UNIT 1: concepts

Experimental Psychology

Study of mind’s processes under controlled laboratory conditions.

Cultural Psychology

Study of higher mental processes through:

• Language

• Art

• Myths

• Customs

• Law

• Morals

Ablation (Extirpation) - definiton & figure - what did it CHALLENGE?

A method of studying brain function by removing or destroying a specific brain region and observing the resulting changes in behavior.

• animal experimentation

Figure: Pierre Flourens

• Removed cortical regions from animals.

• Allowed animals to recover and observed behavioral changes.

• Used this method partly to challenge Gall's strict localization theory.

• Found evidence that some brain functions were distributed across larger areas.

Absolute Threshold - definiton & 2 figures

The minimum intensity of a stimulus that can be detected (present vs. absent).

Subterms:

• Below threshold: Stimulus is not consciously detected.

• Above threshold: Stimulus can be detected.

• Detection is generally defined around 50% of the time in psychophysical measurement.

Figure: Ernst Weber / Gustav Fechner

PSYCHOPHYSICS

Associationism - defininton & brain process & 5 subterms (2 ideas, 3 occurences)& 4 figures

doctrine that knowledge is formed through links between basic experiences/ideas.

Basic process: Simple ideas → Association → Complex ideas

Subterms:

• Simple ideas: Basic mental elements.

• Complex ideas: Ideas formed by combining simple ideas.

• Contiguity: Ideas occurring close together (time/space) become associated.

• Simultaneous occurrence: Events experienced together become linked.

• Successive occurrence: Events experienced one after another become linked.

Figures:

• Aristotle

• John Locke

• James Mill (passive mind; machine mind)

• John Stuart Mill (creative & active mind - MENTAL CHEMISTRY)

Automata - defiinton & figure

Mechanical devices designed to imitate the movements or actions of living beings.

Figure: Jacques de Vaucanson

• Created the famous mechanical duck in 1739.

• spirit of mechanism.

Derived Ideas - definiton & figure & doctrine it belongs to

 Ideas produced through external sensory experience.

figure: René Descartes

DOCTRINE OF IDEAS

Determinism - definiton & main question

 The doctrine that behavior or events are determined by preceding/past events and conditions.

• Behavior is determined.

Major question: Do humans really have free will?

Differential Threshold; JND - definition & figure

 The smallest difference between two stimuli that can be detected, usually about 50% of the time.

Figure: Ernst Weber

Doctrine of Apperception - definition & 2 subterms (CS & law) & figure

idea that the mind actively organizes mental elements into unified conscious experiences.

• Creative synthesis: idea that complex ideas formed from simple ideas take on new qualities

  • JOHN STUART MILL

• Law of Psychic Resultants: whole experiences can have properties not present in their individual components.

Figure: Wilhelm Wundt

Dualism - definition & figure

 The doctrine that mind and body are two distinct entities.

Mind:

• Nonmaterial

• Unextended

• Capable of thought

Body:

• Physical/material

• Occupies space

• Governed by mechanical laws

• Functions like a machine

Figure: René Descartes

Monism

Mind and body are ultimately one.

Empiricism - defnition & brain process & 4 figures

knowledge comes from direct sensory experience

• Experience → Sensation → Knowledge

Figures:

• John Locke

• George Berkeley

• James Mill

• John Stuart Mill

Empricism: Tabula Rasa - definiton (2 sources of exp.) & figure & 2 qualities

Mind at birth = blank slate → experience produces knowledge

• Two sources of experience:

  • Sensation: Direct sensory input from the environment.

  • Reflection: Observation of one's own mental operations.

Figure: John Locke

1. Primary Qualities: Characteristics that exist IN AN OBJECT whether or not we perceive them.

• Size

• Shape

• Motion

2. Secondary Qualities: Characteristics that exist IN OUR PERCEPTION of an object.

• Color

• Odor

• Taste

• Sound

• Warmth/coolness

Functionalism - defnition & nickname & 2 figures & what science does it loop in

concern with what the mind does, how mental processes function, and how they help organisms adapt to their environment.

• Influenced by Charles Darwin

• “AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGY”

Figure(s):

• William James

• James Angell

Main questions:

• What does the mind do?

  • How does it do it?

• How does consciousness help organisms adapt?

• What practical consequences do mental processes have?

PHILOSOPHY

Historiography

 The study of how historians write and interpret history

• Explaining causes

• Interpreting significance

• Understanding historical context

• Examining how perspectives influence historical explanations

Holistic Theories of Brain Function - defniniton & 2 figures

Theories arguing that brain functions are distributed across multiple areas and that brain structures work together

John Hughlings Jackson:

• Proposed executive functions.

• compared Brain to a government:

  • Higher levels/executives control lower systems.

• Distinguished excitation and inhibition.

Karl Lashley:

• Studied memory through rats running mazes.

• Searched for the engram.

• Rats could sometimes perform learned tasks despite removal of portions of cortex.

• Supported more distributed/holistic views of memory.

Humoral Theory of Temperament - definiton & 2 figures

 Ancient theory that health and personality/mood depend on the balance of four bodily fluids, or humors; 4 temperaments

• Figure: Hippocrates & Galen

Galen’s Humoral Theory - temperaments

Connected the four humors to four basic temperaments.

Humor	Temperament	Characteristic
Blood	Sanguine	Happy
Phlegm	Phlegmatic	Calm/relaxed
Black bile	Melancholic	Sad
Yellow bile	Choleric	Angry/irritable

Immediate Experience (definition, 2 schools of thought, figure)

 A person's direct conscious experience of something, before interpretation or conceptualization is added.

• experience itself

• VOLUNTARISM/STRUCTURALISM

Figure: Wilhelm Wundt

Innate Ideas - figure & doctrine

Ideas or forms of knowledge that arise from the mind independently of sensory experience.

Figure: René Descartes

• God

• Mathematics

• Infinity

• Self

DOCTRINE OF IDEAS

Introspection (2 figures)

 The systematic examination and reporting of one's own conscious experience.

Figures:

• Wilhelm Wundt

• Edward Titchener

Wundt's introspection

• Controlled experimental conditions

• Quantitative

  • Reaction time

  • Intensity

  • Duration

• Trained observers

Titchener's introspection

• Qualitative

  • Detailed descriptions

  • Sensations

  • Images

  • Feelings

• Focused on identifying basic elements

Important criticism:

• Private/subjective

• Observers disagreed

• Training could bias results

• Could alter the experience

• May actually be retrospection

• Unconscious processes cannot be accessed

Materialism (definition & figure & what kind of position is this (M-B problem))

material body creates mental states, consciousness, and emotions–physical process

Figure: Hermann von Helmholtz

MONIST position

Key idea: Physical matter → physical processes → potentially mental phenomena

Mechanism - definiton & 5 figures

 behavior and thought are fully explained by NATURAL laws

• JAMES MILL: MIND = PASSIVE

Core assumptions:

• Matter

• Motion

• Physical forces

• Mechanical laws

• Predictability

Figures:

• Galileo Galilei

• Isaac Newton

• Jacques de Vaucanson

• René Descartes

• Hermann von Helmholtz

MEHCANISM: Clockwork Universe

The universe operates like a vast, orderly, predictable machine.

Key implication: If we know the laws governing a system, we should theoretically be able to predict its behavior.

Mediate Experience (definition, school of thought, figure)

Experience that provides information about something beyond the immediate elements of the experience.

• Key idea: Mediate = information about the object

• VOLUNTARISM/STRUCTURALISM

Figure: Wilhelm Wundt

Method of Average Error

the participant adjusts a variable stimulus until it matches a standard stimulus, and the difference between the two is measured.

• Basic process: Standard stimulus → Adjust comparison stimulus → Match → Measure error → Average across trials

Key phrase: “Adjust it until it matches.”

Figure: Gustav Fechner

PSYCHOPHYSICS

Mind-Body Problem - definition & 4 main positions

philosophical question concerning the relationship between mental experiences and physical/material processes.

4 major positions:

1. Monism: Mind and body are ultimately one.

2. Materialism: Physical body/brain = mental phenomena.

3. Mentalism: Reality/knowledge = mental phenomena.

4. Dualism: Mind and body are separate.

Major figure: René Descartes

Nativism (definiton, figure, CONTRAST)

The doctrine that certain abilities/knowledge = innate or hard-wired rather than entirely learned through experience.

Figure: Immanuel Kant

Contrast: Nativism = innate; Empiricism = learned/EXPERIENCE

Naturalistic Influences (+subconcept)

Historical progress influenced by cultural, social, intellectual, technological, and political conditions surrounding scientists and their work.

• Zeitgeist

Paradigm - definition, 5 functions, figure

A widely accepted model/framework for thinking about and solving problems within a field of study.

• Defines boundaries of a field

• Determines relevant questions

• Establishes accepted methods

• Shapes interpretation of findings

• Creates expectations for scientists

Figure: Thomas Kuhn

Personalistic Influences - definiton & subconcept & figures

scientific progress = driven by the actions, discoveries, personalities, and contributions of individual scientists.

“Great person” concept: Important events happen because important people make them happen.

Figures:

• Wilhelm Wundt

• William James

• Charles Darwin

Phrenology (definiton, figure, related term)

theory claiming that mental abilities and personality traits = shape, size, and bumps of the skull.

Figure: Franz Joseph Gall

• believed:

  • Different mental faculties were localized in different brain areas.

  • Stronger faculties → larger brain structures.

  • Larger structures → bumps on the skull.

Related term: Cranioscopy (Attempted to infer underlying brain faculties from skull shape.)

Pineal Body (Gland) - who proposed it? why?

A small brain structure that Descartes proposed as the location where the mind/soul interacted with the physical body.

Figure: René Descartes

Why Descartes chose it:

• Believed it was a singular structure.

• Thought it was not duplicated across the two brain hemispheres.

Key concept: Pineal gland = proposed mind-body nexus

Positivism (definiton & figure)

 science should focus ONLY focus on what is observable

Figure: Auguste Comte

Psychophysics - defintion, 3 figures, 2 measures

The scientific study of the relationship between physical stimuli and psychological sensations/perceptions.

Major figures:

• Ernst Weber

• Gustav Fechner

• Hermann von Helmholtz

Key concepts:

• Absolute threshold

• Differential threshold; JND

PSYCHOPHYSICS: 3 methods

1. Method of average error: subject adjusts a variable stimulus until it matches a constant standard stimulus.

2. Method of limits: Stimuli are systematically increased or decreased until the subject detects a difference

3. Method of constant stimuli: A series stimuli is presented, and the subject indicates whether each is heavier/lighter, brighter/dimmer, etc., than the standard

Reductionism - definiton, principle, process, 2 figures that followed it, what schools of thought is it associated with?

Explaining complex phenomena by reducing them to their simplest components.

1. PRINCIPLE OF PARSIMONY

Basic process:

Complex system → Break into simpler components → Understand the whole

Figures:

• James Mill (machine mind & mechanism)

• Edward Titchener (structuralism)

Stimulus Error - defintion, figure, school of thought + 2 connected concepts

 observer describes the physical object or stimulus itself during introspection rather than reporting the raw, immediate sensory experience it produces

• Object ≠ conscious experience of object

Figure: Edward Titchener

“I experience a particular combination of color, shape, brightness, etc.”

“Apple ❌ → red + shiny + round ✅”

STRUCTURALISM

• Immediate vs. mediate experience.

Stream of Consciousness - defintion, figure, significance

concept that conscious experience = continuous, constantly developing/changing, and flowing

• NOT separate, isolated mental elements.

Figure: William James

**Importance: A major criticism of structuralism.

STRUCTURALISM - definiton, 2 figures, main question, 2 experiences & error, what science does it loop in?

system focused on analyzing BASIC ELEMENTS of conscious experience to determine the BASIC STRUCTURE of the mind.

Figures:

• Edward Bradford Titchener

• Wilhelm Wundt

Main question: What is consciousness made of?

1. immediate experience

2. mediate experience

3. stimulus error

PHYSIOLOGY

TITCHENER’S STRUCTURALISM: 3 elements of conscious experience (S[+4 subelements]IA) (& method)

1. Sensations → elements of perception

   1. Quality

   2. Intensity

   3. Duration

   4. Clearness

2. Images → elements of ideas

3. Affective states/affections → elements of emotion

Method: Systematic experimental introspection

STRUCTURALISM: Titchener’s 3-step process

1. Reduce → break conscious processes into simplest components.

2. Associate → determine how elements become associated.

3. Connect → connect conscious elements to physiological condition

Tridimensional Theory of Emotion - definition & figure & 3 dimensions; what is its modern derivative?

theory that emotional/feeling states can be described along three dimensions.

Figure: Wilhelm Wundt

Three dimensions:

1. Pleasure ↔ Displeasure

   • Pleasant ↔ unpleasant

2. Tension ↔ Relaxation

   • Anticipation/tension ↔ relief/relaxation

3. Excitement ↔ Depression

   • Increased stimulation ↔ decreased stimulation

modern derivative: The Circumplex of Model of Affect

Voluntarism (definition/key idea, figure)

view that the mind actively organizes mental contents into higher-level thought processes through acts of will.

• Mind = active organizer, not passive receiver.

• CREATIVE SYNTHESIS

KEY Figure: Wilhelm Wundt; J.S. Mill

Zeitgeist

The general intellectual, cultural, social, and historical climate of a particular period.

Neurasthenia - definition, figure (& their main belief), symptoms, treatment

condition described as a depletion/lack of “nerve force” resulting in nervous exhaustion and loss of will.

•  reflected concerns about how the demands of modern American life affected mental well-being.

Figure: George Beard

• believed modern life, especially clocks, schedules, punctuality, and increasing workplace time pressures, depleted nervous energy.

Symptoms:

• Depression

• Anxiety

• Insomnia

• Hypochondria

• Headaches

• Skin rash

• Nervous exhaustion

• “Brain collapse”

Treatment (differed by gender):

• Women: bed rest, no work/reading/social activity, and weight gain.

• Men: strenuous physical activity

Pragmatism - defintion, 2 figures, what school of thought does this fit with?

philosophical approach that the validity of an idea or conception should be tested by its practical consequences

• idea = valuable if it works in practice.

Figures:

• Charles Sanders Peirce

• William James

fits with Functionalism because both emphasized the practical function and usefulness of mental processes.

Three-part self - definition, 3 components + subconcept, figure

sense of self = 3 components (multifaceted, not one entity):

1.  Material Self: Everything we consider uniquely our own.

   • Includes:

     • Body

     • Family

     • Home

     • Clothing/style of dress

1. Social Self: recognition/perceptions we receive from other people.

   • multiple social selves because we present different aspects of ourselves to different people.

3. Spiritual Self: Our inner, subjective being.

   • internal experiences and sense of who we are.

“I” (pure ego; consciousness) versus “me”

• Figure: William James

Weber's Law (figure & definition)

The JND between two stimuli = constant proportion of the original/standard stimulus—NOT a fixed amount.

Figure: Ernst Weber

Fechner's Law (defintion & figure)

The relationship between stimulus intensity and subjective sensation = logarithmic—NOT linear.

Figure: Gustav Fechner

Neural Conduction (definition, figure, importance)

The rate at which a neural impulse travels along a nerve.

Figure: Hermann von Helmholtz

~83 feet/second.

Importance: Demonstrated that neural processes could be objectively measured and studied through physical methods (PSYCHOPHYSICS).

FIRST psych. lab & founding date? Who founded it?

Wundt’s LEIPZIG LAB (1879)

• First psychology journal (Philosophical Studies)

what are the 2 MAIN BINARIES of schools of thought (? vs. ?)

empiricism vs. nativism

• What is learned, and what is innate?

voluntarism vs. determinism

• Do we really have free will?

Wundt’s two psychologies & their analogy

Experimental and cultural psych = Analogous to Cronbach’s “two disciplines”

Müller's doctrine of specific nerves

Experience in mind (consciousness) is the result of nerves, not sensory organs

Clinical method (case studies) - definiton & figure

Close studies of individuals who have deficits in their behavior that linger postmortem 

• Paul broca

Rationalism - definition & figure

Knowledge = obtained through reasoning and deduction.

• Descartes

Reflex Action Theory - definition & figure

External stimulus → involuntary response

• descartes

Doctrine of Ideas - definition & figure

Derived Ideas: ideas Produced through sensory experience.

Innate Ideas: ideas built into the mind from birth independently of sensory experience

• Descartes

Two-Point Threshold - definition & figure, school of thought

 how DIFFERENT two stimuli have to be in order to be perceived as different

• Weber

Psychophysics

What school had the first psych. department in the U.S.? When? WHO started it?

Johns Hopkins Univ. (1883)

• Founded by G. STANLEY HALL

  
  

James-Lange theory (definition, figure, implications about emotions)

emotions = mental interpretations of physical arousal; states of arousal

• William James

we can change the way we feel by changing the way we think/act

psychologists' fallacy - definiton, who used it for what?

the assumption that what a psychologist identifies is actually present in the person’s conscious experience.

• used by william james to critique structuralism