other Flashcards
how have computers influenced psychology
- allowed the opportunity to visualise what’s happening inside of the brain using things such as:
- phrenology
- CT scanning
- fMRI scanning
EEG - electrophysiology (single cell recording recording to visualise space
- localisation of functions (brocas and wernickes)
introspection
the observation of ones own mental and emotional processes
functionalism
theory about the nature of mental states
- mental states are are identified by what they do rather than by what they are made of
structuralism
breaking down mental processes into the most basic components
gestalt psychology
that a whole thing is greater than its parts
brocas area and Wernicke area
Brocas area - speech production
Wernickes area - comprehension of speech
dissociation
Patient A can do task x but not task y
double dissociation
patient A can do x but not y Patient B can do y but not x
- distinction between short term and long term memory?
The atikson and Shiffrin model
- 3 systems that differ in terms of:
- storage capacity
- persistence of info
Info goes into sensory stores and is lost by DECAY, if paid ATTENTION info goes into short term store and is lost by DISPLACEMENT if REHERSAL is done it geese into long-term store and can be lost by INTERFERENCE
TMS
- transcranial magnetic stimulation
- electrical pulse in a coil is used to induce a sudden change in magnetic field In the area below it, temporarily interferes with brain activity
- temporal resolution
- no side effects
MRI (magnetic resonance imaging)
- manipulates the behaviour of hydrogen bonds to yield radio signal
- subject placed in magnetic field
- creates detailed images of organs and tissues in your body
functional MRI
- resonant frequency can be turned to detect blood oxygen level
- a change in signal indicates an active brain region
- can visualise individual columns
- no electrical response item in the room (laptops keyboards speakers etc)
- The tube can make the subject feel claustrophobic
Donder (1818-1889)
- Tested reaction time by measuring how long it took participants to respond to a stimulus
- manipulation of this method meant he could measure how long it took participants to perform various mental functions
- subtracted the time taken to respond to a stimuli on the simple task from the time taken to respond to the complex stimuli to determine a persons reaction time
- e.g. press button when light turns green then have different colours too
recording electrical activity
- electrodes on scalp record EEG’s
- Just as -correlation does not equal causation’ MRI does not equal good science
phrenology
Study of the conformation of the skull as indicative of mental faculties
main protagonists:
- Gall, Combe and Spurzheim
- big belief skull size was linked to intelligence
