History of Psychology, Ch. 2

Physiology, psychophysics, & science of the mind

Practice of boring/chiseling holes into the skull of living individuals to release trapped spirits and cure physiological/psychological issues.

Trephining

Credited with recognition that the brain is the organ of intelligence.

Hippocrates

Dissected more than 300 cadavers and made 1500+ detailed drawings of the brain.

Leonardo da Vinci

Made significant advances in neuroanatomy. Described the human brain more realistically than ever before in words with pictures.

Andreas Vesaius

Milestones of neuroanatomy during the Renaissance.

Discovery of cerebrospinal fluid, differentiation of white vs gray matter, naming of brain areas, discovery that image on retina is inverted

Critical 17th century invention that allowed for sufficient magnification to see neurons for the first time.

Microscope

Sought to measure the relationships between events in the physical world and psychological perception of those events.

Psychophysics

Device that provides images of blood flow or other metabolic changes in an intact, functioning brain of a conscious human subject. Compares brain activity with ongoing mental activity. Adds to understanding of brain function.

fMRI

Most vocal proponent of the theory of cortical localization in the 19th century.

Franz Josef Gall

Tested claims of phrenologists through surgical investigations and concluded erroneously that different behaviors were spread widely across the brain, not localized.

Pierre Flourens

Made a case for functional locations in the brain in 1825, emphasized the anterior portion of the cortex as responsible for speech.

Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud

Ardent supporter of cortical localization in the mid 1800s. Believed that the speech center for the brain was in an anterior location.

Simon Ernest Aubertin

Discovered that the left frontal lobe was important for language via patient autopsies. Discovered the area of the brain associated with the production (but not understanding) of speech.

Paul Broca

Used electrical stimulation to study nerves in 1870. Stimulated various points on the cortical surface and found a number of different voluntary movements that occurred due to stimulation. Findings supported voluntary motor specificity in the cortex.

Edward Hitzig, Eduard Fritsch

Applied electrical current to a patient's brain in 1874, reported movement in her arms and legs that was contralateral to stimulation in the brain.

Roberts Bartholow

Published the book The Functions of the Brain based on several years of intensive studies on several animal species. Produced detail in mapping the sensory and motor functions of the brain.

David Ferrier

Scottish anatomist who privately published a booklet in 1811 in which he stated the spinal cord was made up of two kinds of nerves- sensory nerves in the dorsal position and motor nerves in the ventral position of the cord.

Charles Bell

French physiologist who published a similar discovery to Bell's in a French scientific journal in 1822, claiming original discovery. This angered Bell.

Francois Magendie

German physiologist known for discovery of the law of specific nerve energies, published in 1826. Stated each sensory nerve carries only one kind of sensory information, regardless of how the nerve is stimulated. Argued the speed of nerve transmission was instantaneous.

Johannes Muller

Created the ophthalmoscope to observe the retina, measured the curvature of the eye, contributed to the development of the theory of color vision, theory of pitch perception, law of conservation of energy, and speech synthesis. Measured the speed of nerve conductance using a severed frog leg in 1849.

Hermann von Helmholtz

Theory in 1852 that proposed 3 kinds of fibers in the retina were differentially sensitive to red/green/blue light. Any spectral hue could be reproduced by some combination of those 3 colors.

Trichromatic theory of color

Trichromatic theory of color was originated by _____ and revived by _____.

Thomas Young, Hermann von Helmholtz

Proposed an opponent process theory of color vision in 1874, which proposed the existence of 3 color receptors that can either be built up or broken down. One receptor was responsible for blue-yellow perception, another for red-green, and the third for black-white. Accounted for the way color information is processed in the lateral geniculate body of the thalamus.

Ewald Hering

Proposed by Helmholtz in 1863 that different frequencies of sound would have their greatest impact at different places on the basilar membrane in the cochlea. Different transverse fibers were tuned to separate frequencies. The brain could discern low or high frequency of sound based on info carried from different regions of the membrane.

Resonance theory, place theory

Argued for frequency theory in 1886: the firing o impulses from the basilar membrane would match the frequency of incoming sound.

Ernest Rutherford

German philosopher/physicist who realized in 1850 that it was possible to measure with great precision the relationship between the physical and psychological worlds. Founded psychophysics field.

Gustav Fechner

Physiology professor at Uni of Leipzig whose principal area of research was somatosensory perception. Most important contributions were the two-point threshold and Weber's law.

Ernest Weber

The distance required between two compass points for a subject to reliably discriminate between one and two points of touch. Distance is lesser in skin areas where nerve endings are denser and sensitivity is greater.

Two-point threshold

Point at which a subject can reliably discriminate between 2 stimuli. Varies in terms of absolute magnitude of the stimulus.

Difference threshold, just noticeable difference

Formula that expresses the amount of change necessary for a subject to perceive a stimulus as different.

Weber's Law

The perceived difference between two stimuli are identical for the subject, psychologically.

Fechner's Law