Summary PSYC 339 – Origins of the Mind – USC – Midterm 1/Exam 1 Study Guide (A+ Student Notes)

Exam Date: 2/9 Thursday


Introduction of Origins of the Mind

Comparing Black Plague to Covid-19: how did humans get here?
-​ Origins of knowledge

Main Ideas (Nature vs Nurture?)
-​ Empiricism: John Locke - knowledge from experience
-​ Nativism: Immanuel Kant - Innate wiring - then adapt to experience
-​ Idea 1: animals have innate cognitive systems that are
-​ Ancient
-​ Evolutionary
-​ Core knowledge system
-​ Idea 2: humans evolved the ability for cultural knowledge
-​ Builds cultural knowledge on: science, politics, religion, medicine
-​ Varies based on groups
-​ General Beliefs
-​ Innate: see, hear
-​ Middle/innate: colors, distance, face to non-face, ToM
-​ Upper/taught: quantities, prefer helping, read

Brain
-​ Newborns can tell dif between monkey faces
-​ Newborn chicks recognize objects
-​ Encephalization Quotient

Tree of Knowledge
Motivation to Control (see diagram)
-​ Underlying Modular Systems:
-​ Social, biological, physical
-​ Supporting Mechanisms
-​ Affective, conscious-psychological, working memory
-​ Behavioral Strategies to Achieve Control
-​ Mechanisms: executive functioning, conscious psychological system, social system, brain
system

Functional Taxonomy of the Human Mind

, Eye and Light

Tree of evolution
-​ Neurons evolved between or earlier than sponges and jellyfish/chidarians

Importance and need of vision
-​ Need for acuity to read social cues (non-verbal)
-​ To navigate the world
-​ Survival, protection
-​ Social interactions
-​ Mental representations

Visible light
-​ Reflection, transmission, absorption, scattering
-​ 400-700nm

Anatomy, how does it work
-​ Color exist in our brain
-​ Cornia → pupil → retina → optic nerve → brain
-​ Our brain flips the image
-​ In the Retina: (turn light into neural signal, activate according to light in environment
-​ Rods : peripheral and night vision, motion
-​ Cones: visual cues, colors, contrast, details