Chapter 3 - Physiological influences Flashcards
1
Q
Who was Friedrich Wilhelm?
A
- One of the first to investigate the importance of the human observer and differences in perspective
- Also started to investigate physiology
2
Q
When did people start experimenting with physiology?
A
- The 1830s
3
Q
Who was Johannes Muller?
A
- Professor of Anatomy and physiology
- Wrote Handbook of the physiology of Mankind
- Inspired many other physiologists and psychologists
- His ‘energies of nerves’ theory renewed interest in brain localization
4
Q
What’s the significance of Muller’s Honadbook of the Physiology of Mankind?
A
- Encapsulated what was known in the field at that time
5
Q
What was Muller’s ‘energies of the nerves’ theory?
A
- Stated that stimulation of nerves always leads to a characteristic sensation because each sensory nerve has its own specific energy
6
Q
Who was Marshall Hall?
A
- A Scottish physician
- Postulated that voluntary movement depends on the cerebrum, reflex movement of the spinal cord, involuntary movement on direct stimulation of the muscles, and respiratory movement on the medulla
7
Q
What’s the life story of Joseph Gall?
A
- Born in Germany, trained as a doctor
- Always had issues with authority, was a womanizer, and a capitalist
- Discovered presence of white and grey matter
- Theories upset Emporer Francis 1
- Left Vienna for Paris
- Noticed a correlation between bulging eyes and academic performance
- Came to believe that shape of the skull could offer clues to traits
- Founded Crainioscopy which became known as Phrenology
- Quickly rejected by peers as a fraud
8
Q
What did Joseph Gall discover concerning grey matter?
A
- More grey matter in a species = greater intelligence
9
Q
Which two guys promoted the spread of phrenology?
A
- Gall and Johann Christoph Spurzheim
- Spurzheim was also a doctor, partnered with Gall
- Measured the heads of hundreds of people
- Developed a phrenology system with Gall
- Gall published several books on phrenology, while Spurzheim broke away and did lectures
- Parlors, celebrities, almost a century of popularity
- Ended mapping 35 attributes
10
Q
What did the Fowler brothers do?
A
- American brothers who ended up developing their own system by reading the works of Gall and Spurzheim and became very successful in America
11
Q
What was said about the idea of practice in phrenology?
A
- Argued that practice makes the ‘mental muscle stronger’
- Phrenology debunked, but the idea of strengthening individual domains remains
12
Q
What was one benefit of phrenology?
A
- Led to more interest in localization
- However, it was abandoned by scientists by early 1900s
13
Q
Who was Pierre Fluorens?
A
- Professor of natural history in Paris
- Provided scientific evidence that debunked phrenology (research on brain functions: mapping from the inside)
14
Q
What does the term extirpation imply?
A
- Developed by Pierre Fluorens
- A technique to identify function of the brain by removing or destroying areas, then examine behaviour
- A way of early researchers to look at animal models
15
Q
How did Pierre Fluorens relate animal anatomy to humans?
A
- Believed that the brain anatomy of lower animals similar to humans
- Removal of areas such as the cerebellum result in disturbances (area for purposive movement; evidence of localization)
- However, also believed that the cortex functioned as whole (later disputed by Broca)
16
Q
Who was Paul Broca?
A
- Surgeon and anthropologist, Professor of pathology in Paris
- Developed the clinical method
- Also discovered Broca’s area (area in left cortical hemisphere responsible for speech production)
17
Q
What was Broca’s clinical method?
A
- Posthumonous examination of brain structures to detect damaged areas responsible for behavioural conditions
- Beneficial as people don’t have to volunteer for very invasive procedures
18
Q
Who was Luigi Galvani?
A
- An Italian physiologist
- Believed that nerve impulses were electric
- Demonstrated this with frog legs. Noticed they started to twitch when hanging them on railing in a thunderstorm
- “to galvanize” = startle
19
Q
Who was Giovanni Aldani?
A
- Galvani’s nephew
- Professor of experimental physics
- Moved on from animals and started to conduct experiments on dismembered criminals
- Developed transcranial electric stimulation (electrotherapy descended from this)
20
Q
How did Giovanni Aldani try to treat depression?
A
- Tried using transcranial electric stimulation
21
Q
How was Mary Shelley inspired by the idea of stimulation of the nervous system?
A
- Inspired the creation of the Monster’s body in Frankenstein
22
Q
Who was Alessandro Volta?
A
- Italian physicist and professor
- Argued for ‘metallic electricity’ (current between two metal objects; first electric battery in 1800)
- Did a demonstration for Napoleon
- “volt” = unit of force that drive a current
23
Q
What did Santiago Ramon y Caja contribute to the field of neural stimulation?
A
- Revealed the direction of travel of neural impulses
24
Q
What was the German approach to science?
A
- Emphasis on the careful, thorough collection of observable facts (very scientific)
- Welcomed the study of biology when other nations did not (i.e., in England there was a focus on literature)
- They defined science very broadly
- Professors encouraged to teach broadly, students encouraged to take whatever
25
Q
What did the reform movement in German universities entail?
A
- Freedom unknown to other nations
- More resources (i.e., there was a good economy for funding, could get paid to do research)
- More research universities
26
Q
What’s the life story of Hermann von Helmholtz?
A
- Father was a teacher, was a sick child
- Entered medical school at 17
- Served 7 years in the German army afterwards
- Later had several academic positions at different universities
- Many advances, including ophthalmoscope
- Assumed human sense organs functioned like machines
27
Q
What was Helmholtz’s interest regarding neural impulses?
A
- Investigated the speed of the neural impulse
- Influenced by Muller’s ‘specific energy of nerves’
- It was assumed that nerve impulses were too fast to measure
- Emil du Bois-Reymond suggested that nerve impulses could be both electrical and chemical
- If so, could be slower than previously believed
28
Q
What was Hemholtz’s discovery regarding neural impulses?
A
- Some mental processes could be quantified using reaction time (invented measurement tools for this)
- Frog legs to measure electrical impulses
- They have varying lengths of nerves
- Stimulate one end, measure contraction of muscle
- Neural impulse: 90 feet per second
29
Q
What’s the purpose of the ophthalmoscope?
A
- It examines the retina and takes photos
30
Q
What’s the Young-Helmholtz theory?
A
- Revised a theory based on the work by Thomas Young
- Became Trichromatic Theory of Color perception
- Suggested that the color we see is related to amount of stimulation on certain cones (looked at anatomy of eye)
- Three types of cone cells: red, green, blue
- Other colors come from blending
31
Q
What’s Helmholtz’s Perception of Tones
A
- Believed musical notes on a scale were similar to his color theory
- This became Place theory
- Nerves at different locations along basilar membrane
- Where frequency produces vibrations = different pitches
32
Q
What were Hermann von Helmholtz’s contributions to psychology?
A
- Unlike other scientists of the time, he was more concerned with practical application
- Contributed to our understanding of how the senses worked (his work raised many questions that others pursued)
- Improved experimental methods, later adopted by psychologists
- He himself was not a psychologist and physiologist
33
Q
Who developed the two-point threshold? What is it?
A
- Ernst Weber
- Applied physiology’s experimental methods to psychological problems
- Researched physiology of the sense organs
- Two-point thresholds - the threshold at which two points of stimulation can be distinguished as such
- As two touch points get closer, it becomes more difficult to distinguish as two instead of one (indicated limits on perception)
34
Q
Who developed the Just Noticeable Difference? What is it?
A
- Ernst Weber
- The smallest difference that can be detected between two physical stimuli
- Used a series of weights
- Small differences = feeling ‘sameness’
- Large differences = judging them as different
- Found a ratio of 1:40 for the JND
- Also noted differences if weight was placed in the hand instead of picked up (only using tactile perception)
35
Q
What’s the life story of Gustav Fechner?
A
- Son of a pastor in Germany
- Attended Weber’s lectures as a medical student at the University of Leipzig
- studied afterimages of the sun, but his eyesight became severely damaged
- Neurotic by nature, and suffered from constant repetitive thoughts (OCD?)
- Believed that ‘wine-oaked ham’ and chores cured him
- Did experiments at home
36
Q
What was Gustav Fechner’s thoughts on the mind and body?
A
- Stimulus increase does not always produce corresponding increase in sensation (relationship not one-to-one)
- Absolute threshold - point of sensitivity below which no sensations can be detected and above which sensations can be experienced (e.g., point at which already loud doesn’t get ‘louder’
- Formed a numerical philosophy between the mental and material worlds
37
Q
What was Fecher’s absolute threshold?
A
- Point of sensitivity below which no sensations can be detected and above which sensations can be experienced (e.g., point at which already loud doesn’t get ‘louder’
- Formed a numerical philosophy between the mental and material worlds
38
Q
What’s Fechner’s differential threshold?
A
- Point of sensitivity at which the least amount of change gives rise to a change in sensation
- A measure of how much weight, sound, etc., must be increased/decreased for a person to report the JND in sensation
- Fechner would reduce weights (record JNDs), until no difference is noticed (number of JNDs is the objective measure)
- Idea very musch derived from Weber’s work
39
Q
Who introduced psychophysics? What are they?
A
- Gustav Fechner
- Scientific study of the relations between mental and physical processes (experiments: lifting weights, visual brightness, visual distance, tactile distance)
- Developed method of average error
40
Q
What was Fechner’s method of average of error?
A
- Participants adjust a stimulus until is perceived equal to a standard stimuls
- Calculate the mean of adjustments over trials
- Now basic to much psychological research
41
Q
What are Gustav Fechner’s contributions to psychology?
A
- Wrote an influential textbook, ‘Elements of Psychophysics’
- Fechner demonstrated that mental processes could be measured
- Provided techniques for how to measure them
- Also discussed how stimuli could fall below the conscious
- Wundt was directly influenced by Fechner
