Chapter 1 - Early Thoughts of Human Mind

Question 1

What was Descartes believe of the human mind?

Answer 1

Descartes believed in dualism (mind and body are separate) and that the body is like a machine and the mind is free-will (god-like)

Question 2

what is reflex actions? who coined this term?

Answer 2

Reflex actions are for every action of the body a stimulus made it happen; it is automatic and the mind can alter reflex (controlling it) but animals can’t so they work reflexively all the time

Decartes coined this term

Question 3

Which idea of behaviourism was arose from Decartes definition of a human mind?

Answer 3

Stimulus-Response idea

idea that a stimulus causes a response

Question 4

What was Hobbe’s idea of the mind? how did it differ from Descartes?

Answer 4

Hobbes believed in monism and that the mind and body are both subject to physical laws

Question 5

What was Hobbes idea of Hedonism? What theory did this idea influence?

Answer 5

Hedonism ==> the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain

this influenced Reinforcement theory

Question 6

Who were the two first British Empiricists?

Answer 6

Locke and HUme

Question 7

What was Locke and Hume’s idea about the mind?

Answer 7

they believed in the mind being a tabula rasa (blank slate) and how humans are born with a blank slate and learn through experience

Question 8

Which theories did Locke and Hume’s idea about the mind influence?

Answer 8

experience and associations between simple ideas

Question 9

What was Locke’s view of how we form ideas and learn?

Answer 9

Locke thought in an atomistic view ==> that simple sensations combine to form complex ideas

Question 10

What was Hume’s view of how we form ideas and learn?

Answer 10

Hume thought in association view ==> how ideas become more complex by taking perceptions and forming it into complex ideas and then forming complex ideas from those ideas

Question 11

What are the 5 Laws of Association?

Answer 11

1. Contiguity: close in time
2. Similarity: similar in senses
3. Lively (salient): Noticeable
4. Practiced (dwelt upon): Thought about alot
5. Recency: Occurred together RECENTLY (within one or two weeks)

Question 12

What is Rationalism?

Answer 12

Rationalism is an alternative to empiricism which is gaining knowledge in other ways besides experience

Question 13

What was Kant’s idea about the human mind?

Answer 13

Kant thought that the mind did not learn everything through experience (unlike Locke and Hobbes), he thought of ‘A prioris’ which is a set of principles/ideas existing in the mind before birth to help it organize subsequent experiences (i.e. language debate)

Question 14

What did Kant’s ‘A prioris’ idea give rise to theoretically?

Answer 14

the preparedness theory in evolution

this is a concept developed to explain why certain things are more easily associated in our brains than others like phobias of snakes or height which are more common and more readily induced than other phobias

Question 15

What was Aristotles early thought on Animals?

Answer 15

He thought animals had intelligence and morality but not reason; this meant that animals could know whats right vs. wrong morally and can be held in trial for their actions but they can’t use reason to problem solve (used trial and error)

Question 16

what was Plotinus (roman philosopher) early thoughts on Animals?

Answer 16

He believed that animals had intelligence and souls (mind) and that they should not be killed or eaten

Question 17

What was Celsus’s (Christian Philosopher) early thoughts on animals?

Answer 17

He thought animals had soul and reason; and thought that animals only seem different to humans because we are looking at them from a human’s point of view

Question 18

What was Descartes early thoughts on animals?

Answer 18

thought of them as ‘automata’; no mind or voluntary action and worked only with reflexes

Question 19

What are the 3 general thoughts about animals around the time before Darwin?

Answer 19

1. Animals are ‘below’ humans in the great chain of being
2. Animals can be held accountable for moral transgressions
3. Animals can be put on trial for various crimes

Question 20

How did Darwin view animals? Under which model?

Answer 20

Darwin thought that Evolution by natural selection had important implications for how animals were viewed. He said that the differences in the mind between man and higher animals is one of degree and not kind.

Question 21

What is continuity (physical and mental)?

Answer 21

Explore evolution of behaviour and psychological processes by studying animals

Darwin’s idea of similar mental processes should be found In species with similar nervous systems.

Therefore if we studied mental systems of animals we can learn about the mental systems of humans, so we can understand evolution of behaviour and the mind by comparing different species

Question 22

What is comparative psychology? and its goal

Answer 22

Started by Darwin

a logical outgrowth of his idea of continuity

the goal is to trace the evolution of the mind by studying the mental lives of animals

Question 23

What are the main differences between studying Psychology and biology using animals?

Answer 23

in psychology, we look at general processes like how the animals adapt to their environment, and if animals can do what humans can do & the mechanism behind that; also is ATHROPOCENTRIC (human centred) and uses mechanisms to explain concepts

in biology, they mostly study the adaptive specializations in animals like why they become so adaptive to their environment and why they do what they do in the wild; it is also ECOLOGICAL (animal-cantered) and based on evolution to explain concepts

Question 24

What was one of the big downfalls of comparative studies in psychology?

Answer 24

early comparative psychologists studied animals out of convenience i.e. they are cheaper and easier to obtain than other animals and did not consider the evolutionary aspect of how related those animals are to humans

Question 25

what is the difference between studying convenient species vs. Evolutionary species comparison? (example_

Answer 25

convenient species comparisons are not efficient and it involves comparing spatial memory between pigeons, rats and humans which is only the general idea

Evolutionary comparison is like comparing spatial memory of food-storying and non-food-storing birds and coming up with a hypothesis; evolutionary explanation for species differences