Hist & Syst Exam 4 Ch. 12 Flashcards
Physiology
Helmholtz
Gall and Spurzheim
Purkinje: Purkinje shift (description, findings, methodology significance)
Psychophysics
Weber: two-point threshold (description, findings, significance)
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Fechner: just noticeable difference (description, definition)
Evolution
Darwin Mendel Spencer Galton Evolution theory
SG: Helmholtz: speed of a nerve impulse (description, phenomena measured)
Measured Reaction Time
Inspired by muller, but argued against him in saying that the speed of a neural impulse could be measured.
SG: Gall and Spurzheim: phrenology (description, definition)
- Studied skull contours
- Attempted to find physiological localization of mental faculties
SG: Purkinje: Purkinje shift (description, findings, methodology significance)
- Methodologies of subjective experience
o Allowed subjective experience - Shift: in light adaptation
o Difference between scotopic (low light) and photopic (full light) vision in light-dark adaptation
o “relative luminosity of colors in faint light differs from that in full light
SG: Psychophysics: significance of movement for psychology
- Emphasized subjective experience in study of relationship between physical stimuli and sensations
- Integrity of sensory experience is not completely reducible to physics and biology
- Precursor to psych as natural science (modern psychology)
SG: Weber: two-point threshold (description, findings, significance)
- Smallest distinguishable distance between two points on skin
- Objective measure of subjective experience
SG: Fechner: just noticeable difference (description, definition)
- Minimum detectable change in stimulus activity
- When do you discern that there are two points rather than one; what is the threshold
- JND is Weber’s law derived by Fechner
- His work is opposed to materialism
o Followed Spinoza – “double aspectism”
SG: Darwin: theory of evolution (empirical method, chance variation of species)
Evolution by natural selection
- “Multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die”
- Environment selects and the organism either adapts or doesn’t
- Survive and propagate
SG: Mendel: genetic theory (findings, significance)
- Father of genetics
- Laws of inheritance
o Proposed genetic theory that provided support for
SG: Spencer
applied Darwin theory to culture; not only you inherit genes but associations as well
SG: Galton
mental inheritance; mental testing can measure intelligence which is passed on genetically
SG: Evolution theory: impact (significance for psychology)
- Completion of “Copernican revolution”
- Not only not the center of universe, only a moving part
- Allowed for the formal study of psych to emerge as a discipline
Physiology of the nervous systerm
Bell-Magendie law; Johannes Muller; Luigi Galvani; Emil DuBois-Reymon; Helmholtz