SALMON: Study And Learning Materials ONline

Welcome to SALMON the UCISA award winning website developed by Dr Paul Kenyon (retired) to support undergraduate students studying Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience

Evolutionary Psychology

Evolutionary Psychology

  1. Evolutionary psychology
    Sample content: principles of evolutionary psychology: long & short-term relationships; desirable characteristics in a partner; marriage & the family
  2. Sexual attraction
    Sample content: human mating systems; monogamous males & polygamous females; male and female attitudes to multiple sexual partners; sex differences in aggression
  3. Conflict between parents and children & 'wicked stepmothers'
    Sample content: the proportion of genes shared by relatives; kin selection theory; male & female investment in stepchildren; abortion, infanticide & abandoned babies
  4. Behaviour towards family & friends
    Sample contents: Hamilton's kin selection theory; reciprocal altruism; prisoners dilemma; cheater detection; inheritance of wealth; requesting & giving help
  5. Grandparents &  grandchildrenSample contents: maternal certainty & paternal uncertainty affect grandparents attitude towards their grandchildren
  6. Emotion
    Sample contents: facial expression of emotion; brain & emotion; dopamine & reward
  7. The roots of evolutionary psychology
    Sample content: Darwin; eugenics; sociobiology, behaviorism; ethology
  8. Evolutionary psychology under attack
    Sample content: creationism & evolution; evolution of human behavior; cultural values; criticisms of evolutionary psychology; spandrels
  9. Evolutionary psychology: Eugenics in new clothes?
    Sample content: eugenics; selective breeding; IQ; controversy & misunderstandings; 
  10. Sources of variation:Genotype and phenotype
    Sample content: genotype & phenotype; norm of reaction; facial symmetry; heritability; 
  11. Nature and nurture of genderMobile-friendly page.
    Sample content: sex & gender, gender role & gender identity explained; sex differences in human behavior; hormones & development

Animal Behaviour

Animal Behaviour

  1. Animal Behaviour
    Sample content: ethology, behaviorism & comparative psychology; nature & nurture; development of behavior in birds & fish; prepared responses & taste aversion;
  2. Ethological Experiments
    Sample content: animal perception; sign stimuli, releasers and fixed action patterns; motivation in birds & fish
  3. Lorenz - hydraulic model of motivation
  4. Home location by wasps 
  5. Egg retrieval by Herring Gulls: the titration experiment

Depression and Schizophrenia

Depression and Schizophrenia

  1. Depression
    Sample content: signs & symptoms; the catecholamine theory; noradrenalin, dopamine and serotonin; Prozac; drug tests
  2. video: Reserpine effects on transmitters
  3. Depression and Learned Helplessness
    Sample content: Seligman's psychological theory; Weiss' physiological theory; stress & cognition; noradrenalin
  4. Depression: Beyond the CA Theory of Mood
    Sample content: biological markers for depression; serotonin & Prozac; permissive & monoamine theories; stress & depression; early life events; child abuse
  5. Schizophrenia
    Sample content: drug treatment; side effects; amphetamine psychosis; dopamine; classic & atypical antipsychotics;
  6. video: amphetamine: transmitter release
  7. video: chlorpromazine: receptor blocking
  8. video: : chlorpromazine amphetamine antagonism
  9. Drug Treatments for Schizophrenia
    Sample content: research into new drug treatments; amphetamine antagonism; discriminated avoidance
  10. Animal models of human behaviour
    Sample content: depression; schizophrenia; anxiety

Stress, Anxiety & Aggression

Stress, Anxiety & Aggression

  1. Coping with stress
    Sample content: psychological factors - control, predictability, feedback; coping in combat & hospital situations;
  2. Hormones & stress
    Sample content: brain; hypothalamus; pituitary; adrenal glands; effect of stress on learning & memory
  3. Drugs & Anxiety
    Sample content: measuring human anxiety; drugs, serotonin & anxiety; conflict test
  4. Benzodiazepines and Anxiety
    Sample content: brain reward & punishment circuits; noradrenalin & serotonin; GABA; receptor binding
  5. Aggression
    Sample content: ethology, behaviorism & evolutionary approaches; neurotransmitter, hormones & aggression; sex differences
  6. Two opposing views of aggression
    Sample content: ethological & physiological explanations of aggression

Sex, Gender and Maternal Behaviours


Sex, Gender and Maternal Behaviours

  1. Sexual attraction
    Sample content:  human mating systems; monogamous males & polygamous females; male and female attitudes to multiple sexual partners; sex differences in aggression
  2. Hormones and sexual behaviour
    Sample content: measuring sexual motivation & performance; estrogen; progesterone; testosterone;
  3. Sex and gender: Nature or Nurture?
    Sample content: sex & gender, gender role & gender identity explained; sex differences in human behavior; hormones & development
  4. Human sexual behavior& orientation
    Sample content: hormone therapy; genetic disorders
  5. video: Development of external genitalia
  6. interactive images: Location of ovary & uterus in the rat
  7. Neurobiology of maternal behaviour
    Sample content: smell, sound & touch; suckling, brain & maternal behaviors
  8. Effects of drugs & chemicals on baby's brain: Psychoteratology
    Sample content: thalidomide; detecting teratogens; frequency of taking medicines during pregnancy; testing for drug safety
  9. interactive images: Effect of alcohol on the developing brain

Drug Dependence and Food Intake

Drug Dependence and Food Intake

  1. Drug tolerance
    Sample content: drug addiction vs substance dependence; behavioral & biological tolerance; classical & operant conditioning; heroin overdose
  2. Drug addiction
    Sample content: disease, physical dependence & positive reinforcement models of addiction; dopamine & brain reinforcement systems
  3. Regulation of Food Intake
    Sample content: drive reduction & positive reinforcement explanations of eating; classical conditioning and sensory factors; physiological theories
  4. Neural Control of Feeding
    Sample content: dual control & set point theories; brain - lateral and ventromedial hypothalamus; brain & sensory factors

Neurotransmitters and Neurotransmission

Neurotransmitters and Neurotransmission

  1. The Scientific Method
    Sample content: Darwin; phrenology; designing experiments; psychiatric disorders; Parkinson's disease
  2. interactive images: Research into brain transplants for Parkinson's disease
  3. Neurotransmission
    Sample content: brain anatomy; neurons; chemical transmission via neurotransmitters; synapse
  4. video Transmitter release and reuptake
  5. video: Reserpine effects on transmitters
  6. video: amphetamine: transmitter release
  7. video: chlorpromazine: receptor blocking
  8. Nerve cells and nerve impulsesrequires VRML plugin
  9. Electrical events and nerve impulsesincludes a 3D VRML model

The story behind SALMON (Study And Learning Materials ONline)

Paul Kenyon

Study And Learning Materials ONline (SALMON) was developed and is maintained by Dr Paul Kenyon who graduated from Queens University Belfast in 1969 with a B.Sc. (Hons) in Psychology. In 1976 he was awarded a Ph.D. by the University of Reading. He lectured on the Biological Bases of Behaviour, Behavioural Neuroscience and Evolutionary Psychology in the Department of Psychology, University of Plymouth from 1973 to 2006. He has published papers in psychopharmacology, psychoteratology, physiological psychology and laboratory computing.

Paul started work on SALMON in 1994 to support his 1st, 2nd and 3rd year undergraduate students studying Evolutionary Psychology, Biological Bases of Behaviour and Psychobiology

SALMON won the 1998 Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association (UCISA) Teaching and Learning Awardfor demonstrating innovative or exemplary use of the Web.

SALMON was a finalist at the European Academic Software Awards (EASA)held in Oxford in 1998

Paul retired from his university post in 2006 and devotes more time than is reasonable to maintaining this website and his lifelong love of all things associated with trout and rivers. He and his colleague Geoff Stephens now operate Fly Fishing Devonwhich offers fly fishing instruction and guiding on Dartmoor and in South Devon, UK.

Didn't find what you were looking for?
Try a Google search of SALMON here