Psychology 1001 Lecture 4 2024 PDF

Psychology 1001 The History and Philosophical Foundations of Psychology By professor Frans Verstraten The School of Psychology acknowledges and pays respect to the traditional owners of the land, the Gadigal of the Eora Nation. It is upon their ancestral lands that the University of Sydney is built....

Psychology 1001 The History and Philosophical Foundations of Psychology By professor Frans Verstraten The School of Psychology acknowledges and pays respect to the traditional owners of the land, the Gadigal of the Eora Nation. It is upon their ancestral lands that the University of Sydney is built. Popper / Kuhn – how science works Wundt / First lab / introspection 1879 fMRI scanning Edwin Smith Papyrus - Imhotep Discovery of ventricles 3-cell doctrine Gall/Spurzheim: Phrenology Broca/Wernicke Fechner/Weber /Psychophysics 1860 Ibn al-Haytham Greeks Plato/Aristotle Physics trepanation Timeline.. Psychology (as a science) 2000 1950 1900 1800 1000 0 Pre-hist. -3000 philosophy Medicine The Body-Mind problem (consciousness: mind vs matter) Monism (there is only either a ‘mind’ or ‘body’ versus Dualism (they both exist at the same time) Monism (1) Materialism. There is only the body, all reality is of a physical nature. Only the body exist. The ‘mind’ can be explained/reduced to biology and biochemical activity (aka Reductionism or even neuro-reductionism). The Body-Mind problem: one, two or coexistence? Monism (there is only either a ‘mind’ or ‘body’ versus Dualism (they both exist at the same time) Monism (1) Materialism. There is only the body, all reality is of a physical nature. Only the body exist. The ‘mind’ can be explained/reduced to biology and biochemical activity (aka Reductionism). Mentalism (aka immaterialism or subjective idealism). Reality only exists in the mind. Without mind, reality might not even exist (so the physical world would be irrelevant). Materialist : Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) Der Mensch ist, was er isst “You are what you eat” Immaterialist (Subjective idealism) : Bishop George Berkeley (1685-1753) “Esse est percipi” = To be is to be perceived “Objects cannot exist without being perceived” He was 24 years young when he published his ideas in An essay towards a new theory of vision (1709) “Reality only exists in the mind”: philosophical thought experiment If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? How to test this? Can we? Other examples? All knowledge is delivered by our senses, so experience derived from perception. “Nothing is in the mind whic h was not first in the senses” John Locke (1632-1704) One of the first British empiricists One is born without innate ideas. The Body-Mind problem Monism (1) Materialism. (aka Reductionism) BODY Mentalism (aka immaterialism or subjective idealism) MIND Dualism (2) Interactionism BODY & MIND Dualism: Body and Mind BOTH exist! But they need to ‘talk’ to each other. That is, interact with each other. INTERACTIONISM But where do they interact? Descartes: It must be the pineal gland! Soul is unitary, and unlike many other structures in the brain, the pineal gland was like that (he was wrong about that). Close to the ventricles (remember!), the cerebrospinal fluid delivered messages to the nerves that resulted in behaviour. Dualism: Body and mind BOTH exist! René Descartes Empiricism is not the way to go! As he refused to trust his own senses. “Nothing is sure but" “I think therefore I am” You can doubt everything except your own existence “Cogito ergo Sum” 1637 from “Discourse on the Method” Accordingly, seeing that our senses sometimes deceive us, I was willing to suppose that there existed nothing really such as they presented to us; And because some men err in reasoning, …. I, convinced that I was as open to error as any other, rejected as false all the reasonings I had hitherto taken … And finally, when I considered that the very same thoughts (presentations) which we experience when awake may also be experienced when we are asleep, while there is at that time not one of them true, I supposed that all the objects (presentations) that had ever entered into my mind when awake, had in them no more truth than the illusions of my dreams. But immediately upon this I observed that, whilst I thus wished to think that all was false, it was absolutely necessary that I, who thus thought, should be something; and as I observed that this truth, I think, therefore I am ,[c] was so certain and of such evidence that no ground of doubt, however extravagant, could be alleged by the Sceptics capable of shaking it, I concluded that I might, without scruple, accept it as the first principle of the philosophy of which I was in search… Like most mainland Europeans Descartes was a nativist (see also Plato). In Germany: Emmanuel Kant “the human mind knows objects: it is innate! Professor Noam Chomsky In a way: a Modern Day nativist Noam Chomsky (1928 - now) MIT Cambridge (Boston) “Language is an innate faculty of the human mind “Language is an Noam innateChomsky faculty of the human mind Language universals: How do we know? Adopt a baby… Language Acquisition Device (LAD) Critical/Sensitive period to ‘get is out’ or ‘activate’: Also critical period hypothesis (CPH)of language acquisition See also imprinting Lorentz and imprinting Lorenz (1935) investigated the mechanisms of imprinting, where some species of animals form an attachment to the first large moving object that they meet. This process suggests that attachment is innate and programmed genetically. He took a large clutch of goose eggs and kept them until they were about to hatch out. Half of the eggs were then placed under a goose mother, while Lorenz kept the other half hatched in an incubator, with Lorenz making sure he was the first moving object the newly hatched goslings encountered * When the geese hatched Lorenz imitated a mother duck’s quacking sound, upon which the young birds regarded him as their mother and followed him accordingly. The other group followed the mother goose. * Lorenz found that geese follow the first moving object they see. This process is known as imprinting, and suggests that attachment is innate and programmed genetically. * Lorenz believed that once imprinting has occurred, it cannot be reversed, nor can a gosling imprint on anything else. * To ensure imprinting had occurred, Lorenz put all the goslings together under an upturned box and allowed them to mix. When the box was removed, the two groups separated to go to their respective “mothers” – half to the goose, and half to Lorenz. Noam Chomsky Language universals: How do we know? Adopt a baby… Language Acquisition Device (LAD) Critical/Sensitive period to ‘get is out’ or ‘activate’: Also, critical period hypothesis (CPH)of language acquisition How do we know? That is more difficult to find out… but see next examples: The Wild Boy of Aveyron, Victor. Name given to a boy found roaming the woods of Averyon in southern France in 1799. He behaved like a wild animal and gave all indications that he had been raised by wild animals, eating off the floor, making canine noises, disliking baths and clothes. He also could not speak. He was taken in by Doctor Jean Marc Itard who had developed a reputation for teaching the deaf to speak. However, after years of work, Itard failed to teach Victor to more than a few words. Genie and the Critical Age Hypothesis of language acquisition In 1970, a young girl was rescued from an imprisoned life in a room no bigger than 10 by 14 feet. At 13 years of age, this child had spent the past eleven years harnessed to an infant's potty seat. As Susan Curtiss wrote in her 1977 doctoral dissertation Genie: A Psycholinguistic Study of a Modern-Day ‘Wild Child’, the child “was left to sit, tied-up, hour after hour, often into the night, day after day, month after month, year after year.” Several videos on Youtube: the also show a ‘dark side’ of science Genie speaking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp5bzVNTnOs The case in thenews: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjZolHCrC8E Summary, again: Nature versus Nurture (what is ‘in there’ and what needs to be learned (from ‘out there’) Nativism vs Empiricism (philosophical views: how dependent we are on experience when acquiring knowledge (where rationalism sees a role for ‘reasoning’ as a source to gain knowledge) Body vs Mind (or both) (Monism) Body -> Materialism: everything is tissue (Monism) Mind -> Immaterialism Subjective idealism: The world only exists in my mind. (Dualism): Both mind and body exist, need to talk to each other/interact (interactionism). Popper / Kuhn – how science works Noam Chomsky fMRI scanning Edwin Smith Papyrus - Imhotep Discovery of ventricles 3-cell doctrine Gall/Spurzheim: Phrenology Broca/Wernicke Fechner/Weber /Psychophysics 1860 Wundt / First lab / introspection 1879 Bishop Berkely John Locke Descartes Ibn al-Haytham Greeks Plato/Aristotle Physics trepanation Time line.. Psychology (as a science) 2000 1950 1900 1800 1000 0 Pre-hist. -3000 philosophy Medicine Practice Questions Were the British philosophers mostly empiricists or nativists? What about the European mainland philosophers? In terms of Body and Mind, what do we mean by monism and dualism? What is the idea behind materialism, nowadays often known as (neuro)reductionism? What did Bishop Berkeley mean by subjective idealism? Descartes was a dualist. What does that mean? Interactionism implies an interaction. What needed to interact to make Descartes' ideas work? Where was this interaction supposed to happen? Chomsky can be considered 'a modern day nativist'? Why? The idea of having innate faculties in your mind, does that mean that you don’t need to learn? What is the role of age in this? See Genie’s story. What do we mean when we talk about ‘critical period’ (nowadays better known as 'sensitive period') Some movements that you will encounter (in the fast lane) Remember Structuralism? Remember Functionalism? Gestalt movement Behaviourism Structuralism to the USA Edward Titchener (1867-1927): Have a good look at your own conscious experience in search for the basic elements that built up this experience. Very subjective, self reports on sensations, feelings, emotions etc. Functionalism (USA) William James (1842-1910) Harvard University The ‘Godfather’ of Psychology Book: Principles of Psychology (published 1890) Problem with structuralist approach is the ‘Stream of consciousness’. You can’t just freeze/divide current thoughts to analyse them to little building blocks. Simply because there is a continuous arrival of new thoughts that must interfere… so bad method! The structure might not be so important. The important question is ‘what do you use it for’, what is the function? William James (18421910) His famous book! Gestalt psychology (Europe) Max Wertheimer (photo), Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Köhler, founders Often ‘Gestalt’ is translated by ‘Form, shape, figure’ but it does not have an exact translation and it is more like ‘whole', 'complete' or 'pattern’ Wolfgang Kohler Insight studies with Chimpanzees. Famous one was Sultan Gestalt psychology (Europe) “The whole is other than the sum of its parts” (Koffka’s words and often wrongly cited as ‘greater than’ or ‘more than’) You cannot study architecture (or a house) by studying a brick. Perceiving is not just sensations but a creative process of organising in/by the brain. Gestalt laws! The concept of Perceptual Organisation letter B Perceptual Organisation: A stimulus organizes itself 32 Simplified representation of Gestalt Principle: you can’t understand architecture by studying a brick… Single brick Temple High rise House But… what Gestalt psychologists really meant is something deeper… The whole exists independently of its parts Koffka: “The whole is other than the sum of its parts What Koffka meant was actually that the whole existed independently of its parts Famous example is the so called KANIZSA Triangle. “The whole is other than the sum of its parts” “The whole is other than the sum of its parts” Common Fate Closure; stripes organize into meaningful entity Similarity Similarity Proximity Figure / Ground Good continuation Practice Questions What is seen as the Body/Mind problem of debate? What does Materialism (Neuro-reductionism) stand for? What was Bishop George Berkeley’s central point? What interacted in Descartes ideas? Where did this interaction take place? What were the British philosophers? Nativists or Empiricists? What is Chomsky known for? What is his idea about language acquisition? What do we mean by Critical or Sensitive Period? Is imprinting based on a genetic predisposition? What does the case of Genie show? What is the main difference between Structuralism and Functionlism? 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?) What kind of Gestalt laws do you remember?