History and People of Brain Science

People

• Charles Bell formulated the Bell-Magendie Law, differentiating motor outputs and sensory inputs in the spinal cord, contributing to brain science.
• Johann Mueller proposed the concept of specific nerve energies.
• Herman van Helmholtz, a proponent of materialism, made substantial contributions, including the conservation of energy, rate of neural conduction, trichromatic theory of colored vision, and auditory place theory of audition.
• Pierre Florens utilized the ablation method to identify how specific brain areas are responsible for specific functions.
• Broca and Wernicke were neurologists who linked post-mortem brain damage to specific deficits in brain areas.
• Weber's work on the just noticeable difference (JND) narrowed down sensation processing, leading to Weber's law.
• Fechner defined absolute threshold as the minimum amount of stimulation necessary for detection.

Psychophysics

• Psychophysics involves narrowing down sensation processing.

Willhelm Wundt

• Established psychology as a discipline
• Published "Principles of Physiological Psychology" in 1874
• Founded the first psychology laboratory in 1879 at the University of Leipzig
• Started the first experimental psychology journal, "Philosophical Studies," in 1881
• Distinguished his work from psychophysics by focusing on perception (passive) and apperception (active and voluntary selective attention).
• Believed in voluntarism, emphasizing factors that influence attention
• Used the thought meter to measure shifts in attention between stimuli
• Defined introspection as a self-report of what stimulus one is attending to
• Trained Mueller and von Helmholtz.

Edward Titchener

• Founded structuralism, opposing Wundt's approach
• Aimed to determine the what, why, and how of mental experience, focusing on basic elements of consciousness, neural correlations, and rules governing element interaction.
• Faced issues with his approach, like cataloging 10,000 elements of sensation regarding the 'what' and inspired testing and laws of association

Other Contributions to Psychology

• Franz Bretano: ACT Psychology, mental precesses are for function and intentionality
• Carl Stumpf debunked Clever Hans, a horse trained in math.
• Bretano and Stumpf influenced Gestalt Psychology and sensation/perception research.
• Experimental Psychology combines physical and psychological aspects

Charles Bell

• Proposed the Bell-Magendie Law stating sensory nerves enter the spinal cord's dorsal roots & motor nerves exit via the ventral roots.
• Showed specific mental functions rely on specialized anatomical structures; disproved nerves as conveyors of vibrations or animal spirits
• Important for anatomical functions and his ideas on monism and materialism
• Studied how nerves operate.

Johannes Mueller (1801-1858)

• Proposed the doctrine of specific nerve energies
• Activation of the cochlear nerve always prompts the experience of sound

Herman von Helmholtz (1821-1894)

• Followed materialism
• Father of neuroscience
• Estimated the rate of nerve conduction
• Demonstrated the conservation of energy in living organisms
• Developed the Young-Helmholtz trichromatic theory of color vision
• Developed the resonance place theory of audition
• Articulated tricolor with color/photoreceptors
• Audition: cochlea differentiates types of sound
• Committed to materialism through an oath for his students.

Phrenology: Franz Gall (Nativist)

• Involves examining bumps on the head
• Spurzheim wrote books and had demonstrations on phrenology
• Phrenologists thought mental faculties could strengthen with practice
• Corresponding part of head for each of our processes
• His testable hypotheses advanced brain physiology and psychology.

Specialization of Function: Pierre Flourens

• Used ablation/lesion method to investigate the relationship of brain areas to functions.
• Recovery of functions can sometimes happen
• Refuted claims of phrenology

Paul Broca & Carl Wernicke

• Engaged in case studies of people with stroke to localize spcifice brain damage to specific speech details.
• Broca's area in brain: produce coherent speech
• Wernicke's area in brain: speech processing and understanding language.

Psychophysics

• Ernst Weber mapped body sensitivity to touch with the two-point threshold.
• Weber defined the Just Noticeable Difference (JND).
• Weber's Law: JND is a constant function of the original stimulus intensity.
• Fechner defined absolute threshold as the lowest intensity to detect a stimulus.

Schools of Psychology

• Voluntarism is associated with Wundt and attention
• Structuralism is associated with Titchener, basic elements, neural correlations, laws
• Functionalism is associated with William James and consciousness

Evolution

• Jean LeMarck (LeMarckian Evolution) was a predecessor to Darwin
• LeMarck believed that environmental changes affect the structural changes
• EPIGENETICS (gene expression is regulated), the patter of gene expression changes across the lifespan as a function of experience and petter can be based from mom to offspring.
• Herbert Spencer advocated "Survival of the Fittest" and believed everything evolves toward perfection, humanistically
• Social Darwinism and eugenics also feature in Spencer's work, influencing behavior beliefs
• Charles Darwin: Reproduction is the key, not survival of the fittest
• Within a species variability; individual differences
• Darwin's key points involve the significance of variability (genes) of traits within species, environmental stressors driving valuable survival characteristics for reproduction, and isolated populations leading to structural change.
• Origin of the Species published in 1859
• Principle of Charity: put best case forward to reduce wiggle room (aka Steel Man argument vs. Straw man argument).

Intelligence

• Francis Galton, Darwin's cousin, focused on genetics and the heritability of human traits.
• First to use scatter plots with Karl Pierson, which led to correlational analysis
• Strong inheritance component to intelligence (eugenics)
• Nature vs Nurture was his idea
• "Fall of Man" was a paradigm shift; humanity not put here by God
• Galton influenced the Nazis
• Word association tests and twin studies
• Alfred Binet advocated for the environmental side of evolution
• Binet was interested in individual differences
• The French government charged Alfred Binet to find students who need more resources in school
• Charles Spearman used factor analysis to define intelligence as G, general intelligence
• Lewis Terman focused on intelligence
• Terman created the Stanford-Binet test for gifted and extreme intelligence
• Robert Yerkes focused on Intelligence
• Yerkes developed army intelligence tests before WW1
• Performance tests can be culturally biased

Functionalism: William James

• The first American School of Psychology was at Harvard
• Functionalism opposed elementism of structuralism
• Believed in free will
• Published first textbook in Psychology in 1891: Principles of Psychology
• Understood the need to understand the mind and what it is for
• Functionalism uses a practical approach to psychology
• Functionalism is the opposite of tichener
• Functionalism studies philosophy, psychology, and theology