2.3 Problem 3 Summary

2.3 Problem 3
Toward the Science of Psychology
 Primarily part of philosophy
Hartley
 Based his psychology on principles of philosophy
o Wanted to create psych. That combined philosophy and physiology, but
philosophy came on top
Gall
 Founder of Neuroscience (brain is the seat of the soul)
 Brain is a specific organ of mental activity
o Study of human nature should begin with functions of the brain giving rise
to thought and action, not abstract and introspective inquiries into mind
 Reacted to French empiricism and associationism
 Localisation of function- each proposed faculty is innate and in a particular
region of the brain
 Since brains of species differ, so should the corresponding faculties
o Carried out comparative anatomical studies to support this
 Adopted a different, less time-consuming methodology: lead to the pseudoscience
of phrenology
o Assumed well-developed mental faculties corresponded to well-developed
parts of brain
o Organs corresponding to these faculties would be larger than organs to
corresponding less well-developed faculties
 Size of the organs would show as bumps on the skull overlying the
larger organs
o Certain traits would cause certain bumps on the skull
 Can observe individual personality via cranial observation
 Nativistic approach
 Compared humans with other animals
 Materialistic
 Behaviouristic (not introspectionistic)
o Studied people via the bumps and behaviours
 Psychology of individual differences
 Later studies showed Gall correct in that different parts of the brain responsible
for different mental processes
 Scientific experiments found Gall specific locations were faulty, and that size of
brain corresponds to faculty strength is foundation-less
 Flourens- ridiculed phrenology, argued cerebral hemisphere is unit containing no
specialised organs for specialised faculties
Flourens
 Cartesian dualist
 Soul resides in cerebral hemisphere and is unitary- action of hemispheres
must be so too
 Advocated idea of mass action- cerebrum is a single organ with a single
function- thought- acts as a mass
Bell
 Based works on post-mortem dissections
 Distinguishes 2 sets of nerves at base of spinal column
o Suggested one carried into to brain, other carried info from brain to
muscles


Emerging Reflex Theory of the Brain
Gristch and Hitzig- electrical excitation of the cerebrum elicits movement
 different parts of the brain, when stimulated, regulate different movements
 new phrenology formed
o some parts of brain receive sensations, others govern specific actions,
association of sensation and action produces behaviour

,  Brain is complex reflex machine with cerebral hemispheres providing
associative connections between incoming stimuli and outgoing responses

Experimental Psychology
 Studied normal human mind
o Regarded individual differences as error variance (should be minimised
by experimental control
Donders
 Dutch psychologist
 Time between stimulus and response can be used objectively to quantify
speed of mental processes
 Simple reaction time- how long it takes someone to respond to a single
stimulus eg. turning on light bulb
 Compound reaction time- how long it takes someone to respond to more
complicated stimuli eg. having 2 lights
o Subject must make a judgement
 Compound reaction time- simple reaction time= mental judgement
 Mental chronometry- the method founded by Donders, which provides an
objective way to measure physiological and mental processes that can’t be
directly observed
o Quantitative method
 Brought the mind into the laboratory
Fechner
 Showed Kant’s assumptions (mind can be subjected to neither experiment nor
mathematical analysis) to be false
 Content of consciousness can be manipulated by controlling the stimuli
individuals expose to
o Makes mental experiments possible
 Can mathematically relate stimulus magnitude with resulting sensation
o Strength of sensation (S) is a function of stimulus strength (R): S=k log
R
 K= constant particular to sense modality
 Work motivated by mind-body problem
 Psychophysics

Mental testing
 Fundamental for founding of applied psychology
 Invested for public education
 Concerned with measuring individual differences: average human mind, but
no normal one
Galton
 British ;)
 Aimed to measure intelligence (the master mental ability)
o Looked at exam scores
 Devised Pearson product-moment correlation
o Found strong correlation between exam grades, suggesting intelligence
is a single mental ability
 Galton followers believe most intelligence can be accounted for by single
psychometric factor, g
 Critics- intelligence is composed of multiple skills
 Measured intelligence based on methods from British Empiricism
 Studied ordinary people, not highly educated
 Show that intelligence is heritable as are other physical traits
 Pushes eugenics
 Interested in genetic variation