Exam2Condensed Flashcards
List and explain three contributions Helmholtz made to the field of psychology.
Color vision theory – we perceive color by how certain color recptors in our eye pick up on colors. We have three cones for color, we see by combination of our main red, green, blue receptors. Müler thought only one one specific nerve energy existed, and young-helmholtz claimed involved three diff recptors on the retina. Explains color blindness, if a person lacks one or more recptors to primary colors they won’t be able to experience certain colors subjectively. The physical world won’t change but our perceptions can see something different.
Rate of nerve conduction – rejected Müler’s idea nerve conduction too fast to measure. Studied nerve fiber on frog’s leg muscle and distance from stimulation to muscle response. Showed nerve impulses measureable and also relatively slow. Physical chemical processes involved with interaction of environment, not mysterious unstudiable ones.
Conservation of energy – studied frog’s metabolic processes on food and oxygen consumption showing it accounts for total amount of energy an organism expounded. No new energy is created, no new energy is destroyed, amount of energy in system never changes. Helmholtz brought together physics, chemistry and physiology with his conservation of energy and paved way for emergency of experimental psychology.
Franz Gall, Pierre Flourens, and Paul Broca all conducted early research on brain functioning. Explain the research of each man and how it influenced psychology.
Gall: Phrenology. He examined the shape of the skull to determine shape and size of regions to understand the brain. Phrenology is largely seen as pseudo science today but his theories weren’t entire inaccurate. he is important part of evolution of neurology. One of rist people to place importance on the brain in explaining a person’s behavior and character. Phrenology was a precursor to the field of neurology.
Flourens: Showed conclusively that Our thoughts and ability to move around is controlled in the brain and not from the heart. Used ablation on animals by sucking out parts of the brain and noting behavioral consequences of the loss.
Broca: French surgeon named Brocas area and credited with determining significance and function of this part of the brain. Brocas is responsible for producing language and controls motor function involved with speech production. It is located on the left frontal lobe of the brain. He studied those with communication issues and found those with communication issues had issues with the area of the brain now known as Brocas. Broca cast doubt on Flouren’s conclusion the cortex acted as a whole, using the clinical method.
Describe Wundt’s Voluntarism and compare it with Titchener’s Structuralism.
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Ebbinghaus contributed much to psychology. His research papers adopted the introduction, methods, results, discussion format that we still use today. He even developed a sentence-completion task for measuring intelligence that was later incorporated into the Binet-Simon scale of intelligence.
However, he is best known for studying what aspect of human cognition?
With regard to this area of human cognition, explain at least three of the concepts he studied (and coined some of the terms that we still use today)
Ebbinhaus worked in experimental psychology studying sensation perception and memory. Memory was the best known aspect of human cognition he is known for and he made a huge impact on it. Three aspects are Spacing effect, Serial position effect, and forgetting curve.
Spacing effect says we retain more information if we space our our information practice over time than mass practice all at once. Serial position effect means we have tendency to remember best the first or last items on a list. Lastly, Forgetting Curve shows that rate at which we forget is rapid at first and then levels out. Whatever info left after initial decay tends to stay in memory. Wait, what was the middle one again? (joking)
. In contrast to Wundt and Titchener, Brentano, Stumpf, and Husserl are considered phenomenologists.
Explain phenomenology and why Brentano, Stumpf and Husserl are considered phenomenologists while Wundt and Titchener are not.
Phenomenology: method to describe things as they appear in consciousness, looks at first lived experiences.
Edmund Husserl: German philosopher, considered founder phenomenological movement. Husserl thought every person sees world a different way and by describing that way, we see patterns and essence of things. Better than relying on data external to ourselves
Franz Brentano:
early psychologists, one of students was Carl Stumpf who made great marks on psychology. Stressed value of empirical observation and research on Stumpf. Argued empirical evidence over anecdotal which was more based on opinion and used greatly in the past.
