Unit #3 - Chapter #8

Question 1

What is the Doctrine of Specific Nerve Energies?

Answer 1

Johannes Muller - different types of sensory nerves, each containing a characteristic energy, and when stimulated, a characteristic sensation.
a) adequate stimulation: stimulation to a which a sense is maximally sensitive. Eye - light, ear - sound, skin - pressure.
b) consciousness, sensations, and reality: nature of our central nervous system determines our sensations. Not conscious of visual images. What we experience consciously is different than physical reality.

Question 1

What is the Bell-Magendie law of Neural Transmission?

Answer 1

A law of forward direction governed the nervous system. Sensory nerves carried impulses forward from sense receptors to the brain, and motor nerves carried impulses forward from the brain to the muscles and glands.
Demonstrated separate sensory and motor regions in the brain. Demonstrated that specific mental functions are mediated by different anatomical structures.

Question 2

Helmholtz and Vitalism

Answer 2

Believed that the same laws apply to living and nonliving things, as well as to mental and nonmental events. Against vitalism.
Accepted beliefs in living organisms, including humans, were complex machines and that these machines consist of nothing but material substance.

Question 3

Helmholtz and the principal of conservation of energy?

Answer 3

Demonstrated that food and oxygen consumption were able to account for the total energy that an organism expended. Energy is transformed.

Question 4

Helmholtz and the rate of nerve conduction:

Answer 4

Nerve impulses are slow and measurable. Concluded that reaction time was to unreliable.

Question 5

Helmholtz and the Theory of Perception:

Answer 5

Thought that the past experience of the observer is what converts a sensation into a perception. We learn from experience.

Question 6

Helmholtz and the Theory of Color Vision:

Answer 6

Separate receptor systems on the retina are responsive to each of the three primary colors.

Question 7

Helmholtz and the Theory of Auditory Perception:

Answer 7

Found that the ear is a highly complex system of many receptors. Contains thousands of types of nerve fibers.

Question 8

Hering and Spatial Perception & Color Vision:

Answer 8

Each point on the retina provides three types of information about the stimulus: height, left-right position, and depth.
Observed that certain colors mixed together make grey.
A person who stares at red and looks away will see an afterimage.
3 types of receptors: red-green, yellow-blue, and black-white.

Question 9

What did Christine Ladd-Franklin believe about color vision?

Answer 9

Based on evolutionary theory.
Human eye carries vestiges of its earlier evolutionary development. Most highly developed part of the eye is where visual activity and color sensitivity are the greatest.

Question 10

What is Phrenology?

Answer 10

The examination of the bumps and depressions on the skull in order to determine the strengths and weaknesses of various mental faculties.

Question 11

Franz Joseph Gall

Answer 11

Belief that faculties of mind acted on and transformed sensory information.
Faculties are housed in different areas of the brain.
If a faculty is well developed a person will have a bump, and if underdeveloped there will be a depression.

Question 12

Pierre Flourens

Answer 12

Assumed that the brains of lower animals were similar in many ways to human brains.
Cerebellum is for coordination and equilibrium, used an ablation approach.
cortical hemispheres function as a unit.

Question 13

What is Broca’s area?

Answer 13

A portion of the left hemisphere that is implicated in speech articulation or production.

Question 14

What is the relation between brain size and intelligence?

Answer 14

Smaller brain size was more intelligent than a larger brain size.

Question 15

What did Electrophysiology find?

Answer 15

By electrically stimulating the exposed cortex of a dog they found that the cortex is sensitive, and when a certain area of the cortex is stimulated, muscular movements happened on the opposite side of the body.

Question 16

What is Weber’s Law?

Answer 16

A systematic relationship between physical stimulation and a psychological experience.

Question 17

What is the two-point threshold?

Answer 17

The smallest distance between two points of stimulation at which the two points are experienced as two, rather than one.

Question 18

What is the Just Noticeable Difference?

Answer 18

The sensation that results if a change in stimulus intensity exceeds the different threshold.

Question 19

What are the three methods for determining thresholds according to Fechner?

Answer 19

1. Method of Limits: one stimulus is varied and compared to a standard. Goal is to determine the range of stimuli that the subject considers to be equal to the standard.
2. Constant Stimuli: Pairs of stimuli are presented to one subject. Subjects reports whether the variable stimulus appears greater than, less than, or equal to a standard.
3. Methods of Adjustment: Subject has control over the variable stimulus and is instructed to adjust the magnitude so that the stimulus appears equal to the standard stimulus.