AU Blogspot

              Thanks to Boris Anthony for permission to use this Photo.

Marshall McLuhan’s groundbreaking theories on media communications and the psycho-social impact of technological development made him both a very respected and controversial figure beginning in the 1950’s.  Seen by many as a prophet of our contemporary media filtered age, McLuhan’s famous “the medium is the message” theory, in which the communications medium itself (microphone, television, computer, letter) is more directly related to the meaning and ultimate impact of a given message than the actual “content” (intellectual/rational meaning) continues to gain depth as the decades pass.

I recently discovered an excellent audio-video archive of McLuhan’s work on the CBC web site.  This is a great primer for our psychology students unfamiliar with his work and I strongly encourage you to check this archive out by clicking here.  I look forward to hearing your thoughts on McLuhan, a thinker who still truly remains ahead of his time. 

Ryan Rode
Interactive Services Manager
Ashworth University Psychology Program

Slavoj Žižek is arguably the most irrerevent, brilliant, and provacative thinker in the history of Slovenian thought.  Renowned for wildly “psychoanalyzing” topics ranging from idiotic celebrity scandals to Hitchcockian symbolism to post-marxist economic theory in the span of one sentence, Žižek has himself earned somewhat of a celebrity status and cult following.  One of Žižek’s specialties is the reversal, in which he will relentlessly breakdown and analyze a concept with such precision and depth, that the way one had previously thought about that particular concept is completely twisted on the surface to the point of reversal, and one is often left thinking, “Why did I never notice that?”—viewing the world from a new perspective.  Žižek is a complex madman, so this video, horrible lighting included, can only at best serve as a glimpse, but can any one of us wish for anything more than that?

Ryan Rode 
Interactive Services Manager
Ashworth University 

Photo courtesy of Gaetan_Lee

A study reported in the December 2007 Journal of Psychosomatic Research examined cognitive complaints in head-injured patients referred to the emergency department of a level 1 trauma center in the Netherlands.  A sample of 79 patients (ranging in age from 18 to 60) who had been admitted for mild traumatic brain injury were followed up over six months post-admission. In addition to a battery of neuropsychological tests and use of the Rivermead Postconcussional Symptoms Questionnaire (RPSQ), patients were also asked to self-monitor their cognitive and memory problems over a 12-day period. Results indicated that 39 per cent of the sample self-reported cognitive problems. These complaints were strongly related to lower educational levels, emotional distress, personality, and poorer physical functioning (especially fatigue) but not to actual extent of injury.  Severity of self-reported cognitive complaints was found not to be associated with the patients’ daily observations of cognitive problems or with outcome on a range of neuropsychological tests.  The researchers concluded that self-reported cognitive complaints were more strongly related to preexisting personality factors, as well as physical and emotional problems rather than actual cognitive impairments. This would suggest that treatment of emotional distress and fatigue may also reduce cognitive complaints. They also concluded that neuropsychological screening and daily monitoring of complaints is a useful method to gather information about the frequency and pattern of cognitive problems in regular life.

Click here for the abstract.

Romeo Vitelli
Creator of Providentia
Ashworth University Contributing Blogger

*A man who has lived a fascinating life, Dr. Romeo Vitelli spent fifteen years as a staff psychologist in Millbrook Correctional Centre, a maximum-security prison run by the Ontario government. In 2003, he successfully escaped prison and went into full-time private practice and currently also serves as a Disaster Management volunteer with the Red Cross. He is one of the web’s most respected and trusted sources in matters of psychology. We here in the Ashworth University community are honored to share with Dr. Vitelli’s gifts with our students and would like to express our gratitude to him. Visit Providentia to learn more about the life and work of Dr. Romeo Vitelli.

           Thanks to Gaetan Lee for permission to use this Photo.

Renowned as one of the most gifted, original, and charismatic thinkers in the world; V.S. Ramachandran is a neurologist with an almost preternatural understanding of the brain’s deepest mechanisms and the nature of consciousness.

Ramachandran’s insights into such facinating enigmas as phantom limb syndrome, synesthesia, and capgras delusion continue to both inspire and puzzle the psycho-scientific community, while his entertaining presentations always promise to dazzle even the most cynical of audiences. Check out the following video from the TED conference. Lose your mind.

Ryan Rode
Interactive Services Manager
Ashworth University