Download Psychology is the scientific study of the mental processes, brain

Study Questions
Lecture 1
2. How would you define
psychology?
Psychology is the scientific study of
the mental processes, brain and
behavior and the relations between
them.
3. Does behavior always require a
brain and intention?
No. See Braitenberg vehicle and moth
example.
4. Why does psychology study
principles, general laws rather than
individual cases?
Psychology studies general laws
because these rules give more cues to
human behavior, and can still help us
understand individual behavior etc.
General laws are more useful.
5. Still individual cases (especially
neuropsychological) are interesting,
why? They are interesting as they
help us further understand the general
principles and can initiate research to
understand general principles.
6. How can we get insight in mental
states?
Experiment, observation and tests.
7. How can we get insight in he role
of genes (see also lecture 3)?
Twin studies, considering the nature
vs. nurture debate…
8. What is meant by Nature and
Nurture (see also lecture 3)?
Nature vs. Nurture is a debate in
developmental psychology as to how
our behavior arises. Nature is an
extreme hereditary position. Nurture
(environmentalists/ behaviorists)
tabula rasa. Interactionist is inbetween.
9. Why is understanding of history
important? What are potential
problems with historical accounts?
Problems: memory is far from perfect.
Interference by time, perspective, later
interpretation. Presentist bias: a
tendency to discuss/analyze the past
in terms of the present.
Lecture 2
10. What does the case of Alhazen
tell us about the history of a
scientific field?
Alhazen was a middle eastern scientist
in 965AD. Developed the modern form
of the scientific method, studied optics,
many consider him to be a leading
figure in the development of
experimental science/psychology.
11. What do we mean by Zeitgeist?
Zeitgeist is the ‘spirit of the times’.
Dominant set of ideas motivating the
actions of members of a society in a
particular time.
12. The establishment of Wundt’s
lab is often seen as the start of
psychology, is that correct?
It was the start of scientific psychology.
13. What does trepanation
potentially tell us about what people
in the stone age were thinking
about the structure that we now call
‘brain’?
Drilling into skulls to expose the brain
lets us know that even in ancient
times, mental illness and neurological
conditions were theorized to take place
in the brain.
14. Why was the Edwin Smith
Papyrus so significant?
Imhotep the disputed author.
Documented the head wounds of
soldiers. Left side of the brain controls
right side of body and vice versa. Brain
is responsible for speech. Touching
the brain can lead to epileptic seizures.
Told us that the seat of the soul is
different to the source of our behavior,
specific functions are localized in the
brain.
15. The Egyptians kept the heart
and threw away the brain? What
does that tell us (keep in mind the
difference between Brain, Soul
(mind)?
The Egyptians thought the heart was
the seat of the soul and thinking and
feelings came from the heart.
16. Why was the discovery of the
ventricles important for thinking in
terms of specialized brain areas?
Described by Herophilus of
Chalcedon, gave rise to the 3 cell
doctrine. Each ventricle had a function.
1: collection of sensory information. 2:
cognition/thinking. 3: memory.
Important as it suggested DaVinci was
thinking of specialized regions of the
brain having different functions.
17. What is meant by Phrenology?
18. Who were the key players in this
movement? 19. Why do you think it
was appealing to many persons
(think in terms of cerebral
specialisation/localisation)?
Knowing psychological traits e.g.
personality by feeling bumps in skull.
Completely invalid. Key players were
Franz Josef Gall (1757-1828) and his
student Spurzheim (1775-1832). It kind
of made scientific sense using theory
of localization.
20. What did Flourens do?
Tested Gall’s indeas of localistationism
by inducing brain damage in rabbits
and pigeons. With no cerebral
hemispheres, perception and judgment
gone. Removal of cerebellum,
problems with motor function. Removal
of brain stem, death.
21. What happened to Phineas Gage
and why was this considered an
example of cerebral specialization?
1848, iron rod through frontal lobe, led
to personality change. A famous story
of functional specialization but highly
mythologized. Personality changes
could also be due to pain,
disfigurement etc.
22. What is lobotomy and reflect on
the Zeitgeist of the time.
Zeitgeist, was thought of completely
scientific, but now cruel and
dangerous. Some patients that were
mentally ill were made calm and
docile, some were killed or
institutionalized.
23. What is Broca and his patient
Tan known for?
Broca’s area – named after ‘tan’ who
lost speech and motor function but
language comprehension was intact.
And what about Wernicke?
Wernicle’s area – patient talked
without any comprehension in their
language (fluent aphasia).
25. Would you rather be a Broca
patient or a Wernicke patient? And
why? (think also in terms of
possible future use of BrainComputer-Interaction (BCIs)
Broca, BCIs could help remedy fluent
aphasia, or translate Broca’s area
cognition into speech.
26. What is meant by brain plasticity
and who role does age play?
Brain can be ‘re-wired’ given time and
experience. More recovery from
drastic brain changes if they happen in
youth. E.g. girl with right brain
removed at early age, retained almost
full function.
27. What is neuro-imaging in
general?
Neuro-imaging allows scientists to
study the structure and activity of the
brain: fMRI, EEG etc.
28. Why do some consider/criticize
neuro-imaging as ‘modern day
phrenology?
It still studies the specialized functions
of the brain; sometimes imaging
doesn’t give us many insights into
cognition as a whole.
29. When someone says ‘the brain
is a network of highly specialized
areas that need to talk to each
other’ do you agree?
Yes, interactions between specialized
areas is important in brain function.
Lecture 3
30. What, in general, is the NatureNurture debate about?
Touched upon this earlier. Extremes of
a continuum. Nature – most
knowledge present at birth. Nurture –
we must learn and that’s how we
acquire knowledge.
31. What was Molyneux’s question
to John Locke?
The question Molyneux asked (to John
Locke, see later) was whether a man
who has been born blind and who has
learnt to distinguish and name a globe
and a cube by touch, would be able to
distinguish and name these objects
simply by sight, once he had been
enabled to see.”
32. Why was Locke the right person
to ask?
John Locke was a philosopher that
theorized that all knowledge was
delivered from the senses. British
empiricist (nurture).
33. What do philosophers mean
when they talk about Nativism and
Empiricism?
How dependent are we on experience
when acquiring knowledge? Basically
nature = nativism, nurture =
empiricism. Rationalism = reasoning
can help us gain knowledge, part of
reasoning is innate.
34. What is the Tabula Rasa idea
and which Greek Philosopher was a
big fan to this idea? Pure empiricism.
Aristotle, knowledge through
perception.
35. Aristotle’s teacher Plato was a
nativist. What makes him a nativist?
Believed much that allowed us to gain
new knowledge through reasoning was
innate. E.g. Plato’s cave.
36. The way we acquire knowledge,
according Plato, was also by using
our Ratio, what did he mean by
that? (think in terms of the endless
possibilities of a form called
triangle)
Ratio is basically an example of innate
knowledge. By using our innate
knowledge of triangle ratios we can
create infinite numbers of triangles
even though we may have never
actually perceived them.
37. Were the British Philosophers
mostly empiricists or nativists?
Empiricists.
38. Were the European Mainland
Philosophers mostly empiricists or
nativists?
Nativists.
39. What did John Locke mean by
saying “Nothing is in the mind
which was not first in the senses”?
One is born without innate ideas; we
learn through our senses.
40. Why is a reflex, which is often
innate, not part of the discussion?
41. In terms of Body versus Mind,
what do we mean by monism and
dualism?
Monoism = body or mind belief.
Reductionism (materialism) and
mentalism. Dualism = interactionism.
42. What is the idea behind
Materialism, nowadays often known
as (neuro)reductionism?
There is only the body. The mind can
be reduced to biochemical activity
(reductionism).
43. What did Bishop Berkeley mean
by subjective idealism?
SI is also Mentalism. Reality only
exists in the mind. Without the mind,
reality does not exist. Objects cannot
exist without being perceived.
44. Descartes was a dualist. What
does that mean?
Mind and body exist and interact with
each other. “I think therefore I am.”
You can doubt everything except your
own existence.
45. Interactionism implies an
interaction. What needed to interact
to make his ideas work?
The body and the mind.
46. Where was this interaction
supposed to happen?
Descartes believed the pineal gland
was important in the interaction.
47. Kant was, like Descartes, a
mainland European philosopher.
Why did they consider themselves
mostly nativists?
They mostly believed that there were
innate faculties in the mind.
48. Chomsky is considered a
modern day nativist? Why?
He believes language is an innate
faculty.
49. The idea of have innate
faculties in your mind, does that
mean that you don’t need to learn?
Not really, more like the innate
faculties of the mind ‘allow’ us to learn.
50. What is the role of age in this?
See Genie’s story.
There are critical periods of language
acquisition.
Lecture 4
1. What do we mean when we talk
about ‘Critical Period’ (aka
Sensitive period)
There is a period, in childhood where
language acquisition is relatively easy.
Can be seen in Genie’s story and in
cases where children are taken out of
their own culture and learn new
languages easily.
2. Weber and Fechner were known
for Psychophysics. What do we
mean by that?
Looking for laws in the mind. E.g.
Weber’s law. Fechner is the father of
psychophysics.
3. What do we mean by ‘the
problem of demarcation’ from a
philosophy of science point of
view?
What is scientific and what is
unscientific? Science is based on the
scientific method (fact, theory,
hypothesis, experiment).
4. Come up with a few reason why
the story of Clever Hans is so
striking in terms of ‘doing the
right experiment’
The right experiment can expose the
difference between real and
pseudoscience. However, this may not
convince everyone. It is not so simple
to do the right experiment.
5. What do we mean by ‘subliminal’
for example in the field of
advertising?
Stimulus is registered and processed
without the subject’s awareness.
6. What is Popper’s central idea in
one sentence?
Falsifiability is central in scientific
theory. Is psychodynamic theory
unscientific?
7. And Kuhn’s (although it was Max
Planck who really made that
point)?
No obvious difference between
science and non science. Paradigm
shifts are difficult and will only occur if
anomalies show up that are hard to
explain by the current paradigm.
Planck: paradigm shifts as opponents
literally die out.
8. What did Popper mean by
Falsifiability?
Is a hypothesis testable?
9. What is so crucial about the
Popper’s Swans example.
That the hypothesis is able to be
tested. If you find one black swan you
can disprove your hypothesis.
10. What is meant in Kuhn’s
terminology ‘old and new theory’
Old theory = well established, many
followers, politically powerful, well
understood, many anomalies.
New theory = few followers, untested,
new concepts, accounts for anomalies,
asks new questions.
11. Skinner never changed his mind,
even when most evidence was
against his ideas. Who would
like that better in terms of the
predictions of their theory,
Popper or Kuhn?
Definitely Kuhn.
Lecture 5
12. What is introspection?
A technique to look into the brain.
Searching for the primitive experiences
that constitute thought.
13. What in general is the difference
between Structuralism and
Functionalism.
Structuralism looks for the building
blocks of the conscious experience.
Functionalism asks what is the
FUNCTION of these building blocks,
believed structure was too reductionist.
14. Who was Titchener?
USA structuralist. Student of Wundt.
15. Can you describe introspection
based on the perception of a
pencil?
Introspection in the perception of a
pencil would be to describe the
fundamental shapes and colours of the
object, not name etc.
16. Why was according William
James, ‘the stream of
consciousness’ a problem for
the structuralist approach?
‘You can’t freeze and separate building
blocks, has not much relevance.’
17. What do we mean by perceptual
organisation? Often the Gestalt
movement was described by ‘the
whole is more than the sum of
its parts’. But Koffka said: The
whole is OTHER than the sum of
its parts. What did he mean by
that (so what is the difference?)
Stimuli can organize themselves,
perceiving is not just sensations but
the organization of stimuli. The whole
is other to the sum of its parts. The
whole exists independently of its parts.
18. What kind of Gestalt laws do you
know?
Similarity, proximity and closure.
19. Which movement had its roots in
animal research?
Behaviourism.
20. Who is known as the discoverer
of Classic Conditioning?
Ivan Pavlov.
21. Little Albert’s emotional
response… what kind of
conditioning was that?
Classical conditioning.
22. What is meant by Thorndike’s
puzzle box?
Forming more frequent and faster
behaviour through reward – operant
conditioning. Law of effect.
23. What was the big improvement
of the skinner box?
Studied reinforcers, punishments and
neutral operants. Studied more ways
in which behaviour could be shaped.
The Skinner box produces more
accurate and useful results compared
to Thorndike's puzzle box. This is
because the Skinner Box is an
experimental environment that is better
suited to examine the more natural
flow of behavior. In other words, the
Skinner box lets you measure a
number of successful responses on
the part of the animal because the
animal stays in the box and can push
the lever (or other mechanism) many
times to receive multiple rewards.
24. Who is seen as the big person in
the world of Operant
Conditioning?
B.F. Skinner.
25. Why was the rat Barnabus both a
success as well as a problem for
the behaviourists?
Could elicit complex behaviours.
Problems, does this have external
validity? Single trial learning.
26. What is meant by the Cognitive
Revolution?
Cognitive science is a child of the
1950s, the product of a time when
psychology, anthropology and
linguistics were redefining themselves
and computer science and
neuroscience as disciplines were
coming into existence.
27. What is meant by the Cognitive
Neuroscience?
Focus on the
neurobiological/physiological
substrates that underlie cognition and
mental processes.
28. What is the main difference
between 27. and 28.
Cognitive revolution = intellectual
movement, study of thought.
Cognitive neuroscience = field,
physiological. Latest movement in
cognitive psychology.
Lecture 6
29. Why was single trail learning a
problem for the die-hard
Behaviourist?
Rats learned to stop drinking water
that made them sick after only one
trial, lack of repeat trial conditioning.
30. In the history of mental health
problems, they often talk about
imbalances. What is meant by
that?
In the case of Hippocrates, he thought
it had to do with an imbalance in the
four fluids: blood, yellow bile, black bile
and phlegm.
31. So how did they try to bring the
balance back?
E.g. blood letting.
32. Which parts of the world where
the first to establish mental
hospitals?
Middle east: Baghdad, Aleppo,
Damascus.
33. Asylums where far from ‘holiday
resort hotels’. Can you give
some examples of the
problems? Think about the
expertise of the staff and the way
they treated the patients!
Mental illness often stigmatized and
resulted in shame and abuse. E.g.
Valencia asylum: untrained staff. St
Mary of Bethlehem (Bedlam): freak
shows, squalid conditions etc.
34. The movie One Flew over the
Cuckoo’s Nest was an eyeopener for the general audience.
Why?
Showed the treatment of patients e.g.
ECT. Humanized mental illness.
35. Why do we sometimes use the
term Mesmerized? What is Franz
Mesmer known for (among other
things)?
Franz Mesmer is known for the advent
of hypnosis.
36. Who was Lightner Witmer?
Lightner Witmer was the first to
establish what?
Another student of Wundt. Introduced
the term of clinical psychology. Taught
a young person that had problems with
spelling. Made first psychological clinic
in 1896.
37. Which three components about
the human mind did Freud
distinguish?
ID, ego and superego.
38. What three kinds of
consciousness states did Freud
distinguish?
Conscious, preconscious and
unconscious.
39. Freud later didn’t like hypnosis
anymore, why?
Thought that hypnosis would still block
repressed painful memories and
developed new free association
techniques.
40. Name a few Neo-Freudians.
Anna Freud, Karl Yung, Erik Erikson.
41. Give an example of a therapy in
the behaviourism/behavioural
tradition.
Systematic desensitization – e.g. if you
are afraid of spiders, exposure to
spiders.
42. Carl Rogers is considered the
godfather of which theory?
Humanistic.
43. What is the DSM?
The diagnostic and statistical manual
of mental disorders.