Evolution of Psychology

Question 1

What is Psychology?

Answer 1

Scientific study of the mind, brain, and behaviour. We can study the mind through the measurement of behaviour.

Question 2

Cognitive Psychology

Answer 2

Study of mental processes such as perceiving, attending, thinking, language, and memory

Question 3

Biological Psychology

Answer 3

Study of the biology (physiology) that gives rise to cognition and behaviour

Question 4

What are the three philosophical hot potatoes?

Answer 4

Dualism vs Materialism
Realism vs Idealism
Nativism vs Empiricism

Question 5

What is the one neurological hot potato?

Answer 5

Localization of function vs Mass action

Question 6

Dualism vs Materialism debate is also called?

Answer 6

The Mind-Body Problem

Question 7

Who supported Dualism and what does it mean?

Answer 7

René Descartes
Body is a physical container for the non-physical mind (mind is a “ghost in the machine”, namely body). They are linked via the pineal gland.

Question 8

What did Plato support- dualism or materialism?

Answer 8

Dualism: “There is one body and one spirit”

Question 9

Who supported materialism and what does it mean?

Answer 9

Hobbes, Hume
Mind is a bundle of behaviours produced by the physical brain.

Question 10

Most scientists are now dualists or materialists?

Answer 10

Materialists (at least in practice in their work)

Question 11

Who supported realism and what does it mean?

Answer 11

Locke (needs to lock-in for real)
Our senses directly report reality, like a camera.

Question 12

Who supported idealism and what does it mean?

Answer 12

Kant (can’t lock in because in an ideal world you don’t need to)
Information enters our sensory organs and is interpreted by the brain. So, we are actively building a representation.

Question 13

Modern psychologists believe in realism or idealism?

Answer 13

Idealism: perception is an active, interpretive process

Question 14

Who supports nativism and what does it mean?

Answer 14

Plato (a Greek psychologist): all learning is a “recollection”; everything we learn is inside us (native to us) already
Certain kinds of knowledge is innate or inborn.

Question 15

“Socratic questioning” is under which line of belief?

Answer 15

Nativism (Socrates was Plato’s teacher)
The idea is already inside you and you can be asked questions to bring it forth

Question 16

The nativism vs empiricism debate is also called?

Answer 16

Nature-Nurture debate (named by Francis Galton)

Question 17

Who supported empiricism and what does it mean?

Answer 17

Aristotle, Locke
All knowledge is acquired through experience. E for empiricism, E for experience.

Question 18

Modern psychologists believe in nativism or empiricism?

Answer 18

Some version of nativism
We are born with some knowledge (space, causality, number) that allows us to acquire other knowledge

Question 19

What was phrenology? Who’s famous for it?

Answer 19

Phrenology assumed:
- different parts of the brain = different functions
- brain areas can be overdeveloped = skull bumps
- bumps indicate the faculties of an individual (cognitive abilities that allow us to think, feel, will)

Gall was famous for it.

Question 20

What was physiognomy? Who’s famous for it?

Answer 20

Belief that facial features revealed a person’s character.
Lombroso, an Italian surgeon and criminologist was famous for it.

Question 21

Who supported localization of function?

Answer 21

Flourens: experimental brain lesions (damage to brain tissue) in dogs have different effects. Did NOT believe in phrenology (areas of the brain responsible for certain traits can be felt on the skull) proposed by Gall.

Question 22

What does localization of function mean?

Answer 22

Specific areas of the brain control specific functions

Question 23

Who supported law of mass action?

Answer 23

Lashley (at least within the cortex, for learning and memory)
Larger lesion (more brain tissue damaged) = greater impairment, regardless of their exact location

Question 24

What is the law of mass action?

Answer 24

The belief that more brain = better learning overall

Question 25

Modern neuroscience sides mostly with?

Answer 25

Localization of function (specific regions of the brain have specific functions)

Question 26

Famous example of localization of function?

Answer 26

Broca’s area: a lesion in the left frontal lobe of Mr. Leborgne impaired his speech but his comprehension was intact, indicating that different regions of the brain are responsible for speech and comprehension

Question 27

What is a defining question for Structuralism?

Answer 27

“What is the mind like?” - Helmholtz - Wundt - Titchener

Question 28

What did Helmholtz study?

Answer 28

Human reaction time: the amount of time between the onset of a stimulus and a person’s response to that stimulus. Estimated speed of neural transmission at 27 m/s (it took longer for people to respond when stimulated in regions away from the brain)

Question 29

What did Wundt study?

Answer 29

Conscious Experience (not just responses to touch, but awareness of touch) - used methods like reaction time, introspection (what did you see? how did you feel?) - opened the first psych lab in Leipzig - his student: Titchener

Question 30

What is Structuralism?

Answer 30

An approach to psychology that attempted to isolate and analyze the mind’s basic elements.

Question 31

What did Titchener study?

Answer 31

- Aimed to break consciousness into its constituent parts - Pioneered a technique called “systematic self-observation”, now called introspection (analysis of subjective experience by trained observers)

Question 32

What is Functionalism?

Answer 32

Approach to psychology that emphasized the adaptive significance of mental processes (inspired by Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection)

Question 33

Who supported Functionalism?

Answer 33

James (influenced by Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection) - if our physical characteristics had evolved because they were adaptive, the same must be true of our psychological characteristics - wrote The Principles of Psychology (1890) - “stream of consciousness” instead of trying to isolate subjective experience to its basic elements

Question 34

What was Behaviourism?

Answer 34

School of thought that restricted the scientific inquiry of psychologists to objectively observable behaviour. Argued that introspection was subjective and unreliable.

Question 35

Features of Functionalism

Answer 35

- de-values people’s explanations for their own behaviour (Titchener’s introspection), more interested in your reaction - opens the door to comparative psychology: as evolution is important, can we study non-human animals to understand the human mind?

Question 36

Who supported Behaviourism?

Answer 36

Watson (focused on training and learning- “anyone can be trained to do anything”) - Stimulus-Response training: the famous Little Albert study - wanted to understand the acquisition of complex human emotions like fear Pavlov: classical condition (in dogs) Skinner: Principle of Reinforcement - Skinner’s box with rats and pigeons

Question 37

What was the Little Albert Study by Watson?

Answer 37

Watson believed in Behaviourism: “given the stimulus, psychology can predict what the response will be, and vice versa”. So he conducted a stimulus-response training: - before: little Albert with a rat had no fear (neutral stimulus) - rat was paired by loud noises 5 times and little Albert began crying as he was afraid - after: the rat became a conditioned stimulus (associated with the fear he felt with loud noise) and thus elicited fear in little Albert

Question 38

What was Skinner’s Operant Conditioning?

Answer 38

Principle of Reinforcement: any behaviour that is rewarded will be repeated. Any behaviour punished or not rewarded will not be repeated. Used “skinner’s box” with rats and pigeons.

Question 39

Resistance to Behaviourism (Early 1900s)

Answer 39

According to behaviourists, “no psychological phenomenon was real unless you could demonstrate it in a rat” - internal states, consciousness, feelings couldn’t be studied - not all information is equally learn-able. E.g., rats can associate a new taste with sickness, but struggle to learn the same association with light

Question 40

Who challenged Skinner’s operant condition and how?

Answer 40

Chomsky found operant condition an inadequate explanation of language learning as kids can use grammar rules to come up with their own novel sentences without reinforcement.

Question 41

Major events of the cognitive revolution (late 1900s)

Answer 41

Broadbent: discovered that attention has limited capacity when the military needed to understand the human interface with tech during WWII Miller: found consistency in capacity limits in memory. Used computing metaphors to describe the mind (after the invention of the computer) Penfield: neurosurgeon treating epilepsy through cortical ablation (part of the brain causing seizures damaged so that the rest of the brain remains healthy). Electrically stimulated the cortex to identify seizure foci. Laid out maps of sensory and motor function in specific areas of cortex. Neuroimaging: PET in 1980s (function of brain), MRI in 1990s (both structure and function in the brain)

Question 42

What is cognitive neuroscience?

Answer 42

Study of human information-processing