Recognition of Psychology Flashcards
Why did it take so long for Psychology to be recognised?
Psychology has “a long past but only a short history” (Ebbinghaus, 1910)
* long past: philosophy created framework for psychological phenomena
* short history: ‘psychology’ not seen in literature before 1500
- but Weber, Donders & von Helmholtz already collecting data
Precursors to Psychology (4 time periods)
- Ancient Greece
- Roman Era
- Dark & Middle Ages
- Renaissance Philosophy
Ancient Greece
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.):
Memory:
* ‘stored photos’ of what we’ve perceived
* minds would be blank without experience (wax tablet metaphor)
Organisation of memory:
* retrieval may be cued by: similarity, contrast, contiguity
Roman Era
Galen (130-200 AD):
The Four Humours Theory (Hippocrates & Galen):
* humours explain personality
Humours:
* blood - courageous, hopeful
* yellow bile - short-tempered, ambitious
* black bile - introspective, sentimental
* phlegm - calm, unemotional
Dark & Middle Ages Timeline
Dark & Middle Ages (5th-15th C):
Dark Age: 476-800
Middle Age: 800-1204
High Middle Age: 1204-1450
Dark & Middle Ages
- human nature understood from a religious perespective
- knowledge from divine revelation
-God determines what should known
-shouldn’t be too inquisitive - Christian church served as authority
-e.g. burning at the stake - life is a test to determine afterlife
- divine reward & punishment during life
Renaissance Philosophy
Descartes (1596-1650):
1.Discourse on Method (1637):
* challenged acceptance of divine knowledge
-reject everything unless certain
-cannot prove existence of God
* Mind - body dualism (separate entities)
-cannot prove that physical senses are not illusory (body)
-cogito ergo sum ‘I think, therefore I am’ (mind)
* the material universe is one big machine that can be studied
-God set it up like this so he wouldn’t have to attend to it all the time
2.Man (1662) (published after death)
* body is a complex machine (automata)
* bones, muscles, & organs are like cogs & pistons
Roots of Modern Philosophy: 2 Debated Concepts
Rationalism & Empiricism
What is Rationalism?
Concepts & knowledge can be derived via reasoning and may beyond sensory experiences
What is Empiricism?
Sensory experience is the only source of knowledge; no innate ideas
What did textbooks first publish Psychology as?
A theme of metaphysics
What did Kant argues about Psychology?
Kant (1796):
Psychology could not be a natural science:
* introspection changes the state of the mind
* cannot be expressed in terms of mathematics
2 British Empiricist Philosophers & What did they Argue?
1.Locke (1632-1704)
2.Hume (1711-1776)
* Like Aristotle, interested in associations between ideas
-similarity, contrast, contiguity
* start life as tabula rasa
-contrasts with Rationalists
* add experiences via sensations & reflections
* process is like mental bricks (experiences) & mortar (associations)
Is Psychology Measureable?
What is Psychophysics?
The nature of what we measure in Psychology
Example of measurement in Psychology
Just Noticeable Different (JND)
-Psychology is measureable but ≠ physics
Weber’s Law (1834)
- smallest perceptible difference between two weights can be stated as a ratio between the weights, independent of the magnitudes of the weights
- psychological processes can be measured
- psychological processes do not map directly onto physical dimensions
- experimented with perceptions of being poked by a compass
Strengths of Weber’s Law (1834) (2)
+milestones in demonstrating that “psychology is measureable”
+linking internal processes to the physical world
What did Fechner (1860) do?
Extended Weber’s work
Weber-Fechner Law: S = K log I
* S = an experienced sensation
* K = a constant
* I = the physical strength of the stimulus
.
* devised the median & studied synaesthesia
-Brysbaert & Rastle (2020) discuss the role of statistics in Psychology
Strengths of Fechner (1860) (2)
+milestones in demonstrating that “psychology is measureable”
+linking internal processes to the physical world
Bessel (1822)
Looked at Astronomers’ reaction times, then incorporated findings into astronomical equations:
* Telescope pointing south
* Observers indicate when a specific star passes the view-finder
* One astronomer fired for being slower
* Realised individual differences in reaction times
* Incorporated into astronomical equations
Donders (1868)
The speed of mental processes
-subtraction method for the ‘speed of thoughts’
Mental chronometry:
* simple reaction time
-perception + motor
* discrimination reaction time
-perception + motor + discrimination
* choice reaction time
-perception + motor + discrimination + response selection
Strength of Donders (1868)
+Milestones in demonstrating that “psychology is measurable”
2 things von Helmholtz did
von Helmholtz (1821-1894):
* measured nerve impulse speed
-sent electrical impulses through frogs’ legs
* trichromatic colour theory
-underlies modern televisual technology
