Lecture 3 - Physiology and Psychophysics Flashcards
What do we need to retain from the readings?
Themes (e.g., public vs scientific psychology,
what is psychophysics…)
- Major figures and their major discoveries,
theories, arguments, and methods - Eras of time (e.g., “late 1800s”) but not usually
specific dates - Regions of the world (e.g., Germany) but not
usually specific locations (e.g., Leipzig)
+ be able to build links to modern psychology
By the end of February, I will write a short mock
midterm
“Why won’t you just tell us??”
- The final will be shaped by how the class
unfolds over the term - Sifting through a lot of information is part of
learning - Chunking and structuring information is part of
learning - Deciphering “what does this instructor think is
important?” is a transferable skill
Recognition that the brain is the seat of intelligence is attributed to
A. Aristotle
B. Plato
C. Hippocrates
D. Socrates
FIND ANSWER
Who is responsible for the evolving understanding of the nervous system?
Evolving understandings of
the nervous system
Italian thinker Leonardo
da Vinci used wax
injection to cast the
ventricles of an ox brain
(1506) and produce
detailed anatomical
drawings
In the late 1600s, Anton van
Leeuwenhoek creates the
microscope and describes “fine
thread-like structures in the
retina of a frog”
Discussion:
What are some technical advancements have changed Psychology andNeuroscience in the last few decades?
What are we “waiting on” now?
Can you imagine a future
measurement device that would propel Psychology forward?
As the physical structure of the brain was better understood through
the 1800s, three key questions were posed:
- How is the brain organized?
- What information do nerves carry?
- What is the speed of nerve conduction?
- How is the brain organized?
Who is Pierre Flourens? What did he study? When?
Pierre Flourens (1774-1867)
Experimental brain lesions have
different effects than would be
predicted by phrenology
Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud and Simon Ernest Aubertin were early
advocates for
A. the specificity of nerve function
B. measuring the speed of nerve conduction
C. a specific area of the brain responsible for speech
D. debunking the belief in cortical localization of function
FIND ANSWER
Who is Paul Broca? When?
Paul Broca (1824 – 1880) and Monsieur Leborgne
Who are Hitzig and Fritsch?
Hitzig & Fritsch 1870
Cortical stimulation
animal experiments
Discussion: Why do you think phrenology and localization of function are
presented as such core ideas in Psychology? How have you been taught
about them?
If the brain was one undifferentiated mass, would that change anything
for your current work or your understanding of the mind?
As the physical structure of the brain was better understood through
the 1800s, three key questions were posed:
- How is the brain organized?
- What information do nerves carry?
- What is the speed of nerve conduction?
- What information do nerves carry?
Working independently, Bell and Magendie discovered that
A. the two halves of the cortex were connected by a broad
band of pathways that are now called the corpus callosum
B. the image on the retina is inverted
C. nerve specificity exists in the spinal cord
D. the brain is composed mostly of white matter
FIND ANSWER
What do we know about german universities in the 1800s?
- Germany was a set of independent states until 1871 when it became
the unified German Empire after the defeat of Napoleon (the
Emperor of the French) - University professors around this time were appointed by the
government and had quite a bit of intellectual freedom and did not
need to apply for funding - Socialists and Jews faced discrimination, and women could not attend
Johannes Müller discovered that
regardless of the nature of
stimulation, visual nerves carry only
visual information, auditory nerves
carry only auditory information, etc.
This discovery is known as the
A. law of specific nerve energies
B. all-or-none law of
conductance
C. doctrine of contralateral
projection
D. frequency law
FIND ANSWER
As the physical structure of the brain was better understood through
the 1800s, three key questions were posed:
- How is the brain organized?
- What information do nerves carry?
- What is the speed of nerve conduction?
- What is the speed of nerve conduction?
What did Herman Von Helmholtz do?
Hermann von
Helmholtz (1821 –
1894)
Frog work: late 1840s
lots of machines
The color vision theory that best accounted for color afterimages and
complementary colors was the
A. Young-Helmholtz theory
C. trichromatic theory
B. frequency theory
D. opponent-process theory
FIND ANSWER
Ewald Hering
1834-1918
Leipzig, Germany
What strides were made in physiological psychology in the 1800s?
Throughout the late 1800s (= “the nineteenth century”) physiological
psychology made great strides in understanding many sensory
processes
Questions like….
- Is pitch encoded by place on the basilar membrane, or frequency?
- Is space perception an innate category of the mind, or the eye?
Discussion: Why do you think it was so critical for scientists to find specificity in the brain and
nervous system? What other research questions or topics does this “unlock”?
echner’s important insight of October 22, 1850 was that
A. psychology could be an empirical science by carefully
training observers in the method of introspection
B. it was possible to measure absolute and difference
thresholds with great precision
C. the relationship of the psychological and physical worlds
could be measured
D. individual differences accounted for most psychological
variability
What did Ernst Weber and Gustav Fechner do?
Ernst Weber (1795-1878) & Gustav Fechner (1801-1887)
Explored the relationship between measurable physical inputs and
subjective experiences: psychophysics
Discussion: Describe how one of Fechner’s psychophysical methods (JND, constant
stimuli, method of adjustment) could be used to reduce the size of a
food serving so that no one would notice and you would save the
restaurant money each day.
Can you think of experiences outside of a psychology lab, where you
have been the focus of a psychophysical test?
What is the legacy of psychophysics in our everyday lives?
Discuss
We have now talked about a number of new ideas that were argued
and/or tested during the 1800s.
Was there one idea or argument that particularly marked the transition
to Psychology as a scientific discipline? If you had to draw a line
somewhere, where would you draw it? Is it yet to come?
