PS1011 - Foundations of Psychology

who is a candidate for the first bipedal hominid around 6-7million years ago

• Orrorin Tugenensis

• Similar size to a chimpanzee

Key traits of Homo Habilis

• known as “handy man”

• had brain size of around 50% of modern humans

• used primitive stone tools

major cognitive markers for Homo Erectus

• used fire - for cooking and warmth

• utilised base camps

• had brains 60-70% the size of modern humans

How did homo neanderthalensis differ from modern humans

• They had larger brains - adapted to cold

• used sophisticated tools, clothing and symbolic objects

When did homo sapiens emerge and what defined their technology

• They appeared around 300,000 years ago

• used specialised composite tools

• transitioned to food production

Savanna Hypothesis

• the idea that climate change led to more grasslands which favoured hominids who could walk in-between scattered trees

What anatomical change in the skull indicates bipedalism

• The foramen magnum moved from the back of the skull to the base

Survival benefits of bipedalism

• freed the hands for tool-making and carrying items

• improved the ability to see danger and reduced heat stress from the sun

what does the development of technology tell us about cognition

• demonstrates an increase in problem-solving, planning and communication skills

why are stone tools considered limited

• it is likely that hominids used biodegradable materials before stone but these didn’t survive

Oldowan tools

• simple stones chipped for a cutting edge

• 2.5 million years ago

Acheulean tools

• 1.5 million years ago

• Standardised tools - two sided hand axes

Mousterian tools

• 200,000 years ago

• spear pints and scrapers

Upper Palaeolithic tools

• 45,000-10,000 years ago

• sophisticated needles, harpoons and fishhooks

release from proximity

• the ability of language and symbols to allow humans to communicate about things not physically present in space or time

Noam Chomsky - theory of language

• proposed humans have innate mechanisms and a “universal grammar” that allow children to learn language spontaneously

Selective pressures for developing language

• language provided a survival advantage by allowing hominids to warn of danger and share hunting locations and teach tool making

Semanticity

• signals convey specific meaning

Arbitrariness

• no physical link exists between a word and what it represents

Symbolism

• the capacity to represent objects or concepts using arbitrary but meaningful signs (like words or money) based on social agreement

Peirce’s three levels of reference

• Iconic - physical resemblance (red ochre/blood)

• Indexical - physical association (beads/status)

• Symbolic - purely arbitrary (words/money)

Genetic evolution

• long term changes to innate ability

Cultural evolution

• rapid adaptation to environments using the innate capacity for learning and language

significance of beads and art in the fossil record

tangible signs of symbolic behaviour - shows social signalling of identity and wealth

Matthew effect

• giving too much credit to famous people inflating their impact

Presentism

• judging the past using modern-day values and knowledge

Historicism

Studying the past for its own sale without comparing it to today

Zeitgeist

• the ‘spirit of the times’

• The idea that discoveries aren’t random but happen when society and preceding factors ae ready

Animism

• the belief that natural events are caused by spirits or agents with human like intentions and characteristics

Scholastic Method

• rote-learning based on unquestionable authority and core texts

Socratic Questioning

• constant questioning to find answers from within

• Relies on reasoning rather than authority

What did the ancient Egyptians believe about the brain

• generally thought it was useless and left it out of Canopic jars

• Edwin smith papyrus - this early document linked brain damage to leg function showing an early hint of the brains importance

What are Plato’s “forms”

• the idea that objects we see are imperfect versions of an ideal template or perfect form

How did Plato view sleep and dreams

• believed sleep is when the animalistic part of the soul takes over for pleasure/violence - rational people control these appetites through thought

Rationalism

• Plato

• knowledge comes from innate truths and logical reasoning, not volatile sensory experiences

Empiricism

• Aristotle/Galen

• Knowledge is gained through cumulative perceptual experiences and observations

Aristotle’s laws of association

• distinguished between spontaneous remembering and active recall

• Recall follows four laws - contiguity, similarity, contrast and frequency

Deductive Reasoning

• Top-down

• starts with an irrefutable (impossible to deny) truth to reach a certain conclusion

Inductive reasoning

• bottom up

• takes repeated observations to form a general rule ( thought it isnt always 100% certain)

Ockham’s Razor

• the principle of explanatory parsimony - the simplest explanation that trims away necessary detail is usually best

Plato’s tripartite soul

• Reasoning - the brain - the neck acts as a gateway to keep it pure

• Sensation - heart - emotions

• Appetite - liver

Aristotle’s “heart centered” view

• believed that the heart was the primary organ of life and emotion because it is “hot”

• the brain simply exists to cool the hearts tempers

Glens Ventricular Theory

• based on dissections - he argued that ventricles (holes in the brain) produced behaviour when spirits entered them

Hypatia

• famous scholar, mathematician and philosopher in Alexandria who followed neoplatonism (rooted in Plato)

Ibn Sina

• wrote the Canon - standard medical text for 500 years

• proposed humans have 7 interior and 5 external senses

Maimonides

• interested in psychosomatic disorders

• argued that religious texts could be understood through Aristotelian rationalism

Geocentric Model

• Aristotle.Ptolemy

• earth is the center

Heliocentric Model

• Copernicus/Galileo

• sun is the center - proven further by Galileo’s telescope

How did the printing press change science

• it allowed for wider reading and translation leading to new (and often controversial) interpretations of texts

Rationalism

The belief that knowledge comes from within the individual rather than form external experience

Key processes of rationalism

• obtaining knowledge requires active thought, reason ad logic

Famous figures of rationalism

• Plato and René Descartes

Empiricism

• the theory that the human mind starts as a (tabula rasa) blank slate

How we learn through empiricism

• we acquire all knowledge from experience through our sense and forming associations between those experiences

Key figure of empiricism

• John Locke

• One of the earliest and most important proponents of this “hard” empiricism

Cartesian Dualism

• the idea that the human body consists of two separate parts - a physical body and a non-physical mind or soul

The “Ghost in the machine”

• Descartes argued that the mind is an immaterial entity that communicates with the physical brain

Skepticism of Cartesian Dualism

• based on the principle of systematic doubting - Descartes famously concluded “i think therefore i am” because the only he could not doubt was he was thinking

Idealism

• knowledge is a construction of the mind and does not have 100% correspondence to reality

Realism

• human knowledge attempts to reveal the actual properties of the outside world

Difference of idealism and realism

• in idealism truth is based on how well ideas match social knowledge whereas in realism truth depends on how well they match the real world

Phrenology

• the belief that bumps and dents in the scalp reveal a persons qualities and intelligence

Historical importance of phrenology

• not scientific - one of the most popular notions of the localisation of function

Key figure of phrenology

• Founded by the German doctor Franz Josef Gall

What was the Neural Doctrine established by Golgi and Cajal

• the discovery that the brain is made of specialised cells called neurons that communicate with eachother

• This shifted since towards a biological basis for the mind

What is the core belief of materialism

• the assumption that psychology is biology - the mind is a physical by product of the brain and mental states depend entirely on physical brain processes

cultural evolution

• the ability to adapt quickly to environmental changes by using our evolved capacity for learning and language

• allows us to gain new skills in a single generation without waiting for genetic mutations

vertical and horizontal transmission

• vertical transmission is learning from parents

• horizontal transmission is learning from peers, leaders and communication which makes cultural change much faster

Neuronal recycling hypothesis

• the idea that human-made skills don’t have mew brain areas - instead they recycle evolutionary older brain circuits that were originally meant for other tasks

Neuronal niche

• a set of brain circuits that are plastic (changeable) and close enough to a new tasks function that can be repurposed for novel use

Visual word form area

• the brains niche for reading - shows consistent activation during word recognition different people and cultures regardless of script used

which brain area is recycled for word recognition

• areas in the ventral visual stream that were originally evolved for processing object contours

how does the brain process written words

• through hierarchical coding - starts with letter shapes then the letter identities then bigrams (letter pairs) then morphemes then finally whole words

why is the reading center usually on the left side of the brain

• because the left hemisphere already has the necessary connections to language centers

what are Berry’s three goals for cross cultural research

• test if western findings apply to other cultures

• discover new patterns of behaviour not seen in western cultures

• combine findings to create a universal psychology

how does culture/language effect colour perception

• language acts as a filter - e.g Berinmo speakers have one word for green and blue so they perceive those colours as more similar than english speakers do

example of culture affecting psychological disorders

• culture influences how symptoms are reported

• in some cultures depression is often expressed through somatisation (physical symptoms) rather than just emotional ones

why is the history of intelligence important in psychology

• helps us understand how theories and ethical rules developed

• it also shows the societal impact of research helping modern psychologists make more informed and responsible choices

who was francis galton and what did he believe

• known as the "apostle of quantification," he was Darwin’s cousin

• he believed intelligence was inherited and that successful people naturally rose to the top of society

how did Galton try to prove that intelligence was inherited

• he used the survey method and twin studies

• he found that twins often had similar traits even when living apart though he ignored the impact of their environment

what were Galton’s quantitative measures

• he measured physical things like height, weight, breathing capacity and reaction time

• he believed these physical and sensory measurements could identify those best suited for the human race

what is Eugenics

• a movement started by Galton

• positive eugenics encouraged people with good genes to have more children while negative selection tried to stop those with bad genes from reproducing this lead to harmful practices like forced sterilisation

what was Cattell’s contribution to testing

• he bought Galton’s methods tho the USA

• he focused on sensory tests (like grip and strength and reaction time) but eventually found no correlation between these tests and how well students did in school

how did Ebbinghaus change intelligence testing

• he argued that tests should look at cognitive abilities rather than just senses

• he used completion tasks to tell the difference between strong and weak students

what did Binet and Simon create

• created the first modern IQ test

• their goal was to identify children who were “slow” and needed extra help in school rather than children who were sick

what was the original purpose of the Binet-Simon scale

• to assess the mental age of children

• it used a series of questions that got harder as they went along - where the child stopped determined their score

How did Henry Goddard use intelligence tests in the USA

• he used them to identify “feeble-minded” children

• most famously he used tests at Ellis Island on immigrants which led to many people being turned away and sent back to Europe

What was Lewis Terman’s goal

• he believed intelligence was inherited and wanted to identify mentally defective people so society wouldn’t punish them for things they couldn’t understand

what was the “army alpha” and army beta”

• created by Yerkes for WW1 to test large groups of soldiers quickly

• Army Alpha was a written test for people who could read

• Army beta used pictures for those were illiterate

what is a major criticism of historical IQ tests

• accused of being unfair based on race, gender and class

• many early tests used western ideas of intelligence that didn’t work for people of other cultures

how are IQ tests used today

• education - finding students who need extra support or are gifted

• clinical - checking for brain injuries or conditions like ADHD

• forensic - checking if someone is mentally capable during a trial

Who is considered the founder of experimental psychology and why

• Wilhelm Wundt. In 1879, he established the first formal laboratory for experimental psychology at the University of Leipzig.

What is the sic idea of Weber’s law

• It states that the "just noticeable difference" (jnd) between two stimuli is a constant ratio of the original stimulus, not a fixed amount

What is the difference between the Method of Limits and the Method of Adjustment

• In the Method of Limits, the experimenter controls the intensity of the stimulus.

• In the Method of Adjustment, the participant controls it themselves.

How did Wundt split the study of psychology

• Immediate conscious experience: Studied in the lab using "internal perception" (self-reports).

• Higher mental processes: Studied outside the lab using observation (e.g., language and culture)

What is the subtraction method in reaction time

• : Created by F.C. Donders, it measures mental stages by subtracting a Simple Reaction Time (SRT) from more complex tasks, like Choice Reaction Time (CRT), to see how long it takes to make a decision.

How did Hermann Ebbinghaus study memory

• He used nonsense syllables (like "CVC" combinations) to see how associations are formed from scratch without the influence of prior knowledge

What did Ebbinghaus discover about forgetting

• Forgetting is initially very rapid after learning something new, but then it levels off over time.

What was Ebbinghaus’s early finding on memory capacity

• He found that the maximum number of syllables a person can accurately repeat after just one reading is about seven

What is "Retroactive Inhibition" (Müller & Pilzecker

• It is when learning new material makes it harder to remember older material that was learned previously