General Psychology

Question 1

When and where Wilhelm Wundt established the 1st experimental psychology lab?

Answer 1

University of Leipzig in 1879

Question 2

Whose work is the Elements of Psychophysics, and when was it published?

Answer 2

Gustav Fechner in 1860

Question 3

Who is a pioneer in the field of experimental psychology?

Answer 3

Hermann Helmholtz brought Physics, Chemistry, Physiology, and Psychology together, eventually leading to experimental psychology.

Question 4

What are the different contributions of Helmholtz?

Answer 4

1. Rate of Nerve Conduction: He worked with frogs and electrical conduction to determine the rate of nerve conduction. With humans, he later assessed the sensory nerve rate of transmission and concluded that the rate of transmission is governed by how far the stimulus is from the brain.
2. Principle of Conservation of Energy: Energy is not lost in a system; it is only converted from one form to another.
3. Perception Theory: H postulated that prior experiences + sensation = Perception.
4. Young-Helmholtz Theory of Colour vision: ( Will study in detail later). Eyes have receptors that translate waves of light into 3 primary colours, red, blue, and green. Then, with the combination of 3 colours, a visible spectrum of colours is made.

Question 5

Who is the founder of Psychophysics?

Answer 5

Gustav Fechner

Question 6

What does the field of psychophysics entail?

Answer 6

This field of Psychology tries to quantitatively investigate relationship betwen physical stimuli and the sensations and perceptions they produce.

Question 7

What are Fechner’s contributions?

Answer 7

1. Colour effect: black and white pattern spun like a top induces the illusion of colours.
2. Synesthesia: Joined sensation. A disorder in which signals from various sensory organs are proicessed in wrong cortical areas. resulting in activation of one sense with another unrelated one. For eg: letter of alphabet has differet colours. Like the character Sheldon Cooper in Big Bang Theory.
3. Fechner’s paradox: light appears bright when one eye is uncovered and another ins covered with a light filter as opposed to both the eyes uncovered.
4. Just Noticeable Difference: (Will learn later in detail)

Question 8

Explain absolute threshold

Answer 8

Strength of a stimulus at or above which a sensation is detected. Also known as the minimum amount of stimulation that is detectable by an individual 50% of time.

Question 9

Is there any sensation below absolute threshold?

Answer 9

No, but it is important to understand that there are reactions below absolte threshold, but unconscious.

Question 10

What are other names for absolute threshold?

Answer 10

Detection threshold and limen. Below limen there is sub-limen. From here you have the term subliminal perception.

Question 11

What is differential threshold?

Answer 11

How much the maginitude of the stimulus must be increased or decreased for an individual to detect a change. This is just noticeable difference or JND.

Question 12

The ability to detct change in the intensity of the stimulus is called?

Answer 12

Differential Threshold

Question 13

What is Weber’s law?

Answer 13

The amount of change necessary to be noticed is systematically related to the intensity of the original stimulus. So stronger the original stimulus, the greater the change must be for it to be noticed.

Question 14

What is the mathematical equation representing Weber’s law?

Answer 14

K = JND divided by I

Question 15

What are the important points that Weber’s law postulates?

Answer 15

1. The perception of the stimuli is relative and not absolute.
2. Explains why slight differences in intensity are more difficult to detect when the original stimulus intensity is very high

Question 16

If a sound gets twice as loud, we might not think its twice as loud maybe just a bit louder. his is because of which law?

Answer 16

Weber-Fechner Law. Our perception of he intensity of a stimulus grows at a slower rate than the actual physical intensity.

Question 17

What is sensory adaptation?

Answer 17

As a result of constant exposure, our brain cells experience diminished sensitivity to a said stimulus. This happens to all 5 senses except vision.

Question 18

What is signal detection theory?

Answer 18

This explains how individuals differentiate between meaningful signals and background noise in decision-making processes under uncertainty.

Question 19

What are the 4 outcomes of SDT?

Answer 19

Hit: presence of signal identified
Miss: presence of signal not identified
False Alarm: no signal but identified
Correct rejection: No signal, and that is identified