please adhere to the following instructions: