PSYC3010 - Introduction to Biological and General Psychology

Learning Outcomes

  • Knowledge and understanding of main phenomena, methods, and theorizing in biological and cognitive psychology.

  • Develop subject-specific skills, including evaluating and selecting appropriate frameworks and methodologies for exploring issues in biological and cognitive psychology, and employing the inferential method in science.

  • Understanding of historical development of cognitive psychology as a science.

  • Develop intellectual skills, including reading and writing skills, critical reflection, and written analysis and interpretation.

  • Develop transferable skills, including communication skills, numeracy, use of information technology, working with others, and problem-solving.

What is Psychology?

  • Psychology involves investigation and reasoning about mental processes and behavior.

Outline of Topics

  • Definition of Psychology

  • History of Psychology

  • Different schools of thought in Psychology

  • Branches of Psychology

Definition of Psychology

  • Psych (Greek): Soul

  • Ology: To study

  • Psychology is also represented by the Psi symbol Ψ\Psi. This is also the wave function in quantum physics or the devil's fork.

Science

  • Science is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.

History of Psychology

  • Pre-Psychology: Natural Philosophy

    • Plato (400-300 BC): Nativism (nature)

    • Aristotle: Empiricism (nurture), the idea of a blank slate

    • Descartes (17th Century, French): Mind-Body Dualism

    • Thomas Hobbes (17th Century, British): Monism

Brain Structure-Function Relations

  • Franz Joseph Gall (1758 – 1828, French)

    • Believed brain and mind are linked by size.

    • Examined animals dead from disease.

    • Developed Phrenology: Bulges in particular places in skull correspond with abilities.

    • Largely based on anecdotes without proper scientific testing.

Psychology vs. Philosophy

  • Psychology is distinct from philosophy due to its use of the scientific method.

Early Neuropsychology

  • Paul Broca (1825-80, French)

    • Patient could only say ‘tan’.

    • Demonstrated that damage to particular brain areas affects particular functions.

    • Broca’s Area: Language Production.

    • Wernicke’s Area: Language Comprehension.

Birth of Psychology: 19th Century

  • Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894, German)

    • Measured reaction time and performed physiological experiments.

  • Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920, German)

    • Established the first psychology laboratory.

Structuralism

  • Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920, German)

    • Introspection: Subjective observation of one’s own experiences (present a stimulus and then report your experience).

    • Structuralism: Analysis of the basic elements that constitute the mind.

Functionalism

  • William James (1842-1910, American)

Two Early Approaches: Structuralism and Functionalism

  • Reaction to structuralism.

  • Emphasis: Identifying individual elements of consciousness, rather than the relationship between them.

  • Limitation of structuralism: Method was unreliable, limiting, and subjective.

Gestalt Psychology

  • Reaction to structuralism.

  • The whole is different from the sum of the parts.

  • Examples: Titchener Circles, Kanizsa Shapes, Muller-Lyer Line Illusion

Functionalism

  • William James (1842-1910)

  • Reaction against Structuralism.

  • Emphasis: The purpose of conscious activity (perceiving, learning).

    • Thinking is a means to behavior, not an end in itself.

    • Importance of individual differences.

  • Influenced by Charles Darwin.

    • Mind and body are not separate.

    • Biological adaptation.

Psychoanalysis

  • Sigmund Freud (1856-1939, Austrian)

  • Personality and the unconscious mind.

  • Emphasis: Description of mental structures (e.g., id, ego, and super-ego) and unconscious thoughts and feelings.

  • Iceberg Metaphor: Conscious, Preconscious, Unconscious.

Behaviourism

  • Only study behavior.

  • No reference to internal mental events.

  • Stimulus in -> Black Box -> Behavior out.

  • Key Figures: Ivan Pavlov (1823-1899), John B. Watson (1878-1958), B. F. Skinner (1904-1990).

Branches of Modern Psychology

  • Cognitive Psychology.

  • Cognitive Neuroscience.

  • Clinical/Abnormal Psychology.

  • Biological Psychology.

  • Evolutionary Psychology.

  • Related fields: Neurology, physiology of the mind, computer science.

  • Forensic Psychology (PSYC3060).

  • Social & Developmental Psychology (PSYC3020).

  • Personality & Individual Differences (PSYC3020).

  • Other more specialist sub-areas (e.g., Business Psych, Health, etc.).

Cognitive Psychology/Neuroscience

  • Focus Areas:

    • Attention.

    • Consciousness.

    • Learning.

    • Movement.

    • Problem Solving.

    • Memory.

    • Executive Function.

    • Perception.

    • Language.

Cognitive Psychology

  • "Inside the Black Box"

  • Input -> What happens inside? -> Behavior Out

David Marr’s Levels of Analysis

  • Complex systems should be understood at different levels:

    • Computational: What’s the problem to be solved?

    • Algorithmic: How can the problem be solved?

    • Implementation: How are the rules physically implemented?

Marr’s Algorithmic Level

  • Describes the process or set of rules and information processing operations involved.

  • Often how cognitive theories work with box and arrow diagrams that describe information flow and change through the system.

Cognitive Psychology Example: Mental Rotation

  • Shepard & Metzler (1971)

  • Task: Are the target and test shapes the same?

  • Measure reaction time (RT) to decide.

  • Predictions:

    • If mental rotation is involved, RT should increase with larger rotations.

  • Time to decide depends on how rotated the shape is, suggesting a mental rotation process that turns the shape over time.

  • Cognitive processes take time, which can be a clue to how they function.

The Importance of Cognitive Psychology

  • Reveals limits of human information processing.

  • Reveals systematic errors in reasoning.

  • Reveals the effects of emotion on performance.

  • Reveals the effects of interface design on use.

Biological Psychology

  • Behavior and mind are generated through biological processes.

  • Focuses on:

    • Neural circuits involved in behavior.

    • Hormones affecting behavior.

    • Genetics of behavior.

    • Evolution of behavior and the brain.

Marr's Levels of Analysis

  • Computational

  • Algorithmic

  • Implementation

Marr’s Implementation Level

  • Any one algorithmic description may have several possible implementations.

    • Similar Input & Output, Different Implementation.

  • Examples: Plasma TV vs. CRT (Cathode Ray Tube).

    • Plasma TV: Cells containing noble gases and mercury; electricity through mixture causes glowing.

    • CRT: Shoots electrons at phosphors on a screen to make them glow; activate each component at each pixel with intensity of corresponding signal.

What is Biological Psychology for?

  • Behavior is a result of the structure and function of the brain and nervous system.

  • Knowing the structure and function related to a cognitive function can:

    • Help to inform algorithmic theories in Cognitive Psychology.

    • Help identify how some of these cognitive algorithms are implemented in neural tissue.

Biological Psychology Example: The Split Brain

  • Severing the corpus callosum.

  • Done to control intractable epilepsy.

  • Split-brain patients have undergone surgery to cut the corpus callosum, the main bundle of neuronal fibres connecting the two sides of the brain.

  • A word is flashed briefly to the right field of view, and the patient is asked what he saw.

  • Now a word is flashed to the left field of view, and the patient is asked what he saw.

  • Input from the left field of view is processed by the right hemisphere and vice versa.

  • Because the left hemisphere is dominant for verbal processing, the patient's answer matches the word.

  • The right hemisphere cannot share information with the left, so the patient is unable to say what he saw, but he can draw it.

Brain Meets the Mind: Cognitive Neuroscience

  • Mind is the software, brain is the hardware.

  • Mental activities depend on intricate operations carried out by the brain.

  • Dependence is revealed by brain damage cases.

    • Karl Lashley (1890-1958) trained rats to run a maze and surgically removed brain parts.

    • Equipotential & Law of Mass Action.

Brain Meets the Mind: Cognitive Neuroscience

  • How cognitive processes are embedded in neural tissue.