Web-Based Multimedia Textbook in the Behavorial Neuroscience

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Biological Sciences (61)The goal of this project is to develop a World Wide Web-based electronic textbook in behavioral science integrating, standard text-based expositions of theory and data, and a multimedia database, and demonstrations of major experimental paradigms. The text-based expositions cover the same material expected in a standard behavioral neuroscience textbook. The advantage of putting it in electronic form is to facilitate its integration with the other components. The multimedia database includes streaming video to demonstrate a variety of behavioral phenomena such as aphasia and autism, brain imaging technology, and laboratory procedures in basic neuroscience. The video also demonstrates clips of influential neuroscientists in their laboratories describing the importance of their work, and numerous color static graphics of many kinds such as brain images, graphs of data, pictures of laboratory equipment, pictures of experimental stimuli, graphic depictions of theoretical models, etc. Java programs demonstrate the major experimental paradigms. Students are able to experience the task from the subject's point of view and see what it was like to participate in the experiment. In many instances students are able to compare their own data to data from normal subjects and data from patients with particular deficits. As a first step toward the goal of creating the electronic textbook and in accordance with the "proof of concept" status of this project, one chapter, "Language and the Brain" is being developed in full. Only selected portions of the chapters on human reasoning, attention, perception, and autism is being developed.