Test 1: Intro and History

Question 1

Historically, what has been considered as “behavior?”

Answer 1

anything publicly observable

Question 2

What was the predominant approach to studying the mind from 1910 to the 50s and 60s?

Answer 2

Behaviorism

Question 3

What did behaviorists measure and what was their main focus?

Answer 3

Stimuli and responses; interested in the unknowable black box in between the two

Question 4

Historically, what was the “mind” considered?

Answer 4

More like our idea of “soul;” something abstract

Question 5

What is/was the neuroscience approach to the mind?

Answer 5

The mind is what the brain does; it is the result of overall brain activity

Question 6

“The mind is an enormous unreachable space”

Answer 6

Heraclitus 6th c. BC

Question 7

Believed the heart was the source of nervous control; “the seat of the soul”

Answer 7

Aristotle 4th c. BC

Question 8

What two things did early brain dissections reveal?

Answer 8

the brain controlled the nervous system (sensing and moving) and it had nothing to do with thinking and the “soul”

Question 9

Compared the brain to aqueducts and sewers; fluid mechanics; emphasized the cerebroventricular system (the fluid filled chambers in the brain)

Answer 9

Galen 2nd c. BC

Question 10

Identified the 4 “humors”

Answer 10

Galen

Question 11

The 4 “humors”

Answer 11

1. blood: vital living spirit
2. phlegm: sluggishness
3. black bile: melancholy/depression
4. yellow bile: temper

Question 12

Identified the eye as an optical instrument

Answer 12

Johannes Kepler

Question 13

Identified that the ear transforms sound

Answer 13

Thomas Willis

Question 14

Believed that man = machine

Answer 14

La Mettrie

Question 15

What idea did the mechanistic thinking of the 18th century lead to?

Answer 15

Dualism

Question 16

What did Descartes believe seperated animals from humans?

What was his famous quote?

Answer 16

Bodies (the machine) are common among animals

The mind is exclusively human and therefore should be studied seperately

“I think therefore I am”

Question 17

What did medical investigations of injured soldiers reveal about the mind?

Answer 17

It connected behavioral problems with brain damage

Question 18

Lesion approach

Answer 18

Cause damage to the brain and study the behavioral consequences (animal studies)

Question 19

Phrenology

Answer 19

Studied bumps on skull to assess personality

Different characteristics were localized in different places in the brain

Question 20

Who was the father of phrenology?

Answer 20

Franz Joseph Gall

early 19th century

Question 21

What did early neuroscientists believe about the layers of the brain they studied?

Answer 21

The deeper layers were more primitive

Upper layers were for more complex thought and were more recent in evolution

Question 22

What did advances in staining and microscopic methods lead to?

Answer 22

The discovery of neurons and neuroglia

Question 23

Camillo Golgi

Answer 23

the brain is composed of a complex net of large multinucleated cells

Question 24

Santiago Ramon y Cajal

Answer 24

the brain is composed of nerve cells linked together by long extensions (correct: axons)

Question 25

What theories and discoveries are Sir Henry Dale and Otto Loewi credited for?

Answer 25

discovery of chemical transmission and the biological electricity theory

Question 26

How did Dale and Loewi come to their conclusions?

Answer 26

They applied chemicals to muscles and compared effects produced by nerves

Question 27

What was the chemical produced by the vagus nerve that slowed the Loewi frog’s heart?

Answer 27

acetylcholine

(he called it vagusstoff)