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Summary of Main points- Last Class: 

Summary of Main points- Last Class Plato – Being Forms/ideas are innate; perceptions misleading Personality : Conflict between “rational” and “passionate” souls (psychoanalytic idea) Aristotle- Becoming 4 causes; Teleology (movement towards final cause( Humanistic idea); Body & Mind intertwined; Vegetative, efficient, Rational soul; Rational= Passive/active mind, “common sense”; Memory: Organization based on associations, laws (similarity, etc.,) (Gestalt) Descartes- Out of scholasticism and into scientific inquiry Mechanistic model; animal spirits; parsimonious theory; Animal experimentation; Cartesian Dualism- Interactions between sensory input and rational soul= Pineal gland

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He performed animal experiments. His mechanistic view of behavior is evident in his description of these experiments: Animals are mechanical beings with no feelings. As Descartes and his friend operated on wakeful animals they describe themselves as “…amused at their cries and yelps…” “…since there were nothing but the hydraulic hisses and vibrations of machines”. In humans: Because of the rational soul – the story is different.

Cartesian Dualism: Body and Mind : 

Cartesian Dualism: Body and Mind Back to the model of human behavior: What makes the animal spirits move the hand? Back to Aristotle: The “rational soul” which contains “innate ideas of the soul”- inherited axioms (e.g., justice, unity, infinity). Innate ideas as distinct from “derived ideas”: That arise from direct application of external stimuli (the idea of a bell derived from repeated experiences of hearing a bell). The model: A stimulus falls on the retina Through hollow pipes it moves with animal spirits to the brain In the brain – in the Pineal gland- an interaction between the stimulus and innate ideas. Motivation/emotions are created, will and behavior ensue An interaction between what we have ‘inside’ and what comes from the ‘outside’ creates motivation and behavior A movement of the animal spirits impresses the pineal gland and produces a sensation Why in the Pineal Gland?: An area full of fluids, single organ in the brain where others are duplicated in the two hemispheres.

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Research Strategy: Do not accept anything as true- Doubt everything How will I know when to stop doubting? What can not be doubted? “It’s the same perceptions that we have when awake that may come to us when asleep without their being true” “ I decided to suppose that nothing that ever entered my mind was more real than the illusions of the dream” What's REAL??? “but I soon noticed that while I wish to thing everything false – it was necessarily true that I who thought was something: COGITO ERGO SUM”. Divide a problem to smaller parts How do you know that you have arrived at the “basic” level of the problem? The concept is clear and distinct (can not be divided further) . The example of stick in water. Stick in water is clear, but not distinct Solve the easier parts first Create theories that are general- Parsimonious. With a minimal set of assumptions and rules explain a lot. Descartes proposes the basic attitude of scientific inquiry: Questioning everything.

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Cartesian dualism: In other models of dualism: The body is like a puppet on a string. Here behavior is determined by an interaction between two equally important entities: BODY and MIND. Without soul – like animals: A pool of reflexes. Without body: No behavior but a pool of abstract primary constructs.

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The major contributions of Descartes to modern psychology: Brain as a major organ to understand behavior The idea of S-R The idea of processing of physical energy into a psychological experience The interaction between body and mind to understand behavior. Creating an attitude of openness towards the study of human behavior. Specifying the strategy of research

The British Empiricists: 

The British Empiricists No point in discussion of innate ideas, soul and similar concepts The emphasis is on: How do we transform sensory experiences into all that we are and know. We are born “tabula rasa”. 3 basic attitudes: Materialism Positivism (Comte- the only valid information is observables) Empiricism: All that we are and know is a result of our interaction with reality

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John Locke (1632-1704) The personal secretary of the Duke of Shaftsbury Exiled to Holland with his employer where he published: “ An essay concerning human understanding” (1690) SENSATION-------- Reflection------- Idea “let us suppose the mind to be as we said: a white paper void of all characters without any ideas, How comes it to the vast store of ideas that man painted on it? To this I answer in one word: From experience is that all our knowledge is found and from it ultimately derives its self”

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The distinction between single atoms and a structure of atoms together paralleled in the psychological world in Simple and Complex ideas. Complex ideas are made of simple ideas that are held together by associations Each object has primary and secondary property. The secondary is dependent on the perceiver (Sharpness of knife, and pain of cut) An experiment: Hand immersed in hot/cold water and then put in regular water. Secondary property is always subjective.

Other empiricists: 

Other empiricists Berkeley (1695-1753) All subjective ‘ad absurdum’ (story about his death) Maybe everything is secondary quality? Tree in dream and tree in reality- which is true? Answer: Reality exists because the ‘great perceiver’ (god) looks at us. Knowledge gained through association: “Sitting in my study I hear a coach drive along the street, I look through the window and see it, I walk out and enter it; … I heard, I saw I touched the same thing, and the same thing is the coach and because of contiguity I derive the concept a coach” . (Gestalt idea) Depth perception? Because of disparity in the images that fall on two eyes. David Hume (1711-1776) The central place of empirical research in “psychology”: “…As the science of man is the only solid foundation for the other sciences, so the only solid foundation we can give to this science itself must be based on experience and observation” Causality: A habit of the mind (Gestalt, Cognitive processes shape reality).

“Behaviorism” and “Cognitive Behaviorism”: James Mill (1773-1836) and J.S. Mill (1806-1873): 

“Behaviorism” and “Cognitive Behaviorism”: James Mill (1773-1836) and J.S. Mill (1806-1873) James Mill (the father): John Locke’s idea of “tabula rasa” as a way of life. The mind: A mechanistic process of accumulation of associations. Applied the ideas to his son J.S. Mill who read Plato in Greek at the age of 3, wrote his first scientific article at the age of 11, and finished his academic degree at the age of 12. J.S. Mill views the mind as a creative process. He places an emphasis on cognitive processes and not only on mechanistic discussion of chains of associations. Behaviorism and Cognitive Behaviorism (Watson vs. modern behaviorism). His book “On the subjugation of women”. Years later Freud, who translated the book to German, writes to his fiancee (Martha Bernays): “The position of women can not be other than what it is: To be adored sweetheart in youth and a beloved wife in maturity.

Leibniz (1646-1718): Away from the emphasis on empiricism: The unconscious, temperament theory: 

Leibniz (1646-1718): Away from the emphasis on empiricism: The unconscious, temperament theory On his personal life: Born in Leipzig, finished his Ph.D. at 19, became the secretary of the Nuremberg society of alchemy, and decided that science he wants diplomacy and politics and not science. Began to work with the duke of Mainz. Was sent to Paris to convince Louis 14th to conquer Egypt. His plan similar to Napoleon’s conquest. A Da-Vinci type person: Built a working submarine, invented Binary system in Algebra, etc., Met Anton Van Levenhook, and was captivated by the microscope. This was the basis of his theory of man Was the first non-British elected to the British Royal Society. A well known and eccentric figure in Europe. The Philosopher in Walter’s Candid.

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His theoretical ideas: As is the case with a drop of water under the microscope, the world is made of smaller invisible parts: MONADS: Organic units of existence. These monads are not inanimate. They have independent energy The Eternal Monad: “Supreme Monad”- God The everything develops from it. The Finite Monads: Simple: The units from which non-organic matter is made Subtinent: More complex, animals are made of them. They are capable of perception and simple feelings (e.g., pain, happiness). Rational Monads: The building blocks of human existence- they have all the capabilities of Simple and Subtinent, but also enable Apperception (processing of perception) and Reflection (the quality of self awareness). These two qualities make people different than animals. Later in Psychology- the question of apperception, and self awareness.

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Psychophysical parallelism: the three types of monads that make up human psychology are like parallel clocks that operate together. They run in parallel. This is a very different from the “tabula rasa” empiricism of John Locke. Empiricism vs. Nativism: Locke is Empiricist; Leibniz is a Nativist. The contrast summarizes much of what we said before. Being vs. Becoming revisited: In Leibniz words: “…there is a question of whether the soul itself is completely blank like a writing tablet on which nothing has yet been written… as Aristotle and John Locke maintain, or whether the soul inherently contains the sources of various notions and doctrines which external objects merely rouse up on suitable occasions as I and Plato believe”. We have “necessary truths” (tendencies, doctrines) within us which is like a mathematical axiom and our interaction with reality just exemplifies it. If we replace “inherent truths” with “genes”, and “tabula rasa” with S-R we are facing the same dilemma that we won’t solve. We “enlarge the circles of knowledge” around the questions. We do not provide a definitive and exclusive answer. Leibniz: Locke’s psychology is apt to describe animal behavior; people have within them the monads that enable cognitive processes and introspections. It is not that we need to replace Locke, but develop our knowledge where he stopped- Cognitive processes.

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The mind is like a block of marble. It has lines of potential fracture, strength, softer, harder. The sculptor will later make it into a sculpture. But the image is already in the block. So is the mind: The potential is there, it includes all the inclinations and tendencies, and reality is the sculptor. It sculpts the final image of the mind in light of the potential. (Temperament theory- Buss, e.g., the temperament of active-passive and reality determines the person’s becoming an angle or Satan). Perception (raw input), Apperception (meaning) there are basic laws of understanding that we are born with (e.g., a thing can not be and “not be” at the same time), Minute Perceptions (things that we perceived but are not conscious of). Minute perceptions occur in the unconscious and they form the basis for our sense of continuous self. Without the unconscious (no sense of continuity of self). (Psychoanalytic view of personality and the importance of unconscious life). Contributions: Emphasis on cognitive processes, laws of perceiving and understanding (e.g., cognitive, gestalt), Inherited tendencies that are shaped by reality, the unconscious and its importance.

The “Physiological Path” to Psychology: 

The “Physiological Path” to Psychology The place of the brain: Aristotle: Can not be a central organ in behavior. No blood Non sensitive to touch Fairly unimpressive The place is the heart. The brain a “cooler” for the blood Descartes: Centrality of brain A link between physiological events in the brain (e.g., stroke and behavior change). Hales (early 18th): Pinches a frog’s nerve and leg moves Later electricity is discovered and Galvani produces a movement in frog’s leg by electrical current (the myth of ‘electricity’ – Frankenstein-). Schwann (early 19th) discovered the nerve cell

The Question of “localization of psychological functions in the brain”- The story begins with Franz Gal : 

The Question of “localization of psychological functions in the brain”- The story begins with Franz Gal Franz Gal (1758-1828): Among contributions: (1) The link between the 2 hemispheres, (2) a link between complexity of psychological functions an organism can perform and the surface of cortex. Phrenology: The basic idea: 27 areas in the brain for faculties such as memory, honesty, passion, etc., When highly developed affects structure of skull Craniometry His memory of his bright class mates (front of eyes) Gal’s passionate widow (back of skull) But not always: Messenger boys should be ‘thieves’, but when not- Honesty region developed and compensates for acquisitiveness area.

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Localization? YES. Not only for simple behaviors (leg movements) but also for complex human qualities/behaviors A good scientific theory? On the one hand: Yes- parsimonious. Yet: Why only 27? Why not 2700? Why not 7? The assumption that skull reflects brain is erroneous Circular. You can explain anything by referring to an interaction between regions. Can’ refute. Very influential in 19th century Europe. Phrenological clinics a sort of first psychotherapy (talk about skull structure and its implications/consequences for one’s life, etc.,)

Localization? : NO- Pierre Flourens (1794-1867): 

Localization? : NO- Pierre Flourens (1794-1867) Among his major physiological contributions: Discovery of respiratory center in brain (medulla) and function of cerebellum in coordinated behavior Methodology: Franz Gal- Craniometry, Flourens in Ablation. His conclusion: NO localization. Performed an ablation on what Gal described as the area of passion (cerebellum) and sees: “The animal lost gradually the faculty of orderly and regular movement… soon he could walk only by staggering in zig-zag … he fell each time he wanted to advance … when he wanted to turn to the right, he turned to the left…”. What I did was to destroy the ability for an overall orderly behavior. Therefore: No localization: The brain as one unit works to produce an orderly behavior. Distinguishes between “action propre” and “action commune”. The first refers to simple actions which may be localized and the second to more complex functions that involve the whole brain.