An Introduction to Brain and Behaviour
Neuroscience correct answers The scientific study of the nervous system.
- Divided into sub disciplines.
Philosophers correct answers The first scholars to study the relationships between
brain and behaviour.
- Established the scientific method as our best tool for finding new knowledge.
- Had long been concerned with the sources of human behaviour.
Biological Psychology correct answers The field that relates behaviour to bodily
processes, naturally evolved from those beginnings.
- Seeks to explain behaviour in terms of its underlying physiology, its development, its
evolution, and its function.
- AKA behavioural psychology, brain and behaviour, physiological psychology.
* Main goal = To understand the brain structures and functions that respond to
experiences and generate behaviour.
Specialized sub-disciplines of Biological Psychology correct answers 1. Comparative
psychology = Variety of species.
2. Ethology = Field studies, ecology
3. Neuroanatomy =Structures
4. Neurophysiology = Tissue function
5. Developmental neurobiology = life span
6. Neurochemistry = basic chemistry of nervous system
7. Psychopharmacology = chemistry of drug action
8. Psychiatry = treatment of psychological disorders
9. Neurology = treatment of nervous system disorders (overlaps w/ psychiatry)
, 10. Psychophysiology = relation of behaviour to changes in psychological
measurements such as EEG.
11. Neuroendocrinology = Study of hormones and nervous system and behaviour.
12. Neuropsychology = study of the relationship of brain and behaviours exclusively in
humans, in neurological patients and in normal subjects.
Mind-Body Problem correct answers The general belief that one has a "mind"
- If the body is a mechanism, behaviour arises from chemical interactions.
Dualism correct answers The idea that the mind/soul will have some independence
from the functioning of the body.
- Intuitively appealing = Introspection = Convenient (no need to explain the inexplicable,
just infer immaterial "something").
- Spread widely and left other thinkers with the task of trying to explain how a
nonmaterial soul could exert influence over a material body and brain.
- Today psychologists reject dualism in favour of the much simpler view that the
workings of the mind can be understood as purely physical processes taking place in
the material brain.
Descartes correct answers (a) Interactionism: A form of dualism arguing that the
mind/soul influences the functioning of the body, in some unspecified way.
- He tried to explain how the control of behaviour might resemble the working of a
machine, proposing the concept of spinal reflects and a neural pathway for them.
- He also argued that free will and moral choice could not arise from a mere machine.
- He asserted that humans had a nonmaterial soul as well as a material body and that
the soul governed behaviour through a point of contact in the brain.
- He was much impressed by hydraulic statuettes (tech analogy again!). He proposed
that the body consisted of a large collection of reflexes, controlled by soul/mind.
- They implicated the spinal cord and brain as source of reflex actions.
- They believes that soul was indivisible and noted that he pineal gland was the only
structure that was unitary. It was believed that the pineal did not exist in animals. It thus
inferred that the soul exerted its influence via the pineal "seat of the soul".
* His major legacy = Mechanistic view of neural function.
Neuroscience correct answers The scientific study of the nervous system.
- Divided into sub disciplines.
Philosophers correct answers The first scholars to study the relationships between
brain and behaviour.
- Established the scientific method as our best tool for finding new knowledge.
- Had long been concerned with the sources of human behaviour.
Biological Psychology correct answers The field that relates behaviour to bodily
processes, naturally evolved from those beginnings.
- Seeks to explain behaviour in terms of its underlying physiology, its development, its
evolution, and its function.
- AKA behavioural psychology, brain and behaviour, physiological psychology.
* Main goal = To understand the brain structures and functions that respond to
experiences and generate behaviour.
Specialized sub-disciplines of Biological Psychology correct answers 1. Comparative
psychology = Variety of species.
2. Ethology = Field studies, ecology
3. Neuroanatomy =Structures
4. Neurophysiology = Tissue function
5. Developmental neurobiology = life span
6. Neurochemistry = basic chemistry of nervous system
7. Psychopharmacology = chemistry of drug action
8. Psychiatry = treatment of psychological disorders
9. Neurology = treatment of nervous system disorders (overlaps w/ psychiatry)
, 10. Psychophysiology = relation of behaviour to changes in psychological
measurements such as EEG.
11. Neuroendocrinology = Study of hormones and nervous system and behaviour.
12. Neuropsychology = study of the relationship of brain and behaviours exclusively in
humans, in neurological patients and in normal subjects.
Mind-Body Problem correct answers The general belief that one has a "mind"
- If the body is a mechanism, behaviour arises from chemical interactions.
Dualism correct answers The idea that the mind/soul will have some independence
from the functioning of the body.
- Intuitively appealing = Introspection = Convenient (no need to explain the inexplicable,
just infer immaterial "something").
- Spread widely and left other thinkers with the task of trying to explain how a
nonmaterial soul could exert influence over a material body and brain.
- Today psychologists reject dualism in favour of the much simpler view that the
workings of the mind can be understood as purely physical processes taking place in
the material brain.
Descartes correct answers (a) Interactionism: A form of dualism arguing that the
mind/soul influences the functioning of the body, in some unspecified way.
- He tried to explain how the control of behaviour might resemble the working of a
machine, proposing the concept of spinal reflects and a neural pathway for them.
- He also argued that free will and moral choice could not arise from a mere machine.
- He asserted that humans had a nonmaterial soul as well as a material body and that
the soul governed behaviour through a point of contact in the brain.
- He was much impressed by hydraulic statuettes (tech analogy again!). He proposed
that the body consisted of a large collection of reflexes, controlled by soul/mind.
- They implicated the spinal cord and brain as source of reflex actions.
- They believes that soul was indivisible and noted that he pineal gland was the only
structure that was unitary. It was believed that the pineal did not exist in animals. It thus
inferred that the soul exerted its influence via the pineal "seat of the soul".
* His major legacy = Mechanistic view of neural function.
