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College notes Theoretical Psychology (SOW-PSB3BE40E)
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College notes from the Theoretical Psychology course (SOW-PSB3BE40E), written in English during the 2021/2022 academic year
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Theoretical psychology notesLecture 1: From phrenology to scientific theory
- Pre-scientific approaches
- Neuroanatomy, time, and psychophysics
- Modularity of the mind
Literature
Content -> overview, no need to buy the book
Course objectives
Upon completing the course, you are able to
1. Explain and compare major theories from the history of psychology
2. Place them in a historical context
3. Analyze their mutual relationships within theory development
4. Assess the meaning suspects of these theories for modern scientific psychology
5. Apply the modern theories
Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1930) - Designed technique of paired
- Suggested career at associates (1896)
school: postman - First female president of the APA
- Three Nobel prize (1905)
nominations
- First psychological laboratory: 1879 Helen Thompson (1874-1947)
in Leipzig, start of experimental - Performed first studies of
psychology difference between men and
- First psychological journal: women (1910)
Philosophische Studien - Used experimental methods in
- Had 188 doctoral students (large these studies
number)
- Wrote approximately 50,000 pages William James (1842-1910)
- Challenged 2500-year-old theory of - Started out as a painter
association - Brother of Henry
- Bestseller: Principles of
Lightner Witmer (1867- Psychology (1890),
1956) everything that was known
- Student of Wundt at the time about the mind
- Founder of clinical - Integrated psychological
psychology knowledge
- First psychological clinic (1896)
- First journal: The Psychological Robert Woodworth (1869-1962)
Clinic (1907) - Bestseller: Experimental
Psychology (1938) (‘The Columbia
Mary Calkins (1863- bible’)
1930) - Still taught in his
- Student of mid-eighties
William James
,The ‘Millers’
- Johannes Müller (1801-1858)
- Georg Müller (1850-1934)
- George Miller (1920-2012)
- Earl Miller (1962-)
The instruments
= which is which and how are they used
- Top left: noema tachograph, used by Donders to
measure reaction times
- Top right: puzzle box, used by Thorndike to study
problem solving in cats
- Bottom left: bean machine, used by to illustrate normal distribution
- Bottom right: chronoscope, instrument to measure reaction time
Pre-scientific approaches
Associationism
= mental processes proceed by way of associations
- Aristotle assumed that the mind had a blank slate
at birth, called a tabula rasa and the mind is filled
by perception
- assuming that the minds uses smell, sight, touch,
hearing and taste providing domain-specific associations that come together
in the domain-general ‘common sense’. These different associations may be used for
thinking and automatic processes or may be put in memory
= from Aristotle to Locke: The Enlightenment 2000 years later
- Blank slate (actually, ‘white paper’): we are born without built-in mental
content
- Sensoristic: all mental content is sensory in nature
- Atomistic: these elementary sensations are the building blocks of more
complex contents
- Associative: more complex contents are created by means of association
Law of contiguity
= basic law of associationism
‘If two things repeatedly occur simultaneously, the presence of one of them will remind us of
the other’ Aristotle
Long-term potentiation
= neuronal basis of the law of contiguity
- Hebb’s law (1949): if two nerve cells are simultaneously stimulated for a period of
time, the synapse binding them is strengthened
- Long-term potentiation is a prolonged rise in the efficiency of a synapse resulting
from a change in the neuronal structure. Discovered in 1973 in the hippocampus of
rabbits
, Connectionism
= modern form of associationism
New addition: computer simulations, way to test if the theoretical assumptions explain the
findings
Horizontal faculties
= domain-general functions
Assumption that these work the same in different content of domains
- Learning
- Memory
- Attention
- Perception
- Will
Vertical faculties
= domain-specific functions
Phrenology:
- Functions are localized in the brain
(localizationism)
- Bumps on skull reflect a faculty
o Language
o Arithmetic
- Double-sided
- Early attempt at scientific theorizing
Pseudo-science: physiognomy
= face reflects character
Lombroso’s ‘criminal type (1911), he proposed that criminal’s had certain
facial features in common, like a high forehead
Pseudo-science: mesmerism
= healing through magnetic forces
Use of hypnosis and magnets during treatment, believe that
magnetism forces and hypnosis may cure mental disorders
Pseudo-science: mental healing
= healing through correct, positive thinking
Pseudo-science: spiritualism
= (mediums) contact with the spirits of the dead
- Alternative scientific explanation by James Randi: ‘cold reading’, the medium doesn’t
get the answers from spirits of the dead but by asking you a lot of questions
- Debate over spiritualism between W. James and skepticism J. Cattel in the journal
‘Science’ in 1898
Neuroanatomy, time, and psychophysics
Flourens versus Gall
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