Question

Watch The Responsive Brain (you will have to scroll down to find the video). It's about 30 minutes, but you are only required to watch the first 9:30 (you can end at Excerpts from Grief and Peril in Infancy) and then skip to 21:57 (the African plain scene) and watch to the end.

Please review the study on the impact of human touch on premature infants in intensive care.

What was the hypothesis?

What was the IV?

What was the DV?

What was the experimental group?

What was the control group?

How was the DV operationally defined?

What do you think the controls were?

What research method does Robert Sapolsky use in East Africa?

Answer 1

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary.

(Answer)

What was the hypothesis?

The brain influences behaviour. However, this study hypothesises that behaviour also influences the brain. In other words, the relationship between brain and behaviour is reciprocal.

What was the IV?

The stimuli that affects or rather influences the brain.

What was the DV?

The functionality of the brain that is influenced by behaviour. This is because brain functionality is dependent on external stimulation. For instance, the premature baby that developed faster depended on the stimulation from regular massages. This enables the brain to be influenced by the massages.

What was the experimental group?

People who are being affectionately touched through handshakes and embraces are the experimental group.

What was the control group?

The control group consists of premature infants who are touched affectionately daily by their mothers. Also, these infants are in the controlled environment of an incubator. The brain responses are measured by how quickly muscle development takes place in the children offered affection as opposed to the children who are not.

How was the DV operationally defined?

Operationally, the DV is categorised into the responsive brain and the behaving brain. The brain is motivated to be influenced by the behaviours it has caused and the environment that it is exposed to. For instance, if a child touches a flame, the brain will immediately be influenced by that behaviour and will never stimulate the child to touch a flame again. Furthermore, if the child is too close to a candle flame, the child will automatically adapt to the environment by moving to a safer place.

What do you think the controls were?

The controls were the daily affection through touch that the infants received from their mothers while in the incubator.

Adversely, the controls for the other set of infants were that they were not touched affectionately by their mothers so often.

The other major controls were that the care both sets of infants received was identical. This control helped single out the cause of rapid development in premature infants.

These markers in the experiment helped influence observable results.

What research method does Robert Sapolsky use in East Africa?

Field study and laboratory research are the methods used by Dr. Robert Sapolsky in East Africa.