Chapter 1 Flashcards
psychology
the scientific study of mind and behavior.
mind
the private inner experience of perceptions, thoughts, memories, and feelings, an ever-flowing stream of consciousness.
behavior
observable actions of human beings and nonhuman animals, the things that we do in the world-by ourselves or with others.
emotions allow
us to react quickly to potentially dangerous events.
What is the mind for?
helps accomplish the goals of humans: to survive and reproduce.
each psychological process has a _________
function
nativism
the philosophical view that certain kinds of knowledge are innate or inborn.
Why does the mind fail?
the mind relies on well-learned habits that it executes without fully considering the context.
how do young children learn about the world?
Plato believed that certain kinds of knowledge are innate, whereas Aristotle believed that the mind is a blank slate on which experiences are written.
Plato was a strong proponent of________
nativism (the view that certain kinds of knowledge are innate or inborn)
Philosophical empiricism
the view that all knowledge is acquired through experience.
Aristotle was a strong proponent of____________, and that a child’s mind was a blank slate on which only experience could write.
philosophical empiricism
Rene descartes argued that body and mind are
fundamentally different things-that the body is made of material substance, whereas the mid (or soul) is made of an immaterial or spiritual substance.
dualism
how mental activity can be reconciled and coordinated with physical behavior.
Thomas Hobbes argued that
the mind and body aren’t different things at all. The mind is what the brain does.
What fundamental question has puzzled philosophers for over a millennia?
how the mind works and how humans acquire knowledge
how did work involving patients with brain damage help demonstrate the relationship between mind and brain?
French surgeon Paul Borca discovered that damage to a specific part of the brain impaired a specific psychologi cal function. This demonstrates that our mental lives are products of the brain.
reaction times
the time it takes to respond to a specific stimulus.
What was the useful application of Helmholtz’s results?
he recorded reaction times at the toe and at the thigh. reaction time at the toe was longer than the reaction time at the thigh. This showed that mental processes were not instantaneous, but have a reaction time.
consciousness
a person’s subjective experience of the world and the mind.
structuralism
the analysis of the basic elements that constitute the mind.
how did the work of chemists influence early psychology?
chemists tried to understand the structure of matter by breaking down natural substances into basic elements, so Wundt developed the approach to psychology know as structuralism. (the analysis of basic elements that constitute the mind)
introspection
asks people to report on the contents of their subjective experience
functionalism
the study of purpose that mental processes serve.
natural selection
the features of and organism that help it survive and reproduce are more likely than other features to be passed on to subsequent generations.
How does functionalism relate to Darwin’s theory of natural selection?
the ultimate function of all psychological processes must be to help people survive and reproduce.
In the 1800’s, Paul Broca conducted research that demonstrated a connection between
A.animal and humans
B.the mind and the brain
C.brain size and mental ability
D.skull indentations and psychological attributes
B
What was the subject of the famous experiment conducted by Hermann von Helmholtz? A. reaction time B.childhood learning C.structuralism D.functions of specific brain areas
A
Wundt and his students sought to analyze that basic elements that constitute the mind, an approach called
a. consciousness
b. introspection
c. structuralism
d. objectivity
c