Please read chapter 3. After reading chapter 3, please respond to the following questions:
What were two things from the chapter that you found interesting? Why were they interesting to you? Which two things did you find the least interesting? Why? What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology? Finally indicate two topics or concepts that you would like me to cover in more depth in class.
Note: Keep in mind that you will be allowed to bring in the blog posts to class with you when you take exams. Be sure to use the terms and terminology in your posts.
Let me know if you have any questions,
--Dr. M
One thing I found most interesting from this chapter was the topic of ablation. Ablation was Flourens’ way of disproving phrenology. Ablation occurred when he removed certain parts of the brain and watched how it affected the body. It was used on animal subjects because the use of humans for this could not be justified. I thought this was interesting because it seemed like a really effective way to witness how the brain controlled the body, and not just theorize about it.
I also found Broca’s patient “Tan”. He was unable to articulate his words, although he knew what he wanted to say. (motor aphasia) After he died, his brain was examined and it was found that he had a lesion on the left side of his brain. This led to the knowledge we have now that speech is located in the left side of the brain. It also led to the discovery of sensory aphasia (the ability to produce speech that doesn’t make sense and the inability to understand others’ speech).
The two things I found least interesting were equipotentiality and mass action. these referred to the fact that learning is not situated in one part of the brain. Even though I found it the least interesting, I think it is the most important thing to understanding the history of psychology. If localization was true, there would be a lot less questions in psychology and neurology.
Temporal and spatial summation still confused me a little after I read the chapter.
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The two topics I found interesting in this chapter were the ideas of ablation and synapse. I think the concept of ablation and they way that they figured this concept out is pretty interesting. Ablation is removal of specific areas or sections of the brain to see what abilities are affected due to the removal of this section. I found it interesting (yet harsh cause I am an animal lover, lol) how he removed sections of the brain from pigeons and dogs and looked to see what motor skills or functions the animals lost due to removal of those sections. Flourens’ research revealed that the cerebellum is the center of motor control and that the cortex served many functions in perception, intelligence, and will.
Another topic I found interesting was the synapse. The way Sherrington went about to find the synapse really caught my attention and got me interested in the topic. I thought it was cool how Sherrington could severe the spinal cord from the dog’s brain. This revealed that the spinal cord deal with reflexes. This is because in the “spinal dogs, “their reflexes were diminished when their spinal cords were severed from their brains. Sherrington also discovered with his study the concepts of temporal summation and spatial summation. Temporal summation is stimuli separated in time combine to produce a response. This is when a point is stimulated many times at a rate. Spatial summation is when there is two different points of stimulation that are combined and created a response.
I found the topic of the Bell-Magendie Law and the section Helmhotz: The physiologist’s physiologist to be the lease interesting topics for me. The Bell-Magendie Law is important, but the this section talked more about how it was a “multiple” case quite a bit. I felt this was sort un unimportant information. I also was somewhat confused with Helmhotz discoveries, so those were a bit uninteresting for me.
I feel that the most useful information that I got from this chapter is that we experience our lives through our nervous system and how that connects with the brain. Without nerves, we would not be able to understand or we would probably not be able to function like we do these days. Nerves help us to understand and generate ideas about out world. I would maybe request going over the Equipotentiality and Mass Action…really could use more understanding of those.
One thing I found interesting was about how we perceive things, and how our brain works to do so. For instance, when perceiving distance, our brains make and unconscious interference all in a split second to determine what’s happening by using our past experience. When a person is walking toward us, we perceive them as moving closer to us, not their body getting larger. That’s because we know from experience that people don’t grow or shrink as they draw near. It’s always interesting to here about all the processes that our brains and bodies go through just to make one small connection.
I also found Helmholtz trichromatic theory to be interesting. They came up with this by using color-matching experiments and overlapping colors like red and green to get yellow, and so forth. After these experiments they concluded that there must be three basic and primary colors—red, green, and blue, and when we combine them in different ways, we get a whole bunch of other colors. This was an interest point for me because I studied a lot of art in high school and learned all about how our eyes perceive color, and how primary colors work, so it’s interesting to learn about them from a scientific, or psychological perspective.
Some things I found less interesting were Golgi and Cajal’s opponent works on neuron structure. Golgi started the process by producing the first clear pictures of nerve cells by immersing sections of the brain in silver nitrate which stained a percentage of the neurons and produced a black picture of them against a yellowish background of the rest of the brain. His concept was that the neurons are all interconnected physically with each other in a nerve network.
Cajal on the other hand, believed that the neurons were not in an interconnected web, but were just in contact with each other. He too believed that the neuron was the nervous system’s basic unit and used the same staining technique to build his case, but they had opponent theories on exactly how they worked. Ironically, he won the 1906 Nobel prize alongside of golgi for an opponent theory on a common subject.
I found these subjects to be a little less interesting, mostly just because I have a harder time understanding some more biological and structural parts of psychology.
Another thing I found to be less interesting was Helmholtz’s theory of conservation of energy which stated that the “total energy within a system remains constant, even if changes occur within the system” he argued that body heat and muscle force were explained by a chemical energy that was produced by oxidation that occurred during one’s digestion. He proposed this theory as an attempt to negate vitalism, which proposed that in addition to physical and chemical processes in the body, there was also a life force known as a “vital force” which controlled some processes. Therefore, heat was generated by physical and chemical reactions within the body, not another special “life force.” This was a little less interesting once again, because it was more difficult to understand. However, once I really read into it and paid it more attention, I caught on an actually began to find it a little more interesting!
The thing that I found that was very important to the history of psychology was the early, now pseudo-science, of phrenology. It was the first serious attempt, and science that conceptualized the theory that the brain’s functions were localized. Although early phrenologists were bordering on the lines of a correct theory, they were also a little off. Gall, who is credited with founding the science, came to believe and preach about the shape of one’s cranium would determine their personality. Obviously this isn’t true today, but it was a truth when it first was proposed back in the day, it became wildly popular even after other scientists disproved the theory. It is an important theory because it is one of the first attempts at studying what parts of the brain control which areas of our bodies and other functions.
The topics that I didn’t quite understand and would like to go over in more detail would probably be Lashley’s equipotentiality and mass action.
One thing that I found interesting in Chapter 3 was how they addressed the issue of consciousness post execution. The guillotine was thought of as one of the most humane ways to execute a criminal because it was quick and they didn’t suffer long. After awhile people started to realize there were still body twitches after the person was beheaded which formed the question of where the control center of consciousness was located. I found it to be interesting that people of this time actually performed tests such as thrusting fingers towards the body-less head, speaking in its ear, and providing the nose with smells to probe a reaction. This was surprising to me that they would be so considerate and conduct these experiments for people that were guilty of committing a crime.
The second thing I found to be interesting in this chapter was Helmholtz’s unconscious inference about distance. I found this to be interesting because it is such a simple concept that most people do not give it a second thought. Helmholtz’s believed that our past experiences help us perceive things as getting closing or moving further away not shrinking and growing. This idea happens so fast and is something that everyone is familiar with therefore it is called unconscious inference.
The things that I found least interesting in this chapter were Reflex Action and the Specific Energies of Nerves. These did not captivate my attention because they were talked about in the previous chapter and were basically just being restated.
Two things I would like to learn more about in class Franz Josef Gall and the different areas of the brain.
Somethings I found interesting was Bell-Magendie Law and the the specific energy of nerves. I had no idea that anterior and posterior nerves had different functions and that by cutting one or the other, different results can be seen. If you cut the posterior nerve root, the subject will still be able to move their limb, but will not be able to feel it. If you cut the anterior nerve root however, the subject will not be able to move, but will still be able to feel their limb. Lastly if you cut both roots, then the subject loses all motion and sensation in the effected region.
I also liked the specific energies of nerves. If you take a sharp needle and press a certain nerve on the tongue, you will feel pain or "sharpness." If you do the same thing on a different nerve on the tongue however, you will instead have a sensation of a "metallic taste." Similarly you can see light by simple vision, but you can also have the sensation of a flash of light simply by pushing on the side of your eyeball.
I don't really find any of the biographies interesting. I don't need to know that Franz Josef Gall was born into a devout Catholic family, I only need to know that that his importance to the origin of phrenology, along with his confirmation of contralateral function.
I also didn't find much about phrenology that interesting.Localization of personality traits in specific parts of the brain is kind of interesting, but not in the method phrenologists went about studying them. It was further made less interesting when Flourens proved phrenology wrong. His use of ablation or removing specific sections of the brain to see what is affected, helped determine the true function of specific sections.
I found Flourens research to be the most important to the history of psych for me. Once we can determine what parts of the brain do what for us, we can use medicine and biological/chemical/surgical methods to correct problem behavior or issues with motor control.
I would like to learn more of Flourens and more on the research of specific energies of nerves, on how we can achieve different sensations of the same area, through different methods.
I really thought the story about Phineas Gage was interesting! I can't believe he survived after a rod went through his left frontal cortex. Although he could still have conversations with people, his equilibrium and personality changed. The brain amazes me because it's like the body, having different sections and parts for different jobs. Another thing I found interesting in this chapter was the section about Paul Broca and how he discovered the speech center. The story about "Tan" the patient is once again amazing to me on how he can understand everything and he was still intelligent after being in the hospital for 21 years, but he just couldn't speak! This was called motor aphasia and after Broca did an autopsy on "Tan" he found the area responsible for "Tan's" problem and named it after himself called Broca's area. Now I understand why it's called that!
One thing I found least interesting in this chapter was about the Bell-Magendie Law. Learning about the anterior and posterior roots of the spinal cord somewhat bored me, and although it still is important on how our movement, I just didn't find it that interesting. Another area I didn't find that interesting was the anecdotal evidence. I was a bit confused on the property (acquisitiveness) part and about maybe about the whole phrenology section. As I read on about the property and the theory of phrenology, I just get more confused and couldn't figure out what they were trying to prove. This is also something I would like to go over in class.
The last thing I would like to learn a little bit more over the specific energies of nerves, and about the "two different sensations" that Bell describes.
Overall, I think all this is important in the history of psychology, learning about our systems and the brain has helped out psychologists and scientists/doctors today. Knowing this information way back when makes surgeries successful, and also provides us a better understanding on creating new medicines and ways to help patients who have troubles with the brain.
One of the things I found really interesting in this chapter is the method of ablation. I found it interesting because Flourens did not accept what earlier scientists proposed and actually created a new way to view the brain and also prove them wrong at the same time. It opened up a whole new view on how to view the brain and it's functions. It was interesting to see that just by removing parts of the brain, the animals could still live, but lost whatever part of their brain function that that section controlled. I also found the section on the cerebral cortex part very interesting in that it matters how much of the cortex you take away in what behaviors or actions the tested brain will allow the body to do. This process was magnificent in finding and proving which parts of the brain controlled which motions, emotions, and other functions of the brain that control our bodies' functions.
The second thing that I found interesting was the story on Phineas Gage. I find it remotely remarkable that any human could survive with an iron rod propelled through their skull and brain. It is interesting too that because of the accident, he went from a dependable, respectable community leader to a profane, irresponsible and embarrassing member of the community. It is interesting because losing the parts of his brain in the frontal cortex caused him to be a totally different person. It makes you wonder what would happen or would have happened to him if it would have entered below his right eye and gone out the other side of the top of his head, or gone through anyother part of the brain for that matter. (Some people might need this sometimes!)
I did not find the Bell-Magendie Law very interesting. I was more interested in the brain and this section of the chapter seemed to not be as interesting as the rest of the information. I also did not find the reflex action very interesting because we talked a lot about it with Descartes and it felt like a review. I know it is important to see where the study of reflex has come throughout time but I was just not interested in the reflex part.
I feel as if the section on ablation was the most important to understanding the history of psychology. I feel this way because it is new science proving old science wrong, and the new science was remarkable in leading us to new findings today. I feel like Flourens really discovered something amazing for the era and time that he studied. It is really amazing that he was able to remove parts of the brain and be able to test the animals with as much precision as he did. It is really important to the history of psychology because it allowed for many different and many new findings and medicines to allow for different concentrations on parts of the brain where things were known to be controlled.
The two things I want to learn more about in class is why the secions of the brain control what they do or if they are in an order for reason and I would also like to learn more about the clinical method and how it is implemented today. I know people donate their body to science but I would like to know more about this topic and how ethical brain study on humans is.
One thing I found very interesting was Lashley’s study of the rats. I liked looking at the chart. You can really see that the brain injury of the rats made a huge difference on maze III but not on maze I or maze II. I found his conclusion interesting that as the percent of destruction in the brain increased their ability to perform decreased. Also the harder the maze and the more brain injury damage to the brain the rats performance went down.
Another thing I found interesting was the brain mapping and how it evolved over time. It was first known as Phrenology and it originated from a man named Josef Gall. This was the concept that each tiny little section of the brain controlled things like impulsivity, spirituality, destructiveness, cautiousness ect. Some began charging to measure people’s heads to determine things like how destructive you are or to explain other things about your personality this was called “the doctrine of the skull”. This was of course incorrect, but it became very popular especially in America. This was proved false by Flourens when he started using the method of Ablation. He experimented with animals removing parts of their brains and basically seeing what happened. It is inhumane to remove parts of human brains just for the purpose of research so Flourens began looking at people with brain injuries. People like Phinius Gage were of great interest to people because he had a rod through his brain and lived to tell about it, although it severely altered his personality. Then there was Broca. He discovered the left temporal lobe controlled speech by studying motor aphasia in a patient by the nick name of “tan” because all he could say was tan tan tan tan. I found this interesting because it really shows how these things came to be discovered. The chapter demonstrated the passion and the thick headedness of the scientists and all the disputes between them. It is cool that they took the time to investigate these things even if they were wrong it showed that they thought about it enough to come up with an answer.
One thing I did not find as interesting was the section about Camilio Golgi and Santiago Ramon y Cajal and the Neuron Theory. This was during the time when it was first discovered the brain could be immersed in alcohol to be hardened/preserved. Golgi discovered that he could stain different parts of the brain and look at it under the microscope to better analyze each part. This had never been done before and he won a Nobel prize for it. Cajal took a different spin on the same idea. They had differing opinions, (Golgi, nerve network) (Cajal, Cajal’s neuron theory) on how neurons fired in the brain. Although Golji discovered the right technique for discovering how this worked, Cajal had the right idea. They had some drama on the night the Nobel prize was distributed because they both were convinced their own ideas were correct. Cajal’s were right though.
One of the other things I didn’t find as interesting was reflexes. Whytt did a lot of work on this. He used frogs in his experiments. He studied the connection between the nerves in the leg and the spinal cord. He demonstrated that the spinal cord played an extensive role in the reflexive behavior. I didn’t find it as interesting because I don’t really understand what it has to do with psychology. I understand this research led people to wonder about other things, reflexes just didn’t interest me as much as the other topics such as brain mapping. I understand the two are connected though.
I think the thing in the chapter that was most useful in understanding the history of psychology was the brain mapping. I think understanding the parts of the brain and what they do is important especially when dealing with head injuries and mental disabilities.
Two topics I would like to learn more about in class would be the stuff about the eyes and perception because I didn’t write about it so I would like to hear it verbally.
One thing I thought was interesting in this chapter was the Bell-Megendie law. Well if it were me I would hate having to share credit with another person even if it was out of sympathy because they were “almost” correct. The law was not the most interesting thing that I found. The law was basically just an example of two scientists working on the same thing at the same time. I was more interested in the study of the posterior and anterior root of the spinal cord. Though a little crule to animals it seemed to be a very clear study of: what happens if this one is cut, then the other, then both. It is interesting to know that if damage does occure there is the feeling and the movement both into consideration. This reminds me of when people loose an art in war or something and they still have ghost pains or sensations. This makes me curious to know what is going on with those synapses and how this is related, or if it is related.
The second thing I found interesting was what Muller was saying about the external world. He said, “we are not directly aware of the external world; rather we are only aware of the action of our nervous system which conveys the info to us.” This has sort of been seen in the last chapter as well. The concept of not understanding the world until we have experienced it. This just takes it the next step in saying that even though we are experiencing it our body interprets what we experience and then we learn from that. There was not a lot of this topic which I was a little disappointed that this whole issue could be concluded within 3 paragraphs.
The two things that I did not enjoy, was the unconscious inference topic. The topic was just thrown in there. And just to pick another one the phrenology part really dragged on. This chapter by far was much more interesting than the previous ones, but yet still are unrelated to some topics and the book gives random information about each individual instead of really discussing the topic at hand.
Things that I would like to learn more or to discuss further would be the issue of vitalism versus materialism. I was a little lost on that term. A vital force seemed to me to be like a soul, (a life force, that could not be reduced)? And also I would like to look into how these things were able to be studied. For instance, phrenology and taking apart brains, who volunteered or who was volunteered for this sort of research?
One thing that I found interesting from the chapter was Flourens’ method of ablation. This was interesting to me because of the approach he took to come up with an explanation for which parts of the brain perform which functions. This was definitely a more interesting approach than phrenology. Ablation involved removing certain sections of the brain and simply observed what happened. For example, if a part of the brain was removed and the result was blindness, it was concluded that the section of the brain removed was related to vision. As a result of his studies, Flourens found that the cerebral cortex operated as a whole and performed more general functions such as perception, intelligence, and will. Ablation did have some problems as well. Sometimes destroying one part of the brain will affect connections to that same part which could result in inconsistent outcomes. Another problem is that sometimes ablation is not possible to do such as using live human subjects.
This is what brings me to the next topic I found to be interesting, clinical method. Paul Broca is mostly credited for the clinical method. Clinical method involves studying the behavioral and mental consequences of brain injury, events like strokes or illness, or examining the brains of people with behavioral or mental disorders for abnormalities after death. This was interesting to me because it was yet another approach for understanding how our brains function. Also, this approach involved looking at human brains rather than solely animal brains.
One topic that was less interesting to me was Bell-Magendie Law. This law states that the posterior roots of the spinal cord controlled sensation, while the anterior roots controlled motor responses. I understand that this was a huge discovery because it allowed for further studies on sensation and movement but the whole concept just didn’t seem to strike me as interesting.
One other topic that I found to be less interesting was the synapse. Sir Charles Sherrington came up with the term synapse from a Greek word that meant, “to join together.” The synapse is simply the space between neurons where impulses are transmitted and received. I guess I just found this less interesting because I have learned about it and heard the term many times in other classes.
I believe that the concept of understanding how our brains function is very important in understanding the history of psychology. In particular I think it is critical that we understand which sections of our brains serve which functions. These individual parts of the brain work together in order for us to survive. Psychology relies heavily on how the brain functions.
I would like to go into more detail with equipotentiality and mass action in class. I understand the main concept of equipotentiality: Lashley’s principle stating that if one part of the brain is destroyed, other parts can to some degree serve the same function. A further explanation on this would be helpful. Mass action is another principle by Lashley that is related to equipotentiality. It states that the larger the amount of the brain destroyed, the more difficult it is for the rest of the brain to serve that lost function. Once again I understand the main concept but maybe a few examples or a more in depth explanation could help clarify.
One of the things that I found most interesting in chapter three was Johann Spurzheim’s work on phrenology. Phrenology was considered to be a legitimate scientific attempt to study the brain, but by today’s standards it was a waste of time. Phrenology said that the mind is composed of a large number of abilities or attributes called faculties. Some of these faculties are cognitive and others are emotional. Each faculty is associated with a specific location in the brain and it is said that some people had more than others. Examples of these faculties in the brain are: firmness, time, and friendship.
Another topic that I found interesting in the chapter was that of Phineas Gage. It is said that Gage was a victim in a workplace accident while working on the railroad. He had a tamping iron go through his skull and somehow survived. He lost consciousness for a short time and then was able to walk to the doctor’s office. Gage recovered within two months but his personality had drastically changed. Gage’s case provided support for phrenologists’ belief in cerebral localization.
I personally thought reflex action was uninteresting because it is common knowledge in today’s science world. Reflex action helps us understand early research on the nervous system.
I also though that the Ophthalmoscope was uninteresting because to me it is useless information because it has nothing to do with psychology, only the results that it produced are important to the history of psychology.
Temporal and spatial summation is still confusing to me and it is one thing that would be useful for me to understand better.
One interesting thing I found in this chapter was that of the history of Phrenology as a pathway to Psychology (although incorrect) Phrenology first dealt with the areas of brain controlling certain falculties. Gall and Spurzheim believed that if one falculty was more evident in an individual that area on their skull would be more pronounced. It was the trying to prove this theory wrong that led to the eventual formation to Psychology. Another interesting thing is the work on nerves. With technology that if far more limited than what we have they were able to isolate neurons and Sir Charles Sherrington discovered the synapse, noting that neurons did were not connected, but were in contact with each other.
I have heard the story of Phinneas Gage several times so I have lost interest in that topic. I also was not that interested in Helmhotz's three color sensitivity.
I am interested in memory and learning so some topics dealing with the mice mazes or more research similar to these experiments would be nice. Also, the process of Ablation could be discussed.
The first thing I thought was interesting in the chapter was the concept of multiples; discoveries made at around the same time by two different people unaware of one another’s studies. I had always assumed that something like this would’ve most likely occurred at some point in history, but I had never really read of that kind of situation happening. When reading about findings in history I was always amazed that one person came up with such remarkable findings, however, after reading this chapter it was really brought to my attention that it was not just one person finding EVERYTHING out, but several people working on previous studies or research that they did not seem to fully believe every aspect of. The second thing I found interesting in the chapter was phrenology. I had never heard of it before, but it did stand out to me. Although I did not fully understand certain concepts of it I did enjoy reading about it. I especially enjoyed the part where it was stated that although it was discredited as a real science it was very popular, particularly in America, because it was fitting to their way of life. I find it funny how we believe what we want to when it applies to us personally whether it is right, wrong, or somewhere in between.
The things I found least interesting in the chapter were the sections over vision and auditory discoveries. The eyes and ears have never been particularly interesting to me, so that part of the chapter was somewhat difficult to get through, especially when I am so unfamiliar with things revolving or in regard to those specific subjects. It was harder to get through than other parts of the chapter, but I do understand how they are important to the understanding of psychology.
I think the points that were made about most of these men not classifying themselves as psychologists is the most important when it comes to understanding psychology. Psychology is not just about one thing; it is a bunch of different aspects of our bodies, minds, and personalities working together to form a concept or outlook on things. Understanding where our impulses, reflexes, nerves, and other workings of our body come from, especially in the context of the brain, are all relevant when it comes to understanding and studying psychology as a whole.
I would like to maybe cover phrenology a little more in depth to make sure I am understanding it the way it is meant to be understood. Also, I got somewhat lost in the text when it was talking about disconnecting certain parts of the brain and the reactions throughout the body in relation to the parts that were severed or completely removed. Maybe just touching on the subject and giving some more examples would help my understanding.
One of the things I found most interesting about this chapter was the research done by (Bell)Megendie. While it disgusted me that he used puppies for his research (I realize there weren't many ethical laws against that during this time period), I found it very interesting because that's a giant leap in history. It also stood out to me because my best friend is in Chiropractic school so it was neat to see our fields of expertise cross one another.
Learning the background of phrenology was neat to learn about as well because it's come up in quite a few of my classes. Actually, my dad shreds documents for a living and came across a journal called "The Peoples Phrenological Journal", which has case studies from the 1840s.It doesn't have the sweet cover like the one mentioned and picture in our book, but still something cool to have none the less. Spurzheim actually has several studies in it. Its the biggest pseudoscience , in my opinion, in psychology's history.
Learning about Helmholtz vision discoveries was boring in my opinion. While it was important to todays understanding of how the retina works it didn't seem like it pertained to psychology very much. I also thought that Golgi's discovery of the neurons and basic units of the nervous system was a tad dry.
Some things that I would like covered in class more are Lashley's memory and learning and the brain mapping, which is a little hard to follow.
I found the subject of Herman von Helmholtz very interesting. He contributed so much to psychology and other sciences such as physics. I thought it great that he came from a poor background, but found a way to pay for his college by joining the medical corps for the military, even though it meant not working with his first love of physics. He believed in the ideas of materialism and the conservation of energy, which not everyone agreed upon at the time. Materialism was the idea that everything in the body could be broken down into smaller parts. He also did work with reflexes by measuring the amount of time it took for the body to react to a stimulus, and work with the eyes on the trichromatic theory. This theory said that the eye had three kinds of colors in it, red, green, and blue and these colors mixed together to show all the different kinds of colors we see with our eyes. He also did work with perception and came to believe that we learn perception through our experiences in the world. Helmholz was a brilliant man who helped to come up with many ideas of psychology and physiology.
Another topic that was interesting to me was phrenology. I have never gone into any depth of this topic in my other classes. Professors have always gone over it as something that was silly for intelligent people to ever think it had any real substance. When it was explained in the book, it made me realized that the people who created this idea had good reason for it, they were not just pulling it out of thin air, though it’s flaws were quickly realized. It was based on the fact that certain areas of the brain had specific functions. The size of a certain area meant how much it was used. It was believed that you could tell the size of the area through the skull. So just by measuring one’s head, you could get a glimpse at their personality. This was how phrenology was linked to the idea of localization of function.
Two things I did not find interesting were neurons and synpases. I have learned about these before, and I have never really enjoyed learning about it. I do not like discussing things that I cannot actually see. I like to be able to visualize the things which I am learning about, and I find it hard to visualize about such small things as neurons and synapses.
I think Helmholz’s history is important to understanding the history of psychology. Many of his ideas are one’s that we still use today and helped to refute other ideas of the time that were not true. It is strange to think what would happen if Helmholz had not ever gone to college. How long would it have taken for someone else to make those discoveries? There is a possibility that someone else would have made his discoveries around the same time anyway because of the zeitgeist of the time.
I would like to learn more about the mass action and equipotentialty because that was a little hard for me to understand.
In Chapter 3 one thing I found interesting was the Bell-Magendie Law. There was lots of controversy involved in this and can be considered an example of a multiple. A multiple refers to a case when two or more people make the same discovery around the same time period, however, they do it separately and are unaware of the other person(s) doing similar research. Sir Charles Bell and Francois Magendie did similar research on posterior and anterior fibers and how/what they affected. Bell did his research 11 years before Magendie did, but Magendie did more extensive experiments and the things he learned were truer and less mistaken than Bell’s. Also, Bell only gave his information out privately, while Magendie published his publicly. Magendie did his experiments on 6 week old puppies. After all his experiments he discovered that the posterior roots of the spinal cord controlled sensation, and the anterior roots controlled motor responses. Another item that I found interesting was Robert Whytt study of reflexes. He was the leading neurologist of his day and, in psychology, he is known for his research into the physiology of the reflex. His research dealt a lot with how the spinal cord affects reflexes. He studied decapitated animals, mainly frogs, and saw how their muscles responded in predictable ways to physical stimulation. Some things that I found uninteresting in this chapter were opponent process theory and summation. I felt that in a chapter that was full of some really interesting things these were the least interesting to me in comparison. One aspect that is helpful for psychology, in my opinion, would be lots to do with Bell. He may not have been right with everything that he thought and he may not have done experiments as thoroughly, but I still feel like he contributed a lot of good ideas to psychology. Also, Sir Charles Sherrington, is another thing that I think is helpful for understanding psychology. He is the one who coined “synapse,” anyone involved in psychology or neurology knows just how important it is to understand a synapse! Two items that I would like to learn/hear more about are motor aphasia and anecdotal evidence.
Phineas Gage was the most interesting character from this chapter. I mean really, he had a metal rod shot through his brain and walked, with help, to the doctor’s office! How nuts is that! It is amazing how much this accident taught us about what our prefrontal cortex does for us. It seems as though much of what is learned through science happens on accident. Another interesting bit from this chapter was the end dealing with Karl Lashley and his work with Learning and the Cortex and all the research he did with rats. Lashley performed many experiments on animals and would most often observe the effects that removing part of the brain would have on certain behavior. He did this with mice and ultimately came up with the conclusion that rats created a sort of map in their minds. He also demonstrated that even though some rats were handicapped they would still utilize the map they had learned and, by using differing physical acrobatics, ultimately attain their goal, even managing a flawless run. I cringe when I think of the cruel treatment these rats experienced but it ultimately led to an advancement in the field of science, a sacrifice some might say.
Phrenology was probably the least interesting because it had a grasp on the scientific community for such a short time period. This was the ‘science’ that said that the strength of functions of certain parts of the brain could be known by measuring the skull. I understand that they showed us this for the later ideas of “Scientific Phrenology” but was kind of dull. Another, next to useless bit of knowledge was the Close-Up section on “The Marketing of Phrenology”. It was a simple story of a man who built up a business with this new so-called-science. He was more of a fortune teller than anything. It is always a little interesting to see what people of our past valued as medical advice. It will be fun to look back on my own generation and all of the silliness that we bought in to.
The most prevalent change that occurred in this chapter of the book was the Enlightenment period. Although this may seem minor, being it was involved just at the beginning of the chapter; this had a huge impact on the developing science of Psychology. This signified the swing of power over from the Catholic Church to the field of Science. Scientists were then seen as heroes, capable of accomplishing great and powerful things from cures to diseases to creating deadly weapons. Now that power laid with the Scientific Process nothing could be done to halt their progress.
One thing that I need to be discussed more in depth was the discovery and science behind the synapse. I kind of understood this but a bit more explanation couldn’t hurt anything. Another thing to take a deeper look into could be all the technicalities about the brain that were discovered during this time period. There were a lot of them from the synapse, motor responses, to neural impulses. Just a lot of it was kind of touch-and-go so going into more depth would be very helpful to help and learn the distinct differences and significant points.
Whytt's research caught my attention right from the start. It was a unique thought to use decapitated frogs to do a study on reflexes. It's interesting how the pinching the frogs muscles caused the muscles to react even though it was dead. Finding out that the spinal chord was the reason for these reflexes lead him to make the hypothesis that muscles that are so used to being used on a regular basis will have later reflexes than other minor muscles even after an organism is dead.
Sir Charles Sherrington's experiment also caught my attention because his study was continued from Whytt's experiment on spinal reflexes. He had the advantage of better technology, therefore he could make more accurate statements and findings. The most interesting part about Sir Charles's experiment was that he found a dog's spinal reflexes to be more profound when they are surgically removed from their brain rather than when they are in normal health.
The two things that I thought were interesting were the functioning of the nervous system, more specifically the invention of the guillotine and then the specific energies of nerves. During the invention of the guillotine the inventor Guillotine was determined to make a "more humane" way to execute criminals. The subject of the guillotine being "humane" was still up in the air, but the inventor Guillotine decided to take the severed heads of those that had been executed to test them to see if there was any movement after the head had been severed. He determined that being executed this way was indeed humane and the person could not feel anything afterwords. Another thing that I thought was interesting was the specific energies of nerves. Bell's argument was that there are different sensory nerves that convey different sensations. He gave the example of taking a needle to the tongue and feeling the sensation of a sharp prick and then taking the same needle to another portion of the tongue and feeling the sensation or the taste of metal. I thought that this was a good example of how the rest of the body works using nerves.
The two things that I thought were the least interesting was the Bell-Magendie law. I did not think the part about the dispute over who should take the credit was interesting. Other than that I thought everything was interesting in this chapter. How the nerves worked were especially cool to learn about.
I thought that how nerves affect what and the speed of nerves and how they were discovered will be useful in understanding psychology. After all sensation are very important in our life.
The two topics I would like to learn more about would be the specific energies of nerves and the speeds. I would also like to learn more about the measuring the speed of neural impulses as well. Over all I enjoyed this chapter.
In this chapter I feel I found more things interesting than not. One thing I found ineresting in chapter 3 was Franz Josef Gall and his work with Phrenology. I started out at UNI wanting to be a biology major, so learning about old theories of the brain spikes my interest. Gall was known for his confirmation of contralateral function, which is the notion that each side of the blain controls the opposite side of the body, but he is mainly known for originating phrenology. Phrenology was the first serious theory of localization of brain function. This led to the doctrine of the skull which was believed that by measuring the skull, you could yield a measurement of faculties.
Continuing on with my interest in brains, I think the story of Phineas Gage is interesting. I have heard this story more than once but each time I cannot believe he survived such an accident. His accident provided support for the cerebral localization theory. I also liked learning about Helmholtz and how he was able to measure the speed of an impulse. He used the equation rate equals time over distance.
One thing I did not find so interesting was Bell’s work with the Doctrine of Specific energy. It just didn’t seem to be as important as some of the other theories/discoveries during the time.
I believe the first part of the chapter covering the period of enlightenment will be the most useful in understanding the history of psychology. During the period of enlightenment, science and reason came to be seen as the only sure way to shed light on the darkness of ignorance. Psychologists were now trying to “shed light” on how our senses and nervous system really worked.
One of the most interesting things to me in this chapter was the Bell-Magendie law. While the research and findings were interesting in and of themselves, the part I found most fascinating was the drama surrounding Magendie's publication of his work. I think the debacle from the missteps in Bell's 'publication' and the ensuing drama will definitely help me to remember this topic better.
I also found the whole section about Helmholtz's research in vision to be very interesting. First the book talked about Helmholtz's trichromatic theory, which touched on the theory that the human eye holds receptors for 3 primary colors, and that all other colors were based on these primary colors. It also talked about his research in accomodation (lens changes shape to alter focus) and binocular vision (perception of depth).
I found the section about reflex actions to be one of the least interesting sections. I have learned a fair amount about reflexes, and I guess the topic just doesn't interest me that much. Also I found the section about neuron theory a bit dull. While I am always intrigued by the advancement of theories, that doesn't necessarily mean I find the content vastly interesting.
I would like to learn more about the section that talked about electrical stimulation of the brain. I think it is amazing that they were doing this research 150 years ago, and I would like to learn more about their process and what came about because of their research. Also I would like to learn more about equipotentiality because I didn't fully understand it as it was explained in the book.
Overall this was a very interesting chapter. After reading it I just started at the beginning and picked the first 2 things that had caught my attention the first time. Another area I thought was really interesting were the story of Phineas Gage, but I didn't include his story as my most interesting because I had read about him before.
One of the things that really interested me was about reflex action and the experimenting he did to come up with what controls voluntary motion and involuntary motion. He also discovered that some nerves may be for the purpose of conveying sensory information and others designed to pass messages along to the muscles, telling them to move. I think it’s interesting too that there were two scientist working on it at the same time but in different countries. I thought that Helmholtz vision and audition was interesting and how the eye and hear are made up. I like how we see things upside down but when it goes through the eye it gets turned back around. I was really interested on learning more about the eye too until you should us those cow eye’s being dissected in class. Gross. I found the section on neuron theory very uninteresting. Maybe it was just the way everything was put, but it took me forever to get through it. The same with the synapse, I found it very uninteresting. One topic I think that should be gone over more in class is the section over speech. I’m not quite sure I fully understand that.
Going back to the blog that I was saying earlier, I found that Helmholtz and du Bois’ study on neural impulses. Not just because I’m reading about it in my other classes, but it’s fascinating how someone with such little technology can accomplish so much. After Helmholtz’s experiment on neural impulses he began investigating the physiology of vision and audition. The opthalmoscope was a device he invented that focused mainly on the retina. The next thing I thought was interesting was ablation. I never thought if you were to remove a piece of the brain that your were still able to function. I didn’t realize if you were to remove the area of the brain that made you see, then it would affect your vision. My analysis on the whole thing was that you have to have your whole brain in order to live. Up until now I have learned that you don’t. I believe the clinical method would be the most beneficial while talking about the history of psychology. Mainly because the results of ablation studies are not usually easy to interpret, due to the fact that it destroys a portion of the brain. When dealing with the clinical method it deals with all aspects including; the behavioral consequences of brain injury, tragic brain damage strokes/concussions, or even illness such as tumors. Last class you talked about the guillotine, and how it was an easy way of killing someone. I would like to hear more about situations and ideas people had about torture and how it may have affected them mentally as well as physically. Finally, back then how did they decide right from wrong compared to today. In today’s world we grow up with cultural rules and regulations that we can and can and cannot do. Did they have something like this as well? And if they did, I’m sure its significantly different than the modern world.
The first thing I found interesting about the chapter was the first section that talked about the functioning of the nervous system. In trying to answer the question of if the brain is the center of consciousness Theodore Bischoff conducted some tests on persons who were just beheaded. I thought it was really funny that the tests were first reaction time, in seeing if they flinched when fingers came at their eyes, passing smelling salts under their nose to wake them and yelling “PARDON” in their ear.
The Bell-Magendie Law was interesting because I had not yet learned what the word multiple means in this context. A multiple is when two or more people make the same discovery in the same era independently of each other. Francois Magendie discovered that the posterior root of the spinal chord has sensation and the anterior root has function. Charles Bell said that each nerve has a different characteristic but he did not actually get things right. Which I thought was interesting because his name is still included in the law.
I think that learning more about phreneology was really useful. Studying the brain is a big part of the science and so learning how it all really got started was really interesting and I think is an important part in rooting my education in psychology. Phreneology is a science that says that human facilities can be identified and located in precisely defined areas of the brain. Franz Gall was important in that he confirmed that each side of the brain controls the opposite side of the office.
What I didn’t particularly like was ablation. This was weird for me because ablation is removing specific sections of the brain and observing the effects. It helped discover that the cerebellum controls motor coordination but the idea was just weird for me and not something I had encountered before.
The other section that was a bit boring because I have heard it before in my biopsychology and intro classes were the parts about Phineas Gage, who’s personality and behavior changed after he had a brain injury in the upper left part of his head. And learning about Broca and Wernickey. Broca discovered Broca’s Area which is the left frontal lobe. He discovered that motor aphasia occurs if this lobe is damaged, and this involved an inablility to articulate verbally. Wernicke discovered that sensory aphasia causes nonsensical speech and difficulty comprehending others speech.
One thing I hope we go over in class (although I understand this is a very late blog so it may not happen) is a clarification of Vitalism and materialism. These were two ideas and Hemholtz was a materialist but I did not understand how this tied in.
The two things that i found to be the most interesting in this chapter were The case about the person named Tan, which found to be very interesting because of the fact that he was intelligent, but he was unable to talk because of a problem with his brain, but he was even able to communicate, just not speak. The second thing I found to be interesting was the case of Phineas Gage. What i found interesting about his case is that not only did he survive having a metal rod go straight through his brain, but his personality changed completely after it happened and showed what some of the brain is used for.
I didn't really find anything in this chapter that I found to be uninteresting, during the reading I found pretty much every topic that i read about to be interesting.
The biggest thing that I would like to hear more about would be the sections on equipotentiality and mass action. The book didn't really explain those as well as I would like, and I wasn't able to find much more in my own search.
One thing I found interesting in this chapter was Helmholtz views on vision and color matching. He was the leader for visual and auditory perception and developed a tool for the use in the visual field called an opathalmoscope. This device allowed for the direct examination of the the retina. He also developed his trichromatic theory which he based off of color matching experiments. He mixed primary colors of light to create other colors. This helped them come to the conclusion that the eye holds three different receptors called cones that are responsive to the colors red,green, and blue. He also came across accommodation, focus by adjusting the lens in the eye; resonance theory, frequencies detected in different areas of the cochlea; and he also worked closely to the ideals of the empiricist approach to perception where experimental observations are used to collect data. He also had a passion for physics which led him to focus on how light is focused on the retina which he believed was through both the cornea and the process of accommodation. I found this to be very interesting because I myself where glasses and it interesting to see how we came to know so much about our eyes and site so that we are able to better our vision today.
The other thing I found interesting was the case of Phineas Gage. It is amazing to to me that someone would be able to survive such a tramatic injury to the brain especially with the medical abilities that were available at this time. I also thought it was interesting that his whole entire personality changed after the accident. This supported John Harlow's theory of cerebral localization and his ideas of phrenology, that human faculties could be identified and located in precisely defined areas of the brain.
The sections I struggled the most to get thru were the ones on neuron and synapse theory and the sections on equipotentiality but I did enjoy reading about the maze experiment Lashley created