Exam 1 Review

George Berkeley

empiricism and idealism philosophist

• form of idealism known as immaterialism, which asserts that reality consists only of minds and their ideas, not of mind-independent matter

Paul Broca

French physician, anatomist and anthropologists

• research on Broca’s area, a region of the frontal lobe that is involved with language

Mary Calkins

American philosopher and psychology, who work informed theory and research of memory, dreams and the self

Kenneth and Mamie Clark

pioneering African American psychologists who co-founded the Northside Center for Child Development and conducted the landmark "doll test" experiments

Lee Cronbach

American psychologist and former president of the APA who made contributions to psychological testing and measurement

Rene Descartes

• Jesuit educated, devout Catholic

• Mathematician (Cartesian system)

• Founder of Western philosophy

• Aristotle’s realist theory of perception replaced by primary-secondary senses

• Consciousness as an object of study

• Tutoring Queen Christina

Rene Descartes

• Mind-body dualism

• Body is entirely subject to mechanism

• Mind is subject to divine influence (soul) • Mechanism represented in automata

• Reflex action theory

• Pineal gland as mind-body nexus

• Doctrine of derived and innate ideas
  

Innate Ideas

God, math, infinity and self

Gustav Fechner

• University of Leipzig

• Suffered from severe neurosis

• Inspiration to “bridge the material and mental worlds”

• Elements of Psychophysics (1860)

• Absolute and differential thresholds

• Method of average error

• Predecessor of Wundt’s new psychology

Pierre Flourens

French physiologist, the founder of experimental brain science, and a pioneer in anesthesia

• performed crude ablation (removal) experiments on the brains of animals, primarily birds and lower vertebrates, between the 1820s 

• performed crude ablation (removal) experiments on the brains of animals, primarily birds and lower vertebrates, between the 1820s to discredit the phrenological claims of Gall by demonstrating a form of equipotentiality and localized function

Gustav Fritsch

German anatomist, anthropologist, traveller and physiologist from Cottbus. Fritsch studied natural science and medicine in Berlin, Breslau and Heidelberg

• stimulating the right motor cortex of a dog's brain causes movement on the left side of its body, and stimulating the left motor cortex causes movement on the right side

Phineas Gage

railroad foreman whose accidental death of his frontal lobe by a tamping iron rod made him famous in neuroscience

• transformed from a responsible, affable man into an impulsive, irritable, and profane individual

Galen

Pioneering anatomist of the body and the nervous system

Humoral theory of human temperaments:

• blood = sanguine

• phlegm = phlegmatic

• black bile = melancholic

• yellow bile = choleric

Franz Joseph Gall

• Identified brain as the organ of the mind

• Identified gray matter versus white matter

• Anatomy of contralateral connections

• Identified corpus callossum and proposed distinct roles of two hemispheres

• Phrenology – differences in mental functions were innate and measurable

Phrenology

differences in mental functions were innate and measurable

Hermann von Helmholtz

• speed of neural impulse

• trichromatic theory of color vision

• audition of tones

Eduard Hitzig

electrical stimulation of the cerebral cortex of a dog produced movements

• worked with Fritsch

John Hughlings Jackson

hierarchical organization of function primary and association cortex executive functions

• inhibition of primary areas

William James

personalistic influence

• American philosopher and psychologist

• “Father of American Psychology”

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher and Enlightenment leader whose work significantly impacted modern Western philosophy

• ethics, aesthetics, epistemology and metaphyics

Thomas Kuhn

Crises and Revolutions

• Scientific paradigms

• Progress in “normal science”

• Puzzles, anomalies, crisis → paradigm shift

• Necessary conditions for paradigm shifts

• Resistance to paradigm shift

• Revolutions in science change world view

Karl Lashley

search for the engram

John Locke

• Concerned with improving society by promoting equality and education

• Tabula rasa
  → people are born as a “blank slate”

• All ideas are derived
  → knowledge comes from experience

• Associationism

• Empiricism and the British school

Edward B. Titchener

• Psychology as “science of the mind”

• Analysis of the structure of the collective elements of sensation

• All consciousness derives from experience → empiricism

• Elements identified by Systematic Experimental Introspection

• SEI method to avoid stimulus error

• Consciousness is immediate experience

• Stimulus error as mediate experience

• Mind is accumulated experiences

• Mind automatically organizes sensations into experience – the “reagent”

• Opposed to Wundt’s doctrine of apperception, Cultural Psychology, and all practical applications

Titchener v Wundt

• Qualitative over quantitative data

• Analysis over synthesis of elements

• Passive over active processes

Margaret Floy Washburn

American psychologist in the early 20th century, was best known for her experimental work in animal behavior and motor theory developmen

• first woman to earn a Ph.D. in American psychology

Ernst Weber (1795 - 1878)

• absolute thresholds

• two-point thresholds

• just noticeable differences

Wilhelm Wundt

• Doctorate in physiology from the University of Heidelberg in 1855

• First teaching job at Heidelberg

• Assistant to von Helmholtz

• Theory of Sensory Perception (1862)

• 1863: began independent research

• “Recent Advances in the Field of Physiological Psychology” (1867)

Why Wundt is the “Founder”

• Vision of a separate discipline

• Founded independent department/lab

• Promoter and organizer of new field

• Raised money

• Developed novel method of experimentation (introspection)

• Mentor to many students

Principles of Physiological Psychology

first psychology textbook in 1873

University of Leipzig

first psychology laboratory and first department of psychology in 1879

Philosophische Studien

First Psychology Journal in 1881

Wundt’s Psychology

• Main Topic: CONSCIOUSNESS

• Tridimensional theory of emotion

• voluntarism

• doctrine of apperception

• Two psychologies: experimental, cultural (volkerpsychologie)

Fate of Wundt’s Psychology

• German funding for other departments of psychology were slower to develop

• Objections from philosophy

• Criticisms of introspection from natural sciences

• Politics and wars

• Movement of psychology to US and UK

Ablation

medical procedure that destroys abnormal tissue using heat, cold, radiofrequency energy, or lasers to create scars or destroy cells

Absolute Thresholds

the minimum intensity of a stimulus required for it to be detected at least 50% of the time

Associationism

All knowledge is comprised of links between perception and reason, between experience and ideas

Automata

refers to either the human acting like a mindless machine (a human automaton) or the formal modeling of psychological theories using automata, which are abstract computing devices

Derived Ideas

concepts formed from external, sensory experiences and perceptions of the physical world

Determinism

the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will

differential thresholds

the minimum difference between two stimuli that a person can detect at least half the time

Doctrine of Apperception

creative synthesis of mental elements

→ later this was an important concept in assessment of individual differences

dualism

a philosophical theory that posits the existence of two distinct entities: the mind and the body

empiricism

principle that all knowledge originates from sensory experience, observation, and experimentation, rather than innate ideas or reason alone

functionalism

emphasizes the purpose or function of mental processes and behaviors as adaptations to the environment

Historiography

• Study of how historians write history.

• Historians do more than catalogue past events.

• Historians explain events and make inferences about their lasting significance.

• Explanation by cause versus reason

• Reasons are subjective and biased by shifts in sociocultural perspective.

Holistics Theorists

• John Hughlings-Jackson

• Karl Lashley

Humoral theory of human temperaments

• blood = sanguine

• phlegm = phlegmatic

• black bile = melancholic

• yellow bile = choleric

immediate experience

real experiencing

innate ideas

god, math, infinity and self

introspection

examination or observation of one's own mental and emotional processes

• developed by Wundt

materialism

monist: all body

mechanism

represented in automata
- body is entirely subjected to this

mediate experience

remembering/conceptualizing

method of average error

participant repeatedly adjusts a variable stimulus to match a constant standard stimulus, and the mean of these adjustments serves as an estimate of the point of subjective equality (PSE)

mind-body problem

• monist position

  • pineal gland is the nexus

• dualist position

Nativism

innate knowledge and capacities, arguing that some mental structures, behaviors, or abilities are predetermined by genetics rather than being solely acquired through experience

naturalistic influences

• “Zeitgeist” concept

• Events are afforded by the time period

• Progress is driven by cultural context

• Effects of world events and leaders

• Professors and editors influence what is learned by the next generation

• Interactions of person, place, and time

neurasthenia

an ill-defined medical condition characterized by lassitude, fatigue, headache, and irritability, associated chiefly with emotional disturbance

• william james

paradigm

A widely accepted model for thinking about and solving the problems of a field of study

• overused and not the same as a theory or method

• define boundaries of field

• Determines questions to be asked

• Accepted and expected methodology

• Determines interpretation of findings

• Directed at specialized audiences

personalistic influences

• “Great person” concept

• Progress is driven by individuals

• Psychobiography of theorists

• Problem: “sleeper” discoveries

• Problem: simultaneous discoveries

• Do discoveries really depend on one person?

phrenology

differences in mental functions were innate and measurable

Positivism

Science should focus only on what is directly observable

Pragmatism

philosophical tradition that views language and thought as tools for prediction, problem solving, and action

psychophysics

• developed by Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894) and Ernst Weber

  • speed of neural impulse

  • trichromatic theory of color vision

  • audition of tones

  • absolute thresholds

  • two-point thresholds

  • just noticeable differences

reductionism

There is usually a simpler level of explanation

schools of thought: Extinct

• Structuralism (1879 - 1927)

• Functionalism (1890 - 1913)

• Psychoanalysis (1895 - 1939)

• Gestalt Psychology (1910 - 1947)

• Humanistic (1951 - 1983)

Schools of Thought: modern

• Behaviorism (1913 - )

• Psychodynamic (1940 - )

• Cognitive (1956 - )

• Evolutionary (1990 - )

• Positive Psychology (2000 - )

stimulus error

mistake of focusing on the objective properties of a stimulus, rather than the subjective, personal experience it creates, especially during introspection

stream of consciousness

• William James

  • describe consciousness as a continuous, flowing process, rather than a collection of separate, static thoughts

Structuralism

early school of psychology founded by Wilhelm Wundt and further developed by his student Edward Titchener, aiming to break down the mind into its most basic components and understand how they combine to form consciousness

three-part self

Freudian id, ego, and superego, which represent instinct, reality, and morality, respectively

tridimensional theory of emotion

pleasure vs. displeasure tension vs. relaxation excitement vs. depression

→ modern derivative:
The Circumplex of Model of Affect

(Russell, 1980)

Voluntarism

a school of thought founded by Wilhelm Wundt, which posits that the will is the fundamental organizing force in mental processes, enabling individuals to voluntarily select and process information

zeitgeist

refers to the dominant intellectual, cultural, and moral climate of a historical era, influencing prevailing ideas, attitudes, and behaviors within the field