Pioneers Of Psychology Chapter 3

What was one of Willis' most important observations?

That the brain tissue consisted out of two kinds of substances:

1. gray matter (cortex)

2. white matter (distribute spirits generated in the gray matter)

What was Gall able to discover when he found something in the brain he called the commissures?

His discovery helped explain how damage to one side of the brain could result in paralysis or other debility to the opposite side of the body

What is phrenology?

That the bumps and indentations on the surface of an individual skill reflected the size of the underlying brain parts, and hence of the different faculties

What is physiognomy?

The reading of a person's chracter in his or her physical features

What is craniometry?

The measurement of the physical dimensions of the skull

What were the 3 major weaknesses and Gall's theory?

1. He incorrectly assumed that the shape of one's skull accurately reflects of the underlying brain

2. He tried to localize specific psychological qualities in the brain

3. The feckless methods by which his hypotheses were tested

What is ablation?

Surgically removing specific small parts of an animal object's brain and observing any consequent changes in the behavior or function of the animal after recovery from the surgery

What important discovery is credited to Fritsch and Hitzig?

The stimulation to specific points in the region now known as the motor strop elicited specific movements on the opposite side of the body

What did Ferrier discover in the brain?

Auditory area, visual area (behind motor strip) and ablations from the sensory strip produced losses of sensitivity

What are motor, sensory and conduction aphasia?

Motor aphasia: patients are no longer to speak perfectly, but perfectly understand spoken language

Sensory aphasia: patients are able to speak perfectly, but cannot understand spoken language

Conduction aphasia: patients are unable to monitor their own speech

What is equipotentiality?

the apparent capacity of any intact part of a functional brain to carry out the functions which are lost by the destruction of other parts

What is the law of mass action?

the efficiency of performance of an entire complex function may be reduced in the proportion to the extent of brain injury

What is the redundancy hypothesis?

Each individual memory gets stored in several locations throughout the cotex, with the number increasing as the memory becomes better established and more widely associated with other memories

What are interpretive responses and experiental responses?

Interpretive responses: patients suddenly and inexplicably saw their immediate situation in new lights

Experiental responses: hallucinatory dreams or flashbacks

What are two seperate memory processes described by Milner?

Primary mental proces: rpaid decay

Secondary mental proces: long-term storage

What two kinds of memories are there according to Milner?

Declarative memory: ability to remember and verbally describe

Procedural memory: benefit from practice and repeat newly learned actions

What are ways to study the brain using computer technology?

CAT scans, MRI, PET, fMRI

What is social neuroscience?

science that explores the neural mechanisms underlying social thought and behavior