Psy105 Chapter 1
* Psychology: scientific study of mind and behavior. * Mind: our private inner experience of perceptions, thoughts, memories, and feelings. * Behavior: observable actions of human beings and nonhuman animals.
* Psychology’s Roots: the Path to a Science of Mind * Psychology’s Ancestors: the Great Philosophers * First people for fundamental questions about how mind works. * Plato (428 BC – 347 BC) * Nativism: certain kinds of knowledge are innate/ inborn. * Aristotle (384 BC – 322BC) * Philosophical empiricism: all knowledge is acquired through experience. * From the brain to the mind: the French connection * Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650) * Body& mind are fundamentally different things * Body is made of material substance; mind is made of immaterial/ spiritual substance. * Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679) * Mind& body aren’t different things; mind is what the brain does. * Franz Joseph Gall (1758 – 1828) * Brains& minds were linked. * Phrenology: specific mental abilities& characteristics, ranging from memory to capacity for happiness, are localized in specific regions of the brain. (See Figure 1.1). The more capacities& traits a person had, the larger the corresponding bumps on skull. * Paul Broca, surgeon (1824 – 1880) * Damage to specific part of brain impaired specific mental function, clearly demonstrating that brain& mind are closely linked. * “Mind is grounded in material processes of brain.” * From physiology to psychology: a new science is born * Physiology: study of biological processes, especially in human body. (measure speed of nerve impulses& mental abilities) * Hermann von Helmholtz (1821 – 1894) * Estimate how long it took a nerve impulse to travel to brain. * by applying stimulus (sensory input from environment) to different parts of leg, and recording participants’ reaction time (amount of time taken to respond to
* Psychology’s Roots: the Path to a Science of Mind * Psychology’s Ancestors: the Great Philosophers * First people for fundamental questions about how mind works. * Plato (428 BC – 347 BC) * Nativism: certain kinds of knowledge are innate/ inborn. * Aristotle (384 BC – 322BC) * Philosophical empiricism: all knowledge is acquired through experience. * From the brain to the mind: the French connection * Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650) * Body& mind are fundamentally different things * Body is made of material substance; mind is made of immaterial/ spiritual substance. * Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679) * Mind& body aren’t different things; mind is what the brain does. * Franz Joseph Gall (1758 – 1828) * Brains& minds were linked. * Phrenology: specific mental abilities& characteristics, ranging from memory to capacity for happiness, are localized in specific regions of the brain. (See Figure 1.1). The more capacities& traits a person had, the larger the corresponding bumps on skull. * Paul Broca, surgeon (1824 – 1880) * Damage to specific part of brain impaired specific mental function, clearly demonstrating that brain& mind are closely linked. * “Mind is grounded in material processes of brain.” * From physiology to psychology: a new science is born * Physiology: study of biological processes, especially in human body. (measure speed of nerve impulses& mental abilities) * Hermann von Helmholtz (1821 – 1894) * Estimate how long it took a nerve impulse to travel to brain. * by applying stimulus (sensory input from environment) to different parts of leg, and recording participants’ reaction time (amount of time taken to respond to