Lecture 8

Question 1

How did all of psych pile on behaviourism?

What metaphor powers these attacks?

Answer 1

Humanistic psych said we are not entirely determined by external forces; we have higher centres of motivation like self-actualization. Cognitive psychology will also attack behaviorism by positing cognitive processes that are mostly unique to humans like language that are impossible to explain based on basic behavioural principles. The metaphor of the computer provides a good framework for studying these processes in a scientific way.

Question 2

What made watson propose behaviorism?

Answer 2

Watson was really fed up with introspection. He was saying we should aim at more scientific methods. He also took down concepts like consciousness and mental processes as these were previously studied via introspection. We can only study what we can observe

Question 3

Is there a compromise between getting rid of the mind and getting rid of introspection?

Throwing the baby with the bathwater.

Answer 3

Yes - Get rid of introspection but still study the mind!

Question 4

Was behaviourism universally the same?

Was it attacked?

And in the 1960s?

By whom?

Answer 4

No! There were many other schools. Even within behaviourism, there was a tendency to blur the definition of behaviourism (e.g., purposive behaviourism ala toleman – latent learning!)

All of this was against the idea that we can only study objective behaviour.

But behaviourism was not directly attacked. Only Maslow and this was via a clinical route. But in the 50s and 60s, got challenged by academics too; Chomsky and artificial intelligence.

Question 5

Chomsky Biography

Answer 5

Studied at Harvard as a part of the society of fellows (yawn). Is a linguist. In 1955 he tries to publish a book called the logical structure of linguistic theory but it was too controversial to be published as a book. It was instead published as a PHD thesis at UPenn.

In 1957 he got it published as syntactic structures.

Question 6

What is semantics?

Answer 6

Semantics refer to the meanings of words

Question 7

What is syntax?

Answer 7

syntax is the structure of the sentence. It is how the different words have different roles (e.g., noun is a syntactic role that a word can have).

Question 8

What did Chomsky realise about syntax?

The famous example

Answer 8

Chomsky realises that the correctness of the syntax can be recognised even if the proposition is meaningless from a semantic point of view (deep structure).

E.g. “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”

No semantic sense. But on the surface, syntactically correct.

“Furiously sleep green ideas colourless”

Not correct instinctively

Question 9

Can behaviourism explain this language development?

“Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”

Answer 9

This cannot be explained by behavioural principles. We have We have never been exposed to those words in this order. There is no way we can learn that this is correct by exposure. We must have to have syntactic rule in our mind.

Question 10

Is trial and error learning fast enough to explain how kids learn langauge?

Answer 10

Kids also learn language way to fast for associative or trial and error learning.

Question 11

What is Universal Grammar?

Answer 11

Children must be born with a set of universal grammar. A set of constraints that will help them to learn the language that is prevalent in their culture; a very general grammar that allows for this.

Question 12

What does Skinner think explains language?

Is the inner monologue behaviour?

How?

Answer 12

By a weird twist of fait, the same year he published his book, Skinner publishes verbal behaviour in which he posits the opposite view. He argues that in knowing the world, we do not create internal copies of external objects (no representations).

He wants to explain everything in terms of observable behaviour. He says we do not have those copies but we act as if we know them, based on previous reinforcement. To an observer, it seems this way but it is not.

The only way we can demonstrate this knowledge of the external world is via behaviour, language is just verbal behaviour. It is the same type of learning.

Thought, internal monologues, are just us talking to ourselves – sub vocal verbal behaviour.

Question 13

Does Chomsky agree with Skinner?

Answer 13

Chomsky does not agree! He thinks we have an idea and then we try to put it into words by applying our knowledge of syntactic structures over that idea to produce a sentence. He wrote a rebuttal in 1959.

It was very long and thorough. Considered a turning point in favour of cognitive psychology

Question 14

What was one of Chomsky’s arguments against Skinner’s position?

Did Skinner reply?

Who won?

Answer 14

One argument is that knowledge of grammatical structure is knowledge of a set or rules, which cannot be learned through associations as it is too complex. There are too many combinations of words to learn the correct one’s via trial and error. We must have something that constrains the number – universal basic grammar.

Skinner does not reply (maybe disdainfully)

Chomsky seems to have won;.

Question 15

What was the first idea that breeched behaviourism’s hold on psychology?

Answer 15

Behaviorism had taken the mind out of psychology. Language was the first breech. But there was another big change coming, artificial intelligence.

Question 16

The first calculator

Answer 16

The idea is very old. The first calculator was made in 1652 in France. More and more complex calculators were created but they were all fairly simple and limited.

Question 17

Who was George Boole and what did he propose?

Answer 17

George Boole – a British mathematician – any mathematical operation can be expressed by means of logical operations involving 0 and 1 “Boolean Operations” . Additions, multiplications, if then problems, they can all be expressed as operations on 0s and 1s.

Question 18

Turing and Boolean Numbers

Who suggested electrical circuits?

Answer 18

Almost a century later, Turing proposed that any machine that implemented these Boolean operations, could solve any algorithm. This machine could be programmed to do all kinds of things. His idea was originally in mathematical form.

Claude Shannon proposed that electrical circuits would be perfect for this type of calculation as they can be open or closed to represent 0s and 1s. Perfect or making this kind of universal calculator.

Question 19

How did WW2 stimulate machines and artificial intelligence.

Answer 19

WW2 brought huge investment. Much coordination was required. The transmission of information is really important. Radios are helpful but the issue is that it can be intercepted. Much encryption. The British army hired Turning and many others to crack these codes. Built a computer. The imitation game. Broke the code, the first modern computer. Dies of cyanide poisoning (suicide) because he was gay, prosecuted and chemically castrated.
This is a massive contribution to science

Question 20

How did boolean devices impact psychology and neuroscience?

Answer 20

For psychologists it was also a revolution. Took a while to realise the importance of computers for psychology. Others were faster. Neurophysiology, in 1943 Mcculloch proposed that the brain could also be thought of as a Boolean device (action potentials are 0s and 1s).

Question 21

In 1948, what did mathmatician Shannon propose

Answer 21

In 1948 Shannon proposed a “mathematical theory of communication”. Was the birth of information theory; the idea that any communication of a signal can be analysed in terms of a fundamental unit called the bit.

This is the amount of information that can be conveyed by the open or closed status of a single binary switch (one or zero).

Bit is 1 or 0 value. Lump many together, can transmit much information.,

Question 22

How did shannon’s mathematical theory of communication allow psychology to overcome the “black box” ideas of behaviourism?

Answer 22

In shannons theory there are 3 parts:

Encoder, code and decoder.

Input is encoded, transformed into 0s and 1s.

That is the code.

Goes to decoder, runs the reverse operation.

Produces an output. Shannon proposed this in ’48.

Later psychologists thought it was useful.

Psychology occupies the space between physiology and motor output. From this, sensory input and motor output are normal but what goes on in the mind is the code.

With information theory, that space between encode and decode allows many operations to be performed on the code.

This is in contrast to the simple, black box of the behaviourists.

Question 23

Thinking Machines – Three ways that the computer analogy changed psychology

(1) A new explanation for the purposiveness of behaviour

Answer 23

1 – A new explanation for the purposiveness of behaviour

As humans we often do things that are complex. Hard to explain based on SR responses. Goals can be remote in time, and we have obstacles but we find a way to meet the goal. It is therefore hard to explain without reference to a homunculus. This is a little man in our heads, calling all the shots. Perceive a word > place in brain > analysed > feels like we make the decision > take a decision. Intuitively, it feels like a little man trapped in out head, calling the shots. Or course, this is not real and explains nothing. Obviously, there is an infinite regress.

The computer metaphor woks well to explain this.

At the start, the programmer gives the program a goal. Then the computer tried to meet that goal by performing actions on it. There is an output function. This has an effect on the environment. Observe through perceptual system, sees the effect on the world. Compares this to the goal at the start. If it is the same as the goal, the computer can stop. If not, program cycles around until it has.

In this system, yes there has to be a goal set. But afterwards, it rolls without supervision from a homunculus. Frameworks like this can explain the apparent purposiveness without refereeing to homunculus. Always the problems of who sets the goal though! It is still better than before.

Question 24

Thinking Machines – Three ways that the computer analogy changed psychology

(2) Simulation of Human Thinking

Answer 24

2 - Simulation of Human Thinking

If you can reproduce something like human psychological processes then you have accounted for it. Hence the mind could be reproduced in machines.

Turing test: If you have a computer program that behaves in such a way that an external person cannot tell if you are interacting with a human or PC, then you have achieved something in terms of simulating, understanding and mapping human psychological processes.

This could lead to Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Question 25

Thinking Machines – Three ways that the computer analogy changed psychology

(3) Psychologists as software engineers

Answer 25

3 – Psychologists as software engineers
Allowed psychology to define itself among the sciences
They are the software engineers in this metaphor. They do not need really to understand the brain (how it is stored etc). They just need to understand the software, the operations performed.
Algorithms: lists of instructions that converts a given input, via a fully defined series of steps, into the desired output

Question 26

What is the mind/brain problem (Dualism)

Answer 26

The mind brain problem – how do the mind (an aggregate of faculties that humans have to feel think remember and want) and the brain interact.

Descartes thought they were different substances interacting from the pineal – dualism, the mind and the body are distinct and separable.

The opposite is materialism – all things, including mental aspects and consciousness are results of material interactions. This was prevalent from the time of psychology in psychology

Question 27

Functionalism in the mind body problem (Kind of like cognitive dualism)

What is it?

Answer 27

We now have a new way: Functionalism in the mind body problem (Kind of like cognitive dualism) Different from the James functionalism. If your brain is a Turing machine and I can map the whole profile of zeroes and ones in a brain, I can copy all of those in an electrical circuit. And sop your activation can be duplicated on another machine.

The dualism here is that the certain profile of zeros and ones is important in its on right and it can be implemented on a variety of supports. What matters is the information. It is still materialism as the information still exists in a physical form (like electrical activity) but Boolean mathematics means that any machine that can represent zeros and ones could support this pattern.

Question 28

Functionalism in the mind body problem (Kind of like cognitive dualism)

The example of music

Answer 28

Music. Certain pieces of music can be “encoded” on a variety of supports e.g., vinyl, mp3 etc. The music is the same, encoded on a variety of supports.

Question 29

Cognitive psychologiosts as software engineers

Answer 29

Cognitive psychologists already defined psychologists as the software engineers. But there has been a long tradition in brain research that is interested in how these algorithms are implemented in the brain.

Question 30

Frans Gall and Cranioscopy

Answer 30

Localisation of Brain Function 1
There is a debate between localisation and equipotentiality.
Frans Gall was a brilliant brain anatomist
He proposed that psychological faculties were located within specific brain areas
Proposes that bumps on skull reflect the size of the brain beneath (obviously dumb)
Phrenology
One woman with strong erotic inclinations had a big cerebellum bump and so decided this was a sign of eroticism – localized in the cerebellum (amativeness)
People were interested, he decided he was onto something and mapped the rest of the cranium with his student Spurzhirm

Question 31

Spurzhiem and Frans Gall’s ideas

Answer 31

Called it Cranioscopy (later phrenology by his disciple Spurzheim)
Was popular with the public but never academics
Both got kicked out of Vienna and moved to Paris. There was a dispute, Spurzheim splits, calls it phrenology and exports it to the UK and USA
Was very popular, Galton was into it

Question 32

What did the Fowler brothers do with phrenology in the USA

Answer 32

But became a scam, the Fowler brothers promoted it in the USA. Started mapping craniums in Manhattan.
They made a journal to make it look more scientific
They have casts of famous peoples skulls and do an exhibition. Basically, a circus thing. Total BS

Question 33

What did Pierre Flourens think about the idea of localisation of brain function in the brain.

Answer 33

Pierre Flourens is a serious scientist. Took out systematically parts of the brain in animals.

He realised that the big structures like the spine, brainstem, cerebellum and hemispheres have special functions but that WITHIN them, there is no specialisation (equipotentiality)

The level of impairment is proportional to the lesion
Cerebellum is involved in motor coordination not sexual drive

Question 34

How does plasticity support equipotentiality?

Answer 34

There is often a phase after surgeries where the animals have a phase of deficits but that they recover. Shows plasticity as the lesion has not grown back. Hence there is no specificity as tall parts of the cortex can accomplish any task via plasticity.

Question 35

What did Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud think about brain localisation?

How did Paul Broca help?

Answer 35

Jean-Baptise Bouillaud showed that language deficits were associated with lesions in the frontal lobe

Was one of Gall’s students. Wants to prove that this mentor was right at least partly. He had limited data. Based on autopsies (8/14 patients with language deficits also had frontal lesions while the remaining 6/14). So, he hypothesised that language is localised ion the frontal lobes.

He wasn’t taken seriously because he was the student of Gall. So he shook it up with an offer to pay 500 francs to anyone who could show a case of frontal lobe damage without a speech deficit.

There were a few patients fitting this. Waited for them to die.

Paul Broca performed the autopsy of a man who could only say Tan. He had Broca’s aphasia – can understand but cannot speak. When he autopsied him, he found a lesion in what is now Broca’s aphasia

Question 36

How did Fritsch and Hitzig add to functional localisation?

Answer 36

Physiologists continued to try and map the brain. Fritsch and Hitzig used electrical stimulation of the brain study function and find movement area.

Question 37

How did David Ferrier help add to functional localisation?

Answer 37

David Ferrier followed up on this and identified the sensory strip, visual cortex and auditory cortex.

Question 38

What was Karl Wernicke’s first contribution to functional localisation?

Answer 38

Karl Wernicke described sensory aphasia in a group of 10 patients unable to understand speech and with fluent, but meaningless language (sensory aphasia)

He identified Wernicke’s area in the temporal lobe

Question 39

What prediction did Wernike make, why and did he find it?

Answer 39

The later, he predicted a new type of aphasia, conduction aphasia. Broca’s and Wernicke’s must be able to communicate. They communicate through a bundle of white matter.

If this is sectioned they should be able to understand and be able to talk but when they talk, they will have paraphasia’s, small errors and when he found the patient that proved it, he found they could not repeat either (he did not predict this).

So he came up with a theory, made predictions and tested them. Very solid model and science.

Question 40

Freud and Wernike

Answer 40

Freud studied with his mentor and originally proposed to tackle aphasia like Wernicke but instead, fell into working with hysteria.

Question 41

What did Karl Lashley discover about equipotentiality?

Answer 41

Karl; Lashley conducts studies between 1915 and 1929 (the height of behaviourism). He is looking for the site of learning. Finds that the deficits are simply proportional to the size of the lesion and the difficulty of the maze. All the cortex can do anything. No specialised area for learning.

Equipotentiality – neural plasticity. Healthy areas can take over the function of damaged areas.

Question 42

Who was Wilder Penfield and what did he do?

Answer 42

Wilder Penfield
American, studied at Princeton and Oxford before working in New York. Arrived at McGill in 1928 and was one of the founders of the Montreal Neurological Institute. In the 1930s does a lot of work mapping the brain in patients with epilepsy.

Epileptics often have auras before their seizures. These can be sensory or emotional. Penfield thinks if we can find the spot of the brain that produced the aura and remove it, we can cure epilepsy. He does it, very invasive surgery. Tried to stimulate the brain to give the symptoms of epilepsy. When he finds it, he will

remove it. By doing this, over time he builds up a cartography of the brain.

Very detailed. Was the first and was ground-breaking. You are stimulating the brain; the patient is awake and describes it.

Must have been amazing.

Question 43

Why was Penfield able to do such dangerous surgeries?

Answer 43

Other neurologists had tried this, but it was really dangerous. Penfield had the clinical justification; he did cure most patients epilepsy and it allowed us to understand the brain.

Question 44

What are experiential responses?

Answer 44

Lashley had shown that there was no specific place in the brain that stored memories. Penfield found that he could get experiential responses – they would recall experiencing past experiences of their lives. Could be trivial or meaningful (like a wedding). Patients would have these experiential responses, super vivid. He wondered of he had found the region for memory. He was skeptical because these may seem like memories but the way the patients describe them are too vivid and it is not the way we usually remember.

Question 45

What did Penfield think he was doing by stimulationg the brain?

Answer 45

He also thought that when he stimulated the brain, it was not that he was stimulating it but that he was releasing inhibition. Under this inhibition, the place where the memories were stored would be elsewhere. Just that he removed inhibition. So he was reluctant to interpret those findings this way.

Question 46

Did Penfield create the feeling of free will?

Answer 46

One thing he could never recreate was the sensation of free will. They would experience many things but that they were happening to them. Not that they were in control. Hence, towards his career he had more dualistic ideas. But other neurologists had more materialistic interpretations of his work.

Question 47

Who was Donald Hebb?

Answer 47

Donald Hebb
McGill’s most famous psychologies. Top 20 most cited psychologists. First degree was in literature. Works with troubled kids. Was the time when psychology was close to education. He began a masters at McGill with another Prof. In 1934 his wife died in a car crash.

Moved to Chicago to work with Carl Lashley to do a PHD. He was 30 when he did it. Follows Lashley to Harvard and graduated in 1936. In 1937 goes back to MTL to work with Penfield.

Spent time working in Florida and Queens in Ontario. In 1947 obtains a professorship at McGill.

Question 48

What did Hebb propose in his book the “organisation of behaviour”?

Was it useful?

Answer 48

In 1949 he published the “organisation of behaviour” in which he related behaviour to cell assemblies. How is it possible that our brain can perceive an infinity of shapes in any environment with a finite set of neurons. He realises that it is not caused by one neuron but by combinations of them. This way there are near infinite synapses. This is the idea of the cell assembly. What is important is how neurons organise themselves into cell assemblies. The idea that cells that fire together, wire together – the Hebbian Synapse. The coactivation strengthens the links between the neurons. So, if a circle causes many neurons to fire a lot, they wire together. Even when the circle is not there, they all stay wired. The system has learned about the circle and that knowledge is kept in these synapses. The engram ad he called it can now be activated by partial circles or anything else. A partial circle might cause activation in some, these links will cause them all to fire and the whole shape will be recovered. This is pretty damned correct. He predicted this theoretically and they were confirmed later.

Had a huge impact on multiple fields. Neural networks and machine learning all comeback to Hebb.

Question 49

Who is Brenda Milner?

Answer 49

An amazing psychologist researcher. 1940 studied psychology at Cambridge but stopped during the war. She was directed towards war efforts. In 1944, moved to Montreal. Fluent in French. She taught at UdeM and was one of the first professors there. She completed her PHD with Penfield and Hebb on the topic of lobe damage.

She was offered a tenure track position at McGill, but the MNI took her.

Question 50

Who was Henry Molasion and how did Brenda Milner work with him?

What could he do/not do?

Answer 50

In 1955 she met H.M. (Henry Molaison). He had a severe case of epilepsy. The surgeon decided that it was bilateral in the temporal lobe. He removed these structures including the hippocampus and amygdala. It cured the epilepsy, but it gave him complete anterograde amnesia. He never recognised Brenda Milner even though he saw her regularly for 30 years.

But certain aspects of his memory were preserved. He could learn complex visuo-motor tasks. He could improve with practice like everyone else. It was a mirror copying task and he succeeded in learning. He still had procedural memory, Led Brenda Milner to conclude that we have different memory systems.

H.M. had no declarative memory.

A lot of neuropsychology (especially of that era) is waiting for the right person with the right lesion to turn up. Brenda Milner seized the opportunity. She replicated this in large cohorts and also did many other things, but this was what made her famous more or less.

Question 51

More generally, how did Brenda Milner’s work in the 1950s contribute to neuropsychology?

Answer 51

More generally, this kind of work in the 50s was the start of neuropsychology. This is the area that is interested in the deficits of brain lesions. In the 2nd half of the 20th century, neurologists study less and less the behavioural consequences of lesions. Psychologists take over and are better at deriving tests to measure the effects. This allows the neurologist to focus more on the brain itself.