Lecture 2 - Pioneers in Psychology Flashcards
Describe the contributions of Helmholtz.
Bridged physiology and psychology Contrb’d to vision, color vision, law of conservation of energy, S&P theories, motion etc Said neural sigs travel faster than light
How was the speed of neural signals discovered?
Helmholtz severed frog legs Stimulated one end of nerve and measured the arrival at the other end Found that the speed was 90 feet/second
What is the 2 point threshold for touch sensitivity?
“How dense are nerve endings?” D0istance between 2 pts to distinguish reliably btwn the 2 Close pts feel like 1; must move them apart until feels like 2 Smaller distance indicates more dense nerve endings (face/lips)
What is Weber’s Law?
The ratio of the amount of change necessary to notice a difference 2 weights - how much until it is noticed? (just noticeable difference)
What did Fechner contribute?
Added a psychological component to Weber’s Law Brought more att’n to mind
What is Wissenschaft? What came out of it?
German teaching philosophy of research, academic freedom and teaching Wundt’s research began under Wissenschaft education
Describe Wundt’s contributions to psychology
Founder of scientific psychology Combined philosophy and physiology to develop psychology & create new scientific domain Principles of Physiological Psychology (1874) 1879 - developed the first psychology lab at Leipzig Developed Journal of Philosophical Studies Wrote 53k pages in his life
What did Wundt say psychology’s goal was?
Discover facts of consciousness, as well as its combinations and relationships Ultimately discover laws which govern these relationships and combinations
What was New Psychology?
Focus on higher mental processes - learning, thinking, language, culture Thru non-lab methods like observation and case studies And studying immediate conscious experience through experimental methods
How did Wundt conduct experiments?
Self-observation and experimental studies
What were the problems of Wundt’s methods?
Unsystematic Memory is faulty and influenced
Describe Ebbinghaus’ memory methodology.
Produced nonsense syllables like TUV, ZOF, WAV Made random lists, studied them and tested self Very systematic, exact and thorough Began a new field of study
What were Ebbinghaus’ findings?
Takes more repetitions to learn longer lists Least effort to memorize 7 syllables Performance is better if spread out Most forgetting occurs right after learning 50% w/in 40 min, 80% in 2 days, 90% after 30 days 2nd learning takes less time and repetitions But depends on how many repetitions in first learning
Describe Kimura & Seal (2003).
Participants were given a nonsense world list, a verb list, and a concrete/abstract world list Findings showed that females > males for verb + concrete/abstract words But females = males for nonsense words Indicates that better female recall performance has something to do with the meaning attached to words
Describe the contributions of James.
1890s - brought German ideas to Am Unis “Pope of new world” Wrote Principles of Psychology Extremely popular book, covered consciousness, S&P, assc’n, memory, reasoning and emotions Did not like lab work, suggested other methods like introspection and comparative methods Supervised Hall
Describe the contributions of Hall.
Very passionate about psychology 1883 - opened first US experimental psychology lab at John Hopkins 1887 - Founded American Journal of Psychology 1889 - Went to Clark and founded another lab there Varied interests w/ no specific contrbs to any one field 1892 - Began APA 1909 - Brought Freud to US
What is the Law of Conservation of Energy? Who developed it?
1847 - Helmholtz Energy within a system is constant even if changes occur
What is the Trichromatic Theory? Who developed it?
Young & Helmholtz Eye has 3 color receptors - RGB Mixing them produces colors Stimulating all three = white
What are problems with the Trichromatic Theory?
Works best at retinal level Cannot explain some types of color blindness
What is the Opponent Process Theory? Who developed it?
Hering Color cells respond to opposing pairs Red-green, yellow-blue, black-white
What is the Resonance Theory of Hearing? Who developed it?
1863 - Helmholtz Different sound frequencies detected by receptors in different areas of cochlea
What is the problem of perception?
Hearing/seeing sensory systems are capable But the delivery is flawed eg) light waves, color, shape are distorted
What is the Doctrine of Specific Energies?
Says that experience is central to perception because the nervous system mediates reality and the mind
What contributed to the discovery/identification of neurons?
Powerful microscopes
Golgi - silver nitrate pictures of nerve cells
Cajal - foundation for modern neuron theory
Saw neuron as separate unit and improved Golgi stain
What did Sherrington discover?
The existence of the synapse from spinal cord studies
What is reciprocal innervation and who discovered it?
Sherrington
Muscles work together, controlled b the nervous system, to carry out complex actions like walking
What is temporal summation?
Stimuli separated in time combine to produce a neural response
What is spatial summation?
2+ points on skin are stimulation at same time
What is the significance of summation?
Occurs where end points of neurons meet - the SYNAPSE
What did Lashley contribute?
Looked at intelligence in an animal learning context, through rats in mazes and puzzle boxes
Said that learning is complex and old exp’ls were inadequate
What were Lashley’s methods?
Rat mazes and ablation
Looked at effects on learning
Maze I -> III = simple -> complex mazes
What did Lashley find?
As the % of damage increases, performance decreases depending on complexity of the maze
Rats are able to make cognitive maps of mazes
Maze learning is not connected to motor conditioning
What is equipotentiality?
The capacity of any area to carry function of destroyed parts
Capacity varies by area
Argues against localization of function for learning
What is the Law of Mass Action?
Efficiency of performing complex functions are reduced in proportion to brain injury
Give a summary of advances in the 19th century in psychology.
- Beginning - reflexes understood, but no neuron; phrenology was most advanced
- End - sensory/motor nerves were discovered; neuron and synapse were identified; nervous system was being more understood
