1.1 Psychology’s Roots: The Path to a Science of Mind Flashcards
(35 cards)
What is the definition of Psychology?
The scientific study of mind and behavior
What is the definition of the mind?
The private inner experience of perceptions, thoughts, memories, and feelings
What is the definition of Behaviour?
Observable actions of human beings and non-human animals
Who were the two earliest philosophers who pondered on how the brain works?
Greek philosophers Plato (428–347 BCE) and Aristotle (384–322 BCE)
What is Nativism, and which early Greek philosopher argued in favour of it?
The philosophical view that certain kinds of knowledge are “innate” or “inborn”.
Favoured by Plato
What is Philosophical Empiricism, and which early Greek philosopher favoured it?
The view that all knowledge is acquired through “experience”.
Favoured by Aristotle
What’s a “tabula rasa”
A “blank slate”
What can be considered the cornerstone of the scientific approach and the basis for reaching conclusions in modern psychology?
The ability to test a theory
Which French philosopher argued that body and mind are different things—that the body is made of a “material substance”, whereas the mind (or soul) is made of an “immaterial” or “spiritual substance”
René Descartes (1596-1650)
Define “dualism”
The position that mind and body are in some categorical way separate from each other, and that mental phenomena are, in some respects, non-physical in nature
Endorsed by Descartes
What did British philosopher Thomas Hobbes argue in regards to the mind and the body?
He claimed that the mind and the body aren’t different things, and that the mind IS what the brain DOES.
What was philosopher Franz Gall famous for?
He came up with the concept of Phrenology (which is now discredited)
He observed that there is a correlation between brain size in animals, human adults, human babies, and mental ability.
He believed that bigger brains resulted in bigger mental ability, and vice versa.
What is Phrenology, and who came up with the concept?
Phrenology is the theory that specific mental abilities and characteristics, ranging from memory to the capacity for happiness, are localized in specific regions of the brain.
Franz Gall came up with this concept, and went too far/extreme with it.
What was the major flaw with Phrenology?
The exterior of the skull has nothing to do with the composition of the brain. Feeling peoples skulls for bumps and indents can’t reveal anything about the shape of someones brain.
Who was the first to prove that a change in brain composition results in a change in behaviour?
Marie Jean Pierre Flourens
He surgically removed parts of animals brains, and found that those animals behaved differently than untouched animals (surprise surprise)
Who was Paul Broca?
He was a surgeon who had a patient that had suffered severe damage to the left side of their brain (now known as Broca’s area), resulting in them only being able to say the word “Tan”.
Broca’s patient and research helped develop and support the idea that the mind is grounded in material substance, which is the brain.
Who was Hermann von Helmholtz? Why is he famous?
German physiologists who developed a method for measuring the speed of nerve impulses in a frog’s leg…. that he then adapted to the study of human beings
What’s a “stimulus”?
A sensory input from the environment
What’s a “reaction time”?
The amount of time it takes to respond to a specific stimulus
Who opened the first Psychology lab in history?
Wilhelm Wundt
In 1879, at the University of Leipzig, Wundt opened the first laboratory exclusively devoted to psychological studies, an event that marked the official birth of psychology as an independent field of study
What is “consciousness”?
A persons subjective experience of the world and mind
What did Wundt want scientific Psychology to focus on?
Consciousness
Define “Structuralism”
The analysis of the basic elements which constitute the mind
Who came up with Structuralism?
Wilhelm Wundt’s students, with Edward Titchener being the most eminent.
